There was a clock in the room, but it was not going. It seemed to Freda that she was left a very long time by herself. Being so tired that she was restless, she wandered round and round the room, and thought at last that she would go in search of Crispin. So she opened the door softly, stepped out into the wide hall, and by the dim light of a small oil lamp on a bracket, managed to find her way across the wide hall to the back-door leading into the court-yard. This door, however, was locked. To the left was another door leading, as Freda knew, into Mrs. Bean’s quarters. This also was locked. She went back therefore to the room she had left, the door of which she had closed behind her. To her astonishment, she found this also locked. This circumstance seemed so strange that she was filled with alarm; and not knowing what to do, whether to call aloud in the hope that Mrs. Bean or Crispin would hear her, or to go round the hall, trying all the doors once more, she sat down on the lowest steps of the staircase listening and considering the situation.
A slight noise above her head made her turn suddenly, and looking up she saw peering at her through the banisters of the landing, an ugly, withered face. Utterly horrorstruck, and convinced that the apparition was superhuman, Freda, without a word or a cry, sank into a frightened heap at the bottom of the stairs, and hid her eyes. She heard no further sound; and when she looked up again, the face was gone. But the shock she had received was so great that it made her desperate; getting up from her crouching position, she sped across the hall, frightened by the echoes of her crutch and her own feet, and threw herself with all her force against the great door, making the chain swing and rattle.
“What’s that?” cried Mrs. Bean’s cheery voice in the distance.
And in a few moments the door leading to the kitchen was opened, and the buxom housekeeper appeared.
“Oh, Mrs. Bean,” cried Freda, throwing herself into her arms and speaking in a voice hoarse with fear, “this house is haunted!”
“Bless the poor child! you’re overtired, and you fancy things, my dear,” she said soothingly. “All these old places are full of strange noises, but you’ll soon get used to them.”
“But faces! I saw a face, a dreadful face, with long sharp teeth like a death’s head; it was looking at me through the banisters, up there!”
And poor Freda, with her head still buried in Mrs. Bean’s plump shoulder, pointed upwards with her finger.
“Oh, no, my dear, you didn’t. It was only your fancy. What you want is to go to bed, and after a good night’s rest you’ll see no more death’s heads.”
Mrs. Bean’s manner was so very quiet and matter-of-fact, and she took the account of the appearance so unemotionally, that it occurred to Freda to ask: