Jessie was staring down at the uneaten food on her plate.
Two days passed uneventfully. I paid only one visit to Uncle Carl. Dr. Cabel said he was not well enough on the first of those days; the second I saw him and he held my hand and said a few words.
“Improving,” said Dr. Cabel, his eyes shining. “I can’t tell you how happy I am when he shows a little glimpse of his old self.”
I walked over to Enderby and was disappointed when I heard that Derek and Isabel had gone to London for a few days. it was on the second day when I came upon Jessie sitting in the winter parlor with the cook, Daisy Button, a plump woman, waistless so that she looked rather like a barrel, good-natured, easily offended, dedicated to her cooking, determined to protect her dignity. I knew that Jessie had had a few tussles with her but there was a certain friendship between them and whatever airs, the cook complained, Jessie gave herself, anyone who was so appreciative of Daisy Button’s culinary masterpieces could be forgiven.
Daisy Button, I had heard, could tell whether a girl was pregnant almost before the girl knew it herself; she had even been known to prophesy correctly the sex of the child; her grandmother had been a witch and she had powers.
When I approached, Daisy Button got up and bobbed a rather reluctant curtsy and said she was discussing the day’s supper with Mistress Stirling, and she hoped she was giving satisfaction. A large part of her beautiful tansy pudding had been sent back to the kitchen from the dinner table.
I said the tansy pudding was absolutely delicious and if those at the table had not eaten of it as voraciously as it deserved it was because they had gorged themselves on the very excellent roast beef which had preceded it.
I saw the cards in Daisy Button’s apron pocket and guessed she had been giving Jessie what she would call “a reading.”
I said: “I see you have the cards. Have you been telling fortunes’?”
“Oh, well,” said Daisy, “Mistress Stirling did ask me to have a peep for her.”
“Has she good fortune in store?”
“Couldn’t be better,” said Daisy. “A rosy future … with love and money. She’s going for a journey.”
“Oh?” I said. “Are you going to leave us, Jessie?”
“Not while I’m needed,” said Jessie sententiously.
“No, it’s for the future,” put in Daisy. “She’s going to meet a rich stranger and she’s going to find peace and happiness in this new friendship.”
“It sounds very interesting,” I said turning away.
Jessie surprised me. When I had first met her I thought her a hard-headed, scheming woman. She was probably all this, but in addition she was religious and very superstitious as well. She had been really shaken when Dickon had told his story of the man in the well. And now Daisy’s promised good fortune had made her very happy.
How unwise it was to make snap judgments about people’s characters. The only thing one could be certain of was that there were many more facets to their natures than to a well-cut diamond and because one understood their reactions to one situation it was no use thinking one really knew them.
It was dusk. I was about to go for my visit to Lord Eversleigh when I paused. There was a terrible commotion in the kitchens.
Dr. Cabel looked at Jessie, who was standing still, listening. Then one of the maids came running up.
“It’s May,” she said. “She’s seen something.”
“Seen what?” asked Jessie.
“We can’t get a word of sense out of her. She’s having hysterics at the kitchen table.”
Jessie looked at the doctor and he said: “I’d better see her.”
We went down through the screens to the kitchen. May, one of the housemaids, was sitting back in a chair staring ahead of her. The cook had a glass of brandy in her hand and was trying to force May to drink it.
“Now what is this?” said Dr. Cabel taking the brandy, which he put on the table.
“I see a ghost, sir,” said May, her teeth chattering.
“What is this nonsense?” The doctor spoke sharply.
“I see it, sir. Clear as I see you. He was standing there at the top of the stairs. I looked at him and he faded into nothing.”
“Now, now, May, tell us exactly what happened. It must have been one of the other servants you saw.”
“In his lordship’s hat and cloak.”
“His lordship’s!”
“Oh yes, they was his all right. I’ve seen him before … you know … before he was took so ill.”
“And he disappeared?”
“Well, that’s what ghosts do, sir.”
“It’s a bad sign,” said Daisy Button. “It’s death in the house. I felt it a long time. I reckon it’s his lordship. His spirit is already gone … and in its early form as yet … outside looking on. That’s how it goes. Mark my words, we shan’t have the dear gentleman with us much longer.”
“Stop that nonsense,” said Dr. Cabel. “What May saw was one of the servants … or she imagined she saw something. You’re all right, May. Now I’m going to give you something to drink and you’re to go to bed.”
“I’d be frightened, sir. I don’t want to see that again.”
“You saw nothing. It was a figment of your imagination.” He bent over. “Good heavens, have you been drinking?”
“I give her a glass of my sloe gin,” said Daisy Button. “But then we all had some.”
“It may well be that your sloe gin is more potent than you think. Mistress Button.”
“Well, you might have something there.”
The doctor smiled. “Distribute it in smaller portions in future, will you?”
“Well, my sloe’s always been took in the same quantities before, sir.”
“Each year’s brew won’t be exactly the same, will it?”
“That could be true, sir. You know what sloes is.”
“Shall we get May to her room and let the doctor give her something to make her sleep,” I said.
“Come along. May,” said Jessie.
They went up to the maid’s room.
I noticed how subdued Jessie was. She was really frightened and behaving rather unlike the Jessie I had come to expect.
Dickon was very interested when he heard of May’s experience. He was on some sort of acquaintanceship with several of the maids. I had seen his eyes rest speculatively on several of them. I imagined that he waylaid them in dark places and indulged in certain familiarities. I had seen the manner in which some of them looked at him. Dickon was the sort of person who only had to be in a place to change the nature of it.
He held forth a long time at dinner over May’s adventure.
“These girls are very superstitious,” he said. “I’ve no doubt May imagined the whole thing.”
“Yes,” said Jessie, “that’s all. She just saw a shadow or something … and thought up the rest.”
“She was very shaken,” I pointed out.
“Of course she would be,” said Dickon. “What did the poor girl see? I beg your pardon … what did she think she saw?”
“Some garbled story about a man in a cloak,” said Dr. Cabel.
“And a hat.”
“Evidently a visitor since he was hatted,” said Dickon.
“She said he was like Lord Eversleigh,” I said.
“Probably she saw him in a hat and cloak once,” put in the doctor.
“The cook adds fuel to the flames,” I remarked. “She says that the apparition was a sort of angel of death.”