It was a knack. Granny had never had the patience to acquire it. just occasionally, she wondered whether it might have been a good idea.
‘Curtain up in an hour and a half,’ said Nanny. ‘I promised Giselle I’d give her a hand. . .’
‘Who’s Giselle?’
‘She does makeup.’
‘You don’t know how to do makeup!’
‘I distempered our privy, didn’t I?’ said Nanny.
‘And I paint faces on eggs for the kiddies every Soul Cake Tuesday.’
‘Got to do anything else, have you?’ said Granny sarcastically. ‘Open the curtains? Fill in for a ballet dancer who’s been taken poorly?’
‘I did say I’d help with the drinks at the swarray,’ said Nanny, letting the irony slide off like water on a red-hot stove. ‘Well, a lot of the staff have buggered off ‘cos of the Ghost. It’s in the big foyer in half an hour. I expect you ought to be there, being a patronizer.’
‘What’s a swarray?’ said Granny suspiciously.
‘It’s a sort of posh party before the opera.’
‘What do I have to do?’
‘Drink sherry and make polite conversation,’ said Nanny. ‘Or conversation, anyway. I saw the grub being done for it. They’ve even got little cubes of cheese on sticks stuck in a grapefruit, and you don’t get much posher than that.’
‘Gytha Ogg, you ain’t done any. . . special dishes, have you?’
‘No, Esme,’ said Nanny Ogg meekly.
‘Only you’ve got an imp of mischief in you.’
‘Been far too busy for anything like that,’ said Nanny.
Granny nodded. ‘Then we’d better find Greebo,’ she said.
‘You sure about this, Esme?’ said Nanny.
‘We might have a lot to do tonight,’ said Granny. ‘Maybe we could do with an extra pair of hands.’
‘Paws.’
‘At the moment, yes.’
*
It was Walter. Agnes knew it. It wasn’t knowledge in her mind, exactly. It was practically something she breathed. She felt it as a tree feels the sun.
It all fitted. He could go anywhere, and no one took any notice of Walter Plinge. In a way he was invisible, because he was always there. And, if you were someone like Walter Plinge, wouldn’t you long to be someone as debonair and dashing as the Ghost?
If you were someone like Agnes Nitt, wouldn’t you long to be someone as dark and mysterious as Perdita X Dream?
The traitor thought was there before she could choke it off. She added hurriedly: But I’ve never killed anyone.
Because that’s what I’d have to believe, isn’t it? If he’s the Ghost, then he’s killed people.
All the same. . . he does look odd, and he talks as if the words are trying to escape. . .
A hand touched her shoulder. She spun round.
‘It’s only me!’ said Christine.
‘. . .Oh.’
‘Don’t you think this is a marvellous dress!?’
‘What?’
‘This dress, silly!!’
Agnes looked her up and down. ‘Oh. Yes. Very nice,’ she said, disinterest lying on her voice like rain on a midnight pavement.
‘You don’t sound very impressed!! Really, Perdita, there’s no need to be jealous!!’
‘I’m not jealous, I was thinking. . .’
She’d only seen the Ghost for a moment, but he certainly hadn’t moved like Walter. Walter walked as though his body were being dragged along by his head. But the certainty was as hard as marble now.
‘Well, you don’t seem very impressed, I must say!!’
‘I’m wondering if Walter Plinge is the Ghost,’ said Agnes, and immediately cursed herself, or at least pooted. She felt embarrassed enough about Andr�‘s reaction.
Christine’s eyes widened. ‘But he’s a clown!!’
‘He walks odd and he talks odd,’ said Agnes, ‘but if he stood up straight-‘
Christine laughed. Agnes felt herself getting angry. ‘And he practically told me he was!’
‘You believed him, did you?!’ Christine made a little tutting sound that Agnes considered quite offensive. ‘Really, you girls believe the strangest things!!’
‘What do you mean, we girls?’
‘Oh, you know! The dancers are always saying they’ve seen the Ghost all over the place-‘
‘Good grief! Do you think I’m some sort of impressionable idiot? Think for a minute before answering!’
‘Well, of course I don’t, but-‘
‘Huh!’
Agnes strode off into the wings, concerned more with effect than direction. The background noise of the stage faded behind her as she stepped into the scenery store. It didn’t lead anywhere except to a pair of big double doors opening to the world outside. It was full of bits of castles, balconies and romantic prison cells, stacked any old how.
Christine hurried up behind her.
‘I really didn’t mean. . . look, not Walter. . . he’s just a very odd odd-job man!’
‘He does all kinds of jobs! No one ever knows where he is-they all just assume he’s around!’
‘All right, but you don’t have to get so worked up-‘
There was the faintest of sounds behind them.
They turned.
The Ghost bowed.
‘Who’s a good boy, then? Nanny’s got a bowl of fish eggs for a good boy,’ said Nanny, trying to see under the big dresser in the kitchen.
‘Fish eggs?’ said Granny, coldly.
‘I borrowed them from the stuff they’ve done for the swarray,’ said Nanny.
‘Borrowed?’ said Granny.
‘That’s right. Come along, Greebo, who’s a good boy then?’
‘Borrowed. You mean. . . when the cat’s finished with them, you’re going to give them back?’
‘It’s only a manner of speaking, Esme,’ said Nanny in a hurt little voice. ‘It’s not the same as stealing if you don’t mean it. Come along, boy, here’s some lovely fish eggs for you. . .’
Greebo pulled himself further into the shadows.
*
There was a little sigh from Christine and she folded up into a faint. But she managed, Agnes noticed sourly, to collapse in a way that probably didn’t hurt when she hit the ground and which showed off her dress to the best effect. It was beginning to dawn on Agnes that Christine was remarkably clever in some specialized ways.
She looked back at the mask.
‘It’s all right,’ she said, her voice sounding hoarse even to her. ‘I know why you’re doing it. I really do.’
No expression could cross that ivory face, but the eyes flickered.
Agnes swallowed. The Perdita part of her wanted to give in right now, because that would be more exciting, but she stood her ground.
‘You want to be something else and you’re stuck with what you are,’ said Agnes. ‘I know all about that. You’re lucky. All you have to do is put on a mask. At least you’re the right shape. But why did you have to go and kill people? Why? Mr Pounder couldn’t have done you any harm! But. . . he poked around in odd places, didn’t he, and he. . . found something?’
The Ghost nodded slightly, and then held out his ebony cane. He grasped both ends and pulled, so that a long thin sword slid out.
‘I know who you are!’ Agnes burst out, as he stepped forward. ‘I. . . I could probably help you! It might not have been your fault!’ She backed away. ‘I haven’t done anything to you! You don’t have to be afraid of me!’
She backed away further as the figure advanced.
The eyes, in the dark hollows of the mask, glinted like tiny jewels.
‘I’m your friend, don’t you see? Please, Walter! Walter!’
There was, far off, an answering sound that seemed as loud as thunder and as impossible, in the circumstances, as a chocolate kettle.
It was the clank of a bucket handle.
‘What’s the matter Miss Perdita Nitt?’
The Ghost hesitated.
There was the sound of footsteps. Irregular footsteps.
The Ghost lowered the sword, opened a door in a piece of scenery painted to represent a castle wall, bowed ironically and slipped away.
Walter rounded a corner.
He was an unlikely knight errant. For one thing, he had on evening dress obviously designed for someone of a different shape. He was still wearing his beret. He also wore an apron and was carrying a mop and bucket. But no heroic lance-wielding rescuer ever galloped over a drawbridge more happily. He was practically surrounded by a golden glow.
‘. . . Walter?’
‘What’s the matter with Miss Christine?’
‘She. . . er. . . she fainted,’ said Agnes. ‘Er’ Probably. . . yes, probably the excitement. With the opera. Tonight. Yes. Probably. The excitement. Because of the opera tonight.’
Walter gave her a slightly worried look. ‘Yes,’ he said, and added patiently, ‘I know where there’s a medicine box shall I get it?’
Christine groaned and fluttered her eyelashes. ‘Where am I?’
Perdita gritted Agnes’s teeth. Where am I? That didn’t sound the sort of thing someone said when they woke up from a faint; it sounded more like the sort of thing they said because they’d heard it was the sort of thing people said.
‘You fainted,’ she said. She looked hard at Walter. ‘Why were you in here, Walter?’