Behind me, the room was cheerful, though my mother sat at her writing desk, pen poised on her page for longer than was natural. I had a rapid glimpse of what the future held for me, curious captive between this inner and outer weather, and I but eighteen. I turned to regard my mother, but my movement warned her and I caught the swift replacement of the blank look on her face by the smile that stood for bravery and resolve.

“What is it?” she asked.

The thud of the muffled knocker sounded against the street door in the hall. There were callers. Mama rose to adjust her combs in the mirror, and the glass held us both for that instant, held us together as we must have appeared: a mother and her daughter in mourning. But she would not return my gaze in the mirror.

A weary sob started in my throat. “Oh, Mama,” I said, my voice catching, “the world has broken into pieces.”

“The world was ever in pieces, Maisie,” she said quietly to my reflection.

“That is dull comfort,” I said ruefully through my tears.

But she did not smile.

25 January 1897

2 Pierpont Place

Dear Miss Grange,

How does the new year find you? Well, I hope. Often I have thought of you this bleak winter, for my thoughts seem to run upon tired boards, and the last two weeks at Grange House are all that my heart recalls. And there, you come to mind as you were in Papa’s sickroom, so kind and patient with us all. I fear I may not have thanked you for your kindness to us in those last days—or your care.

Oh, Miss Grange, how am I to bear this? What shall I do? I miss Papa so. The world has stopped its speaking, stopped breathing, and my own voice has stuck in my throat. Mama manages one day after the next by writing letters.

Tell me—what is the view from Grange House in snow?

Yours,

Maisie Thomas

29 January 1897

My dear Maisie Thomas—

There is nought for you to do but remember and recall. Bring your father to mind as often as you can, Maisie Thomas, and let him rest there. His was once a vast and roving spirit. Let that spirit return to find its place in you.

And once he has gathered there in your mind’s eye, set him down in writing. For well I know the silence in the heart that settles after a death. You must set him walking again, and talking. And do so upon your pages. Long ago, that was the only way back to the land of the living for me.