When Last I Died

"... and all I want, you see, is the book." He produced it. Miss Hodge gave her hands an extra rub on the apron, and then took up the diary, but did no more than glance at the beginning of it.

"Dear me, Master Derek! Now what can you have got hold of here, I wonder?" she said mildly. "This isn't the mistress's writing. I don't seem to know this hand." She looked at Mrs. Bradley. "He can have the empty pages and welcome, Madam, if that would do, but I'd better p'raps just see what it is, as it seems to be wrote out so neat. Now, where did I put my glasses?"

Derek, assisting in the search, discovered them. Miss Hodge, in the laboured manner of an unaccustomed reader, perused a page or two slowly, and then looked over the top of her spectacles.

"It seems as if Miss Bella wrote it. I never knew she could write so nice. It's very like Mr. Tom's hand, now I call his letters to mind. But it's certainly all about Miss Bella, and partly about her aunt, my poor mistress, by the look of it. Ah, I remember now. Mrs. Muriel sent it after Miss Bella died."

"Oh, we can get hold of another book," said Mrs. Bradley quickly. "I am sure you wouldn't want us to have this one."

"Oh, Gran!" said the little boy.

"If Master Derek fancies this one, he shall have it, bless him! Only, I can't quite fancy throwing away Miss Bella's own words, her having such a sad end and so much trouble," said Miss Hodge, "although they found her 'Not Guilty.' Not that it did her any good, poor soul. I wonder if I could take out these pages that's wrote on without hurting the rest of the book?"

"Dear me," said Mrs. Bradley." Well, if you're quite sure he can have the book, Miss Hodge, I'll undertake to remove the written pages without spoiling them, and I'll get them bound for you, unless you'd like to take them out yourself. You see, the diary is very well put together in these sections. We should merely need to cut through the strings here and here ..."

"I'd much rather you did it, madam, than I. I'm sure you know more about it. And perhaps you'd care to have a read of it, madam. It was quite a celebrated case in its way, poor Miss Bella's case was...."

Mrs. Bradley, perceiving that Miss Hodge proposed to unfold a tale, sent Derek out to find George.

"Yes, Miss Bella had a sad life of it, poor thing," continued Miss Hodge, when Derek and George had gone off to the village shop. "She worked hard at that Home for dreadful boys until her aunt died, and then, when she might have been happy and independent, her gentleman cousin, Mr. Tom, fell out of a window, in what was said to be a haunted house, and then, of all things, if she wasn't arrested for murdering him, if ever you heard anything so wicked!"

"Why did they think she had murdered him?" asked Mrs. Bradley, interested not only in the story itself but in the persistent idea of a haunted house which seemed to run through it.

"Oh, I don't know. There was a whole lot of wicked, lying stories getting spread about after the poor mistress's death, and I believe someone wrote some ugly letters. And then, when Mr. Tom died so very shortly afterwards, it seemed that somebody thought themselves clever enough to put two and two together, and so she was arrested, and tried, poor thing. They had to let her off, of course, because nothing was proved against her, but it preyed so on her mind that she killed herself, and the money all went to Miss Tessa, the other niece."

"How long ago was this?" asked Mrs. Bradley.

"Six years ago this month she was tried and let off," said Miss Hodge. "I remember it by when the mistress died and left me the house and the money."

"I expect I was in America then," said Mrs. Bradley. "I suppose I missed the whole thing. It must have been very dreadful for the people who knew her. I'd like to read the diary, if I may, and I'll bring it back to you the moment I've finished with it and bound the pages, shall I?"

"No hurry, madam. Keep it as long as you like if it interests you. I just don't care to destroy it. That's all it is. I don't suppose I should ever read it myself, not all that writing. Just the little bits about the mistress."

"I ought to pay you for the pages I'm going to use, Miss Hodge," said Derek, when he returned from the village shop. "I have my own money, you know."

"Good gracious me, Master Derek! I'm sure you're more than welcome," said the old servant. "Especially," she added, with the sentimentality of her class and generation, "if you'd give me a nice kiss for it, now."

"With pleasure," said Derek gravely, putting his arms round her neck. Mrs. Bradley cackled at this display of social tact by her grandson, and her eyes were bright as a bird's as she looked at the manuscript in her hand.