Alice thought, “I will make myself ill.  So ill that they’ll have to send for him.  I shall see him that way.”

VI

Alice sat up.  She was thinking another thought.

“If Mr. Greatorex is dead, Dr. Rowcliffe won’t stay long at Upthorne.  He will come back soon.  And he will have to call and leave word.  He will come in and I shall see him.”

But if Mr. Greatorex wasn’t dead?  If Mr. Greatorex were a long time over his dying?  Then he might be kept at Upthorne, perhaps till midnight, perhaps till morning.  Then, even if he called to leave word, she would not see him.  When she looked deep she found herself wondering how long Mr. Greatorex would be over his dying.  If she had looked a little deeper she would have found herself hoping that Mr. Greatorex was already dead.

If Mr. Greatorex was dead before he got to Upthorne he would come very soon, perhaps before prayer-time.

And he would be shown into the drawing-room.

Would he?  Would Essy have the sense?  No.  Not unless the lamp was lit there.  Essy wouldn’t show him into a dark room.  And Essy was stupid.  She might have no sense.  She might take him straight into the study and Papa would keep him there.  Trust Papa.

Alice got up from her sofa and left the room; moving with her weary grace and a little air of boredom and of unconcern.  She was always most unconcerned when she was most intent.

Outside in the passage she stood a moment, listening.  All the ways of the house gave upon the passage in a space so narrow that by stretching out one arm she could have touched both walls.

With a door open anywhere the passage became a gully for the north wind.  Now, with all doors shut, it was as if the breath of the house was being squeezed out there, between closing walls.  The passage, instead of dividing the house, drew it together tight.  And this tightness was intolerable to Alice.

She hated it.  She hated the whole house.  It was so built that there wasn’t a corner in it where you could get away from Papa.  His study had one door opening into the passage and one into the dining-room.  The window where he sat raked the garden on the far side.  The window of his bedroom raked the front; its door commanded the stairhead.  He was aware of everything you did, of everything you didn’t do.  He could hear you in the dining-room; he could hear you overhead; he could hear you going up and downstairs.  He could positively hear you breathe, and he always knew whether you were in bed or not.  She drew in her breath lest he should hear it now.

At the far end of the passage, on the wall-space between the staircase and the kitchen door, raised on a small bracket, a small tin lamp showed a thrifty flame.  Under it, on a mahogany table-flap, was a row of bedroom candlesticks with their match-boxes.

Her progress to the table-flap was stealthy.  She exalted this business of lighting the drawing-room lamp to a desperate, perilous adventure.  The stone floor deadened her footsteps as she went.