“Now I come to think of it,” answered Jacob, “she did look a bit queer at dinner-time.”
“Well, she is queerer now; she is up in her room sobbing and moaning and clasping her hands, and crying that she wishes to heaven she had never set foot in this place, and that her pain is more than she can bear. Pain of mind, it seems to me, for I can’t make out that there’s anything wrong with her body.”
“I wonder, now,” said Jacob, after a somewhat long pause, during which he was thinking deeply—“I wonder, now, if she would see me. Perhaps you have noticed, ma’am, that I have a soothing sort of way with me.”
“Of course I’ve noticed it,” said the housekeeper. “I remarked it from the very first. It was only half-an-hour ago I was saying to Vickers, ‘if it was not for Jacob Short I really don’t know how we’d have lived through the day.’ He is the only one amongst us who has kept a cool head on his shoulders.”
“Then perhaps I might soothe Hester,” answered Jacob, in his soft and melodious voice, his face exhibiting the utmost kindness and sympathy. “Perhaps you would not mind telling her, Mrs. Ferguson, that if she would like to come downstairs I should be glad to have a chat with her.”
“I will,” said Mrs. Ferguson; “it is a good thought. You may do something to make the girl unburden herself, for mind trouble I am convinced it is.”
Mrs. Ferguson trotted upstairs, and went straight to Hester’s room.
Hester was laying on the bed, face downwards; she was moaning now and then very heavily, but otherwise lay perfectly still.
“Now, you silly girl, have you not recovered your nerve yet?” said the housekeeper.
“It is the ache in my head, ma’am,” replied the girl; “there’s a pain running through me at the back of my head enough to make me screech out.”