“Mother.” I grabbed hold of her from behind, my arms around her waist and my face pressed against her shoulders. “There is nothing there.”

For one terrible minute, she strained forward, and there was little I could do but to hold on to my own mother pulling against me as though I were a chain. And then she suddenly stopped, her arms limp at her sides; and in the quiet, all I could hear was her heart racing inside her, beating against my arms.

“Mother, I am right here.”

But the sound of my voice was not a tonic, for Mother closed her eyes again, and I saw a tear start up in her lashes, then another, and slowly then a weeping, soft and steady, drop after drop pushing through her lashes, then falling away, trailing across her temple and into her hair. Gently, I turned her back round to the edge of her bed, and quietly, she did what my hands asked her to do: She sat down and let me draw her legs up onto the bedclothes, and then she leaned her head back again onto the tossed pillows.

“Forgive me,” she whispered, and I would have answered, but what was once the rush of tears now gave way to this steady, awful whispered patter. “Forgive me,” she murmured again. And she would not hush as I worked round her, nor after I had her tucked up tight and covered snugly once again. “Forgive me,” she said as I eased her cap from off her feverish brow, her hair matted and damp. “Forgive,” she repeated as I measured out the drops of laudanam into the waiting glass at her bedside. “Forgive me.” I loosened the lace at her neck and around her shoulders, then held the glass up to her still-moving lips. “Forgive.” And then she drank and drank, and finally she seemed to quiet, though her eyes remained open wide and staring.

I stood over her for a long while, uncertain whether to seek Susannah. But after a time, she glanced up at me with a frown, as though she had come to a decision.

“I called you for a purpose.” She handed the drink back to me. “Can you guess it?”

I shook my head, clenching my jaw to stay the tears that threatened. Suddenly, she reached up and cupped my chin with her hand and looked at me for a long moment. My tattery heartstrings wove round her fingers then, stretching a fine, taut note between us. I could not help the tear that splashed over and onto her wrist. She nodded once, as though I had spoken.

“Is the door closed, Nell?”

I shivered. “Aye.”

“Then take out your book.”

“My book?”

“Yes, my girl. That great book you write in.”

“I do not have it about me.”

“Fetch it then, and come quickly back in here to me.”