Guy opened the nursery door quietly. The long passage leading from his quarters to the rest of the house was very dark, and he had never been along it by himself. He had always clutched Marson’s hand tightly when she took him along to his mother’s room. Now he had to go alone, for, though he had told Marson that it was time for his visit, she had only turned her head from a whispered conversation with Jane, the under-nurse, and said:
‘’Ush, Master Guy. Your mother doesn’t want you tonight.’
That was nonsense, of course. His mother would be as disappointed as he was on the nights when she didn’t come and kiss him in bed. He tried to point this out to Marson, but she only waved her hand at him and went on talking to Jane.
His mother’s room was always full of soft light, with a glowing fire and a polar bear skin stretched out in front of it. Her dressing-table was an Arabian Nights’ store of enchanting things which he was allowed to admire but not to touch. Sitting on the white rug he could see, above the fire, his beautiful mother reflected in the round mirror, as she lay on her sofa smoking cigarettes, wearing bright pyjamas which made her look like a figure in a fairy tale. Sometimes he caught her eye in the glass, and, if she smiled then, he went to bed happy.
His visit in her rest hour had become a habit. Marson had brought him when he was a baby and a delightful new toy, and she had gone on bringing him ever since. At one time he used to tell his mother stories about the things he saw in the fire, but one night he looked up at the mirror and saw that she was reading, so he gave that up and would sit silently gazing, sometimes at the fire and sometimes at her in the mirror, making up his own stories, inspired by the warmth and glow of the room and her presence …
He shut the nursery door carefully. The passage was terribly dark, but he ran along it with his arms outstretched until he came with a thud against the baize door. It yielded, but only to a blacker darkness. There were no lights on the landing outside her room, and he stumbled across to the door and knocked.
Silence greeted him. The darkness was coiling round him like snakes, and terror seized him. With trembling hands he opened the door and went in. The great window, uncurtained, let in a cold grey light on the room that he had always seen bathed in warmth and colour. The grate was black; so were the corners of the room. The bed was faintly discernible but it was a horrible travesty of his mother’s bed. A confusion of dresses and hats lay like tortured bodies heaped upon the counterpane. To Guy this dreadful scene meant death; his mother, he was sure, was dead. And then he saw a white face in the round mirror, just where hers used to be.
It was his own. He groped his way out of the room, his body shaking with uncontrollable sobs. Down in the hall far below there was now a light, and he clambered down the wide stairs towards it. At the bottom he found Shaddock, the parlour maid, watching him.
‘Goodness gracious, Master Guy, you did give me a turn. I thought you was a ghost. Whatever’s Mrs Marson doing, letting you wander round the house, tonight of all nights too. Why, what is the matter?’ as Guy ran and hid his face in her skirts.
‘My mummy! She’s dead in her room. It’s all dark; I saw her face —’
‘What on earth are you talking about? Saw her face? Nonsense, child, your mother’s gone out. Do stop howling and leave go my apron. O Lord, I shall start screaming myself if you don’t be quiet.’
As she spoke, the latch-key turned in the lock of the front door.
‘Hush, hush, here’s master!’ She tried to compose herself and the child as the tall, solemn man shut the front door and advanced frowning.
‘What is all this noise?’ he asked coldly.
Guy flung himself at his feet.
‘Daddy, daddy, I’ve lost my mummy. She’s dead in her room. I saw her face. Oh, light the lights and bring her back!’
‘Get up, Guy, and control yourself. What is the meaning of all this, Shaddock?’
Shaddock bit her lip. ‘I found Master Guy down here, sir, and was just taking him back to the nursery when you came in.’
‘What was he doing down here?’
‘I think he was looking for madame —’
‘Well?’
‘Madame is not here. She went away in a taxi this afternoon. There is a note in the drawing-room. I think.’
‘Thank you, that will do.’
Shaddock moved away.
‘She isn’t dead, daddy? She will come back soon?’
The father stood frigidly looking down at his only child.
‘Don’t expect ever to see your mother again,’ he said, and Guy shrieked. At the sound Shaddock turned.
‘Take the child, Shaddock. Take him back to the nursery and don’t let me see him again tonight. Run away, Guy. It’s past your bed time.’
Guy was led up the wide stairs. Though he was generally afraid of Shaddock, he clung desperately to her cold hand. At the baize door she stopped; that was as far as she would take him, for even the events of today could not melt the reserve that existed between herself and Mrs Marson. So he would have to travel that dark passage alone again. Shaddock should not see that he was frightened.
‘There, are you all right now, Master Guy?’
‘Yes, thank you, Shaddock. Good-night.’
The baize door boomed. He was alone in the dark, and he would never see his mother again. With a cry he ran down the passage and battered against the nursery door.
Mrs Marson, whose conversation with Jane had flowed on in placid half-tones during his absence, which she had not noticed, opened the door sharply, and he fell into her arms.
‘You naughty little boy! Wherever have you been?’
‘I went to see my mummy, but I’ve lost her. Daddy says I’ll never see her again.’
Marson began putting him to bed with unusual zeal.
‘Will she come back?’ he asked, shivering in his pink pyjamas before the blazing fire.
‘P’raps not, but there! you’ll have your daddy to look after you.’
He threw himself on the floor.
‘I don’t know my daddy! I don’t know him!’