I washed and undressed. I removed the warming pan and got into bed. I sunk into the luxury of feathers and felt almost drowsy in spite of everything, but just as I was dozing I would wake startled and sit up in bed listening. I realized that I was going to have a bad night. Well, I was prepared for that.
It must have been about an hour later when I heard a light footstep outside my room. I turned my eyes toward the door. I was sure someone was standing outside. It was a little lighter in the room now. The clouds had cleared and my eyes had accustomed to the darkness and as they turned to the door I saw the handle slowly turning.
“Come in,” I called.
The handle no longer moved. There was silence. I sat up in bed, my heart beating so fast that I could hear it. Then I thought I detected the sound of retreating footsteps. I opened the door and looked out but I could see nothing.
The incident was certainly not conducive to sleep. I lay there listening.
It must have been half an hour or so later when I heard footsteps again. This time I slipped out of bed and stood behind the door, waiting.
Yes, they had paused at my door and the handle was slowly turned. This time I did not speak. I stood pressed against the wall, waiting, while the door opened slowly.
I had been expecting the stately figure of Jessie, but to my amazement it was a young girl who could not have been more than twelve years old who entered. She went straight to the bed and gasped to see it empty. By this time I had shut the door and, leaning against it, said: “Hello. What do you want?”
She spun round and stared at me, her eyes wide and bright. I think if I had not been barring her way she would have rushed out of the room.
My fears had ebbed away. I saw at once that instead of a rather sinister presence all I had to deal with was a curious little girl.
“Well,” I said, “why have you come to pay me a visit at such an hour? It’s very late, you know.”
Still she said nothing. She stared down at her bare feet showing beneath her nightgown.
I went toward her. She looked at me in panic and I could see that she was preparing to make a dash for the door.
“Now you are here,” I said, “and I must say in a rather unceremonious fashion, I think you owe me an explanation.”
“I … I only wanted to see you.”
“Who are you?”
“Evalina.”
“And what are you doing here in this house … who are your parents?”
“We live here. This is my mama’s house really. …”
I knew then. There was a faint resemblance. I said: “You must be Jessie’s daughter?”
She nodded.
“I see, and you live here in your mother’s house?”
“It’s Lordy’s really. …”
“Whose?”
“The old man. Lord Eversleigh’s his real name. But we always call him Lordy.”
“We … ?”
“It’s my mama’s name for him.”
“I see. And he is a very great friend of yours, I suppose, since he lets you live in his house and call him Lordy.”
“He couldn’t do without us.”
“Does he say so?”
She nodded.
“Why did you creep into my bedroom?”
“I saw you when you came.”
“I saw you. You were at the top of the staircase.”
“You didn’t see me.”
“I did. You should be a little more careful. You do seem to get caught. Look at you now.”
“Are you going to tell on me?”
“I don’t know. I’ll see when I have finished the interrogation.”
“The what?” She looked frightened, as though she feared some terrible ordeal.
“I’m going to ask you some questions. A lot will depend on how you answer.”
“My mother would be angry. She gets angry sometimes. She’d say I was careless not to make sure you were asleep before I came in.”
“So it would have been quite acceptable if you had not been caught.”
She looked at me in wonderment. “Of course.”
“A strange philosophy,” I said.
“You do talk funny. Why have you come here? Is it to make trouble with Lordy?”
“I came because Lordy—as you call him—invited me.”
“My mother is cross with him about that. She can’t understand how he could ask you without telling her. She’s asking a lot of questions … who took the message, and all that. I reckon there’ll be a terrible row.”
“Why shouldn’t Lord Eversleigh invite whom he wishes to his house?”
“Well, he should ask mama first, shouldn’t he?”
“Is your mother the housekeeper here?”
“Well, it’s all different, you know.”
“In what way?”
She giggled. Her face, which had seemed innocent at one stage, had become rather sly. She might be young but she was knowledgeable in some matters and she managed to convey a meaning to the relationship between her mother and Lord Eversleigh which had come to me as a possibility and now seemed a certainty.
This child was not the innocent I had been imagining. She was a girl who listened, who spied and whose curiosity was so intense that it brought her from her bed at night to take a look at the new arrival who had brought such consternation to her mother.
I did not pursue that line of conversation. The child’s salacious giggle had in a way answered it and certainly I did not want to discuss this dubious relationship with her.
She said: “I’ll go now. Good night. You ought to have been asleep.”
“It would certainly have suited your convenience. Tell me, did you intend to examine my baggage?”
“I only wanted to have a quick look.”
“Now you’re here you will go at my pleasure. You will now answer a few questions for me. How long have you been here?”
“It’s about two years.”
“You are happy here?”
“It’s lovely. Different from …”
“From where you were before. Where were you?”
“In London.”
“You and your mother. Where is your father?”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“Never had one … proper. … There were uncles. … They never stayed long, though.”
I felt disgusted. The child was building up a picture of what I had suspected.
Jessie was a loose woman who had somehow managed to dupe Lord Eversleigh. How had she done it? I couldn’t imagine any of the ancestors I remembered being taken in by such a woman. They would not have had her under their roofs for an hour.
“How did you get here?”
She was puzzled. I guessed she really did not know. All she could say was that they had lived near Covent Garden and her mother had had lodgers. … “People from the theater,” she said. “My mama went on the stage once.”
She looked a little wistful and I said: “You enjoyed that life then … better than this.”
She hesitated. “There’s good things to eat here … and mama’s better … and Lordy couldn’t do without us.”
“Does he say so?”
“He’s always telling mama so. She’s always asking him.”
“Where is your bedroom?”
She pointed vaguely upward.
“And your mother?”
“With Lordy, of course.”
I felt sick with horror. It was just as I had suspected. I wondered with apprehension what the next day would bring.
“I’m getting cold,” she said.
I was too and I felt I had discovered a great deal from Evalina.
“You’d better go back to your room up there now,” I said.
She moved toward the door with alacrity.
“If I am going to stay here for a short while I want a key to my door.”
“I’ll bring it back.”
“So you have it.”
She smiled, nodded, hunching her shoulders. She looked mischievous and childish.
“Do you mean to say you took it so that you could creep in and look round my room when you wanted to?”