“It’s just a hand, isn’t it? It’s just my own hand. Why shouldn’t I look at it if I like? There’s nothing wrong about looking at your own hand, is there?”
Miss Silver had taken up her knitting again. She said with a smile,
“Sometimes if you look too long at a thing it gets out of focus. It may even look like something else.”
Jennifer tossed back her dark untidy hair.
“Well then, it didn’t! It looked like a hand. It just looked like my own hand-see?”
When she turned round she had put her hands out of sight behind her back. Now she thrust them out at Miss Silver, staring not at them but at her.
“They’re just my hands-they couldn’t be anything else. I don’t know what you are talking about. They’re just my hands.”
Miss Silver continued to smile.
“And sadly dirty ones, my dear. It would be much easier for you to keep the nails clean if they were cut a good deal shorter. Your hands are a very nice shape. If you will allow me to cut your nails, you will not only find them much easier to keep clean, but a great deal pleasanter to look at.”
She thought there was the beginning of a shudder, but it was controlled. With an abrupt movement Jennifer turned away and went over to the bookshelf, where she stood fingering the books, pulling one out a little way and pushing it back again, taking another down and fluttering the pages. Presently she said in a discontented voice,
“They’re all as old as the hills. They belonged to the house. Did you know that? And the house used to belong to the Everlys. There aren’t any of them left now. Miss Maria Everly was the last of them, and she died before the war. She was ninety-six years old. This was her schoolroom, and these were her books. There aren’t any more Everlys. Old Mr Masters told me about them. He’s Mrs. Masters’ father-in-law- he lives in the cottage with the post-box on the wall. He remembers Miss Maria Everly. He says she was a terror, but a real lady for all that. He says there aren’t any left now-only bits of girls in breeches, and some that are old enough to know better. He’s a very interesting person to talk to-I like going down there and talking to him. Only sometimes-” She frowned and broke off.
“Sometimes what, my dear?”
“Oh, nothing, He won’t talk to everyone, you know-not about the Everlys. He says least said, soonest mended. You won’t say I talked about them, will you? Did you know all the furniture in this room belonged to the house? It was the schoolroom, and nobody bothered to have the things taken away. The good things were all sold, but He bought the rest when he bought the house.”
Since Jennifer never gave Mr. Craddock any name, the pronoun no longer surprised Miss Silver. She let it pass without comment.
Jennifer pulled out another book. “Ministering Children!” she said in a tone of scorn. “I hate them!”
Miss Silver, who was familiar with this pious classic, remarked mildly that there were fashions in books just as there were fashions in clothes.
“They talked differently a hundred years ago, just as they dressed differently, but I do not think that they were at all different in themselves.”
Jennifer rammed the Ministering Children back into their place.
“I hate them!” she said with emphasis. Then with a sudden and complete change of manner she turned round and came out with, “I saw Miss Tremlett, and I wasn’t quick enough, so she saw me. She says they’ve got a paying guest coming. And why can’t she just say lodger and have done with it? Paying guest is just nonsense, isn’t it? If you’re a guest you don’t pay, and if you pay you’re not a guest. That’s all there is about it, and I shall just go on saying lodger. Every time I meet them I shall say it- ‘How is your lodger today, Miss Elaine? How do you like your lodger, Miss Gwyneth?’ I wish I had said it to Elaine this morning. The lodger comes this afternoon, and they are going to give a party for her to meet everyone tomorrow. Gwyneth is taking the bus into Dedham this afternoon to buy cakes for it, and Elaine is going to make drop scones. And He will go, and I suppose you will too, but my mother won’t, because I shall make her lie down on her bed and rest. And I think it would be a good plan if I locked her in.”
Miss Silver shook her head.
“I do not think I should do that. It might alarm her very much.”
Something like a shadow went across Jennifer’s face. Her imagination had been pricked. She was thinking of being shut in-alone-in the dark. The scene sprang into view-hands beating on a locked door, shaking a fastened window-a voice sending out terrified screams-and at first they would be loud, and then choking, and then just a horrid whisper. And loud or soft, nobody would hear them. She stared at Miss Silver with dilated eyes and said in a shuddering voice,
“No-no-I won’t lock her in. Nobody ought to be locked in -really. It’s wicked!”
CHAPTER XIII
It was that evening after the children had gone to bed that the name of Mr. Sandrow emerged for the first time. Mr. Craddock was not present. His absence did not surprise Miss Silver, since he nearly always went away as soon as a meal was over, and often did not join the family at all. Sometimes Mrs. Craddock would load a tray and take it through to the main block where he had his study. The doors, one on each floor, which shut it off from the inhabited wing were kept locked, a precaution rendered necessary by the bombed state of the building. Mrs. Craddock would permit Jennifer, Maurice or Miss Silver to come with her as far as the locked door, but as soon as the key was turned and it had swung open she would take the tray and go through alone. The piece of passage disclosed was dark, dusty, and without other furniture than a small rough table upon which she could stand the tray whilst she locked the door behind her. Sometimes she merely put the tray down and returned immediately. Sometimes the door would be locked, and she would be absent for ten minutes or so. Every now and then she would repeat what she had said on the day of Miss Silver’s arrival-“Mr. Craddock is engaged upon a great work. He must not be disturbed.”
On this particular evening, as the two women sat by the schoolroom fire, the house was still and peaceful. Mrs. Craddock was patching Benjy’s shorts, whilst Miss Silver, her knitting laid aside, was engaged in filling up two gaping holes in one of Maurice’s jerseys. There had been a companionable silence for a time, when Mrs. Craddock gave a little sigh and said,
“It makes such a difference when there is someone to share the mending.”
Miss Silver gave her small prim cough.
“Did not Miss Ball or Miss Dally help you with it?”
“Oh, no.” There was another sigh. “They really were not very much help. Miss Dally had no idea-she liked young men and parties. Of course she was quite young, so I suppose it was natural. And Miss Ball-I really was quite glad when she went. She seemed to dislike me, and that is a very uncomfortable feeling.”
“And quite uncalled for, since I am sure you were all kindness to her, as you have been to me.”
Mrs. Craddock sighed again.
“Oh, I don’t know. Of course it was dull for her. But then there was Mr. Sandrow-I have always wondered if anything came of that. But of course he didn’t come again, and she never wrote-”
With no more than an absent-minded interest in her voice, Miss Silver said,
“Mr. Sandrow?”
Emily Craddock said, “Yes.” Her fingers smoothed the grey flannel patch, her needle took a stitch and halted. “I sometimes wondered whether we ought to have mentioned him, but Mr. Craddock said it wasn’t our business. I don’t know how old she was-but not a very young girl-she may have had her own reasons. Mr. Craddock thought we had no right to interfere.”