He turned back and went home. He had promised to have tea at the Vicarage, and he found Mrs. Trenchard putting holly over the pictures in the little dark square hall. She looked as though she had always been there, and as though, in some curious way, the holly, with its bright red berries, especially belonged to her.
She asked him to help her, and Seymour thought that he must have known her all his life. She had a tranquil, restful air, but, now and then, hummed a little tune. She was very tidy as she moved about, picking up little scraps of holly. A row of pins shone in her green dress. After a while they went upstairs and hung holly in the passages.
Seymour had turned his back to her and was balanced on a little ladder, when he heard her utter a sharp little cry.
"The nursery door's open," she said. He turned, and saw very clearly, against the half-light, her startled eyes. Her hands were pressed against her dress and holly had fallen at her feet. He saw, too, that the nursery door was ajar.
"I locked it myself, yesterday; you saw me."
She gasped as though she had been running, and he saw that her face was white.
He moved forward quickly and pushed open the door. The room itself was lightened by the gleam from the passage and also by the moonlight that came dimly through the window. The shadow of some great tree was flung upon the floor. He saw, at once, that the room was changed. The rocking-horse that had been yesterday against the wall had now been dragged far across the floor. The white front of the dolls'-house had swung open and the furniture was disturbed as though some child had been interrupted in his play. Four large dolls sat solemnly round a dolls' tea-table, and a dolls' tea service was arranged in front of them. In the very centre of the room a fine castle of bricks had been rising, a perfect Tower of Babel in its frustrated ambition.
The shadow of the great tree shook and quivered above these things.
Seymour saw Mrs. Trenchard's face, he heard her whisper:
"Who is it? What is it?"