The gown, old but clean, was the washed-out blue of forget-me-nots, I thought. Getting in bed, I pulled the musty-smelling comforters up to my chin before switching off the lamp. The pillow was plump, and I could feel the prickly twill of feathers as I pushed and shoved it into a more comfortable shape. Wide awake, my nose cold, I sat up in the darkness of a room I was certain had once been Beryl’s, and I finished my wine. The house was so still I imagined I could hear the all-absorbing quiet of the snow falling beyond the window.
I wasn’t aware of dozing off, but when my eyelids flew open my heart was thudding violently, and I was afraid to move. I couldn’t remember the nightmare. At first I wasn’t sure where I was and if the noise I heard was real. The faucet in the bathroom was leaking, drops of water slowly clinking into the sink. Floorboards beyond my latched bedroom door creaked again, quietly.
My mind raced through an obstacle course of possibilities. The dropping temperature was causing wood to creak. Mice. Someone was slowly making his way down the hall. I strained to hear, holding my breath as slippered feet whispered past my shut door. Miss Harper, I concluded. It sounded as if she was going downstairs. I tossed and turned for what seemed like an hour.
Eventually, I switched on the lamp and got out of bed. It was half past three, and there wasn’t a hope I could go back to sleep. Shivering beneath my borrowed gown, I put on my overcoat, unlatched the door, and followed the pitch-black hallway until I recognized the shadowy shape of the curved banister at the top of the stairs.
The chilly entrance hall was dimly illuminated by moonlight seeping through small windows on either side of the front door. The snow had stopped and stars were out, tree branches and shrubbery formless beneath white frosting. I crept into the library, lured by the promise of heat from its crackling fire.
Miss Harper was sitting on the sofa, an afghan pulled around her. She was staring into the flames, her cheeks wet with tears she did not bother to brush away. Clearing my throat, I tentatively called her name, not wanting to startle her.
She did not move.
“Miss Harper?” I said again, louder. “I heard you come down …”
She was leaning against the serpentine-curved back of the sofa, her eyes unblinking as they stared dully into the fire. Her head fell limply to one side when I quickly sat next to her and pressed my fingers against her neck. She was very warm but pulseless. Pulling her down to the rug, I went from her mouth to her sternum, desperately trying to breathe life into her lungs and force her heart to
beat. I don’t know how long this went on. When I finally gave up, my lips were numb, the muscles in my back and arms quivering. I was trembling all over.
The telephones were still out. I could not call anyone. There was nothing I could do. I stood before the library window, parted the curtains and looked out through tears at the incredible whiteness lit up by the moon. Beyond, the river was black and I could not see across it. Somehow I managed to get her body back on the sofa and I gently covered it with the afghan while the fire burned down and the girl in the portrait receded into the shadows. Sterling Harper’s death had caught me unawares and left me stunned. I sat on the rug in front of the sofa and watched the fire die. I could not keep that alive, either. In fact, I didn’t even try.
I did not cry when my father died. He had been sick so many years I became expert at cauterizing my emotions. He was in bed most of my childhood. When he finally died one evening at home, my mother’s terrible grief drove me to a higher ground of detachment, and it was from this seemingly safer vantage point that I honed to perfection the art of surveying the wreckage of my family.