EVERYBODY HAS A STORY

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    Ay, sharp as one of Miss Winter’s green gazes, needles me awake. What name have I pronounced in my sleep? Who undressed me and put me to bed? What will they have read into the sign on my skin? What has bee of Aurelius? And what have I doo Emmeline? More than all the rest it is her distraught face that torments my sce when it begins its slow ast out of sleep.

    When I wake I do not know what day or time it is. Judith is there; she sees me stir and holds a glass to my lips. I drink. Before I  speak, sleep overwhelms me again.

    The sed time I woke up, Miss Winter was at my bedside, book in hand. Her chair lump with velvet cushions, as always, but with her tufts of pale hair around her naked face, she looked like a nau<bdo></bdo>ghty child who has climbed onto the queen’s throne for a joke.

    Hearing me move, she lifted her head from her reading.

    ‘Dr. Clifton has been. You had a very high temperature.“

    I said nothing.

    ‘We didn’t know it was your birthday,“ she went on. ”We couldn’t find a card. We don’t go in much for birthdays here. But we brought you some daphne from the garden.“

    In the vase were dark branches, bare of leaf, but with dainty purple flowers all along their length. They filled the air with a sweet, heady fragrance.

    ‘How did you know it was my birthday?“

    ‘You told us. While you were sleeping. When are you going t<cite>藏书网</cite>o tell me your story, Margaret?“

    ‘Me? I haven’t got a story,“ I said.

    ‘Of course you have. Everybody has a story.“

    ‘Not me.“ I shook my head. In my head I heard indistinct echoes of words I may have spoken in my sleep.

    Miss Winter placed the ribbon at her page and closed the book.

    ‘Everybody has a story. It’s like families. You might not know who they are, might have lost them, but they exist all the same. You might drift apart or you might turn your ba them, but you ’t say you haven’t got them. Same goes for stories. So,“ she cluded, ”everybody has a story. When are you going to tell me yours?“

    ‘I’m not.“

    She put her head to one side and waited for me to go on.

    ‘I’ve old anyone my story. If I’ve got ohat is. And I ’t see any reason to ge now.“

    ‘I see,“ she said softly, nodding her head as though she really did. ”Well, it’s your business, of course.“ She turned her hand in her lap and stared into her damaged palm. ”You are at liberty to say nothing, if that is what you want. But silence is not a natural enviro for stories. They need words. Without them they grow pale, si and die. And then they haunt you.“ Her eyes swiveled bae. ”Believe me, Margaret. I know.“

    For long stretches of time I slept, and whenever I woke, there was some invalid’s meal by my bed, prepared by Judith. I ate a mouthful or two, no more. When Judith came to take the tray away she could not disguise her disappoi at seeing my leavings, yet she never mentio. I was in no pain—no headache, no chills, no siess—unless you t profound weariness and a remorse that weighed heavily in my head and in my heart. What had I doo Emmeline? And Aurelius? In my waking hours I was tormented by the memory of that night; the guilt pursued me into sleep.

    ‘How is Emmeline?“ I asked Judith. ”Is she all right?“

    Her answers were i: Why should I be worried about Miss Emmeline when I oorly myself? Miss Emmeline had not been right for a very long time. Miss Emmeline was getting on in years.

    Her reluce to spell it out told me everything I wao know. Emmeline was not well. It was my fault.

    As for Aurelius, the only thing I could do was write. As soon as I was able, I had Judith bring me pen and paper and, propped up on a pillow, drafted a letter. Not satisfied, I attempted another and then another. Never had I had such difficulty with words. When my bedcover was so strewn with rejected versions that I despaired at myself, I selected one abbr>藏书网</abbr>t random and made a  copy:

    Dear Aurelius,Are you all right?

    I’m so sorry about what happened. I never meant to hurt anyone. I was mad, wasn’t I?

    When  I see you?

    Are we still friends?

    MargaretIt would have to do.

    Dr. Clifton came. He listeo my heart and asked me lots of questions. “Insomnia? Irregular sleep? Nightmares?”

    I hree times.

    ‘I thought so.“

    He took a thermometer and instructed me to place it under my tohen rose and strode to the window. With his bae, he asked, “And what do you read?”

    With the thermometer in my mouth I could not reply.

    “Wutheris—you’ve read that?”

    ‘Mm-hmm.“

    ‘And Jane Eyre?“

    ‘Mm.“

    “Sense and Sensib<q></q>ility?”

    ‘Hm-m.“

    He turned and looked gravely at me. “And I suppose you’ve read these books more than once?”

    I nodded and he frowned.

    ‘Read and reread? Many times?“

    Once more I nodded, and his frown deepened.

    ‘Since childhood?“

    I was baffled by his questions, but pelled by the gravity of his gaze, nodded once again.

    Beh his dark brow his eyes narrowed to slits. I could quite see how he might frighten his patients into getting well, just to be rid of him.

    And then he leaned close to me to read the thermometer.

    People look different from close up. A dark brow is still a dark brow, but you  see the individual hairs in it, how nearly they are alighe last few brow hairs, very fine, almost invisible, strayed off in the se of his temple, poio the snail-coil of his ear. In the grain his skin were closely arranged pinpricks of beard. There it was again: that almost imperceptible flaring of the nostrils, that twitch at the edge the mouth. I had always taken it for severity, a clue that he thought little of me; but now, seeing it from so few inches away, it occurred to me that it might not be disapproval after all. Was it possible, I thought, that Dr. Clifton was secretly laughing at me?

    He removed the thermometer from my mouth, folded his arms and delivered his diagnosis. “You are suffering from an ailment that afflicts ladies of romantic imagination. Symptoms include fainting, weariness, loss of appetite, low spirits. While on one level the crisis  be ascribed to wandering about in freezing rain without the be of adequate roofing, the deeper cause is more likely to be found in some emotional trauma. However, uhe heroines of your favorite novels, your stitution has not been weakened by the privations of life in earlier, harsher turies. No tuberculosis, no childhood polio, no unhygienic living ditions. You’ll survive.”

    He looked me straight in the eyes, and I was uo slide my gaze away when he said, “You do enough.”

    ‘I have no appetite.“

    “L’appetit vient en ma.”

    ‘Appetite es by eating,“ I translated.

    ‘Exactly. Your appetite will e back. But you must meet it halfway. You must want it to e.“

    It was my turn to frown.

    ‘Treatment is not plicated: eat, rest and take this…“—he made quiotes on a pad, tore out a page and placed it on my bedside table—”and the weakness and fatigue will be gone in a f<s></s>ew days.“ Reag for his case, he stowed his pen and paper. Then, rising to leave, he hesitated. ”I’d like to ask you about these dreams of yours, but I suspect you wouldn’t like to tell me…“

    Stonily I regarded him. “I wouldn’t.”

    His face fell. “Thought not.”

    From the door he saluted me and was gone.

    I reached for the prescription. In a vigorous scrawl, he had inked: Sir Arthur  Doyle, The Case Book of Sherloes. Take ten pages, twice a day, till end of course.

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