She had leaned out of the curtained bed, and had the portrait of the handsome lady— her mother— in her hand. As I watched, she raised the portrait to her mouth, kissed it, and spoke soft, sad words to it. Then she put it from her with a sigh. She kept the key in a book beside her bed. I hadn't thought to look in there. She locked the box back up, set it neatly on the table— touched it once, touched it twice— and then moved back behind the curtain and was still.
I grew too tired to watch her, then. I moved back, too. My room was dark as ink. I 54
reached with my hands and found the blanket and sheets, and pulled them down. I got beneath them; and lay cold as a frog in my own narrow lady's maid's bed.
I cannot say how long I slept for then. I could not say, when I woke up, what awful sound it was that had woken me. I did not know, for a minute or two, whether my eyes were open or closed— for the darkness was so deep, there was no difference— it was only when I gazed at the open door to Maud's room and saw the faint light there, that I knew I was awake and not dreaming. What I had heard, I thought, was some great crash or thud, and then perhaps a cry. Now, in the instant of my opening my eyes, there was a silence; but as I lifted my head and felt my heart beat hard, the cry came again. It was Maud, calling out in a high, frightened voice. She was calling on her old maid:
'Agnes! Oh! Oh! Agnes!'
I didn't know what I would see when I went in to her— perhaps, a busted window and a burglar, pulling at her head, cutting the hair off. But the window, though it still rattled, was quite unbroken; and there was no-one there with her, she had come to the gap in her bed-curtains with the blankets all bunched beneath her chin and her hair flung about, half covering her face. Her face was pale and strange. Her eyes, that I knew were only brown, seemed black Black, like Polly Perkins's, as the pips in a pear. She said again, 'Agnes!' I said, 'It's Sue, miss.'
She said, 'Agnes, did you hear that sound? Is the door shut?' 'The door?' The door was closed. 'Is someone there?' A man?' she said. A man? A burglar?'
At the door? Don't go, Agnes! I'm afraid he'll harm you!' She was afraid. She was so frightened, she began to frighten me. I said, 'I don't think there's a man, miss.' I said,
'Let me try and light a candle.'
But have you ever tried to light a candle from a rush- light in a tin shade? I could not get the wick to catch; and she kept on, weeping and calling me Agnes, until my hand shook so much I could not hold the candle steady.
I said, 'You must be quiet, miss. There's no man; and if there is, then I shall call for Mr Way to come and catch him.'
I took up the rush- light. 'Don't take the light!' she cried at once. 'I beg you, don't!'
I said I would only take it to the door, to show her there was no-one there; and while she wept and clutched at the bed-clothes I went with the light to the door to her parlour and— all in a flinching, winking kind of way— I pulled it open.
The room beyond was very dark. The few great bits of furniture sat humped about, like the baskets with the thieves in, in the play of AH Baba. I thought how dismal it would be if I had come all the way to Briar, from the Borough, to be murdered by burglars. And what if the burglar proved to be a man I knew— say, one of Mr Ibbs's nephews? Queer things like that do happen.
So I stood gazing fearfully at the dark room, thinking all this, half- inclined to call out— in case there were burglars there— that they should hold their hands, that I was family; but of course, there was no-one, it was quiet as a church. I saw that, and then went quickly to the parlour door, and looked into the passage; and that was
was dark and quiet, too— there was only the ticking of some clock, far-off and more 55
rattling windows. But after all it was not quite Pleasant, standing in a night-dress, with a rush- light, in a great dark silent house that, though it didn't have thieves in, might certainly have ghosts. I closed the door quick, and went back to Maud's oom and closed that door, and stepped to the side of her bed and put the light down.
She said, 'Did you see him? Oh, Agnes, is he there?'
I was about to answer, but then I stopped. For I had looked towards the corner of the room, where the black press was; and there was something strange there. There was something long and white and gleaming, that was moving against the wood . . . Well, I have said, haven't I, that I've a warm imagination? I was certain that the thing was Maud's dead mother, come back as a ghost to haunt me. My heart leapt so hard into my mouth, I seemed to taste it. I screamed, and Maud screamed, then clutched at me and wept harder. 'Don't look at me!' she cried. And then: 'Don't leave me! Don't leave me!'
And then I saw what the white thing really was, and hopped from foot to foot and almost laughed.
For it was only the cage of her crinoline, sprung out from where I had jammed it on the shelf with one of her shoes. The door of the press had swung open and hit the walclass="underline" that was the noise that had woken us. The crinoline was hanging from a hook, and quivering. My footsteps had made the springs bounce.
I saw it, as I say, and almost laughed; but when I looked again at Maud, her eyes were still so black and wild and her face so pale, and she clutched at me so hard, I thought it would be cruel to let her see me smile. I put my hands across my mouth, and the breath came out between my jumping fingers, and my teeth began to chatter. I was colder than ever.
I said, 'It's nothing, miss. After all, it's nothing. You was only dreaming.'
'Dreaming, Agnes?'
She put her head against my bosom, and shook. I smoothed her hair back from her cheek, and held her until she grew calm.
'There,' I said then, 'Shall you sleep again now? Let me put the blanket about you, look.'
But when I made to lay her down, she gripped me harder. 'Don't leave me, Agnes!' she said again.
I said, 'It's Sue, miss. Agnes had the scarlatina, and is gone back to Cork. Remember?
You must lie down now, or the cold will make you ill, too.'
She looked at me then, and her gaze, that was still so dark, seemed yet a little clearer.
'Don't leave me, Sue!' she whispered. 'I'm afraid, of my own dreaming!'
Her breath was sweet. Her hands and arms were warm. Her face was smooth as ivory or alabaster. In a few weeks' time, I thought— if our plot worked— she would be lying in the bed of a madhouse. Who would there be to be kind to her, then?
So I put her from me, but only for a moment; and I clambered over her and got beneath the blankets at her side. I put my arm about her, and at once she sank against me. It seemed the least that I could do. I pulled her closer. She was slender as anything. Not like Mrs Sucksby. Not like Mrs Sucksby, at all. She was more like a 56
child. She still shivered a little, and when she blinked I felt the sweep of her lashes against my throat, like feathers. In time, however, the shivering stopped, and her lashes swept again and then were still. She grew heavy, and warm.
'Good girl,' I said, too softly to wake her.
Next morning I woke a minute before she did. She opened her eyes, saw me, looked troubled, and tried to hide it.
'Did my dreams wake me in the night?' she said, not meeting my gaze. 'Did I say foolish things? They say I speak nonsense, in my sleep, as other girls snore.' She blushed, and laughed. 'But how good you were, to come and keep me company!'
I didn't tell her about the crinoline. At eight o'clock she went off to her uncle, and at one I went to fetch her— taking care, this time, to mind the pointing finger on the floor.
Then we walked in the park, to the graves and the river; she sewed, and dozed, and was