‘Don’t you think,’ Caroline said, ‘that you misconstrue charity?—’
‘Well, charity,’ said Helena, ‘begins at home. And Georgina has been part of our household.’
‘Mrs Hogg is not home,’ Caroline said.
‘Oh dear, I wish I hadn’t asked her to come. It was foolish of me, I’ve spoiled your day.’
‘The day isn’t over yet,’ said Caroline cordially, for the weather was glorious really.
‘But still I wish I hadn’t brought her, for another reason. Something happened on the way here, Caroline. It was disturbing.’ Caroline saw she was distressed.
‘Come over here and help me to take out the bottles,—’ Caroline said, ‘and tell me what happened.’
‘I gave Georgina a tablet for her neuralgia before we set off,’ Helena said, ‘and sat her comfortably at the back of the car. Before we were out of London I said over my shoulder, “Are you all right, Georgina?” She replied that she was feeling sleepy. I went on chatting to Willi and thought no more of Georgina at the back. I assumed she had fallen asleep for I could hear her breathing heavily.’
‘She snores,’ Caroline said. ‘I remember at St Philumena’s I could hear her snoring six doors away.
‘Well, yes, she was snoring,’ Helena said. ‘And I thought the sleep would do her good. After a while she stopped snoring. I said to Willi, “She’s dead asleep.” Then Willi’s cigarette lighter gave out and he asked for some matches. I thought there were some at the back of the car, but I didn’t want to wake Georgina. So I pulled up. And when I turned to reach for the matches, I couldn’t see Georgina.’
‘Why, what had happened?’
‘She simply wasn’t there,’ Helena declared. ‘I said to Willi, “Heavens, where’s Georgina?” and Willi said, “My God! she’s gone!” Well, just as he said this, we saw Georgina again. She suddenly appeared before our eyes at the back of the car, sitting in the same position and blinking, as if she’d just then woken up. It was as if there’d been a black-out at the films. I would have thought I’d been dreaming the incident, but Willi apparently had the same experience. He said, “Where have you been, Mrs Hogg? You vanished, didn’t you?” She looked really surprised, she said, “I’ve been asleep, sir.”‘
‘It may have been some telepathic illusion shared by you and Willi,’ Caroline said. ‘I shouldn’t worry.
‘Maybe it was. I haven’t had an opportunity to discuss this privately with Willi. It was a most strange affair; truly I wish I hadn’t brought Georgina. Sometimes I feel I can handle her, but at other times she seems to get the better of me.’
‘Maybe when she goes to sleep she disappears as a matter of course,—’ Caroline said with a dry laugh so that Helena would not take her too seriously.
‘What a gruesome idea. Well, I swear that she did apparently vanish. All I saw when I first looked round was the empty seat.’
‘Maybe she has no private life whatsoever,’ Caroline said, and she giggled to take the grim edge off her words.
‘Oh, she has no private life, poor soul,’ Helena agreed, meaning that the woman had no friends.
Mrs Hogg ate heartily at lunch. Caroline sat as far away from her as possible to avoid the sight of her large mouth chewing, and the memory of that sight, when at St Philumena’s, she had first observed Mrs Hogg sitting opposite to her at the refectory table, chew — pause —chew — pause. Mrs Hogg spoke little, but she was very much present.
After lunch, Caroline was stacking an empty food box in the boot of Helena’s car some distance from the rest of the party, when the Baron approached her.
‘Summer suits you, my Caroline,’ he said. ‘Your sun dress is charming. Green suits you, and you are plumper. I thought you a delightful picture at lunch, so secluded within your proud personality as you always seem to be and with such a watchful air.
Caroline appreciated flattery, the more so when it was plainly excessive and well laid on, for then she felt that the flatterer had really taken pains to please. So she smiled languidly and waited for the rest, not at all surprised that these remarks were a prelude to one of those ‘confidences’ which the Baron so greatly longed to make. For, since she had forbidden the subject of black magic, the Baron had been manifestly unhappy. She realized that he had chosen her as a repository for his secret enthusiasm because of that very edginess and snap with which she responded. If like his other friends, she could have been merely sociable about his esoteric interests, making a gay palaver of them — ‘Do describe the formula, Willi, for changing oneself into a fly. One could watch all one’s friends… . Suppose one got stuck in a pot of jam’ — if only she could have played buoyant and easy with the Baron, he never would have plagued her with his ‘confidences’.
Having lubricated the way with his opening speech he proceeded instantly, ‘I must tell you, Caroline, such a strange thing happened in the car as we came down. This woman, Mrs Hogg —’
Caroline tried to be pleasant ‘Helena has already told me of the incident. Obviously, Willi, you’ve been infecting Helena with your fancies. Obviously —’
‘I do assure you, Caroline, I have never discussed any occult subject with Helena. I am very careful in whom I confide these matters. There is no other way of accounting for the strange phenomenon in the car but to accept the fact that this woman Hogg is a witch.’
‘Not necessarily,’ Caroline said, ‘even if she did disappear. I think she’s too ignorant to be a witch.’ And she added, ‘Not that I believe in witches particularly.’
‘And I have made a curious discovery,’ the Baron continued relentlessly. ‘Don’t you see — this woman Hogg is, I am certain, the witch to whom Mervyn Hogarth was married. The facts meet together — he has been known to use the name Hogg, as I told you. My informants say he always used it in his younger days. This Georgina Hogg is his witch-wife.’
‘Nonsense. She’s an old servant of the Manders. I believe she married a cousin. She has a crippled son somewhere.’
‘Has she? — Then it is certain she is the one, the witch, the wife! It is her son who was cured a few months ago by Hogarth’s magic. It must be the same young man!’
‘Awfully far-fetched,’ Caroline said. ‘And, Willi, all this bores me. In fact it agitated her, as he could see. ‘That Hogarth crest,’ she was thinking, ‘on Eleanor’s cigarette case. Laurence identified it, the same as Mrs Hogg’s… .’ She decided to speak of this to Laurence later on.
Just then Helena shouted, ‘Caroline, will you fetch my book — I threw it in at the back of the boot with my little head cushion. Will you fetch that too?’
‘Hell!’ Caroline breathed.
It meant unloading the entire contents of the boot. The Baron helped Caroline to ease them out of the tiny space, while he talked as fast as he could, as if to get in as much as possible of his precious confidences in the next few moments.
‘It is the same young man,’ he said, ‘and you will see that I am right.’
‘You must be wrong,’ said Caroline, out of breath with the effort of shifting the boxes, old petrol cans, and other clutter. She was reminding herself that only the other day Helena had said, ‘Fancy, I told Mrs Hogg about that wonderful miracle that happened to the Hogarth boy. I thought it might give her some hope for her own son who’s a cripple. But do you know, she wouldn’t believe it was a miracle — she said if it had been a real miracle the young man would have become a Catholic. Unfortunately this Hogarth boy has gone off with some woman — a rich Theosophist, I understand. Perhaps I shouldn’t have told Georgina that bit.’