I began to think her an idiot. If Jane Cross was another, why, perhaps she had frightened herself into a fit. All the more reason that somebody should see after her.
“Come along, Matilda; don’t be foolish; we’ll both get over the wall.”
It was a calm, still summer evening, almost dark now. All the lot of us went out to the back garden, I whispering to them what the girl had said to me.
“Poor thing!” said Mrs. Todhetley, who had a sort of fellow-feeling for ghosts. “It has been very lonely for the young women; and if Jane Cross is subject to fits, she may be lying in one at this moment.”
The wall between the gardens was nothing like as high as the outer one. Susan brought out a chair, and Matilda could have got over easily. But when she reached the top, she stuck there.
“I can’t go on by myself; I dare not,” she said, turning her frightened face towards us. “If Mr. Edmund is there——”
“Don’t be a goose, girl!” interrupted the Squire, in doubt whether to laugh or scold. “Here, I’ll go with you. Get on down. Hold the chair tight for me, Johnny.”
We hoisted him over without damage. I leaped after him, and Susan, grinning with delight, came after me. She supposed that Jane Cross had slipped out somewhere during Matilda’s absence.
The door faced the garden, and the Squire and Susan were the first to enter. There seemed to be no light anywhere, and the Squire went gingerly picking his way. I turned round to look for Matilda, who had hung back, and found her with her hand on the trellis-work of the porch, and the beer splashing over in her fear.