‘Yes ... Sir Roderick.... The voice came as faintly as before; the words might have been spoken by the very air of that dim place.
Margaret nodded and tried to smile at that blur of face with its ghostly sheen. ‘We have had to take shelter here for the night. There has been a very bad storm. We came in because we thought we heard you calling. Can we get you anything?’
The hand that had been lying on the counterpane seemed to raise itself, and, like something clumsily floating, it moved uncertainly towards the right of the bed, where there was a little table. It’s horrible, Philip thought as he stared; it’s like watching a ghost, no, worse than that, a spirit coming back to try and make the old, rusty, creaky machinery of the body work again. The real Sir Roderick had already retired from life. Yet he hadn’t; he was wanting something; yes, he was still wanting something; and that made it all the worse. What was he saying?
‘Water,’ came the whisper. ‘Glass empty.... Water over there....’
Margaret had heard and understood. ‘Yes, I’ll get you some,’ she said, and taking up the glass from the little table, she went in the direction the hand had pointed and filled the glass from a carafe that she found on the top of a chest of drawers there. She still trembled slightly and felt a little heart-sick, but the action gave her a certain feeling of warmth and confidence. Returning with the glass, she put it into the awaiting hand, a frail curve of bone. ‘Can you take it yourself,’ she enquired gently, ‘or shall I give it to you?’
‘I can—do it—myself,—thank you.’ The hand closed round the glass and slowly raised it. For one second the water caught and held the candle-light and became liquid gold. The old man’s head came forward shakily, and they had a glimpse of a great curved nose, shaggy white brows, and wasted cheeks. Somehow it didn’t seem difficult to believe that he had once been easily the tallest and strongest and handsomest of the family, a magnificent figure. He had been a great man once, they had said. No doubt it was true; and now he could hardly raise the glass to his lips, and when he did at last succeed in drinking some of the water, spilling it into his mouth, it seemed a triumphant achievement.
The water appeared to revive him, however, for he was able to replace the glass on the table, and though his head sank back again upon the piled pillows, into the deep shadow of the curtains, there seemed to be a faint trace of animation in his movements. But his voice remained the same, a ghostly whisper, a mere breath in the air. Yet it was he who spoke first, before Margaret could ask him if there was anything else he wanted.
‘What was—the noise there?’ he asked.
Margaret explained, very briefly and as lightly as she could, what had happened outside. She had stepped back now and was standing by the side of Philip.
‘Morgan—is a savage,’ they heard. ‘It was—the drink though. We have had to keep him here’—and the voice trailed away into a long pause—‘because of my brother. I must—apologise for him.’