The Uninhabited House | Page 4

law," he pleaded. "I have always been too
glad to get the rent for you, to insist upon my costs, and, really--."
"Now, do not try to impose upon me," she interrupted, "because it is of
no use. Didn't you make thousands of the dead man, and now haven't
you got the house? Why, if you never had a penny of costs, instead of
all you have pocketed, that house and the name it has brought to you,
and the fame which has spread abroad in consequence, can't be
reckoned as less than hundreds a year to your firm. And yet you ask me
for the return of a trumpery four or five sovereigns--I am ashamed of
you! But I won't imitate your bad example. Let me have five more
to-day, and you can stop ten out of the Colonel's first payment."
"I am very sorry," said my employer, "but I really have not five pounds
to spare."
"Hear him," remarked Miss Blake, turning towards me. "Young
man"--Miss Blake steadily refused to recognise the possibility of any

clerk being even by accident a gentleman--"will you hand me over the
newspaper?"
I had not the faintest idea what she wanted with the newspaper, and
neither had Mr. Craven, till she sat down again deliberately--the latter
part of this conversation having taken place after she rose, preparatory
to saying farewell--opened the sheet out to its full width, and
commenced to read the debates.
"My dear Miss Blake," began Mr. Craven, after a minute's pause, "you
know my time, when it is mine, is always at your disposal, but at the
present moment several clients are waiting to see me, and--"
"Let them wait," said Miss Blake, as he hesitated a little. "Your time
and their time is no more valuable than mine, and I mean to stay
_here_," emphasising the word, "till you let me have that five pounds.
Why, look, now, that house is taken on a two years' agreement, and you
won't see me again for that time--likely as not, never; for who can tell
what may happen to anybody in foreign parts? Only one charge I lay
upon you, Mr. Craven: don't let me be buried in a strange country. It is
bad enough to be so far as this from my father and my mother's remains,
but I daresay I'll manage to rest in the same grave as my sister, though
Robert Elmsdale lies between. He separated us in life--not that she ever
cared for him; but it won't matter much when we are all bones and dust
together--"
"If I let you have that five pounds," here broke in Mr. Craven, "do I
clearly understand that I am to recoup myself out of Colonel Morris'
first payment?"
"I said so as plain as I could speak," agreed Miss Blake; and her speech
was very plain indeed.
Mr. Craven lifted his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders, while he
drew his cheque-book towards him.
"How is Helena?" he asked, as he wrote the final legendary flourish
after Craven and Son.
"Helena is but middling, poor dear," answered Miss Blake--on that
occasion she called her niece Hallana. "She frets, the creature, as is
natural; but she will get better when we leave England. England is a
hard country for anyone who is all nairves like Halana."
"Why do you never bring her to see me?" asked Mr. Craven, folding up
the cheque.

"Bring her to be stared at by a parcel of clerks!" exclaimed Miss Blake,
in a tone which really caused my hair to bristle. "Well-mannered,
decent young fellows in their own rank, no doubt, but not fit to look at
my sister's child. Now, now, Mr. Craven, ought Kathleen Blake's--or,
rather, Kathleen Elmsdale's daughter to serve as a fifth of November
guy for London lads? You know she is handsome enough to be a
duchess, like her mother."
"Yes, yes, I know," agreed Mr. Craven, and handed over the cheque.
After I had held the door open for Miss Blake to pass out, and closed it
securely and resumed my seat, Miss Blake turned the handle and
treated us to another sight of her bonnet.
"Good-bye, William Craven, for two years at any rate; and if I never
see you again, God bless you, for you've been a true friend to me and
that poor child who has nobody else to look to," and then, before Mr.
Craven could cross the room, she was gone.
"I wonder," said I, "if it will be two years before we see her again?"
"No, nor the fourth of two years," answered my employer. "There is
something queer about that house."
"You don't think it is haunted, sir, do you?" I ventured.
"Of course not," said Mr. Craven, irritably; "but I do think some