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It seemed to her now that, for all his curious solitary gaiety, she had always seen him as a soul in hell. Carel was becoming very frightened and he carried fear about with him as a physical environment. His fear had some curious manifestations. He saw animals in the house, rats and mice, when Pattie was sure there were none. He complained of a black thing which kept whisking out of sight. Pattie was aware that such imaginations could come from drinking, only Carel did not drink. In any case Pattie knew that what frightened Carel did not belong to the material world even in the sense in which pink elephants did.
     
    And then there had come, quite unexpectedly, the move to London. This had been terrifying in prospect, terrifying in the event. Pattie realized then how much her weird world depended on the solid simplicity of its surroundings for its semblance of a decent reality. Like the Hindu mystic who used to conceal the supernatural glowing of his body in a closely wound sheet, so Pattie would don her three-quarter length coat and put on her red velour hat and her suede gloves to visit the supermarket. It had mattered to her that she shopped in certain shops, gossiped with certain women, went to a certain picture house, had her hair straightened at a certain hairdresser’s where there were certain magazines. There was a whole reassuring domain where Pattie was known in her ordinariness and where the lurid purple glow was veiled. There had once been a trifle of speculation about her and Carel, but it had died down and no one had been unpleasant to her. Pattie existed in this everyday world and had her title there. She had heard a woman utter it one day as she was coming out of church. “Who is that?” “The coloured servant at the Rectory. They say she’s a treasure.”
     
    Pattie was afraid that, like some relic which turns out in the end to be composed of dust and cobwebs, her existence with Carel might suddenly fall to pieces if they were removed to another place. In her agitation all difficulties seemed equally charged with menace. Where should she go now to have her hair straightened? And where would she ever find a charwoman as good as Mrs Potter? And how on earth in the extraordinary desert in which the Rectory seemed to be situated was she even to feed Carel? Eugene Peshkov was still unable to procure any carrots. Eugene, big, friendly, calm and reassuringly unamazed by the phenomenon of Pattie, was in fact the only consoling feature in the situation.
     
    The fourth day had brought no diminution of the fog. It was dark even at noon, and the house remained exceedingly cold even though Eugene assured her that the central heating was in working order. Pattie had shut Mrs Barlow out and forgotten her. And now the front door bell was ringing again.
     
    Pattie opened the door a crack and saw outside Marcus Fisher, who had already called several times, accompanied by a woman whom Pattie vaguely recognized. The woman spoke.
     
    “Good morning, Pattie. I am Miss Shadox-Brown, you remember me, I visited Muriel at the place where you lived before. I’ve come to see her now, if you please. And Mr Fisher has come to see the Rector and Elizabeth.”
     
    Pattie put her knee behind the door. “I’m afraid Miss Muriel is out. And the Rector and Elizabeth are seeing nobody.”
     
    “I’m afraid we can’t quite take that for an answer, Pattie,” said Miss Shadox-Brown, moving up on to the top step. “Supposing you just let us in for a minute and we can talk about it more sensibly inside, eh?”
     
    “I’m sorry,” said Pattie. “We aren’t having any visitors today.” She shut the door flatly against Miss Shadox-Brown’s nose. A sturdy foot, which had begun to insert itself in the crack of the door, narrowly escaped being crushed.
     
    Pattie turned back into the dark hall. Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques, dormez-vous? She caught at the white flash of the paper dart and crumpled its crisp wings in her hand.