White Stone Day (20 page)

silence has attenuated beyond endurance. 'Yes of course,' he says,
smiling, executing a little bow. 155 29 The Pith and Paradox The
events of the previous evening have awakened sentiments Whitty
thought he would never experience again. The memory of Mrs Plant
lingers like an imprint on his skin, a desperate tenderness which has
put a new tone and colour to his life – for the time being. If
only it would last. If only a moment could be stopped altogether when
one is certain that time has nothing better to offer. If only the
rest of the world would tactfully withdraw. Having banished himself
from the Eden of Mrs Plant's upstairs room, her bed and her whiskey,
Whitty must begin his own dark crossing in search of various truths –
regarding the Captain and his unfortunate niece; regarding his
brother and, by association, regarding himself. If he stands
acquitted of uranism, there remain other allegations to refute. As to
his intermittent association with Mrs Plant, doubts began to plague
him the moment he stepped onto the street this morning. After all,
what can compare with a drinking–place as a hothouse of
artificial sentiment? And who is better trained than a publican in
the production of warmth and laughter? What is he, really, to Mrs
Plant? Does their personal association, lacking the normal rituals of
courtship and marriage, bear any relation to normal life? Or does its
value reside as a work of mutual fiction, an alternative to life? On
the other hand, given the life he leads in her absence, such
questions are both idle and moot. Having taken leave of her warm
body, fragrant without the need of perfume, her eyes in a delicious
half–sleep, Whitty's first act is to head for the Pith and
Paradox, to redeem the dreadful envelope. At her post behind the bar,
Phoebe Owler meets his greeting with a quizzical tilt to her brow.
'Your mother's letter is spicier than I expected.' 'You saw it,
then?' Whitty feels his face redden. 'You said I should destroy it if
you failed to return. I thought I had better see what I was
destroying.' 'And what did you conclude?' asks Whitty, torn between
panic and relief. 156 THE PITH AND PARADOX 'It raised certain
questions in my mind.' 'I should be surprised if it did not.' 'You
are not a man with the taste for much younger women. At least that is
what you said to me.' 'It is the gentleman I am interested in. Have
you not heard the rumours?' 'The gentleman in the photograph
resembles you more than a little.' Whitty can never lie when Phoebe
looks at him in that way. 'He is my brother.' 'I think I understand,'
Phoebe replied, handing him the envelope. 'That will be 7 shillings,
please.' While attempting to hire a cab outside the Pith and Paradox,
Whitty reminds himself that the universe was designed so that one
must travel through darkness in order to reach the light; one must
assume the existence of light, without evidence to support it. Nor
can one be certain that the clarity of the light will compensate for
the darkness of the dark. Nestled in the privacy of a hackney coach,
he pulls the envelope from his pocket, removes the photograph, and
examines it, in the faint hope that it will prove to have been all a
mistake, that the male in the picture is not David but some unknown
roue from France. Not so. His own brother! Whitty slides the
photograph back into its envelope, joined by the picture of Eliza
which was given him by the Captain. He returns the envelope to his
coat pocket (he will wash it out with lye soap, when and if this
ordeal is finished). Eliza and David, Whitty cannot discover one fate
without unlocking the other. Eliza and his brother now form a single
narrative, beginning and ending with these photographs. For practical
purposes, it is as though two spectres have married in Limbo and sent
wedding pictures to the relatives. Such a dangerous emotion,
curiosity, when it leads one to unveil the dirty secrets of one so
close to oneself. The hackney shudders and dips over the uneven
pavement, to the London district known as Mesopotamia, which contains
the Whitty residence on Machpelah Square. At this location, the
Richard Whitty establishment grew, thrived, withered, then uprooted
itself and disappeared. Thereafter, the Whitty town–house fell
into an abyss, pending the outcome of a dispute over the disposition
of its owner's debts. A resolution remains as remote now as it was
five years ago, 157 WHITE STONE DAY when its principal subject sailed
for America, leaving his assets in a legal Gordian knot that has
confounded the Chancery ever since. In the years since, the residence
has remained idle, sealed–up, decomposing, a senile maiden
awaiting the return of her elderly prince. Whitty peers out the
window of the cab. Twilight has fallen already. It is a known fact
that, owing to an accumulation of plane trees and gloomy
architecture, darkness falls upon Mesopotamia more readily than in
other neighbourhoods. Or that may be Whitty's perception of it –
the dismal prospect of a visit home. He disembarks on cheerless
Machpelah Square, whose name denotes the biblical burial–place
of Sarah, as well as the Whitty family fortunes. In the houses along
the street, the blinds have been pulled down; the walkways are, as
always, deserted. As Whitty paces the empty square awaiting his
dreaded appointment with the past, he attempts without success to
avert his gaze from the sagging town–house on the opposite
corner, the embodiment of slow ruin. The stacks of the chimneys have
begun to look down, as though calculating how far they will have to
fall. Any windows which are not broken and boarded are the colour and
transparency of smoke. 'Good–day, Mr Whitty, sor. Your
arrivance is well timed.' The voice so close at hand gives Whitty a
start. Turning cautiously, he sees that Downy Dermot has insinuated
his elongated form into the crook of a Lombardy poplar, so thoroughly
as to simulate a branch of it himself. 'Dermot. Good–day to
you, sir, it was most generous of you to come.' 'It is a dooty, sor,
to assist a Captain's man in any way one can.' 'I await your
guidance. Have you examined the premises already?' 'One may or may
not have done so.' 'Dermot, though it is clearly not in your nature,
I beg you to speak plainly.' 'Please to excuse, Mr Whitty, but in a
profession where the mere possession o' the instruments is sufficient
to five years' transportation, one grows wary of too much plain
speaking.' 'An understandable position.' Whitty pauses to rephrase
his question. 'Might the premises yonder be in any way familiar to a
certain snakesman standing in the vicinity?' 'Indeed, sor, a crow has
been installed on the street for the day to that purpose.' 'A crow,
did you say?' 'I might have.' 158 THE PITH AND PARADOX 'And what is
the next stage in the enterprise?' 'A canary might arrive presently.'
'A canary?' 'Perhaps.' 'I emphasise, sir, that caution and discretion
are as essential on my part as they are to you. I am as much an
intruder as you are, and am open to criminal charges as well.' 'Ah,
Mr Whitty. Who knows what is an intrusion and what is not?' 'For a
start, I expect that there is a constable in the vicinity.' 'The
officer in question walks a twenty–minute beat, sor. At this
moment he is lighting his pipe on Oxford Street, at the far end of
his route.' 'Still, does it not seem imprudent before dark?' 'Nout
could be farther from the fack, sor. At this hour the wives and
servants are all a bustle, preparing for the master of the house. The
children be learning their lessons. At this time of day, nout is
minded to peer through the window at suspicious parties in the
street.' 'I defer to your professional judgement.' Abruptly the
snakesman sets out across the square with long, smooth strides and a
preoccupied expression, straight towards the house – just as a
nanny with a perambulator turns the corner onto Machpelah Street.
Struggling to keep up, Whitty grasps Dermot's arm. 'I advise caution,
sir, for I see someone approaching.' 'That is our canary,' replies
Dermot without breaking stride, and it occurs to Whitty that the
snakesman has deliberately set the pace so that they will encounter
the nanny at the front gate (its rails so rusted, one could peel the
metal like bark from a tree). The nanny, who has the florid, fleshy
countenance of a thousand other nannies, neither slows her pace nor
accords them so much as a glance. At the precise moment of her
passing, Dermot deftly reaches into the perambulator and extracts a
carpet–bag of some weight, simultaneously giving the gate a
sharp shove with his other hand. The two men are on the other side of
the closed gate in seconds. Having been left to itself for over half
a decade, the front garden has deteriorated into a state of primal
abandonment, a tangle of vegetation whose brambles coil and uncoil
like the feelers of insects. Yet Dermot glides through the bushes to
the front door as though the walkway still existed; when Whitty
attempts to follow, thorns seem to reach for him, picking apart his
clothing and raking his skin. I159 WHITE STONE DAY By the time Whitty
arrives at the front door, Dermot is at work on the bars of a
ground–floor window. Having circled two of the bars with a
piece of reinforced rope he inserts a jimmy and proceeds to twist, so
that the bars, already weakened by rust, are squeezed together,
widening the opening. After wrapping the jimmy in a piece of cloth
and replacing it and the rope in the carpet–bag, he produces a
glass–cutter's stone with which he extracts a piece of
window–pane. Reaching through the opening, he unlatches the
window. Turning sideways, he slips through the improbably narrow
opening and disappears. No more than a half–minute has elapsed.
Whitty waits on the front step, amid an inundation of memories –
of a time when the door was his to enter, and the house was a world
unto itself. The lock is released, the latch turned, and the front
door abruptly swings open, emitting a gust of air thick with mildew.
Standing in the entrance as though he were the householder and Whitty
come to call, Dermot seems strangely surprised to see him. He raises
his hands in a gesture of surrender, his eyes cast slightly above
Whitty's right shoulder. Blast. Whitty turns with a sigh of
resignation. No doubt it is the constable, having passed the house
ahead of schedule, as he feared. Seemingly not. A familiar, not
unpleasant odour infuses his brain as a rag is pressed over his mouth
and nose by a white–haired gentleman in dark glasses and a
military coat. Yet again he is transported into an enchanted land . .
. 160 30

Bissett
Grange, Oxfordshire Lush's nerves are worse than usual. And he
suffers from fatigue, having to endure night after sleepless night,
fraught with worry. And during the daytime, hour by hour, various
areas of his skin itch, as though taking turns, and in progressively
unreachable places. Now it is the middle of the night, and he writhes
between linen sheets that might as well be made of sandpaper, for all
the comfort they afford. In purely theoretical terms, of course, his
mind explores various imaginative means of dealing with this
unprecedented situation – absent the creative strictures of
conventional morality. Lush wonders: What is unique about the
position in which he finds himself? Not the danger of exposure –
always a given, to be carefully managed but never denied; nor is it
that the threat is of the female gender, for all females are
potential threats; nor is it that the female happens to be under the
age of majority. What makes this threat special is that it is a young
woman widely known in the county, and with established ties to the
Duke of Danbury, Whose absence will be noticed, and will have to be
explained. An accident in the woods? Possibly. Perhaps a drowning,
like the unfortunate mishap which felled David Whitty? How easy it is
to imagine a precocious child, with an impetuous nature, wandering
unaccompanied in the wood, only to become lost. Days later, after a
frantic search led by the Duke of Danbury (whose entire establishment
has been put to the task), their worst fears are confirmed, and the
body of the unfortunate child is discovered, having slipped while
attempting to cross the brook, fallen onto a rock, and drowned. A
believable narrative, sufficiently obvious for the local con–
stabulary, Lush thinks. But what is to be done about the younger one
– especially should it display the same gift for meddling, the
same cheekiness, the same animal cunning? Oh for half a century ago,
when village children disappeared willy–nilly, and it was
assumed to be the work of witches or gnomes! 161 WHITE STONE DAY
Tormented by an unreachable spot on his spine, Lush sits up in the
bed and scrubs his back against the headboard like a dog. Now he
settles back under the covers, closes his eyes, and endeavours to
count – not a line of sheep, but a procession of little girls,
tripping through the woods one by one, across the meadow, and over a
cliff . . . Being in an excited state thanks to their adventure of
this afternoon, Lydia is awake yet another night, staring out the
window at the moon, which has grown from a sliver to a crescent, like
the white part of a fingernail. 'Emma? Are you asleep?' 'No.' As with
Lydia, Emma's brain is boiling with the discoveries and mysteries of
the day. 'What did you see in the picture, Emma?' 'Do you mean the
picture of Eliza?' 'We don't know that it was Eliza.' 'Do you think
she looks at all like me?' 'Perhaps she does, but only a little bit.
But I didn't mean that photograph. I meant the other one.' 'It was
nothing but shadows and light. There was nothing to see.' Shadows and
light, thinks Emma, one in the shape of a loop, the other like the
ghost of a woman. What is it that transforms a muddled fog into
distressing and evil? Is it just her imagination? 'Is that all you
saw, Emma?' 'Yes.' 'I don't believe you.' 'Let's not talk about it
now. It would only keep you awake.' 162 31

Machpelah
Street He lies splayed out upon the worn Turkey carpet he crept upon
as a child. Even in this dim light he recognises the wainscoting of
the Whitty dining–room – the chandelier, the mantle, the
festoons of flowers carved in the wood panels, all rendered a ghastly
grey by fungus and dust. Just beyond his peripheral sight, Whitty
hears two voices in discussion. 'Did I not tell you that the chemical
is best? They do not struggle and kick like the mystic of Buckingham
Gate.' 'Had we used it on that one I should have more teeth in me
head than today.' 'Pish–posh, Mr Weeks, you are better off
without them and have nobody to blame but yourself. It was you who
insisted upon hanging the chap, when a bullet would serve as well.'
'It is not in me to fire on my own race, sir. I should feel like a
traitor. I am already bothered with the girl what was done for.' 'Yet
you do not hesitate to top an Englishman, nor pulverise him with your
fists.' 'Regimental discipline, sir, is the heart and soul of the
force.' 'Quite, Mr Weeks. Very good.' By straining his eyes in a
downward direction, Whitty discerns the insensible form of Downy
Dermot, wearing what appears to be a noose around his neck. 'Hazar,
jawan, Mr Robin. That one is awakening.' 'The chemical is not new to
him, it seems.' True, thinks Whitty, who is a walking history of
modern drug– taking. Cautiously he lifts his head to observe
his most recent attackers, and immediately faces the white–haired
soldier in dark glasses, at close range. 'Lie still, sir, and you
need not stain the carpet.' Whitty opens his mouth to argue, but is
prevented by a constriction: it seems that, like Dermot, he too wears
a noose about his throat. Thinks Whitty: What a ridiculous way to
die. 'He seems to be choking already, Mr Robin.' 'That is the whole
point is it not, Mr Weeks?' 163 32 Bissett Grange In a Wonderland
they lie, Dreaming as the days go by, Dreaming as the summers die.
The girls, their mother and their governess have set a tea–table
upon the clipped lawn in between the round room of the house and the
conservatory; by the time Boltbyn arrives, the tea–cosy is on
the pot and the tea is about to be served. Birdie makes welcoming
noises in an abstracted tone of voice and without meeting the vicar's
gaze. After listening in silence to the usual pleasantries between
Boltbyn and the girls, without taking tea herself, Birdie mentions a
need for fresh air, opens her parasol, and sets off for an afternoon
stroll. It is the first time Boltbyn has seen her take any sort of
exercise. He pretends to admire the cakes while she places the
children under the supervision of Miss Pouch. Lately he has been
conscious of a lack of sympathy between himself and the mother of his
angelic friends; whenever he visits the girls he feels he is
tolerated, like a distant, deeply uninteresting relative. This has
been the situation since that appalling dinner, when he was literally
overcome by a sense that something dreadful is happening, without the
faintest notion what it is, or to whom. Miss Pouch having settled
into the sermons of John Henry Newman, he turns his attention to the
girls (who have already put away a surprising number of cakes),
determined to make the best of what might be, for all he knows, their
last afternoon together. 'Very well now, ladies. Pay close attention,
for you are about to receive an extraordinary lesson in mathematics
and logic. The question is this: if six cats kill six rats in six
minutes, how many cats will be required to kill a hundred rats in
fifty minutes?' Emma is not listening, but is still looking in the
direction her mother took to the wood. Unusual to say the least,
thinks the vicar, for a woman to enter the wood unaccompanied while
her husband is seeing a dentist in London. 164 BISSETT GRANGE 'Miss
Emma, what is your initial response to the question?' Emma turns to
him, suppressing a yawn. 'Repeat it if you please, Mr Boltbyn.'
Boltbyn does so, and is rewarded with a shrug. So he turns to the
younger sister, who is blossoming into a charming young lady. 'Miss
Lydia? Do you have something to contribute?' 'It is simple enough, Mr
Boltbyn,' says Lydia – unlike her rude sister, she seems to
thrive on mathematical problems. 'At one cat per rat per minute, the
second group of cats is killing rats at double the rate. That would
require twice as many cats as there are rats.' 'Very good, Miss Lydia
– on the surface. But your assumption – that each cat
kills a rat by itself– ignores other possibilities. For
example, it might take all six cats to kill an especially large rat –
which they do in a minute, while the other rats await their turn.'
'Or,' says Lydia, counting on her fingers, 'it might require three
cats to kill a rat, which they do in two minutes.' 'Well done. Now
consider: if a cat can kill a rat in one minute, how many cats will
be needed to kill it in a thousandth of a second?' After a long
pause, Lydia replies: 'Sixty thousand.' 'Capital, Miss Lydia!' exults
the vicar, for she really is a clever little darling. 'But that is
absurd,' says Emma, rising to her feet. 'Surely it is plain that if
so many cats were to set upon a single rat, at least fifty thousand
would never see the rat at all.' 'I see you have lost patience with
us,' he says, cleaning his spectacles. 'I am going to look for Mother
and perhaps draw a picture.' Replies the vicar, somewhat stiffly:
'But with Miss Pouch to accompany you, surely.' 'Well, Miss Pouch?'
she says. 'Are you coming or not?' Torn between the prospect of an
arduous walk and her comfortable situation, Miss Pouch replies: 'I do
not see the harm in your following your mother. But you are to keep
to the main paths.' 'And especially avoid the woods and
grazing–fields, where mantraps and ha–has await the
unwary,' Boltbyn adds. 'You have given me that warning a hundred
times,' replies Emma, tossing her napkin upon the grass and taking up
her drawing–book. 'I am not a little girl, you know,' she says.
Boltbyn's cheeks flush as he watches her retreating back, then turns
to his remaining audience. 'Miss Lydia, since you have been so
patient (unlike certain others), would you like it if I were to take
165 WHITE STONE DAY your picture in the guise of a wood–nymph
and a goddess?' 'May I wear horns?' asks Lydia. 'Indeed, I have
brought horns – and a costume that will make for a charming
wood–nymph. And a halo for Miss Pouch.' 'Oh yes, Mr Boltbyn!'
Lydia claps her hands, grasps Boltbyn's arm and endeavours to pull
him to his feet. 'Let us do so at once – and I might give you a
kiss on the cheek!' 'Now, Lydia,' cautions the governess. 'You are
being presumptuous.' 'That is all right, Miss Pouch,' replies the
vicar. 'A kiss on the cheek is always welcome.' Emma wanders in the
general direction her mother seemed to take, without at all expecting
to find her. It is enough to escape the tedium of Mr Boltbyn's games
and puzzles – and, truth be told, his photography. (Of late,
she has become aware of changes in her person that alter the
significance of baring a shoulder as a beggar–girl, or showing
one's legs in the costume of a nymph, wading in a stream.) She might
be more amenable to taking pictures were the duke behind the camera
and not the vicar. Danbury speaks to her as a gentleman to a lady. In
fact, he once mentioned a vague possibility of photography –
with Father's permission, of course. By following the narrower path
at each fork, she finds herself in a delightfully wild and neglected
part of the estate, not unlike the Adderleigh Forest she used to
imagine, with the roots of ancient, knotted hardwoods clutching its
slopes and levels. For drawing, she settles on a picturesque
clearing, with wild flowers peeping out among the rocks, and a soft
sward growing in the shadows of russet, thorn and oak. In the lap of
this pleasant dell she finds a sun–warmed, flat–topped
rock, near a patch of wild strawberries amid the tall grass. Here she
can eat the delicious, pea–sized berries, while drawing some
thin birches beside a fragment of an ancient stone wall. As she basks
in the dappled sunlight, her sketch forgotten for the moment, she
becomes aware of approaching voices – of a man and a woman. She
would rather not be discovered by strangers, if only because it is so
much better to watch them; so she retreats further into the cave–like
shadow of the bushes. As the sounds come nearer she recognises her
mother's voice, but not the male whisper. Then she hears her mother
laugh – a rare sound in her experience. She peers beneath the
boughs just as the pair step into 166 BISSETT GRANGE the sunlight,
her mother with her parasol, and the Duke of Danbury, in tweeds and
boots and a floppy hat, carrying a thick blanket of the type used to
warm horses. They stop, regard one another, and laugh again. Never
before has Emma heard her mother laugh twice in such a short period.
What transpires from that point as she watches from her hiding–
place is confusing, but not so confusing as she would like it to be.
The duke spreads out the blanket as though for a picnic and the two
sit down together. After an inaudible exchange, he leans forward and
kisses her upon the mouth – a gesture she has never witnessed
between her mother and father. She assumed, from her acquaintance
with Mr Boltbyn, that the practice was restricted to the cheeks and
hands. Nevertheless, such kissing cannot be all that unusual or
uncomfortable, for Mother and the duke continue in this position for
so long that she begins to suspect their mouths to have become stuck
together. Now he seems to be nuzzling her throat and they lie down in
the long grass, as though resting. Shortly his head reappears,
hatless, kissing her bosom, while his hands loosen her bodice so that
he may kiss her further down. Now his hands unbutton the front of her
dress all the way to the waist, and his head disappears. After a
pause, her mother makes an unfamiliar sound, something between pain
and delight, and again they seal their lips together for a very long
time. She sees a blur of white stockings, garters, white thighs and
other bits of flesh, and a momentary glimpse of a patch of dark hair.
She hears a tearing of light cloth which must be her mother's
chemise; the sound continues until the stays stop the fabric from
tearing further. Emma has forgotten to breathe, torn between the urge
to run for her life, or to stand up for a better look. It is as if
they are dancing, but in a horizontal position. Both begin to moan
softly, but with increasing urgency. Now her mother begins to moan as
though from some deep ache – and yet something tells Emma that
her mother is not in pain, that what is being done is entirely
deliberate. Carefully she cranes her neck, in time to see her mother
cry out aloud with eyes shut tight. Now the duke draws down the veil
from her hair, the veil she brought to the dinner, and he covers her
face with the white muslin, and kisses Mother through the thin
fabric. After some urgent rustling, he makes a succession of sounds
so disturbing that it is all Emma can do not to run down and rescue
her mother – excepting that Mother does not protest. On the
contrary, she seems to co–operate 167 WHITE STONE DAY until,
after an extended shudder, they fall limply onto the blanket
together. They remain still. Emma, trembling with fear and excitement
reviews the events in her mind, this strange, dark story, sensing
that her mother is in some danger but that none of it can be
mentioned to anyone. Mother and Danbury reappear above the grass,
adjusting their clothing, cheeks flushed as though with fever. Mother
neatly folds the blanket, gives it to her companion, retrieves her
parasol, and together they walk through the tall grass the way they
came, while Emma hides in the bushes. They cannot be more than a yard
away when they pass; Danbury pauses to pick a wild strawberry, puts
it in her mouth, and Mother laughs a third time. Emma counts all the
way to five thousand before leaving her hiding– place.
Clutching her drawing–book and pencils, she walks to where the
long grass lies flattened, to search for clues as to what they were
doing. In the corner of her eye she catches sight of a crumpled wad
of paper, which must have fallen from someone's pocket. This she
picks up, and after smoothing it upon her knee, reads the elegant
script: Who is it that hath burst the door Unclosed the heart that
shut before And set her queen–like on its throne And made its
homage all her own My Birdie. She feels what she suspects to be a
flash of jealousy – of her own mother! The duke was to have
been her protector, her special friend, now that she has outgrown Mr
Boltbyn. Yet if what she just witnessed is a requirement for a
special friendship with a gentleman, perhaps she is better off the
way things are. She places the poem between the pages of her
drawing–book and decides to find her way back by a different
route, for if she were to overtake her mother and the duke she would
simply die of embarrassment and shame. So she picks her way along the
ruined stone fence, reasoning that it must lead somehow or other to
the main part of the estate; she lifts her legs high with each step,
not to ruin her hose on the brambles which cover the stones as though
to prevent intruders. At length she reaches a stile that straddles
the ruined wall and, crossing over, finds herself on a well–worn
path. Further along she is 168 BISSETT GRANGE surprised to discover a
tiny, ancient churchyard – but with no church in evidence, nor
even the foundation of one; just a rusted fence containing a strong,
spiked gate, ornamented with skulls made of stone, like severed heads
impaled by the iron spikes. In the late afternoon light they grimace
down at Emma as though to say, What a pretty girl! Off with her head
as well! She wants to flee this unwholesome spot at once, but first
she peers through the rails into the graveyard, where a sparrow,
perched upon a broken, lopsided tombstone, chirrups away as though it
were the most pleasant place in the world. The gravestones have
crumbled and the mounds have lost their shape from centuries of rain,
with many collapsed into little valleys – excepting a row of
more recent graves near the rear fence, whose overturned earth has
sprouted a thick layer of weed–cover. Indeed, one of the mounds
appears as though it were dug very recently – how peculiar that
none contains a marker of any kind! She glances at the skulls on the
opened gate. In the long light of late afternoon they seem to wink at
her in conspiratorial fashion, as though to say: If you knew who is
sleeping here, you would be surprised. They put her in mind of
haunted places and ghosts – although she does not believe in
ghosts, unlike the servant who took her for one. A ghost named Eliza?
An alarming sensation follows: that someone is watching. And it is
not the skulls. It is someone alive. Lush has spent the best part of
this afternoon at the window in the round room, smoking the duke's
cigars, and observing the elder daughter in action, as it imitated
the behaviour of a normal child. Naturally the fool Boltbyn, being a
counterfeit child himself, not once detected the undertone of