The Far Country by Nevil Shute

in 1924; he had bought it prudently because he had an idea even then that he would not survive his wife, and so he had avoided an extravagant establishment. In fact he had died in 1930, comfortable in the knowledge that her widow’s pension, her small private income, and the house in perpetuity would render her secure until she came to join him.
    There she had lived, surrounded by the treasures they had gathered up together in a life spent in the East. A gilded Buddha sat at the hall door, a pair of elephant tusks formed a hanger for a great brass dinner gong. Glass cases housed Indian dolls, and models of sampans and junks, and imitation mangoes out of which a wood and plaster cobra would jump to bite your finger, very terrifying. There were embossed silver and brass Burmese trays and bowls all over the place; on the walls were water-colour paintings of strange landscapes with misty forests of a bluish tinge unknown to Jennifer, with strange coloured buildings called pagodas and strange people in strange clothes. Ethel Trehearn lived on surrounded by these reminders of a more colourful world, more real to her than the world outside her door. Nothing was very interesting to her that had happened since she got on to the ship at Rangoon Strand, twenty-six years before.
    Jennifer came to the house in the wet, windy night; it was in total darkness, which seemed most unusual. She pushed open the gate and went up the path through the little front garden, and now she saw a faint glimmer of light through the coloured glass panels let into the front door in a Gothic style. She stood in the porch in her wet shoes and raincoat, and pressed the bell.
    She heard nothing but the tinkling of water running from a stackpipe near her feet.
    She waited for a minute, and then pressed the bell again. Apparently it wasn’t working. She rapped with the knocker and waited for a couple of minutes for something to happen; then she tried the handle of the door. It was open, and she went into the hall.
    A candle burned on the hall table, held in a brass candlestick from Benares. Jennifer went forward and pressed the electric switch for the hall light, but no light came. She thought of a power cut,unusual at night, and stood in wonder for a moment. In any case, there was no electricity, and it was no good worrying about the cause.
    She stood in the hall, listening to the house. It was dead silent, but for the tinkling of the rain. She raised her head and called, “Granny! It’s me—Jennifer. Are you upstairs?”
    There was no answer.
    She did not like the empty sound of the house; it was full of menace for her. She did not like the lack of light, or the long, moving shadows that the candle cast. She was a level-headed young woman, however, and she took off her coat and laid it on a chair, and picked up the candle, and went into the drawing-room.
    There was nothing unusual about that room; it was clean and tidy, though stone-cold. She would have expected on a night like that to see a fire burning in the grate, but the fire was not laid; apparently her grandmother had not used the room that day. Jennifer went quickly through the dining-room and kitchen; everything was quite in order there. A tin of Benger’s Food and a half empty bottle of milk stood on the kitchen table.
    She turned, and went upstairs to the bedrooms. The door of her grandmother’s room was shut; she stood outside with the flickering candle in her hand, and knocked. She said again, “Granny, it’s me—Jennifer. Can I come in?” There was no answer, so she turned the handle and went into the room.
    Ethel Trehearn lay on her back in the bed, and at the first glance Jennifer thought that she was dead, and her heart leaped up into her throat because she had never seen a dead person. She forced herself to look more closely, and then she saw that the old lady was breathing evenly, very deeply asleep. With the relief, Jennifer staggered a little, and her eyes lost focus for an instant