A sudden sound startled her. A footstep in the toilet-room. A ghost?
Yes, that was it: there were ghosts on the first floor. Not ghosts perhaps, but a ghost; the ghost of Papa's first wife. She was terrified; she ran to the bed. She got into it and drew the curtains.
She peeped through them. Her heart beat so loudly that it was like the strokes of the blacksmith's hammer. The door was pushed open slowly, and Mamma came into the room-Mamma's face was working queerly; she had never seen Mamma look like that; had never known Mamma could look frightened just like a child. One could not imagine Mamma like a child. Mamma looked all round the room. She was breathing queerly; her breath made gasping noises. Poor Mamma so frightened. Hastily she pulled back the bed curtains, but in that split second when the curtains began to move. Mamma's face went white and she caught her breath, so that it whistled like the wind in the eucalyptus trees in the cove.
"Mamma!" cried Katharine; and then Mamma saw who it was behind the curtains, and the colour came back to her face, and she came nearer, and Katharine did not know whether she was very, very angry or not.
"Did you think I was a ghost?" said Katharine.
"What nonsense!" retorted Mamma.
"There are no ghosts.”
"You looked very frightened.”
"You were peeping out at me, you bad girl!" Mamma's voice was soft and loving, not as though she thought Katharine was a bad girl at all; so Katharine stood on the bed and put her arms round Mamma's neck, and Mamma hugged her suddenly and fiercely, and when Mamma did that Katharine loved her more than anyone in the world. It meant that Mamma loved her best too, even though she was not a boy and everybody wanted boys.
"Katharine, what are you doing here? Why aren't you in the schoolroom?”
"Because the boys are doing dictation, and I am studying in my own room.”
Mamma raised her eyebrows, and when she did that she did it so funnily that it always made Katharine laugh.
"And I came downstairs and when I got to the first floor I thought I wanted to have a look at it.”
"Katharine, you are always prowling about the first floor.
What is prowling?" , "Well... just going there and peeping about.
Why?
"I don't know," lied Katharine, because somehow it was impossible to talk of the ghost of the First Wife to Mamma.
"You shouldn't do things without knowing why you do them.”
"Do grown-ups always know why they do things?”
Carolan, shaken more than she cared to admit to herself, smiled at this disconcerting daughter who had evidently heard some gossip about these rooms ... possibly about Lucille. What? And how could one ask a child without making it seem very important? Was she to be haunted all her life?
"I do not think they do, always.”
Katharine brought her knees up to her chin, and rolled about on the bed that had been Lucille's This was delightful. This was delicious. A tate-d-tate with the most exciting of all grownups. Mamma!
"Why do they do them if they do not know why?”
"Because they are stupid.”
Stupid? So grown-ups were stupid as well as children. It was exciting; surely there was nothing you could not ask Mamma when she talked like that. Mamma was unlike herself today.
"Why is it so quiet here, Mamma ... on this floor, I mean? Why doesn't Margery like coming here ... even in daylight?”
"What?" said Mamma sharply.
"Margery told you that!”
"She didn't tell me. She just doesn't. Why, she would even bring Edward ... Edward ... rather than come alone. Edward wouldn't know what to do if he saw a ghost. I don't suppose he even knows what a ghost is!”
Mamma stood up suddenly. The dignified Mamma, grown-up now, no longer ready to share a confidence.
"You are very silly, Katharine. If Edward knows nothing of ghosts he is wiser than you, for there are no ghosts, and let me hear no more of this foolishness. It is time you went back to your lessons. It is cold in here.”
"But Mamma, I am boiling... It is hot!”
"It is cool after the rest of the house," said Mamma, and Katharine noticed that her hands were very cold.
"Come along," said Mamma, and pulled her off the bed quite roughly. And then Mamma's mood changed. Mamma did change quickly all the time.
"What about a pick-a-back?" Katharine leaped onto the bed, and Mamma presented her back, and she put her arms round Mamma's neck and Mamma ran with her out of the room. Katharine was shrieking with laughter.
"Now, back to your room at once! And see that you learn your lessons.”
Mamma started up the stairs with her.
"Miss Kelly is in a bad mood today," said Katherine.
"It is because I dreamed it was Christmas, and that made her remember about her brother in Van Diemen's Land, because he will never, never spend Christmas with her again!”
"Be kind to Miss Kelly, because she has been unhappy.”
"You told me that before. I am kind to her. I see that the boys are too.”
Mamma picked her up suddenly and they ran up the rest of the stairs just as though, thought Katharine, Mamma was afraid someone would catch them if they did not hurry.
It was a queer morning.
Mamma had dinner with them because Papa was not at home, and Edward spilled the contents of his plate into his lap.
Then Miss Kelly said that Edward deserved to be whipped, or at least to go without his dinner, which set Edward crying. But Mamma comforted him: she said it was not Edward's fault, and people should never be blamed unless the wrong things they did were their own faults.
Mamma took Edward onto her lap and fed him with a spoon so that it was as though he had done something clever instead of naughty.
Then followed the drowsy afternoon. Mamma slept; so did Edward. Martin and James went off together. That left Katharine to herself.
She went down to the kitchen. She liked the kitchen in the afternoon.
Margery usually dozed in her chair, and it was while dozing that Margery could be relied on to be even more indiscreet than usual. Poll always washed the kitchen floor in the afternoon. Katharine liked to watch her mop swamping the stones.
"Hello, young mischief!" said Margery, She was sitting there, her knees apart, a fat hand on each knee. Amy washed the dishes; Poll was getting ready to start on the floor.
"I dreamed it was Christmas," said Katharine.
"Glad I'll be when that's all over! There was never anything for making work like Christmas. I'd rather have twenty men about the house than Christmas.”
"Twenty is rather a lot." said Katharine, pulling a chair close to Margery's.
"I'd manage 'em," said Margery with a wink.
"And keen 'em in order every man jack of 'em!”
That was where Margery differed from Miss Kelly. Miss Kelly dispelled illusion; Margery developed it.
"Would you make them do all the work, Margery?”
"That I would!”
"Mop the floor and peel potatoes?”
"You bet I would.”