AFLOAT - The Lion's Share

Page 178 of 228

Accidentally pushing against the front door with an elbow in the deep obscurity, she discovered that it was not latched. This was quite contrary to the plan. She stepped into the house. The unforeseeing simpleton had actually come on the excursion without a box of matches! She felt her way, aided by the swift returning memories of childhood, to the foot of the stairs, and past the stairs into the kitchen, for in ancient days a candlestick with a box of matches in it had always been kept on the ledge of the small square window that gave light to the passage between the hall and the kitchen. Her father had been most severely particular about that candlestick (with matches) being-always ready on that ledge in case of his need. Ridiculous, of course, to expect a candlestick to be still there! Times change so. But she felt for it, and there it was, and the matches too! She lit the candle. The dim scene thus revealed seemed strange enough to her after the electricity of the Hotel du Danube and of the yacht. It made her want to cry....

She was one of those people who have room in their minds for all sorts of things at once. And thus she could simultaneously be worried to an extreme about Jane Foley, foolish and sad about her immensely distant childhood, and even regretful that she had admitted the fraudulence of the wedding-ring on her hand. On the last point she had a very strong sense of failure and disillusion. When she had first donned a widow's bonnet she had meant to have wondrous adventures and to hear marvellous conversations as a widow. And what had she done with her widowhood after all? Nothing. She could not but think that she ought to have kept it a little longer, on the chance....

Aguilar made a practice of sleeping in the kitchen; he considered that a house could only be well guarded at night from the ground floor. There was his bed, in the corner against the brush and besom cupboard, all made up. Its creaselessness, so characteristic of Aguilar, had not been disturbed. The sight of the narrow bed made Audrey think what a strange existence was the existence of Aguilar. ... Then, with a boldness that was half bluster, she went upstairs, and the creaking of the woodwork was affrighting.

"Jane! Jane, dear!" she called out, as she arrived at the second-storey landing. The sound of her voice was uncanny in the haunted stillness. All Audrey's infancy floated up the well of the stairs and wrapped itself round her and tightened her throat. She went along the passage to the door of the tank-room.

"Jane, Jane!"

No answer! The door was locked. She listened. She put her ear against the door in order to catch the faintest sound of life within. But she could only hear the crude, sharp ticking of the cheap clock which, as she knew, Aguilar had supplied to Jane Foley. The vision of Jane lying unconscious or dead obsessed her. Then she thrust it away and laughed at it. Assuredly Aguilar and Jane must have received some alarm as to a reappearance of the police; they must have fled while there had yet been time. Where could they have gone? Of course, through the garden and plantation and down to the sea-wall, whence Jane might steal to the yacht. Audrey turned back towards the stairs, and the vast intimidating emptiness of the gloomy house, lit by a single flickering candle, assaulted her. She had to fight it before she could descend. The garden door was latched, but not locked. Extinguishing the candle, she went forth. The gusty breeze from the estuary was now damp on her cheek with the presage of rain. She hurried, fumbling as it were, through the garden. When she achieved the hedge the spectacle of the yacht, gleaming from stem to stern with electricity, burst upon her; it shone like something desired and unattainable. Carefully she issued from the grounds by the little gate and crossed the intervening space to the dyke. A dark figure moved in front of her, and her heart violently jumped.

		Success plus Self-esteem equals Pretensions. William James

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