"You are in rare luck to have it," he said.
"Yes," I answered; "it is a great comfort to me. This is mother; this
is the woman I love; no other can ever take her place."
"Of course not," said Alex. "And some day when I'm rich you'll let me
have it photographed, won't you?"
"Indeed I will. We'll stick to our bargain, won't we, Alex?"
Alex rose to his feet. He yawned slightly.
"I'm dead-tired, and I must go to school to-morrow. I haven't looked at
one of my lessons, but it doesn't really matter. When the Professor is
away marrying, you know, he can't expect his children to work as hard as
they do when he is at home."
"Oh Alex, Hannah said something dreadful!"
"As though anybody minded what she said!"
"She said that mother--our little, young, pretty mother--was killed.
She said mother would have been in the world now if she hadn't been
killed."
"That's all stuff!" said Alex. "Why do you speak in that exaggerated
sort of way? If she had been killed there would have been a coroner's
inquest and a trial, and the murderer would have been discovered and--
and hanged. Why do you talk such rot?"
"Oh, there are many ways of killing a person, and mother died for want
of sunshine."
"Oh, I see. Well, well! good-night."
He kissed me again and left the room.
During the next day or two I was very busy. Father had said that the
house was to be put in order. Now, what that meant I could not tell,
but the house on the whole was about in as much order as such a great,
desolate, and unfurnished abode could be. But when the next day at
breakfast I found a second letter from father on my plate, and when I
opened it and read father's own directions that the spare room was to be
got ready for the reception of himself and his wife on the following
Sunday, I knew that Hannah and I must come either to open war or to a
dismissal of the latter. I went down to the kitchen and told her at
once.
"The spare room, forsooth!" she said. "Well, yes, I thought of that
last night. Master said it was to be put in order, but he needn't have
written; I'd have seen to it."
I was greatly relieved at this change of front. Hannah was looking
quite gentle. She was moving about in the kitchen in quite an orderly
fashion. The little cooking-stove was black instead of grey; there were
no ashes to be seen anywhere, and a bright little fire burned in it.
There was a pot on, and there was something boiling in the pot, and the
thing that boiled and bubbled gave forth a most appetising smell. When
I spoke Hannah turned and opened the oven door, and I saw inside a great
cake.
"Why, Hannah!" I said.
"It's only right to have cake and that sort of thing handy," she said.
"Don't talk nonsense, Dumps. There's a deal for you and me to do. Be
you going to school to-day?"
"No," I said.
"Why will you keep away?"
"Because I won't go."
"You will get a report; your mistress will be very angry."
"I don't care," I said; "I won't go. I'll go afterwards. I won't go
this week."
"Highty-tighty!" said Hannah. "Well, you'll catch it!"
"Seems to me I'm always catching it," I said.
"Seems to me you are," said Hannah.
"Well, Hannah, what about the spare room?"
"I'll see to it myself. I'll have it ready."
"Can I help you, Hannah?"
"No; but you can come and look on if you like."
"Don't you want Mrs Herring? She is so strong. Everything should be
turned out; the place should be made very clean."
"I don't want none of your herrings nor your sprats neither," replied
Hannah in her most aggressive tone. This was a very old joke of
Hannah's.
I went upstairs now. The spare room was on the same landing as the
drawing-room, and, as far as I could tell, had never been of any use at
all to any single member of the family. Perhaps in mother's time it had
been of service to some long-forgotten guest. The door was always
locked. I supposed Hannah had the key. At nights sometimes, when the
wind was blowing high, there was a moaning, through the keyhole of that
locked door, and there were times when I flew past it up and up and up
to my own attic bedroom. But now I stood outside the door. At the
other side of the landing was the drawing-room. It was a very big room
with three windows. We sat there sometimes when father had his
professors, men very nearly as learned as himself--not quite, of
course--to visit him.
I went into the drawing-room. It was very ugly, and not nearly as cosy
as the parlour. The spare room I had never seen the inside of that I
could remember. Hannah came up now, and took a great bunch of keys from
her pocket and opened the door, and we went in.
"Oh, how musty it smells!" I said.
"In course it do," said Hannah. "When a room's shut up for going on
fourteen years, why shouldn't it smell musty? But there, child! don't
you go and catch your death of cold. The first thing is to air the room
and then to light a fire. Afterwards I'll rub up the furniture and put
up clean hangings. It won't be exactly a cheerful sort of room, but I
suppose the master must be content."
There were grey-looking curtains hanging at the three tall windows.
There were green Venetian blinds, which looked almost white now, so
covered were they with dust. There was a sort of rough drugget stuff on
the floor, which was quite as grey as the curtains which surrounded the
windows. There was a huge four-poster bed, drawn out a little from the
wall, and taking one of the best positions in the room. This also was
hung with grey moreen, and looked as desolate and as uninviting as a
couch could look. There was a huge arm-chair, covered also with the
same grey moreen; and there were a few other chairs, hard and dirty.
There was a very tall brass fender to the grate, which in itself was
large and of generous proportions. There was a chest of drawers, made
of mahogany, with brass handles; and a huge wardrobe, almost as big as a
small house. I really don't remember the rest of the furniture of the
room, except that there were engravings hanging on the walls, and one in
particular portraying Herodias bearing the head of John the Baptist on a
charger, hanging exactly over the fireplace. The picture was as ghastly
as the room.
"I wouldn't sleep here for the world," I said.
"Well, you won't have the chance," said Hannah. "Now, you can just go
out and make yourself useful somewhere else, while I'm beginning to
clean up and get things in order."