Florence and Giles by John Harding Page A

doorway and stared at the table.
    ‘Is there something wrong?’ anxioused Mrs Grouse, forced into a squeezery between the governess and the door to get into the room.
    ‘Why, yes. There are four places.’ She swung round to face Mrs Grouse, who coloured. Miss Taylor tigered her a smile. ‘Is there perhaps another child I don’t know about? Come, Giles, how is your math? You, Florence and me, how many does that make?’
    ‘The fourth place is for me,’ said Mrs Grouse. ‘I’ve always eaten with the children. You see, it was only we three for years and years until Master Giles went off to school, and when Miss Whitaker came she just joined in with the rest of us.’
    ‘That’s as maybe, but you see it’s not appropriate. You are the housekeeper and I am the governess. We must maintain the proprieties. For the sake of the children’s education, you understand.’
    Mrs Grouse bridled. She was not one to be walked over. ‘Miss Whitaker was quite happy with the arrangement.’
    Miss Taylor raised an eyebrow. ‘Ah yes, but I am not Miss Whitaker.’
    Mrs Grouse left the room. The three of us sat down. A moment later a very red-faced Mary came in and began removing the crockery and cutlery from the fourth place. Miss Taylor smiled up at her. ‘You may serve the food now,’ she said.
    That night I couldn’t sleep. Outside, the wind howled like a wild beast stalking round the house looking for a way in. And within me, too, there was a howling, one that I couldn’t block out by pillowing my ears. It feared me to sleep that I would dream again of poor Miss Whitaker and the day she died, but my waking anxiety was a shadowy thing I couldn’t quite see or put a name to, and all the worse for that. In the end I decided to do what I often did at such times, to sneak down to the library and read there for a couple of hours until I should be tired enough for sleep, though there was an increased risk that I would be caught now that Miss Taylor was here, of course. Although the wind huffed and puffed without, within the house was quiet as the grave, save for the ticking of the clocks and the occasional creaking of the joists as Blithe settled itself down for the night. But then, if I were caught, all I had to do was pretend to be on one of my nightwalks. It much more difficulted to reach the library in this fashion than it had to sneak down to Mrs Grouse’s sitting room. The library far-ended the house, whereas thehousekeeper’s room bottomed the stairs, being almost directly below mine. My main problem, as always, lay in not being able to have a candle to light my way, for that I never had on my nightwalks. In the darkness I had to careful not to stumble against some piece of furniture, some random occasional table, for example, and so wake the whole household; also I must map in my mind where I was. It would be all too easy to wrongturn and so end up wandering the whole night until dawn showed me the way.
    Still, as this was not a nightwalk, I was able at least to blindman my arms and so feel ahead of me for any obstruction. In this manner, slowly I reached the long corridor. There was no light coming in through the windows there because the night was unmooned, a fact which unlikelied, but not impossibled, a nightwalk, although I wasn’t concerned about that. It was when I penetrated a little further and was not far from the staircase that would take me down to the first floor that I heard something. I stood still and listened, all my senses alert. At first I took it for the wind blowing a tree branch against some part of the house, for it was exactly the sibilant sound of leaves brushing against something. But then I realised the noise was not fixed but in motion and that, moreover, it was coming toward me. A moment later I recognised it for what it was, the swishing of skirts against floorboards. Whoever it was was, like me, uncandled, but nevertheless able to move at a considerable pace, so that she – it could only