“Don’t be so introspective, and see if you can’t find something cheerful outside. And, Jack, will you ask Perkins to see me here?”
He kissed her and strolled to the door. “If I may make a foolish manlike suggestion it would be that when you’re talking to Perkins you try to imagine this place without her. I’ve tried and failed. I’ll send her in.”
She sat for a moment, deep in thought, till very soon it seemed there was nothing to be anxious about after all. Her brother’s fanciful mind had merely unearthed something which he must inevitably have discovered before long. The mystery might hold him for a few days, till his restless imagination moved on elsewhere. It had always been like that in the past. The fact that Millicent died here two years ago could mean nothing to new tenants. All houses were built to live and die in. Beech Lodge was charming and well arranged, and they had leased it on nominal terms. It was true that the terms were, perhaps, suspiciously nominal, but she pushed this thought aside to make room for others more helpful and constructive. She confessed to being piqued with herself for giving any evidence of discomfort, and would in future take less notice of her brother’s whimsical ideas. Then she looked up and saw Perkins.
“You sent for me, madam?”
Miss Derrick regarded her with absorbed interest. How old was this woman? At first appearance she seemed never to have been young, but her smooth skin and straight figure suggested that she could not be much past forty. It was the grave, inscrutable face that baffled. It carried no trace of expression and revealed no play of the mind. In the dark eyes moved a kind of secret light, quickening at times into a fleeting gleam that was instantly extinguished. In these moments Perkins appeared to receive communications from a source privy to herself, messages that illumined a nature of which the outer world knew but little; and, save for these occasional and passing glimpses, her face was like a mask. Miss Derrick, held for an instant voiceless by something she could not understand, wondered what sort of private life had been led by a woman who looked like this. The pause lengthened, but Perkins stood, passive and undisturbed.
“I’ve had a talk with Mrs. Thursby,” said Edith rather stiffly, “and she mentioned you. It was quite satisfactory.”
“Yes, madam.”
The flatness of her tone announced that it was immaterial what Mrs. Thursby might have said. Obviously the latter meant nothing to Perkins. There was no superiority in her manner; just a total lack of interest.
“So if you would like to stay now, I would be very glad to have you.”
Perkins’s thin lips moved ever so slightly, and the faintest trace of a smile flitted over the blank features. She made a little gesture that put her late employer definitely out of the reckoning.