It’s as if you hear her talking, as if she’s standing at your shoulder. When it’s really bad, you imagine you smell her perfume. You think her thoughts, you dream her dreams.
Now there’s a thought: Miss Philippa May Penhow is not dead, only sleeping.
At ten past three on Tuesday, 6 November 1934, Lydia Langstone fumbled in her handbag for the latchkey. The house loomed over her like a dirty wedding cake. A cold wind, flecked with rain, nipped at her ankles. In her haste, she dropped the key and found herself laughing with a sort of idiot joy as she stooped to pick it up.
Leaves shuffled along the pavement. The taxi pulled away from the curb and she glanced over her shoulder at the sound of its engine. The front door was several feet above the level of the pavement and framed by a pair of white pillars.
But this, she thought, will make everything all right. Now. At last.
The key turned in the lock. She pushed open the door. The house was silent, wrapped in the calm that descended on it between lunch and tea when for an hour or two the servants became invisible, wrapped in the mystery of their own lives.
Marcus’s hat lay on the polished chest at the foot of the stairs. For once she was pleased to see it. He had been lunching at his club and had said nothing about when he would return. She registered the presence of a second hat, one she did not recognize, but failed in her absorption to draw the obvious conclusion that its owner must be in the house too.
Marcus would be upstairs in his study or the drawing room. Still in her hat and coat, Lydia went in search of him. She ran up the stairs, which were far too large and imposing for the hall below and the landing above. It was that sort of house-it strove to impress and succeeded in sacrificing comfort and convenience.