Voices in a Haunted Room

“Oh, yes, she looks forward to seeing you. She likes to rest and meditate hi the early afternoon but as you come at three and go at five ... that’s as she likes it. She was always one for regularity. She likes life to go to a pattern.”

“Well, I shall come every afternoon as long as she wants me, and if I don’t, I expect my mother will.”

“Oh, I think she would rather it was you. She still broods on the past and often talks about your father. She was very much hi love with him, you know, and I think she has never quite forgiven your mother for marrying him. And she thinks of you as the daughter she has never had.”

“Then I’ll come.”

And I did. Each afternoon I rode over and I made sure that I left precisely at five.

Aunt Sophie talked often of Alberic.

She did believe that people sometimes-as she said...”came back” and “got into touch”

with those of whom they had been very fond; and if they had died a violent death they sometimes came back to haunt their murderers. Dolly Mather was usually with her when I arrived and sometimes she stayed awhile.

I think she offered a great deal of comfort to Sophie, who would see them as kindred spirits, both maimed in a way, both treated unfairly by fate, both having suffered the loss of a loved one.

They talked of Alberic and of Evie, and Sophie constantly said that she believed one day they would “come through” to her.

“And when they do,” she said, “Alberic will tell me the name of his murderer, and then I shall do my best to see that the wicked ones ... for perhaps it was more than one ... are brought to justice.”

I wondered what she would say if I told her that Alberic had been a spy, that it was men such as he who had helped to bring about the revolution which had resulted in so much misery for her own country.

She would never have believed me.

It was always dark when I left Enderby. The candles in Sophie’s room had to be lighted at four o’clock at this time of the year. I always thought the room took on a special quality in candlelight. It had always been a room of haunting memories for me; and on these occasions when Jeanne called up through the speaking tube-as she did now and then my heart used to race uncomfortably for I reminded myself that someone knew I had been here with Jonathan ... I had been lulled into a sense of security about that because no one had ever hinted to me that he ... or she ... was in the secret.

There was only that muffled voice coming over the tube, not recognizable as any one of my acquaintances. Even Jeanne’s voice with its distinctive accent sounded different through the tube.

Aunt Sophie was in one of her brooding moods.

She said that Dolly had been with her in the early part of the afternoon and she had felt very close to Alberic, and Dolly to her sister Evie. “They’ll break through one of these days,” said Aunt Sophie. “I am so sorry for Dolly.

She cared so much for her sister, and that grandmother of hers is very strange. She comes to me, poor child, and tells ‘ me her troubles.”

I said that it was comforting for them to be able to talk together, “Life is unfair to some of us, and to others ... everything comes. Take your mother, for instance.”

Poor Aunt Sophie! She was obsessed by my mother’s good fortune throughout life and compared it frequently with her own ill luck.

I was always rather relieved to get away.

As I came down to the hall, Jeanne appeared.

“I am glad I caught you,” she said. “I wanted you to look at some materials I have.

They are really rather lovely. Mademoiselle does love a pretty gown and I want to keep her interested in them. It’s a great help to her.”

“I’d like to see them,” I told her.

“I’ve got them down here. I won’t keep you long. I know you like to get away sharp.”

“Oh, I’ve plenty of time.”

The materials were pale pink and Aunt Sophie’s favourite lilac; and there were a deeper purple and red.

I said I thought the paler colours suited Aunt Sophie better than the deep ones.

“I fully agree,” she said. “And this softer material lends itself better to the hoods.

I want you to see some ribbons.”

I duly admired these and it must have been about fifteen minutes later when I left Jeanne.

I mounted my horse and started for home. I always took the same route, which meant going through a short bridle path where thick bushes grew on either side. This path was rarely used and as it was straight and narrow I always cantered through it. Suddenly my horse drew up sharply and I almost fell out of the saddle.

“What is it, Queenie?” I asked.

I peered into the darkness. At first I could see nothing, but the mare refused to move.

I dismounted. The bushes were tall and the path shaded; there was no moon and thick clouds obscured the stars.

Then I saw that a man was lying across the path.

I stared. Someone had tied a thin rope across the path about a foot from the ground.

It had been attached to the bushes and had obviously been put there as a trap.

I was dumbfounded. I heard a movement and then I saw the horse which was standing nearby.