Killing Violets, Tanith Lee [the two towers ebook .TXT] 📗

The lipstick was finished. Lilian stalked to a pier-glass and manoeuvred in front of it, smoothing down material over her hips. “Not so bad, old girl. Not so bad.” So that was the connotation of old here. “Oh. Raoul and I,” said Lilian. She thrust her empty glass at one of the maids, “Fill me up. Yes, Raoul… I’ve no doubt he told you. We’ve done a thing or two. When we wore nippers, you know. Nippers – the nanny used to call us that. The Nippers.”

Mystified, Anna visualised talons; clipping, pincing motions.

“He pulled down my knickers and had a damn good look and I undid his buttons. What a silly little pink shrimp. Probably not like that now. Oh, don’t get the idea we did anything much,” said Lilian, boastfully. “A bit of slap and tickle. God I’m starved.”

Anna glanced at the maids, as Lilian and she left the room. Were they faceless as eggs? Yes, how odd, truly they seemed to be. The way Orientals were said to be, all the same, except that, with Orientals, one instantly saw this statement was ridiculous.

The girl who had been struck by the cigarette case had the angry star of a bruise rising on her forehead. Anna had seen terrible things, disgusting things, but that action, so needless, heedless, had planted in her a seed of nausea. She could not forget, it. It would be wrong to forget it.

Even so, despite the bruise, bobbing, heads bent down.

There were vast cheeses, but without crusts, these had rinds. Their texture was like softish wax. And a cold ham, a salad, loaves, little pies, relishes. Beer.

The English ate such a lot, and so often.

Raoul was there. He spoke to her jollily. He was really and certainly changing, even physically, as if to be camouflaged among his kin. He had been pale and slender, serious and quizzical, all across Europe. His face had a sort of flush to it now and looked fuller, and smug. He laughed loudly, and punched the brother, William?, in the chest. “Dashed bugger.”

After supper the women played cards in the salon, some complex game, which they said they wanted Anna to join, and said they would teach her, and this she doubted. She replied she had a slight headache.

The men retreated away over the house, to put as much distance as was feasible between themselves and the women. In the Smoking Room they would drink port and brandy, apparently.

The servants moved on oiled runners.

Anna sat in a big chair. She read one of the old novels, which as usual she could barely grasp.

She heard Lilian say, “Anna and I had quite a chat. Oh, quite a conversation.”

Then Anna dreamed she had walked all the way to Lonun, as savage lower-class characters sometimes did in the novels. It was a conglomerate of spidery towers craning on a purple sky. The Houses of Parliament – she had once seen their picture – floated in a river of zinc.

When she woke, the women played on, drinking whisky and swearing, but not as Lilian had sworn upstairs.

Anna stole cautiously from the room.

Opening her bedroom door, she found a piece of writing paper had been pushed under. On it, another map.

Raoul had not approached her for anything, scarcely to talk. Walks and congress no longer seemed to matter to him, and the phantom of the capital was forgotten.

Nor was the map Raoul’s. Nor Lilian’s. A new hand, which made sharp black unlinked edges, the writing a scrawl.

But she made out the direction. The way up to the greenhouse glass box on the tower, the place where she had sat with the man perhaps called William, and he had lied or informed her he had been her lover.

His map, then? His invitation?

Anna sat down at the dressing-table. Beyond undrawn curtains – strange, normally they were drawn by now – the cut lawns ran to the sculpted beeches, and then the river sliced the fields and the mountains, which were hills, cuddled the sky, but moonless night had extinguished everything. Out there – might be only an abyss.

Somewhere an English fox screamed. Anna started. It had happened before, and been identified to her. But the sound was frightful, agony or malediction. No wonder such creatures were hunted. They must be insane and very dangerous – worse than wolves. (She had heard strange noises in the park quite often.)

If she obliged William now, he might facilitate her going away, and even help her monetarily. She didn’t for a moment credit this. Nor did she think, if she ignored the challenge, she would be left in peace.

She took off the beaded dress, and fumbled, for she had absurdly already got used to the assistance of the maid.

Anna put on a wrap. If anyone found her in the corridors she would pretend she was sleep-walking. She had done this once, elsewhere, and got away with it.

She was a sort of sleep-walker anyway. There was always this compulsion to go forward, through cities, along roads, across the borders of countries. And into events, blindfolded, searching with her hands. How could you not turn the page? Even in the dark.

The corridors however were lit by the powerful electric lights. Anna had no difficulty, and soon enough there was the stair going up.

It occurred to her quite suddenly at this instant, she had not seen the main entrance hall since her arrival. It had a black and white chequered floor as if for a game of chess, and two fireplaces. The walls were hung by swords and other bellicose paraphernalia, and the heads of stags, floretted with antlers. For the country walk though, Raoul had taken her through back rooms with chests and guns. She could not recall the way at all to the front of the house.

Then she went up the stair and was in the green corridor.

No doors stood open.

When she came to the second small stair, an appalling odour drifted in gusts to her on the condensed air