Part 18 (1/2)
”I do not know, mamma. I looked everywhere in the room and could find no one. I have been quite upset. I cannot tell what to think of this. I feel utterly unhinged.”
”I noticed at table that you did not appear well, but I said nothing about it. Your father gets so alarmed, and fidgets and fusses, if he thinks that there is anything the matter with you. But this is a most extraordinary story.”
”It is an extraordinary fact,” said Bessie.
”You have searched your room thoroughly?”
”I have looked into every corner.”
”And there is no one there?”
”No one. Would you mind, mamma, sleeping with me to-night? I am so frightened. Do you think it can be a ghost?”
”Ghost? Fiddlesticks!”
I made some excuse to my husband and spent the night in Bessie's room.
There was no disturbance that night of any sort, and although my daughter was excited and unable to sleep till long after midnight, she did fall into refres.h.i.+ng slumber at last, and in the morning said to me: ”Mamma, I think I must have fancied that I saw something in the gla.s.s. I dare say my nerves were over-wrought.”
I was greatly relieved to hear this, and I arrived at much the same conclusion as did Bessie, but was again bewildered, and my mind unsettled by Jane, who came to me just before lunch, when I was alone, and said--
”Please, ma'am, it's only fair to say, but it's not Miss Bessie.”
”What is not Miss Bessie? I mean, who is not Miss Bessie?”
”Her as is spying on me.”
”I told you it could not be she. Who is it?”
”Please, ma'am, I don't know. It's a red-haired girl.”
”But, Jane, be serious. There is no red-haired girl in the house.”
”I know there ain't, ma'am. But for all that, she spies on me.”
”Be reasonable, Jane,” I said, disguising the shock her words produced on me. ”If there be no red-haired girl in the house, how can you have one watching you?”
”I don't know; but one does.”
”How do you know that she is red-haired?”
”Because I have seen her.”
”When?”
”This morning.”
”Indeed?”
”Yes, ma'am. I was going upstairs, when I heard steps coming softly after me--the backstairs, ma'am; they're rather dark and steep, and there's no carpet on them, as on the front stairs, and I was sure I heard someone following me; so I twisted about, thinking it might be cook, but it wasn't. I saw a young woman in a print dress, and the light as came from the window at the side fell on her head, and it was carrots--reg'lar carrots.”