Florence and Giles

by John Harding

  But what to do? Ay, that was the question. I bethought me hour after hour with little to show for my effort. How does one battle a ghost? You cannot simply drown her, for Miss Whitaker had already shown that water cannot hold a dead spirit. And every day while I Hamleted about, paralysed by my fears, I had to watch Giles more and more insinuated into her arms. Ever since the trip to the dentist and the incident with the mirror he had waried of me, and any expression of hostility from me toward the governess drew an equal hostitlity from him to me; it was as if the boy did not want to be saved.

  But do something I must. I thought of Hadleigh’s inquiries in New York; he would not take what I said at face value, that was not the plodding policeman’s way, which sees but one key to the unlocking of any case: information. This began to make sense to me, for to defeat your enemy, first you must know her. If I was to stop Miss Taylor, then I needed to find out exactly what she intentioned.

  Well, having made this leap, there was but one place such evidence about our governess might be, and that was in her room. But how was I to access it? I could not simply pretend to be librarying when she and Giles were in the schoolroom and sneak in there, for I well knew from the Whitaker days, when I had had occasional peeps through the open door from Giles’s room, that there was a large mirror on the governess’s dressing table, so that the moment I entered I would be found out. Searching the room impossibled while the mirror remained.

  I puzzled me over this for some days. I tried to devise plans to remove the mirror. I considered asking Giles to fake some accident and break it, which once he would have done, no questions asked, just for the sheer hell of it, but I knew such was no longer the case. Besides, with the mirror broken Miss Taylor would be unable to complete her toilette and so, logically, would simply replace it straightway. No, breaking it would not do.

  At last I hit upon the possibility of covering it with a cloth. I could then about my business without her seeing anything of it at all. Except that even if I were unobserved by her from the mirror in the act of covering it, a thing impossible to contrive in itself, she would nevertheless know from the sudden obscuring of her view of the room that it had been covered and that there could be but one culprit, namely me.

  Unless…unless it were done at night! If I entered her room when it was dark, and put a black cloth over the mirror I could then light a candle in order that I might see to search her belongings and when my task was completed, blow out the candle and remove the cover. The image in the mirror would observe only one thing, that the room appeared to be in darkness, and would not know the difference between night and my cloth.

  No sooner had this idea proposed itself to me than its shortcoming apparented too. It would require Miss Taylor to absent the room at some point during the night and for long enough for me to do what I had to. With most people that would impossible, of course, for they rarely leave their rooms once they have retired for the night. But Miss Taylor did leave her room after dark! And so far as I knew, every night. For whenever I had restlessed or awoken in the night and gone to Giles’s room, there she was, watching him, crooning to him in her monstrous way.

  So sickened by these visits of hers to my brother’s room had I been that on each occasion I had had no wish to linger; fear, too, of detection, of those cruel snake eyes looking up and seeing me, or her scenting me, drove me fast away. The upshot of my squeamishness and cowardice was I no-ideaed how long these visits of hers to Giles lasted. I suspected they were lengthy. Her demeanour on each occasion was of one almost in a trance; so enchanted did she seem to be with her prey, so distracted from all else, it unlikelied she would aware a slight noise perhaps from the adjoining room. Of course, if this assumption of mine was wrong, and her visits were brief, then I would have no time for a proper search of her bedroom and indeed would probably be caught in the act.

  The sensible thing, I knew, would be to watch her for a night or two to learn the duration of her visits to my brother. But this I reluctanted; first, because every time I watched her there was the chance I would be caught, which would put her on her guard and scupper my plan of searching her room altogether; second, I had no way of knowing how many nights I had left before she put her plan into action. What if tonight I simply watched her and tomorrow she ran off with Giles?

  There was nothing else for it. I had to move tonight. I carefulled preparations. The part of the corridor outside our bedrooms was unmirrored, so after Miss Taylor had sent me off to get ready for bed, while she was busy bedtime storying Giles, I practised walking the route from my bedroom to hers. I did it first with a candle and my eyes open, stepping it out so I would be able to do it by night. At one point when I put down my foot there was a groan from the floorboard beneath and I noted its position so that I would be able to step over it in the dark. I recorded the position of a couple of pictures on the walls so as not to accidentally brush against them in case it noised. Finally, when I had the route fixed in my mind, I blew out my candle and did it again with my eyes closed and then again twice more, until satisfied that I could navigate my way from my room to the governess’s as silently as…well, as silently as a ghost.

  Then I went to my room and outed from my closet an old black cloak. My plan was to over my white nightdress it to invisible me in the dark corridor, in case anyone should happen to be there, though who that someone might be other than Miss Taylor I could not have told you. Once in her room I would off the cloak, throw it over the mirror, light my candle and begin my search. When I had finished, I would extinguish the candle, retrieve the cloak, put it back on and slip from the room, the cloak thus having served two purposes. I thought this was a plan that would do very well and smugged myself for it as a way of concealing from myself my own gnawing doubts.

  I slipped on the cloak and climbed into bed, pulling the covers right up over me so that if Miss Taylor happened to open the door to goodnight me (though really to spy on me) she would not see my strange attire. I had precautioned of blowing out my nightlight in case I fell asleep and disturbed the covers revealing my black cloak. If Miss Taylor looked in she would only have the light of her candle, which, from the doorway, I figured would be sufficient to show me seemingly asleep in bed but not to reveal the cloak.

  Half an hour later I heard the door handle creak and sensed her standing in the doorway, watching me. I made my breathing heavy, letting out a faint half-whistle half-snore through my nostrils, and a second or two later heard the door gently close.

  I need not have feared dropping off to sleep; nothing more unlikelied. I lay there, eyes barely above the top of the blankets, fearfulling the task ahead. I knew I had a long wait until my enemy made her way to my brother’s room. From somewhere in the house I could hear a clock tick-tocking and tinkling at the quarter hours. Outside, an owl hooted and I could not help thinking that this melancholy sound was heard in all the best ghost stories and that I myself was in one now.

  At last I heard a faint noise from the other side of the schoolroom, which I guessed was Miss Taylor entering my brother’s room, and I knew it was time to make my move. I threw off the bedcovers and slid my feet to the floor. I stood up and felt for my candle and matches, and slipped them into the pocket of my cloak. The room was utterly black, but I knew my route to the door. Once there I put my ear to it and held my breath, listening for any noise of movement without; once again the owl hooted, but all else quieted, save for the old house creaking and groaning as it was always wont to do as it settled itself down before retiring for the night. I turned the door handle, silently cursing the noise it made, normally unnoticed but now seeming like an alarm. I opened the door a crack and slipped through it, sliding my bare feet over the floor, which made me inappropriately think of Theo, now far away, an ocean between us, and of all the good times we had had on the ice. Skating the wooden floor like this risked splinters, but I judged that was better than any sound of a footstep, although I carefulled still to count each step. My heart upped into my mouth. I awared of a co
ld sweat upon my brow, my breath sounded to me so like thunder I wondered it didn’t wake the whole house, and my spine shivered with ice. I so feared that I quite forgot to count and the first remembrance I had of the noisy floorboard was when I set my foot upon it and it let out a louder-than-before groan, as if reproaching me for having forgot. I stood still and held my breath, waiting, and sure enough I heard a sound. Only it wasn’t in response to my clumsiness but seemed the faint whisper of a distant wind that then turned into the soft crooning I had heard that first time I caught our governess at her nocturnal tricks. So far, so good; she was with Giles. I alonged the corridor, past the door to my brother’s room and reached Miss Taylor’s. Of course, I could not quite certain where she was. I could not even sure that the connecting door between her room and my brother’s was not wide open, except that my memory of it was that it had not been either time I had observed her before.

  I felt the cold brass of her door handle in my hand and prayed it would not protest too noisily when turned. I gave it a slow and careful twist and there was no sound. I deep-breathed and pushed open the door.

  The room was pitch-black save for a faint glow under the connecting door to my brother’s room. In an eyeblink I had insided and gentled the door shut behind me; should she for any reason – not that I could think of one, but I wasn’t taking any chances – venture out into the corridor from Giles’s room, I did not want her spotting the door to her own room open. I was immediately problemed by something I had given no thought to in my planning: the room was so dark I could see nothing at all. Of course, this was exactly what I would have wished, for it meant that neither could the mirror see me. But I was not especially familiar with the room. I had not seen inside it since the Whitaker days. Although I could reasonably certain that Miss Taylor would have left the furniture – the bed, the dressing table, a closet, an armchair and a couple of smaller chairs, a nightstand and a small occasional table – where it had been during her predecessor’s time, I had but a hazy memory of the position of everything then. I had had no chance to step out distances and I had no way of knowing if Miss Taylor had left anything else on the floor – her valises, say – where I might trip over them.

  I had to hurry a plan. I knew the dressing table was along the wall opposite the door to my brother’s room, so I set off sliding across the polished floor in that direction. Almost immediately I was obstacled as my foot caught in a rug which rucked and near tripped me up. It so suddened I all but cried out, which would have game-upped me quite, but luckily I stopped myself and managed to get a hold of myself before continuing. My heart was military-tattooing in my breast, so that I could scarce believe it inaudibled to the woman next door. I shook my foot free from the rug and placed it on top of it. Then I moved my other foot next to it and so proceeded into the room, limiting myself with small steps so as not to overstretch myself and unbalance me should I obstacle again. Each time I lifted a foot I felt cautiously in front for any obstruction, moved but half a foot and slowly carefulled it down again. In this snailing, ponderous manner I crossed the room. It seemed to take hours, although it was but one hoot of the owl, and he was at it, I knew, every minute or so. At one point I banged my knee upon something hard and guessed it to be the edge of the bed, which I knew was before the dressing table. I rounded it, made for the wall and, reaching out with my hands, felt…the wall – and nothing else. The dressing table was not where it should have been!

  Of a sudden, the crooning next door stopped and it pindropped. I certained that at any second the connecting door would be thrown open and I would be redhanded, and fear froze me quite, the very blood in my veins turning to ice. Then I heard her voice, soft and low, ‘Ah, my dear, I could eat you!’ and I thought of that fiend but a few feet away, bending over my brother, saliva dripping from its lips. I had no time for such disgust, though. What should I do? If I made for the door into the corridor there was still a chance I could reach it before she opened the connecting door, although it was but a slim hope at best. No, I decided, it pointlessed even thinking of that. Whatever happened now, I would be caught, and so I might as well continue with my mission. At that moment, as if to reward me for my bravery, or recklessness – call it what you will – the crooning resumed and I sickened at the thought of that thing stroking my helpless little brother’s brow.

  I told myself again that this was no time for such thoughts; I had to turn my brain to the problem in hand. She had had the dressing table moved. What I must think now was why and where to? I considered where it had been before and what might be wrong with such a place. How might the position of a dressing table important? I asked myself. And immediately responded, the light. It had been in the corner, the side of it against the wall opposite Giles’s room, the back of it against the outside wall, the one which held the window, and so, well away from the light. It would make much more sense to place the table against the wall dividing the room from Giles’s, but close to the window, so as to take advantage of the light when looking into the mirror. I gingerlied my way back across the room until I came to the wall, felt my way along it toward the window and there it was! I had Dupinned it right! But this was no moment to smug. I took the candle and matches from the pocket of my cloak and set them down on the dressing table, then whipped off the cloak. Such was my eagerness it struck something upon the table, some ornament or other, but quick as lightning my hand reflexed out and caught it before it could fall, a small glass bottle, her dead-lily perfume, no doubt.

  Setting it down, I held my breath, thinking I should have alarmed her, but no, the crooning unabated. Carefulling, so as not to disturb any more of her knicknackery, I stretched out the cloak and draped it over the mirror. Then I picked up the matches and struck one, the sound of which noised to me like the rasp of John’s great iron shovel when he is scraping ice off the walkways, so after I had lit the candle, I waited a few moments, until once more I certained all was well. There still being no interruption of the crooning, I began my search. On the table itself there was nothing other than the usual accoutrements of womanhood, brushes, and bottles of lotion and scent, a tablet of some sweet-smelling soap. The dressing table had two drawers, one on either side of the keyhole where you put your legs when you sat at it. I drew open the right-hand one first. It contained some dollar bills which, although I had no time to count them, seemed to me quite a hoard for a mere governess. Beside them I found a newspaper clipping that I recognised immediately, for it was a report I had myself seen before of the Whitaker inquest.

  At this moment there was a cough from next door, which I recognised as Giles’s, and I heard Miss Taylor’s voice, ‘Shh, shh, sleep, my love, there is nothing here to fear.’

  I closed the drawer and opened its fellow on the other side. It contained nothing but some smelling salts and a bottle of liquid with a label bearing the name of a New York drug store. I had no time to study it now, for I anxioused I had already been too long in the room, so reluctanted it back into the drawer and closed it.

  I went to the bed and felt beneath the pillows. I underedged the mattress all round with my hand, nothing. I looked under the bed and saw Miss Taylor’s two valises. I crawled under and opened their clasps, but they were completely empty.

  I opened her closet and searched the pockets of her coat and her dresses. Empty! I gentled the door of the closet shut and stood and looked around and puzzled me some more. There was nowhere else to look. The top of the nightstand was bare and its cupboard contained nothing more than a spare candle and an empty glass. Then my eye caught sight of the occasional table I remembered from the Whitaker days, over by the door to the corridor through which I’d come. I picked up my candle from the dressing table and tiptoed swiftly across to it. I slid open the table drawer but disappointed when I saw it contained nothing but a Bible. I was about to close the drawer when I noticed something, a corner of paper, poking from between the covers of the book. I set my candle down on the tabletop and took the book out. I opened it and two pieces of
card fell out. I picked them up and saw straightway what they were. Tickets! My heart near stopped as I read the print on one. SS Europa. New York to Le Havre. November 14th. First Class. Cabin Port D14. Sailing at midnight. The other was exactly the same.

  My brain overwhelmed. I dizzied and could scarce keep upright, indeed had to stretch out a hand to the table to steady myself. November 14th. It was but two weeks hence. Two weeks! Two tickets! And that was when she meant to take Giles away. And not just away from Blithe but out of the country, to Europe, to France no less, where I would have no chance to follow her or ever get him back.

  There suddened a difference in the room and it took me a split-second to realise what it was. Silence! The crooning next door had stopped dead. There was no time to lose. Keeping the tickets in one hand, with the other I hurried the Bible back into the drawer and closed it. Footsteps sounded from Giles’s room, approaching the communicating door. It fortuned I was right next to the door into the corridor. In one movement I reached out and grabbed the handle, blew out my candle, opened the door, swifted through it and closed it behind me at the self-same moment as the door from my brother’s room opened, the sound of the latter I hope masking that of the first. I stood in the corridor, leaning my back against the wall for support, near to fainting from what I had learned and from my narrow escape. I statued like that a whole minute or so, until the hoot of the owl broke my reverie, and it was then that I realised I had left behind my cloak.

  22

  Next morning I lated after having so much awaked during the night, first in the long wait to begin my nocturnal adventure, then in the thing itself, and afterward when I tossed and turned, anxiousing about what I had taken, the steamship tickets, and about what I had left behind, my cloak. It obvioused Miss Taylor would by now have found the cloak, for she could not have brushed her hair without doing so, but I guessed she had not yet missed the tickets, for if so I certained she would have broken in upon me long before now. Even so, I also awared that when she thought about me having been in her room it would not be so very long before she thought to check the tickets. I therefore dressed quickly, took the tickets from beneath my pillow, where I had slept upon them for safety’s sake, slipped them into the pocket of my frock and made my way, not to breakfast, but to the west wing. In the corridor I stopped at the mirror just before the library and looked into it, ignoring as best I could Miss Taylor’s livid face angering out at me, and made to adjust my hair, using both hands so that she should see they were empty. Then I proceeded past the library, off our governess’s map and upstairsed it to my tower. I felt underneath the seat of the captain’s chair and, with my penknife, which I had brought with me for this purpose, slit open the leather. I slipped the tickets into the slit, pushing them into the stuffing and making sure they could not fall out.