England -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction; London (England) -- Fiction; Upper class families -- England -- Fiction
For some time Bianca sat in Hilary's chair. Then, by the faint glimmer
coming through the half-open door, she began to wander round the room,
touching the walls, the books, the prints, all the familiar things among
which he had lived so many years....
In that dim continual journey she was like a disharmonic spirit
traversing the air above where its body lies.
The door creaked behind her. A voice said sharply:
“What are you doing in this house?”
Mr. Stone was standing beside the bust of Socrates. Bianca went up to
him.
“Father!”
Mr. Stone stared. “It is you! I thought it was a thief! Where is
Hilary?”
“Gone away.”
“Alone?”
Bianca bowed her head. “It is very late, Dad,” she whispered.
Mr. Stone's hand moved as though he would have stroked her.
“The human heart,” he murmured, “is the tomb of many feelings.”
Bianca put her arm round him.
“You must go to bed, Dad,” she said, trying to get him to the door, for
in her heart something seemed giving way.
Mr. Stone stumbled; the door swung to; the room was plunged in darkness.
A hand, cold as ice, brushed her cheek. With all her force she stiffed a
scream.
“I am here,” Mr. Stone said.
His hand, wandering downwards, touched her shoulder, and she seized it
with her own burning hand. Thus linked, they groped their way out into
the passage towards his room.
“Good-night, dear,” Bianca murmured.
By the light of his now open door Mr. Stone seemed to try and see her
face, but she would not show it him. Closing the door gently, she stole
upstairs.
Sitting down in her bedroom by the open window, it seemed to her that
the room was full of people--her nerves were so unstrung. It was as if
walls had not the power this night to exclude human presences. Moving,
or motionless, now distinct, then covered suddenly by the thick veil of
some material object, they circled round her quiet figure, lying back in
the chair with shut eyes. These disharmonic shadows flitting in the
room made a stir like the rubbing of dry straw or the hum of bees among
clover stalks. When she sat up they vanished, and the sounds became the
distant din of homing traffic; but the moment she closed her eyes, her
visitors again began to steal round her with that dry, mysterious hum.
She fell asleep presently, and woke with a start. There, in a glimmer of
pale light, stood the little model, as in the fatal picture Bianca had
painted of her. Her face was powder white, with shadows beneath the
eyes. Breath seemed coming through her parted lips, just touched
with colour. In her hat lay the tiny peacock's feather beside the two
purplish-pink roses. A scent came from her, too--but faint, as ever
was the scent of chicory flower. How long had she been standing there?
Bianca started to her feet, and as she rose the vision vanished.
She went towards the spot. There was nothing in that corner but
moonlight; the scent she had perceived was merely that of the trees
drifting in.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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