She had recognised at once that it would be impossible for her to replace the chair and escape discovery. It stood in the shadow, and she hoped for the best.
Blotson crossed the hall and disappeared into Sir William’s study.
Jane gazed at a printed page upon which the letters of the alphabet were playing “General post.” After some interminable minutes Blotson reappeared. He shut the study door, approached Jane, and in a low and confidential voice inquired would she have tea in the hall, the drawing-room, or the library.
“Oh, the library,” said Jane, “the library, Blotson.” And with a majestic, “Very good, miss,” Blotson withdrew.
Blotson’s “Very good” always reminded Jane of the Royal Assent to an Act of Parliament. It was doubtless a form, but how stately, how dignified a form.
When the chill superinduced by the presence of Blotson had yielded to a more natural temperature, Jane went on tiptoe across the hall and replaced the chair. It was a comfort to reflect that it had escaped Blotson’s all-embracing eye. With a hasty glance she swung the panel inwards, slipped through, and closed it again.
She descended all the steps before she ventured to light her candle, and she was careful to put the spent match into her pocket. Renata’s dress really did have a pocket, which, of course, made the dropping of the handkerchief quite inexcusable.
The passage was much less terrifying when one had a light of one’s own instead of the distant glimmer of somebody else’s and the horrid possibility of being left at any moment in total darkness, with no idea of one’s whereabouts or of how to get out.
Jane’s spirits rose brightly. To dread a thing and then to find it easy provides one with a pleasant sense of difficulty overcome. In great cheerfulness of spirit Jane walked along until she came to the cross-passage on her right. She turned up it, walked a few steps holding her candle high, and there, a couple of yards from the entrance, lay the handkerchief rolled into a wet and very dirty ball. She picked it up gingerly, and put it into her convenient pocket.
“And I suppose I ought to go back at once; but what a waste, when every one is safely out of the way, and I’ve got through the really horrid part, which is opening that abominable spring.”