"You have not many friends in this place, have you, cook?"
"No, ma"am, none."
"Then who can she be?"
"Can"t say, ma"am."
"You can throw no light on the matter? It is very unsatisfactory having a person about the house--and she has been seen upstairs--of whom one knows nothing."
"No doubt, ma"am."
"And you cannot enlighten me?"
"She is no friend of mine."
"Nor is she of Jane"s. Jane spoke to me about her. Has she remarked concerning this girl to you?"
"Can"t say, ma"am, as I notice all Jane says. She talks a good deal."
"You see, there must be someone who is a stranger and who has access to this house. It is most awkward."
"Very so, ma"am."
I could get nothing more from the cook. I might as well have talked to a log; and, indeed, her face a.s.sumed a wooden look as I continued to speak to her on the matter. So I sighed, and said--
"Very well, hash with tomato," and went upstairs.
A few days later the house-parlourmaid said to me, "Please, ma"am, may I have another pill?"
"Pill!" I exclaimed. "Why?"
"Because I have seen her again. She was behind the curtains, and I caught her putting out her red head to look at me."
"Did you see her face?"
"No; she up with her arm over it and scuttled away."
"This is strange. I do not think I have more than two podophyllin pills left in the box, but to those you are welcome. Only I should recommend a different treatment. Instead of taking them yourself, the moment you see, or fancy that you see, the red-haired girl, go at her with the box and threaten to administer the pills to her. That will rout her, if anything will."
"But she will not stop for the pills."
"The threat of having them forced on her every time she shows herself will disconcert her. Conceive, I am supposing, that on each occasion Miss Bessie, or I, were to meet you on the stairs, in a room, on the landing, in the hall, we were to rush on you and force, let us say, castor-oil globules between your lips. You would give notice at once."
"Yes; so I should, ma"am."
"Well, try this upon the red-haired girl. It will prove infallible."
"Thank you, ma"am; what you say seems reasonable."
Whether Bessie saw more of the puzzling apparition, I cannot say. She spoke no further on the matter to me; but that may have been so as to cause me no further uneasiness. I was unable to resolve the question to my own satisfaction--whether what had been seen was a real person, who obtained access to the house in some unaccountable manner, or whether it was, what I have called it, an apparition.
As far as I could ascertain, nothing had been taken away. The movements of the red-haired girl were not those of one who sought to pilfer. They seemed to me rather those of one not in her right mind; and on this supposition I made inquiries in the neighbourhood as to the existence in our street, in any of the adjoining houses, of a person wanting in her wits, who was suffered to run about at will. But I could obtain no information that at all threw light on a point to me so perplexing.
Hitherto I had not mentioned the topic to my husband. I knew so well that I should obtain no help from him, that I made no effort to seek it.
He would "Pish!" and "Pshaw!" and make some slighting reference to women"s intellects, and not further trouble himself about the matter.
But one day, to my great astonishment, he referred to it himself.
"Julia," said he, "do you observe how I have cut myself in shaving?"
"Yes, dear," I replied. "You have cotton-wool sticking to your jaw, as if you were growing a white whisker on one side."
"It bled a great deal," said he.
"I am sorry to hear it."
"And I mopped up the blood with the new toilet-cover."
"Never!" I exclaimed. "You haven"t been so foolish as to do that?"
"Yes. And that is just like you. You are much more concerned about your toilet-cover being stained than about my poor cheek which is gashed."
"You were very clumsy to do it," was all I could say. Married people are not always careful to preserve the amenities in private life. It is a pity, but it is so.
"It was due to no clumsiness on my part," said he; "though I do allow my nerves have been so shaken, broken, by married life, that I cannot always command my hand, as was the case when I was a bachelor. But this time it was due to that new, stupid, red-haired servant you have introduced into the house without consulting me or my pocket."
"Red-haired servant!" I echoed.
"Yes, that red-haired girl I have seen about. She thrusts herself into my study in a most offensive and objectionable way. But the climax of all was this morning, when I was shaving. I stood in my shirt before the gla.s.s, and had lathered my face, and was engaged on my right jaw, when that red-haired girl rushed between me and the mirror with both her elbows up, screening her face with her arms, and her head bowed. I started back, and in so doing cut myself."
"Where did she come from?"
"How can I tell? I did not expect to see anyone."
"Then where did she go?"
"I do not know; I was too concerned about my bleeding jaw to look about me. That girl must be dismissed."
"I wish she could be dismissed," I said.
"What do you mean?"
I did not answer my husband, for I really did not know what answer to make.
I was now the only person in the house who had not seen the red-haired girl, except possibly the cook, from whom I could gather nothing, but whom I suspected of knowing more concerning this mysterious apparition than she chose to admit. That what had been seen by Bessie and Jane was a supernatural visitant, I now felt convinced, seeing that it had appeared to that least imaginative and most commonplace of all individuals, my husband. By no mental process could he have been got to imagine anything. He certainly did see this red-haired girl, and that no living, corporeal maid had been in his dressing-room at the time I was perfectly certain.
I was soon, however, myself to be included in the number of those before whose eyes she appeared. It was in this wise.
Cook had gone out to do some marketing. I was in the breakfast-room, when, wanting a funnel to fill a little phial of brandy I always keep on the washstand in case of emergencies, I went to the head of the kitchen stairs, to descend and fetch what I required. Then I was aware of a great clattering of the fire-irons below, and a banging about of the boiler and grate. I went down the steps very hastily and entered the kitchen.