I woke up as though on the crest of a resurgent wave of life. I sat on my bed and smiled at Mary; then, gathering my knees in my hands, I said, “Now, I'm all right again, nursey; tell me what you wanted to ask me when you met me in the hall.”
It was extraordinary how calm and clear I felt, how sufficient to myself and able to meet what was coming and bring it to a triumphant end. With what good and healing spirits do we sometimes walk when we are asleep.
“Don't hesitate, dear Mary. I'm done with my nonsense now. I'm perfectly able to face any domestic crisis, from ghosts to broken china.”
“Well, ma'am,” said Mary, beginning to rock in an indignant, staccato fashion—there are as many ways of rocking as there are moods in the one who rocks—“it's that there Sara. Never, in all my days of service in the old country and here, have I met with the like of her!”
“In what way? I mean, what is she like?”
“Why, ma'am, she's like a whited sepulcher”—this time she pronounced it “sep-looker”—“that's what she's like. She's as smooth and soft-spoken as a pet dove, that she is”—Mary's similes were quite extraordinary—“she fair coos, and so full of her 'ma'ams' and 'if you pleases.' She's a good worker, too, steady and quiet, too quiet to be nacheral. And, indeed, ma'am, nacheral it ain't, not for her. A murderess at heart, miss, that's what she is.”
I was startled. I gripped my knees more tightly.
“Yes, miss. Up to this mornin', though I can't say I had a likin' for her, for that would n't be the truth, and I always hold to my mother's sayin' of 'tell the truth and shame the devil'; but this mornin', ma'am, I run into her quite by accident, a-standin' in the nursery—and what she should be doin' in my blessed lamb's room I can't say, and a-cursin' and a-swearin', and her face like a fury—O Lor', miss! I can't give you no notion of what she was like, nor the langwidge; filth it was, ma'am, though I should n't use the word. And, miss, I made sure it was you she was in a rage with, a-stampin' and a-mouthin' there like the foul fiend. She did n't know I was seein' her first-off, but when she did, the shameless hussy went on as bad as before. Never did I see nor hear the like of it. I tried to shame her, but it was like tryin' to shame a witch's caldron, a-boilin' with cats' tongues and vipers', and dead men's hands. Awful it was, to make your blood run cold! Miss Gale, you had n't ought to keep the creature in the house. It ain't safe.”
“Could you find out why she was so angry?”
“Indeed, ma'am, there was so much cursin' and sputterin' that I could n't make out much sense to her, but it was somethin' about bein' made a mock of and gettin' nothin' for your pains. She'd been glum all mornin', miss, I seen that, and I'd left her alone. Her and Henry had been havin' words at breakfast time, but this was fair awful. Seems like as if she had just kept the whole rumpus in her wickit breast till it boiled over and she run into the nursery and let it go off, like some poison bottle with the cork blown away, if you know what I mean. Miss, it ain't safe to keep her in the house!”