Eliza’s hand is being pressed between Agnes’s fingers. It is the oddest sensation, as if something is being drawn from her, like a splinter in the skin or infection from a wound, at the same time as something else is being poured into her. She cannot work out if she is being made to give or receive something. She wants to withdraw her hand, at the same time as wanting it to remain. “Your sister,” Agnes says softly. “She was younger than you?” Eliza stares at the smooth brow, the white temples and black hair of her soon-to-be sister-in-law. How does she know that Eliza had been thinking of
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