The Mammoth Book of Modern Ghost Stories

“Mr Limmel,” I says, trying to speak indifferent, “will you run your eye over this, and tell me if it’s quite right?”

He put on his spectacles and studied the prescription.

“Why, it’s one of Dr Walton’s,” says he. “What should be wrong with it?”

“Well – is it dangerous to take?”

“Dangerous – how do you mean?”

I could have shaken the man for his stupidity.

“I mean – if a person was to take too much of it – by mistake of course—” says I, my heart in my throat.

“Lord bless you, no. It’s only lime-water. You might feed it to a baby by the bottleful.”

I gave a great sigh of relief and hurried on to Mr Ranford’s. But on the way another thought struck me. If there was nothing to conceal about my visit to the chemist’s, was it my other errand that Mrs Brympton wished me to keep private? Somehow, that thought frightened me worse than the other. Yet the two gentlemen seemed fast friends, and I would have staked my head on my mistress’s goodness. I felt ashamed of my suspicions, and concluded that I was still disturbed by the strange events of the night. I left the note at Mr Ranford’s, and hurrying back to Brympton, slipped in by a side door without being seen, as I thought.

An hour later, however, as I was carrying in my mistress’s breakfast, I was stopped in the hall by Mr Brympton.

“What were you doing out so early?” he says, looking hard at me.

“Early – me, sir?” I said, in a tremble.

“Come, come,” he says, an angry red spot coming out on his forehead, “didn’t I see you scuttling home through the shrubbery an hour or more ago?”

I’m a truthful woman by nature, but at that a lie popped out ready-made. “No, sir, you didn’t,” said I, and looked straight back at him.

He shrugged his shoulders and gave a sullen laugh. “I suppose you think I was drunk last night?” he asked suddenly.

“No, sir, I don’t,” I answered, this time truthfully enough.

He turned away with another shrug. “A pretty notion my servants have of me!” I heard him mutter as he walked off.

Not till I had settled down to my afternoon’s sewing did I realize how the events of the night had shaken me. I couldn’t pass that locked door without a shiver. I knew I had heard someone come out of it, and walk down the passage ahead of me. I thought of speaking to Mrs Blinder or to Mr Wace, the only two in the house who appeared to have an inkling of what was going on, but I had a feeling that if I questioned them they would deny everything, and that I might learn more by holding my tongue and keeping my eyes open. The idea of spending another night opposite the locked room sickened me, and once I was seized with the notion of packing my trunk and taking the first train to town; but it wasn’t in me to throw over a kind mistress in that manner, and I tried to go on with my sewing as if nothing had happened. I hadn’t worked ten minutes before the sewing machine broke down. It was one I had found in the house, a good machine but a trifle out of order: Mrs Blinder said it had never been used since Emma Saxon’s death. I stopped to see what was wrong, and as I was working at the machine a drawer which I had never been able to open slid forward, and a photograph fell out. I picked it up and sat looking at it in a maze. It was a woman’s likeness, and I knew I had seen the face somewhere – the eyes had an asking look that I had felt on me before. And suddenly I remembered the pale woman in the passage.

I stood up, cold all over, and ran out of the room. My heart seemed to be thumping in the top of my head, and I felt as if I should never get away from the look in those eyes. I went straight to Mrs Blinder. She was taking her afternoon nap, and sat up with a jump when I came in.

“Mrs Blinder,” said I, “who is that?” And I held out the photograph.

She rubbed her eyes and stared.

“Why, Emma Saxon,” says she. “Where did you find it?”

I looked hard at her for a minute. “Mrs Blinder,” I said, “I’ve seen that face before.”

Mrs Blinder got up and walked over to the looking-glass. “Dear me! I must have been asleep,” she says. “My front is all over one ear. And now do run along, Miss Hartley, dear, for I hear the clock striking four, and I must go down this very minute and put on the Virginia ham for Mr Brympton’s dinner.”

IV

To all appearances, things went on as usual for a week or two. The only difference was that Mr Brympton stayed on, instead of going off as he usually did, and that Mr Ranford never showed himself. I heard Mr Brympton remark on this one afternoon when he was sitting in my mistress’s room before dinner.

“Where’s Ranford?” says he. “He hasn’t been near the house for a week. Does he keep away because I’m here?”

Mrs Brympton spoke so low that I couldn’t catch her answer.

“Well,” he went on, “two’s company and three’s trumpery; I’m sorry to be in Ranford’s way, and I suppose I shall have to take myself off again in a day or two and give him a show.” And he laughed at his own joke.