Bertie’s wife began to weep, loudly and helplessly.
“Oh, let me get out of this,” she cried; “why did we ever come? Bertie,
it was your fault. Oh, why didn’t you leave her alone? the wicked, mad
woman? Think of the noises in the night. The house haunted, and Alice
mad! For God’s sake let’s clear out.”
“She’s in league with the Devil,” said Emily in the black moustache.
They had all forgotten, by now, about the appearance they variously
presented, and all stared at each other fearfully, grotesque,
ridiculous, but unheeding.
“Christmas morning!” cried Bertie’s wife, and wept more bitterly than
before.
“Here, I’ve nothing to do with this—_I_ never turned you out,” said Fred
to Lydia, speaking for the first time.
“You haven’t given me your offertory yet,” said Lydia. “Now then,” she
said, “out with it! Bertie, you used to be a churchwarden at home; you
take round the plate.”
Bertie’s wife screamed when she saw a revolver in Lydia’s hand.
“Keep quiet, you women!” said Bertie, playing the male; “if she’s mad,
we must humour her. Where’s your money?”
They fumbled, the two men in their pockets, the two women in their bags,
not one of them daring to take their eyes off Lydia for an instant.
“Is that all you’ve got?” asked Lydia, when the plate presented by
Bertie was filled with silver, copper, and notes; “turn out the
linings.” They obeyed. “You may go to your rooms now, if you like,” she
added, “but don’t be late for dinner; we’ll have it at one. And mind you
come down as you are now. You’re no more disguised like that, let me
tell you, than you are with your every-day faces. There’s no such thing
as truth in you, so one disguise is no more of a disguise than any
other. Your shams are just as much shams as my shams. And that’s one of
the things you can learn while you’re here.”
They filed out of the room, past the tall figure of Lydia, who, like a
grim grenadier, watched them go, still perfectly grave, but with an
awful mockery in her eyes. She savoured to the full the absurdity of
their appearance. There was no detail of incongruity which escaped her
glance. When they had all got out of the room, and she had heard them
scurrying, frightened rabbits, up the stairs, she sat down again in her
chair and laughed and laughed. But it was not quite the wholesome laugh
of one who plays a successful practical joke; it was, rather, a cackle
of real malevolence, the malevolence that has waited and brooded and
been patient, that has dammed up its impulse for many years. She sat and
laughed at the head of her table, with the debris of the brown paper
parcels strewn beside every plate.