The Red House. Эдит Несбит

day I sat down with my type-writer in the parlor. Chloe went to London to ransack the registry-offices, so that there was no one to do house-work. Therefore, when I had done my article—it was on “The Pleasures of Home,” I remember—I tidied the place up a little. Happening to find the black-leading apparatus in the bread-pan, I tried my hand at polishing the parlor-grate. It is much less easy than one would suppose, and I barked my knuckles against the bars. Then I cleaned some windows. I knew, from Cranford, that this was done with newspapers. The middles of the panes were easy, the corners inaccessible and irritating. Then I got tea ready and filled the lamps. I experienced all the sensations of an explorer in an unknown and ravishing country. All this was new and extraordinarily fascinating. I chopped wood and filled a box with it, ready for the morning. I also chopped my finger, and decided that I had done enough house-work for the moment. Then I remembered my article. I had forgotten to post it, and the post was gone when I got to the village. I had to walk to Blackheath to catch the late mail—four miles there and back. When I got home Chloe was sitting on the door-step with a perfect stranger.

      “We've been here hours,” she said. “How could you go off like that? This is Ellen—she is coming to live with us.”

      I could see in Ellen's eye that she was not so sure of this. When Ellen saw the kitchen, with its indescribable complications of domestic matter, she blenched, and I knew the worst. We all turned to, however, and tidied the kitchen superfically, arranged Ellen's bedroom, assisted her to prepare supper, went to bed worn out, and came down in the morning to find Ellen gone. She was not wholly bad; she had some kind impulses. She had lighted the fire and put on the kettle before leaving. But we were a little late that morning, and all the water had boiled away. When I filled the kettle at the tap it cracked, and Chloe said it was always the way, and snatched the kettle out of my hand, and boiled the water for tea in a saucepan that had had cabbage in it. So, after breakfast, I insisted on a turn in the quiet, sunny garden, and she grew calmer.

      “It is awful, though, isn't it?” she said.

      “Yes,” I owned, “but I black-leaded the parlor-grate yesterday, and I did several other things that you never noticed.”

      She was stricken with remorse. I followed up my advantage.

      “And now I'm going to scold us, pussy. It was entirely my fault that we left the Bandbox, but I hope you'll forgive me, and let's make the best of it. And we mustn't take things too seriously. What does it all matter? Through life, my precious pussy-kitten, the best weapon is laughter. Let us agree to laugh at everything, unless we have to cry at it, and if we do cry, to cry—like this.”

      For she was crying—with her head on my shoulder and my arms round her.

      “I'm so tired,” she said, presently.

      “I know you are. Now we're going to sit down on this dear, old stone bench under the red may-tree, and, if you're good, I'll tell you things. We won't try to get a servant again till the kitchen's straight. And we'll shut up all the rooms except the kitchen, and we'll move our bedroom things into one of the down-stairs rooms, so as not to have to use the stairs at all. And the little room that opens out of the kitchen we'll put two tables in, and do our work there—for we must work, you know. And we'll take it in turns to do the house-work, and the other shall work. And when it's all straight we'll get a treasure of a maid, and all live happy ever after! Now you're going to sit here quietly, and I'm going to fetch the Inland Voyage, and read aloud to you for an hour.”

      We did all these things, and gradually some sort of order evolved itself from chaos, and the scent of Charley's coat faded slowly away.

      Then we had a rapid succession of unsuitable servants; five, I think, were honest, the sixth went off with all Chloe's lace petticoats and her mink cape.

      Then we got a woman from the village to come in by the day. She worked fairly well, but she carried a covered basket, and it cost us too much in tea and butter.

      All this time we had never had a moment for gardening, and Chloe's dream of growing our own vegetables was being swiftly hidden by the weeds of oblivion. There were flowers in plenty, though, now. Hundreds of roses, red and white and yellow. Thousands of pink roses. Canterbury-bells, red daisy-flowers, lupins, columbines, and giant larkspurs. Chloe kept the house a flowery bower. I cleaned the boots and the knives, and whistled at my work. It was when half the neck of mutton got into that covered basket and, ostrich-like, left its tail sticking out, that I told Mrs. Coombe that we must part. She asked for no explanation; I gave none. We parted without unnecessary words. That day it began to rain—a thunder-storm first, then slow, steady, pelting rain for hours and hours. We sat over the kitchen fire that evening and told ghost stories till I saw my wife beginning to cast glances over her shoulder to where the darker shadows lurked in the corners of the great, black-raftered kitchen. Then I lit twelve candles, set then on the mantel-piece, and made port-wine negus, and we drank it and went to bed.

      In the pitch-dark middle of the night, Chloe caught me by the arm.

      “You must wake up,” she said, in a terrified whisper; “there's some one in the house—or—or something. I've been awake for hours. Listen! Can't you hear it?”

      I listened.

      “It's like—Oh, Len, I am so frightened It's a sort of dripping, dripping.”

      She held me very tight with both hands.

      “It's like—it's as if some one had been killed and there was blood dripping onto the floor. Oh, listen, and do strike a light! I'm afraid to put my arm out for the matches. It is like blood, dripping! Listen!”

      I listened.

      And it was.