see, my dear Ella, I haven’t told you all the story. I felt that I had given Mr. Martyn a sufficient handle against us as it was; so I refrained.”
“Pray what else is there to tell? To judge from your looks and manner one would think that there was something dreadful.”
“I don’t know about dreadful, but there certainly is something — odd. To begin with, that wretched woman was not my only visitor.”
Then the rest of the tale was told — and this time the whole of it. Ella heard of the stranger who had intruded on the pretence of seeking music lessons: of his fear of the seedy loafer in the street; of his undignified exit through the back door; and the whole of his singular behaviour.
“And you say he could play?”
“Play! He played like an — I was going to say an angel, but I’ll substitute artist.”
“And he looked like a gentleman?”
“Certainly, and spoke like one.”
“But he didn’t behave like one?”
“I won’t go so far as to say that. He said or did nothing that was positively offensive when he was once inside the house.”
“But you called him a thief?”
“Yes; but, mind you, I didn’t think he was one. I felt so angry.”
“I should think you did. I should have felt murderous. And you don’t think the man in the road was a policeman?”
“Not he. He was as evil-looking a vagabond as ever I saw.”
“It doesn’t follow merely on that account, my dear, that he wasn’t a policeman.”
There was malice in the lady’s tones.
“Not at all; but even a policeman of that type would hardly have jumped out of his skin with fright at the sight of that horrible woman. He knew her, and she knew him. There’s a mystery somewhere.”
“How nice!”
“Nice? You think so? I wish you had interviewed her instead of me. My dear Ella, she — she was — beyond expression.”
Ella came and seated herself on a stool at Madge’s feet. Leaning her arms on her knees she looked up at her face.
“Poor old chap! It wasn’t an agreeable experience.”
Madge’s answer was as significant as it was curt.
“It wasn’t.”
She gave further details of what the woman had said and done, and of how she had said and done it — details which she had omitted, for reasons of her own, in Mr. Martyn’s presence. By the time she had finished the listener was as serious as the narrator.
“It makes me feel creepy to hear you.”
“It would have made you creepy to have heard her. I felt as if the house was peopled with ghosts.”
“Madge, don’t! You’ll make me want to sleep with you if you go on like that. Poor old chap! I’m sorry if I seemed to chaff you.” She reflected before she spoke again. “I can see that it can’t be nice for you to be alone in the house while I’m away in town all day, earning my daily bread — especially now that the days are drawing in. If you like, we’ll clear out of this, this week — we could do it at a pinch — and we’ll return to the seething masses.”
Madge reflected, in her turn, before she answered.
“Nothing of the sort has happened before, and nothing may happen again. But I tell you frankly, that, if my experiences of today do recur, it won’t take much to persuade me that I have an inclination towards the society of my fellows, and that I prefer even the crushes of Petticoat Lane to the solitudes of Wandsworth Common.”
“Well, in that case, it shall be Petticoat Lane.”
There was silence. Presently Madge stretched herself — and yawned.
“In the meantime,” suggested Ella, putting her hand up to her own lips, “what do you say to bed?” And it was bed. “Would you like me to sleep with you,” inquired Ella as they went upstairs; “because if you would like me to very much, I would.”
“No,” said Madge, “I wouldn’t. I never did like to share my bed with any one, and I never shall. I like to kick about, and I like to have plenty of room to do it in.”
“Very good — have plenty of room to do it in. Ungrateful creature! If you’re haunted, don’t call to me for aid.”
As it happened, Madge did call to her for aid, after a fashion; though it was not exactly because she was haunted.
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