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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 looked straight back
at him.
He shrugged his shoulders and gave a sullen laugh. "I suppose you
think I was drunk last night?" he asked suddenly.
"No, sir, I don't," I answered, this time truthfully enough.
He turned away with another shrug. "A pretty notion my servants have
of me!" I heard him mutter as he walked off.
Not till I had settled down to my afternoon's sewing did I realize
how the events of the night had shaken me. I couldn't pass that
locked door without a shiver. I knew I had heard someone come out of
it, and walk down the passage ahead of me. I thought of speaking to
Mrs. Blinder or to Mr. Wace, the only two in the house who appeared
to have an inkling of what was going on, but I had a feeling that if
I questioned them they would deny everything, and that I might learn
more by holding my tongue and keeping my eyes open. The idea of
spending another night opposite the locked room sickened me, and
once I was seized with the notion of packing my trunk and taking the
first train to town; but it wasn't in me to throw over a kind
mistress in that manner, and I tried to go on with my sewing as if
nothing had happened.
I hadn't worked ten minutes before the sewing-machine broke down. It
was one I had found in the house, a good machine, but a trifle out
of order: Mrs. Blinder said it had never been used since Emma
Saxon's death. I stopped to see what was wrong, and as I was working
at the machine a drawer which I had never been able to open slid
forward and a photograph fell out. I picked it up and sat looking at
it in a maze. It was a woman's likeness, and I knew I had seen the
face somewhere--the eyes had an asking look that I had felt on me
before. And suddenly I remembered the pale woman in the passage.
I stood up, cold all over, and ran out of the room. My heart seemed
to be thumping in the top of my head, and I felt as if I should
never get away from the look in those eyes. I went straight to Mrs.
Blinder. She was taking her afternoon nap, and sat up with a jump
when I came in.
"Mrs. Blinder," said I, "who is that?" And I held out the
photograph.
She rubbed her eyes and stared.
"Why, Emma Saxon," says she. "Where did you find it?"
I looked hard at her for a minute. "Mrs. Blinder," I said, "I've
seen that face before."
Mrs. Blinder got up and walked over to the looking-glass. "Dear me!
I must have been asleep," she says. "My front is all over one ear.
And now do run along, Miss Hartley, dear, for I hear the clock
striking four, and I must go down this very minute and put on the
Virginia ham for Mr. Brympton's dinner."
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