“You ought not to be up here,” hoarsely said Paulina at last. “I’m going now; come. I want to lock the attic door.”
“I asked Uncle Pieter for permission,” Jannet returned, “and Cousin Diana gave me these keys. I did not expect to find any one at all here.”
Jannet dangled her keys before Paulina’s eyes. “Why don’t you think I ought to be here, Paulina? If there is anything wrong with the place, Uncle Pieter ought to be told.”
“Your uncle knows all that he wants to know,” replied Paulina. She frowned and was obviously displeased at Jannet’s being there. Jannet wondered what she would have thought if Nell had come, too. But Paulina could just get over thinking that she could run everything.
At Miss Hilliard’s school, Jannet was in the habit of obedience to her elders. Here, too, she respected the authority of her uncle and her cousins, but beyond them, Jannet’s Dutch independence asserted itself.
“I’m sorry, Paulina,” Jannet said courteously, “that you don’t want me to be in the attic, but I have every right to be here and I shall stay. You need not be worried about anything of yours. I shall not touch your trunk, and if you will tell me what else is yours, I will certainly keep away from it.”
But Paulina made no reply. She stalked out with her usual stiffness, leaving the door open.
“Of all the impolite people, you are the worst I ever saw,” thought Jannet, but she did not say it aloud. Perhaps, after all, Paulina’s silence was better than harsh words.
The field was Jannet’s. What should she do first? She did not quite like to explore the dim recesses, beyond the wider, well floored part, when she was by herself. Perhaps she would reserve that till Nell could be with her. There was a window in this part, shut and fastened with a nail, loosely pushed in. Jannet pulled out the nail, raising the old, small-paned window and finding that it would not stay up. But she saw a piece of wood that must have been used for the purpose and with this she propped the window, letting the fresh air in and also increasing the amount of light, for there was a calico curtain over the window panes, tacked to the frame.
It was quite neat here, not newly mopped or fresh as the other parts of the house were, but the floor had been swept back as far as the rows of trunks and chests extended. Jannet’s eye was caught by an old single bed, whose length extended along one wall, away from the window. On this were bundles, of odd sizes, she guessed, from the different bulges in the old cover over the whole, a piece of yellowed, gay-figured percale, or muslin of a sort.