“If any of you have any pieces, do send them to Folly Corner. Whenever we drive into Liddleshorn I will buy her some.”
“I’ll have a hunt. We all remember Gainah. Maria brought some over from the Warren last week—you can take them back with you. And Annie had some beautiful corners of sateen. She has been re-covering the cot eiderdown. I went to help her last Monday; it takes two—one to machine and the other to hold the work perfectly steady. Annie is rather early with her preparations, but your Aunt Jerusha always insisted on having everything ready at least three months before: Annie is a very dutiful daughter. And Gainah still has that extraordinary dislike for you?”
“Yes. She is afraid of me. It is natural and uncanny. She thinks I am a ghost; she knows she killed me. The knife was dug in to the very hilt. What an escape I had! Jethro won’t send her to the asylum. He could pay. She would have every care. Half the parlormaid’s time is taken up with Gainah.”
“I can understand that it is a trial for you. It is telling on you, dear. You really look quite faded. I can see by your eyes that your head is aching at this moment. Take a dose of caffeine when you get back. And ask Egbert to give you a tonic. I must say that it isn’t natural, dear, for a young woman not quite thirty to look so yellow.”
“Gainah and Chalcraft ought to be comfortably provided for away from Folly Corner,” Pamela persisted. “Chalcraft is anything but a graceful pauper. He is most familiar to me whenever I go to his cottage.”
She laughed uncomfortably. She had grown into an elegant habit of philanthropy, after the manner of country ladies. Philanthropy was very gratifying. She bought courtesy with old gowns and paid for heavenly benedictions with a milk pudding. But Chalcraft was obdurate. He declined to bend his ancient knee to the interloper. He kept his bed nearly all the winter. He made his “missus” bring it down to the living-room and set it behind the door, so that he might see, in part, how the world went. At Pamela’s entrance, foolish, half-daft Mrs. Chalcraft would courtesy and flip a chair, but Chalcraft only grunted. The cold stare of his rheumy blue eyes reminded her of the day when she first came to Folly Corner, when she trod down the gray tendrils of the vine with the pointed toes of her town shoes. She had been an adventuress then. She was assured now—the mistress of Folly Corner. She had routed them all—Gainah, Chalcraft, the rude manner of life. The fierce old head on the pillow behind the door, the blank, worn old face at the window of her old room, were unpleasant reminders. She would gladly have sent Chalcraft and Gainah away. But this was the one point on which Jethro was firm.
“You haven’t heard from Edred lately?”
Aunt Sophy’s placid, purring query struck her ears like a gunshot. “No,” she said shortly.
Aunt Sophy’s keen blue eyes were full on her face.
“He had a very serious illness?”