‘Must leave us a light, you know,’ Sir William shouted. And he gave Margaret a friendly glance, as if to suggest that he knew what she was feeling, a glance for which Margaret, who hadn’t expected it, was instantly grateful. ‘If you’re going,’ he went on, bellowing cheerfully, ‘you must leave us this. Can’t sit in the dark.’
In reply to this, Miss Femm, surprisingly enough, produced from the grey fat folds of her face a kind of smile. ‘It would do you good to sit in the dark,’ she told him, ‘but I’ll see. I can’t go about in the dark and I’ll have to find another for myself.’ She fumbled in the bottom of the candlestick and found there an old candle-end, which she lit and held before her as she waddled away to the door that led into the corridor. The other two watched her for a moment and then settled themselves in front of the fire.
‘I think I’ll try a cigarette,’ said Sir William, producing his case. ‘Will you have one?’
She didn’t really want to smoke, but she took one because it would help her to feel easy and companionable. Their being left alone together and the fire and the candle-light all combined to suggest, quite definitely if not strongly, a certain intimacy. You felt you ought to begin talking of something very personal and important almost at once.
Sir William blew out a column of smoke, leaned back in his chair, stretched out his legs, looked about him, and then remarked easily: ‘Not very cheerful, is it? What’s become of Gladys and that other chap, Penderel? Funny I never missed ’em. Are they wandering about the house somewhere?’
She replied that she wasn’t sure. They might have gone out. He doesn’t seem to be bothering much about his Gladys, she told herself. What a queer relationship! She felt suddenly curious about it, about him too, and stared across at his heavy face.
‘We’re a bit dictatorial with these people, when you come to think of it,’ he mused. ‘Don’t know that I’d like it. Though we’ve every excuse, of course.’
‘I know. If they were ordinary sort of people, I should say we were behaving very badly. But they’re so queer, aren’t they?’ And then she suddenly thought how horrible it would be if he stared at her in surprise and blandly contradicted her. It would only need a touch like that, she felt, to throw her off her balance.
He only smiled, however, and there was comfort in his hearty rejoinder, for there seemed to be a whole sensible world behind it. ‘A bit mad, I should say,’ he replied. ‘Both of ’em. They get like that, living in these places, miles from anywhere. Just imagine year after year, with many and many a night like this, and hardly seeing anybody. I know, because my own part of the world’s a bit like this.’
She took the cigarette out of her mouth and looked her astonishment. ‘Why, I see you against a background of telephones and cars and express trains and offices and factories. Nothing like this.’