“Seventy,” burst from her lips as I leaned over her shoulder and showed her the coin which I had taken pains to have in my hand.
“Yours,” I announced, pointing in the direction of the house, “if you will do some work for Miss Knollys tonight.”
Slowly she shook her head before burying it deeper in the shawl she wore wrapped about her shoulders. Listening a minute, I thought I heard her mutter: “Twenty-eight, ten, but no more. I can count no more. Go away!”
But I’m nothing if not persistent. Feeling for her hands, which were hidden away somewhere under her shawl, I touched them with the coin and cried again:
“This and more for a small piece of work tonight. Come, you are strong; earn it.”
“What kind of work is it?” I asked innocently, or it must have appeared innocently, of Mr. Knollys, who was standing at my back.
He frowned, all the black devils in his heart coming into his look at once.
“How do I know! Ask Loreen; she’s the one who sent me. I don’t take account of what goes on in the kitchen.”
I begged his pardon, somewhat sarcastically I own, and made another attempt to attract the attention of the old crone, who had remained perfectly callous to my allurements.
“I thought you liked money,” I said. “For Lizzie, you know, for Lizzie.”
But she only muttered in lower and lower gutturals, “I can count no more”; and, disgusted at my failure, being one who accounts failure as little short of disgrace, I drew back and made my way toward the door, saying: “She’s in a different mood from what she was yesterday when she snatched a quarter from me at the first intimation it was hers. I don’t think you can get her to do any work tonight. Innocents take these freaks. Isn’t there someone else you can call in?”
The scowl that disfigured his none too handsome features was a fitting prelude to his words.
“You talk,” said he, “as if we had the whole village at our command. How did you succeed with the locksmith yesterday? Came, didn’t he? Well, that’s what we have to expect whenever we want any help.”
Whirling on his heel, he led the way out of the hut, whither I would have immediately followed him if I had not stopped to take another look at the room, which struck me, even upon a second scrutiny, as one of the best ordered and best kept I had ever entered. Even the strings and strings of dried fruits and vegetables, which hung in festoons from every beam of the roof, were free from dust and cobwebs, and though the dishes were few and the pans scarce, they were bright and speckless, giving to the shelf along which they were ranged a semblance of ornament.
“Wise enough to keep her house in order,” thought I, and actually found it hard to leave, so attractive to my eyes are absolute neatness and order.
William was pushing at his own gate when I joined him. He looked as if he wished I had spent the morning with Mother Jane, and was barely civil in our walk up to the house. I was not, therefore, surprised when he burst into a volley of oaths at the doorway and turned upon me almost as if he would forbid me the house, for tap, tap, tap, from some distant quarter came a distinct sound like that of nails being driven into a plank.
XXII
The Third Night
Mother Jane must have changed her mind after we left her. For late in the evening I caught a glimpse of her burly figure in the kitchen as I went to give Hannah some instructions concerning certain little changes in the housekeeping arrangements which the girls and I had agreed were necessary to our mutual comfort.
I wished to address the old crone, but warned, by the ill-concealed defiance with which Hannah met my advances, that any such attempt on my part would be met by anything but her accustomed good-nature, I refrained from showing my interest in her strange visitor, or from even appearing conscious of her own secret anxieties and evident preoccupation.
Loreen and Lucetta exchanged a meaning look as I rejoined them in the sitting-room; but my volubility in regard to the domestic affair which had just taken me to the kitchen seemed to speedily reassure them, and when a few minutes later I said good night and prepared to leave the room, it was with the conviction that I had relieved their mind at the expense of my own. Mother Jane in the kitchen at this late hour meant business. What that business was, I seemed to know only too well.
I had formed a plan for the night which required some courage. Recalling Lucetta’s expression of the morning, that I might expect a repetition of the former night’s experiences, I prepared to profit by the warning in a way she little meant. Satisfied that if there was any truth in the suspicions I had formed, there would be an act performed in this house tonight which, if seen by me, would forever settle the question agitating the whole countryside, I made up my mind that no locked door should interfere with my opportunity of doing so. How I effected this result I will presently relate.
Lucetta had accompanied me to my door with a lighted candle.
“I hear you had some trouble with matches last night,” said she. “You will find them all right now. Hannah must be blamed for some of this carelessness.” Then as I began some reassuring reply, she turned upon me with a look that was almost fond, and, throwing out her arms, cried entreatingly: “Won’t you give me a
