Voices in a Haunted Room

“Nobody knows we are here together. It can be our secret. Look at it like this: I had to do what I did. It obsessed me. It was such a desperate need that I had no feelings for anything else, and when you were there, close to me, Claudine, it was the same with you. It is a powerful attraction between us. You can do no good by confessions. Your secret guilt hurts only you.”

“Perhaps you are right,” I said slowly. “I want to get away from this house. I know it is an evil house. It does something to people. It makes them different from what they really are.”

“Perhaps it shows them what they really are.”

I wanted to get away. I wanted to think about this. I could not bear to stay there a moment longer.

I felt for the key of the house in the pocket of my dress. I was thankful it was still there for I feared it might have dropped out. There were certain cracks in the floorboards and it could have fallen down one of those. But there it was, safe, and the very feel of it brought me back to reality.

I ran down the stairs. Jonathan was right behind me.

Into the hall, across the stone floor, our footsteps echoing through the house, I turned to look at the minstrels’ gallery and it seemed to me that there was a smug satisfaction about the house.

We came out and I locked the door.

I was dazed by my experience; and I felt as though I were still living in that world of wonderment to which he had introduced me. We walked across the fields to Eversleigh.

The house was quiet and I was glad I did not meet anyone on my way to my room. There I looked at myself in the mirror and it seemed that a stranger looked back at me.

This was not the same woman who had left that afternoon for the appointment with Molly Blackett. Of course it wasn’t! I should never be the same again. I had broken one of the commandments: Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery. And I had done this so easily ... yet unintentionally-so carried away by the impulse of the moment. I had feared it, of course, but I had never truly thought it would happen. I had not realized that potent sexuality, that overwhelming power which silenced all qualms, which knew no conscience while one was in its thrall. I would never have believed this could happen to me.

I knew the story of my grandmother Zipporah, who had met a man in that very house and had behaved as I had today. She had been a quiet, virtuous woman, different from me, really, because I had always known that Jonathan could arouse desires in me which I must not give way to. What was that brooding evil at Enderby which had such an effect on the women of my family?

I was trying to shift the blame. I was trying to accuse the house of being responsible for my own misconduct.

How had it happened, so quickly, so easily? He had not forced me, he had said rather triumphantly. It was true. I had abandoned myself, willingly. I wished I could stop thinking of him. But I loved him, if loving was feeling more alive with some one person more than with anyone else, wanting to be with that person, to be close, to share intimacy, to be together every hour of the day and night.

Had I not felt that with David? David was interesting. He was kind and tender. It was a quiet relationship which had contented me until this afternoon. Love-making with David was quite pleasurable-as was everything else. But never had I experienced that wild excitement, that complete abandonment which I had known this afternoon.

Guilt weighed me down. If only I could go back to early afternoon. I should have waited outside the house. I should never have allowed it to wrap its tentacles around me. There I was, blaming the house again. There was no one to blame but myself ... and Jonathan. And he had not forced me. I kept stressing that.

He was right. What good could confession do? If I were wise I should dismiss the incident from my mind. I should try to behave as though it had never happened. Perhaps hi tune I could forget it ever had. Forget it? That most shattering experience? Already I was thinking of being there, and seeing him there with me.

I must not tell David. It must be my secret ... and Jonathan’s. He was right. It must remain so.

Perhaps his conscience would trouble him, as mine did me. Perhaps he would to to London, stay there, visit Eversleigh only occasionally. Perhaps the manager would decide to leave, and then David and I could have his house.

I knew what I was telling myself were possibilities were improbabilities. Jonathan would not stay in London; the manager would not go. Moreover, I wondered whether Jonathan would seek to trap me again. The very thought excited me. God help me, I wanted to be trapped. That was the frightening part of it. I revelled in my sin.

In the meantime I had to live through the next hours. I had to behave normally with my guilt clinging to me. Surely it was obvious.

I took down my hair which I had hastily pinned up. I undressed and got into bed.

I would have a headache today. I could not go down to dine for I could not face anyone.