"How pretty she is," said the queen. "So was I."
"I'm not staying here," Bettine said. It seemed important in this web of illusions to have that clear.
"I don't really believe in you entirely. I'm dreaming this anyway."
"You're not, my dear, but there, there, believe what you like." The queen turned, looked back; the children had gone, and another was coming through, a handsome man in elegant brocade.
"Robert Devereaux," said Anne. "Robert, her name is Bettine."
"Who is he?" Bettine asked. "Is he the king?"
The man named Robert laughed gently and swept a bow; "I might have been," he said. "But things went wrong."
"Earl of Essex," said Anne softly, and stood up and took his hand. "The boys said that there was someone who believed in us, all the same. How nice. It's been so long."
"You make me very nervous," she said. "If you were real I think you'd talk differently; something old. You're just like me."
Robert laughed. "But we aren't like the walls, Bettine. We do change. We listen and we learn and we watch all the passing time."
"Even the children," said Anne.
"You died here."
"Indeed we did. And the same way."
"Murdered?" she asked with a shiver.
Anne frowned. "Beheaded, my dear. Quite a few had a hand in arranging it. I was maneuvered, you see; and how should I know we were spied on?"
"You and Essex?"
"Ah, no," said Robert " Weweren't lovers, then."
"Only now," said Anne. "We met. . . posthumously on my part. And how are you here, my dear?"
"I'm the Mayor's girl," Bettine said. It was good to talk, to have even shadows to talk to. She sat forward, embracing her knees in her arms. Suddenly the tears began to flow, and she daubed at her eyes with the sheet, feeling a little silly to be talking to ectoplasms, which all the fashionable folk denied existed; and yet it helped. "We quarreled and he put me here."
"Oh dear," said Anne.
"Indeed," said Lord Essex, patting Anne's hand. "That's why the boys said we should come. It's very like us."
"You died for love?"
"Politics," said Anne. "So will you."
She shook her head furiously. This dream of hers was not fa her control, and she tried to drag things her own way. "But it's a silly quarrel. And I don't die. They don't kill people here, they don't."
"They do," Anne whispered. "Just like they did."
"Well," said Essex, "not axes, any more. They're much neater than they were."
"Go away," Bettine cried. "Go away, go away, go away."
"You'd do well to talk with us," said-Anne. "We could make you understand what you're really up against. And there's really so much you don't seem to see, Bettine."
"Don't think of love," said Essex. "It's not love, you know, that sends people here. It's only politics. I know that. And Anne does. Besides, you don't sound like someone in love, do you?
You don't sound like someone in love, Bettine."
She shrugged and looked down, expecting that they would be gone when she looked up. "There issomeone I love," she said in the faintest of whispers when she saw they were not gone. Anne snorted delicately. "That's not worth much here. Eternity is long, Bettine. And there's love and love, Bettine." She wound insubstantial fingers with the earl's. "You mustn't think of it being love. That's not the reason you're here. Be wise, Bettine. These stones have seen a great deal come and go. So have we; and you don't have the face of one who loves."
"What do youknow?" she cried. "You're nothing. I know people, believe me. And I know Richard."
"Good night, Bettine," Anne said.
"Good night," Essex said very softly and patiently, so that she did not seem to have ruffled either of them at all. And the children were back, who bowed with departing irony and faded. The lights brightened.
She flounced down among the bedclothes sulking at such depressing ideas and no small bit frightened, but not of the ghosts—of her situation. Of things they said. There was a chill in the air, and a whiff of dried old flowers and spices. . . the flowers, she thought, was Anne; and the spice must be Essex. Or maybe it was the children Edward and Richard. The apparitions did not threaten her; they only spoke her fears. That was what they really were, after all. Ectoplasms, indeed. She burrowed into the covers and punched out the lights, having dispensed with fear of ghosts; her eyes hurt and she was tired. She lay down with utter abandon, which she had really not done since she came, burrowed among the pillows and tried not to think or dream at all. In the morning the phone came on and the screen lit up.
"Bettine," said Richard's voice, stern and angry.
She sprang up out of the covers, went blank for a moment and then assumed one of her bedroom looks, pushed her thick masses of hair looser on her head, stood up with a sinuous twist of her body and looked into the camera, moue'd into a worried frown, a tremble, a look near tears.
"Richard. Richard, I was so afraid. Please." Keep him feeling superior, keep him feeling great and powerful, which was what she was forin the world, after all, and how she lived. She came and stood before the camera, leaned there. "I want out of here, Richard. I don't understand this place." Naivete always helped, helplessness; and it was, besides, truth. "The jailer was terrible." Jealousy, if she could provoke it. "Please, let me come back. I never meant to do anything wrong. . . what is it I've done, Richard?"
"Who was he?"
Her heart was beating very fast. Indignation now; set him off balance. "No one. I mean, it was just a small thing and he wasn't anyone in particular, and I never did anything like that before, Richard, but you left me alone and what's a girl to do, after all? Two weeks and you hadn't called me or talked to me—?"
"What's the name, Bettine? And where's the grade-fifty file? Where is it, Bettine?" She was the one off balance. She put a shaking hand to her lips, blinked, shook her head in real disorganization. "I don't know anything about the file." This wasn't it, this wasn't what it was supposed to be about. "Honestly, Richard, I don't know. What file? Is thatwhat this is? That you think I stole
something? Richard, I never, I never stole anything."
"Someone got into the office. Someone who didn't belong there, Bettine; and you have the key, and I do, and that's a pretty limited range, isn't it? My office. My private office. Who did that, Bettine?"
"I don't know," she wailed, and pushed her hair aside— the pretty gestures were lifelong-learned and automatic. "Richard, I've gotten caught in something I don't understand at all, I don't understand, I don't, and I never let anyone in there." (But Tom had gotten in there; hecould have, any time, since he was in the next office.) "Maybe the door. . . maybe I left it open and I shouldn't have, but, Richard, I don't even know what was in that file, I swear I don't"
"Who was in your apartment that night?"
"I—it wasn't connected to that, it wasn't, Richard, and I wish you'd understand that. It wasn't anything, but that I was lonely and it was a complete mistake, and now if I gave you somebody's name then it would get somebody in trouble who just never was involved; I mean, I might have been careless, Richard, I guess I was; I'm terribly sorry about the file, but I did leave the door open sometimes, and you were gone a lot. I mean. . . it was possible someone could have gotten in there, but you never told me there was any kind of trouble like that. . ."
"The access numbers. You understand?"
"I don't. I never saw that file."