progress reminded me of something a colleague at the library had told me years ago, about a troubled boarding school, iron bedsteads flung across an empty dormitory. I looked again at the deep gouges in the floor of the cupboard above Phyllis's bed; they looked unpleasantly like the marks of paired claws. But I found nothing new.
I returned to the library, intending to begin a systematic search for papers, but instead was overcome by another wave of black fatigue, lay down on the chesterfield, and fell instantly asleep.
I WOKE-AS IT SEEMED-AT DUSK. THE SKY THROUGH THE upper windows was still relatively bright. High above, the ceiling floated in a vault of gloom. My gaze drifted down rows of shelves towards the false bookcase at the end of the mezzanine gallery.
Only I couldn't see the false bookcase, because someone was standing motionless in front of it. A woman-for a horrible moment a headless woman, until I saw that she was veiled in black. And wearing an elaborate gown in some heavy material; I could see the flare of her skirt through the vertical bars below the railing. A dark green gown, gathered at the shoulders.
I thought, 'Viola', and then, 'Imogen de Vere', and then, 'This is one of those dreams where you dream you can see through your eyelids.' Usually I wake the instant I realise I'm asleep, a little disappointed to find that I can't see with my eyes closed, any more than I can fly. But the figure didn't vanish. Instead it appeared to shrink, receding into the shadow of the end wall. I closed my eyes resolutely, counted to three. The false bookcase had reappeared. There was no one on the gallery.
I SLEPT BADLY THAT NIGHT FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE MY arrival, spinning through interminable dreams of Ferrier's Close, stepping up to the front door over and over again, struggling half awake, then repeatedly demolishing sections of the pavilion, appalled at the damage I was doing but compelled to continue, round and round in a series of endless loops, up and down the empty passages and staircases until I was wide awake at dawn, watching the grey light slowly brighten across the miles of rooftops.
Of course the veiled woman had been a dream. I made myself a cup of tea and returned to the window. 4.37 a.m. I knew I wouldn't sleep again, and I didn't feel like reading. Breakfast wasn't until seven. I looked at the heavy bunch of keys beside my laptop. No one had said anything about keeping office hours-or any hours-at Ferrier's Close. I could sit here brooding for the next two and a half hours.
Or take a taxi up to the house and try to open the locked door on the second-floor landing.
The sky was brightening as I paid the driver at the entrance to the Vale of Health, but beneath the overhanging trees the lane was in deep shadow, and when the gate closed behind me it was so dark that I could not see the front door. I had a book of paper matches from the cafe I'd eaten in the evening before, but I didn't dare light one here; the whole thing might go up like a bonfire if the head of a match flew off.
Floorboards popped and cracked as I passed through the drawing and dining rooms in near-darkness, and out into the comparative brightness of the landing above the back door. The whole staircase creaked when I set foot on it, as if the house were stirring in its sleep. Houses creak more at dawn and dusk, I told myself, climbing towards the second floor where the first rays of sunlight were angling in through the high windows, on to the ghost-shapes of vanished pictures and the locked door beyond the banister.
The smallest of the four household keys on the ring was the only possibility. It turned easily enough. I eased the door open, and a familiar blend of odours wafted out of the gloom. The same dusty-sweet smell as the library downstairs. A perfectly ordinary study. With a desk below the window: a walnut writing-desk, I saw as I drew back the heavy bronze-coloured curtains. Before the trees had grown up, there would have been a clear view eastwards to the wooded skyline on the higher ground beyond the Vale.
A covered portable typewriter sat on the writing-desk: an ancient Remington, with circular keys and a black, skeletal frame, worn to bare metal in places. There was a small fireplace in the centre of the wall opposite the window, with bookcases on either side of it. A low armchair, upholstered in faded green leather, in the corner behind the door. And to the left of the desk, a cedar cabinet like a half-size map chest.
The top of the cabinet was bare except for a single photograph. A head-and-shoulders portrait of a young woman in a dark velvet dress, with shoulders gathered like the wings of angels. The same as the one I had brought with me from Mawson.
This proves it, I thought: she can only be Viola. Put here as a memento, after she died. But then I remembered the inscription on the back of my copy. 'Greensleeves', and a date in 1949… the 10th of March. I picked up the frame and removed the cardboard, but the back of this one was blank.
I looked through the trays in the cabinet: all empty. So were the drawers in the writing-desk, but when I closed the lowest one I heard a faint crackle of paper. I knelt down to look; the dusty, doggy smell of the carpet brought back a flash of Mawson on a hot January afternoon. I took the drawer right out of the desk and saw that several sheets of paper had been crushed into the space behind. A handwritten note to Viola from 'Edie', evidently returning some letters after the death of a friend. A few pages, presumably from those letters, in a small, spiky hand with a hint of italic, signed V. A length of rusty black ribbon. And a single page of typescript, evidently from the missing part of 'The Revenant'.
'The Briars'
Church Lane,
Cranleigh,
Surrey
Friday 26 Nov.
Dearest Viola,
I found these in the drawer of Mamas bedside table. I know you said to burn everything of yours but I couldn't bring myself to do it-hope you don't mind. I can't write any more now but I do so look forward to seeing you, soon I hope.
With all my love,
Edie
with Eva and Hubert to see The Cherry Orchard at the Lyric last Wed. It seems obligatory to admire Tchekov these days but I found it tedious and said so, which rather shocked H. I think. Then Wagner at Covent Gdn-the Valkyrie in German-I prefer opera when I don't understand exactly what they're singing, but I liked him more when I was younger. Before the war, I suppose I mean. I found myself thinking of Zeppelins, and that of course reminded me of George. Poor boy-charming as ever, though we see very little of him these days. I live in hope that he will settle to something.
Next week we go to the Fletchers (the Holland Park lot) at Hythe-C. becomes more tedious every year but I am very fond of Lettie-If the weather holds we shall get in some good walks.
Am reading The Sacred Fount again-don't quite know why-a perverse fascination. Sometimes I think HJ is simply Marie Corelli in fancy dress (you know what I mean), but then I remember the tales-The Way it Came, The Jolly Corner, The Altar of the Dead-no one else could have written those, let alone The Turn of the Screw-
yrs ever
V.
Ferrier's Close
25th July 1934
