Snow Shadow by Andre Norton Page A

breath still came in small gasps.
    “There is no need to disturb anyone, I assure you.” Some of the old firmness had returned to her voice, even though her body still slumped in the chair. “I am much better. I merely was foolish enough to become overtired. Good of you to be concerned, but, yes, I am much better.” She spoke as one willing that her words become the truth.
    Now she drew her hand out of my grasp, pulled herself up in the rocker. Her expression was one of dismissal. Still, I hesitated to leave her. A soft chime sounded. The hands on the face of the delicate porcelain clock in the center of the mantel pointed to two. What had she been doing up at this hour? She was fully dressed. And, though her bed had been turned down for the night, she had not rested on it.
    “Much, much better,” she repeated, this time with an emphasis I could not disregard.
    “Won’t you let me call someone of your family?” I dared to persist, as my conscience (so well trained in Aunt Otilda’s school) would not let me just leave her.
    “Most kind of you. But I shall do very well now. I am sorry that I disturbed you. I did awaken you, did I not?” Her last question was a bit sharper in tone, her dark eyes probed mine as if my answer was of importance.
    “I heard you on the stairs. It was so late, I was afraid something was wrong—” I said. It was not perhaps the truth (for I did not know just what had awakened me), but it was the best I could offer.
    “Most kind—” she repeated. Her eyelids drooped.“Sounds in a house as large and old as this one can be misleading. I hope you have not taken a chill. You had best be back to bed before you do.”
    The flat dismissal of that I could not disregard. I went out, closing the door behind me. But still I lingered in the chill hall for a moment or two. The faint light below the stairs still shown. Was the light there left on because of what rested in the parlor? I shivered at the thought more than the cold. This house had lost its feeling of stuffy warmth, of overcrowded, antique luxury.
    As I slipped along I tried to imagine what could have so shaken my landlady’s whalebone-stiffened competence. Also I listened, for what I did not know. But when I gained my own room I tunneled quickly under the bed covers.
    It was long before I was able to get back to sleep. So, when I awoke into winter sunlight, my head aching, I saw by my watch that I had overslept.
    My throat felt scratchy, an ominous foreshadowing of one of the colds I had come to dread. That warning meant I had better stay in today, in spite of my wish to be elsewhere at the time of the funeral. I checked my bag, laid out cold pills, the inhaler, those preparations winters in this climate had taught me to carry.
    What I wanted was a hot breakfast—a leisurely one, where one might linger at the table for a second or even a third cup of coffee and a reading of the morning paper. Yet under the present circumstances I supposed I would have to go out to eat, thus insuring my cold. With sniffling self-pity, I put on my warmest pants suit, and I was just tying a scarf, which was far too cheerfulfor my morning mood, when there was a perfunctory knock at the door, and the maid who had admitted me four days earlier entered.
    “Oh—I am sorry. I thought you had gone out—” She looked startled.
    “I overslept. And I think I have caught a cold. I’ll go out for breakfast and be back later. I don’t want the flu—”
    She set down her burden of dustcloths and vacuum.
    “You don’t have to go out for breakfast, miss, unless you want to. It’s laid in the little breakfast room this morning.” She skirted the reason for a change in household routine.
    Another glance out of the window promised cold and bad walking, while the maid appeared to think that breakfasting here was correct. I went downstairs self-consciously, hoping I would not have to face Miss Elizabeth across what could in no circumstances be termed a festive