“Thank goodness you’re here,” she said.

“Why? Is there something…?”

“Why?” she repeated. “Because I want you here. That’s why. I hate it when I can’t come in and talk to you whenever I want to. I’ve got to talk to you now, Vee.”

“Well, why not begin? Here I am…awakened from my slumber.”

“I’m sorry if I frightened you. Did you think I was a ghost? Perhaps that Jermyn ghost—the one who walked into the sea. I am worried, Violetta. I really am. This dream was so vivid…and I’ve had it before. I think it is a premonition.”

“You’ve just had it, have you?”

“Yes, and a few nights ago. It’s just the same every time.”

“What happens in the dream?”

“I have the baby…and die.”

“What a foolish notion! Why should you? Thousands have babies safely. You have everything satisfactorily arranged, the best attention. Mummy and I are here with you and you have Nanny Crabtree. She would never let…that…happen to you.”

“Don’t joke! I’m serious about this. It’s the baby…”

“What about the baby?”

“I’m dead, you see, in this dream. I die having him, but he’s all right. He’s fine. I’m gone and he is still here. Perhaps when you die you can watch people…you see how they act. That’s what I’m doing in this dream…watching. I see you there and our mother…and you are so unhappy.”

“Really, Dorabella,” I said severely. “You are being over-dramatic. You are perfectly all right. The doctor said so.”

“Doctors don’t always know and there are sometimes…complications.”

“You are the last person I should have thought to get morbid ideas. Listen to me. You’re going to have a baby…any time now. It’s natural that you’re scared. I suppose anyone would be. We all know babies don’t arrive in the mouth of the stork or are found under gooseberry bushes and that the process of birth is a painful one. It is happening all over the world, but it is the first time for you and you always hated discomfort of any sort. You are not looking forward to it, naturally, but that’s all. Just imagine when you hear little Tristan or Isolde yelling his or her head off. It’ll be wonderful. Your own baby. And you’ll know it’s all over then. Oh, you are lucky, Dorabella.”

“You would like to have a baby, would you?”

“All women like to have babies…or most of them.”

“Only the maternal type. I think you are one of those.”

“You will be.”

“Just suppose…?”

“Suppose what?”

“Suppose…like the dream…I don’t come through.”

“I refuse to think of it for a moment.”

“Dear, dear Vee, we should never be apart. I don’t feel the same without you. I feel half-finished. That’s why…I know you don’t like this, but it could happen. People do die and often those least expected to.”

“Forget that silly dream. It’s what they call prenatal nerves.”

“Do they? I expect you have swotted up on the subject of birth.”

“I keep my ears open.”

“That’s because we have always shared everything. I’ll tell you what I want, Vee. If I don’t come through…”

I made an impatient gesture.

“Listen,” she commanded. “Just suppose. If I weren’t there, I want you to take little Tristan…or Isolde. I wouldn’t want anyone else. Do you understand?”

“What do I know about babies?”

“As much as I do…and I’m having one. You’d have Nanny Crabtree to guide you. But I’d want you to have the baby. Mummy would be there, too. She’d have a hand in it. But the baby would want one person to stand out against all others, someone to take the place of its mother. And I would want you to be the one because you are part of me.”

“Of course I’d be there…but it is all nonsense.”

“Yes, perhaps it is. But swear. ‘Cut my throat if I ever tell a lie.’ ”

I laughed at the old childish saying. I could see her so clearly when she wanted me to promise to keep some secret…licking her finger: “See my finger’s wet”; then drying it: “See my finger’s dry. I’ll cut my throat,” drawing a hand across her throat, “if I ever tell a lie.”

“I swear,” I said. “But you’re soon going to be laughing at all these fancies.”

She stretched out contentedly.

“I feel better now,” she said. “Whatever happens, it will be all right…I mean the baby will be. You know how it is with us. We’re like one, Vee. It will always be like that…whatever happens. If I died…”

“Oh, please, stop talking about death.”

She said dreamily: “You’ve given your promise. We always kept promises, didn’t we? You see what I mean, don’t you, when I say you are part of me and I am part of you? We’ve been together right from the beginning. We’re bound together. It’s there, isn’t it? Other people can’t see it. It’s so fine…it’s like a cord…strong but invisible. I think of it as a gossamer cord that binds us together…for always, even if one of us died…”

I sighed impatiently.

“All right,” she went on. “I won’t talk about it any more. You’ve promised…and whatever happens, that cord is there. Now, you’ll stay here, won’t you?”

“Well, I’m here for a while.”

“I’ll tell you what I want you to do. Marry that nice Jermyn man and stay here altogether.”

“Certainly, Madam. If that will suit your convenience.”

“Fancy! We’d be neighbors. What fun! Though Mummy has her hopes on the London lawyer.”

“Really! I wish you would not discuss that sort of thing. It’s embarrassing. Particularly when there’s nothing in it. I think you were rather wise to get yourself married and so escape these speculations.”

“All mothers are the same,” she said. “They hate losing their daughters, yet they are not content until they see them married. It is rather perverse of them.”

She laughed. Her fears seemed to have disappeared.

I wondered whether there had really been a dream. She loved drama and it was essential to her that she should be at the center of it. She probably liked to contemplate a household in mourning for her, a motherless baby just arrived into the world, a twin sister who was part of her, bound by “a gossamer cord,” becoming a surrogate mother. She enjoyed that as long as she could be there to look on at the drama.

It was a long time before she returned to her room. I went back with her and tucked her in. She clung to me for a while.

“Remember,” she said. “You’ve sworn a sacred oath.”

Back in my own room I found sleep evasive. In spite of my rejection of her fears, they had conjured up some of my own. Just suppose…No, no. I could not entertain such an idea.

She would be all right. She must. Everyone said so. She was young and healthy. Everything must go right.

I lay there, dozing now and then, half dreaming uneasy dreams.

Below the sea seemed to have lost a little of that serene murmur; and had taken on a malevolent whisper.

At last I slept.

A few days later Dorabella’s ordeal began.

There was a hushed atmosphere throughout the house. The doctor had come and the midwife was with him. My mother and I sat tense, waiting. Nanny Crabtree was ready to pounce on the baby. The moment she heard the cry of a child, she would be there. But the doctor and the midwife had made it clear that her presence would not be needed until that moment.

I could not stop thinking of Dorabella’s coming to my room, and the dream which she had more than once.

My mother was equally nervous. We sat talking of other things—anything but Dorabella—while we waited for news…and feared it.

At last we heard the footsteps on the stairs. The doctor was beaming at us.

“It’s a boy. You can see her now…just for a few minutes. She’s very tired.”

“She…she’s all right?” I stammered.

“Right as a trivet,” he answered.

We dashed up to her room. There she lay, flushed and triumphant. The midwife was holding the baby—red-faced—a tuft of fair hair on his head, squirming and irritable.

“He’s a beauty,” said the midwife, as the child opened his mouth in a wail of angry protest.