It was an answer to the questions they were too stunned to ask, an answer to the questions she could scarcely form herself.
When they found that their tongues were still in their mouths and still working, Margot said, ‘Let me wrap her in my shawl.’
Rita put out a warning hand. ‘Let her not be warmed too quickly. She has come this far in the cold. Perhaps she should grow warm by slow degrees.’
The women laid the child on the window seat. Her pallor was deathly. She was unmoving; all but her eyes, which blinked and looked.
The rivermen and the cressmen and the gravel-diggers, young men and old, with hard hands and reddened fingers, grimy necks and rough chins, sat forward in their seats and gazed with soft yearning at the little child.
‘Her eyes are closing!’
‘Is she dying again?’
‘See her chest rise?’
‘Ah! I see it. And now it falls.’
‘And rises again.’
‘She is falling asleep.’
‘Hush!’
They spoke in whispers.
‘Are we keeping her awake?’
‘Shuffle aside, will you? I cannot see her breathe!’
‘Now do you see her?’
‘She breathes in.’
‘And out.’
‘In.’
‘Out.’
They stood on tiptoe to lean forwards, peer over shoulders, squint into the circle of light from the candle that Rita held over the sleeping girl. Their eyes followed her every breath and, without knowing it, their breathing fell in time with hers, as if their many chests might make a great pair of bellows to inflate her little lungs. The room itself expanded and contracted with her respiration.
‘It must be a fine thing to have a little child to look after.’ It was a bony cressman with red ears who spoke, in a longing half-tone.
‘Nothing finer,’ his friends admitted wistfully.
Jonathan had not taken his eyes off the girl. He edged across the floor until he stood beside her. He extended a hand uncertainly and at Rita’s nod laid it gently on a strand of the girl’s hair.
‘How did you do it?’ he asked.
‘I didn’t.’
‘Then what made her come alive again?’
She shook her head.
‘Was it me? I kissed her. To wake her, like the prince in the story.’ And he brought his lips to her hair to show Rita.
‘It doesn’t happen like that in real life.’
‘Is it a miracle?’
Rita frowned, unable to answer.
‘Don’t go thinking about it now,’ his mother said. ‘There’s a great many things hard to fathom in darkness that set themselves straight in the light of day. The little mite needs to sleep, not have you fidgeting around her. Come away, I’ve got a job for you.’
She unlocked the cupboard again and took out another bottle, set a dozen tiny glasses on a tray, poured an inch of liquor into each.
Jonathan handed one to everybody present.
‘Give one to your father.’ Joe didn’t usually drink in winter and when his lungs were bad. ‘What about you, Rita?’
‘I will, thank you.’
As one, they raised the glasses to their lips and swallowed in a single gulp.
Was it a miracle? It was as if they had dreamt of a pot of gold and woken to find it on their pillow. As if they had told a tale of a fairy princess and finished it only to find her sitting in a corner of the room listening.
For close on an hour they sat in silence and watched the sleeping child and wondered at it. Could there be any place in the country more interesting tonight than the Swan at Radcot? And they would be able to say, I was there.
In the end, it was Margot who sent them all home. ‘It’s been a long night, and nothing will do us more good now than a bit of sleep.’
The dregs in tankards were drained and slowly the drinkers reached for their coats and hats. They rose on legs unsteady with drink and magic, and shuffled over the floor towards the door. There was a round of goodnights, the door was opened and one by one, with many a backward glance, the drinkers disappeared into the night.
The Story Travels
MARGOT AND RITA lifted the sleeping child and worked her sleeveless shift over her head. They wrung out a cloth in warm water and wiped the river smell away, though it still lingered in her hair. The child made a vague sound of contentment at the touch of the water, but did not wake.
‘Funny little thing,’ Margot murmured. ‘What are you dreaming of?’
She had fetched a nightdress she kept for visiting granddaughters, and together the women fed small hands and arms through the sleeves. The girl did not wake.