Free Touch and Go by Patricia Wentworth

climbed to the window. By no conceivable means could it have clung to that half-inch ledge whilst it dashed itself against the pane.
    She heard a breath taken, and turned sharp round to find Lucilla at her elbow. If she had been less quick, she might not have surprised the expression which she did surprise. She felt that afterwards. At the time she was only concerned as to the meaning which that expression might have. She thought it was fear, but there was more to it than that, and what the more might be she couldn’t tell. She stopped thinking that it was Lucilla who had played tricks in the night, but not in time to stop the words that were already on her tongue.
    â€œWas it you?”
    The expression was gone in a flash. An ingenuous surprise took its place.
    â€œWas what me?”
    â€œSomething banged on the glass,” said Sarah, watching her.
    A sudden colour ran up to the roots of Lucilla’s hair. She took a breath which came near to being a gasp and blinked her eyes as if she had been hit. She repeated Sarah’s words unsteadily.
    â€œSomething—banged—against the glass?”
    â€œYes,” said Sarah.
    Lucilla caught her by the arm with two very cold hands. They gripped hard. She said,
    â€œWhat?”
    Sarah said, “I don’t know.”
    â€œYou heard it?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œYou’re sure?”
    â€œOf course I’m sure.”
    â€œDid you see anything?”
    â€œNo.”
    Lucilla let go of her arm, turned in a wavering sort of fashion, and went back to the bed. When she got there, she went down in a crouching heap with her head on her arms and her shoulders heaving.
    Sarah looked at her, frowning, for a moment. Then she took the pale blue tumbler from the shelf above the blue china wash-basin and filled it at the ridiculous pale blue tap. It went through her mind that it must have annoyed Mrs. Raimond not to be able to arrange for a flow of sky-blue water. She told Lucilla to sit up and have a drink, and when there was no response, informed her that the alternative was a tumblerful of cold water down her back.
    Lucilla sat up with amazing suddenness. She said “Beast! You wouldn’t!” And then she grabbed the glass and drank from it.
    When she had finished, Sarah said seriously,
    â€œWhat’s all this about , Lucilla?”
    â€œI don’t know,” said Lucilla in a small flat voice. Then she said, “You did hear it?”
    â€œIt was an owl,” said Sarah in her firmest voice.
    Lucilla seemed to put that away—Sarah thought it didn’t interest her. She said again,
    â€œBut you did hear it?”
    â€œYes, of course.”
    â€œCross your heart?”
    â€œYes, you little idiot!”
    â€œYou’re not saying it just to please me?”
    â€œWhy should it please you?”
    There was a silence. The door behind which Lucilla lived opened a very little way. Sarah was aware of the door, and she was aware that it was opening. She thought it didn’t open very often. She wondered if it was the real Lucilla who looked out at her through the chink, wary but driven into speech.
    â€œIf you heard it—” The child paused, steadied herself, and went on. “If you did hear it—then it wasn’t—just—me.”
    Sarah kicked herself for not having got there before. She said at once in a steady, every-day voice,
    â€œOf course it wasn’t you. Don’t be an ass. I don’t know what it was, but it made the hell of a row. I thought it was going to break the glass. I expect it was an owl.”
    The chink went suddenly and the door was shut. Lucilla made an impudent face.
    â€œGovernesses shouldn’t say hell—not in front of the child anyway.”

CHAPTER X
    They met Mr. John Brown in the woods that morning. He seemed to have been sketching. At any rate he had with him a block and a paint box in a ramshackle old satchel which hung dangling from an