“Why, how did you know that?” she asked breathlessly.
“I saw you look towards the door on the left like this,” said Freda, imitating a frightened glance.
Mrs. Bean shook her head, puzzled and rather solemn.
“Those sharp eyes of yours will get you into trouble if you don’t take care,” she said, “unless you’ve got more gumption than girls of your age are usually blest with. We womenfolks,” she went on sententiously, “are always thought more of when we don’t seem over-bright. Take that from me as a word of advice, and if ever you see or hear more than you think you can keep to yourself, why, come and tell me—but nobody else.”
And Mrs. Bean with a friendly nod, and a kindly, rough pat on the cheek which was almost a slap, left the girl abruptly, and went out of the room.
But this warning, after all the mysterious experiences of the last two days, was more than Freda could bear without question. She waited, stupefied, until she could no longer hear the sound of Mrs. Bean’s retreating footsteps, and then, with one hasty glance round her which took in frowning bedstead, yawning fireplace and dim windows, she groped her way to the door, which was unfastened, and fled out along the stone passage. Her crutch seemed to raise strange echoes, which filled her with alarm. She hurt herself against the rough, projecting stones of the wall as she ran. The gallery-door was open: like a mouse she crept through, becoming suddenly afraid lest Mrs. Bean should hear her. For she wanted to see her father’s body. A horrible suspicion had struck her; these people seemed quite unconcerned at his death; did they know more about it than they told her? Had he really shot himself, or had he been murdered? She thought if she could see his dead face that she would know.
Tipity-tap went her crutch and her little feet along the boards of the gallery. The snow in the court-yard outside still threw a white glare on the dingy portraits; she dared not look full at them, lest their eyes should follow her in the darkness. For she did not feel that the dwellers in this gloomy house had been kith and kin to her. She reached the landing, and was frightened by the scampering of mice behind the panelling. Still as a statue she stood outside the door of her father’s room, her heart beating loudly, her eyes fixed on the faint path of light on the floor, listening. She heard no sound above or below: summoning her courage, she turned the handle, which at first refused to move under her clammy fingers, and peeped into the room.
A lamp was burning on a table in the recess of the window, but the curtains were not drawn. There was a huge bed in the room, upon which her eyes at once rested, while she held her breath. The curtains were closely drawn! Freda felt that her limbs refused to carry her. She had never yet looked upon the dead, and the horror of the thought, suddenly overpowered her. Her eyes wandered round the room; she noted, even more clearly than she would have done at a time when her mind was free, the disorder with which clothes, papers and odds and ends of all sorts, were strewn about the furniture and the floor. On two chairs stood an open portmanteau, half-filled. She could not understand it.
Just as, recovering her self-command, she was advancing towards the bed, with her right hand raised to draw back the curtain, she heard a man’s footsteps approaching outside, and turned round in terror. The door was flung suddenly open, and a man entered.
“Who’s in here?” he asked, sharply.