I turned my attention to the canvas and. now that the shock of seeing Gabriel and Friday lying dead was less acute, I noticed that the work had taken up only one side of the picture. The rest was blank.
She read my thoughts immediately, which was a reminder that her speculations—if speculations they were were those of a woman who could be astute.
” That’s for you,” she said; and in that moment she was like a seer from whom the future, of which the rest of us were utterly ignorant, was only separated by a semitransparent veil.
As I did not speak she came close to me and gripped my arm; I could feel her hot fingers burning through my sleeve.
” I can’t finish,” she said peevishly. ” I don’t know where to put you that’s why.” She turned the canvas round so that I could not see the picture and hugged it to herself. ” You don’t know. I don’t know.
But the monk knows. ” She sighed. ” Oh dear, we shall have to wait. Such a nuisance. I I can’t start another until I finish this one. “
She went to the cupboard,” and put the canvas away. Then she came back to peer into my face.
” You don’t look well,” she said. ” Come and sit down. You’ll be all right, won’t you? Poor Claire! She died, you know. Having Gabriel killed her, you might say.”
I was trying to shake off the effects of seeing that picture, and I said absently: ” But she had a weak heart. I’m strong and healthy.”
She put her head on one side and looked quizzically at me.
“Perhaps it’s why we’re friends …” she began.
” What is. Aunt Sarah?”
“We are. friends. I felt it from the first. As soon as you came I said,” I like Catherine. She understands Hie. ” Now I suppose they say that’s why …”
” Aunt Sarah, do tell me what you mean. Why should you and I understand each other better than other people in the house?”
” They always said I am in my second childhood.”
A wild fear came into my mind. ” And what do they say about me?”
She was silent for a while, then she said: “I’ve always liked the minstrels’ gallery.”
I felt impatient in my eagerness to discover what was going on in her muddled mind; then I saw that she was telling me and that the minstrels’ gallery was connected with her discovery.
” You were in the minstrels’ gallery,” I said quickly, ” and you overheard someone talking.”
She nodded, her eyes wide, and she glanced over her shoulder as though she expected to find someone behind her. ” You heard something about me?” She nodded; then shook her head.
“I don’t think we’re going to have many Christmas decorations this year. It’s all because of Gabriel. Perhaps there’ll be a bit of holly.”
I felt frustrated but I knew that I must not frighten her. She had heard something which she was afraid to repeat because she knew she should not, and if she thought I was trying to find out she would be on her guard against telling me. I had to wheedle it out of her in some way, because I was sure that it was imperative that I should know.
I forced myself to be calm and said: ” Never mind. Next Christmas”
“But who knows what’ll have happened to us by next Christmas … to me to you?”
” I may well be here. Aunt Sarah, and my baby with me. If it’s a boy they’ll want it brought up here, won’t they?”
“They might take him away from you. They might put you …”
I pretended not to have noticed that. I said: “I should not want to be separated from my child. Aunt Sarah. Nobody could do that.”
” They could … if the doctor said so.” I lifted the christening robe and pretended to examine it, but to my horror my hands had begun to shake and I was afraid she would notice this. ” Did the doctor say so?” I asked. ” Oh yes. He was telling Ruth. He thought it might be necessary … if you got worse … and it might be a good idea before the baby was born.”
” You were in the minstrels’ gallery.”
” They were in the hall. They didn’t see me.”
” Did the doctor say I was ill?”
” He said Mentally disturbed.” He said something about It being a common thing to have hallucinations . and to do strange things and then think other people did them. He said it was a form of persecution mania or something like that. “
” I see. And he said I had this?”
Her lips trembled. ” Oh. Catherine,” she whispered, ” I've liked your being her . B don’t want you to go away. I don’t want you to go to Worstwhistle.”
The words sounded like the tolling of a funeral bell, my own funeral.
If I were not very careful they would bury me alive.
I could no longer remain in that room. I said: “Aunt Sarah, I’m supposed to be resting. You will excuse me if I go now?”
I did not wait for her to answer. I stooped and kissed her cheek.
Then I walked sedately to the door and, when I had closed it, ran to my own room, shut the door and stood leaning against it. I felt like an animal who sees the bars of a cage closing about him. I had to escape before I was completely shut in. But how?
I very quickly made up my mind as to what I would do. I would go and see Dr. Smith and ask him what he meant by talking of me in such a way to Ruth. I might have to betray the’ fact-that Sarah had overheard them, but I should do my utmost to keep her out of this. Yet it was too important a matter to consider such a trifle.
They were saying, ” She is mad.” The words beat in my brain like the notes of a jungle drum. They were saying that I had hallucinations, that I had imagined I had seen a vision in my room; and then I had begun to do strange things-silly unreasoning things and imagined that someone else did them.
They had convinced Dr. Smith of this—and I had to prove to him that he and they were wrong.
I put on my blue cloak—the one which had been hung over the parapet—for it was the warmest of garments and the wind had turned very cold. But I was quite unaware of the weather as I made my way to the doctor’s house.
I knew where it was because we had dropped Damaris there on our way back from Knaresborough. I myself had never been there before. I supposed that at some time the Rockwells had visited the Smiths, and that in view of Mrs. Smith’s illness, such visits had not taken place while I was at the Revels.
The house was set in grounds of about an acre. It was a tall, narrow house and the Venetian blinds at the windows reminded me of Glen House.
There were fir trees in the front garden which had grown rather tall and straggly; they darkened the house considerably. There was a brass plate on the door announcing that this was the doctor’s house, and when I rang the bell the door was opened by a grey-haired maid in a very well starched cap and apron.
” Good afternoon,” I said. ” Is the doctor at home?”
” Please come in,” answered the maid. ” I’m afraid he is not at home at the moment. Perhaps I can give him a message.”
I thought that her face was like a mask, and remembered that I had thought the same of Damaris. But I was so over wrought that everything seemed strange on that afternoon. I felt I was not the same person who had awakened that morning. It was not that I believed I was anything but sane, but the evil seed had been sown in my mind, and I defy any woman to hear such an opinion of herself with equanimity.
The hall seemed dark; there was a plant on a table and beside it a brass tray in which several cards lay. There was a writing-pad and pencil on the table. The maid took this and said: ” Could I have your name, please?”