Fanny wanted to sit and rest, so she could point to the flowers whose names she knew, the pansy being her favorite. Mrs. B lifted her onto the bench, her little legs dangling, picked up the book, and set it in her lap, just as it was, so as not to lose Mr. Godwin’s page. It had walnut-colored leather for a spine, and marbled boards for the back and front, in autumn hues. Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, by Mary Wollstonecraft. It was the first she’d seen her charge’s name like that, not only on a book but embossed in gold.

Fanny insisted on taking off her shoes, and did it all by herself. “I’m allowed,” she said. “Mama likes me to feel the wind between my toes.”

Mrs. B thought that sounded just right.

“Will you read it to me?” said Fanny.

“I don’t think it’s a book for little girls.”

“Oh, I don’t like books for little girls. Well, I do, really, but I think all words are pretty. Especially big ones.”

Just then Marguerite appeared, rolling Fanny’s hoop at her side and calling her name. The little girl leaped off the bench into her arms, wrapping her legs tight around the young woman’s hips.

“How is she?” Marguerite asked.

“For the moment, comfortable,” said Mrs. B.

Marguerite nodded and brushed Fanny’s hair out of her eyes. “What do you say, Fanny?”

“Merci, Mrs. B-b-b…” Fanny couldn’t quite remember her name.

“B is for ‘Blenkinsop,’” said the midwife, with a hand on her heart. “But I’m the one should do the thanking.”

Fanny and Marguerite chattered away in French as they trotted off to the fields to play. Mrs. B closed her eyes and turned her face to the sun, the breeze. Filled her lungs and swore she could smell the first tinge of autumn, then other things: hyssop and wormwood, catmint, delphinium, phlox. All the smells of her husband’s flower garden; she could see it in her mind’s eye, where once a week in summer and into fall, he clipped blooms for her, and left them in a pewter jug on the table. He told her they were his consoling friends on her many days away, and a welcome smile for her return. James never let them die; dead flowers in a house brought bad luck, he liked to say. She couldn’t remember having thanked him for it. Maybe in the early days, when they still held each other’s hands, when she knew the knobby parts of each knuckle, the scarred bit of his left thumb where he’d lost a chunk chopping wood, the shocking softness of his palms. It was she who’d stopped taking his hand and offering hers—she who’d turned away.