Then I lie in the bed, and listen hard for the sounds I am used to—for bells and growling levers. There are only those meaningless noises—the yawning boards, the creeping bird or mouse. I put back my head and gaze at the wall behind me. Beyond it lies Sue. If she turned in her bed, if she said my name, I think I would hear it. She might make any sound, any at all—I would catch it, I am certain I would.
She makes no sound. Richard shifts in his chair. The moonlight creeps across the floor. In time, I sleep. I sleep and dream of Briar. But the passages of the house are not as I recall them. I am late for my uncle, and lost.
She comes each morning, after that, to wash me, to dress me, to set food before me, to take away my untouched plate; but, as in the last of our days at Briar, she never meets my gaze. The room is small. She sits near me, but rarely do we speak. She sews. I play at cards— the two of hearts with the crease of my heel upon it, rough beneath my naked finger. Richard keeps all day from the room. At night, he curses. He curses the filthy lanes of the country, that muddy his boots. He curses my silence, my strangeness