Blindfold (23 page)

The picture in her mind was fading. She couldn't see the details any more. And with this fading there came a reaction, and the whole experience took on a dream-like quality. It was a most horrid dream, but she was waking up. It couldn't really have happened. She hadn't really gone through the drawing-room mirror like Alice through the Looking-glass and come back by way of Miss Rowland's wardrobe. Put like that, it was the sort of thing you couldn't possibly believe.
But it had happened
.… It couldn't have happened. And if it
had
happened, she had frightened herself for nothing. If someone had walked upstairs in No. 18, that wasn't anything to be frightened about. People could walk upstairs in their own house, couldn't they? And as for Miss Rowland not being in her room, that was just nonsense. The curtains were drawn and the room was nearly dark.

All at once Kay over-reached herself. The picture she was calling up was more terrifying than the picture she was trying to destroy. It was less frightening to think that the room was empty than to believe that Miss Rowland had been there all the time watching her from the red shadows.

Mrs Green turned round from the fire.

“Aren't you doing no work this morning, Kay?” she inquired. “Somebody left you a fortune or something? You can't have finished upstairs in this short time you can't. And Nurse called down the stairs afore she went out, wanting to know where you was, so I said you'd just stepped out into the yard, and she says ‘All right.' What you been up to?”

Kay's cheeks burned.

“Nothing, Mrs Green.”

“Then suppose you do get up to something and get on with your work, my girl!” said Mrs Green.

Kay went out of the kitchen and stood on the steps leading up from the basement. It was no good having cold feet and wobbly knees. She had got to finish her work. She had got to finish dusting the drawing-room, or at the very least she must fetch away her dust-pan and brush. If she didn't it was as good as a confession that she had seen what she hadn't been meant to see, and
that—
yes
that—
would be dangerous. She was sure that she had got out of Miss Rowland's room without being seen. She told herself very firmly about this. But she had had to unlock the bedroom door and leave it open. They couldn't be sure about the door being locked. They might have forgotten to lock it. They hadn't seen her. They couldn't have seen her.
They
—who were
They?
… She mustn't think about that. It was much too frightening. She must just go on as if nothing had happened, and in less than three hours Miles would come and call for her, and she would let him take her away. She wasn't going to be proud about it any more. They would tell Nurse Long that she was going to leave at once, and Miles would take her away.

She went upstairs to the drawing-room feeling a good deal fortified. She wasn't going into the back part of the room where the mirror was except to pick up her cleaning things and her dust-pan and brush. After that she would finish dusting, but with one eye on the mirror, so that if the glass began to move, she could run helter-skelter downstairs to Mrs Green.

She finished her dusting, and did a little more polishing too: The glass behaved as a looking-glass should. It reflected what was there for it to reflect, and seemed to be as incapable of movement as the solid wall.

When she had finished the drawing-room she went downstairs and did the dining-room. Every single minute was bringing Miles nearer, and as soon as he came she would ask him to take her away.

Nurse Long came back at one o'clock. She was in her nurse's dress—Kay had never seen her without it—and she came and stood at the dining-room door and looked coldly in.

“You are going out this afternoon,” she said.

“I'm going away,” said Kay to herself, but she hadn't the courage to say it out loud. She simply must wait for Miles, and Miles would be here in an hour and a half. So she coloured a little and didn't speak.

Nurse Long didn't seem to expect her to say anything, for she went straight on.

“I met Mr Harris when I was out. He tells me he is very kindly taking you out this afternoon. He seems to have known your aunt rather well. And by the way, he asked me to tell you that he would call for you at two o'clock, so you'd better hurry up and get Miss Rowland's tray.”

Kay's colour fairly flamed.

“I'm not going out with Mr Harris!” she said.

“He seems to think you are.”

“That is because he didn't give me time to answer his letter. I'm certainly not going out with Mr Harris. I don't know him.”

Nurse Long looked at her with rather an odd expression. It was cold, but behind the coldness Kay had an idea that she was amused—and angry. She said,

“I think you'd better go. He is calling for you at two.”

Kay was now so angry that she had stopped being frightened. She was too angry to speak. She pressed her lips together and shook her head.

“You'd better,” said Nurse Long.

Kay shook her head again.

“Do you really mean it?”

“Of course I mean it!” said Kay with her chin in the air.

Nurse Long turned round and went out of the room.

Kay went down to get the tray. She was still angry, and she was very glad to be angry, because being angry stopped her being frightened, and what had been frightening her more than anything else was knowing that she would have to take up Miss Rowland's tray. It was like a dreadful shadow across the path, and she would have to go through it before she could get to the place where Miles was waiting to take her away. If she could only keep on being angry she might be able to do it. But as she propped open the basement door and went down for the tray, she felt the anger beginning to drain out of her, and when she got to the kitchen Mrs Green wasn't ready with the cutlets.

Miss Rowland had a very good appetite for an invalid, and so had Nurse Long. Very little that was sent upstairs ever came down again, and they both liked their meat well done. There were cutlets and mashed potato and a vegetable, and a shape of calves-foot jelly.

“And another ten minutes I'll be at the very least of it. Better say quarter of an hour,” said Mrs Green.

Try as she would, Kay couldn't go on being angry for a quarter of an hour. She ran along the passage to her own room and finished her packing. When she had put her out-door things ready on the bed and locked her box, she began to feel that she really was going away with Miles. It was a quarter past one, and he would come and call for her at half past two. If Mr Harris chose to call at two o'clock, he would get no for an answer, and that was that.

She went back into the kitchen and found Mrs Green dishing up.

All the way upstairs she had to fight against a cold, sick feeling of fear. It was no use telling herself that there was nothing to be afraid of, because what she wanted to do was to drop the tray and run for her life out of the front door and down the street. You may want to do things like that, but you can't really do them. Kay wasn't twenty yet, but she had often had to do things that frightened her, and she had never yet run away from what she had to do. Life with Rhoda Moore had at least taught her self-control. As long as she was in Miss Rowland's service she must do the work that she had been engaged to do, and it was part of that work to carry up Miss Rowland's tray.

She went up the last flight holding tightly on to the thought of how lovely it would be to be coming down again. She had only to knock at Miss Rowland's door, give the tray to Nurse Long, and run, run, run downstairs again to the basement where her box was locked and her coat and hat laid all ready for her to go away with Miles.

Between the two doors on the landing there was a small table. Kay rested the tray upon it and knocked on the nearer door, and at once it was opened, and there was Nurse Long, still in her out-door things. She took the tray, and it was just as if she was lifting a cold, heavy weight from Kay's heart. Now it was over. Now she could run down the stairs.

She turned to go, and Nurse Long said,

“You'd better hurry up and have your lunch if you're going out. You can come up for the tray as soon as you've finished.” And with that she went back into the room and Kay ran down.

It was frightfully stupid of her, but she had forgotten that she would have to fetch the tray. She wasn't running down the stairs for the last time after all, because she would have to go up for the tray. Perhaps Miles would be early. If she knew he was waiting outside, she wouldn't mind going up again. Perhaps …

She and Mrs Green had rabbit stew and a suet pudding. Mrs Green ate so heartily herself that she didn't notice whether Kay ate anything or not. Kay couldn't eat. She put a little gravy on her plate and kept the potatoes between herself and Mrs Green, and when it came to the suet pudding she said she wasn't hungry. Mrs Green didn't mind who ate, or who didn't eat, as long as she had plenty herself. She put away two helpings of the stew and an incredible amount of suet pudding, and she talked all the time.

But in the end Kay had to go upstairs for the tray. She ran, because the quicker she went, the quicker it would be over. When she came to the last turn she had to stop and get her breath. It was new for her to be out of breath after running upstairs. She stood still for a moment, and what must she think about horridly, suddenly, and vividly, but the stains on the next-door stairs—stains where something had been spilt and the carpet had been rubbed and rubbed but the marks had never quite come out.
Bloodstains never quite come out
. It was such a dreadful thought that Kay ran away from it.

She ran up six steps to the bedroom landing and knocked on the door as she had knocked before. This time it didn't open, but Nurse Long's voice said, “Come in.” There was nothing in that. Only two days ago the same thing had happened, and Kay had gone in and fetched the tray. She went in, and there was the wardrobe facing her, and the Japanese screen on her right, only now it was drawn up close to the wall so she couldn't see the head of the bed.

Once she was actually in the room, she wasn't so much afraid. Everything looked very comfortable and old-fashioned. The crimson curtains were drawn across the windows towards the street, but plenty of light came in through the window which looked out at the back.

Kay went round the screen and saw Miss Rowland sitting up in bed propped with pillows. She wore an old-fashioned night-cap with a frill, and she had a big white cross-over shawl about her shoulders. Nurse Long was at the window, and as Kay came round the screen, she pulled the right-hand curtain so that the light no longer fell upon the bed. The tray was on a little table which had been pulled out from the wall. But before Kay could take it up Miss Rowland spoke to her in her deep quavering voice.

“You are going out this afternoon.”

Kay said, “Yes, madam.”

Miss Rowland looked at her out of the red shadow cast by the curtain, and Kay had again that odd feeling of recognition. She didn't like it. It frightened her. She stooped to take up the tray, but Miss Rowland spoke again.

“Nurse tells me you are going out with Mr Harris. It is very kind of him. I am pleased that you should go.”

Kay stood up straight. Why did they want her to go out with Mr Harris? They couldn't make her go. She said politely but firmly,

“I can't go out with Mr Harris because I'm going out with a friend.”

“Better go with Mr Harris,” said Miss Rowland.

There was a funny smell in the room like the smell of a chemist's shop. Kay loathed it with a sudden passionate loathing. She said, “I'm afraid I can't,” and she stooped again to pick up the tray.

As she did so, Miss Rowland nodded, and Nurse Long turned quickly round from the window with something white in her hand. The smell which was like the smell of a chemist's shop became overpowering, and all at once, and before Kay could touch the tray, there was a thick soft pad over her nose and mouth, and two very strong hands were holding it there. She tried to scream, and she couldn't scream. She put up her hands and tried to tear the pad away, and as she did that she saw Miss Rowland throw back the bedclothes and jump out of bed. Her cap fell off, and her woolly shawl fell off, and she had a close-cropped head of dark hair, and she had on a man's striped shirt and a pair of grey tweed trousers. Kay saw this, and then she stopped seeing anything at all, but she heard Miss Rowland say in a man's deep voice which seemed to come from a long way off. “Mind you don't give her too much.” And then she went down, and down, and down into a deep place where she could neither hear nor see. Fear went with her, but in the end there wasn't even fear. There wasn't anything at all.

CHAPTER XXX

Half an hour later Miles Clayton was being sent away by Mrs Green. He was a good deal more disturbed and disappointed than the occasion seemed to warrant. He couldn't very well force his way into the house and burst into the bedroom of an invalid old lady to insist that Kay should leave with him at once. One of the disadvantages of being brought up in a civilized society is that it gives you tiresome inhibitions about this sort of thing. The natural man in Miles was all for shoving Mrs Green out of the way, finding Kay wherever she might be, and removing her with a strong hand and no damned nonsense about it. Had he followed this impulse, it is just possible that he might have surprised Miss Rowland in those incongruous grey tweed trousers, and everything might have happened a little differently. As it was, the inhibitions were too much for him, and he went away in a state of champing impatience. He hadn't the slightest intention of waiting till nine o'clock. Nurse Long would be bound to be back by half past four or so to give the old lady her tea. Meanwhile he had better go and see the Gilmores about Flossie. Since it now seemed that she was not Flossie Macintyre, but Rhoda Moore's niece, the sooner this was made quite clear the better it would be for everyone.