“I’d have to ask for time off,” I says. And I don’t know when I will get any. We are very busy just at the moment.“
“I tell you what,” he says. “I am always at home on Thursday afternoons for visitors. Let us leave it at that. You can ask for a Thursday afternoon off. You need not even say that you’re coming to see me.
Come to think of it, let us not mention it to anyone. Just in case you change your mind.“
“Change my mind about what?”
He looked surprised. “Why—about revoking your faith,” he says. “Ah-haah!”
He beamed at me. I just stood there, speechless, for a moment and then I says, “Goodbye, sir, I must go now.”
I made the merest shadow of a curtsey then walked away. When I glanced back, he had resumed distributing his pamphlets. As soon as I’d turned the corner I took “The Eye Sore‘ and posted it through somebody’s door.
Back at the house, master James and McGregor-Robertson were holed up in the study in a fug of pipe smoke. Master James took the parcel of remedies from me and announced that the doctor would be staying for supper but that I was not to serve anything until 1/2 past 7, as they wanted to finish their reading and then go for a walk.
“We must stretch our legs,” he says. “We’ve been cooped up in here all day.”
“Very good sir,” I says. “What about missus?”
“She will remain indoors,” he says.
“No sir, I mean what about her food? Will she be eating with you downstairs?”
He and McGregor-Robertson exchanged a meaning look. I noticed, for the first time, that the doctor’s eye was watering and that the skin around it seemed discoloured.
“Eh, no,” says the master, then he cleared his throat. “Bessy, it’s very important that my wife rests for a while.” He gestured to the many books that lay scattered around the room. “All our reading on the matter confirms it. Unfortunately, your mistress doesn’t yet appreciate that. You see, this afternoon while you were gone, she attempted several times to come downstairs. She became quite upset at one point.”
He glanced at the doctor for confirmation but McGregor-Robertson was once more absorbed in his book, with a fixed placid look on his face.
Master James turned back to me. “In the end,” he says, “for her own good, we were forced to lock the door of her room to make sure she didn’t break out again.”
I must have looked startled because he put his hand on my shoulder.
“Now don’t worry yourself,” he says. “It is only for a short while. She needs to rest.”
“But sir she won’t like being all cooped up, it’ll only make her worse.”
“No, Bessy,” he says with a shake of his head. “Believe you me it will make her better. Indeed, she has been much quieter since we locked the door. Now I want you to promise me that you won’t let her out. She may try to persuade you, but you must be firm.”
I wasn’t happy
at all,
but I had to promise all the same since I had to be seen to agree to do his bidding. Otherwise he might take it into his head to send me packing. And besides, maybe they were right. Perhaps she
did
need to rest. For it looked like she had give the doctor a black eye.
Right enough, I might have done the same, had he tried to lock
me
in a room.
Dinner preparations kept me in the kitchen for the next hour or so but I listened out in order to hear when they left the house for their walk. Eventually, I was rewarded with the sound of the front door banging shut. It was dark out and I knew that they would not stroll far from the house. Without delay, I hurried upstairs and pressed my ear to the missus door. All I could hear was the beating of my own heart. A lamp was lit somewhere inside the room for when I bent down I could see a glimmer of light through the keyhole. I spoke into the crack between door and frame.
“Marm? Are you there? Marm?”
For a moment there was only silence. Then I heard the creak or bedsprings and soft footsteps as somebody approached from the inside. A shadow passed across the keyhole and a little cold draft sent up by the movement of her skirts brushed my face.
“It’s me, marm,” I says quietly. Are you all right?“
There was a pause, during which I thought I heard her murmur something to herself. Then I gave a start as she spoke suddenly, close to the door.
“It’s locked, Bessy,” she says. “Unless you have the key, you can’t come in.”
“I know, marm. But it’s only for a little while, I believe, so that you can rest properly. Are you resting? Is there something you need?” Though how I expected to give her anything, I haven’t a baldy. I suppose I was just trying to reassure her.
“Oh I don’t know,” she says, despondently. There was a brief silence. I squinted through the keyhole but now could see nothing but shadows and so assumed that she was standing just behind the door. After a moment, she says, very downhearted, “I don’t deserve anything. I am a bad person.”
“Nonsense, marm,” I says. “Don’t be like that.”
A bad person, Bessy, and a guilty one.“
“Oh no, marm, not at all.”
There was no reply, except a hollow laugh from inside the room.
“You’ll be all right, marm,” I told her and then, very briskly, I says, “Do you know, I went for a walk today?”
“What?” she says, distracted.
A walk, marm. I walked over the fields, to the north. I was just walking along, you know, looking about me, and then before I knew it, I fell down a slope. It took me quite by surprise, so it did.“
Missus sighed. “What are you talking about, Bessy?”
This walk I went on, marm. I am just telling you, I walked north over the fields and then I fell down a slope. And you’ll never guess what I nearly landed on, marm?“
There was no reply, only a rustling sound from behind the door.
“Marm?”
I am sorry—what did you say?“
I says you’ll never guess what I nearly landed on.“
I hardly like to imagine,“ says missus, very droll.
“Would you believe, now, it was a railway line?”
I waited for some reaction from her, but heard only silence.
“The railway line, marm. To the north of here. I near fell right onto it, quite by accident. I am telling you, it’s easy done. I was just lucky there was no train. Why, if you fell and a train was coming, well, I don’t know what might happen. It would be nobody’s fault though. Nobody’s fault at all but your own. Just an accident.”
Here, I stopped talking—not because there was no response from missus but because she had started muttering to herself. I leaned against the door to hear better.
“What was that, marm?”
Immediately, the muttering ceased. She called out. “Carry on!” she goes. “You were saying about this railway line.”
“Well, marm, like I said, it would be nobody’s fault if you tripped up on that bank and went under a train. There ought to be a fence put up, it’s the railway peoples fault—”
But I didn’t continue further because, once again (this time in near-whispers), missus had begun talking to herself. I put my ear to the door. The murmur of the voice was distinct, though it was difficult to make out individual words. At one point I thought I heard my own name spoken, before the murmuring continued. She whispered, paused, whispered, then paused again. It was like listening to one side of a conversation, as though she was talking to another person in the room, a person whose words and responses could be heard by her alone.
At this insight, a prickling sensation crept across my shoulder blades. The corridor was freezing but my shivers were due to more than the cold. With great trepidation, for fear of what I might see, I knelt down quietly and put my eye to the keyhole. Once again, I seen the glimmer of the lamp and the outline of some furniture, which meant that missus had stepped away from the door. I peered this way and that but could not make out where she stood in the room. Yet the intermittent mutterings continued, apparently quite close at hand.
“Who’s there, marm?” I called out. “Who’s in there with you?
At once, the whispers ceased. There was a rushing, rustling sound and then a shadow passed once again across the keyhole. Another tiny cold draft blew a little puff of dust directly into my eye, which started to water. I flinched and drew back, to wipe it.
“What did you say, Bessy?”
“Why are you talking, marm? Who’s in there with you?”
I heard a laugh. “You are the one who is doing all the talking, Bessy,” she says. “Tell me, did you hurt yourself when you fell down?”
“Eh—no, marm, not really.”
“Well that is a relief,” she says. “I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself. But I don’t see why you are making such a fuss about it. You tripped and fell and you saw a railway line. It is not really worthy of a Jeremiad. I am surprised at you. Normally your stories are more entertaining, Bessy, or have more point.”
This was not the response I had expected. It seemed that she had not yet made the connection between the walk I described and the one she had sent Nora on. I tried again.
“Marm?” I says. “Do you know the path I mean, over the fields to the north?”
At this juncture, I thought I heard her move away from the door and then there was a faint creak, which I took to be mattress springs. To my mind, she had sat down on the bed. I peered in at the keyhole. At first I saw only shadowy furniture as before, illuminated by lamplight. Then of a sudden, as if from nowhere, an eye appeared, glaring back at me—a wild and cruel eye that seemed to stare right into my very soul.
I shrieked and leapt away from the door, I just about went arse over tip and landed on the other side of the corridor, banging my head on the wall. In the same moment, I heard the front door fly open. A freezing gust rushed up the stairwell and blew out the candle, causing me to shriek again. There was a bellowing roar from the hallway and footsteps came thundering upwards. Shadows careened, back and forth °n the ceiling and then master James and the doctor appeared at the head of the stairs, bearing lamps. They hesitated when they seen me sprawled in the passageway.
What in Gods name is going on?“ shouted master James.
In response, I pointed at the chamber door. Even in my state of shock, I was interested to note two things, that master James had once again been stunned into the interrogative form, and that my hand trembled most terribly, like that of an old woman.
“Sir!” I cried. “I think there’s someone in the room with missus!” “What?” he goes. “Who?” and ‘How could that be?“ So many questions! But I had no answers for him, since I was too feart to mention what I thought, I just shook my head and trembled. With a snarl of exasperation he strode to the door and drew the key from his pocket. The doctor paused to help me to my feet then followed. Seconds later master James flung open the door and the two men burst in. I crept after them hardly daring to put one foot in front of the other.
Inside, the room appeared tranquil enough, apart from master James and the doctor who both stood panting in the middle of the floor, peering this way and that with scowls on their faces. Missus was sat in bed, with a shawl draped around her shoulders and some sewing in her lap. She had stopped her work and was gazing at the two men in mild astonishment. Apart from her and us, the room was empty. “Gentlemen,” she says. “Whatever seems to be the problem?”
17
Ominous Jews
Master James and the doctor went through the room like a dose of salts but they found nobody. Meanwhile, missus sat up in bed to all intents and purposes bemused by this feverish male intrusion. While they tore the place to ribbons I kept trying to catch her eye but she stubbornly refused to return my gaze until master James tellt me to go down and attend to dinner. Then, unnoticed by the men (who were stood with their backs to her), missus winked at me and touched a secret finger to her lips, a gesture of collusion that left me somewhat baffled.
Just before I served supper, the two gents visited me in the kitchen. They closed the door and proceeded to bombard me with questions. Who won the Derby in 46? What is the capital of Spain? If it takes six men three hours to dig a ditch, no not really. They wanted to know why I had thought there was someone in the room with missus. What had caused me to shriek and fall down? And what was I doing outside her door in the first place? I said I had went up to check that she was all right. And then I tellt them about the whispers I had heard. And about the eyeball that appeared. But I may as well have been talking out a hole in my head. They were having none of it. The whispers was just missus talking to herself, they says. And it was
her
eye that had appeared in the keyhole. Either that or I had conjured it up out the shadows.
I protested. “But I heard her move away from the door and sit on the bed.”
She returned,“ the doctor says. ”Without your noticing. Or perhaps she didn’t move very far away in the first place. She must simply have bent down to peer out at you.“
The both of them stared at me gloomily. I knew what I’d seen. But I didn’t want to give them any more snash since it was clear they blamed me for the disturbance.
“I am sorry, sir,” I says. “I must have made a mistake.”
Mistake my fat aunt!
Master James nodded. “Very well, Bessy,” he says. “But you must be careful from now on. This is exactly the kind of thing that is bound to upset your mistress. If she thinks that you can see this apparition it only adds credibility to her hallucinations. It would be for the best if your contact with her were severely limited for the time being. When you have made up her tray bring it to the study. One of us will carry it to her.”
I thought I might die, I was that upset at being kept from missus. But I had no choice. I made up a tray for her but it was her husband that took it up to her room. The two men threw some dinner into them then retired to the study but they weren’t in there any time at all for whilst I was clearing the dining room I seen them head upstairs, carrying the various packets that I had brought from the chemist. They were off to give missus a dose. The thought of her locked away and drugged like a Chinaman was a knife turning in my liver, I was so busy staring in anguish after the two men that I tipped
1/2
the leftovers onto the tablecloth instead of a plate.