Chapter VI: Book THREE: Adolescence (1876-1879) (3)

There was a door at the head of the stairs, in a matchboard partition that walled the well of the staircase. You rang a bell. The corridor was very dark. Another partition with a door in it shut off the servants' rooms and the back staircase. They had put the big yellow linen cupboard before the tall window, the one she used to hang out of.

Some of the old things had been left in the nursery schoolroom, so that it looked much the same. Britton, the maid, sat in Jenny's low chair by the fireguard. Aunt Charlotte sat in an armchair by the window.

Her face was thin and small; the pencil lines had deepened; the long black curls hung from a puff of grey hair rolled back above her ears. Her eyes pointed at you--pointed. They had more than ever their look of wisdom and excitement. She was twisting and untwisting a string of white tulle round a sprig of privet flower.

"Don't you believe a word of it," she said. "Your father hasn't gone. He's here in this house. He's in when Victor's out.

"He says he's sold the house to Victor. That's a lie. He doesn't want it known that he's hidden me here to prevent my getting married."

"I'm sure he hasn't," Mary said. Across the room Britton looked at her and shook her head.

"It's all part of a plan," Aunt Charlotte said. "To put me away, my dear. Dr. Draper's in it with Victor and Emilius.

"They may say what they like. It isn't the piano-tuner. It isn't the man who does the clocks. They know who it is. It isn't that Marriott man. I've found out something about _him_ they don't know. He's got a false stomach. It goes by clockwork.

"As if I'd look at a clock-tuner or a piano-winder. I wouldn't, would I, Britton?"

She meditated, smiling softly. "They make them so beautifully now, you can't tell the difference.

"He's been to see me nine times in one week. Nine times. But your Uncle Victor got him away before he could speak. But he came again and again. He wouldn't take 'No' for an answer. Britton, how many times did Mr. Jourdain come?"

Britton said, "I'm sure I couldn't say, Miss Charlotte." She made a sign to Mary to go.

Aunt Lavvy was waiting for her at the foot of the stairs. She took her into her bedroom, Mamma's old room, and asked her what Aunt Charlotte had said. Mary told her.

"Poor Mary--I oughtn't to have let you see her."

Aunt Lavvy's chin trembled. "I'm afraid," she said, "the removal's upset her. I said it would. But Emilius would have it. He could always make Victor do what he wanted."

"It might have been something you don't know about."

Grown-up and strong, she wanted to comfort Aunt Lavvy and protect her.

"No," Aunt Lavvy said. "It's the house. I knew it would be. She's been trying to get away. She never did that before."

(The doors and the partitions, the nursery and its bars, the big cupboard across the window, to keep her from getting away.)

"Aunt Lavvy, did Mr. Jourdain really call?"

Aunt Lavvy hesitated. "Yes. He called."

"Did he see Aunt Charlotte?"

"She was in the room when he came in, but your uncle took him out at once."

"She didn't talk to him? Did he hear her talking?"

"No, my dear, I'm sure he didn't."

"Are you sure he didn't see her?"

Aunt Lavvy smiled. "He didn't look. I don't think he saw any of us very clearly."

"How many times did he come?"

"Three or four times, I believe."

"Did he ask to see me?"

"No. He asked to see your Uncle Victor."

"I didn't know he knew Uncle Victor."

"Well," Aunt Lavvy said, "he knows him now."

"Did he leave any message for me?"

"No. None."

"You don't like him, Aunt Lavvy."

"No, Mary, I do not. And I don't know anybody who does."

"I like him," Mary said.

Aunt Lavvy looked as if she hadn't heard. "I oughtn't to have let you see Aunt Charlotte."

V.

Mary woke up suddenly. It was her third night in the spare room at Five Elms.

She had dreamed that she saw Aunt Charlotte standing at the foot of the basement stairs, by the cat's cupboard where the kittens were born, taking her clothes off and hiding them. She had seen that before. When she was six years old. She didn't know whether she had been dreaming about something that had really happened, or about a dream. Only, this time, she saw Aunt Charlotte open her mouth and scream. The scream woke her.

She remembered her mother and Aunt Bertha in the drawing-room, talking, their faces together. That wasn't a dream.

There was a sound of feet overhead. Uncle Victor's room. A sound of a door opening and shutting. And then a scream, muffled by the shut door. Her heart checked; turned sickeningly. She hadn't dreamed that.

Uncle Victor shouted down the stair to Dan. She could hear Dan's feet in the next room and his door opening.

The screaming began again: "I-ihh! I-ihh! I-ihh!" Up and up, tearing your brain. Then: "Aah-a-o-oh!" Tearing your heart out. "Aa-h-a-o-oh!" and "Ahh-ahh!" Short and sharp.

She threw off the bed-clothes, and went out to the foot of the stairs. The cries had stopped. There was a sound of feet staggering and shuffling. Somebody being carried.

Dan came back down the stair. His trousers were drawn up over his night-shirt, the braces hanging. He was sucking the back of his hand and spitting the blood out on to his sleeve.

"Dan--was that Aunt Charlotte?"

"Yes."

"Was it pain?"

"No." He was out of breath. She could see his night-shirt shake with the beating of his heart.

"Have you hurt your hand?"

"No."

"Can I do anything?"

"No. Go back to bed. She's all right now."

She went back. Presently she heard him leave his room and go upstairs again. The bolt of the front door squeaked; then the hinge of the gate. Somebody going out. She fell asleep.

The sound of hoofs and wheels woke her. The room was light. She got up and went to the open window. Dr. Draper's black brougham stood at the gate.

The sun blazed, tree-high, on the flat mangold field across the road. The green leaves had the cold glitter of wet, pointed metal. To the north-east a dead smear of dawn. The brougham didn't look like itself, standing still in that unearthly light. As if it were taking part in a funeral, the funeral of some dreadful death. She put on her dressing-gown and waited, looking out. She _had_ to look. Downstairs the hall clock struck a half-hour.

The front door opened. Britton came out first. Then Aunt Charlotte, between Uncle Victor and Dr. Draper. They were holding her up by her arm-pits, half leading, half pushing her before them. Her feet made a brushing noise on the flagstones.

They lifted her into the brougham and placed themselves one on each side of her. Then Britton got in, and they drove off.

A string of white tulle lay on the garden path.

END OF BOOK THREE