The Mammoth Book of Modern Ghost Stories

than ever as I drove up to Brympton in the dusk. There was something about the house – I was sure of it now. . . .

When I went in to tea I heard that Mr Brympton had arrived, and I saw at a glance that there had been a disturbance of some kind. Mrs Blinder’s hand shook so that she could hardly pour the tea, and Mr Wace quoted the most dreadful texts full of brimstone. Nobody said a word to me then, but when I went up to my room, Mrs Blinder followed me.

“Oh, my dear,” says she, taking my hand, “I’m so glad and thankful you’ve come back to us!”

That struck me, as you may imagine. “Why,” said I, “did you think I was leaving for good?”

“No, no, to be sure,” said she, a little confused, “but I can’t a-bear to have madam left alone for a day even.” She pressed my hand hard, and, “Oh, Miss Hartley,” says she, “be good to your mistress, as you’re a Christian woman.” And with that she hurried away, and left me staring.

A moment later Agnes called me to Mrs Brympton. Hearing Mr Brympton’s voice in her room, I went round by the dressing-room, thinking I would lay out her dinner-gown before going in. The dressing-room is a large room with a window over the portico that looks toward the gardens. Mr Brympton’s apartments are beyond. When I went in, the door into the bedroom was ajar, and I heard Mr Brympton saying angrily: “One would suppose he was the only person fit for you to talk to.”

“I don’t have many visitors in winter,” Mrs Brympton answered quietly.

“You have me!” he flung at her, sneeringly.

“You are here so seldom,” said she.

“Well – whose fault is that? You make the place about as lively as the family vault—”

With that I rattled the toilet-things, to give my mistress warning, and she rose and called me in.

The two dined alone, as usual, and I knew by Mr Wace’s manner at supper that things must be going badly. He quoted the prophets something terrible, and worked on the kitchen-maid so that she declared she wouldn’t go down alone to put the cold meat in the ice-box. I felt nervous myself, and after I had put my mistress to bed I was half-tempted to go down again and persuade Mrs Blinder to sit up a while over a game of cards. But I heard her door closing for the night and so I went on to my own room. The rain had begun again, and the drip, drip, drip seemed to be dropping into my brain. I lay awake listening to it, and turning over what my friend in town had said. What puzzled me was that it was always the maids who left . . .

After a while I slept; but suddenly a loud noise wakened me. My bell had rung. I sat up, terrified by the unusual sound, which seemed to go on jangling through the darkness. My hands shook so that I couldn’t find the matches. At length I struck a light and jumped out of bed. I began to think I must have been dreaming; but I looked at the bell against the wall, and there was the little hammer still quivering.

I was just beginning to huddle on my clothes when I heard another sound. This time it was the door of the locked room opposite mine softly opening and closing. I heard the sound distinctly, and it frightened me so that I stood stock-still. Then I heard a footstep hurrying down the passage toward the main house. The floor being carpeted, the sound was very faint, but I was quite sure it was a woman’s step. I turned cold with the thought of it, and for a minute or two I dursn’t breathe or move. Then I came to my senses.

“Alice Hartley,” says I to myself, “someone left that room just now and ran down the passage ahead of you. The idea isn’t pleasant, but you may as well face it. Your mistress has rung for you, and to answer her bell you’ve got to go the way that other woman has gone.”

Well – I did it. I never walked faster in my life, yet I thought I should never get to the end of the passage or reach Mrs Brympton’s room. On the way I heard nothing and saw nothing: all was dark and quiet as the grave. When I reached my mistress’s door the silence was so deep that I began to think I must be dreaming, and was half-minded to turn back. Then a panic seized me, and I knocked.

There was no answer, and I knocked again, loudly. To my astonishment the door was opened by Mr Brympton. He started back when he saw me, and in the light of my candle his face looked red and savage.

“You?” he said, in a queer voice. “How many of you are there, in God’s name?”

At that I felt the ground give under me; but I said to myself that he had been drinking, and answered as steadily as I could: “May I go in, sir? Mrs Brympton has rung for me.”

“You may all go in, for what I care,” says he, and, pushing by me, walked down the hall to his own bedroom. I looked after him as he went, and to my surprise I saw that he walked as straight as a sober man.

I found my mistress lying very weak and still but she forced a smile when she saw me, and signed to me to pour out some drops for her. After that she lay without speaking, her breath coming quick, and her eyes closed. Suddenly she groped out with her hand, and “Emma,” says she, faintly.

“It’s Hartley, madam,” I said. “Do you want anything?”

She opened her eyes wide and gave me a startled look.

“I was dreaming,” she said. “You may go now, Hartley, and thank you kindly. I’m quite well again, you see.” And she turned her face away from me.

III

There was no more sleep for me that night, and I was thankful when daylight came.

Soon afterward, Agnes called me to Mrs Brympton. I was afraid she was ill again, for she seldom sent for me before nine, but I found her sitting up in bed, pale and drawn-looking, but quite herself.

“Hartley,” says she quickly, “will you put on your things at once and go down to the village for me? I want this prescription made up” – here she hesitated a minute and blushed – “and I should like you to be back again before Mr Brympton is up.”

“Certainly, madam,” I said.

“And – stay a moment” – she called me back as if an idea had just struck her – “while you’re waiting for the mixture, you’ll have time to go on to Mr Ranford’s with this note.”

It was a two-mile walk to the village, and on my way I had time to turn things over in my mind. It struck me as peculiar that my mistress should wish the prescription made up without Mr Brympton’s knowledge; and, putting this together with the scene of the night before, and with much else that I had noticed and suspected, I began to wonder if the poor lady was weary of her life, and had come to the mad resolve of ending it. The idea took such hold on me that I reached the village on a run, and dropped breathless into a chair before the chemist’s counter. The good man, who was just taking down his shutters, stared at me so hard that it brought me to myself.

“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