The Step In The House

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 482, 11 October 1928, Page 5

The Step In The House

By

Rina Ramsay.

“Not •” “Oh, her name is Annie Martin, of course,” said Mrs. Waller, sharply, “but I haven’t her address. I told you she went to London.” She was an excitable woman, Mrs. Waller, and he could see how furiously she resented his intrusion. There was nothing to be done with her. “Would you niind if I had a word with your charwoman?” he said. “She might know where the girl has gone. “She doesn’t.” Richardson, with a glimmer of hope, insisted. “Do let me Just ask her,” he said.

“I’m sure you will be so kind. 1 Mrs. Waller hesitated. Then she ; flounced out of the room. He could hear her hurrying down the hall in an angrv flutter, and the opening and closing of a door. He waited. The mistress of the house had shut herself mto the kitchen tenanted only hv the charwoman herself, who was busy scrubbing. Dignity forgotten in her excitement, Mrs. Waller seized i the woman by the arm. "Mrs. Black, Mrs. Black," she said. ••Did you see that man who you let in? , He wants to get Annie Martin away from me. Somebody has told him what a hard-working girl she is. He had the impudence to come here and ask to see her.” ! The charwoman sat back on her 1 heels and gasped. "Well I never!” , she said. “What next! Some mistresses have no shame.-’ “They haven’t.” said Mrs. Waller bitterly "Of course it’s the man’s wife that sent him. He seemed Quite ashamed of himself. Where is she? {Still doing my room?” I “Yes She’s not come down,” said the charwoman. “She had the toilet glass to polish.” “I told him she’d left.” said Mrs. Waller "I told him she’d gone to London. She’s the best servant I’ve i had since I married thirty years ago. j

I’m not going to lose her!”—her voice grew shrill. “That’s right.” said the charwoman, heartily, on her side. “I said I hadn’t her address.” said Mrs. Waller nervously, “and he says he wants to see you and ask you if you have got it. I daren’t refuse, i Mrs. Black, or he’d think I was telling lies.” i “Of course he would,” said Mrs. . Black. “People who’d do a mean think like that are naturally suspici lous. It’s like them! I’ll go to ' him. I’ll attend to him.” And a flat denial of any knowledge whatever was all that Richardson got for his half-crown. He was shown out of the house, and the two women, leagued together to defend the domestic hearth from such flat robbery as they imputed to him, craned their necks behind the window ' curtain to watch the enemy depart.. “He’s a fine tajl gentleman,” said Mrs. Black. "Who’d think it of him? Going about stealing other people’s ’ servants!” “He is good-looking,” said Mrs. ■ Waller. Having routed him she. in her triumph, became less hostile. , ■ “Quite a young man too. He looks i I dreadfully disappointed. He’s look-1 ' ing back at the house,—oh, Mrs. Black. | he’s looking back at the house. If j Annie should go to my bedroom widow —” “She won’t, ma’am, she won’t think of it.” said the charwoman stoutly. '

“She ain’t that sort of a girl. And there’s nothing to look at, as far as she knows, In that empty square. Not like on a market day.” But at dihner in the kitchen Mrs. Black looked mysteriously at the housemaid. She was pondering something in her mind that she hadn’t told her mistress. “There was a gentleman asking about you, Annie,” she said at last, unable to keep it in. “You didn’t hear him knocking. You was at the top of the house.” “A—gentleman?” said the girl. Mrs. Black thought she looked scared. But anyone would be In her position. “Yes,” said Mrs. Black. “She told him you’d gone tp London. She didn’t want to lose you, that’s the fact. But when I was letting him out, Annie, he said something to me about a dress. Did I know if you’d had a black silk dress given you by a lady, and could I tell him anything about it. I didn’t say nothing to her about that. Goodness knows what she’d get into her silly head if I did. And I’m not one to make trouble in a household. X can hold my tongue. But I hope there’s nothing as shouldn’t be about that there dress, my girl. I hope you’ve not been foolish.” The meaning in her glance was plain. The girl coloured. “Oh.” she said, “oh! What was he like?” “A very nice gentleman,” said Mrs. Black. “Clean-shaven, with blue eyes and a grey suit and spats—and as tall as a house. None of your policeofficers. Just the kind of gentleman to let a poor girl off lightly. If you’ve taken his wife’s dress—”

The girl began to laugh in a wild way that made Mrs. Black reach out for the water jug in case she might have to throw it over her. But it wasn’t a threatened fit of hysterics — she quieted soon, “I didn’t steal the dress,” she said. “I didn’t. The lady wanted me to sell it. Did he—did he see it in the shop?” “I don’t know,” said Mrs. Blaefl. “He didn’t say. Just asked.” Her tone was disbelieving. "What did the lady want you to sell it for, my dear?” The girl hesitated. “She was running away," she said, “and she hadn’t any money. She forgot to take it with her when she packed. She—she wanted ” and perhaps Mrs. Waller’s frantic falsehood came into her head, for she laughed again, wildly, strangly,—"she wanted to buy a ticket to go to London.” “Hump,” said Mrs. Blaci?. She didn't believe a word of it. She would keep her eye upon this young woman. Surreptitiously she took her purse out of her skirt and slipped it inside her stocking. Richardson got his car and went home with his flicker of hope extinguished. The clue, such as it was, was lost. The only thing left for him was to wait till he heard from Smith. He wished he knew if she had money with her. The thought of her in straits was so unbearable that, whenever it pressed on him, he could scarcely keep himself from blundering out into the thick of that mae in which she had somehow hidden herself, to search for her. He tpld himself bitterly, it was no good. If Smith and

his minions, with all the craft and all the powers they had at their disposal, had failed to find her, how could he, searching blindly? But he couldn’t stand this much longer. The man had promised to send him a message. He had been so confident. Foqls, all of them! Perhaps the sea was between him and her: perhaps she had met with some terrible accident, perhaps she was lying under the reeds in that river,—no, not that, he couldn’t let himself think-of that! God would not be so unmerciful as to deny him his chance of holding her to his heart and telling her that if* the whole world were fools, and believed unthinkable things of her—he did not. He broke off in his wild thoughts at an interruption. A person wanted to see him. He caught sight of a woman’s skirt in the hall and smiled. Curious the distinctions his housekeeper seemed to make! A woman, a person, a lady. What was the rule, anyhow? How did one judge in a casual inspector, a cursory look like that? He smiled again, but not so good-humoredly, as he came out into the hall. The person was Mrs. Price. CHAPTER XII. She wasn’t abashed at the sight x>t him. Not she. Actually, she smiled. “How d’you do, doctor?” she said in her mincing tones. “I have been sent to ask you to be so good as to come over and see Miss de Stair.” "Sorry. I'm afraid 1 can't” he said curtly. Mrs. Price permitted herself

the sly beginnings of a smile, checked It, and looked grave. “She’s not well, doctor. \ou can't refuse to attend her when you’re the only one in the place. The poor thing is suffering. People would think you a cruel man if they heard you’d refused to attend her when she was ill.” “Do you suppose I care a jot what people think, my good woman?” said Richardson. Hut he wasn’t a brute. He took up his hat. Mrs. Price tossed her head; she was not his housekeeper any longer; but she swallowed her displeasure for the occasion. “I am staying with Miss de Stair as her companion for the present,” she said in a lofty tone. “She is not fit to be left alone with the servants.” “And what is the matter with Miss de Stair?” said Richardson, as they crossed the street. Warily and disgustedly he was conscious of interested faces; here and there curtains pulled apart. He didn’t care. of course, but a man who lived like him in the chief street of a country town could not stir an" inch without all his world knowing. It would be all over the town by night that he had called to see Miss de Stair. “She is complaining of severe pain.” said Mrs. Price. Richardson quickened his pace. It the poor woman were really ill- ! But she wasn't. It was rather a childish trap. He was shown into the sitting-room ! on the ground floor, where his patient

lay on the sofa, beribboned, BepoTdered, in some kind of invalidish getup such as women wore on the stage. She held out her hand to him languidly—the smooth white hand, thi3 time without the rings; she had probably hidden them. She complained of pain, and of sleeplessness, and of whatever a woman might suffer from who was worried to death and on the verge of a breakdown. She certainly had a jumping pulse, but her tongue was clear. “Why don’t you sleep?’* said the doctor abruptly. “Worrying," said Miss de Stair sadly. “And besides, I’m nervous. That dreadful old woman says there are ghosts in the house.” “Well, you’re not obliged to sleep in it, are you?” said Richardson. “No,” she admitted, “but I can’t—l can’t help clinging to the only bouse I shall ever know.” She had forgotten that she had intended, when it was hers indisputably, to have it sold. "You should not over-do it,” he said in an inscrutable voice, and she flushed. "Doctor," she said, “why have you such a prejudice against me? You know I had nothing to do with anything that happened here before I came. You must acknowledge that. There’s no possible reason why you shouldn’t be friends with me—and be kinder to me. Now is there?” There's wasn't. It was prejudice, sheer prejudice, and a stubborn fancy at the back of his head. (To be Continued!