Part 67 (1/2)
”No, it's not my affair,” she told him.
”It will be,” he said sharply.
”Of course,” she said in a high voice, ”I should never dream of living in the same house with her, but then,” she went on, and her tones loosened, there was an irritating kind of humour in them, ”I don't suppose I shall ever live there at all.”
She did not know why she spoke so; her wish to hurt him was hardly recognizable by herself, but when she saw him stung, she was delighted.
The colour rushed up to his eyes. ”What d'you mean by that? What d'you think you're going to do?”
She raised her eyebrows, and answered lightly, ”I'm sure I don't know.”
He put a heavy hand on her knee. ”But I do,” he said, and her mouth drooped and quivered. She knew she had laid herself open to an attack she could not repel.
”He'll get me this way,” she found herself almost whispering, and aloud she said, ”George, let's wait and see. Tell me some more about when you were little.”
Things went smoothly after that, and when she went to bed, she talked to Jane.
”We mustn't have any pauses,” she said. ”We can feel each other then. We must talk all the time, and, oh, Jane, I'm so fond of silence!”
That night a voice waked her from a dreamless sleep.
”Helen, are you there?”
”Yes. Do you want something?”
”I have been thinking.” Her tongue seemed too thick for her mouth. ”Is the dog on the landing?”
”Yes. He's always there. You haven't been afraid?”
”No. It's a big house for two women.”
Helen sat up and, putting her feet into her slippers, she opened the door. Jim was sleeping in the darkness: he woke, looked up and slept again. It was a quiet night and not a door or window shook.
”I didn't say I heard anything. Go back to bed.”
Helen obeyed, and she was falling softly into sleep when the voice, like a plucked wire, s.n.a.t.c.hed her back.
”Helen! I want to tell you something.”
”I'm listening.” She stared at the corner whence the voice was struggling, and gradually the bed and Mildred's body freed themselves from the gloom.
By a supreme effort, the next words were uttered without a blur and with a loudness that chased itself about the room.
”I am to blame.”
”To blame?” Helen questioned softly.
”It was my fault, not Edith's--not your mother's.”
”I don't know what you're talking about, Notya dear.”