England -- Fiction; Gothic fiction; Inheritance and succession -- Fiction
"Sit down, Phœbe; you are trembling; you must drink a little water. Are
you well?"
"La! quite well, Miss," said Phœbe, more cheerily, and then burst into
tears. She gulped down some of the water which the frightened young lady
held to her lips, and recovering quickly, she gets on her feet, and says
impatiently--"I'm sure, Miss, I don't know what makes me such a fool;
but I'm all right now, Ma'am; and you asked me, the other day, about the
big key of the old back-door lock that I showed you, and I said, though
it could not open no door, I would find a use for it, yet. So I 'av',
Miss."
"Go on; I recollect perfectly."
"You remember the bit of parchment I asked you to write the words on
yesterday evening, Miss? They was these: 'Passage on the left, from main
passage to housekeeper's room,' etc. Well, I was with Mr. Vargers when
he locked that passage up, and it leads to a door in the side of the
'ouse, which it opens into the grounds; and in that houter door he left
a key, and only took with him the key of the door at the other end,
which it opens from the 'ousekeeper's passage. So all seemed sure--sure
it is, so long as you can't get into that side passage, which it is
locked."
"I understand; go on, Phœbe."
"Well, Miss, the reason I vallied that key I showed you so much, was
because it's as like the key of the side passage as one egg is to
another, only it won't turn in the lock. So, as that key I must 'av', I
tacked the bit of parchment you wrote to the 'andle of the other, which
the two matches exactly, and I didn't tell you, Miss, thinking what a
taking you'd be in, but I went down to try if I could not take it for
the right one."
"It was kind of you not to tell me; go on," said the young lady.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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