Down a Dark Hall (11 page)

Once she started, she could not stop.
Scream after scream tore from her throat in great, ragged shrieks. For what seemed like a million years she screamed, until
as though from another world she heard the sound of footsteps pounding on the stairs and a voice calling her name. Then strong
hands closed upon her shoulders.

Jules’ voice said, “Kit! Kit, what is it? What’s happened?”

“There—” Kit managed to sob, “there, behind me—”

“There’s nothing behind you.”

Kit opened her eyes and stared up at him, at the fine-boned, perfectly featured face bent close to her own, at the heavy-lidded
dark eyes, filled now with real concern.

Gone was the anger that had flared there the day she had intruded upon him in the music room while he was playing the Schubert
tape. Gone was the discomfort that had existed between them since.

He cares,
she thought, and even through her terror she clutched at the realization.
He does care
.

“There was someone,” she said chokingly. “A man. He was walking behind me. I saw him reflected in the mirror.”

“There couldn’t have been.”

“There
was
!”

“Okay, you’re okay. It’s all right.” Jules pulled her against him so that her face was buried against his shirt, and his hand
ran lightly over her hair. “You saw a shadow. Or perhaps it was your own reflection.”

“It was a man!” She tried to cry the words, but they were muffled by the warm bulk of his shoulder. From somewhere beyond
them she heard other voices and she knew that they were coming, all of them, from the floor below. In another moment they
would be here surrounding her, patting and comforting her, telling her in rational terms what it was that she had been imagining.

Pressing her hands against Jules’ chest, she shoved him away from her so that she could see his face.

“Please,” she said frantically, “you must believe me. You have to believe me.”

“Kathryn!” The voice was Madame Duret’s. “What in the world has happened?”

“What is it, Kit?”

“Kit, are you all right?”

“Was that
you
we heard?”

She had known it would be this way. Professor Farley, Ruth, Sandy—all of them worried. She felt Sandy’s hand touch her arm,
a silent reassurance that their friendship was still intact. Even if no one else did, Sandy would believe her.

“She’s frightened,” Jules explained. “She thought she saw somebody in the mirror.”

“Somebody?”

“A man. I saw a man.” Kit struggled to get control of her voice. “I didn’t just think I saw him, I
did
see him. He was just as real as I am.”

“What did he look like?” Professor Farley asked her. His keen, old eyes were regarding her intently.

“I—I don’t know,” Kit said haltingly. “The hall’s so dark, I couldn’t see him very well. And my own reflection was partially
blocking him. But he was there. There’s no doubt about it.”

“Then where has he gone?” Madame Duret asked matter-of-factly. She gestured toward the stretch of empty hallway leading back
to Kit’s door. “If someone had been there, chérie, he would have to be there still. If he had run past you, he would have
had to pass us on the stairs.”

“He could have gone back,” Sandy suggested timidly. She dropped her hand and slipped it into Kit’s. “Kit’s room and mine are
both down at that end of the hall. He might have gone into one of them.”

“You keep your rooms locked, don’t you?” Ruth asked. She sounded more interested than worried. Her eyes were aglitter with
subdued excitement.

“Yes, but still—”

Kit could tell from Ruth’s face that she too was remembering the instance of the missing portrait, when a locked door had
been no deterrent to an invader.
She knows something,
Kit thought.
Somehow Ruth has gone a step ahead of the rest of us
.

“Well, there’s one way to be sure of things,” said Professor Farley. “Give me your keys, girls, and Jules and I will check
your rooms. If there’s any possible chance that there is someone in this building who doesn’t belong here, we want to know
about it.”

Sandy and Kit both handed him their keys. In silence they watched the two men go down the hall and enter first one room and
then the other. It did not take long.

 “All empty,” Professor Farley said. “There’s nobody in the closets or under the beds. I’m afraid you were imagining things,
young lady. I can see how one might, too, the way the shadows shift about. Walking toward the mirror gives one a strange sensation.”

“But I wasn’t imagining it,” Kit exclaimed. And then, a bit doubtfully, “He seemed so real.”

“Like my Ellis?” Sandy suggested softly.

“No,” Kit said. “Not like that. I was wide awake, not dreaming.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. I was standing right here.”

“I think we had best return to the dining room,” Madame Duret said firmly. The tone of her voice, pleasant but definite, told
them that the issue was now behind them, something that need not be agonized over or discussed any further. “The professor
is correct, the light in this hallway is terribly disconcerting. I shall call once again tomorrow about those electricians,
and if I cannot get someone from the village, I will call into Middleton.

“Now, do let us return to our dinner before everything is cold. Are you feeling better, Kathryn?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Kit said shakily. And though the last thing she felt like doing was eating, she let herself be guided down the
stairs and on into the dining room.

The table had been cleared of the soup bowls. They took their seats, and at the tinkle of Madame’s silver bell the kitchen
door opened and Lucretia appeared, her gray brows drawn together in a scowl.

“Please bring the main course now, Lucretia,” Madame told her.

Without a word the older woman turned and went back through the doorway. Kit stared after her in bewilderment.

 “Why is Lucretia doing the serving?” she asked. “Is Natalie sick?”

“Natalie is no longer in my employ,” Madame informed her. Her voice carried no hint of emotion, but Kit, remembering the scene
in the kitchen when those two black eyes had struck her like thunderbolts, was filled with sudden suspicion.

“Why?” she asked. “Did you let her go?”

“Let her go? Why, of course not.” Madame took her napkin and spread it in her lap. “Good cooks like Natalie are difficult
to acquire these days. No, the girl asked to leave. She is getting married a week from Saturday.”

“Married!” Kit exclaimed. It was the last thing she had expected to be told.

“That’s so nice,” Ruth commented. “She must be so excited! Who is she marrying, somebody from the village?”

“I imagine so. Whom else would she find?” Madame said easily. “But with so much of our help gone now, I am afraid we shall
all have to do a bit of the work. Nice as it would be, a place like Blackwood does not take care of itself, you know. Starting
tomorrow, I must make out a chore list for everyone.”

The door swung open again and Lucretia entered, bearing a platter of underdone chicken, and the subject of conversation was
terminated.

The phone call came at eight thirty that evening. The girls were gathered in the parlor only half-watching a nature program
on PBS when Jules appeared suddenly in the doorway.

“Phone for you, Kit,” he said. “Long-distance. It’s your mother.”

“It is?!” For a moment Kit thought her heart would leap out of her chest. In an instant she was on her feet, hurrying toward
him. “Where can I take it?”

“The land-line phone is in the office,” Jules said. “You’d better hurry. Overseas calls cost a fortune.”

When she entered the office, Kit found Madame Duret seated at her desk. The telephone sat at her right, the receiver off the
hook. Madame picked it up and held it out to Kit.

“Are you not the lucky one—a call from Italy! Do give your mother my regards.”

Kit snatched the receiver. She found her hand was trembling as she raised it to her ear.

“Hello, Mom?”

“Oh, honey!” Her mother’s tiny voice sounded a million miles away, but the warmth, the inflections, the love, were so familiar
that for the second time that evening Kit found her eyes blurred with tears. “It’s so wonderful to hear you.”

“You too,” Kit said. “How are you? How’s Dan? Where are you calling from? Are you having fun?”

“So much fun,” her mother said, “you can’t imagine. We’re in Florence now, and tomorrow we leave for Rome. Just think, we’ll
actually be visiting St. Peter’s and the Forum and the Catacombs—all the places you always read about!”

She sounds so young,
Kit thought in amazement. Her mother, with the silver threads in her hair, the soft cobweb of lines at the corners of her
eyes, the back that ached after a day of typing, sounded like a young girl, bubbling with enthusiasm and vitality.

“And you, honey? How are you? Do you love it at Blackwood?”

“Mom!” Kit was stunned at the question. “Haven’t you been reading my letters?”

“We got one in Cherbourg,” her mother said, “but that was almost immediately after we arrived. It’s the only letter we’ve
received, and your cell phone doesn’t seem to be working. That’s why I’m calling. Dan said he was sure that you were just
too busy to write and had forgotten to charge your cell, but I was worried that you might be ill. You haven’t been, have you?”

“No,” Kit said. “Cell phones don’t work in this area, but I’ve written every week. I’ve told you about everything—​absolutely everything.”

In her chair at the desk, Madame shifted her weight, and Kit moved a few paces away, stretching the phone cord to its full
length.

“It’s the overseas mail then,” Kit’s mother said. “It’s so hard to be sure of your timing when you’re sending things care
of American Express. You must be just missing us every place we go. Well, tell me, how is everything? Are you studying hard?
Do you have nice friends?”

“Um, I—” Kit could not get an answer out. Instead she said, “Mom, how much longer are you going to stay over there? When are
you coming home?”

“The week before Christmas,” her mother said. “Don’t you remember the plan? We’ll coincide with your vacation.”

“But that’s months away!” The words burst from her in a strangled cry. “I can’t stay here that long, Mom, I just can’t! You
don’t understand!”

Madame Duret moved in her chair. Kit felt the intense black eyes boring into her, and she clutched the receiver more tightly
against her ear.

“Oh, honey!” There was mild exasperation in her mother’s voice. “Are you still upset with us for coming to Europe without
you? I thought you’d accepted the situation. You told me—”

“It’s not that, really! I swear, that has nothing to do with it. I want to tell you—please, you have to listen—”

There was so much to tell, all the things that she had poured out in her letters and assumed her mother knew, and now realized
that she did not know at all. But where could she start? The beginning seemed so long ago, and there was so much—Lynda and
her art, Sandy, the dreams, the music, the man in the hall, whom she was sure, really sure, she had not imagined, and yet
what other explanation could there be for his disappearance? And her mother was so far away, just a thin, small voice on the
other end of a transatlantic cable, with the costly minutes piling up.

But most of all there was Madame Duret, seated here beside her, listening to every word that she spoke. Those eyes—those impossible
eyes—rested upon her face, and she could not turn from them, could not focus her own gaze anywhere except into their depths.
They held her still, impaled, like a bug on two sharp pins.

“Mom,” she said, and she could not go on.

“I think that this conversation must be costing your mother a great deal of money, Kathryn.” Madame spoke quietly, but her
voice held a note of command. “Do you not think that you should give her your love and say good-bye?”

“Mom!” Kit made one final desperate effort. “I want to stay at Tracy’s. Can I, please? I’ve written her, and it will be all
right, I know it will. I could get the bus in Blackwood Village. Mr. Rosenblum could meet me and I could stay with them until
Christmas, until you and Dan get home.”

“Oh, Kit, really!” The lilting youthfulness was gone from her mother’s voice. In its place was a blend of disappointment,
concern and weariness. “You’ll be seeing Tracy at Christmastime. No matter what you say, it really isn’t very far away. Enjoy
your other friends now, the new ones you’ve made at Blackwood. In your one letter you mentioned a girl named Sandy. You seemed
to like her. Don’t you still?”

“Yes. Yes, sure, I like Sandy.”
What should I do?
Kit asked herself frantically.
What
can
I do?
She looked down into Madame Duret’s face, and no further words would come.

“Do write, honey,” her mother was saying. “And aim your letters a little further ahead. You have our itinerary. Allow a few extra days for them to reach us. Dan sends his love. He’s a fine man, Kit—a good, kind person. I realize it more each
day. I’m very lucky.”