It was a perfect period piece, for which the rich and famous would pay thousands in the city. Another oil lamp lit up the bath of green marble, the marble wash-basin and wooden-seated lavatory wreathed in green daisies. The vaunted hot water came via an Ascot. White pristine towels lay on a chest sporting eau-de-Nil basin and jug, and a dish of dried petals. The soap was also green with a smell of honeysuckle. New soap, new towels. On the walls mermaids dived over the tiles.

Rachaela looked up. There was a light fitment without a bulb. Electricity had come and gone.

She washed her face, hands and arms, seeing that she was trembling. The mirror behind the basin showed a glass ocean scene with a three-masted ship. She saw her Ups, eyes, the blackness of her hair, in fragments.

Back in the bedroom her bags had noiselessly arrived. She changed her jumper, took off her boots and put on high-heeled shoes. In the great wardrobe with its mahogany wreaths and flanges, each sealed by a fine pollen of dust, she would later hang her few clothes. She disliked colour on her person, it wounded her. Oddly, the black, grey and cream, the sere faint-green and blue would match her always to this room.

She had again the sense of the validity of her arrival, their excitement, and of permanence, that too. She was frightened by these feelings but it was too late to be afraid. She had come to them. They had let her in.

She powdered her face in her mirror and reaffirmed the dark pencil around her eyes.

When she had combed her hair she walked straight to the door. And paused.

She had not heard the coming of the cases, but now someone was proceeding along the passage. It was a peculiar, rhythmic and uneven gait. Then she heard the voice, high and petulant. ‘Giddy-up, giddy-up!’

Rachaela thought of a child pretending to ride a horse. An old child playing up and down the corridor.

There was a tiny scuffle. And the horse rearing: ‘Whoa there!’ And then galloping by and away.

Rachaela opened the door suddenly.

A black shadow cavorted in the passage’s end, and rolled from view.

Something lay by the door.

Rachaela bent down, and touched with one finger the body of a perfect long-tailed mouse. It was dead, without a mark. About its body was tied a faded bow of pink silk.

Rachaela picked up the gift-wrapped mouse.

She held it in her hand. It did not distress her. It was soft and pitiful, beautiful as a toy in death. She laid the mouse on the dressing-table, took her bag, and went into the house.

Downstairs the lamps and candles had bloomed out everywhere. She saw doors in the walls of the hallway, one with black iron fitments like something from a castle. Burning reflections swam in the marble floor.