The whole house was full of the Chopin Grande Polonaise.
It raged there like a demon. Tortured out of all knowledge, the Grande
Polonaise screamed and writhed in its agony. It writhed through the
windows, seeking its natural attenuation in the open air. It writhed
through the shut house and was beaten back, pitilessly, by the roof
and walls. To let it loose thus was Alice's defiance of the house and
her revenge.
Mary and Gwenda heard it in the dining-room, and set their mouths
and braced themselves to bear it. The Vicar in his study behind the
dining-room heard it and scowled. Essy, the maid-servant, heard it,
she heard it worse than anybody, in her kitchen on the other side of
the wall. Now and then, when the Polonaise screamed louder, Mary drew
a hissing breath of pain through her locked teeth, and Gwenda grinned.
Not that to Gwenda there was anything funny in the writhing and
screaming of the Grande Polonaise. It was that she alone appreciated
its vindictive quality; she admired the completeness, the audacity of
Alice's revenge.
But Essy in her kitchen made no effort to stand up to the Grande
Polonaise. When it began she sat down and laid her arms on the kitchen
table, and her head, muffled in her apron, on her arms, and cried. She
couldn't have told you what the Polonaise was like or what it did to
her; all that she could have said was that it went through and
through her. She didn't know, Essy didn't, what had come over her; for
whatever noise Miss Alice made, she hadn't taken any notice, not at
first. It was in the last three weeks that the Polonaise had found her
out and had begun to go through and through her, till it was more than
she could bear. But Essy, crying into her apron, wouldn't have lifted
a finger to stop Miss Alice.
"Poor laass," Essy said to herself, "she looves to plaay. And Vicar,
he'll not hold out mooch longer. He'll put foot down fore she gets
trow."
Through the screaming of the Polonaise Essy listened for the opening
of the study door.