The Classic Mystery Collection - Arthur Conan Doyle [4823]
"She is very capable, I fancy."
"Very. Entirely too capable."
"She looks sharp," said Miss Emily. It was a long time since I had heard the word so used, but it was very apt. Maggie was indeed sharp. But Miss Emily launched into a general dissertation on servants, and Maggie's sharpness was forgotten.
It was, I think, when she was about to go that I asked her about the telephone.
"Telephone?" she inquired. "Why, no. It has always done very well. Of course, after a heavy snow in the winter, sometimes--"
She had a fashion of leaving her sentences unfinished. They trailed off, without any abrupt break.
"It rings at night."
"Rings?"
"I am called frequently and when I get to the phone, there is no one there."
Some of my irritation doubtless got into my voice, for Miss Emily suddenly drew away and stared at me.
"But--that is very strange. I--"
She had gone pale. I saw that now. And quite suddenly she dropped her knitting-bag. When I restored it to her, she was very calm and poised, but her color had not come back.
"It has always been very satisfactory," she said. "I don't know that it ever--"
She considered, and began again. "Why not just ignore it? If some one is playing a malicious trick on you, the only thing is to ignore it."
Her hands were shaking, although her voice was quiet. I saw that when she tried to tie the ribbons of the bag. And--I wondered at this, in so gentle a soul--there was a hint of anger in her tones. There was an edge to her voice.
That she could be angry was a surprise. And I found that she could also be obstinate. For we came to an impasse over the telephone in the next few minutes, and over something so absurd that I was non-plussed. It was over her unqualified refusal to allow me to install a branch wire to my bedroom.
"But," I expostulated, "when one thinks of the convenience, and--"
"I am sorry." Her voice had a note of finality. "I daresay I am old-fashioned, but--I do not like changes. I shall have to ask you not to interfere with the telephone."
I could hardly credit my senses. Her tone was one of reproof, plus decision. It convicted me of an indiscretion. If I had asked to take the roof off and replace it with silk umbrellas, it might have been justified. But to a request to move the telephone!
"Of course, if you feel that way about it," I said, "I shall not touch it."
I dropped the subject, a trifle ruffled, I confess, and went upstairs to fetch a box in which Miss Emily was to carry away some flowers from the garden.
It was when I was coming down the staircase that I saw Maggie. She had carried the hall candlesticks, newly polished, to their places on the table, and was standing, a hand on each one, staring into the old Washington mirror in front of her. From where she was she must have had a full view of Miss Emily in the library. And Maggie was bristling. It was the only word for it.
She was still there when Miss Emily had gone, blowing on the mirror and polishing it. And I took her to task for her unfriendly attitude to the little old lady.
"You practically threw her muffins at her," I said. "And I must speak again about the cups--"
"What does she come snooping around for, anyhow?" she broke in. "Aren't we paying for her house? Didn't she get down on her bended knees and beg us to take it?"
"Is that any reason why we should be uncivil?"
"What I want to know is this," Maggie said truculently. "What right has she to come back, and spy on us? For that's what she's doing, Miss Agnes. Do you know what she was at when I looked in at her? She was running a finger along the baseboard to see if it was clean! And what's more, I caught her at it once before, in the back hall, when she was pretending to telephone for the station hack."
It was that day, I think, that I put fresh candles in all the holders downstairs. I had made a resolution like this,--to renew the candles, and to lock myself in my room and throw the