Gwyn went to her bed and stretched out beneath the blue canopy, abruptly quite weary. She realized that they were all concerned about her. They wanted her to have a good time here, and they did not want her to be bothered or upset by anything — including the view of the sea from her bedroom window. Their probing was only meant to ascertain if she were happy. Still, it rankled. The sea had never been an object of terror for her, even though Ginny had died in it, even though she had been lucky to escape its smothering mass alive. She had been to the beach and had been swimming in the ocean countless times since that long-ago tragedy. But if they didn't stop reminding her of Ginny, of the shattered boat so swiftly sinking, of the roiling water, of the screams… If they didn't stop reminding her, she was never going to be happy here at Barnaby Manor. There was such a thing as being overly protective; they were unconsciously destroying the good humor that they were so desperate to build in her. She resolved to make this plain to them if, at dinner or afterward, anything more was said about the view from her window.
But the dinner conversation never once touched upon the matter and was, in fact, quite lively and amusing. The food, prepared by Fritz's wife, Grace, was excellent though more typically American middle class than Gwyn would have thought: roast beef, baked potatoes, three vegetables in butter sauce, rolls, and a peach cobbler for dessert. They drank a fine rose wine with the meal, which seemed in contrast to the other fare, but which brought out a special taste in everything and added an edge of humor to the conversation that might otherwise have been lacking.
After dinner, because her uncle had still more business to attend to before he could call it a day, and because Elaine was tired and wished to go to bed early after an hour or so of reading, there was no objection to her going off with Ben Groves to examine the finer points of the house.
She found him sitting in the kitchen, reading the newspaper which her Uncle Will had finished with that morning and passed on. “Ah,” he said, standing, “I was afraid you wouldn't come.”
“I wouldn't miss it,” she said.
Fritz and his wife were in the kitchen, and Ben introduced Gwyn to the older woman.
“Pleased to meet you,” Grace said, offering Gwyn a chubby hand to shake. She was perhaps fifty years old, younger than her husband, though her hair was completely white. She was a robust woman, only slightly overweight, somewhat handsome, with few wrinkles in her face and all of these concentrated around the edges of her steady, blue eyes. She dressed and acted in a grandmotherly fashion, though Gwyn somehow felt that this image was an affected one, and that a wholly different Grace lay just below the surface, in the same way that Fritz's outward image did not seem to be the real one. Perhaps this harmless deception was what lifelong servants to the wealthy had to develop. They could never afford to tell their employers what they really thought. A workable facade kept their jobs and their sanities intact.
“It was a wonderful supper,” Gwyn said.
“Not fancy,” Grace said. “But good nourishment.”
“Exactly.”
“Mr. Barnaby had one of them fancy cooks for years, but he finally got rid of her. He says he's felt better ever since I took over the kitchen.”
The woman seemed proud of Mr. Barnaby's approval — and yet, hovering just behind everything that she said, was an elusive sarcasm.
Gwyn turned to Ben and said, “Well, can we start out now? I have to walk off some of that beef and potatoes.”
Grace laughed and returned to her work at a countertop, where she appeared to be filing receipes.
“This way,” Ben said, taking her out of the kitchen again.
For the next hour, he took her from one room to another — the library; Uncle Will's study; the large dining room where thirty guests could be easily accommodated at a huge table; the front drawing room; the sewing room; the music room where a huge piano stood on a pedestal, and where comfortable divans had been arranged for an audience that, Ben said, had not sat here since Old Man Barnaby's days; the pool in the basement, filled with bright blue water, heated, encircled by crimson and black tiles; the nooks and crannies which the builders had included everywhere, tiny rooms, hidden closets, niches in a main room where one could step back and be out of sight, alone with one's thoughts for a few minutes… He showed her how the carpenters had built the manor house without nails, using wooden pegs soaked in oil to insure a tight fit of all the joints. He explained that the visible joints, at door frames and window ledges, were all carved by hand, with sharp knives, rather than sawed, to give them a rustic look and a much better fit. When he was finally done, she was as in awe of the fine points of the house as he was.
At the door to her room, he said, “I hope I didn't bore you too much, Gwyn.”
“Not at all.”
“I get carried away about the place.”
“It's easy to see why,” she said.
“Tomorrow — might I show you the grounds around the house?”
“I'd like that,” she said. “Shall we say ten o'clock?”
“I'll be waiting by the front door,” he said. “Goodnight, Gwyn.”
“Goodnight.”
In her room, she watched the sea from her window, watched the moonlight dapple the moving waters, and she was once again perfectly sure that she had made the right decision in coming to Barnaby Manor for the summer. This evening, with Will and Elaine, and later with Ben Groves, had been one of the most enjoyable she'd spent in months.
She prepared for bed, got beneath the covers, snuggled down and turned out the bedside lamp. In the darkness, her mind spinning wearily around and around, she found that she had no trouble falling into a deep, sound sleep…
“
She turned over in her sleep.
“
She buried her head beneath the pillow, trying to block out the voice, grumbling to herself at this unwanted intrusion.
“
The voice was soft, feminine, as hollow as an echo, as fragile as blown glass, repeating her name over and over again.
“
She rolled onto her back, trying to shake off the dream, still not awake, flailing slightly at the covers around her.
“
She was awake now.
She pulled her arms out from beneath the lightweight covers and let the cool air-conditioning blow across them.
“
Yawning, she tried to shake off the lingering dream. It had been a strange one: no visual images, nothing but that haunting voice which called out to her over and over again.
“
Suddenly, realizing that the voice was not a part of any dream, but was real, she opened her eyes. The room was no longer completely dark, but flickeringly illuminated by a candle. She sat straight up in bed, confused but not yet frightened.
“
Incredibly, impossibly, she looked to the open doorway of her room and saw herself standing there. It was as if she were looking into a mirror — except that this was no mirror image. Her double, in the door frame, was standing, while she was sitting. And while she wore a dark blue nightgown, the figure in the door was dressed in a gauzy white gown that looked as if it were made of hundreds and hundreds of layers of spider webs, all rustling and yet soft.
