somethin',” Jane wobbled into the talk.
“Or somebody,” contributed Annie.
I rapped my desk. “Something or somebody doing what? Doing it where?”
“All over the house, miss. But especially in the old part where us servants live. That's where it happened to them housekeepers in the day time, an' that's where it happened to us last night.”
“Well, now, let's have it!” said I impatiently. “What happened to you last night?”
“Delia was in the kitchen makin' bread late last night,” said Annie.
“Oh, let Delia tell it herself,” I insisted.
“But, ma'am, it happened first off to me. I was a-goin' down to help her. She was so late an' her with a headache. So I put on me wrapper, an' come down the passage towards the head o' the back stairs. Just as I come to the turn, ma'am, in the dark—I'm so well used to the way that I did n't even light a candle—somebody went by me like a draught of cold air, an' my hair riz right up on me head!”
“In other words, a draught of cold air struck you, eh?” I said scornfully.
“No, ma'am, there was steps to it, rayther slow, light steps that was n't quite so dost to me as the draught of air.”
I could make nothing of this.
Delia broke in.
“She come into the kitchen, white as flour she was, an' we went up to bed together. But scarce was we in bed when in come Jane, a-shakin' so that the candle-grease spattered all over the floor—you can see it for yourself this day-”
“And what had happened to Jane?” I asked with a sneer.
“I was a-layin' in bed, miss, in the dark, a bit wakeful, an' I heard, jes' back of me in the wall, somebody give a great sigh.”
I threw back my head, laughing. “You silly women! Is this all? Now, you don't mean to tell me that a draught of cold air, some falling plaster or a rat in the wall, are going to drive you away, in your old age, from a good home out into the world?”
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