The Bat Part 2

"Cheese-pudding for supper--of course you saw your grandmother!" said Miss Cornelia crisply, slitting open the first of her letters with a paper knife. "Nonsense, Lizzie, I'm not going to be scared away from an ideal country place because you happen to have a bad dream!"

"Was it a bad dream I saw on the stairs last night when the lights went out and I was looking for the candles?" said Lizzie heatedly. "Was it a bad dream that ran away from me and out the back door, as fast as Paddy's pig? No, Miss Neily, it was a man--Seven feet tall he was, and eyes that shone in the dark and--"

"Lizzie Allen!"

"Well, it's true for all that," insisted Lizzie stubbornly. "And why did the lights go out--tell me that, Miss Neily? They never go out in the city."

"Well, this isn't the city," said Miss Cornelia decisively. "It's the country, and very nice it is, and we're staying here all summer. I suppose I may be thankful," she went on ironically, "that it was only your grandmother you saw last night. It might have been the Bat--and then where would you be this morning?"

"I'd be stiff and stark with candles at me head and feet," said Lizzie gloomily. "Oh, Miss Neily, don't talk of that terrible creature, the Bat!" She came nearer to her mistress. "There's bats in this house, too--real bats," she whispered impressively. "I saw one yesterday in the trunk room--the creature! It flew in the window and nearly had the switch off me before I could get away!"

Miss Cornelia chuckled. "Of course there are bats," she said. "There are always bats in the country. They're perfectly harmless,--except to switches."

"And the Bat ye were talking of just then--he's harmless too, I suppose?" said Lizzie with mournful satire. "Oh, Miss Neily, Miss Neily--do let's go back to the city before he flies away with us all!"

"Nonsense, Lizzie," said Miss Cornelia again, but this time less firmly. Her face grew serious. "If I thought for an instant that there was any real possibility of our being in danger here--" she said slowly. "But--oh, look at the map, Lizzie! The Bat has been flying in this district--that's true enough--but he hasn't come within ten miles of us yet!"

"What's ten miles to the Bat?" the obdurate Lizzie sighed. "And what of the letter ye had when ye first moved in here? 'The Fleming house is unhealthy for strangers,' it said. Leave it while ye can."

"Some silly boy or some crank." Miss Cornelia's voice was firm. "I never pay any attention to anonymous letters."

"And there's a funny-lookin' letter this mornin', down at the bottom of the pile--" persisted Lizzie. "It looked like the other one. I'd half a mind to throw it away before you saw it!"

"Now, Lizzie, that's quite enough!" Miss Cornelia had the Van Gorder manner on now. "I don't care to discuss your ridiculous fears any further. Where is Miss Dale?"

Lizzie a.s.sumed an att.i.tude of prim rebuff, "Miss Dale's gone into the city, ma'am."

"Gone into the city?"

"Yes, ma'am. She got a telephone call this morning, early--long distance it was. I don't know who it was called her."

"Lizzie! You didn't listen?"

"Of course not, Miss Neily." Lizzie's face was a study in injured virtue. "Miss Dale took the call in her own room and shut the door."

"And you were outside the door?"

"Where else would I be dustin' that time in the mornin'?" said Lizzie fiercely. "But it's yourself knows well enough the doors in this house is thick and not a sound goes past them."

"I should hope not," said Miss Cornelia rebukingly. "But--tell me, Lizzie, did Miss Dale seem--well--this morning?"

"That she did not," said Lizzie promptly. "When she came down to breakfast, after the call, she looked like a ghost. I made her the eggs she likes, too--but she wouldn't eat 'em."

"H'm," Miss Cornelia pondered. "I'm sorry if--well, Lizzie, we mustn't meddle in Miss Dale's affairs."

"No, ma'am."

"But--did she say when she would be back?"

"Yes, Miss Neily. On the two o'clock train. Oh, and I was almost forgettin'--she told me to tell you, particular--she said while he was in the city she'd be after engagin' the gardener you spoke of."

"The gardener? Oh, yes--I spoke to her about that the other night. The place is beginning to look run down--so many flowers to attend to.

Well--that's very kind of Miss Dale."

"Yes, Miss Neily." Lizzie hesitated, obviously with some weighty news on her mind which she wished to impart. Finally she took the plunge.

"I might have told Miss Dale she could have been lookin' for a cook as well--and a housemaid--" she muttered at last, "but they hadn't spoken to me then."

Miss Cornelia sat bolt upright in bed. "A cook--and a housemaid? But we have a cook and a housemaid, Lizzie! You don't mean to tell me--"

Lizzie nodded her head. "Yes'm. They're leaving. Both of 'em. Today."

"But good heav-- Lizzie, why on earth didn't you tell me before?"

Lizzie spoke soothingly, all the blarney of Kerry in her voice. "Now, Miss Neily, as if I'd wake you first thing in the morning with bad news like that! And thinks I, well, maybe 'tis all for the best after all--for when Miss Neily hears they're leavin'--and her so particular--maybe she'll go back to the city for just a little and leave this house to its haunts and its bats and--"

"Go back to the city? I shall do nothing of the sort. I rented this house to live in and live in it I will, with servants or without them.

You should have told me at once, Lizzie. I'm really very much annoyed with you because you didn't. I shall get up immediately--I want to give those two a piece of my mind. Is Billy leaving too?"

"Not that I know of--the heathern j.a.panese!" said Lizzie sorrowfully.

"And yet he'd be better riddance than cook or housemaid."

"Now, Lizzie, how many times have I told you that you must conquer your prejudices? Billy is an excellent butler--he'd been with Mr. Fleming ten years and has the very highest recommendations. I am very glad that he is staying, if he is. With you to help him, we shall do very well until I can get other servants." Miss Cornelia had risen now and Lizzie was helping her with the intricacies of her toilet. "But it's too annoying," she went on, in the pauses of Lizzie's deft ministrations. "What did they say to you, Lizzie--did they give any reason? It isn't as if they were new to the country like you. They'd been with Mr. Fleming for some time, though not as long as Billy."

"Oh, yes, Miss Neily--they had reasons you could choke a goat with,"

said Lizzie viciously as she arranged Miss Cornelia's transformation.

"Cook was the first of them--she was up late--I think they'd been talking it over together. She comes into the kitchen with her hat on and her bag in her hand. 'Good morning,' says I, pleasant enough, 'you've got your hat on,' says I. 'I'm leaving,' says she. 'Leaving, are you?' says I. 'Leaving,' says she. 'My sister has twins,' says she. 'I just got word--I must go to her right away.' 'What?' says I, all struck in a heap. 'Twins,' says she, 'you've heard of such things as twins.' 'That I have,' says I, 'and I know a lie on a face when I see it, too.'"

"Lizzie!"

"Well, it made me sick at heart, Miss Neily. Her with her hat and her bag and her talk about twins--and no consideration for you. Well, I'll go on. 'You're a clever woman, aren't you?' says she--the impudence!

'I can see through a millstone as far as most,' says I--I wouldn't put up with her sauce. 'Well!' says she, 'you can see that Annie the housemaid's leaving, too.' 'Has her sister got twins as well?' says I and looked at her. 'No,' says she as bold as bra.s.s, 'but Annie's got a pain in her side and she's feared it's appendycitis--so she's leaving to go back to her family.' 'Oh,' says I, 'and what about Miss Van Gorder?' 'I'm sorry for Miss Van Gorder,' says she--the falseness of her!--'But she'll have to do the best she can for twins and appendycitis is acts of G.o.d and not to be put aside for even the best of wages.' 'Is that so?' says I and with that I left her, for I knew if I listened to her a minute longer I'd be giving her bonnet a shake and that wouldn't be respectable. So there you are, Miss Neily, and that's the gist of the matter."

Miss Cornelia laughed. "Lizzie--you're unique," she said. "But I'm glad you didn't give her bonnet a shake--though I've no doubt you could."

"Humph!" said Lizzie snorting, the fire of battle in her eye. "And is it any Black Irish from Ulster would play impudence to a Kerrywoman without getting the flat of a hand in--but that's neither here nor there. The truth of it is, Miss Neily," her voice grew solemn, "it's my belief they're scared--both of them--by the haunts and the banshees here--and that's all."

"If they are they're very silly," said Miss Cornelia practically. "No, they may have heard of a better place, though it would seem as if when one pays the present extortionate wages and asks as little as we do here--but it doesn't matter. If they want to go, they may. Am I ready, Lizzie?"

"You look like an angel, ma'am," said Lizzie, clasping her hands.

"Well, I feel very little like one," said Miss Cornelia, rising. "As cook and housemaid may discover before I'm through with them. Send them into the livingroom, Lizzie, when I've gone down. I'll talk to them there."

An hour or so later, Miss Cornelia sat in a deep chintz chair in the comfortable living-room of the Fleming house going through the pile of letters which Lizzie's news of domestic revolt had prevented her reading earlier. Cook and housemaid had come and gone--civil enough, but so obviously determined upon leaving the house at once that Miss Cornelia had sighed and let them go, though not without caustic comment. Since then, she had devoted herself to calling up various employment agencies without entirely satisfactory results. A new cook and housemaid were promised for the end of the week--but for the next three days the j.a.panese butler, Billy, and Lizzie between them would have to bear the brunt of the service. Oh, yes--and then there's Dale's gardener, if she gets one, thought Miss, Cornelia. "I wish he could cook--but I don't suppose gardeners can--and Billy's a treasure.

Still, its inconvenient--now, stop--Cornelia Van Gorder--you were asking for an adventure only this morning and the moment the littlest sort of one comes along, you want to crawl out of it."

She had reached the bottom of her pile of letters--these to be thrown away, these to be answered--ah, here was one she had overlooked somehow. She took it up. It must be the one Lizzie had wanted to throw away--she smiled at Lizzie's fears. The address was badly typed, on cheap paper--she tore the envelope open and drew out a single unsigned sheet.

If you stay in this house any longer--DEATH. Go back to the city at once and save your life.