CHAPTER XXVII

On Sunday morning, while Miles was driving down to Perry Green in search of Mrs Gossington, Kay was busy as usual with her housework. There really was plenty to do in the tall old house. If there had been much coming and going, she could not have coped with it single-handed, but from day’s end to day’s end nobody rang the front door bell except the postman. She had been a week in Varley Street, and even he had only rung three times. Twice he had left a circular addressed “Occupier”, and the other time he had brought the letter which Mr Harris had written to Miss Kay Moore. Neither Miss Rowland nor Nurse Long appeared to have any correspondence. This did not really strike Kay as very strange, because she had lived for years with Rhoda Moore who hardly ever received a letter. The post, to Kay, was associated with bills, circulars, or those occasional letters which used to send Aunt Rhoda to her room in grim-faced silence.

This morning Kay thought she would spend a little extra time on the drawing-room. As she worked, she pleased herself with a game of make-believe. Supposing this was her house, and the drawing-room her drawing-room, how would she furnish it? She had just begun with a plain Axminster carpet in a sort of camel-colour, when it occurred to her in the most vivid and exciting manner that if this was her house and her drawing-room, it would be Miles’ house and Miles’ drawing-room too, and she hadn’t the slightest idea whether Miles would like a plain camel-coloured carpet.

She sat back on her heels with her carpet-brush in her hand and her dustpan in front of her and earnestly considered this problem. Miles wouldn’t want a Brussels carpet with wreaths of flowers all over it like this one. That sort of carpet was definitely dead. Even she knew that. But suppose he liked the sort which Mrs Marston had had—jags of orange and scarlet and black like a thunder-storm gone crazy.… No, he wouldn’t. Eleanor Clayton’s drawing-room rose before her reassuringly. Miles couldn’t possibly want a thunder-and-lightning carpet after that.

By the time she had got into the L, she was trying to decide whether she would have camel-coloured curtains or not. The sort of green velvet ones that look like moss would be rather nice, and the chair-covers could have a pattern of vine-leaves and grapes, or—she remembered a linen with a drifty pattern of autumn leaves. She wasn’t sure about the autumn leaves. You might get tired of things that went on drifting.

She finished the floor and got up from her knees. There were two or three bits of furniture at this end of the room that really did need polishing—the piano, and the old-fashioned mirror with its carved and gilded frame. She wasn’t quite sure what to do about the gilding. It was dreadfully dirty, but furniture polish mightn’t be good for it. She thought she would try a little bit where it wouldn’t be noticed and see what happened. She didn’t like doing floors very much, but she really did love polishing things and leaving them bright and clean.

She put a little polish on her duster and came up close to the mirror. She had never seen one quite like it before, and she admired it very much, only she would have hung it between the windows in the front part of the room, not here in the narrow L where you couldn’t see it properly. It was too big to be where it was. It must be quite six foot high. She wondered where she could try her polish. Not on the big shell at the top. Perhaps one of these curly acanthus leaves.

And then all of a sudden she saw the crack. It gave her the sort of startled shock which comes from something quite unexpected, something which doesn’t seem possible. How could there be a crack all down one edge of the glass? She had done this room every day for a week, and if the crack had been there, she must have seen it, because she had dusted the glass every day. She stood with her duster in her hand and gazed at the crack. It ran the whole way down the right-hand edge beside the gilded frame. If you stood a little to the right of the mirror, you couldn’t see it at all. If you stood a little to the left, it looked as if the glass had started from the frame. And she had dusted it six days running, and there hadn’t been any crack.…

That sense of having been rather violently startled went on. She put out her hand—not the one with the duster in it, but her left hand—and touched the crack. Until she touched it she had a little hopeful feeling that it might be just a shadow pretending to be a crack, but when her fingers touched the hard, cold edge of the glass something that was the very opposite of hope came banging and thumping into her thoughts. It confused and scattered them, and set her heart knocking against her side.

All down the right-hand side of the mirror the glass lid not meet the frame by a quarter of an inch or more.

More—more—more—

She snatched her hand away and stared at the gap between the edge of the glass and the edge of the frame. It wasn’t a crack now, it was a gap. When her fingers had tightened on the glass, the glass had moved. Between the brightness of the gilding and the brightness of the mirror there was an inch-wide strip of darkness.

The glass had moved. Her fingers had contracted a tittle, and, quite easily and silently, the glass had moved. She went on staring at it with the vague fascinated feeling that at any moment it might move again.

It did not move.

After what seemed like a very long time Kay put out her hand and took hold of the edge of the glass. She hadn’t planned to do this, but she did it. She hadn’t even known that she was going to do it, or that she had done it, until she felt the edge of the glass against her palm. Her fingers slipped through the inch-wide gap and felt the space behind it. That was the first clear thought that came to her—there was a space behind the glass. It ought to have had a wooden back, but there wasn’t any back. There was only space.

She pulled suddenly upon the glass, thrusting at the edge with her palm, which lay across it, and this time the glass moved a foot or more, running easily, as a wheel runs in a groove. There was no weight or resistance, and there wasn’t the slightest sound. Her hand moved again, and the glass went right out of sight into the wall. Only the carved and gilded frame remained, with the scallop shell in high relief and the border of acanthus leaves and twining stems. The mirror wasn’t a mirror any longer, it was an open door. Kay was standing so close to it that a single step would take her over the lower edge of the frame and through this door.

It was a very frightening thing that there should be a door in the wall like that. Frightening, but terribly exciting—and romantic.

The sense of shock was passing. It was like being in a dream when things suddenly change and dissolve. It was like being in a fairy-tale and feeling that anything may happen at any moment.

She leaned forward and peered into the dark place on the other side of the wall. It was not very large, perhaps a little longer than the width of the mirror. It had a depth of about two and a half feet and a height of something over six feet.

Kay stepped over the frame with its gold acanthus leaves and looked curiously about her. The glass of the mirror ran into a slot in the wall. There was a little handle on this side with which you could pull it out again. She didn’t know how you would shut it from the drawing-room. She supposed you would have to put your hand inside and find the handle, and finish up by pushing the glass with your fingers. It mightn’t be easy. A tingling terror went over her. Suppose she couldn’t shut the glass from the drawing-room side. It was quite easy from this side, but suppose she couldn’t shut it from the drawing-room.…

She stood in the dark narrow cupboard, her hand on the knob which controlled the glass, and all at once she heard a sound which made her knees feel exactly as if they were made of melting wax. Someone was opening the door which led into the front part of the drawing-room. Without stopping to think she pulled on the knob she was holding, and easily, smoothly, and silently the glass slid back until it filled the frame.

Kay stood in the pitch dark and trembled like a leaf. All the things she had ever been afraid of in all her life rushed into her thought. Aunt Rhoda when she was angry. The eyes of the man who had looked out at her when she was a child playing in the garden, and his voice—the voice which had made her quake with terror when he had stood with Rhoda Moore at her bedroom door looking, looking, always looking at her. Why should she think about these things now? It was because she was frightened, and because these were the things which sprang up in her mind when she was frightened. These things which she remembered were not just frightening things. They were fear itself.

She stood there shaking, and heard Nurse Long’s voice calling her.

Nurse was going out. She wanted to tell Kay she was going out. That was what it would be. Always before she went out she would tell Kay that she was going, and she would say, “Miss Rowland won’t be wanting anything. Keep the house quiet and don’t disturb her on any account.” Kay knew the phrase by heart. But what would happen if Nurse Long couldn’t find her? Would she go on looking until she discovered that Kay wasn’t in the house at all? Or would she just take it for granted that she was busy downstairs and go out? She had done that on Wednesday when Kay was cleaning the silver.

Kay stood gripping the handle which she couldn’t see and saying in an agonized inward voice, “Please let her go. Oh, please, please please let her go.”

That lasted a long time. Kay didn’t know how long it lasted, but it was a long time. Her hand was stiff on the knob. Her whole body was stiff. She didn’t know how long it went on. Then all of a sudden she heard the front door shut, and the stiffness went out of her and left her all weak and relaxed.

Nurse Long had gone out. The front door made a thudding sound when it was shut, and Nurse Long always shut it with a bang. She had gone out, and she would be gone for an hour at the very least. Most probably she wouldn’t be back until one o’clock. She was supposed to have two hours off every day. Sometimes she took them in the morning, and sometimes in the after noon, and she always said not to disturb Miss Rowland on any account.

Well, all that Kay had to do now was to slide the glass back, step over the frame into the drawing-room, and then close the mirror door behind her. Nurse Long had gone. It was quite easy—it was quite safe.

It was dreadfully dull.

The weak, shaky feeling had passed and little waves of tingling excitement were running over her. The ditch water dullness of going back into the drawing-room and getting on with her dusting made absolutely no appeal She simply must find out where this door led to and why it was there. If she opened the glass into the drawing room, it would let in the light, but after she had lifted her hand to the knob she dropped it again. Suppose Nurse Long hadn’t really gone out. Suppose she was there in the drawing-room—waiting.… This was nonsense and Kay knew that it was nonsense, but all the same she didn’t feel like sliding that panel back. She turned right round as she stood, groped for the opposite wall, and began to feel upon it for something, anything, that would tell her what kind of wall it was.

Well, it wasn’t really a wall at all. It was wooden panelling. She felt up and down and on either side of her, and almost at once she found a little metal bolt, and beneath it an iron latch. The bolt was drawn back. She raised the latch and pulled. Nothing happened.

Doors don’t always open towards you. With her hand still on the latch she pushed, and the wall of darkness before her split in two. She was in a cupboard with a door that opened outwards. She saw a handsbreadth of carpet and wall, and at once pulled the door towards her again.

Suppose there was somebody there.… Her heart thumped uncomfortably. She put her ear to the crack and listened, but there was no sound at all. She opened the door an inch and listened again. There was still no sound. She pushed it six inches or so and looked out. What she saw was the first-floor landing of the next-door house. She was in a wooden cupboard which stood against the party wall, and she looked out at a landing which was exactly like the first-floor landing of No. 16. Two doors opened upon it, one facing her and the other facing the stairs. They would both lead into the drawing-room, because all the drawing-rooms in this sort of house were L-shaped and had two doors. The stairs came up to the landing from the hall with one short turn and went on with another to the bedroom floor above. She might have been looking into No. 16 if it had not been for the colour of the walls and the pattern of the stair carpet. The walls here were yellow, and so was all the paint, and the stair carpet was rather a bright brown with a black and orange pattern on it; whereas the walls of No. 16 were grey, and the carpet a plain grey hair-cord, rather worn.

Kay pushed the door a little farther and listened. There wasn’t a sound of any sort or kind. The silence wasn’t an ordinary silence. It seemed to belong to the house and to be a part of it. She found herself wondering how long it was since anyone had made a sound there. Dreadful to be the person who broke a silence like that.

It came to her with the most complete conviction that the house was empty, and in the strength of that conviction she opened the door quite wide and stepped out upon the landing. She had not made the least sound. The carpet was soft and thick under her feet.

Who lived in this house? And why was there a door through the wall into No. 16?

She took a step forward and turned. And then she saw the stain. The carpet was good, and thick, and new, but there was a stain upon it just where she had been standing outside the cupboard door. It wasn’t a very large stain. It was about the size of her hand, and it had been rubbed and sponged, but it showed. The bright brown was discoloured, and the orange of the pattern had gone dull. She wondered what had been spilled there, and thought what a pity it was.

She crossed the landing and looked down over the stairs. There were six steps and a little bit of passage, and then a sharp turn, exactly like No. 16. Only the walls and the stair carpet were different—and the stains. As she stood looking down, she could see three or four more of those odd dull stains. If Flossie Palmer had seen them, she would have thought with a shudder of the head, and the clawing desperate hand which she had seen for a moment framed in the gilt acanthus leaves which ought to have been framing a mirror. Flossie was quick, and she did not lack imagination. She might have guessed at a wounded man crawling painfully—step by difficult step—half fainting—with the blood running down and making those stains which would never quite come out. Kay only thought how careless someone had been, and what a pity it was about the new carpet.

The sense of the house being empty grew stronger and stronger. She began to feel excited and adventurous. If the house was empty, why shouldn’t she explore it? The Kay who had been brought up by Aunt Rhoda and always made to do exactly what she was told gave a sort of gasp and said, “You can’t!” But another Kay who had been getting the upper hand more and more ever since Aunt Rhoda died said in tones of the most dreadful scorn, “Yes, that’s you all over, you horrid little coward! People who are afraid never get anywhere or do anything. You might just as well be dead and have done with it.” And with that a bright flaming colour came into Kay’s cheeks and she ran upstairs without giving herself time to think, because she knew she would despise herself for ever if she didn’t. The only way to keep Aunt Rhoda’s Kay in her proper place was instantly to do the thing which she said you couldn’t possibly do.

She ran without stopping round the bend and up the remaining steps to the bedroom landing. Her feet made no sound, because the carpet was so very soft and thick. She arrived a little breathless, not because she had run upstairs, but because of the struggle with the Kay who was a coward. She had downed her, and that gave her a pleasant don’t-careish sort of feeling.

She stood still and looked about her. Not that she needed to look, because she knew already that there would be two doors, and the stairs going on up to the top floor. The only thing she hadn’t known about was the cupboard. It was a twin cupboard to the one below, and it stood against the party wall in exactly the same position. Kay stared at it, and all sorts of thoughts came into her mind. Was it a real cupboard, or had it just been put there to hide a secret door like the one on the floor below? And if a door was a secret door, why didn’t they keep that cupboard locked? There was an easy answer to that. They wanted to be able to come and go from either side.

Kay didn’t like this answer very much. It gave her a most horrid creepy feeling all down the back of her neck. They—who were They? She didn’t know. She didn’t want to know. It came to her very quick and sudden that it would be dreadfully dangerous to know. And sharp on the heels of that she knew that it was very dangerous to be here in this empty, silent house.

She turned and put her hand on the balustrade, and as she did so, the house was empty and silent no more. Someone was coming up the stairs.