When Last I Died

approach the subject bluntly, and she did.

'I was interested in the diary, Miss Hodge,' she said. 'I wonder ....' She looked into the eyes of the old servant.

'Yes, madam?' said Miss Hodge; and her eyes flickered nervously, Mrs. Bradley noticed.

'An impertinence on my part, perhaps, but—were you very much attached to Miss Bella and Miss Tessa? I suppose, by the way, that you are the Eliza of the diary?'

'Yes, madam, of course I am. As to Miss Bella and Miss Tessa—well, I was very fond indeed of Miss Tessa, and terrible grieved when she was so unfortunate.'

'Unfortunate? You mean ...?'

'Yes, that's it, madam. Her husband turned out badly, I'm afraid. In fact, it proved he wasn't her husband. Such a nice fellow he was, too. But I suppose these bigamists often are, and that's where they lead themselves astray. I don't really think he meant Miss Tessa any harm, and fortunately— most fortunately as it turned out—nothing came of the marriage——'

'No children, you mean?'

'That's right. So it wasn't as bad as it might have been; and when it all came out he went away to South America before he got himself arrested, and there, it seems, he died of being attacked by a crocodile or a snake or something of them kind of horrible things.'

'Is it certain that he's dead?'

'Oh, yes, madam. No manner of doubt, and really, for poor Miss Tessa, the best way out. But she always kept up her married name, I believe, although she never came back here no more. I did just write to her once, getting the address— although I suppose it was not my place—out of the bureau drawer where I knew the mistress kept it, for all she had said she would never see Miss Tessa again....'

'But surely it wasn't the girl's fault?'

'Well, she wasn't so much of a girl, if you take me, madam. She would have been all of thirty-five when she married him, and the mistress never liked the marriage anyhow, and when it came out what he was, she said she had always known something would happen, and Miss Tessa was old enough to have had more sense about men.'

'Yes, I see. So she cut Miss Tessa out of her will, and left all the money to Miss Bella.'

'Well, she did and she didn't. She left the money to Miss Bella, but Miss Tessa was to have it after her, unless Miss Bella should have got married, which there wasn't much chance she would. But, much to everybody's surprise, madam, Miss Bella gave Miss Tessa to understand that she was to have half the interest on the capital straight away. Of course, after the death of poor Mr. Tom, we heard no more about it, but I dare say she did it, all the same. Mr. Tom's death, and then Miss Bella being put in prison and tried for her life, took all our thoughts, as you can fancy, and ...'

'The sisters got on well together, then?'

'Well, I can't hardly say, madam. They didn't quarrel, that I know of, and I suppose Miss Bella must have been fond of Miss Tessa to share the interest with her like that; although, as she said to me herself, ' Why shouldn't a thousand do me as well as two thousand, Eliza? After all, I've never had more than two hundred up to now.' As, of course, madam, no more she hadn't, and a job that ate all the heart out of her, too, and all, even to get that much. But I was sorry to think Mr. Tom never came in for his share.'

'You were very fond of both of them, then?'

Eliza hesitated for an instant, and then seemed to make up her mind.

'I'm not ever one to speak ill of the dead, madam.'

'I am glad to hear you say that,' said Mrs. Bradley. That this was a cryptic utterance was lost upon Eliza. She replied :

'No, that's not my way, madam. What's buried should bury our spite with it. That's what I always say. All the same, I was very, very glad when they let Miss Bella off. It would have been a most terrible thing, that would.'

Mrs. Bradley agreed, and then said, changing the subject, it seemed :

'I wonder whether you'd care to come to tea with me at your house this afternoon? I shall be quite alone now that my grandson has gone back with his parents.'

'That would be ever so nice, madam,' said Eliza immediately. 'Mrs. Bell is going over to Hariford, so I shall be all on my own, too.'

'Good,' said Mrs. Bradley. 'I shall expect you early, then.'

Eliza arrived at half-past three and found her hostess in the garden. Together they walked up the path and talked about the plants and flowers. The rockery particularly attracted attention. It had been one of Aunt Flora's hobbies, and Mrs. Bradley encouraged a subject of conversation of which she had some knowledge in order to keep the memory of Aunt Flora well in the foreground of her companion's mind.

These artless tactics were successful, and by the end of her visit she had a clear picture of the household just before the old lady's death. Eliza was not garrulous, nor did she make too many tiresome repetitions. She seemed to welcome questions, and was obviously so much interested herself in what she was talking about that Mrs. Bradley's curiosity did not strike her as excessive. It seemed perfectly natural to her that other people should be fascinated by stories about the tragic household in which she had had a place.

They had tea in the garden. It was brought out by the young maidservant who had come down with Mrs. Bradley because it was thought that a fortnight by the sea might do her good. It was doing her good, Mrs. Bradley had been glad to notice. She had taken Derek for some of his walks while Mrs. Bradley, who enjoyed what she called 'pottering about the house,' had done the dusting and had cooked most of the meals.

During tea Eliza's anecdotes were chiefly based upon the small and harmless eccentricities of her late mistress, but, later (for the evenings were not very warm), when they went into the house to a small but cheerful fire, the trickle of reminiscence gradually rose to flood height, and by the time the visitor left at half-past eight Mrs. Bradley's curiosity was satisfied to the extreme limit of whatever satisfaction Eliza was able to provide. In fact, Mrs. Bradley felt that if there was anything she had not been told, it was because it was something which the old servant herself did not know.

The fire had been lighted in the drawing-room, a room which had been furnished too heavily for its size. Heavy mahogany chairs, a sideboard (in the same kind of wood) which occupied almost the whole of a wall so that there was scarcely enough room to open the door, a dark red carpet with a thick pile, a mahogany bureau, an overladen mantelpiece and dark red velvet curtains which hung from the ceiling to the ground, created an impression of stifling and strangely hellish gloom which was not discounted, but, on the contrary, enhanced, by portraits of a gentleman with side whiskers and a lady wearing a bustle; by a couple of large fish labelled respectively Uncle Percy and Uncle George; and, finally, by a repellent arrangement of Wedgwood dinner plates affixed to the walls by wire brackets.

'The mistress loved this room,' said Eliza, looking round it with affectionate pride. 'It was here that she died, madam. Had her bed brought down here and the dining-table and chairs moved out to get it in. What a job it was to get her downstairs and into it, too. She was a big, heavy woman, you know, madam, and had had her hair dyed dark red, which nobody really cared for, not even herself when it was done. 'I've made a fool of myself, Eliza,' she said to me when she came home— went up to London, she did, to have it tinted—'and I wish now I'd never had it done. But you can take it that nobody but myself is ever going to know that. I shall keep it touched up now I've taken the plunge.' And so she did, to the last. Ah, she was a wonderful old lady; eighty-one when she died, and all her faculties, as you might say. Nobody thought of her going like that at the end. It was on the Wednesday that she tumbled over. She wouldn't have me help her dress, and so, of course, it happened! The very first time I hadn't tied her strings for her—for she wore the old-fashioned petticoats to the end, two flannel ones and one white one in winter, and just the two white ones in summer—and down she went. I'd helped her ever since her rheumatism began to make her what she called fumble-fisted.

'I was down in the kitchen when she fell, but of course, I heard the crash, and her calling out as she tumbled.

'Doctor was very grave at first; a young doctor he was then, although we've got quite used to him in these parts by now. He said she'd never work off the effects like younger people can, so, when he put it like that, I said, 'Oh, doctor, you don't mean she won't get over it! Because if you mean that,' I said, 'I really ought to send for her relations.'

'He looked at me very sober at that, and said, 'You'd better send for them, then.' That was on the following Saturday morning.

'With that, he went, and I went straight to the bureau for the address of the Institution where Miss Bella was gone to be housekeeper. The mistress saw me, of course, and she called out from the bed, 'Don't you go writing to that addle-headed niece Tessa of mine! I'm not that far gone, Eliza, that I don't know how you favour her above Bella.'

''I thought you'd like Miss Bella to know you weren't quite yourself, mum,' I said; and at that she tried to raise herself a bit on the pillow and said, speaking sharp-like, as she always did when she wanted a bit of an argument,

''What do you mean—quite myself? I'm not in my dotage yet, thank goodness! Don't be a fool, Eliza!'

''No, mum,' I said, quite meek, for I'd found Miss Bella's address by that time, so I wanted to humour her a bit. But she saw I'd got it. Her eyes were very quick. Still, she said no more, except to tell me to put Care of the Warden on the envelope. It was that, I think, her wanting Miss Bella to come, that made me sure how very bad she was, and made me turn the letter into a telegram, to fetch her as soon as might be.'

'And I suppose you sent, also, to the other relatives who came?' said Mrs.