Mary woke up suddenly. It was her third night in the spare room at Five
Elms.
She had dreamed that she saw Aunt Charlotte standing at the foot of the
basement stairs, by the cat's cupboard where the kittens were born,
taking her clothes off and hiding them. She had seen that before. When
she was six years old. She didn't know whether she had been dreaming
about something that had really happened, or about a dream. Only, this
time, she saw Aunt Charlotte open her mouth and scream. The scream woke
her.
She remembered her mother and Aunt Bertha in the drawing-room, talking,
their faces together. That wasn't a dream.
There was a sound of feet overhead. Uncle Victor's room. A sound of a
door opening and shutting. And then a scream, muffled by the shut door.
Her heart checked; turned sickeningly. She hadn't dreamed that.
Uncle Victor shouted down the stair to Dan. She could hear Dan's feet in
the next room and his door opening.
The screaming began again: "I-ihh! I-ihh! I-ihh!" Up and up, tearing your
brain. Then: "Aah-a-o-oh!" Tearing your heart out. "Aa-h-a-o-oh!" and
"Ahh-ahh!" Short and sharp.
She threw off the bed-clothes, and went out to the foot of the stairs.
The cries had stopped. There was a sound of feet staggering and
shuffling. Somebody being carried.
Dan came back down the stair. His trousers were drawn up over his
night-shirt, the braces hanging. He was sucking the back of his hand and
spitting the blood out on to his sleeve.
"Dan--was that Aunt Charlotte?"
"Yes."
"Was it pain?"
"No." He was out of breath. She could see his night-shirt shake with the
beating of his heart.
"Have you hurt your hand?"
"No."
"Can I do anything?"
"No. Go back to bed. She's all right now."
She went back. Presently she heard him leave his room and go upstairs
again. The bolt of the front door squeaked; then the hinge of the gate.
Somebody going out. She fell asleep.
The sound of hoofs and wheels woke her. The room was light. She got up
and went to the open window. Dr. Draper's black brougham stood at the
gate.
The sun blazed, tree-high, on the flat mangold field across the road. The
green leaves had the cold glitter of wet, pointed metal. To the
north-east a dead smear of dawn. The brougham didn't look like itself,
standing still in that unearthly light. As if it were taking part in a
funeral, the funeral of some dreadful death. She put on her dressing-gown
and waited, looking out. She _had_ to look. Downstairs the hall clock
struck a half-hour.
The front door opened. Britton came out first. Then Aunt Charlotte,
between Uncle Victor and Dr. Draper. They were holding her up by her
arm-pits, half leading, half pushing her before them. Her feet made a
brushing noise on the flagstones.
They lifted her into the brougham and placed themselves one on each side
of her. Then Britton got in, and they drove off.
A string of white tulle lay on the garden path.