I don’t mean to say that I thought all this out, rationally or even consciously. What came over me, and it came over me within the course of merely a second or two, was a feeling of profound and infinite sadness for the losses she had sustained, whether by accident or by her own design (which of course would have been worse); and a sense that I had, up till now, in a way betrayed what was best in her by not recognizing the possibility of its existence; and betrayed, too, by doing so, what was best in me.
As I say, all this happened within only a second or two. And then she realized, abruptly, that I was there in the room, and she turned to me and frowned. Beneath her pale peeled forehead, her tiny black eyes puckered. ‘You nasty, vulgar little thing,’ she said.
Whatever it was I attempted to say, it came out as a hopeless stammer.
She drew her robe more tightly about herself. ‘Waking up everyone. Screaming and howling like some Irish washerwoman.'
Shame burbled hot and thick to the surface of my face. ‘Yes,
I’m terribly sorry, I-’
‘It was a dreadful embarrassment. What must my friends think of me? When I awoke this morning, my first thought was that I should dismiss you.’
My own first thought was to spit in her beady little eye.
My next thought, less appealing but more rational (alas), was that this just would not do. The spitting, I mean. I reminded myself that I had been suffering this insufferable woman for a purpose. After only one more year in her employ-assuming that both of us did in fact survive one more year-I should have saved exactly one hundred pounds, which will provide a cushion for me to sit upon while I make an attempt to decide what I shall do with this life of mine.
I suppose I could have spat in her eye anyway. And perhaps struck her in the mouth with a Meissen snuffbox. Both notions were enormously tempting. I could have left her outstretched on the floor like a beached whale, packed my luggage, begged a ride down to the railway station, caught the first train back to London.
But I remembered the months I had spent without employment, the cramped cold meals in my tiny room, the hunger and the humiliations and the murderous London solitude that scorches the soul.
Thus calculation doth make cowards of us all.
I said nothing to the Allardyce. She, for several long seconds, said nothing to me. For my part, I was too proud to beg for my position; and yet, despite my pride, too craven to throw it in her face. She, I think, was deliberately prolonging the moment, to impress upon us both the dimensions of her power.
‘I am, however,’ she said at last, ‘and with quite a few misgivings, going to give you one more chance. I am going to make allowances for your youth and your obvious ignorance. But I warn you. If you do not do as I say, from this moment on, you will be dismissed immediately. And I shall see to it that no one of decent family has anything further to do with you. You do understand me?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
She narrowed her spitless eyes and pursed her unbruised mouth. ‘It is customary,’ she said, ‘when someone has been good enough to show us a kindness, that we thank them for it.’
This too? I thought.
‘Thank you, Mrs Allardyce,’ I said, and privately I wondered how much spittle I could accumulate over the course of a year.
But the Allardyce was not finished with me, not yet. ‘There will be no more nonsense about ghosts,’ she said. ‘Your behaviour last night was inexcusable. And your treatment of Sir David was particularly offensive. You will apologize to him as soon as possible.’
Earlier this morning, in the midst of my performance, Sir David Merridale had pretended to comfort me by stroking me in a manner that was designed less to calm my nerves-Evy, I know this-than to arouse his own. I had been rude to him, yes; but the man had taken deliberate advantage of my distress. If the Allardyce had sat up all night contriving one single act which would disgust and enrage me, it would have been exactly this, my apologizing to him.
But I swallowed my pride, the few wretched shreds of it that remained, and I nodded. Mrs Applewhite, that staunch believer in principle, would have retched.
‘Very well,’ the Allardyce said. ‘You may go and dress.’
Breakfast was not quite the torment I had anticipated. I had been dreading it: confronting in daylight the people who had witnessed my lamp-lit hysteria. If not for the Allardyce, however, I believe that no one would have said a word. Even Mrs Corneille acted as though it never happened, despite my having spent a shaky half-hour in her room. She merely smiled at me pleasantly, and nodded in my direction.
Sir David smiled his ironic, knowing smile at me, but Sir David is forever smiling his ironic, knowing smile at me.
Mr Houdini and his secretary, Mr Beaumont, incidentally, never arrived. Despite their legendary get-up-and-go, Americans evidently prefer to lie-down-and-stay.
We ate in the conservatory, an airy room with a view of the lawns and, below us, the formal garden. The meal was an informal affair; we helped ourselves to eggs, bacon, kidneys, etc., from silver chafing-dishes on the sideboard.
I wasn’t hungry-those shreds of pride had caught in my throat and I could swallow very little else. I said nothing. Afterward, the Allardyce, her face and her good humour restored, talked at length about a mindless musical comedy to which she had towed me the month before. Lord Robert waxed ecstatic about some new motor bicycle he had purchased.
The Honourable Cecily surprised me by turning in my direction and asking me if I rode. Caught off guard, flustered, I could only reply, like a perfect idiot, ‘A motor bicycle, you mean?’ She smiled sweetly and said, ‘No, no. Do you ride?"
I said that I once had, with great pleasure, but not for many years. She surprised me once again by offering me her own horse. ‘But I’ve no proper riding clothes,’ I said.
She shrugged lightly, and lightly glanced over my drab cotton frock. ‘My cousin left hers here. They’d fit you, I expect.’
Surprised by this unexpected generosity, and wondering what had prompted it, I nearly stammered again. ‘That’s extremely kind of you,’ I managed to say. ‘Yes, then. Thank you. I’d love to. If you’re quite sure you don’t mind?’
‘Not at all,’ she said in her plummy tones.
The Allardyce spoke.
‘Jane, dear,’ she said sweetly, ‘I don’t really feel that riding is a good idea. After all that excitement last night, I shouldn’t want you to tire yourself.’
Beneath this feigned concern, of course, was a determination to demonstrate her authority anew by refusing me something which I clearly desired. I felt anger wash through me, and then caution, and then shame, and I looked down at my plate without seeing it.
‘Eh?’ said Lord Robert. ‘Which excitement is that?’
‘Oh, you didn’t know?’ brightly said the Allardyce. ‘Poor Jane had a frightful nightmare last night. She persuaded herself that she’d seen your famous ghost, and she felt compelled, poor dear, to wake up everyone within earshot.’
I looked at Lord Robert and saw that he was staring at me. He had gone as pale as a-well, he had gone quite a deadly shade of pale, Evy. He opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again and said to me, nearly in a whisper, “You saw Lord Reginald?” He cleared his throat.
I was a bit surprised at his reaction and I could only stutter, ‘I, no, Lord Robert, I-’
‘Robert, dear,’ said Lady Purleigh, smiling up at him from the opposite end of the table. ‘It was a nightmare. Only that.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘A nightmare. I’m very sorry, Lord Purleigh, that I disturbed your guests.’ My voice was raspy and not at all my own.
Mrs Corneille sat across from me, and she was staring at the Allardyce, her lips compressed. To her left sat Dr Auerbach, the psychoanalyst, who was watching me with his eyes wide in psychiatric interest behind his pince-nez spectacles.
The skin of my face was hot again, and as taut as a sausage casing.