In Nessy’swinter-cold room at the school, with the fur-trimmed collar of my pelisse pulled to my chin, I read aloud how a little rabbit nibbled a carrot held by a farmer’s young daughter.
Nessy’s eyes had closed a page before. Her thin breath was slow and easy, settled at last after the coughing fit tearing her when I arrived.
I whispered, “Nessy?” Her thin eyelids fluttered but stayed closed. I marked the page and set it aside.
Try again.
I counted the stitches around the fingers of my right glove, a long seam so Nessy would be sound asleep—she rarely rested this comfortably—and because I needed all my calm.
The last stitch was four hundred, two and twenty. The room had balanced and stilled. I closed my eyes, pulled off my glove, and ran my fingertips over the cold pillow. They found the softness of a child’s fine hair, then touched Nessy’s temple.
As if sensing my own body, I became aware of hers. Her lungs were fouled with hard nodules—the tubercles of consumption. They were bad but no worse than the day before. Could they be slightly better? She had held her ground against the disease, at least.
“Heal,” I whispered. Nothing happened.
Yuánchi said,You must bind to find your strength. For all his wisdom, Yuánchi did not know how useless his words were. I would never be able to bind.
Outside the closed door, I heard a distant man’s voice. Firm steps climbed the stairs and approached. I drew on my glove and placed a warning finger on my lips as the door opened.
Mr. Knightley, dressed in a sweeping dark gray redingote and white wool scarf, saw me. He released the door latch carefully and gave a short bow in silence.
I was speechless, and not only because Nessy was resting. His hair, curlier than mine, was pulled back and tied in the same old-fashioned style he wore when we danced on the frozen ship. That memory flooded me, as fresh as if he had just released my hand, as immaculate as a treasured childhood recollection.
We stepped into the corridor and closed the door. After greeting each other, I asked, “Why are you here?”
“To plan music lessons for the students. Then I saw Miss Smith and learned you visited as well. She told me you were up here…” He frowned as he finished. “Is someone hurt?”
I had brought the bloodied cloth I held for Nessy while she coughed.
“It is from this poor girl,” I said. “I do not like her to see it when she wakes. Her name is Nessy.”
“That does not disturb you? I thought illness triggered your… affliction.”
“Not if I am helping.” I struggled to express the rules that dominated my life. “It is inaction that distresses me.”
I put the cloth with another in a bowl and covered them. There was a pause while Mr. Knightley and I watched each other. It should have felt awkward, but we seemed at ease. Thoughtful.
In fact, a thought occurred to me. “When we danced, I felt you were very fit.”
Mr. Knightley’s ease vanished. He plucked at a sleeve and muttered something unintelligible.
I was not put off that easily. “I was plotting to steal a footman from the Darcys, but perhaps you would help me? I wish to take Nessy on an outing, but I need a pair of strong arms. She is too ill to walk far.”
He stopped shuffling his feet. “I would be honored.”
“The school has a chair with wheels for when she visits the schoolyard, but our destination is a garden, so there is getting the chair into a coach, then I amtold there are steps and a rough path…” I was delighted with my plan. “I know you will manage!”
I did not wishto wake Nessy yet, so we strolled downstairs to the student’s yard. The air stung my cheeks and chilled my front teeth. I had an uncontrollable happy grin. This had worked out so neatly.
I tapped a child’s red ball aside with my toe. “Will you attend the Darcys’ ball?”
“They have been kind enough to invite me.”
“That is a very proper answer,” I teased. “I thought you were a madcap musician who played the violin on frozen ships.”
He chuckled. “The Darcys’ ball is the talk of London. A musician would be a fool not to brush shoulders with wealthy patrons. There! I have revealed myself to be selfish and mundane.”
Mr. Knightley was always fashionably dressed and, apparently, at leisure. One would think him an idle gentleman, not someone who sought money. Then again, I was strolling in an extravagant pelisse and layered silks while counting shillings.
