GOSSIP DOWNSTAIRS.
The topic which excited such interest in the drawing-room was certain to
be eagerly discussed in the kitchen also. At the servants' supper-table
that night nothing was talked about but Myst Hall, and the probability
of the Trevor family leaving Summer Villa to settle in Wiltshire.
"I'm certain that there will be a grand move soon, from what I heard
while I was waiting at table," said John the footman. "I mean to give
warning to-morrow," he added, shrugging his shoulders.
"You had better do nothing in a hurry," observed Susan Pearl, a
sensible, pleasant-looking woman, who had been Emmie's attendant when
she was a child, and who acted as her lady's-maid now. "You may find
that second thoughts are best, when the matter in question is throwing
up a good place."
"Then master had better have his second thoughts too," observed John, as
he stretched out his hand for the walnut pickle. "A week of Myst Court
was quite enough for me, I assure you. If you were to see how the mortar
is starting from the brickwork, how the plaster is peeling from the
ceilings, and how the furniture is faded; if you were to hear the
windows shaking and rattling as if they had a fit of the ague, the
boards creaking, and the long passages echoing, you would think any
sensible man well out of so dreary a prison."
"Plaster and paint can be put on anew, a carpet deadens echoes, and
curtains keep out draughts. As for windows rattling, a peg will stop
that," observed Susan, who was not easily daunted.
"Outside the house it's as bad as within," pursued John. "The drive is
green with moss and grass, and the piece of water with duckweed; the
trees grow so thick together that you can't see ten yards before you;
and your ears are dinned with the cawing of rooks."
"Weeding and clearing will do wonders," said Susan; "if Miss Emmie were
set in a coal-yard, she would manage to make flowers grow there."
"Are there good shops near?" inquired Ann, the housemaid, who wore a cap
of the newest pattern, trimmed with the gayest of ribbons.
"Shops!" echoed John, as if amazed at the question. "Why, the very baker
and grocer have to come in their carts from S----, and there's nothing
like a gentleman's house within several miles of Myst Court."
"I'll give warning to-morrow," said Ann. "As well be transported at
once, as go to such a heathenish out-of-the-way place as that is!"
"I suppose that Myst Court is overrun with rats and mice," observed
Mullins the cook.
"Not a bit of it," answered John, laughing. "Thieving rats and mice
would have had a hard life of it with old Mrs. Myers' nine and thirty
cats and kittens to serve as a rural police."
"La, John, you're joking! nine and thirty!" exclaimed the women-servants
in a breath.
"I'm not joking," replied the footman; "I counted them,--black, white,
gray, and tabby, long hair and short hair, blue eyes and green eyes!
Mrs. Myers cared a deal more for her cats than she did for her tenants'
children. No, no, the rats and mice would find no safe corner in that
big old house, unless in the shut-up, haunted chamber."
Whenever these last two words were pronounced, curiosity was certain to
be roused, and questioning to follow. Three voices now spoke at once.
"Do you think that the place is really haunted?"
"Did you see any ghosts?"
"What do the servants say about that chamber?"
The last question, which was Susan's, was that to which John gave reply.
"The cook and the housemaid at Myst Court say that for certain they've
heard odd noises, a sighing, and a rattling, and a howling o' nights,"
said the footman, looking as mysterious as his plump, well-fed face
would allow him to do.
"On windy nights, I suppose," said the sensible Susan. "I've heard a
sighing, and a rattling, and a howling even here in Summer Villa."
"Let him tell us more!" cried Ann impatiently, for John's countenance
showed that he had a great deal more to impart. The footman prefaced his
tale by deliberately laying down his knife and fork, though cold beef
lay still on his plate; this was a token that honest John was indeed in
solemn earnest. He began in a lowered tone, while every head was bent
forward to listen:--
"Mrs. Jael Jessel, the old lady's attendant, told me that she had twice
passed a ghost in the corridor, and once on the stairs. It was a tall
figure in white,--at least seven feet high,--and it had great round eyes
like carriage-lamps staring upon her."
Ann and the cook uttered exclamations, and exchanged glances of horror;
but Susan quietly remarked, "If Mrs. Jessel really saw such a sight
once, she was a stout-hearted woman to stay to see it a second time, and
a third. Did this brave lady's-maid look much the worse for meeting her
ghost?"
"No," replied John, a little taken aback by the question. "Mrs. Jessel
is a stout, comfortable-looking person. I suppose that she got used to
seeing odd sights."
Susan burst into a merry laugh. "John, John," she cried, "this Mrs.
Jessel has been taking a rise out of you. She saw that you were soft,
and wanted to make an impression." Susan was helping herself to butter,
which, perhaps, supplied her with the simile of which she made use.
"Mrs. Jessel did not stay at Myst Court for nothing," said John, who,
possibly, wished to give a turn to the conversation; "she had not waited
on Mrs. Myers for more than three years, yet the old lady left her five
hundred pounds, a nice little furnished house just outside the Myst
woods, and all the cats and kittens, which she could not trust to the
care of strangers."
"It was made worth her while to live in a haunted house," observed Ann.
"I thought at first," continued John, who had taken up his knife and
fork, and was using them to good purpose,--"I thought at first that I
might as well put my best foot forward, for that it would be no bad
thing to have a wife with five hundred pounds and a house to start with;
and," he added slyly, "with such a live-stock to boot, one might have
done a little business in the furrier's line. But--"
"But, but,--speak out!" cried Ann with impatience; "what comes after the
'but'?"
"Somehow I didn't take to Mrs. Jessel," said John, "and shouldn't have
cared to have married her, had the five hundred pounds been five
thousand instead."
"What's against her?" inquired the cook.
"Nothing that I know of," said John; "but when you see her, you'll
understand what I mean."
"I'll not see her; I'm not going to Myst Court; I could not abide being
so far from London," observed the cook.
"I shall give miss warning to-morrow!" cried Ann.
"And what will you do?" inquired John of Susan.
"Stay by the family, to be sure," was the answer. "Would I leave my
young lady now, just when her heart is heavy? for heavy it is, I am
certain of that. While she was dressing for dinner, Miss Emmie could
hardly keep in her tears. It is no pleasure to her to leave a home like
Summer Villa, where she has nothing to cross her, and everything to
please. There's not a day but Miss Alice, or some other friend, comes
dropping in to see her; nor a week that passes without some sight or
amusement in London. At the age of nineteen, a young lady like Miss
Trevor does not willingly leave such a pleasant place as this for a
dreary, deserted old country-house."
"Poor miss! I pity her from my soul!" cried Ann.
"With a pity that would leave her to see none but new faces in her
household!" said the indignant Susan. "No; I'll stick by my young lady
through thick and thin, were she to go to the middle of Africa. I've
been with her these ten years, ever since she lost her poor mother, and
I will not desert her now."
"You don't believe in ghosts," observed John.
"I believe my Bible," replied Susan gravely; "I read there that I have a
Maker far too wise and good to allow His servants to be troubled by
visitors from another world. This ghost-fearing is all of a piece with
fortune-telling, and spirit-rapping, and all such follies, after which
weak-brained people run. Simple faith in God turns out faith in such
nonsense, as daylight puts an end to darkness."
Susan was not laughed at for her little lecture as ten years before she
might have been. Her long period of service and her tried character had
given her influence, and won for her that respect which a consistent
life secures even from the worldly. Her fellow-servants felt somewhat
ashamed of their own credulous folly.
"I'm not a bit afraid of ghosts," said Ann; "but I don't choose to mope
in the country."
"I don't care a rap for a house being haunted; but I mean to better
myself," said the cook.
"Do you think, John, that the young gentlemen will like Myst Court?"
inquired Susan.
"I think Master Bruce has a purpose and a plan in his head; and when he
has a purpose and a plan, it's his way to go right on, steady and
straight, and none can say whether he likes or don't like what he's
a-doing," answered the footman. "When he looked over the house, it
wasn't to say how bad things were, but to see how things could be
bettered. He has a lot o' common sense, has Master Bruce; I believe that
he'll make himself happy after his fashion, and that ghosts, if there be
any, will take care to keep out of his way."
"He'd see through them," said Susan, laughing.
"As for Master Vibert," continued John, "if he has plenty of amusement,
he'll not trouble his head about ghost or goblin. He's a light-hearted
chap is Master Vibert, and a bit giddy, I take it. Perhaps his father
ain't sorry to have him a bit further off from London than he is here in
Summer Villa."
"The one for whom I feel sorry is my young lady," said Susan. "She'll
not take a gun or a fishing-rod like her brothers, and--"
"She'll be mortally afraid of ghosts," cried Ann.
"She's timid as a hare," observed John.
"If miss screams when a puppy-dog barks at her, and hides her face under
her bed-clothes if there's a peal o' thunder, how will she face ghosts
ten feet high, with eyes like carriage-lamps?" cried the cook.
Susan looked annoyed and almost angry at hearing her mistress spoken of
thus. "Miss Emmie is nervous and not very strong, so she is easily
startled," said the maid; "but she is as good a Christian as lives, and
will not, I hope, give way to any idle fancies and fears such as trouble
folk who are afraid of their own shadows. I should not, however, wonder
if she find Myst Court very dull."
"She'd better take to amusing herself by looking after the poor folk
around her," observed the cook. "From what you've told us, John, I take
it there's company enough of bare-legged brats and ragged babies."
"Miss Emmie is mighty afraid of infection," said John, doubtfully
shaking his head. "She has never let me call a four-wheeler for her in
London since small-pox has been going about. Miss will cross to the
other side of the road if she sees a child with a spot on its face. No,
no; she'll never venture to set so much as her foot in one of them dirty
hovels that I saw down there in Wiltshire."
"'Tain't fit as she should," observed Ann. "Why should ladies demean
themselves by going amongst dirty beggarly folk?"
"To help them out of their misery," said Susan. "In the place where I
lived before I came here, I saw my mistress, and the young ladies
besides, take delight in visiting the poor. They thought that it no more
demeaned them to enter a cottage than to enter a church; the rich and
the poor meet together in both."
"Miss Emmie is too good to be proud," observed John; "but, take my word
for it, she'll never muster up courage to go within ten yards of a
cottage. Kind things she'll say, ay, and do; for she has the kindest
heart in the world. But she'll send you, Susan, with her baskets of
groceries and bundles of cast-off clothes; she'll not hunt up cases
herself. Miss would shrink from bad smells; she'd faint at the sight of
a sore. She'll not dirty her fine muslin dresses, or run the risk of
catching fevers, or may be the plague, by visiting the poor."
"Time will show," observed Susan. But from her knowledge of the
disposition of her young lady, the faithful attendant was not without
her misgivings upon the subject.