Read 1951 - In a Vain Shadow for Free Online Page B

when I stepped into the darkness; no moon, and I could feel a damp mist against my face. I swung the beam of the torch to light up the brick path that led away from the house towards the farm buildings. I was glad to get out into the open. Another ten minutes inside that house would have sent me crazy.
    I walked down the path, crossed the lawn that felt soft and squelchy under my feet, turned by the barn wall to face the house.
    A light burned in the right upper room. I could see the pattern on the ceiling, but nothing else. The curtains weren’t drawn. I knew she was up there.
    I could also see into the room I had just left. Sarek was sitting motionless before the fire, his great, bulging forehead supported on his head. I watched him for a moment. He didn’t move.
    I turned the beam of the torch on the barn wall, moved a few paces until I came to the barn door, pushed it open and went in.
    At the far end of the barn was a wooden ladder that led to the loft. I crossed the earth floor, skirted some bales of straw, avoided a stack a sawn logs and climbed the ladder.
    There was a door in the loft through which hay could be pitched direct from the cart. I examined the hinges. They were rusty. The door hadn’t been opened in years.
    I shoved my shoulder against it, felt it move, shoved again, forcing it open about four inches. That was wide enough to see through.
    From that level I could look right into her room. It was big.
    A double bed stood against the wall, facing the door. There was an old-fashioned wardrobe facing me: the kind with a full-length mirror, cupboards and drawers. By the window stood a dressing table.
    She was sitting before the dressing table, brushing her hair. She had on a green silk dressing gown. A cigarette hung from her soft, full mouth.
    I knelt on one knee on the dusty floor of the loft and watched her. Every movement she made, the rise and fall of her breasts as she breathed, the spiral of her cigarette smoke, the glitter of light in the copper colour hair, the triangle of white flesh that showed above the V-neck of the dressing gown fascinated me the way a rabbit is fascinated by a snake.
    She brushed her hair for perhaps five minutes. It could have been longer or shorter. Kneeling there in the darkness I had no sense of time. I could have stayed watching her all night and through the next day. Then she put down the brush, swung around on the stool so her back was to me.
    Sarek had come in. I looked hastily at the downstairs room.
    The light was still burning. Probably he had just come up to say goodnight.
    He stood in the doorway, talking. He was scowling, and every now and then he made an angry gesture with his hands.
    I guessed he was talking about me.
    She sat motionless, her hands gripped between her knees and let him talk. I would have given a lot to have heard what he was saying.
    Suddenly his anger seemed to go away and he became ingratiating. He came over to her, and put his thin, brown hand on her shoulder. Just to see him touch her brought me out in a sweat. I leaned forward, gripping the side of the doorway, not missing a thing.
    She pulled away from his hand and stood up. He continued to talk, his smile fixed, imploring her to do something But she wouldn’t play. She didn’t argue with him. She said nothing, fixing her green, stony eyes on his face contemptuously, and when he came too close she moved out of his reach.
    He gave up suddenly, scowling again, and as quickly and as silently as he had come, went out, leaving the door open.
    She remained looking at the door for some moments, then she stubbed out her cigarette, shut the door and locked it. She came to the window and looked out.
    I drew back into the shadows and watched her. I had a sudden suspicion that she knew I was up there in the loft, watching her. And when she jerked down the blind with a quick, savage movement, I was sure of it.
     
     

chapter five
     
    T he next three days more or less conformed to pattern. Each