But even if her speech had been absolutely vulgar, the voice was unmistakably high-bred and cultivated; in a word, the voice of a lady. How came it that Mr Strange’s parlourmaid wore the clothes of a servant, and spoke in the tones of a highly educated young woman? It was one more mystery.
Nothing daunted, he pursued the same tactics with the housemaid when he met her walking alone. She was a plain girl, evidently of a different class. At the start she was more civil, but after a minute or two, during which she had given the briefest answers to his ingratiating questions, she had turned upon him like the other, only in a less hostile manner, and explained to him that she did not desire either his conversation or his company.
She was a little more polite than the parlourmaid, but that was all. She addressed him respectfully but firmly.
“Excuse me, sir, but if it’s the same to you, I’d rather walk alone. I’m not fond of making the acquaintance of gentlemen I know nothing about.”
Poor Varney felt he was not a success with the fair sex. Or did they suspect him?
A further piece of information, however, he got from his friend the postman. He had asked Wingate and Sheila to occasionally put a blank sheet of paper in an envelope, and address it to him under the name of Franks, to keep up appearances.
He met the man one morning outside Forest View and asked if there were any letters for him.
“None by this post, sir. Never had such a light round. This is the last; it’s for Mr Gregory, at Forest View, the gentleman what’s staying there.”
So Gregory was the name of the invalid, who kept so closely to the house.
But Gregory, no doubt, was an assumed name, like Stent alias Strange.