Down a Dark Hall (2 page)

“What’s the matter, honey?” her mother asked with concern. “It’s a quaint-looking place, but it’s really pretty wonderful.
You’ll get used to it. Before you know it, you’ll be as much at home here as you were in P.S. 37.”

“I’ll never be at home here!” Kit cried. “Can’t you feel it, Mom? There’s something about the place—something—” She couldn’t
find the right word, and so she fell silent as the house grew nearer and nearer and then was upon them.

Dan stopped the car and got out and came around to open the doors. “Here we are,” he said. “Hop out. We may as well check
in with Madame Duret, and I’ll come back out for the luggage.”

And then Kit knew the word for which she had been searching. The word was “evil.”

The woman who answered the door was
completely gray. Her hair was like gray straw, pulled back into a tight bun, and she had the sharp little eyes of a gray mouse.
She wore a gray dress, hemmed low, and covered by a starched white apron.

Her eyes flicked quickly from Kit to her mother and then to Dan. For a moment Kit had the impression that she was going to
close the door in their faces.

“I’m Mr. Rolland,” Dan said to block this possibility. “This is my wife and her daughter, Kathryn Gordy. Madame Duret is expecting
us.”

“This is Monday.” The gray woman spoke with a voice so heavily accented that it was difficult to comprehend the words. “Until
tomorrow, the school, it does not open.”

“We’re aware of that,” Dan said. “We made special arrangements for Kit to arrive a day early. Mrs. Rolland and I are leaving
the country tomorrow and we need to drive back to the East Coast tonight.”

“This is not the day,” the woman said again. “The classes, they do not begin yet.”

“Lucretia!” A stern voice spoke from the hallway beyond. “These people are expected.”

A moment later the maid had moved aside and Madame Duret herself stood framed in the doorway, smiling a greeting.

She hasn’t changed,
Kit thought, remembering when they had first seen her. That had been in May when Madame had come into the city to give Kit
and Tracy entrance examinations. She had seemed an imposing figure then, and now, against the setting of Blackwood, she was
even more so.

Madame Duret was a tall woman, five foot nine or ten, with olive coloring and a striking, high-boned face. Her height was
increased by a pile of rich, black hair which she wore high on her head like a crown, and the strength of her face was accentuated
by black brows and a sharp, straight nose. But her most striking feature was her eyes. They were dark and deep-set with a
gaze so intense that it could almost be felt physically.

“How nice it is to see you again.” Madame’s voice was low-pitched and gracious, with only the slightest suggestion of a French
accent. “You must forgive us. Life here has been so disorganized this week with all the preparations for our influx of young
people that I did not have the opportunity to mention to Lucretia that one of our girls would be coming early.”

“I hope we’re not inconveniencing you,” Mrs. Rolland said. “We leave for a cruise tomorrow. There was simply no way—”

“But of course! Of course! Please come in. Did you have any trouble finding us?”

“Not really,” Dan said. “We got directions from the village.”

They fell into step behind Madame Duret as she moved ahead of them through a hallway with a high, arched ceiling into a pleasantly
furnished room with a fireplace and a wide-screen TV.

“Please, sit down.” Madame gestured them to chairs. “What may I offer you? Coffee, perhaps, or wine? What about a glass of
sherry?”

“That would be great,” Dan said. “Ginny?”

“Lovely,” Kit’s mother said. “Thank you. Really, Madame Duret, I can’t get over this fantastic place. Was it actually once
a private home?”

“Indeed, it was,” Madame said. “Lucretia—” She addressed an aside to the little gray woman, who had appeared noiselessly in
the doorway as though in response to a silent summons, “please to bring three sherries and a Coke. You would like a soda,
Kathryn, would you not?”

“Yes, please,” Kit said timidly.

“This entire estate,” Madame continued, turning back to the Rollands, “was owned by a man named Brewer who died over ten years
ago. Since that time it has stood vacant. The heirs, distant cousins of some kind, live on the West Coast and placed it in
the hands of a realtor. No one has wanted to buy it, which is understandable; it is no normal one-family residence, as you
can see, and standing empty all that time it picked up something of an unusual reputation. Teenagers from the village used
to come up here on dates and they would go home with all sorts of weird stories about lights in the windows and bodiless creatures
floating through the garden.” She laughed, and the Rollands laughed with her.

“It sounds exciting,” Kit’s mother said. “I’m going to expect fantastic letters from my daughter telling us about the adventures
she has here.”

There was a break in the conversation as Lucretia came in with a tray. Kit took her glass, happy to have something to do with
her hands. The terrible feeling that had come upon her at her first glimpse of Blackwood had somewhat faded, but the shadow
of it still remained.

“How many students are there going to be?” she asked.

“That is never a certainty,” Madame Duret told her. “There are always first-day dropouts who get homesick at the thought of
leaving their parents. We’ll know the final count at Orientation tomorrow. Personally, I think that going away to school is
an educational experience that should be part of the life of every young woman.”

The conversation continued, and Kit sat, sipping her Coke, only half-listening.
Tomorrow,
she thought,
there will be other girls in this room.
Perhaps, with young voices ringing through the halls, laughing and chatting and watching the giant television, the atmosphere
at Blackwood would be different. Maybe, as Dan had suggested, there would be someone among the new arrivals who would be the
same kind of friend as Tracy, close and companionable and always ready to share a good time.

Dan glanced at his watch. “I hate to rush things, but we have a long drive ahead of us. I’d better go out and bring in Kit’s
suitcases.”

“Lucretia will show you where to bring them.” Madame Duret rose from her chair. “While you are getting the luggage, perhaps
Mrs. Rolland would enjoy a quick look at Blackwood.”

“I’d love it,” Kit’s mother told her. “This is a fascinating old mansion. Did you have to do a great deal of renovating?”

“Not as much as one might suppose,” Madame said, leading the way out into the hall. “The original building was well constructed.
The only actual rebuilding that had to be done was in the upstairs dormitory wing where there had once been a fire. The stone
structure withstood it well, but the wood paneling was burned away and the furniture had to be replaced. I tried as much as
I could to duplicate the style of the original pieces.”

As she led the way down the hall, she gestured to various doorways, some closed, some open. “The room we just left is the
living room or, as I prefer to call it, the parlor. This door to my right leads to my office and beyond that lies a suite
of rooms that I share with my son, Jules. There is a guest residence out behind which has been converted to apartments for
the other members of the faculty.

“Here is the dining room, and on the far side of that is the kitchen. These doors lead to classrooms.” She paused at one door,
opened it, and flicked on the light. A baby grand piano took up one whole corner of the room, while along the far wall there
stood an array of musical instruments. Music racks, comfortable chairs, and a large and strangely high-tech recording system
completed the furnishings.

“This, of course, is the music room,” Madame Duret said. “Are you musically inclined, Kathryn?”

“I had a year of piano,” Kit said, “back when I was eleven. I can’t say I was any good at it.”

“You just got impatient,” her mother said. “You didn’t want to take the time to practice. I hope that here at Blackwood you’ll
take advantage of the chance to get some musical training. It’s something that will give you pleasure all your life.”

“We devote much time and effort to the study of the arts,” Madame told them, turning off the light and drawing the door closed.
“If you had more time you would enjoy browsing through the library, which is very extensive. The paintings throughout the
house represent a hobby of mine, collecting little-known works of famous artists. But I know that what you are most interested
in seeing is where Kathryn herself will be living.”

The stairway was curved and at its head an immense mirror seemed to double the length of the upstairs hallway. At the hall’s
end was the stained-glass window that had been evident from the driveway, and the sun slanted through it, lighting the hallway
in rainbow hues.

A series of doors opened onto the hall from both sides. Madame Duret stopped in front of one of these, fumbled in her skirt
pocket for a key, and inserted it in the brass lock. She turned it, withdrew it, and handed the key to Kit.

“We believe in privacy at Blackwood,” she said. “Each student carries her own room key and is encouraged to keep her room
locked when she is not in it. And here, Kathryn, is where you will be making your nest.”

She pushed the door open, and Kit heard her mother catch her breath. She herself could not contain a small gasp of surprise,
for the room was far more elaborate than anything she could have imagined.

The largest piece of furniture was a bed of carved dark wood with a high canopy of rich red velvet. Beside it sat a small
table bearing an ornate lamp with a ruffled shade. Heavy gold draperies bordered a window, and against the opposite wall there
stood a walnut bureau, over which hung an oval mirror with a gilded frame. A Persian carpet covered the floor, and under the
window there stood a rolltop desk with a study lamp.

“If this is a dorm room,” Mrs. Rolland exclaimed, “it’s not the kind I ever dreamed of in school!”

“It’s beautiful,” Kit agreed, stunned in spite of herself. Tentatively she reached out and let her hand caress the bedspread.
“Is this real velvet?”

“It is, indeed,” Madame Duret told her. “We want Blackwood to be more than just a school for our students; we want it to be
an experience they will carry with them long after they have left its halls. We feel that beauty enriches the spirit and that
young people should learn to be at ease with lovely things.”

“But there’s just one bed.” The thought occurred to Kit suddenly. “Won’t I have a roommate?”

“Not at Blackwood,” Madame said. “All our girls have private rooms and baths. I think privacy makes for better study habits,
don’t you?”

“I guess so,” Kit said, recalling the plans she and Tracy had made to room together. It was true that they would probably
have done more talking than studying, but it would have been fun.

“Hello, there!” Dan’s voice called from the top of the stairs. “I’ve got a couple of bags here that feel as though they must
be stuffed with bricks. Where do you want them?”

“Down here, dear,” Kit’s mother called back. “Come and see Kit’s room. You won’t believe it!”

“Wow!” Dan appeared in the doorway, a suitcase in each hand. “This looks more like a palace than a school. You won’t be able
to toss your stuff all over the place here, Kit.”

“We trust our girls to take care of their rooms,” Madame Duret said easily. “And now, if you will excuse me, I must go down
and speak to our kitchen staff about dinner. We never dine late, Kathryn, because the girl who does the cooking lives in the
village and has to drive home every evening. Dinner will be served at six thirty in the dining room.”

“Okay,” Kit said. “Thank you.”

“Thank you, Madame Duret,” Kit’s mother said. “We’ll stop and say good-bye before we leave.”

They all stood quietly, listening to the headmistress’s quick, strong footsteps as she hurried off down the hall.

“Quite a woman,” Dan commented in a low voice. “Imagine what a job it must have been to turn this ancient place into a modern
school.”

“I’m certainly impressed.” Kit’s mother turned to her. “Honey—” And then suddenly she pulled her daughter to her, and Kit
could hear the note of pleading in her voice. “Kit, dear, you will be happy here, won’t you? I’d never enjoy a moment of our
trip if I thought you weren’t. We
can
make other arrangements, even if it means taking a different cruise later. Your happiness is the most important thing.”

At that moment, Kit felt her resentment leave her. She had won, and she could not take advantage of the winning. Putting her
arms around her mother, she gave her a warm hug.

“Of course, I’ll like it,” she said thickly. “You and Dan have a wonderful honeymoon. You deserve it, Mom, if anybody ever
did. I’m sorry I’ve been so annoying. I’ll be happy here—I promise.”

There was a question nagging at the back of her mind. But Kit let it slide away now and become forgotten. Anyway, it didn’t
really matter why her bedroom door at Blackwood had a lock on the outside—but not on the inside.