‘Let them have the big lamp then,’ she was saying. Miss Femm always talked about them to her brother as if they weren’t there. ‘There’s oil in it. We used it the last time the lights went out. We must have some light down here, and not just to please them either. There’s Morgan, remember. Go and get the big lamp, Horace. You know the one.’
He stared at her, his face an edge of bone in the candle-light. Then after a few moments’ hesitation he stammered: ‘Yes, I—I think so. I cannot remember where it is though. You get it, Rebecca.’
‘Not I!’ she cried. ‘Too big for me. And if you don’t know where it is, I’ll tell you; though you know as well as I do. It’s on the little table on the top landing.’ Her voice rose to a scream of savage derision. ‘You know where the top landing is, don’t you? You’ve heard of it, I dare say. You can perhaps believe there’s a top landing, even though you do believe so little. Well, it’s up there, next to the roof.’
It was strange that Mr. Femm should seem so agitated. It wasn’t the mere screaming that was upsetting him; he frowned his resentment at that; yet he was still hesitant and disturbed. ‘I remember it now. Yes, the big lamp. It is very heavy, too heavy for me.’ He shook his head. ‘I couldn’t carry it down all those stairs.’
‘You mean you’re afraid to go up there alone,’ she screeched, pointing a finger at him. ‘Well, I’m not going up, I’ve enough to do. You go with him.’ And the finger was sharply turned until it pointed at Philip.
Margaret jumped and felt like crying out that Philip shouldn’t go, but then suddenly realised she would be making a fool of herself. Why shouldn’t he go? Yet she was half alarmed, half annoyed, when he nodded across at Mr. Femm. ‘Yes, I’ll go with you, of course, and help to get it down.’
‘Get it myself, if you like,’ Sir William put in, looking from one to the other.
Philip grinned at him. ‘No; I’ve been chosen, and I’ll go. We’d better have one of these candles, hadn’t we?’ He took up a candlestick, gave a smiling glance at Margaret, and moved a few paces forward. Mr. Femm joined him at the foot of the stairs, was given the candle, and then slowly led the way up. The others stared at them in silence, and it was not until both the men themselves and their jigging shadows had disappeared that anybody turned away or spoke.
‘I want this,’ cried Miss Femm, laying a hand on the remaining candle.
Margaret exclaimed in protest against being left in the dark for even a moment. Philip’s queer little exit had somehow left her shaken, and now she regarded Miss Femm with positive hatred.