Gaily, with his long free step, he led the way across the patterned parquet, and Vance followed, captivated by the image of a young Miss Lorburn who still dreamed of dancing, and to whom so many things were sweet because forbidden. “Yet she ended in her library. …” he thought.
Lorry Spear was a stimulating guide. His quick touches woke the dumb rooms to life, lit the dusky wax candles in chandeliers and wall brackets, drew a Weber waltz from the slumbering piano, peopled the floor with gaily circling couples, even made Vance see the dotted muslins and billowy tarlatans looped with camellias of the young women with their ringlets and sandalled feet. He found the cleverest words, made it all visible and almost tangible, knew even what flowers there would have been in the ornate porcelain vases: mignonette and pinks, with heavy pink roses, he decided: “Yes—I ought to have been a theatrical decorator; would be, if only the boss would put up the cash. But to do that they’d have to sell Eaglewood—or marry Halo to a millionaire,” he added with an impatient laugh.
Upstairs he took Vance over the funny bedrooms, so big and high-ceilinged, with beds of mahogany or rosewood, and the lace-looped toilet tables (like the ladies’ ball-dresses) with gilt mirror frames peeping through the festoons, and big marble-topped washstands that carried carafes and goblets of cut glass, porcelain basins and ewers with flower garlands. In one of the dressing rooms (Miss Lorburn’s) there was a specially ornate toilet set, with a ewer in the shape of a swan with curving throat and flattened wings, and a basin like a nest of rushes. “Poor Elinor—I supposed she dreamed of a Lohengrin before the letter, and hoped to find a baby in the bulrushes,” Lorry commented; and Vance, understanding the allusions, felt a pang of sympathy for the lonely woman. At the end of the passage, in one of the freakish towers, was a circular room with blue brocade curtains and tufted furniture, the walls hung with large coloured lithographs of peasant girls dancing to tambourines, and young fellows in breeches and velvet jackets who drove oxcarts laden with ripe grapes. “The Italy of her day,” Lorry smiled. “She must have done this boudoir in the Lohengrin stage. And she ended in spectacles, cold and immaculate, reading Coleridge all alone. Brr!” He broke off, and turned to the window. “Hullo! Isn’t that Halo?”
The hoarse bark of the Eaglewood motor sounded at the gate. “Come along down,” Lorry continued. “You’d better take advantage of the lift home. Besides, it’s too dark to do much more here.”
They started down the stairs, but in the hall Vance hesitated. “I’ve left the books piled up anyhow. Guess I’d better go back and put them on the shelves.” He realized suddenly that for the last two days he had done neither dusting nor sorting, and wondered what Miss Spear would say if she saw the havoc he had created.
“Not on your life!” Lorry enjoined him. “You could hardly see a yard before your nose in the library by this time, and lighting up is strictly forbidden. Might set the old place on fire. If it was mine I’d do it, and collect the insurance; but old Tom don’t need to, curse him.” He stopped short, and clapped his hand on his waistcoat pocket. “I must have left my cigarette case in there. Yes, I remember. You wait here—”
He spun down the polished floor of the drawing-rooms and disappeared. Vance waited impatiently. Although the June sky outside was still full of daylight it was dark already in the hall with its sombre panelling and heavy oak stairs. Now and then he heard the croak of the Eaglewood motor and he wondered how much longer Miss Spear would deign to wait. Between the motor calls the silence was oppressive. What could young Spear have done with his cigarette case? Once Vance thought he heard the banging of a window in the distance. Could it be that he had forgotten to close the windows in the library? But he was sure he had not; and the sound took on the ghostly resonance of unexplained noises. Perhaps that silly Laura Lou was right to be scared—as dusk fell it became easier to believe that the Willows might be haunted. Vance started back across the echoing parquet to the library; but halfway he met Lorry returning.
“Couldn’t find the damn thing,” he grumbled. “Got the keys, eh?” Vance said he had, and they moved toward the door. On the threshold Lorry paused, and turned to him again with Halo’s smile. “You haven’t got ten dollars you don’t know what to do with? Like a fool I let Lewis and Frenside keep me up half the night playing poker. … Well, that’s white of you. Thanks. Settle next week. And don’t mention it to Halo, will you? The old people are down on poker … and on everything else I want to do.” Vance turned the key in the front door, and the two walked through the long grass to the gate.
Vance felt grown-up and important. It put him at his ease with Lorry’s sister to have a secret between men to keep from her.
Book III
XII
Vance turned over slowly, opened his eyes, pushed back his rumpled hair, and did not at first make out where he was.
He thought the bed was a double one, black walnut with carved ornaments and a pink
