‘I won’t imagine it,’ she said.
‘No, Miss.’ He pulled out a cigarette. ‘Do you mind, Miss Vaughan?’
She shook her head. She shook it again when suddenly he offered her one. He leaned so far across the table, and so abruptly, that she drew back, picked up her handbag, and seemed bent on a sudden departure.
‘You weren’t laughing, Miss Vaughan,’ Jones said. ‘You were screaming.’
‘Was I?’
‘Yes. We heard you.’
She leaned to him and said in a hushed voice. ‘I hope Mrs Gandell is not worrying about me, Jones. Sometimes I catch her looking at me in rather a strange way.’
‘Mrs Gandell worries about all her guests, Miss Vaughan.’
‘Mr Thomas’s sister came to see her yesterday. Very worried she was.’
He paused, watched, waited for reactions.
‘She’s afraid of losing her brother.’
‘Indeed!’
‘She told Mrs Gandell that her brother is in love with you.’
And Miss Vaughan gave out a loud, and prolonged titter.
‘Really?’
‘Really. He thinks you are lonely, Miss, and very unhappy.’
‘I am happy,’ she said.
‘Good. Then Mrs Gandell and I are both glad to know that. We do not like our guests to be unhappy. Did she tell you you could have the larger room now?’
‘I have my room. I like my room. I’ve told her that, Jones.’
‘Do you like Mr Thomas?’
‘I laugh at Mr Thomas,’ she said.
‘Do you?’
‘I laughed when he came to my room,’ she said.
‘Came to your room? What happened?’
‘I laughed.’
‘Actually went up to your room? How did he get in?’
There was the tiniest laugh. ‘I never asked him,’ she said.
‘I can’t believe it,’ said Jones, ‘I can’t.’
‘It didn’t matter.’
He watched her fidgeting with her handbag, studied her hair.
‘Very plain really,’ he thought, ‘but nicer with those specs off. And the way she looks at you, straight at you, through you, and that pale calm face. H’m! Must be forty, perhaps forty-five, yes.’ And the question hammered at him. How did Thomas get in?
She put her bag on the table, looked at Jones. ‘There,’ she said.
When he leaned across the table, she leaned back, and his hands gripped the table.
‘Talking of screaming, Miss, if anybody starts screaming now its bound to be her upstairs, yes indeed. D’you know what?’
Miss Vaughan didn’t, made to get up, then sat down again.
‘Can’t bear me out of her sight for a second, fact. There’s skin-close for you, Miss. Once, I said to her, “Mrs Gandell, sometimes you’re too real for me.” I once hit her right across the jaw. Know why? Started calling me Fido, just as if I was her little dog.’
‘I saw the Colonel yesterday,’ Miss Vaughan said, her voice hushed, confiding.
‘If hardly anything’s real to a person, Miss Vaughan, would you say they were lucky?’
‘It’s a long long way down the shore,’ she said. ‘I love the shore, Jones. He has a big house down there.’
‘How very nice,’ and he lit a cigarette. ‘Very nice indeed.’
