"The doctors said she died in a fit, but we all knew her end was something awful, for one of the maids who had been put to sleep in a room near, in case she might be wanted, told us she heard in the dead of the night an awful noise in Mrs. Linchmore's room—it woke her; and then a loud talking; as if my mistress was angry about something, and presently a loud scream and laughter; and then she was so frightened she dropped off insensible, like, and didn't come to herself until she heard us all astir with Tabitha in the morning."
"Where was Mr. Linchmore?"
"He was away abroad somewhere with his two little boys; and didn't get here till three or four days after her death. We all thought he would shut up the house and go abroad to foreign parts again, as he had done for years past; but no, he had it all fresh painted and papered; all except his wife's two rooms,—there's a dressing-room adjoining, but only the one door for the two—he never went near them again I believe, but can't say for certain, as I married and left the place. My mistress was buried in great state, ever so many carriages and grand folks,—some of them from London,—and a mighty lot of beautiful feathers nodding and bobbing over the hearse; but for all that we wern't sorry to lose her, we all feared her, and though a crowd assembled in the churchyard, 'twas out of curiosity, many of the villagers never having seen such a grand funeral before; there wasn't, so I heard my old man say, a wet eye amongst them, not even the master's, and as for the company of mourners, Lor' bless you, Miss, they laughed and joked over their luncheon afterwards as though they had been to a wedding."
"Has Mrs. Linchmore's room never been occupied since her death?"
"Never, Miss, that I know of. I don't think my old master ever went into it again; my present master don't seem to love it neither, and as for Madam, she says it's the worst room in the house; all old fashioned and gloomy."
"I should like to see the room some day, Nurse, will you show it to me?"
"I, Miss? I wouldn't go into it for any money. John at the lodge says he's seen a queer sort of light there lately; bright and blue, like. Half the maids in the house are talking about it; and go about in couples to turn the beds down. But he only saw it once, and then for only half a minute, so perhaps it was his fancy."
"Is the door kept locked?"
"I shouldn't like to go to sleep if it wasn't. Yes, Miss, the key's kept down in my room below. I couldn't bide comfortable in bed with it in my room above stairs, at night. No, I was mortal afraid of the old lady when she was alive, and couldn't face her dead anyhow, and she such an awful corpse too."