I really was astonished at myself. I might pretend to scorn the powers of the Dripping Well, but I had made my wish involuntarily and I fervently hoped it would come true.
Please let it not be Simon.
Why should I care whether it was Luke or Simon?
But I did care. It was then that I began to suspect the nature of my feelings for this man. I had no tenderness for him, but I found that I felt more alive in his company than I did in that of any other person.
I might be angry with him I so often was but being angry with him was more exciting than being pleasant with anyone else. I cherished his opinion of my good sense and I was happy because he admired good sense more than any other quality.
Each time I saw him my feelings towards him underwent a change, and I understood now that I was more and more under the spell of his personality.
It was since he had loomed so large in my life that I had begun to understand what my feelings for Gabriel had been. I knew mat I had loved Gabriel without being in love with him. I had married Gabriel because I had sensed a need in him for protection, and I had wanted to give it; it had seemed so reasonable to marry him when I could give him comfort and he could provide me with an escape from a home which was beginning to affect me more than ever with its melancholy. That was why I had found it difficult to remember exactly what he looked like; that was why, although I had lost him, I could still look forward to the future with hopeful expectation. Simon and the child had helped to do that for me.
It had been a cry from the heart when I had wished at the welclass="underline"
Please, not Simon.
I had now become aware of a change in the behaviour of everyone towards me. I intercepted exchanged glances; even Sir Matthew seemed what I can only call watchful.
I was to discover the meaning of this through Sarah, and the discovery was more alarming than anything which had gone before.
I went to her apartments one day and found her stitching at the christening robe.
” I’m glad you’ve come,” she greeted me. ” You used to be interested in my tapestry.”
“I still am.” I assured her.
“I think it’s lovely. What have you been doing lately?”
She looked at me archly. ” You would really like to see?”
” Of course.”
She giggled, put aside the christening robe, and standing up, took my hand. Then she paused and her face puckered.
“I’m keeping it a secret,” she whispered. Then she added:
” Until it’s finished.”
” Then I mustn’t pry. When will it be finished?”
I thought she was going to burst into tears as she said:
” How can I finish it when I don’t know! I thought you would help me.
You said he didn’t kill himself. You said . “
I waited tensely for her to go on but her mind had wandered. ” There was a tear in me christening robe,” she said quietly.
” Was there? But tell me about the tapestry.”
” I didn’t, want to show it to anyone until it was finished. It was Luke….”
” Luke?” I cried, my heart beating faster.
” Such a lovely baby. He cried when he was at the font, and he tore the robe. All that time it hasn’t been mended But why should it be, until there’s a new baby waiting for it?”
” You’ll mend it beautifully, I’m sure,” I told her, and she brightened.
” It’s you !” she murmured. ” I don’t know where to put you. That’s why …”
” You don’t know where to put me,” I repeated, puzzled.
” I’ve got Gabriel … and the dog. He was a dear little dog.
Friday! It was a queer sort of name. “
“Aunt Sarah.” I demanded, “what do you know about Friday?”
“Poor Friday ! Such a good little dog. Such a. faithful dog. I suppose that was why … Oh dear, I wonder if your baby will be good at the christening. But Rockwell babies are never good babies. I shall wash the robe myself.”
” What were you saying about Friday, Aunt Sarah? Please tell me.”
She looked at me with a certain concern. ” He was your dog,” she said.
” You should know. But I ^shan’t allow anyone to touch it. It’s very difficult to iron. It has to be gophered in places. I did it for Luke’s christening. I did it for Gabriel’s.”
“Aunt Sarah,” I said impulsively, “show me the tapestry you’re working on.”
A light of mischief came into her eyes. ” But it isn’t finished, and I didn’t want to show it to anyone … until it is.”
” Why not? I saw you working on one before you’d finished it.”
” That was different. Then I knew …”
“You knew?”
She nodded. ” I don’t know where to put you, you see.”
” But I’m here.”
She put her head on one side so that she looked like a bright-eyed bird.
“To-day … to-morrow … next week, perhaps. After that where will you be?”
I was determined to see the picture. ” Please,” I wheedled, ” do show me.”
She was delighted by my interest which she knew was genuine.
” Well, perhaps you,” she said. ” No one else.”
” I’ll not tell anyone,” I promised.
” All right.” She was like an eager child. ” Come on.”
She went to the cupboard and brought out a canvas, and held the picture close to her body so that I couldn’t see it.
” Do let me see,” I pleaded.
Then she reversed it, still holding it against her. Depicted on the canvas was the south facade of the house; and lying on the stones in front of it was Gabriel’s body. It was so vivid, so real, that I felt a sudden nausea as I looked at it. I stared, for there was something else. Lying beside Gabriel was my dog Friday, his little body stiff as it could only be in death. , It was horrible.
I must have given a startled gasp, for Sarah chuckled. My horror was the best compliment I could have given her.
S stammered: “It looks so … real.” “Oh, it’s real enough … in a way,” she said dreamily. ” i saw him lying there, and that was how he looked. I went down before they could take him away, and saw him.”
” Gabriel …” I heard myself murmur, for the sight of the tapestry had brought back so many tender memories, and I could picture him more clearly than I had since the first days of my bereavement.
” I said to myself,” Aunt Sarah continued, ” that must be my next picture … and it was.”
” And Friday?” I cried. ” You saw him … too?”
She seemed as though she were trying to remember.
” Did you. Aunt Sarah?” I persisted.
” He was a faithful dog,” she said. ” He died for his faithfulness
” Did you see him, dead … as you saw Gabriel?”
Again that puckered look came into her face. ” It’s there on the picture,” she said at length.
” But he’s lying there beside Gabriel. It wasn’t like that.”
“Wasn’t it?” she asked.
“They took him away, didn’t they?”
” Who took him away?”
She looked at me questioningly. ” Who did?” It was as though she were pleading with me to give her the answer.
“You know, don’t you. Aunt Sarah?”
” Oh yes, I know,” she answered blithely.
” Then please … please tell me. It’s very important.”
“But you know too.”
” How I wish I did! You must tell me. Aunt Sarah. You see, it would help me.”
” I can’t remember.”
” But you remember so much. You must remember some thing so important.”
Her face brightened.
“I know, Catherine. It was the monk.”
She looked so innocent that I knew she would have helped if she could.
I could not understand how much she had discovered. I was sure that she lived in two worlds that of reality and that of the imagination; and that the two became intermingled so that she could not be sure which was which. People in this house underrated her; they spoke their secrets before her, not understanding that she had a mind like a jackdaw, which seized on bright and glittering pieces of information and stored them away.