The new footman’s name was Jacob Short. On his arrival he had specially requested that he might be called by his Christian name. Nance saw no objection to this. The man, to outward appearance, was harmless in every way. Unlike his name he was somewhat tall of stature—this was his ostensible reason for making the request that he might be called Jacob.
“I am lanky and long and thin,” he said to the maids, “and when I am spoken to as Short, it’s like inviting you all to make fun of me.”
He quickly became popular in the servants’ hall and in the housekeeper’s room. He could tell good stories. He was extremely obliging and had a thorough knowledge of his duties.
There was one member of the household, however, who did not get on with the new footman—this was the lady’s maid, Hester Winsome. She was a rather pretty girl, and she took great pains to make herself attractive when she supped in the servants’ hall. On these occasions she had been accustomed to delicate attentions from the now absent George. Hester was a flirt, and she liked a good-looking young footman to pay her attention. She regretted George, but was abundantly willing to allow Jacob to take his place. But Jacob did not see this at first. He gave Hester one or two apparently indifferent glances, read her through and through, and then determined to have nothing whatever to do with her.
Hester bore this at first without complaint, but after struggling against her fate for quite three weeks, she became restive. As Jacob would not confide in her, she began to make him confidences.
“Why, you have never been all round the house yet,” she said to him at supper, on the day on which Rowton came home.
“How do you know that?” he asked her.
“How do I know it?” she retorted, lowering her voice, and edging close to his side. “If you had even tried to go all over the house you’d be asking questions, my fine fellow.”
“And how do you know I have not asked questions?” replied Jacob. “I’ll trouble you, Miss Winsome, to pass me the sardines.”
Hester pouted, stretched out her hand for the delicacy which Jacob demanded, and after a time continued in a low voice:
“Well, then, if you have been over the house, and if you have asked questions, tell me what you think of the Queen Anne wing?”
To this query Jacob did not immediately respond. After a long pause he said slowly:
“I have not been in the wing yet—can you take me there?”
Hester’s heart gave a sudden throb of delight. Up to the present, deep as she undoubtedly was, she had never suspected Jacob to be any other than a well-behaved and excellent servant. She now saw a chance of getting him into her power, of forcing him to flirt with her, and her spirits rose.
“It is difficult to get into that part of the house,” she said. “Do not say anything more at present. I will come to you if I can at nine o’clock to-morrow in Vickers’ pantry.”
Jacob made no reply at all to this, and Hester did not even know if he heard her.
At the appointed hour, however, she made her appearance at the door of the pantry. She held a key in her hand.
“I saw Leah half an hour ago,” she said.
“Leah! and who is Leah?” asked Jacob.
“She is the poor mad lady’s caretaker.”
Jacob began to polish up his silver—he held a chamois leather in his hand.
“Now that’s curious,” he said in a slow voice; “so you keep a mad lady on the premises?”
“That we do—she is in the Queen Anne wing.”
“You don’t say so!”
“I do. I can take you over the wing if you come at once.”
“I can’t until I have put all this plate tidy.”
“Oh, bother the plate,” said Hester. “Can’t you come at once?—the chance may go.”
“I can come all the sooner if you’ll help me,” said Jacob. “You can wash while I polish. Now then, two pair of hands are better than one.”
“That they are,” said Hester, delighted. She put the key on the shelf by her side, and helped Jacob to wash up the plate.
With a sudden dexterous turn of his hand and a flick of the leather with which he was polishing a valuable tray, Jacob contrived to slip the key into his own pocket. Hester, quick as she was, did not see the movement.
After a time the plate was all in order, and the footman announced to the lady’s maid that he was at her service.
Hester began to look for the key—she looked on the shelf where she had placed it, she looked on the floor, she felt her pockets and shook out her apron, but all in vain. Jacob helped her in her search with assiduity. He appeared as anxious and annoyed as she was. Footsteps were heard approaching before any solution of the difficulty was arrived at, and Hester, knowing that her opportunity for that evening was gone, bade Jacob a reluctant good-night.
“What am I to do?” she said as she was parting from him. “If I lose that key Leah will give it to me—it opens the little postern gate into the garden, and Leah never knew that I took it. I took it yesterday, for I thought I’d like to show you the Queen Anne wing and the garden, Mr. Jacob.”
“And I am sure I am much obliged to you,” replied Jacob. “We’ll have a good look for the key the first thing in the morning.”
Hester was obliged to be satisfied, and when she departed Jacob softly patted the key which lay in his trousers pocket.
That night, when the rest of the house had gone to bed, the new footman rose and stole quietly through the silent house. He was evidently an expert at this sort of thing, for the floors did not creak as he passed over them, and he turned the handles of several doors without making the ghost of a sound. By-and-by he found himself in the open air. The night was a dark one, which favoured his purpose. A great watch-dog, of the name of Chance, rose up and growled as the man approached. Jacob called his name very softly under his breath and the creature wagged his tail.
“Quiet, Chance, stay where you are,” said Jacob.
The dog looked wistfully after him, but obeyed.
Jacob Short quickly discovered the little postern door. He slipped Hester’s well-oiled key into it, turned the lock, and soon found himself in the Queen Anne garden.
The night was a cold one, but Jacob did not seem to mind that fact in the least. He stayed in the garden for two or three hours, and during that time he explored every inch of it. Dark as the night was, there was a perfect map of that garden sketched out in Jacob Short’s brain before the first streak of daylight dawned. He was back in his bed by that time, having made some discoveries which excited him considerably.
“I could never have done it with that minx of a girl tacked on to my heels,” he said to himself; “but she shall show me the inside of the house whenever she likes—and now to sleep, and to keep my astonishing suspicions to myself until they become certainties.”
In the morning the man put the key of the postern gate into Hester’s hands.
“I found it buried under some rubbish on the floor,” he said. “I’ll be very much obliged if you will take me to see the wing to-night.”
Hester, who had slept badly, was delighted to get back the key again, and early that evening, having made a rendezvous in advance with Leah, she took Jacob into the wing.
Leah met the pair just outside the mad lady’s sitting-room.
“How do you do?” she said, after Hester had formally presented Jacob Short to her notice. “I am sorry that my patient happens to be asleep at this moment, so I cannot take you into her sitting-room.”
“I won’t awaken her, and I’d like to see her,” remarked Jacob.
Leah shook her head.
“It cannot be done,” she said. “If she were to wake it would be as much as my place is worth. You can see the rest of the house, of course.”
“Well, thank you for that,” replied Jacob. “It seems an uncommon snug place,” he added, glancing round him as he spoke.
“Yes, it is well enough,” replied Leah. “It is to all intents and purposes a little house by itself. Come this way now—I’ll show you the bedrooms first.”
Leah was right in saying that the Queen Anne wing was a complete small house. It contained kitchen, scullery, coal cellar, two sitting-rooms and two large airy bedrooms. The little house was well but plainly furnished There was nothing gaudy about it, and the furniture was somewhat old-fashioned; but the whole place had a cheerful and complete air of comfort.
“This is my bedroom,” said Leah, “and this is my mistress’s.” She entered one of the large bedrooms as she spoke. “You see this door,” she added: “this communicates with my mistress’s room—come in and I’ll show it to you. See, my mistress has no door to her room, except through mine. There was a door, but Mr. Rowton had it built up when Mrs. Cameron was brought here. We have been obliged to bar the windows, too, and they only open a very little way at the top; but, of course you would not notice that at night. The poor lady has a comfortable room, and, but for the fact that she is really in confinement, all the ordinary luxuries of life.”
“Yes, the place seems comfortable,” said Jacob. “I am interested in the insane,” he continued; “I had a sister once who went off her head—they took her to the Bethlehem Asylum, and she did not live very long, poor thing. Her sad case makes me take a sort of liking to all insane people.”
“Insanity is a most fascinating subject,” interrupted Hester at that moment. There was a queer light in the strange girl’s eyes. She walked about Mrs. Cameron’s bedroom, prying here, there, and everywhere.
“Hester, your curiosity will be your undoing,” said Leah, giving the girl a grim smile which flitted across her strong face for a moment and then disappeared.
“Are you often disturbed by your charge at night, Mrs. Leah?” queried Jacob.
“Now and then,” replied Leah, “but often for a whole month the poor lady sleeps without rocking. It is wonderful what good nights she has, all things considered; she is often more restless in the daytime than she is at night.”
“And are the rats as troublesome as they were?” suddenly asked Hester.
“No; the last poison had good effect,” replied Leah, turning her back as she spoke.
“Are you troubled with rats?” asked Jacob. “Why don’t you keep a cat?”
“Mrs. Cameron hates cats,” answered Leah. “It is one of her illusions, poor thing, that she is pursued by a black cat. She would not see one within a yard of her at any price.”
“If I were you, Mr. Jacob Short,” said Hester with a quick, sudden movement which brought her directly facing the new footman, “I’d ask to see the cellars of this house. The cellars are, to my way of thinking, very curious.” Her dark eyes flashed as she spoke.
“To be sure,” replied Jacob; “that is, if I am not giving too much trouble.”
“Well, you are, and that’s plain,” replied Leah. “There is nothing at all wonderful in the cellars; they run under the house. For that matter, I believe they run under the whole of Rowton Heights. I like houses with cellars, for my part; they keep the sitting-rooms so much drier. It is a pity, of course, the rats have got into them; but, as I said just now to Hester, they have not troubled us very much lately. Come to the kitchen, if you like, and I’ll show you the door which leads into the principal cellar.”
They went downstairs, explored a small and well-appointed kitchen, and a short time afterwards the footman and Hester bade Leah a cordial good-night, and returned to the house.
“Now, you must never tell on me,” said Hester as they walked back over the grass, for Leah had let them out from the Queen Anne garden. “If it was known that I had shown you the mad lady’s wing, it would be as much as my place was worth.”
“I have no object in betraying you,” said Jacob in a sharp voice.
“And what do you think of it?” said Hester, after a pause.
“I think nothing of it,” answered Jacob, “only that my master must be a very considerate gentleman.”
“Yes, that he is,” replied Hester; “it is not everyone would keep a mad sister close to him, and so comfortable, too.”
“Exactly,” replied Jacob.
“It is a good thing the rats are not so troublesome now,” continued Hester.
“Very good,” said Jacob.
The maid favoured him with a glance of some irritation.
“You must be a ninny,” she said, after a pause.
“I don’t understand you, Miss Winsome,” replied the new footman.
“Well, now, just tell me plain out and honest,” returned the girl, “if you believe that story about the rats?”
“I have no reason to disbelieve it,” he answered. “Have you?”
“Yes, that I have.”
“I know what you think,” said Jacob, after a pause; “you are superstitious—some girls are made that way—and you believe in ghosts.”
“Very substantial ones,” she retorted. “I could tell tales to them that are curious. You are not curious, are you, Mr. Short?”
“One of my faults,” replied Short, after a pause, “is that I am made without the least scrap of curiosity. They say it is a sign that I am lacking in human sympathy; but I never did take the least glimmer of interest in what did not concern myself. It is nothing to me whether there are rats in the cellars, or whether there are ghosts. You will excuse me now, Miss Winsome, for hurrying on; I have got to take the wine into the drawing-room; it is past ten o’clock.”