"Then n.o.body about the place? n.o.body from the village?"
"n.o.body--n.o.body. I didn"t tell you, but I made sure."
She breathed a vague relief: this was, oddly, so much to the good. It only went indeed a little way. "But if he isn"t a gentleman--"
"What IS he? He"s a horror."
"A horror?"
"He"s--G.o.d help me if I know WHAT he is!"
Mrs. Grose looked round once more; she fixed her eyes on the duskier distance, then, pulling herself together, turned to me with abrupt inconsequence. "It"s time we should be at church."
"Oh, I"m not fit for church!"
"Won"t it do you good?"
"It won"t do THEM--! I nodded at the house.
"The children?"
"I can"t leave them now."
"You"re afraid--?"
I spoke boldly. "I"m afraid of HIM."
Mrs. Grose"s large face showed me, at this, for the first time, the faraway faint glimmer of a consciousness more acute: I somehow made out in it the delayed dawn of an idea I myself had not given her and that was as yet quite obscure to me. It comes back to me that I thought instantly of this as something I could get from her; and I felt it to be connected with the desire she presently showed to know more. "When was it--on the tower?"
"About the middle of the month. At this same hour."
"Almost at dark," said Mrs. Grose.
"Oh, no, not nearly. I saw him as I see you."
"Then how did he get in?"
"And how did he get out?" I laughed. "I had no opportunity to ask him!
This evening, you see," I pursued, "he has not been able to get in."
"He only peeps?"
"I hope it will be confined to that!" She had now let go my hand; she turned away a little. I waited an instant; then I brought out: "Go to church. Goodbye. I must watch."
Slowly she faced me again. "Do you fear for them?"
We met in another long look. "Don"t YOU?" Instead of answering she came nearer to the window and, for a minute, applied her face to the gla.s.s.
"You see how he could see," I meanwhile went on.
She didn"t move. "How long was he here?"
"Till I came out. I came to meet him."
Mrs. Grose at last turned round, and there was still more in her face.
"_I_ couldn"t have come out."
"Neither could I!" I laughed again. "But I did come. I have my duty."
"So have I mine," she replied; after which she added: "What is he like?"
"I"ve been dying to tell you. But he"s like n.o.body."
"n.o.body?" she echoed.
"He has no hat." Then seeing in her face that she already, in this, with a deeper dismay, found a touch of picture, I quickly added stroke to stroke. "He has red hair, very red, close-curling, and a pale face, long in shape, with straight, good features and little, rather queer whiskers that are as red as his hair. His eyebrows are, somehow, darker; they look particularly arched and as if they might move a good deal. His eyes are sharp, strange--awfully; but I only know clearly that they"re rather small and very fixed. His mouth"s wide, and his lips are thin, and except for his little whiskers he"s quite clean-shaven. He gives me a sort of sense of looking like an actor."
"An actor!" It was impossible to resemble one less, at least, than Mrs.
Grose at that moment.
"I"ve never seen one, but so I suppose them. He"s tall, active, erect,"
I continued, "but never--no, never!--a gentleman."
My companion"s face had blanched as I went on; her round eyes started and her mild mouth gaped. "A gentleman?" she gasped, confounded, stupefied: "a gentleman HE?"
"You know him then?"
She visibly tried to hold herself. "But he IS handsome?"
I saw the way to help her. "Remarkably!"
"And dressed--?"
"In somebody"s clothes." "They"re smart, but they"re not his own."
She broke into a breathless affirmative groan: "They"re the master"s!"
I caught it up. "You DO know him?"
She faltered but a second. "Quint!" she cried.
"Quint?"
"Peter Quint--his own man, his valet, when he was here!"
"When the master was?"
Gaping still, but meeting me, she pieced it all together. "He never wore his hat, but he did wear--well, there were waistcoats missed. They were both here--last year. Then the master went, and Quint was alone."