Then she closed the door,—and in closing it shut herself into the room. For it had not entered her head to go away and leave this place until its mistress should return. She was already welcomed by the flowers, the fire, and the aura of Grandam herself, which even in her absence seemed as palpable in the atmosphere here as the scent of the violets. Ariel stood looking at the door she had closed. On this side it was not a door; it was a long mirror, crystal clear, and framed with a paneling of faintly colored flowers and leaves painted on silver. In the mirror, almost clearer than when looked at directly, was the view from the windows, the tops of Wild Acres’ trees, the Hudson, the purple Palisades, and closer—startlingly close and clear—the carved daybed with its colored cushions, the bowl of violets and, closer and clearer yet, two upstanding, mauve anemones....
And there, in that reflected world, Ariel looked for “Noon.” For there was the place to find it, in that crystal unearthly clearness.
She was amazed not to see it at once. Yet she turned about with confidence only a little dimmed to survey, in order, the four walls, concrete. But the four walls of Grandam’s room might have been the four walls of a nun’s cell, they were so bare of decoration, washed with their dove gray. There was only one small picture in an ebony frame which hung at the side of the window where the daybed stood. It was a drawing, in pencil, of a man’s hands, palms meeting, raised in prayer or adoration. They were arresting hands, beautiful in austerity, the hands of a great saint—or an archangel. They were life size, and so vivid in their presentation that one might think, by looking more keenly, to see the arms and shoulders—the very head itself—of the saint or archangel outlined against the dove-gray wall.
One piece of wall was obscured by a screen, silver silk stretched on an ebony frame and embroidered with the same faint flowers as framed the mirror. Ariel crossed to it and found that it had concealed a door which was standing open. She went through it and found herself in a dressing room: Grandam’s, of course, because of the scent and feeling of violets,—and so still. This was a very small, oblong room, the size of a big closet. A long, low dressing table surmounted by a mirror extended the length of one wall, and a window filled the other. On the table’s top crystal-stopped bottles stood in rows. Ivory and jade and silver boxes clustered everywhere. And bright liquids glowed in vials. The dressing chair was ivory-colored like the daybed and the bench in the first room. Over its low back lay, spread out, a swansdown robe with very wide sleeves. It seemed to stir and come alive in violet scent as Ariel bent above it.
And out at the far corner of the table lay a silver crown. No, it was a wig! A replica of Grandam’s curled, short hair. So that too had been a wig. But Ariel was not repelled. Quite the contrary. She shivered with a kind of understanding, a delight. It had come to her that this was Grandam’s materialization room. Or no, it was no room; it was too small and narrow to be anything but a passageway. It was the passageway through which Grandam retained her access to the world of time and space. It was here, sitting in this chair, looking into this mirror, that she made herself up to become visible, palpable to everyday touch and sight.
Ariel herself slipped into the chair. Elbows on the table, chin in her hands, she looked at herself as she appeared in this passageway. And she saw, for the first time, the Ariel her father had always seen. Green eyes. Pointed chin. Silver skin. Thin cheeks, beautifully fine in their drawing. Her heart was beating. Thud—thud—thud.... She turned hurriedly away from the mirror and the first realization of her peculiar beauty. It had almost frightened her.
Out of the dressing room, and several times larger, opened the bathroom. It was green like a pool in deep woods. The door beyond was closed. Ariel knocked. A voice said “Come.”
As Ariel opened the door in response to the voice which had startled her, for she had begun to think herself very much alone up here in Grandam’s “attic,” Miss Peters turned about from a desk where she had been writing a letter and stared at Ariel as at a ghost. And Ariel stared back.
“But Miss Clare! It is Miss Clare, isn’t it? Where did you come from?”
“I was looking for—” No, she could not say “Noon”!... She had not betrayed her expectations and disappointments to any one else at Wild Acres and she was not going to begin with Miss Peters. So she finished, after a perceptible pause—“I was looking for something. But it isn’t here. I’m afraid it isn’t up here at all.”