The Burning Bride Read online

wondered too whether he was paralysed, fixed by the loveliness of the vision. She wore a gown cut in the same fashion as that she wore on the hilltop, but more fine, more lustrous than before. The body of it fitted neatly to her form, emphasising the soft curves of her shoulders and throat, while the full, wide skirts flowed down in abundant swathes to gather into a long train behind. The colour of the heavy silk was remarkable— gleaming with the very tint of the moonlight itself, so that she seemed to emerge from the pallid rays and coalesce into a living spirit of them.

  His heart beat harder and harder, so that he thought she must perceive it, and realise he was awake; but still he could not move yet, not while she was still slowly turning her face from the shadow to look at him, turning so that the black pall began to retreat from her soft cheek, the tips of her lashes; and all the while she was stepping gently forward, her delicate hand raised, the glimmering sheen of her dress coursing along the lines of her figure with every movement.

  She paused; he held his breath. Another inch, another inch towards him and her face would flood with light, completing the splendid and beautiful image. He could not bear to wait. He must see her— with a lunge he reached for the switch of the lamp on his beside table. Throwing more violence into the sudden attempt than he intended, his arm knocked over the lamp even as it came on. He caught its cord, yanked it upright and turned— Bianca was gone.

  The confusion of dissipating sleep and the abrupt, harsh illumination left him blinking dumbly for a moment at the vacant space she had occupied; the next moment found him on his feet and running to the door. Seizing the handle, he threw it open and darted into the corridor. It was empty: she had fled too swiftly for him. He paced along to the end to check the stairwell— no-one there either. The angry irritation that had plagued him before falling asleep now returned with vehemence. Why had she come stealing upon him, only to run away? Why had he not confronted her at once? Cursing in a fierce whisper, he went back to his bedroom to think. The moon was now swathed with cloud and invisible; he closed the curtains, and sat on the edge of the bed.

  This appearance surely confirmed— surely— that Bianca was alive. He supposed that he ought to feel the elation of the fact, but her continued determination to evade him— to try or test him, or whatever it was— stole the sense of it. That she meant to make some point with her visits and denials he was certain; what that point was going to be, however, he could not decide. He began by trying to fathom it, and considered several theories, until fatigue and unyielding bafflement made him resolve to stop pursuing it. Presumably she would make her intention known soon enough; he only hoped it would be very soon.

  In the meantime, he pondered how to act, or react, if this treatment was to carry on. Outright confrontation and honest questions had not availed him earlier, and even her accomplice Mrs. Prothero had maintained the deception to his face. But he could hardly pretend to accept that Bianca was not Bianca; hardly pretend that this ‘Smith’ was anything but a transparent invention. No, he was obliged to acknowledge the lie as a lie— surely that was what Bianca must expect him to do? Very well, he would play the part she was setting out for him, and await the conclusion of the drama.

  ‘A happy, comedy ending, I hope,’ he thought, and lay down on the bed. ‘Another chance. She wouldn’t do all this unless she means to give me another chance.’

  V

  For the remainder of the night he slept dreamlessly, and woke late to the muffled murmurs rising from downstairs as the wedding preparations began. He got up, and while thoughtfully washing his face decided to go to Bianca’s room and see whether he could find the costumes she had worn during her pantomimes— the dress with its starry gleam and its lunar counterpart of last night. He had an inkling of where her room might be. Before they married, Bianca always stayed in a little corner of the third floor— she used to call it ‘the garret’ but would never take a better. No doubt she— or Smith, as she chose to call herself, would be there again. Accordingly he crept upstairs and along the gallery until he spied the door: it was open. Preparing some excuse in case she was still in bed, he approached breezily. The room was empty of people, but full enough of scattered clothes and knick-knacks to reveal that his guess about its occupant was correct. There lay the fur wrap, so offensive to Mrs. Prothero, trailing over a chair.

  He darted inside, and drew open the doors of the wardrobe, which were carelessly ajar. Plenty of clothes, to be sure, and a faint edge of fresh perfume clinging to them, but nothing like the beautiful gowns he had seen. He flipped up the lid of a suitcase, which seemed to have disgorged most of its contents across the floor; no sign of her nocturnal attire. As he pulled at the first in a chest of drawers, however, he began to feel embarrassed. He did not need to find her dresses to prove that it was her— he knew already. He might easily confront her with her play-acting in any case, if he chose; but he did not feel inclined to. That would not induce her to explain her motives.

  Suddenly, a movement in the room startled him, and he sprang towards the door like a detected fugitive— but it was merely his own reflection in the dressing table mirror. His relief almost amounted to disappointment, and with that unsatisfactory feeling he approached the glass and stared at his own appearance in it. Sad and tender ideas succeeded: how often had Bianca’s face looked back at her from there? How often had it caught, fleetingly, the expression of her eyes, in hope, in doubt, in love? In the days before they were wed, had she gazed in and imagined his own face gazing back? If she could have seen it as he saw it now— tired, tense, haunted— what would she have felt? Disgust? Resentment? Not love, surely?

  A creak of floorboard in the corridor jolted him from this reverie. He slipped through the door and took a few hurried steps forward before Mrs. Prothero appeared around the corner at the end.

  ‘Silas! What are you doing here?’ she called. There was more than a hint of suspicion in her voice. He was quick.

  ‘I came to say sorry.’

  ‘To Smith? I wouldn’t try, Silas. One sorry would go to her head. Besides, she has as much cause to apologise.’

  ‘Well then, let me make amends with you. I didn’t mean to embarrass you, or shun your guests. I was— out of sorts.’

  ‘I forgive you for that— you’ve had a shock, I think. Visiting Bianca’s monument brought it all home to you, didn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, perhaps. Anyway, I’ll go and show my face downstairs.’

  ‘That’s it— and get something to eat. You must be starving! I vow to fatten you up before you leave my house.’

  Silas did not delay further in seeking out his breakfast, and tucked in heartily when he found it, suddenly realising that he was quite as hungry as Mrs. Prothero supposed he must be. This morning he was glad to see that nobody shared the Breakfast Room with him— he had no desire to encounter Smith again unprepared, and on an empty stomach. But his meal was not altogether uninterrupted. Just as he was finishing, three young women appeared: two of them with apparent reluctance, and the third eagerly, hurrying to cram a plateful.

  ‘Don’t have too much, Daphne,’ cautioned one of her tall, rather lanky companions. ‘Remember what Phillip said.’

  ‘But I didn’t eat at all yesterday,’ came the protesting reply, as she shovelled a slice of toast hastily into her mouth.

  The pair glanced dubiously at each other. One of them took a glass of grapefruit juice and sipped it timorously; the other abstained altogether.

  ‘Don’t forget the final fitting today,’ advised the latter.

  Daphne pretended not to hear, and prevented further advice by noticing Silas. ‘Are you Mrs. Prothero’s other godson?’ she asked.

  He nodded. ‘And I suppose you’re the bride to be. Congratulations— or perhaps congratulations to be. Phil’s a very lucky man.’

  She shook her head in anxious surprise. ‘No, no. I’m the lucky one.’

  Silas could not agree. He did not cherish a very high opinion of Phil Pevensey, and considered Daphne to be far beyond h
is deserts. She was blonde and pretty, as Mrs. Prothero had mentioned, and short and nervous, which Mrs. Prothero had omitted. In fact, she was nervous almost to the point of trembling. He concluded that she was merely apprehensive about the wedding.

  The other women turned out to be bridesmaids. Both seemed sullen and rather reticent. Silas wondered how long they had been fasting for their final dress fittings.

  ‘Don’t have that!’ whispered the bridesmaid with the grapefruit juice, as Daphne reached to take a second sausage. ‘What will Phillip say? You mustn’t upset him.’

  Daphne replaced it with a forlorn look. ‘I didn’t eat at all yesterday,’ she protested again, but with rather less conviction.

  ‘Oh, help yourself, Daphne,’ laughed Silas. ‘Phil wouldn’t begrudge you a little sausage! Let’s hope not, in any case.’

  ‘I’d better not,’ she mumbled, and pushed her plate away unfinished. She glanced apologetically at her friends.

  ‘Smith’s looking for you,’ interjected the bridesmaid who abstained. Her remark was directed at Silas, perhaps with the intention of removing his malign dietary influence.

  His face set into a defiant expression. ‘Smith? Who’s that?’

  ‘Smith— you know— Mrs. Prothero’s friend,’ said Daphne. ‘She asked us to