The Blind Side

Chapter VIII

Lee Fenton opened her eyes with a sense of coming back from a very long way off. She had been so deeply asleep that just for a moment her mental focus was out and she did not know where she was. There was an open window on her left with the morning light streaming in, the light of another hot and airless day. There was a fireplace straight in front of her, and over the mantelpiece the enormously enlarged photograph of old Cousin Andrew Craddock, Cousin Lucy’s father.

With that it came back to her that she was in Lucy’s bed, in Lucy’s room, in Lucy’s flat. She became a little wider awake and pushed away the sheet, which had got tucked up under her chin. There was a most extraordinary weight upon her spirits-a horrid sense that something had happened, and that in about a half a minute she was going to remember what it was. She pulled herself up in bed and stretched. It wasn’t the Merville man. There had been some nasty moments, but she had got away and could afford to snap her fingers. It was not Miss Fenton’s habit to hang shuddering over an unpleasant might-have-been.

She sat up frowning. A dream-that was what it was. She had had a perfect beast of a dream, and some of the nightmare feeling was still hanging around. She couldn’t remember the dream, but it must have been a particularly bad one for her to feel like this. She threw the sheet right off her, swung her legs over the edge of the bed, and stayed there staring, with a hand on either side of her, pressing down hard upon the mattress and the old linen sheet which covered it. The hem of her pale pink nightgown was stained a handsbreadth deep with blood… and her right foot too.

Just for a moment the black curtain which hid her dream trembled and grew thin. From behind it came somebody’s voice crying out in a frightened way.

The curtain thickened and darkened again. She was looking at the blood on the hem of her nightgown, and at her blood-stained foot. All at once she jumped up. The nightgown fell round her to her feet. The stain ran right across the front of the hem, but broader on the right-hand side, as if she had stepped on it with that stained right foot.

She made a little sound of disgust and ran out of the room and across the hall to the bathroom. She washed her foot, and threw the nightdress into cold water to soak.

It was when she was coming back that she saw the blurred print of her foot on the threshold of the room where she had slept. She found her dressing gown and put it on, and then went back to switch on the hall light. The prints ran all across the hall from the front door to the threshold of Cousin Lucy’s room. When she stooped down and looked closely she could trace them across the Turkey carpet to the bed.

She stood by the front door for a long time before she opened it. There were the prints again, running straight from the door of No. 8 to the door of No. 7-straight from Ross Craddock’s flat to the one where she had slept-and dreamed a horrible dream.

She went back into the flat, took a pail of water and a swab, and washed the prints away, first the ones on the landing, and then, very carefully, the ones inside the flat. She poured the water away, and rinsed the bucket, and washed the swab quite clean before hanging it up to dry. The sheets were stained. She wondered what she should do about them. You can’t wash sheets in a flat. At least, you can wash them, but you can’t get them dried and ironed-not in time. In time for what? Rush was an early riser. If he came stumping up the stairs… Well, let him come-she had washed the landing clean. But behind the door of No. 8-behind Ross Craddock’s door-She cut her thoughts short. The door was shut, the door was locked. There was nothing to do about it. Get on with the things which have to be done here.

She took the sheets into the bathroom and sponged out all the stains. She hung them over a couple of chairs by the open window to dry. They wouldn’t take long on such a hot morning. Whilst they were drying she had a bath and dressed herself.

All this time she hadn’t let herself think. When there wasn’t anything more to do she found that her knees were shaking. She sat down on the edge of the bed, and all the things which she had been trying not to think about came rushing into her mind. Something dreadful had happened. It would come back to her out of that dream which she couldn’t remember. She had wandered in a horror of darkness, and in that darkness something dreadful had happened. She did not know what it was. The black curtain hid it, but presently she would know.

The thought terrified her. She tried to think how much longer that shut door of No. 8 would remain shut. Ross employed a man to valet him and keep his flat. He came in by the day. She began to wonder how soon he would come. Not before seven, she thought. She supposed he would have a key. Well, then, he would open the door and go in… She got no farther than that. Her mind felt numb and blank.

She went into the kitchen and looked at the clock, an old eight-day wall-clock with a heavy tick. You could see it the moment you opened the door. The short hand stood at five, and the long was very near to the half hour. But she remembered that it was fast, so it was really only five o’clock. Cousin Lucy was always talking about having it regulated, but the clock had been half an hour fast for at least ten years, and would probably go on being fast to the end.

When the sheets were dry she put them back on the bed, tumbling and crumpling them so that the washed places should not show. It was now about a quarter to six. She opened the flat door and looked out. Rush was moving down below. She could hear him sweeping the hall. She ought to put a note out for the milkman. It was extraordinarily stabilizing to think about things like the milkman coming, and having to go round to the shops for groceries. She tried hard to keep her mind on groceries and the milkman.

It was no use, she couldn’t do it. Her eyes went to that shut door, and her thoughts went too. She couldn’t take her eyes away, and she couldn’t stop her thoughts. There is a dreadful sort of nightmare in which you can’t run away and a pursuing something is coming nearer, nearer, nearer. But this was worse, because she couldn’t even stand still. The thing behind that shut door was drawing her-her eyes, her shuddering thoughts. With a frantic effort she dragged them away and ran across the landing to the door of No. 9. Peter-she must get to Peter-then perhaps she would wake up and find it was all a terrifying dream. The quarrel on which she had dwelt with so much satisfaction last night had dwindled to a speck. Peter was Peter, and if she could get to him, everything would be all right.

She rang the bell, and waited with an agonized fear lest he should be away. Her finger went again to the bell, as if its persistent ringing must reach him wherever he was and call him back. But when the door opened and she saw him she was suddenly calm. She said, “I want to come in,” and stepped past him into the hall.

If it had been anyone but Lee, the door would not have been opened widely enough to let the visitor in. But Lee-Lee who was on her way to South America with a damned dago… No, thank God, she wasn’t-she was here.

Peter opened the door so that there should be no mistake about it, and Lee was inside and the door shut again. He said, “Lee!,” and she said, “Peter!” and he put his arms round her and said, “Darling!” And what Lee would have said to that he wasn’t to know, because at that moment the bedroom door opened and Mavis Grey came out. She was wearing the late Miss Mary Craddock’s best thin summer dress, a dark grey silk with a pattern on it of mauve forget-me-nots and black leaves, and at any other time her appearance in this incongruous garment with its shapeless bodice and its long, full skirt, would certainly have made Lee and Peter laugh. At the moment their reactions were of a different nature.

Peter said “Damn!” very heartily, and Lee released herself with a jerk. This was natural enough. It was Mavis whose behaviour was surprising. She stared at Lee, and all the colour went out of her face. Left high and dry, the brightly painted lips were in abrupt and shocking contrast with its pallor. She gave a faint sobbing cry and stammered out words which made no sense.

“You-I thought-oh!”

Lee had turned very nearly as pale. She went back until she came to the wall, and leaned there. Mavis put out a groping hand and fell.