"Well, this beats everything, this do. I'm sure I could have swore that a gentleman was there."
"It was quite a mistake. Hark! there is the baby."
Nurse Chaffen flew up the stairs. Ann Hopley went on with her ironing; her face, now that she was alone, allowing its terror scope.
"It is so foolish of my master to run risks just at this time, when the house is liable to be invaded by strangers!" she ejaculated wearily. "But who was to foresee the doctor would come bursting in like that? Pray Heaven master doesn't show himself again like that while the woman's here!"
Mrs. Chaffen sat in the sick-room, the awakened baby occupying her lap, and the problem her mind. Never in all her life had she felt to be in so entire a mist. Ann Hopley she could not and would not disbelieve: and yet, in her reasoning moments she was as fully persuaded that a gentleman had been there, and that she had seen him, as that the sun shone in the sky.
A day or two went on; and the subject was never out of the woman's mind. Now leaning to this side of the question, now wavering to that, she could not arrive at any positive conclusion. But, taking one thing with another, she thought the house was rather a strange house. Why did Ann Hopley want to keep her for ever in that one room?--as she evidently did want to--and prevent her from moving freely about the house? An unfortunate doubt took possession of her--was there a gentleman in the house after all; and, for some reason or other, keeping himself concealed? Unfortunate, because it was to bear unpleasant fruit.
"Be whipped if it is not the most likely solution o' the matter I've thought of yet!" cried she, striking her hand on the tall fender. "But how do he manage to hide himself from Ann Hopley?--and how do he get his victuals? Sure-ly she can't have been deceiving of me--and as good as taking oaths to an untruth! She'd not be so wicked."
From that time Mrs. Chaffen looked curiously about her, poking and peering around whenever she had the opportunity. One morning in particular, when Mrs. Grey was asleep, and she saw Ann go out to answer the bell, and Hopley was safe at the end of the garden, for she could hear him rolling the path there, Mrs. Chaffen made use of the occasion. She went along the passage to the door where the gentleman had disappeared, and found herself in a dull sitting-room wainscoted with mahogany, its wide, modern window looking to the maze. Keenly Mrs. Chaffen's eyes darted about the room: but there was no other outlet that she could see. The dark paneling went from the door to the window, and from the window round to the door again. After that, she made her way into the small angular passages that the house seemed to abound in: two of them were bedrooms with the beds made up, the others seemed to be out of use. None of them were locked; the doors of most of them stood open; but certainly in not one of them was there any trace of a hidden gentleman.
That same day when she had finished her dinner, brought up to her as usual, she hastily put the things together on the tray and darted off with it down stairs. Mrs. Grey feebly called to her; but the nurse, conveniently deaf, went on without hearing. The staircase was angular, the turnings were short, and Mrs. Chaffen, as she went through the last one, gave the tray an inadvertent knock against the wall. Its plates rattled, its glasses jingled, betraying their approach: and--if ever she had heard a bolt slipped in her life, she felt sure she heard one slipped inside the kitchen door.
"It's me, Mrs. Hopley, with the tray," she called out, going boldly on. "Open the door."