United States or Somalia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"The rest of you will please stay downstairs," said Sir Chichester, as he removed the key from the door of the room. Jenny Prask was not thus to be disposed of. "Oh, my lady, I must go up too!" she cried, twisting her hands together. "Mrs. Croyle was always very kind to me, poor lady. I must come!" "She won't keep her head," Sir Chichester objected, who was fast losing his.
She's a deep one, Miss Whitworth is, and no mistake. Will you wear the smoke-grey to-night, madam? I am keeping the pink for the ball on Thursday." Stella allowed a moment or two to pass before she answered. "I shan't go to the Willoughbys' ball, Jenny." Jenny Prask stared in dismay. "You won't, madam!" "No, Jenny. But I want you to be careful not to mention it to any one.
"Jenny Prask," and Sir Chichester wrote it down. "You have been Mrs. Croyle's maid for some time." "For three and a half years, sir." "Good!" said Sir Chichester, with the air of one who by an artful question has elicited a most important piece of evidence. "Now!" But now he fumbled. He had come to the real examination, and was at a loss how to begin.
Jenny Prask went up the stairs, Hillyard at her heels. She knocked upon the door. No answer was returned. She opened it and entered. Stella Croyle was up and dressed. She was sitting at a table by the window with some sheets of notepaper and some envelopes in front of her, and her back was towards Hillyard and the open door.
"I have put out the blue dress with the silver underskirt, madam," said Jenny Prask, knowing well that nothing in Stella Croyle's wardrobe set off so well her dark and fragile beauty. "Very well, Jenny." Stella Croyle answered listlessly. She was discouraged by her experience of that afternoon. She had come to Rackham Park, certain of one factor upon her side, but very certain of that.
Jenny drew a little sharp breath. She heard the window ever so gently latched. Suddenly the light blazed out from the room and then, strip by strip, vanished, as if the curtains had been cautiously drawn. The garden, the house resumed its aspect of quiet; all was as it had been when Jenny Prask first lifted the window of the corridor. Jenny Prask crept cautiously away.
"Fancy that!" she returned flippantly. "But I don't see, my lady, what that has to do with me." "You will see, Jenny," Lady Splay continued with gentleness. "He got an answer." Jenny turned that announcement over in her mind. "An answer, did he?" "Yes, Jenny, and an answer in a woman's voice." A startled cry broke from the lips of Jenny Prask.
To suggest that Joan came straight back from the Willoughbys' dance in order to quarrel with a woman whom she was seeing every day here, and, having quarrelled with her, afterwards No, I won't speak the word. It's preposterous!" "But I don't suggest, sir, that Miss Whitworth came back in order to quarrel with my mistress," Jenny Prask returned, as soon as Sir Chichester's spate of words ran down.
As she began carefully to draw them together, so that the rings should not rattle on the pole, the door from the hall was softly and quickly opened, and the switch of the electric lights by the side of the door pressed down. The room leapt into light. Joan swung round, her face grown white, her eyes burning with fire. She saw only Jenny Prask.
Whose voice then? Stella's, as we say as we know. But if not Stella's, as Jenny Prask says why then there is only one other woman's voice which could have given the news." "Jenny's," cried Millie with a sudden upspring of hope. "Yes, Jenny Prask's." Millie Splay rose from her chair swiftly and rang the bell; and when Harper answered it, she said: "Will you ask Jenny to come here?" "Now, my lady?"
Word Of The Day