“I am afraid about that lamp, and that is the truth,” replied Helsa. “I had charge of a lamp at Macdonald’s once, when my mother went to the main for a week; but then, if it went out, nobody was much the worse. If this one goes out, and anybody drowns in the harbour, and the blame is mine, what shall I do?”
“The blame yours!” said the widow, looking at her.
“Yes; when you live at Macdonald’s, and I have to keep the lamp. I am not sure that I can keep awake all the night when winter comes: but they say I must.”
Helsa was surprised to find that the widow knew nothing of the plan that Lady Carse now talked of more than anything else: that Annie was to go and live at Macdonald’s, that Lady Carse and her maid might have the widow’s house, where Helsa was to do all the work in the day, and to keep the lamp at night. The girl declared that the family never sat at meals without talking of the approaching time when they could all have more room and do whatever they pleased. Adam had cried yesterday about the widow going away; but he had been forbidden to cry about what would make Lady Carse so much happier; and when Kate had whispered to him that Lady Carse would no longer live in their house, Adam had presently dried his tears, and began to plan how he would meet the widow sometimes on the western sands, to pick up the fine shells she had told him of. Helsa went on to say that she could have cried longer than the boy, for she was afraid to think of being alone with Lady Carse at times when—
Annie interrupted her by saying, with a smile, “You need not have any dread of living in this house, Helsa. I have no thought of leaving it. There is some mistake.”
Helsa was delighted with this assurance. But she proved her point—that the mistake was not hers—that such a plan was daily, almost hourly, spoken of next door as settled. She was going on to tell how her mistress frightened her by her ways: her being sleepy in the afternoons, unless she was very merry or dreadfully passionate, and so low in the mornings that she often did little but cry; but the widow checked this. While at Mrs Ruthven’s house Helsa should make no complaints to anybody else; or, if she had serious complaints to make, it should be to Macdonald. Helsa pleaded that Macdonald would then perhaps take away the anker of spirits, as being at the bottom of the mischief; and then Lady Carse would kill her. She had once shown her a pistol; but nobody could find that pistol now. Helsa laughed, and looked us if she could have told where it was. In a moment, however, she was grave enough, hearing herself called by her mistress.
“I shall say I came to learn about the lamp,” said she; “and that is true, you know.”
“Why do not you speak English, both of you?” demanded Lady Carse from the door. “You both speak English. I will have no mysteries. I will know what you were saying.”
Helsa faltered out that she came to see how Widow Fleming managed her lamp.
“Was it about the lamp that you were talking? I will know.”