The three old guardians of the premises lived in the left wing of the house, which corresponded exactly with the right wing once occupied on the first floor by the unfortunate Rosa Blondelle with her child and nurse, and on the second floor by Sybil Berners and her maid.
The old women had chosen the left wing partly because it had always been occupied by Miss Tabby, who used the lower floor for housekeeper's room and store-room, and the second floor as a bedchamber and linen closet, but chiefly because it was the furthest removed from the right wing, the scene of the murder, and now the rumored resort of ghosts.
On this dismal but eventful Hallow Eve of which I now write, the three old women, their early tea over, were gathered around the fire in the lower room of this left wing.
It was a long, low room, with a broad fireplace in the lower end. It was furnished in very plain country style. The walls were colored with a red ochre wash somewhat duller than paint. The windows had blinds made of cheap flowered wall paper. The floor was covered with a plaid woolen carpet, the work of old Mrs. Winterose's wheel and loom. A corner cupboard with glass doors, through which could be seen rows of blue delf dishes and piles of white tea-cups and saucers, occupied the corner on the right of the fireplace; the old-fashioned, coffin-like, tall eight-day clock stood in the corner on the left-hand side. Flag-bottomed wooden chairs flanked the walls. At the upper end of the room stood an old-time chest of drawers. On the right-hand corner of this end, a door opened upon a flight of stairs leading to the floor above. On the left-hand corner a door opened into a back room, with a little back porch, vine covered.
There was a large spinning-wheel near the stair door, and at it the young ward of Mrs. Winterose stood spinning.
Before the fire stood a plain deal table, and on it a brass candlestick supporting one tallow candle, that gave but a dim light to the three old ladies who sat before the dull, smouldering green wood fire and worked. Old Mrs. Winterose occupied her arm-chair, between the end of the table and the fireside near the corner cupboard. She was carding rolls of white wool for the spinner.
Miss Libby sat at the other end of the table, reeling off blue yarn from broaches that had just been drawn off the spindle.
Miss Tabby was squeezed into the chimney corner next her sister, knitting a gray stocking.
There was a deep silence, broken only by the sighing of the wind through the leafless trees without, the pattering of the rain against the windows, the whirr of the spinning-wheel at the foot of the stairs, the simmering of the green logs that refused to blaze, and the audible snivelling of Miss Tabby.
The silence grew so oppressive that Miss Tabby, like the child in the Quaker meeting, felt that she must speak, or sob, or suffocate.