She gave the girl a weak little shake. “Oh, Jennifer,” she whispered. “You should not.... You don't know what you've done. I—I understand what you've seen. It's not real. Do you understand? It's not real. It's a bad sort of game. I know I didn't understand at first myself, either. But I do now. I know him better than you. I'm older than you. You must believe me. You must promise me that you won't go there again, ever. Promise!”
“Not go again?” Jennifer cried so wildly and loudly that Clare in alarm laid her hand over her mouth. But the younger girl calmed down quickly. She spoke again in a desolatingly miserable voice. “I don't know. I can't trust you. You might be saying this just because you're jealous. It was all so lovely before. Even—even when he told me about you I didn't mind. I wasn't jealous.”
“Listen,” Clare implored, almost choking with grief. “I'm not jealous either. I'm trying to help you. Oh Jennie, you know Helen and I were good friends. You know she and I first found this way out. You can trust me, can't you? I'm trying to save myself as well as you. I shall have to go again myself—in the daylight. I can do that. It's safe for me. But you must promise me not to go there again at night, ever! Promise me, for Helen's sake!”
“Don't tell Helen.” Jennifer had lost all trace of defiance; she was crying a little. “Please don't tell anyone. Oh, please don't try to stop me now. I must go. It's my only happiness now. It's all I have to live for, to be with him. I wanted to be bound. I wanted to have my ear pricked and be his slave. I can't disobey him now. I can't, I can't.”
Clare put her arm round her. “I know,” she said, and she felt the tears on her own cheek. “I know what it feels like. It has broken my heart now that I know the truth. But it's not all you have to live for. Don't let him make you believe that. There's Helen, and your mother and father. He—he won't care for you long. He's playing with you like a doll. What he's shown you isn't real. It's all a play.”
“That's not true!” Jennifer gasped. “And I don't care. I want him to play with me.”
Clare looked round the dark room in despair. She could find no human argument to combat the spell whose power she knew so well herself. She was not free herself. She knew that had Niall appeared at the window then she would have fled to him instinctively as to a refuge, as a miserable and lost puppy to its master. But to feel this child as abjectly enslaved and to have from her the disillusion and the shattering revelation of how she had been beguiled, strengthened some tiny part of Clare's spirit that had never yet completely yielded to the spell. She faced the proof of his power and of his purpose that now came flooding in on her and found in some stirrings of pride and indignation the courage to oppose him.
“Listen!” she whispered. “When have you to go again?” “The night after tomorrow,” Jennifer whimpered.
“Look,” said Clare. “I shall go to Brackenbine tomorrow. I shall ask him to tell you the whole truth about his puppets and the game he plays with them. I'm not trying to stop you seeing him. I won't breathe a word of this to anyone. I'll shut Reenie up somehow. Don't be angry with me, Jennifer, dear. I know you love him. And I expect he cares for you much more than he does for me. I haven't seen so much of him really. I really do go there to study with his mother. I haven't seen him alone very many times. Now you must go to bed. We must both go. We shall be worn out in the morning.”
She fastened the window, then led Jennifer to the door with her arm about her shoulders. The younger girl was silent, but when, as they parted, Clare asked her again to be friends, she felt Jennifer nod her head against her shoulder and press her arm.
8
Clare did not sleep the rest of the night. By herself, in her own room, she had neither pride nor courage; the aching disillusion conquered all her spirit, and at times, during the long hours until the rising bell, she wept disconsolately. It was a heavier grief than death, and yet it was less credible. To die is common, but to Clare it seemed that no one before her could have been so beguiled by such a cruel pretence of love. She relived in those hours of the early morning every minute that she had ever spent with Niall, and in spite of the testimony of her heart she could not quite believe that all his love had been playacting. Intuition and reason were in conflict: the fact that he had told Jennifer their secret should have been conclusive, and yet reason argued that she must have read more into the younger girl's words than they would bear. He had undoubtedly been amusing himself in some way with Jennifer, but there must be some explanation of that. Clare and Niall knew each other so well now; he must be able to explain the affair to her; there must be some explanation that she could understand and accept.
And all those images of fear, those dawning shapes of terror emerging from the darkness, they must be her own creations, figments of an overworked brain and overexcited feelings. She had gone half−way to creating them for herself by her deliberate pretence of believing in Niall's super−natural powers. The words had been Jennifer's but the suggestions had been children of Clare's own imagination. So she reasoned, and her mind had some comfort, but her heart had none. The load of grief lay on it un−alleviated.
As she turned miserably on her bed she had a physical discomfort, too. Her ear, where Niall had pricked it weeks before, throbbed and burned, just as if Jennifer's angry whisper had reinflamed the little wound. Since the night he had pierced it she had felt nothing there until now. It would be easy to give way to superstitious panic—to believe that he was aware of her rebellion and was reminding her of his power over her. No! she sat up and exclaimed aloud. She was not rebelling against him. She loved him. She would believe his explanation of these dark acts. If she only knew what it was.... She must see him again, at once. That was the only firm conclusion at the end of those tormented hours.
Morning and the distractions of daylight life did not lessen the heavy sense of loss and ruin, but they brought Clare a little more courage to face the other fears. Those shapeless terrors were dream things and they dwindled and paled among the familiar activities and chatter of the school. Only the little red spot remained clearly visible on the lobe of her ear and the throbbing, though slight, persisted.
Reenie Ford was quick to notice, with sympathetic interest, her exhausted appearance. Her promise to enlighten Reenie about her 'clue' had been quite driven from Clare's mind. She stared back in blank consternation when Reenie cornered her alone in the Prefects' Room before luncheon, and with mysterious looks and whispers requested Clare's solution. She groped helplessly for something to say and fell back, without much hope, on her earlier inspiration.
“It was Miss Geary you saw,” she said.
“Miss Geary? Oh, I see....” Reenie's voice trailed away on a thin note of disappointment. But the name was persuasive; it summed up all oddities of behaviour at Paston Hall. With relief Clare saw from Reenie's changing expression that the vision she had of Miss Geary stalking the night sufficed; it explained all, and it blocked all further enquiry.
“I see....” said Reenie again, and sadly went her way.
Clare set out for Brackenbine immediately after luncheon. It was a cold drizzling day, and for that reason she was surprised to see the gardener's boy loitering in the road beyond the gates as if he could find no drier and warmer spot to spend his dinner interval in. He was an old friend, now grown into a tall youth, but still apt for small confidential commissions as in the days when he had bought Clare's gang their tea and sausages. He grinned and lifted the peak of his cap when she came up to him, and handed her a letter.