The Haunted Man and the Ghosts Bargain | Page 7

Down in the Buildings, you know, my love.- -Student."
"Student?" repeated Mr. Redlaw, raising his head.

"That's what I say, sir!" cried Mr. William, in the utmost animation of
assent. "If it wasn't the poor student down in the Buildings, why should
you wish to hear it from Mrs. William's lips? Mrs. William, my
dear--Buildings."
"I didn't know," said Milly, with a quiet frankness, free from any haste
or confusion, "that William had said anything about it, or I wouldn't
have come. I asked him not to. It's a sick young gentleman, sir--and
very poor, I am afraid--who is too ill to go home this holiday-time, and
lives, unknown to any one, in but a common kind of lodging for a
gentleman, down in Jerusalem Buildings. That's all, sir."
"Why have I never heard of him?" said the Chemist, rising hurriedly.
"Why has he not made his situation known to me? Sick!- -give me my
hat and cloak. Poor!--what house?--what number?"
"Oh, you mustn't go there, sir," said Milly, leaving her father-in- law,
and calmly confronting him with her collected little face and folded
hands.
"Not go there?"
"Oh dear, no!" said Milly, shaking her head as at a most manifest and
self-evident impossibility. "It couldn't be thought of!"
"What do you mean? Why not?"
"Why, you see, sir," said Mr. William Swidger, persuasively and
confidentially, "that's what I say. Depend upon it, the young gentleman
would never have made his situation known to one of his own sex. Mrs.
Williams has got into his confidence, but that's quite different. They all
confide in Mrs. William; they all trust HER. A man, sir, couldn't have
got a whisper out of him; but woman, sir, and Mrs. William
combined--!"
"There is good sense and delicacy in what you say, William," returned
Mr. Redlaw, observant of the gentle and composed face at his shoulder.
And laying his finger on his lip, he secretly put his purse into her hand.
"Oh dear no, sir!" cried Milly, giving it back again. "Worse and worse!
Couldn't be dreamed of!"
Such a staid matter-of-fact housewife she was, and so unruffled by the
momentary haste of this rejection, that, an instant afterwards, she was
tidily picking up a few leaves which had strayed from between her
scissors and her apron, when she had arranged the holly.
Finding, when she rose from her stooping posture, that Mr. Redlaw was

still regarding her with doubt and astonishment, she quietly
repeated--looking about, the while, for any other fragments that might
have escaped her observation:
"Oh dear no, sir! He said that of all the world he would not be known to
you, or receive help from you--though he is a student in your class. I
have made no terms of secrecy with you, but I trust to your honour
completely."
"Why did he say so?"
"Indeed I can't tell, sir," said Milly, after thinking a little, "because I am
not at all clever, you know; and I wanted to be useful to him in making
things neat and comfortable about him, and employed myself that way.
But I know he is poor, and lonely, and I think he is somehow neglected
too.--How dark it is!"
The room had darkened more and more. There was a very heavy gloom
and shadow gathering behind the Chemist's chair.
"What more about him?" he asked.
"He is engaged to be married when he can afford it," said Milly, "and is
studying, I think, to qualify himself to earn a living. I have seen, a long
time, that he has studied hard and denied himself much.--How very
dark it is!"
"It's turned colder, too," said the old man, rubbing his hands. "There's a
chill and dismal feeling in the room. Where's my son William? William,
my boy, turn the lamp, and rouse the fire!"
Milly's voice resumed, like quiet music very softly played:
"He muttered in his broken sleep yesterday afternoon, after talking to
me" (this was to herself) "about some one dead, and some great wrong
done that could never be forgotten; but whether to him or to another
person, I don't know. Not BY him, I am sure."
"And, in short, Mrs. William, you see--which she wouldn't say herself,
Mr. Redlaw, if she was to stop here till the new year after this next
one--" said Mr. William, coming up to him to speak in his ear, "has
done him worlds of good! Bless you, worlds of good! All at home just
the same as ever--my father made as snug and comfortable--not a
crumb of litter to be found in the house, if you were to offer fifty pound
ready money for it--Mrs. William apparently never out of the way--yet
Mrs. William backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, up
and down, up and down, a