The Greatest Murder Mysteries - G.A. Henty Edition. G. A. Henty

rosemary and lavender filled the room. Everything was just as she had left it; the white coverlid lay on the bed, which needed only its sheets to be ready for sleeping in.

      "The bed is quite aired," her nurse said, "I have the room opened, and aired, and dusted once a week, and I take the bed off and put it before the fire all day once a month, and the blankets and sheets are kept in the closet against the kitchen chimney, so they are always warm and dry. I have always been hoping you would come back to me again some day, and I was determined you should find it all ready."

      She then took the paper ornament off the grate, the fire was ready laid behind it; this she lit, and in a few minutes, by the time she had made the bed, the fire burned brightly up. Sophy, exhausted and tired with her day's excitement, was soon in bed, and her old nurse then came in to see if she wanted anything else, and to tuck her up and kiss her as she had done when she was a child; and Sophy, when she had said "good night, Mammy Green," lay drowsily watching the dancing shadows cast by the fire on the wall, and could hardly believe that she was not a child again, and that all these last twenty years were not a troubled feverish dream.

      Sophy's last injunction to her foster-mother before going to bed was, that on no account—should she see any one in the morning—was she to mention that she had returned; but that Mrs. Green was to tell all whom she met, that a young woman who had been in service in London, had come down with a letter from some old friend there, asking her to take her in until she could find a place in the country, which she was anxious to do for the sake of her health.

      Accordingly, when Mrs. Green went down into the village early in the morning, before Sophy was awake, to purchase a few little luxuries—such as white sugar, some ham, and a little fresh meat—she told her neighbours that a friend of her old acquaintance Martha White, who had gone up to London to service eight years before, had come down with a letter from her, asking her to take her friend in for a while, as she had been ill, and was ordered country air.

      When Sophy awoke, she heard her old nurse moving about in the next room. On calling to her, she came in, with many inquiries as to how Sophy had slept, and Sophy was able honestly to answer, that she had not slept so well for weeks. The first question, in return, was, whether her nurse had seen any one that morning; and when she found that she had, she insisted on her repeating, word for word, what she had said; and not until she had done so twice was Sophy satisfied that her nurse had in no way betrayed her secret. In a quarter of an hour she was dressed, and found breakfast in the next room—tea and fresh cream, eggs newly laid, for Mrs. Green kept a number of fowls, and a rasher of ham.

      "You look better, much better, this morning, deary," her nurse said, as she came in; "but still there is something quite strange about you, which makes you look altogether different to what you used to."

      "Never mind now, nurse: I will tell you all about it after breakfast."

      Presently her nurse put down a cup of tea she was in the act of raising to her lips.

      "There is one question I must ask you, deary; it has been on my lips ever since you came in last night, only you looked so tired and weary I was feared to sorrow you. But in the short letters you sent me when I wrote to you, as you asked me, about the old lady's health up there, you used to write about your little boy. Have you—have you lost the little darling, Sophy?"

      "No, Mammy Green—no. Thank God! he is alive and well; but I have left him with some kind friends in London while I came down here."

      "Thank God! indeed, Miss Sophy. Do you know, I have been so anxious ever since you came in about him, only I daren't, for the life of me, ask you last night, though I almost had to bite my tongue off to keep quiet. There—go on with your breakfast now, deary. Now my mind is at rest, you need not tell me any more till you are quite ready to do so yourself."

      After breakfast was over, Sophy tucked up her sleeves, and, in spite of many remonstrances, helped to clear the things away, and wash them up. When all was tidy, they sat down to the fire—Mrs. Green knitting, and Sophy hemming an apron, to keep her fingers employed while she talked—and then she began, and told as much of her past history as she deemed it expedient for the woman to know.

      Mrs. Green interrupted her frequently with ejaculations of wonder and pity.

      When Sophy had finished her story, she told her old nurse that she had come down for the express purpose of finding the will, by which she would become the heiress of Harmer Place; and that it was to this end that she had begged her to write, letting her know how Miss Harmer was, as—in the way in which she intended to attempt to find the will—it was useless for her to attempt anything as long as Miss Harmer was in good health.

      "My dear," her old nurse said, shaking her head, "well or ill, it will make no difference. It is my belief, and always has been, that that woman has got a stone for a heart, and, well or ill, you might as well try to stop one of them engines which go running along the valley, as try and change what she has once resolved upon."

      "I have no idea of changing her mind," Sophy said, quietly; "my opinion on that subject perfectly agrees with yours. I am going quite another way to work, and in this I require your help. I wish to get the place of servant to Miss Harmer's confessor."

      This proposal so much roused Mrs. Green's indignation and amazement, that for a long time Sophy could not utter a word.

      "What! Miss Sophy, who was the lawful mistress of the Hall, to go for a servant! and—most of all—as a servant to a Popish priest! What was she thinking of? A servant, indeed! She had thought, from the way Sophy had spoken of what she had been doing, that she had money; if not, it was of no consequence. She had two hundred pounds in the savings' bank, which she had laid by in the good times; and was it likely that, as long as that lasted, she would let her Miss Sophy go out as a servant? No, indeed!"

      Sophy had to wait patiently till the storm was past, and she then explained to her nurse that it was not because she wanted money that she did this, for that she had an abundant supply; that she was very much obliged to her dear old Mammy Green for her offer, but it was not a question of money at all; and that it was absolutely necessary, for the recovery of the will, that she should enter the priest's service.

      The nurse for a long time obstinately refused to do anything whatever to forward the design, and it was only by dint of coaxings and arguments innumerable, and, indeed, by the threat, if she would not assist her, that she must proceed—difficult as it would be—by herself, that she at last succeeded in persuading Mrs. Green into giving her assistance in the enterprise. At last, however, she gave in, and consented—although under protest that she disapproved of it all, and that she washed her hands of the whole affair—to do what Sophy desired of her.

      Accordingly the next day Mrs. Green went down into the village, putting some eggs and a chicken into a basket, and under pretence of offering them for sale to the priest entered into conversation with his old servant. She mentioned to her that she had a friend down from London who had been in service there, but whose health was very bad, and who was ordered by the doctor to go down into the country and to take some very quiet situation there. Mrs. Green said that her friend had saved some money in service and would not mind paying handsomely for such a place as she wanted, as the doctor said her life depended upon it.

      The old woman listened with great interest, and a day or two afterwards when Mrs. Green went down again with eggs, she told her that she should like very much to have a talk with her friend, for that she herself had been thinking of leaving service for some time, and of going to live with some relatives in a distant part of the country. Mrs. Green thereupon invited her to come up and take a cup of tea with her on the following evening—which invitation was accepted.

      The next evening, after tea, the matter was entered into, and a great amount of bargaining and discussion went on between Sophy and the old servant, as Sophy did not wish to appear too eager about it. But it was at last settled that Sophy should give £8—which was a year's wages—if the place could be procured for her at once. The old woman took her leave, chuckling inwardly at the thought of the good bargain she had made; for Miss Harmer was not expected now to last many months longer, and as there was no heir, and the property would pass to strangers, who were not likely to require the services of