Lydia Crewe didn’t like being kept waiting. Even now she was not in the best of tempers. She was in her chair, sitting very bolt upright and tapping on the arm of it with bony fingers.
“I wished to ask you if you had spoken to Jenny.”
“Not yet, Aunt Lydia.”
“And why not?”
Rosamond came a little farther into the room.
“I didn’t want to upset her.”
“Why would she be upset? It’s high time all this spoiling and cockering came to an end! Do you imagine that Jenny can go through the world in cotton wool?”
“I thought it would be better for her to have a good night’s rest.”
Miss Crewe said sharply,
“If she would give herself the chance! You will remember to lock her in. Fortunately, there is no way in which she can get out of the windows. You were both very much annoyed when I had the bars put in. As I told you at the time, I do not approve of young girls sleeping on the ground floor without proper protection. I suppose you will now admit that I was right.”
“Aunt Lydia -”
“Well?”
“It-it would upset her dreadfully to be locked in.”
“Why should she know anything about it? She won’t unless she tries to go out, and if she does that she will deserve to be upset. You don’t really imagine that she can be allowed to run about the fields by night?”
“No, of course not.”
“Then you will do as I say! You can lock the door after she is asleep and open it before she wakes in the morning. It is all perfectly simple, and you will see that it is done. You can go and get my hot milk now, and then I don’t suppose I shall be wanting you again.”
By the time she had heated the milk and brought it up Miss Crewe was in her bedroom. She put a hand round the communicating door to take the cup and shut it again at once. There was to be no more talk. And this was the last time that Rosamond would do this errand and get no more than that harsh goodnight for thanks. The thought startled her. It didn’t seem as if the endless service could be ending here. She picked up the tray with its other two cups of milk and went along the passage to Jenny’s room.
When she came in, there was no Jenny-just a hump in the bed and a stifled giggle from under the eiderdown. Then, as she turned to set down the tray, back went the bedclothes and Jenny was up like a jack-in-the-box, her bright hair tossing.
“Say I’ve been quick! I have, haven’t I? And my things all neatly folded! ‘Virtue Rewarded, or the Piece of Chocolate’ is what I should call it if it was a story I was writing! Like those heavenly books that belonged to Aunt Lydia ’s mother when she was a Sweet Young Girl! Darling-can you imagine Aunt Lydia as a sweet young girl, or a nasty little one, or all wrapped up in long clothes like they used to with babies! And woollen veils over their faces because of the fresh air being so deadly! There was one in the photograph album Aunt Lucy brought to show me, and I don’t see how the baby could breathe at all! No wonder such a lot of them died!”
Jenny drank her hot milk, and then suddenly in the middle of her chatter she began to yawn and was pleased to allow herself to be tucked up and kissed good-night.
Rosamond went back to her own room and thought about locking the door. She hadn’t said she wouldn’t, and she hadn’t said she would. She had never done such a thing before, and she didn’t want to do it now. If Jenny woke in the dark and found that she couldn’t get out, it might do something dreadful to her. There was something about being locked in that could bring up all the prisons in the world and loose their dreams upon you. She made up her mind to leave the door alone. Now that Jenny was in bed, she could put some of their things together-not really pack them, but sort them out and get them ready to pack. She moved to and fro in the room. When there was no more to do, she undressed and lay down in her bed. She had no thought that she would sleep, but no sooner was her head upon the pillow than she had no more thought at all. All that had come and gone with her was lost in a formless mist.
CHAPTER 32
Jenny had absolutely no intention of going to sleep. Her mind was in an extremely quick and lively state. Ever since Rosamond had come in from the wood she had been quite sure that something was going on. It was very stupid not to tell her what it was. She could, of course, have got it out of Rosamond by being cut to the heart and allowing a few effective tears to trickle down the cheek, but on the whole she considered that she would get more amusement out of playing a guessing game and trying to catch Rosamond out. She might have had her back to the chest of drawers, but she was perfectly well aware that certain things had been carried away. Her thoughts, conditioned by the romantic novels of Gloria Gilmore, leapt to something very near the truth. They were going to elope with Craig Lester, and that would mean they wouldn’t have to live with Aunt Lydia any more. The prospect was far too dazzling for her to waste a single minute in going to sleep. Rosamond could have half an hour after she had stopped moving about next door, and then Jenny meant to see to her own treasures. She wasn’t going to leave her manuscripts to anyone else, or her books. The very things which you would die rather than leave behind, and she just wasn’t going to have them left.
She heard eleven strike, and then the quarter, and the half hour. Sometimes the church clock sounded quite loud, sometimes you couldn’t hear at it at all. It just depended on which way the wind was blowing. When there hadn’t been sounds from Rosamond’s room for quite a long time, she got up and put on her warm blue dressing gown. She had grown so much that it was nearly up to her knees, but it still met across the chest. She tied the cord round her waist and began to put all her manuscripts together in the top long drawer. There oughtn’t to have been room for them there, but there was, because Rosamond had taken such a lot of things out.
When she had got all the papers together she started on the right-hand drawer at the top. It had her pencils in it, and some peppermint creams which gave the whole drawer a lovely smell, a pair of gloves with a hole which she had forgotten to mend, a compass, a ruler, a fountain pen, a bottle of ink, a brown hair ribbon, a warm scarf, a Chinese box, and a lot of odds and ends of the kind which other people have a most unfair way of describing as rubbish. Jenny didn’t care what anyone said, everything in this drawer was precious and she was going to take it with her. The Chinese box was the most precious of all. There was a secret way of opening it. If you didn’t know the trick, it just stayed shut. She opened it now. There was the pearl brooch which her godmother had bestowed on her at her baptism, after which she departed to Australia and never took any more notice. There was a pin with a blue glass bird on it, and a string of beads made out of bright red seeds with a black spot at one end. There was a silver thimble that had belonged to her grandmother, and a coin with a peacock on it. There was a blue Venetian bead.
She didn’t want to look at it, but her eyes became fixed. She hadn’t forgotten about it, but she had locked it away. Now it was there in front of her with the gold and silver flakes catching the light. She put out a finger and touched it. There it was, quite solid and real. Why hadn’t she left it lying on the grass verge in Vicarage Lane? Why hadn’t she thrown it away in the fields, or on the road? Why had she brought it home? She had a dreadful feeling that none of these things could be escaped from. There was something about the bead that fascinated her. Slowly, reluctantly she picked it up and set it on the palm of her hand. As she turned to get the light upon it she saw that the door was open, and that Lydia Crewe stood on the threshold looking in.
There hadn’t been any sound at all. The door had been shut, and now it was open. There hadn’t been anyone there. Now there was Lydia Crewe, all tall and black, with a black scarf over her head and a cloak that came down to her feet. It was a quite dreadful moment, like something out of the worst kind of dream. Jenny stiffened herself against it. There are people who collapse when they are frightened, and there are people who get angry. Jenny was of the people who get angry. Under Miss Crewe’s cold stare her colour flamed and her eyes blazed. Words were jerked out of her.