The Ghost Girl Read online

  CHAPTER VI

  They crossed the hall, and passing through a green-baize covered door wentdown a passage that led to the kitchen.

  "This is the housekeeper's room," said Hennessey, pointing to a half opendoor, "and the servants' hall is that door beyond. This is the kitchen."

  They paused for a moment in the great old-fashioned kitchen, with an openrange capable of roasting a small ox, one might have fancied. Norah, thecook, was busy in the scullery with her sleeves tucked up, and under thetable was seated Susie Gallagher, a small and grubby hanger-on engaged inthe task of washing potatoes. The potatoes were beside her on the floorand she was washing them in a tin basin of water with the help of an oldnail-brush.

  There was a horse-shoe hung up, for luck, on the wall over the range, anda pile of dinner plates, from last night's dinner and still unwashed,stood on the dresser, where also stood a half-bottle of Guinness' stoutand a tumbler; an old setter bitch lay before the fire and a jackdaw in awicker cage set up a yell at the sight of the visitors, that brought Norahout of the scullery to receive them, a broad smile on her face and herarms tucked up in her apron.

  "He always yells like that at the sight of tramps or stray people about,"apologised the cook. "He's better than a watch-dog. Hold your tongue, youbaste; don't you know your misthress when you see her?"

  "Rafferty caught him in the park," said Phyl, "and cut his tongue with asixpence so as to make him able to speak."

  They left the kitchen and came into the yard. A big tin can of refuse wasstanding by the kitchen door, and on top of all sorts of rubbish, potatopeelings, cabbage stalks and so forth, lay the carcass of a boiled fowl.It was the fowl they had dined off the night before and it lay there justas it had gone from the table, that is to say, minus both wings and thegreater part of the breast, but with the legs intact.

  Pinckney stared at this sinful sight. Then he pointed to it.

  "What's that doing there?" he asked.

  "Waitin' to be took away be the stable boy, sor," replied the cook, whohad followed them to the door. "All the rubbish is took away in that ouldcan every mornin'."

  "Good God!" said Pinckney under his breath. The expression was shaken outof him, so to speak, and out of a pocket of his character which had neverbeen fully explored, of whose existence, indeed, he was not particularlyaware. This Irish expedition was to show him a good many things in lifeand in himself of which up to this he had been in ignorance. He had neverbeen brought face to face with waste, bald waste without a hat on orcovering of any sort, before.

  "Haven't you any poor people about here?" he asked.

  "Hapes, sor."

  Pinckney was on the point of saying something more, but he checkedhimself, remembering that in the eyes of the servants he was here in theposition of a guest.

  He followed Hennessey across to the stable yard, where Larry, the groom,was washing the carriage that had fetched him from the station the nightbefore.

  "The servants won't eat chicken," said Phyl, in an apologetic way. She hadnoted everything and she guessed his thoughts. "They won't eat gameeither--and they throw things away if they don't like them--of course,it's wasteful, but they _do_ give things to the poor. Lots of poor peoplecome here, every day nearly, but they don't care for scraps--you see, it_is_ insulting to give a poor person scraps, just as though they wereanimals. I remember the cook we had before Norah did it when she camefirst, and all the poor people stopped coming to the house. Said she oughtto know better than to offer them the leavings."

  "Cheek!"

  "Well, I don't know," said Phyl. "We've done it for hundreds of years."

  She closed her mouth in a way she had when she did not wish to pursue asubject further. Despite the fact that she had made friends with Pinckney,she was galled by his attitude of criticism. Guardian or no guardian, hewas a stranger; relation or no relation, he was a stranger, and what righthad a stranger to dare to come and turn up his nose at the poor people ormake remarks--he hadn't said a word--about the wastefulness of theservants?

  The redoubtable Rafferty was standing in the yard chewing a straw andwatching Larry at work.

  Rafferty was a man of genius, who had started as a helper and odd jobperson, and had risen to the position of factotum. He had ousted theScotch gardener and insinuated a relation of his own in his place. Therewas scarcely a servant about the estate that was not a relation ofRafferty's. Philip Berknowles had put up with a lot from Rafferty simplybecause Rafferty was an invaluable person in his way when not crossed.Everything went smoothly when the factotum was not interfered with. Crosshim and there were immediate results ranging from ill-groomed horses togeneral unrest. He was a dark individual, half groom, half game-keeper indress, a "wicked-looking divil," according to the description of hisenemies, and an exceedingly foxy-looking individual in the eyes ofPinckney.

  "Rafferty," said Mr. Hennessey, "I want to show this gentleman round.Let's see the stables."

  Rafferty touched his cap and led the way, showing first the stalls andboxes where four or five horses were stabled, and then leading the waythrough the coach-house to the path from which opened the kitchengardens.

  They were immense and walled in with red brick, capable, one might fancy,of supplying the wants of three or four houses the size of Kilgobbin.

  Pinckney noted this fact, also that the home farm to which the kitchengardens led was apparently a prosperous and going little concern, with itsfowls and chickens penned or loose, styes filled with grunting pigs, andturkeys gobbling and spreading their tails in the sun.

  "Who looks after all this?" asked Pinckney.

  "I do, sor," replied Rafferty.

  "What are the takings?"

  "I beg your pardon, sor?"

  "The profits, I mean. You sell these things, don't you?"

  "Kilgobbin isn't a farm, sor, it's a gintleman's estate."

  Pinckney, not at all set back by this snub, turned and looked the factotumin the face.

  "Just so," said he, "but I've never heard of gentlemen growing pigs tolook at; peacocks, maybe, but not pigs. However, we'll have another lookat the business later."

  He turned and they went on, Rafferty disturbed in his mind and much putabout by the manner of the other in whom he began to divine something morethan a casual guest, Phyl almost as much put out as Rafferty.

  The idea that the factotum might have been robbing her father right andleft never occurred to her; even if it had, it would not have softened thefact that a strange hand was at work in her old home turning over things,inspecting them, holding them up for comment.

  She managed to drop behind as they left the farm yard for the paddocks,then turning down the yew lane that led back to the house, she ran asthough hounds were after her, reached the house, locked herself in herbedroom, and flung herself on the bed in a tempest of weeping, dragging apillow over her head as if to shield herself from the blows that the worldwas aiming at her.

  Phyl, without mother, brothers or sisters, had centred all her affectionon her father and Kilgobbin; the servants, the place itself and all thethings and people about it were part and parcel with her life, and thedeath of her father had intensified her love of the place and the people.

  If Pinckney had only known, he might have put the business of theinspection of the property and the dealing with the servants into otherhands, but Pinckney was young and full of energy and business ability; hewas full of conscientiousness and the determination to protect his ward'sinterests; he had scented a rogue in Rafferty, and at this very minutereturning to the house with Hennessey, he was declaring his intention tomake an overhaul of the working of the estate.

  Rafferty was to appear before him and produce his accounts and makeexplanations. Mrs. Driscoll was to be examined as to the expenditure,etc.

  He little knew the hornet's nest into which he was about to poke hisfinger.