Читать книгу The Red Lady - Katharine Newlin Burt - Страница 4

Table of Contents

DOWNSTAIRS, the little room that opened from the drawing-room was given to me by Mrs. Brane for my “office.” Here every morning Jane, Annie, and Delia came to me for orders.

It was a fortnight after my arrival, everything having run smoothly and uneventfully, when, earlier than usual, there came footsteps and a rap on the door of this room. My “Come in” served to admit all three old women, treading upon one another's heels. So odd and so ridiculous was their appearance that I had some ado to keep my laughter in my throat.

“Why,” said I, “what on earth's the matter?”

Jane's little, round, crumpled face puckered and blinked; Annie's stolid, square person was just a symbol of obstinate fear; Delia, long, lean, and stooping, with her knotted hand fingering her loose mouth, shuffled up to me. “We're givin' notice, ma'am,” she whined. Astonishment sent me back into my chair.

“Delia!”

Delia wavered physically, and her whitish-blue eyes watered, but the spirit of fear possessed her utterly.

“I can't help it, ma'am, I've been in this house me last night.”

“But it's impossible! Leave Mrs. Brane like this, with no notice, no time to get any one else? Why, only the other day she was saying, 'I don't see how I could get rid of them even if I wanted to.'”

I meant this to sting, and I succeeded. All three queer, old faces flushed.

Delia muttered, “Well, she's found the way, that's all.”

“What has happened?” I demanded. “Is it because of me?”

“No'm,” the answer came promptly. “You're the best manager we've had here yet, an' you're a kind young lady.” This compliment came from Delia, the most affable of the three. “But, the fact is——”

A pause, and the fright they must have had to bring them all pale and gasping and inarticulate, like fish driven from the dim world of their accustomed lives, communicated itself in some measure to me.

“Yes?” I asked a little uncertainly.

Then Annie, the stolid, came out with it.

“There's somethin' in the house.”

At the words all three of them drew together.

“We've been suspectin' of it for a long time. Them housekeepers did n't leave a good place an' a kind mistress so quick for nothin'.” Delia had taken up the tale. “But we kinder mistrusted like that it was foolishness of some kind. But, miss, well—it ain't.”

I was silent a moment, looking at them, and feeling, I confess, rather blank.

“What is it, then?” I asked sharply.

“It's somethin',” Jane wobbled into the talk.

“Or somebody,” contributed Annie.

I rapped my desk. “Something or somebody doing what? Doing it where?”

“All over the house, miss. But especially in the old part where us servants live. That's where it happened to them housekeepers in the day time, an' that's where it happened to us last night.”

“Well, now, let's have it!” said I impatiently. “What happened to you last night?”

“Delia was in the kitchen makin' bread late last night,” said Annie.

“Oh, let Delia tell it herself,” I insisted.

“But, ma'am, it happened first off to me. I was a-goin' down to help her. She was so late an' her with a headache. So I put on me wrapper, an' come down the passage towards the head o' the back stairs. Just as I come to the turn, ma'am, in the dark—I'm so well used to the way that I did n't even light a candle—somebody went by me like a draught of cold air, an' my hair riz right up on me head!”

“In other words, a draught of cold air struck you, eh?” I said scornfully.

“No, ma'am, there was steps to it, rayther slow, light steps that was n't quite so dost to me as the draught of air.”

I could make nothing of this.

Delia broke in.

“She come into the kitchen, white as flour she was, an' we went up to bed together. But scarce was we in bed when in come Jane, a-shakin' so that the candle-grease spattered all over the floor—you can see it for yourself this day-”

“And what had happened to Jane?” I asked with a sneer.

“I was a-layin' in bed, miss, in the dark, a bit wakeful, an' I heard, jes' back of me in the wall, somebody give a great sigh.”

I threw back my head, laughing. “You silly women! Is this all? Now, you don't mean to tell me that a draught of cold air, some falling plaster or a rat in the wall, are going to drive you away, in your old age, from a good home out into the world?”

“Wait a moment, miss,” cried Delia; “there's somethin' else.”

I waited. This something else seemed difficult to tell.

“You go ahead,” breathed Delia at last, nudging Annie, who gulped and set off with unusual rapidity.

“Robbie was sick last night, towards morn-in'. He had the night terrors, Mary said” (Mary was Robbie's nurse of whom at that time I had seen little), “an' she could n't get him quiet. He kep' a-talkin' about a lady with red hair”—they looked at me out of the corners of their eyes, and I felt my face grow hot—“a lady that stood over him—well! there's no tellin' the fancies of a nervous child like him! Anyways, Mary was after a hot-water bottle, an' we, bein' wakeful an' jumpy-like, was after helpin' her. Delia an' me, we went for a cup of hot milk, an' me an' Mary come upstairs from the kitchen again together an' went towards the nursery. Now, miss,”—again they cuddled up to one another, and Annie's throat gave a queer sort of click,—“jes' as we come to the turn of the passage, we seen somethin' come out o' the nursery, quick an' quiet, an' jump away down the hall an' out o' sight. Delia an' me, bein' scairt already, run away to our own room, but Mary she made fer the nursery as quick as she could, an' there she found Robbie all but in fits, so scairt he could n't scream, doublin' an' twistin', an' rollin' his eyes. But when she got him calmed down at last, why, it was the same story—a lady with red hair that come an' stood over him, an' stuck her face down closter an' closter—jes' a reg'lar nightmare—but we all three seen the thing come boundin' out o' his room.”

“Why isn't Mary here to give notice?” I asked after a few moments. During that time I conquered, first, a certain feeling of fear, caused less by the story than by the look in Delia's light eyes, and, second, a very strong sensation of anger. I could not help feeling that they enjoyed that endless repetition of the “lady with red hair.” Did the silly creatures suspect me of playing ghoulish tricks to terrify a child?

“Well, Mary, she looks rather peaky this mornin',” said Annie, “but she's young an' venturesome, an' she says mebbe we jes' fancied the thing cornin' out o' the nursery, an', anyways, she's the kind that would n't leave her charge. She's that fond of Robbie.”

“I think I like this Mary,” said I. Then, looking them over as scornfully as I could, I went on coldly: “Very well, I'll take your story to Mrs. Brane. I will tell her that you want to leave at once. No, don't waste any more time. Do your work, and be prepared to pack your trunks. I think Mrs. Brane may be glad to have you go.”

But I was really very much surprised to find that I was right in this. Mrs. Brane almost eagerly consented, and even seemed to feel relief.

“By all means pack them off as soon as you can. I shall advertise for a man and wife to take their places. It will mean some pretty hard work for Mary and you for a short time, I am afraid, as I simply will not have any of these blacks in the house. But—”

I did n't in the least mind hard work, and I told her so and hastened to give the result of my interview, first to Annie, Delia, and Jane, who, to my satisfaction, seemed quite as much dashed as relieved at the readiness with which their mistress let them go, and, second, to Mary, the nurse.