from "MILADY'S ROOM": the phantom of Lady Lavinia
"Not a soul but Cezary and myself were allowed to enter the dressing room, not even the other servants. Cezary was charged to clean, to tidy up and all that was requested of him. Every evening, at the same precise time, she was there, sitting in the armchair in front of Lord K. They were sitting in silence in front of the grand fireplace, looking at each other.
"I realized that all the strain – the long journey, the house hunting, the house restoring, the moving – all had been done in order to enjoy a moment like this."
She wore one of her dark, plain frocks that she used to wear before being married to him. "You dress like a nun, or a governess at best," he used to tell her when she was alive. He uttered those words in gentle mockery, smiling to her, to "his governess". Nevertheless, after marriage, she added some hints of colour to her everyday dress and maybe a ribbon to her hair now and then. However these little arrangements could add nothing substantial - her image was fundamentally stuck to her original style and so was his remembrance of her too. After all, she remained "his own governess". Anyway, she used to keep him company, sitting down there, with some sort of white cotton cloth in her left arm, in which you would have surmised there was an infant. There was a child, indeed, their child. But not a sound, not a cry was to be heard from the bundle. Their child never saw the light. Their child was born just to die. And now he was bound to his mother’s arm for eternity. There they were, back as a family. All gathered before the fire, like any other family throughout the country during evening time.'
A dense, glacial silence was growing in the little post office. Everyone was gaping - in each one of their eyes you could see, like many little mirrors, the ghostly vision of a bizarre domestic life."
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