Ayesha said, "No ... forget it ... Do not distress yourself."

"Bring it, please, Ayesha."

So she brought it.

"See, child, this is what he did for me. One has to know how to move this panel. You see. There is a little catch here. The jeweller was a great craftsman." She pulled back the panel on the mount of the fan to disclose a brilliant emerald surrounded by smaller diamonds. I caught my breath. It was so beautiful.

"It is worth a small fortune, they tell me, as if to console me. As if anything could. But it was his gift to me. That is why the fan is precious."

"But if it is going to bring you bad luck ..."

"It has done that. It can bring me no more. Ayesha, put it back. There. I have told you because, briefly, the fan was yours. You must walk more carefully than most. You are a good child. There. Go and rejoin Lavinia now. I have done my duty. Be on your guard ... with Fabian. You see, he will take some of the blame. Perhaps because you were in possession of it for such a short time it will pass over you. And he, too, would not be considered free of blame ..."

Ayesha said, "It is time to leave now."

She took me to the door and walked with me along the corridors.

"You must not take too much notice of what she says," she told me. "She is very sad and her mind wanders. It was the terrible shock, you understand. Do not worry about what you have heard. Perhaps I should not have brought you to her, but she wanted it. She could not rest until she had talked to you. It is off her mind now. You understand?"

"Yes, I understand."

And I said to myself: What happened made her mad.

And the thought of the ghostly nun in the east wing and the mad woman in the west made the house seem more and more fascinating to me.

As time passed I ceased to think about the peacock-feather fan and to wonder what terrible things might befall me because it had once been in my possession. I still visited the House; the governesses remained friendly; and my relationship with Lavinia had changed a little. I might still be plain and invited because I was the only girl in the neighbourhood of Lavinia's age and my station in life was not too lowly for me to be dismissed entirely, but I was gaining a little superiority over Lavinia because, while she was exceptionally pretty, I was more clever. Miss York boasted a little to Miss Etherton and on one occasion when Miss Etherton was ill, Miss York went over to the House to take her place until she recovered; and then the gap between myself and Lavinia was exposed. That did a lot for me and was not without its effect on Lavinia.

I was growing up. I was no longer to be put upon. I even threatened not to go to the House if Lavinia did not mend her ways; and it was obvious that that was something she did not want. We had become closer—even allies, when the occasion warranted it. I might be plain, but I was clever. She might be beautiful, but she could not think and invent as I could; and she relied on me—though she would not admit it—to take the lead.

Occasionally I saw Fabian. He came home for holidays and sometimes brought friends with him. They always ignored us, but I began to notice that Fabian was not so oblivious of my presence as he would have us believe. Sometimes I caught his furtive glance on me. I supposed it was due to that adventure long ago when I was a baby and he had kidnapped me.

It was whispered now that Miss Lucille was mad. Mrs. Janson was very friendly with the cook at the House, so, as she said, she had it "straight from the horse's mouth." Polly was like a jackdaw.  She seized on every bit of dazzling gossip and stored it up so that she could, as she said, "piece things together a treat."

We used to talk about the House often, for Polly seemed as fascinated about it as I was.

"The old lady's mad," she said. "Not a doubt of it. Never been right in her head since she lost her lover out in India. People must expect trouble if they go to these outlandish places. It turned Miss Lucille's head, all right. Mrs. Bright says she's taken to wandering about the House now ... ordering them around like they was black servants. It all comes of going to India. Why people can't stay at home, I don't know. She thinks she's still in India. It's all that Ayesha can do to look after her. And she's got another black servant there."

"That's Imam. He comes from India too. I think she brought him with her when she came home ... with Ayesha, of course."

"Gives me the creeps. Them outlandish clothes and black eyes and talking a sort of gibberish."

"It's not gibberish, Polly. It's their own language."

"Why didn't she have a nice British couple to look after her? Then there's that haunted room and something about a nun. Love trouble there, too. I don't know. I think love's something to keep away from, if you ask me."

"You didn't feel like that when you had Tom."

"You can't find men like my Tom two a penny, I can tell you."

"But everyone hopes you can. That's why they fall in love."

"You're getting too clever, my girl. Look at our Eff."

"Is he still as bad?"

Polly just clicked her tongue.

Oddly enough, after that conversation, there was news of Him. Apparently he had been suffering, as Polly said, from "Chest" for some time. I remember the day when news came that he was dead.

Polly was deeply shocked. She wasn't sure what this was going to mean to Eff.

"I'll have to go up for the funeral," she said. "After all, you've got to show a bit of respect."

"You didn't have much for him when he was alive," I pointed out.

"It's different when people are dead."

"Why?"

"Oh, you and your 'whys' and 'whats.' It just is ... that's all."

"Polly," I said. "Why can't I come to the funeral with you.”

She stared at me in amazement.

"You! Eff wouldn't expect that."

"Well, let's surprise her."

Polly was silent. I could see she was turning the idea over in her mind.

"Well," she said at length, "it would show respect."

I learned that respect was a very necessary part of funerals.

"We'd have to ask your father," she announced at length.

"He wouldn't notice whether I had gone or not."

"Now that's not the way to speak about your father."

"Why not, if it's the truth? And I like it that way. I wouldn't want him taking a real interest. I'll tell him."

He did look a little startled when I mentioned it.

He put his hands up to his spectacles, which he expected to have on his head. They weren't there, and he looked helpless, as though he couldn't possibly deal with the matter until he found them. They were, fortunately, on his desk, and I promptly brought them to him.

"It's Polly's sister and it shows respect," I told him.

"I hope this does not mean she will want to leave us."

"Leave us!" The idea had not occurred to me. "Of course she won't want to leave us."

"She might want to live with her sister."

"Oh no," I cried. "But I think I ought to go to this funeral."

"It could be a morbid affair. The working classes make a great deal of them ... spending money they can ill afford."

"I want to go, Father. I want to see her sister. She's always talking about her."

He nodded. "Well, then you should go."

"We shall be there for a few days."

"I daresay that will be all right. You will have Polly with you."

Polly was delighted that I was going with her. She said Eff would be pleased.

So I shared in the funeral rites, and very illuminating I found it.

I was surprised by the size of Eff's house. It faced a common, round which the four-storied houses stood like sentinels. "Eff always liked a bit of green," Polly told me. "And she's got it there. A little bit of the country and the horses clopping by to let her know she's not right out in the wilds."

"It's what you call the best of both worlds," I said.

"Well, I won't quarrel with that," agreed Polly.

Eff was about four years older than Polly but looked more. When I mentioned this Polly replied, "It's the life she's led." She did not mention Him because he was dead, and when people died, I realized, their sins were washed away by the all-important respect; but I knew it was life with Him that had aged Eff beyond her years. I was surprised, for she did not seem to be the sort of woman who could be easily cowed, even by Him. She was like Polly in many ways; she had the same shrewd outlook on life and the sort of confidence that declared that none was going to get the better of her before anyone had attempted to do so. During my brief stay I recognized the same outlook in others. It was what is referred to as the cockney spirit; and it certainly seemed to be a product of the streets of London.

That visit was a great revelation to me. I felt I had entered a different world. It excited me. Polly was part of it and I wanted to know more of it.

Eff was a little nervous of me at first. She kept apologizing for things. "Not what you're used to, I'm sure," until Polly said, "Don't you worry about Drusilla, Eff. Me and her get. on like a house afire, don't we?" I assured Eff that we did.

Every now and then Polly and Eff would laugh and then remember Him lying in state in the front parlour.

"He makes a lovely corpse," said Eff. "Mrs. Brown came in to lay him out and she's done a good job on him."

We sat in the kitchen and talked about him. I did not recognize him as the monster of the past; I was about to remind Polly of this, but when I attempted to, she gave me a little kick under the table to remind me in time of the respect owed to the dead.