In ordinary circumstances Thomasina would not have walked into anybody’s house without knocking. But they had only just left. Miranda was there, and the door was open. She came inside the little hall and was going to call out that she had come back for her handkerchief, when the sitting-room door moved. Someone was opening it. It moved a couple of inches and stopped, as if the person who was coming out had turned back for something.
It was Augustus Remington, and he had turned back to say, “You really did that very well, Miranda. You got it across all right.”
With a little more practice in eavesdropping Thomasina might have done better than she did-she might have heard what Miranda said in reply. She didn’t hear anything at all. The blood drummed in her ears, and she found that she was out of the house and running away as fast as her feet would take her. Some instinct kept her on the grass. There was a path, and there was a rough grass verge. She found that she was running on the grass. Even if someone came to the door and listened, they wouldn’t hear her now.
When she got back to the Miss Tremletts’ the sitting-room was still empty. She had only been a few minutes away, and no one would ever know that she had been away at all. She went up to her room, locked the door, and sat down on the edge of the bed. She had no doubt at all as to the meaning of what she had heard Augustus Remington say. The whole scene with the crystal was a fake. Miranda had done her part well, and Augustus Remington was commending her. The two of them had played a scene, and Miranda had “got it across all right.” That the words could have any other meaning just never entered her head.
But she herself had seen Anna’s face in the crystal.
A bright ball with the light shining on it-that was one way of hypnotizing people. She had felt her thought slipping as she looked at the swirling light. It didn’t really swirl of course. She just saw it like that because she was slipping into a dream.
And then she saw Anna’s face.
She saw it because someone wanted her to see it. Someone was trying to hypnotize her, and to make her see Anna’s face in the crystal. A burning anger came up among her thoughts. She was to see Anna’s face, and then there was to be a fake message. “Anna, where are you?… A long way off… I don’t want her to know… No good to cling to the past- broken links cannot be replaced-this is final.” The short sentences stood out black and clear against the anger. It burned steadily.
It showed her quite a lot of things. Someone wanted to get her away from here. Someone wanted to stop her looking for Anna. Why? The answer stood out too. She was to be got away because Anna was here, in this place. Or if not Anna herself, something that would give her a clue as to what had happened to Anna. Somebody was afraid, somebody wanted her to be gone. Somebody wanted her to think that Anna had made this break deliberately-that she didn’t want to have anything more to do with her. If Thomasina believed that, she would go away and not give any more trouble. And this meant that her being here was a trouble to somebody.
She threw up her head with a jerk.
What was the good of all this “somebody”? She knew perfectly well that it was Miranda who had just played a trick on her. And Augustus Remington had told her that she had done it very well and got it across all right. If she hadn’t gone back for her handkerchief and heard what he said, it might almost have been true. Almost, but not quite, because of one little thing. She had seen it, noticed it, and put it away to think about. She hadn’t had time to do that thinking, because of missing her handkerchief and having to go back. But now she had the time, she thought even that one little thing would have told her she had been tricked-even if she hadn’t heard what Augustus Remington said.
It really was a very little thing. Just a smear of powder on the front of Miranda’s violet robe, high up towards the shoulder. A little smudge of powder showing up against the purple when the lights came on-just ordinary face-powder with a greenish tinge. Anyone might have a smudge of powder on their dress. But it hadn’t been there when Miranda held both her hands in that exuberant welcome. And it wasn’t there when she plied her with those sandwiches and the savoury cake at tea, or when she laid the black velvet square on the table after it had been cleared and set the ebony stand and the crystal ball upon it. Thomasina was prepared to swear to that, and to seeing Miranda put up her hand to her head when she was pretending to wake from that faked trance. She had looked so ghastly when the lights came on-quite green-and it had all added to the effect. And of course too easy to look green if you have a pad or some cotton wool in your hand with the right powder on it. She remembered exactly how Miranda had brought up her hand in a kind of sweeping movement right across her face, her eyes, her brow. And of course it looked absolutely natural, because it is just what you do when you are sleepy, or have a headache, or when you first wake up. But Miranda was getting that greenish powder on to her face, and a little of it had dropped and marked her dress.
Thomasina’s hot anger had burned down to a steady flame. When you are too angry you can’t think, and she needed to think.
After she had been thinking for some time she felt quite clear in her mind. They wanted her to go. They had taken the very words of her advertisement, “Anna, where are you?” She had used only Anna’s Christian name, and she had signed only “Thomasina.” Someone who read the advertisement had known that “Anna” was Anna Ball, and that “Thomasina” was Thomasina Elliot. It looked as if that someone must be Anna herself. By what means had they made Anna tell them what she knew? There were terrible ways of making people speak. Her own words, said on the spur of the moment when she was quarrelling with Peter, came back to her-“Those old houses have cellars.” Suppose Anna was there, locked up in one of those cellars. Anger sets a match to your thoughts. The words had just flashed into her mind because she was angry. Now they came up in quite a different way-a slow, cold, considering way which was much more frightening.
Suppose it was really true. There must be some strong reason for the trick that had been played on her. If Anna really was shut up in the ruined part of Deepe House or in the cellars under it, that would be a reason. If she was there, would she be still alive? Or was she dead and buried under one of those ruined floors? If she was alive, every moment must be like an hour. How was it possible to eat and drink, to lie down at night and get up in the morning, and not know whether all those minutes or hours were not dragging by with a torturing slowness for Anna Ball?
She went on thinking.
CHAPTER XXX
If the Miss Tremletts had been less conversational themselves they might have observed that Thomasina had very little to say for the rest of the evening, but they always had so much to say, and were in such close competition for the opportunity of saying it, that it really was just as well that she had nothing to contribute. Nothing could have suited them better than a guest who sat in attentive silence.
First of all they naturally desired to discuss Miranda’s trance and the enigmatic communication which it had produced. They had not liked Anna Ball-“Not that we really knew her, and she had a very rebuffing manner, but one would not like to think that anything had happened to her-”
“And if anything had, why should she wish to communicate with us?” said Miss Elaine.
“Very puzzling indeed,” said Miss Gwyneth. “Because she couldn’t possibly have met you, my dear Ina, and since she said her-‘I don’t want her to know’-the message couldn’t have been intended for Augustus.”