Excerpt
Chapter One. Number 9A, Albemarle Square.
“Don’t drink our sherry, Charles?”
Mr Preenham, the butler, stood by the table in the gloomy servants’ hall, as if he had received a shock.
“No, sir; I took ’em up the beer at first, and they shook their heads and asked for wine, and when I took ’em the sherry they shook their heads again, and the one who speaks English said they want key-aunty.”
“Well, all I have got to say,” exclaimed the portly cook, “is, that if I had known what was going to take place, I wouldn’t have stopped an hour after the old man died. It’s wicked! And something awful will happen, as sure as my name’s Thompson.”
“Don’t say that, Mrs Thompson,” said the mild-looking butler. “It is very dreadful, though.”
“Dreadful isn’t the word. Are we ancient Egyptians? I declare, ever since them Hightalians have been in the house, going about like three dark conspirators in a play, I’ve had the creeps. I say, it didn’t ought to be allowed.”
“What am I to say to them, sir?” said the footman, a strongly built man, with shifty eyes and quickly twitching lips.
“Well, look here, Charles,” said the butler, slowly wiping his mouth with his hand, “We have no Chianti wine. You must take them a bottle of Chambertin.”
“My!” ejaculated cook.
“Chambertin, sir?”
“It’s Mr Girtle’s orders. They’ve come here straight from Paris on purpose, and they are to have everything they want.”
The butler left the gloomy room, and Mrs Thompson, a stout lady, who moved only when she was obliged, turned to the thin, elderly housemaid.
“Mark my words, Ann,” she said. “It’s contr’y to nature, and it’ll bring a curse.”
“Well,” said the woman, “it can’t make the house more dull than it has been.”
“I don’t know,” said the cook.
“I never see a house before where there was no need to shut the shutters and pull down the blinds because some one’s dead.”
“Well, it is a gloomy place, Ann, but we’ve done all these years most as we liked. One meal a day and the rest at his club, and never any company. There ain’t many places like that.”
“No,” sighed Ann. “I suppose we shall all have to go.”
“Oh, I don’t know, my dear. Mr Ramo says he thinks master’s left all his money to his great nephew, Mr Capel, and may be he’ll have the house painted up and the rooms cleaned, and keep lots of company. An’ he may marry this Miss Dungeon—ain’t her name?”
“D’E-n-g-h-i-e-n,” said the housemaid, spelling it slowly. “I don’t know what you call it. She’s very handsome, but so orty. I like Miss Lawrence. Only to think, master never seeing a soul, and living all these years in this great shut-up house, and then, as soon as the breath’s out of his body, all these relatives turning up.”
“Where the carcase is, there the eagles are gathered together,” said cook, solemnly.
“Oh, don’t talk like that, cook.”
“You’re not obliged to listen, my dear,” said cook, rubbing her knees gently....