What could she do but sit in her room and play her radio for comfort, pretend this was some cosy house at which she lodged, the fire and lamps some lovely old-fashioned niceness, and nothing dark anywhere, no shadows, the window clear and ready to let in the coming day.

A sombre symphony of Mahler’s added to her gloom. She turned, as she rarely did, to a station of speech, to hear a normal human voice.

Men and women talked knowledgeably about politics. Rachaela sat mesmerized. Out there, the world, dangerous and real. She could not believe in it, and clung to the talkers in an effort to credit them. In how many ordinary places did those leading normal lives attend to these words which now to her were like snow swirling past a precipice. She had never learned the strategic points of maps. Tonight other countries were like dreams, the capital city an illusion.

There was only now, and this.

At midnight she heard them moving in the house like water in a pipe.

She patrolled the room back and forth before the hearth. She knew they were seeing to Sylvian, some ceremony of their own, having nothing to do with doctors, ministers, the church.

She opened the wardrobe on instinct and took out her coat.

She went out of her door and stood in the passage, listening. She could barely hear them now, and then a little burst like bats squeaking. They were on the stairs, on the red Persian carpet, going down. And Carlo must be there, strong Carlo the porter, with his load.

Rachaela walked firmly to the landing. She saw them below her in the hall. They were all there except for Camillo. Camillo and Adamus—too old, too young, to be a part of this.

Would they send her back? Entreat or threaten?

As she descended, the iron head of Livia turned; Miriam and Jack lit her with their bright rat eyes. But not a word was said.

She was family. Not included, but not to be shut out. A witness.

They went across the lobby, into the drawing room. The fires were dead. Already the rooms were cold. Into the airlock of the conservatory. Carlo was ahead of them. He carried something Rachaela did not need to see to identify. They brushed by the towering plants. This time petals did fall. Rachaela recalled what Camillo had said to her, the flower head...

Outside the night was frigidly cold, achingly still, but for the rush of the sea.

The tide was out, the moon up. Perhaps they had been waiting for both these phenomena, as much as for the coming of the night.

She watched them file ahead of her along the path where the unseasonal wild flowers grew.

She kept a little distance between herself and the last of them, who now was Miriam.