offered, perhaps, a little
freedom, a little release, but so many, so many terrors.

As her gaze took in the little room--its grey paper, a photograph of
Uncle John, a book-case with poets, some miscellaneous and
untidy-looking novels, and a number of little red Carlyles, a china
cockatoo with an impertinent stare, a copy of Furze's "Ride," and a
water-colour of red Munich roofs signed "Mary," a tiny writing-table
with one old yellow photograph of a sad dark woman in a silver
frame--these things were, it seemed the only friendly things she knew.
Outside this room there was her grandmother, the house, London, the
world--more and more horrible as the circles grew wider and wider.

At the mere thought of the things that she must, in three days' time,
face, her heart began to beat so that she could scarcely breathe, and,
with that beating, came the iron determination that no one should ever
know.

She could not remember a time when these two emotions had not come
together. She saw, as though it had happened only an hour ago, a tiny
child in a black frock stumbling across endless deserts of carpet
towards someone who looked older and more curious than anything one
could have conceived possible. Someone sitting in a high carved chair,
someone leaning on a stick, with two terrifying great dragons behind
her.

The child was seized with such a panic that her breath came in little
pumping gasps, her legs quivered and trembled, her mouth was open, her
eyes like saucers. And then, suddenly, after what had seemed a century
of time, there came the thin trembling voice: "Why, the child's an
idiot!"

Since that awful day Rachel had determined that "no one should ever
know." There had come to her, at that moment, the knowledge that round
every corner there might lurk dragons and a witch. Sometimes they were
there, sometimes they were not, but always there was the terror before
the corner was turned.

Life for Rachel during those early years was one long determination to
meet bravely that half-hour, from six to half-past. Every evening at
five minutes before six down the long passages she would be led, then
would come the short pause before the dark door, a pause when the
beating of the child's heart seemed the only sound in the vast house;
then the knock, someone's voice "Come in," then the slow opening of the
door, the revelation of the strange dim room with the old mirrors, the
purple carpet, the china dragons, and grandmothe