The girls eagerly assented, and their hostess told them as follows:
“Ten years ago there stood on the spot you visited this afternoon a very picturesque house called the ‘Gyp Mill.’ It was then extremely old, and as its foundations were faulty, it was thought a severe storm would, sooner or later, completely demolish it. Partly for this reason, and partly because the mill pool was said to be haunted, it stood for a long time untenanted. At last it was taken by a widow named Dyer. Mrs. Dyer was quite a superior kind of person. She had at one time, I believe, kept a fairly good class girls’ school in Bury St. Edmunds, but losing her connection through illness, she had been obliged to think of some other means of gaining a livelihood. When she came to the Gyp Mill she cultivated the garden and sold its produce; provided teas for picnic parties in the summer; and let out rooms, chiefly to artists.
“She had one son, Davy, a very intelligent boy of about eighteen, but hopelessly deformed. He was not only hunchbacked but he had an abnormally large head; and what was quite unpardonable in the eyes of the village children, who tormented him shamefully, a mass of the brightest red hair.
“Well, one day, a girl whom I will call Beryl Denver, came to stay with me. Beryl was extremely pretty and horribly spoilt. She had gone on the stage against her parents’ wishes and had been an immediate success. At the time I am speaking of she had just had an offer of marriage from a duke, and it was to hear what I had to say about it—for I am, I think, the only person from whom she ever asks advice—that she was paying me this visit. After being with me three days, however, and changing her mind with regard to the duke’s offer at least a dozen times, she suddenly announced that she must seek some more countrified place to stay in. ‘I want to go right away from everywhere,’ she said, ‘so that I can forget—forget that there is such a place as London. Don’t you know of any pretty cottage or picturesque old farm, near here, that I could stay at?’
“I suggested the Gyp Mill, and she started off at once to look at it.
“She came back full of enthusiasm. ‘It’s a delightful spot,’ she said. ‘I’m glad I went to see it—the flowers are lovely, and the old woman’s a dear—but I couldn’t stay there. I couldn’t stand that hunchback son of hers. His white face and big dark eyes alarmed me horribly. I don’t think it’s at all right he should be at large.’
“‘Poor Davy,’ I remarked. ‘His appearance is certainly against him, but I can assure you he is absolutely harmless. I know him well.’
“Beryl shook her head. ‘You know my views, Aunty,’ she said (she always calls me Aunty although I am not related to her in any way). ‘All ugly people have a kink of badness in them somewhere. They must be either cruel, or spiteful, or treacherous, or, in some way or other, evilly disposed. I am quite certain that looks reflect the mind. No, I couldn’t endure that boy. I can’t stay there.’
“In the morning, however, as I had fully anticipated, she changed her mind. A fly was sent for, and she drove off to the Gyp Mill, taking all her luggage with her. How Mrs. Dyer ever got it up her narrow staircase I can’t think, but she must have managed it somehow, for Beryl stayed and, contrary to my expectations, for more than one night.