The Duke and Duchess excused themselves. Mrs Hatch could not have seemed more indifferent. They ascended the staircase, a little shakily, Griselda thought. Nerviness riddled the entire community. Then Griselda decided to snap the link herself. After all, she had Sir Osbert Sitwell’s ‘Winters of Content’ to read; and her bedroom was just the place for such a book.
‘If you can spare me, Mrs Hatch, I think I’ll go to bed too. Our walk must have tired me.’ This last statement was untrue, but something of the kind seemed to be required.
Mrs Hatch was glaring at an invoice, seeking to pluck out the heart of its mystery. She said nothing.
‘Well – Good night.’
Mrs Hatch still did not look up, but she said ‘Good night.’ Her tone baffled Griselda completely. It was certainly not noticeably pleasant. Griselda could not recall her Mother, or any of her Mother’s circle, behaving like this in the capacity of hostess. But her Mother was limited, and her circle small. Nine-thirty struck in the hall as Griselda entered her room, leaving Mrs Hatch in malign solitude with her sums. It was raining harder than ever.
XII
The room was filled not with damp night, but with Louise’s perfume.
Griselda softly cried out ‘Louise!’
Then again she recalled that the perfume was Stephanie’s also. But as apparently only Louise could see and converse with Stephanie, it was difficult to know what to do, except be frightened once more. More than ever, Griselda wanted Louise to be with her. But she had no idea where Louise was.
Griselda tentatively removed her wrist watch and laid it on the dressing table. A gust of wind, weighted with rain, so jarred the window that Griselda thought she would investigate. There was nothing to be done about that either: though the water was seeping into the room at many points between the well-made sashes and frames, and though it would clearly be a troubled night for any sleeper not enamoured of a storm. Fortunately, Griselda was not such a sleeper. She was simply a sleeper not enamoured of a ghost.
For when she returned to the dressing table, though her back had been turned upon it for only seconds, a strange object had appeared, and lay beside her familiar efficient wrist watch. It was a tiny knife: almost a dagger; conceivably a stiletto. The silvery blade, as if daily used and polished for generations, reflected a great bar of light across the ceiling. The ivory hilt was inlaid with purple amethyst, spiralling round it like the pattern on a Byzantine column. From butt to tip the knife was about five inches long. Griselda picked it up and tried the blade. The two edges were so sharp that it was difficult not to cut off at least a finger. They converged to a tip like the sting of a glittering insect.
Again there was a disturbance at the window. Such noises were likely to continue throughout the night, and Griselda took no notice, but went on staring at the knife. But the disturbance took on definition. It seemed to be rapping and crying. Someone appeared to be seeking entrance through Griselda’s first floor window.
Supposing that it might be Stephanie, Griselda felt utterly appalled. But the noises continued; and, as when a bird enters one’s bedroom, it was impossible indefinitely to ignore them. In the end, Griselda took the little knife, crossed the room, and once more drew back the curtain. Crouched on the sill outside was indisputably a figure. After a moment’s terror, Griselda realized that it was Louise. She opened the window.
‘What’s that you’ve got?’
‘I thought you might know. I found it on the dressing-table. It seemed to appear when my back was turned.’
Cascades of water were pouring through the open window, soaking everything. Louise’s white mackintosh was the colour of clay; her long hair bedraggled like a corpse’s.
She stood sniffing the charged air. ‘I wonder if it’s a good sign or a bad one. Revenge or rescue. Pity it’s so hard to know.’
Griselda shut the window, becoming seriously wet in the process. She redrew the curtains and stood in the centre of the room.
‘I’m so very glad to see you, Louise. On my last night.’
‘Did you think I wouldn’t come?’
Griselda gently shook her head.
‘Even if I had to swim the Hellespont like Leander visiting Hero.’
‘Dear Leander.’ Griselda put down the little knife. ‘As you’ve been so long in the sea, you’d better take off your wet clothes.’
Louise began to remove her soaking mackintosh. She was wearing trousers like Mrs Hatch’s.
‘Are you locked out?’
‘No. I’ve been waiting in the Pavilion for your light to appear. I didn’t want us to waste time and the house is swarming, which makes communication difficult. Everyone seems to have gone to bed very early tonight.’
‘Mrs Hatch is doing sums, and didn’t want us. You’re soaked. Undress. I’ll lend you some clothes.’
Louise undressed. It took only a minute.
‘Which clothes would you like? Which of my poor silly garments?’
Louise smiled. Then she crossed to the bed and put on Griselda’s pyjamas, laid out by Mullet.
As Louise put on Griselda’s pyjama’s, a great wave of feeling swept through Griselda like a wall of flame. She was unable to doubt that this was passion. It left her muddled and stupid.
Louise sat down and dried her glasses on one of Griselda’s handkerchiefs. Then she untied her hair and began to rub it. Seated in Griselda’s pyjama’s, and rubbing her long thick hair, she looked very beautiful.
‘May I stay?’ she asked, smiling like a representation of the Madonna, really the painter’s mistress.
Griselda had herself begun to undress, but slowly. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘But there is one thing . . . dear Leander. Mrs Hatch said something at breakfast . . .’
‘This is true love, my Hero,’ replied Louise, rubbing her hair energetically. ‘Love is only possible where there is like feeling. Sometimes that can be found in a body which is unlike: more usually it cannot. Love without like feeling is something best left to little Fritzi. Do I make things reasonably clear to you?’
‘Perfectly clear, darling. Not that it was really necessary.’
‘Then I may stay?’
Griselda shivered. ‘If you don’t mind the haunted room.’ It was growing seriously cold; and she began to hasten the day’s last rites.
‘Really and truly I don’t mind anything now.’
The clock in the hall below struck ten. Louise was scenting herself with Griselda’s scent, which made her smell very strange.
XIII
The clock in the hall below struck six.
Griselda, happier than she had ever been or would ever be again, heard it strike. Shortly afterwards there ensued, and quickly terminated, a train of events which she never in her life wholly understood; never, so to speak, got to the bottom of. Actual enquiry or close investigation were, in the nature of things, forever debarred to her. Later on in life she concluded that this applied to most mysteries she really cared about. This particular train of events took place, moreover, largely in silence, at least as far as concerned human utterance; and the crucial events largely in darkness also, as the bedroom curtains were still drawn, it was not yet fully daylight, and no one turned on the electric light until the crucial events were over.
There were steps outside, the bedroom door opened, and someone entered with a firm step in the uncertain light. Louise who was still asleep, was dragged from bed on to the floor, then hauled along the floor towards the door; all by the person with the firm step. On the way to the door, Louise, however, sufficiently realized the position to tear herself loose. There was a scuffle in the vicinity of the dressing table and a sharp groaning cry. Griselda guessed that one of the combatants had got hold of the dangerous little knife. At the cry a second intruder entered the room: and the two of them succeeded in dragging Louise away, still struggling valiantly but in utter silence. Griselda could hear the contest continuing down the passage outside. There was a lapse of time before courage enough came to enable her to leave the warm bed for the cold world, especially as, having brought only a single pair of pyjamas to Beams, she was naked. She put on her dressing-gown and went, trembling, to the open door. Outside all was now unexpectedly and frighteningly quiet But suddenly the figure of Mrs Hatch, in trousers and her usual heavy grey sweater, loomed up and came towards her.