Mrs Bridgetower was everywhere in this house. Across the hall was the room in which she had died. Below, in the drawing-room, was her chair. Everywhere, all was as she had left it, and her watch-dog, Miss Laura Pottinger, took care to see that nothing was changed. This was not Veronica’s house, and her husband’s; it was the property of the Bridgetower Trust, and they lived in it simply as caretakers—caretakers who paid the big coal bills and tried to keep it clean.

Why could they not go elsewhere? But she had never even asked Solly why, and she would never do so now. For it was Veronica’s terrible secret that Mrs Bridgetower owned her husband, as well as everything else in the house. He, who had been high-spirited and amusing in his ironic, undergraduate way before their marriage, had become more and more like his Mother since his Mother’s death. A severity, a watchfulness had grown on him, and all the more quickly since the birth of the child.

She had never seen the child, but the nurse had told her, against doctor’s orders, that it had been a fine boy. It was the boy which might have broken the Trust, might have given them Mrs Bridgetower’s fortune, might have enabled them to sell this hateful, haunted house, might have delivered them from this bondage. But the boy had been born with his navel-cord tight around his neck, strangling as he moved toward the light.

Had that been Mrs Bridgetower’s work, also? If she had drawn the spiteful will, if she still possessed this house, might she not also be capable of that?

Solly had wept with her, had taken her away for as long a holiday as they could afford, and then—had promised that there would be more children. He had meant to be kind and courageous, but Veronica feared the thought of more children. The doctor said that there was not the slightest reason for fear. But the doctor was not Mrs Bridgetower’s daughter-in-law; she could not tell him that she feared the vengeance of a dead woman whose son she had stolen.

Solly had become grimmer, and they had grown poorer, trying to keep up the house, and old Ethel, on his modest university lecturer’s salary. It was not that they seriously lacked money; it was, rather, that all the appurtenances of an income far greater than their own, and all the habits which went with money and a large house, hung around them, and they were both poor managers. Their poverty was illusory, but it was perhaps the more destructive and humiliating for that. And here she lay, fearing the future—fearing, more than she dared admit to herself, the man whom she so much loved, who was passing more and more into the possession of the woman who had so much hated her.

Still, was this not better than that year which had followed Mrs Bridgetower’s death—the year when Solly had hoped that they might have a son, and halt the whole business of forming the Trust? She had borne patiently with his first flogging of himself to beget a child; they had pretended to each other that it was a joke—but they knew in their hearts that it was no joke. And as time passed, and nothing happened, Solly grew frightened and suddenly could make love no longer. He sought medical advice; the doctor said that there was nothing wrong with him, and suggested in the easy way of doctors that he must relax. Yes, relax. Rest would work a cure.

That rest-cure had been a troubled time. If a man is trying to recover from impotence, when is he to assume that he has refrained long enough? The deceptions and mockeries of Solly’s body distressed them both, for Veronica longed for him, and could not always dissemble her longing. Both felt the Dead Hand of Mrs Bridgetower; its chill had frozen the very fountain of their passion, brought winter to the garden of their love.

Then, as the doctor had said he would, Solly recovered, and with a new determination and greater caution they sought an heir—no, a son. And, after the months of pregnancy, with the chances that it would be a daughter at least evenly weighed against them, the stillborn son had come to mock their hopes. Veronica had endured it all, and could endure anything the future and—if it were indeed a fact—the posthumous malignancy of her mother-in-law might bring, if only she did not lose Solly. But so often now it seemed that he was possessed by the spirit of his mother at least as much as by the nature which she so much loved, and it was this that brought her, in such nights as this, a terror which was desolating and bleak.

More children! Sometimes, when Solly made love to her, she could have wept, could have shrieked with misery. For in the very climax of love he might have been struggling with the spirit of his Mother, so oblivious did he seem of Veronica. And did he want a child, or was it rather vengeance on his tormentor, and the recovery of her money, which he sought to plant in his wife’s body?

Who could say that Louisa Hansen Bridgetower was dead? Freed from the cumbrous, ailing body, freed from any obligation to counterfeit the ordinary goodwill of mortal life, her spirit walked abroad, working out its ends and asserting its mastery through a love which was hate, a hatred which was love.

–Suddenly Solly started up in the bed, his eyes staring, muttering hoarsely. He often had bad dreams now. Quickly she woke him. He smiled, looked very young, kissed her and laughed at himself.

“Let’s go and get something to eat,” he said.

In the large kitchen, in expiation of her gloomy and almost disloyal thoughts, Veronica made toast and scrambled eggs. They liked to eat in the middle of the night, childishly defying old Ethel and the solemn spirit of the house.

“The Gall girl’s been home almost a week now,” said Solly, as they ate.

“What do you hear about her mother?”

“Improving, apparently. Knapp has been keeping in touch. He’s very kind about such things.”

“What ailed her?”

“Gall, appropriately enough. A really bad go of gallstones. She’s more frightened than hurt, I gather. They’ll operate and she’ll be all right in a few weeks. People are extraordinary; apparently they were all convinced that she would never pull through; she’s never been seriously ill before. Getting Monica home has brought her round.”

“Good. It’ll be a load off Monica’s mind.”

“Yes. Old Puss is beginning to hound her about giving a recital here before she goes back. To show what’s been done with our money, presumably. Well, it’d better be good.”

Dr James Cobbett was widely considered in Salterton to be a promising young man, but he was still at that delicate stage of his career when people called him “young Dr Cobbett”; however, this meant that when he wanted advice he could readily turn to his father, “old Dr Cobbett”. He did so in the case of Mrs Gall.

“She ought to be in hospital, but they’re all scared to death of hospitals,” said he: “fantastic to run into such prejudice nowadays. She ought to have a cholecystotomy as soon as possible, but they won’t hear of it. The family have no regular doctor, though this woman has been having what she calls bilious attacks for at least a couple of years; I’m sorry they got hold of me. They seem to think if I can “tide her over” as they call it, she’ll be able to manage. She’s sworn she’ll diet, live on slops—anything. The old man even asked me if there wasn’t some way of melting gall-stones by taking medicine. They’re just scared of the knife.”

“What are you doing?”

“Usual thing. Got two nurses on. The daughters and the husband sit with her at night. Morphia—though I can’t do too much with that, because I suspect fatty degeneration of the heart—she’s probably twice her optimum weight. She’s in the static stage now, but it can’t last long. They’re kidding themselves that she’s getting better, but of course she isn’t.”

“No, no; of course not.”

“Well, what do I do?”