Now she stood fumbling with the clasp of her necklace and trying to remove it in front of her dressing table mirror. Her bed was turned down—the familiar bed she had occupied for three weeks—and Florence had put out a nightdress that was the most cobwebby confection she could find amongst Felicity’s things. It had actually been a present from Cassandra when Cassandra had been feeling particularly generous, and looked like the pale lining of a shell as it lay on the white sheet.Beneath Felicity’s feet her soft grey carpet felt like a bed of moss. It was the sort of carpet that helped to deaden all sound in this white house filled with costly treasures. Her curtains of rose-colored moiré silk swayed gently in the night air, and all around her a circle of rosy light spread until it reached the shadows that lay just inside the white-painted door. The door itself was locked, and it was her own fingers that had turned the key—whether as a sort of gesture or not she didn’t know.If anyone tried it they would find it didn’t yield.
