She looked at me keenly.
“Bella’s afther sayin’ you’re only here to spy on us and interfere with us,” she said. “But I dunno, now, is she right, at all?”
“Indeed, I’m not,” I said hastily. “I’d simply hate to interfere. But Mrs. McNab says I am to see that the house runs smoothly, because of course she can’t be disturbed when she’s at work: and that is what she is paying me to do. I say, Julia—I do hope you’ll help me!”
The twinkle of which I had suspected the existence came into the Irish girl’s eyes.
“Indeed, then, I’ve been lookin’ on you as me natural enemy, miss!” she said. “Quare ould stories of the other lady-companions Mrs. Winter and Bella do be havin’. Thim was the ones ’ud be pokin’ their noses into everything, an’ carryin’ on as if they were the misthress of all the house.”
“I won’t do that!” I said, laughing. “I’m far too frightened.”
“A rough spin was what we’d been preparin’ for you,” Julia said. “The lasht was a holy terror: she’d ate the face off Mrs. Winter if the grocer’s order was a bit bigger than usual—an’ you can’t run a house like this without you’d have plenty of stores. Mrs. Winter’s afther sayin’ she’d not stand it again, not if she tramped the roads lookin’ for work.”
“But doesn’t Mrs. McNab do the housekeeping?” I inquired.
“Her!” said Julia with a sniff. “Wance she gets up in them quare little rooms of hers, you’d think she was dead, if it wasn’t for the amount she’d be atin’. There’s the great appetite for you, miss! Me heart’s broke with all the food I have to be carryin’ up them stairs! She’s the quare woman, entirely.” She dropped her voice mysteriously. “Comin’ an’ goin’ like a shadow she do be, at all hours of the day an’ night, an’ never speakin’. I dunno, now, if people must write books, why couldn’t they be like other people with it all? An’ the house must go like clockwork, an’ no one bother her about annything! Them that wants to live in spacheless solitude has no right to get married an’ have childer. ’Tis no wonder Miss Judy an’ Master Jack ’ud be like wild asses of the desert!”
I had a guilty certainty that I should not be listening to these pleasant confidences. But I was learning much that would be as well for me to know, and I hadn’t the heart to check Julia just as she showed signs of friendliness. So far, Dicky Atherton was the only friend I had in the house, and it was probable that Julia would be far more useful to me than he could ever be. So I murmured something encouraging, and Julia unfolded herself yet further.