Latter End

Julia pushed the clothes right back and got out of bed. Her bare feet took her to the door. She stood, holding her breath to listen. But there wasn’t anything to hear. The sound had stopped. All at once it came to her that it might be a trick. Someone had played a trick upon Lois, and Lois had died… But that was Ma

With a sudden movement she turned the handle and opened the door, stepping back as she pulled it towards her. The landing outside was light-a low-powered bulb burned there all night. Coming from sleep and from the darkness of her room, it dazzled her. There was a white figure standing about a yard from the threshold, staring at her. The impression came and went before she could take her breath, and she saw that it wasn’t someone, but Mi

It went through Julia’s mind that it was dangerous to wake people who were walking in their sleep. You had to try and get them back to bed-one of those things that are nice and easy to say and abominably difficult to do. Of course she would have to try. You couldn’t have Mi

As if it had been a signal, Mi

“Mi

Something must have got through into her dream, for she stopped, there, at the foot of the stairs. Julia said it again.

“Come back to bed, Mi

There was no response. She just stood there, barefoot, in her nightgown, with her hair hanging loose. Julia came up close and put an arm round her.

“Min-do come back to bed.”

Whether it was the urgency in Julia’s voice that reached her, or whether it was that the impulse which had brought her so far was fading out, she turned and set a hesitating foot upon the bottom step. With Julia’s arm about her, she drew the other foot up and waited there as if she didn’t know what to do next. The arm urged her gently. She took another step, and so on step by step to the top of the stair. Sometimes there was a long pause when she stood so still she hardly seemed to breathe and Julia was afraid of using any force. Sometimes she mounted steadily.

When they were about halfway up she began to talk in a rapid whispered monotone. There were words, but they had no form. It was like listening to someone talking in another room. She wondered where Mi

At the top of the stair there was one of those long pauses.

The murmuring voice sank into inaudibility and ceased. Julia said “Min-darling-” and to her relief Mi

All at once Mi

Julia felt as if everything inside her had turned over. It wasn’t only the words. They were bad enough, but they seemed to come on the very breath of despair. She said them again, her tone failing under them as if they were too heavy to be borne. Then, as she drew two or three long sobbing breaths and groped for her pillow and lay down, Julia pulled the clothes over her with shaking hands. Her knees shook too. She stood there listening, and heard the sobbing breaths grow still. In less than a minute she could tell that Mi

In so far as Julia was capable of feeling relief it came to her. She turned from the bed and went towards the door. It was wide to the lighted landing. There was someone standing just outside. Julia came out into the light and saw that it was Miss Silver, in a dressing-gown of crimson wool trimmed round the neck and sleeves with handmade crochet. There were black felt slippers on her feet, her hair was arranged very neatly under a net, she looked dreadfully intelligent and alert. Julia had never felt so near the end of her courage. She did not know that her own wide, dark gaze stirred all the kindness of a benevolent heart. She did somehow receive some assurance from Miss Silver’s voice and ma

“If she is asleep now, I think it will be safe to leave her. I have never known of a case where a somnambulist has left his bed a second time. A trying experience for you, I am afraid, but there is no cause for alarm. Has she been accustomed to walk in her sleep?”

Julia put a hand against the jamb of the door. They both spoke very low. She said,

“I don’t think so-not since I can remember. I think she did a long time ago, when she was a girl. It has all been a great strain.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“Quite so. And now, my dear, I think you should go back to bed. You are so very thinly clad, and the nights are cold. I do not think you need be afraid that Miss Mercer will disturb us again.”

Julia went into her room and shut the door. It seemed a long time since she had left it. As she lay down and pulled the bedclothes over her she found that she was shivering from head to foot. She was cold, but it was not only the cold that made her shake. She was very much afraid.

CHAPTER 24

Life would be much easier if it could be arranged as in a play or a novel, where the curtain may be rung down or a chapter closed, and the action or the narrative resumed after a lapse of days, weeks, or even years. In real life there are, however, no such intervals. Whatever happened yesterday, you have to rise and dress, endure a family meal, and face whatever the hours provide. If Julia could have rung down a curtain before her interview with Mrs. Maniple, and rung it up again afterwards with what had been said between them relegated to the past, she would have confronted the daylight with a better heart. If it had to be done, she would do it. And if she had to do it, the sooner she got it over the better.

Nobody was disposed to linger over breakfast. The general gloom was definitely deepened by the arrival of the post. Jimmy looked down the table after opening the long envelope which bore his name and said in a dazed voice, “She has left me all that damned money.” After which he sat there staring at nothing, until quite suddenly he pushed back his chair and went out of the room.

The Chief Inspector and Sergeant Abbott arriving, first interviewed him in the study, where the party was joined by Miss Silver, and then, after he had gone unhappily away, remained there with her.

Julia cleared and washed up the breakfast things, sent Antony off to walk Jimmy round the garden, and then went through the kitchen feeling rather as if she was going to attend an execution.

She found Mrs. Maniple weighing out the ingredients for a pudding, with Polly in attendance. It must be a special one, because Ma