“I do. I lay you’re further off lyin’ now than in all your life, Gra’.”
“I am.... An’ I suffered, like I’d not wish my most arrantest enemies to. God’s Own Name! I went through the hoop that spring! One part of it was headaches which I’d never known all me days before. Think o’ me with an ’eddick! But I come to be grateful for ’em. They kep’ me from thinkin’....”
“’Tis like a tooth,” Mrs. Fettley commented. “It must rage an’ rugg till it tortures itself quiet on ye; an’ then—then there’s na’un left.”
“I got enough lef’ to last me all my days on earth. It come about through our charwoman’s liddle girl—Sophy Ellis was ’er name—all eyes an’ elbers an’ hunger. I used to give ’er vittles. Otherwhiles, I took no special notice of ’er, an’ a sight less, o’ course, when me trouble about ’Arry was on me. But—you know how liddle maids first feel it sometimes—she come to be crazy-fond o’ me, pawin’ an’ cuddlin’ all whiles; an’ I ’adn’t the ’eart to beat ’er off.... One afternoon, early in spring ’twas, ’er mother ’ad sent ’er round to scutchel up what vittles she could off of us. I was settin’ by the fire, me apern over me head, half-mad with the ’eddick, when she slips in. I reckon I was middlin’ short with ’er. ‘Lor’!’ she says. ‘Is that all? I’ll take it off you in two-twos!’ I told her not to lay a finger on me, for I thought she’d want to stroke my forehead; an’—I ain’t that make. ‘I won’t tech ye,’ she says, an’ slips out again. She ’adn’t been gone ten minutes ’fore me old ’eddick took off quick as bein’ kicked. So I went about my work. Prasin’ly, Sophy comes back, an’ creeps into my chair quiet as a mouse. ’Er eyes was deep in ’er ’ead an’ ’er face all drawed. I asked ’er what ’ad ’appened. ‘Nothin’,’ she says. ‘On’y I’ve got it now.’ ‘Got what?’ I says. ‘Your ’eddick,’ she says, all hoarse an’ sticky-lipped. ‘I’ve took it on me.’ ‘Nonsense,’ I says, ‘it went of itself when you was out. Lay still an’ I’ll make ye a cup o’ tea.’ ‘’Twon’t do no good,’ she says, ‘’til your time’s up. ’Ow long do your ’eddicks last?’ ‘Don’t talk silly,’ I says, ‘or I’ll send for the Doctor.’ It looked to me like she might be hatchin’ de measles. ‘Oh, Mrs. Ashcroft,’ she says, stretchin’ out ’er liddle thin arms. ‘I do love ye.’ There wasn’t any holdin’ agin that. I took ’er into me lap an’ made much of ’er. ‘Is it truly gone?’ she says. ‘Yes,’ I says, ‘an’ if ’twas you took it away, I’m truly grateful.’ ‘’Twas me,’ she says, layin’ ’er cheek to mine. ‘No one but me knows how.’ An’ then she said she’d changed me ’eddick for me at a Wish ’Ouse.”
“Whatt?” Mrs. Fettley spoke sharply.
“A Wish ’Ouse. No! I ’adn’t ’eard o’ such things, either. I couldn’t get it straight at first, but, puttin’ all together, I made out that a Wish ’Ouse ’ad to be a house which ’ad stood unlet an’ empty long enough for Some One, like, to come an’ in’abit there. She said, a liddle girl that she’d played with in the livery-stables where ’Arry worked ’ad told ’er so. She said the girl ’ad belonged in a caravan that laid up, o’ winters, in Lunnon. Gipsy, I judge.”
“Ooh! There’s no sayin’ what Gippos know, but I’ve never ’eard of a Wish ’Ouse, an’ I know—some things,” said Mrs. Fettley.
“Sophy said there was a Wish ’Ouse in Wadloes Road—just a few streets off, on the way to our green-grocer’s. All you ’ad to do, she said, was to ring the bell an’ wish your wish through the slit o’ the letter-box. I asked ’er if the fairies give it ’er? ‘Don’t ye know,’ she says, ‘there’s no fairies in a Wish ’Ouse? There’s only a Token.’”
“Goo’ Lord A’mighty! Where did she come by that word?” cried Mrs. Fettley; for a Token is a wraith of the dead or, worse still, of the living.
“The caravan-girl ’ad told ’er, she said. Well, Liz, it troubled me to ’ear ’er, an’ lyin’ in me arms she must ha’ felt it. ‘That’s very kind o’ you,’ I says, holdin’ ’er tight, ‘to wish me ’eddick away. But why didn’t ye ask somethin’ nice for yourself?’ ‘You can’t do that,’ she says. ‘All you’ll get at a Wish ’Ouse is leave to take some one else’s trouble. I’ve took Ma’s ’eadaches, when she’s been kind to me; but this is the first time I’ve been able to do aught for you. Oh, Mrs. Ashcroft, I do just-about love you.’ An’ she goes on all like that. Liz, I tell you my ’air e’en a’most stood on end to ’ear ’er. I asked ’er what like a Token was. ‘I dunno,’ she says, ‘but after you’ve ringed the bell, you’ll ’ear it run up from the basement, to the front door. Then say your wish,’ she says, ‘an’ go away.’ ‘The Token don’t open de door to ye, then?’ I says. ‘Oh, no,’ she says. ‘You on’y ’ear gigglin’, like, be’ind the front door. Then you say you’ll take the trouble off of ’oo ever ’tis you’ve chose for your love; an’ ye’ll get it,’ she says. I didn’t ask no more—she was too ’ot an’ fevered. I made much of ’er till it come time to light de gas, an’ a liddle after that, ’er ’eddick—mine, I suppose—took off, an’ she got down an’ played with the cat.”