She felt better for the effort to describe what had happened, although the fact gnawed at her that the Baron was finding the episode a strain and a nuisance. But ruthlessly, in her own interest, she talked on and on. And as she talked she realized that the Baron was making the best of it, had resigned himself, was attending to her, but as one who regards another’s words, not as symbols but as symptoms.
He got out of her that the clicking of the typewriter always preceded the voices, and sometimes accompanied their speech. How many voices there were, she could not say. Male or female? Both, she told him. It was impossible to disconnect the separate voices, because they came in complete concert; only by the varying timbres could the chorus be distinguished from one voice. ‘In fact,’ she went on, wound-up and talking rapidly, ‘it sounds like one person speaking in several tones at once.
‘And always using the past tense?’
‘Yes. Mocking voices.’
‘And you say this chorus comments on your thoughts and actions?’
‘Not always,’ said Caroline, ‘that’s the strange thing. It says “Caroline was thinking or doing this or that” — then sometimes it adds a remark of its own.
‘Give me an example, dear. I’m so stupid — I can never grasp —’Well,’ said Caroline, unwhelming herself of a sudden access of confidence in the Baron’s disinterestedness, ‘take tonight. I was dropping off, and thinking over my conversation with you —’— as one does —’ she added, ‘— and it drifted to my mind how you had remembered meeting Laurence’s grandmother; I thought it strange you should do so. Next thing, I heard the typewriter and the voices. They repeated my thought, something like, “It came to her that the Baron” — you know we always call you the Baron, “— that the Baron had been extraordinarily interested in Laurence’s grandmother.” That’s what the voices said. And then they added something to the effect that the Baron was the last person who would remember, and remember by name, an old woman like Mrs Jepp merely from a passing introduction three years ago. You see, Willi, the words are immaterial —’
‘You’re mad,’ said the Baron abruptly.
Caroline felt relieved at these words, although, and in a way because, they confirmed her distress. It was a relief to hear the Baron speak his true mind, it gave her exactly what she had anticipated, what seemed to her a normal person’s reaction to her story. Fearing this, she had been purposely vague when, earlier in the evening, she had explained her distress: ‘A typewriter followed by voices. They speak in the past tense. They mock me.’
Now that she had been more explicit, and had been told she was mad, she felt a perverse satisfaction at the same time as a suffocating sense that she might never communicate the reality of what she had heard.
The Baron hastily recovered. ‘I use “mad” of course in the colloquial sense. In the way that we’re
‘Oh, quite,’ said Caroline. ‘I know what you mean.’ But she was wondering, now, why he had spoken so viciously: ‘You’re mad!’ — like a dog snapping at a fly. She felt she had been tactless. She wished she had chosen to cite a different example of the voices.
‘Someone is haunting me, that’s what it is,’ Caroline said, hoping to discard responsibility for offending the Baron.
He seemed to have forgotten his role as the intrigued questioner; his air of disinterested curiosity was suspended while he told Caroline exactly why and how Mrs Jepp had impressed him. ‘You see, she is a character. So small and yet her strength — her aged yet vivid face. So dark, so small. I could never forget that face.’
With surprise, Caroline thought, ‘He is defending himself.’
‘And she looked so debonair, my dear, in a deep blue velvet hat. Her brown wrinkles. Quite a picture.’
‘Three years ago, was it, Willi?’
‘Almost three years — I remember it well. Laurence brought her into the shop, and she said, “What a lot of books!”‘
He gave an affectionate chuckle, but Caroline did not join him. She was thinking of Louisa Jepp’s last visit to London, three years ago. Certainly, she did not possess her blue hat at that time, Caroline was acquainted with all Louisa’s hats. They were purchased at long intervals, on rare occasions. And only last Easter, Caroline had accompanied the old lady to Hayward’s Heath where they had spent the afternoon, eventually deciding on that blue velvet hat which had so pleased Louisa that she had worn it on every occasion since.
‘A blue hat?’ said Caroline.
‘My dear, believe it or not, a blue. I recall it distinctly. Blue velvet, curling close to her head, with a fluffy black feather at the side. I shall never forget that hat nor the face beneath it.’
That was the hat all right.
In the face of the Baron’s apparent lie — to what purpose? — and the obvious fact that her account of the voices had somehow provoked it, Caroline began to gather her own strength. The glimmering of a puzzle distinct from her own problem was a merciful antidote to her bewilderment. She kept her peace and sipped her coffee, knowing that she was delivered at least from this second mockery, the Baron posing as a credulous sympathizer, his maddening chatter about psychic phenomena, while in reality he waited for the morning, when he could hand her over to Laurence or someone responsible. The Baron might think her mentally unhinged, but by a mercy she had made it clear, though quite unintentionally, that her condition was dangerous for him. In fact, she had forced him to take her seriously, to the extent that he made excuses for himself and lied.
She considered this, but when she looked at him, saw him still courteous in his extreme tiredness, her tears returned.
‘Oh, Willi! How can I ever thank you? You are so kind.
‘So kind,’ she repeated, she herself like a tired infant whose tongue cannot extricate itself from a single phrase, ‘So kind, so kind —’ And so, in her gratitude, she gave away what advantage she had gained and became once more a distracted woman seeking the protection of an old friend.
The Baron, as if he too would make a concession, and anxious to place her in a less pathetic light, asked, ‘What are you writing these days?’
