"You know, having thought it over, I must say that in some ways my impending departure comes as a relief," Victoria said.
"A relief?" James repeated. "That's odd. I thought you were so insistent that you didn't want to marry. That you didn't want to leave this house."
"That's true," Victoria said. "But therearethings about this place that I won't miss in the slightest."
"What do you mean?"
"Well…I don't want you to think me foolish."
"I won't think that," James said, although the truth was that he could make no such guarantee. He had said it merely out of a desire to convince her to keep talking.
She obliged. "It's just that I've often thought this place must be haunted."
James stared at her. "Did you sayhaunted?"
"I knew you would think I was a fool." She sighed. "It's all right. I'm not that concerned with what you think of me. You already think I might be a murderer, and I've had to make my peace with that. I can make my peace with this too. I don't need your good opinion."
"But you did say the place was haunted? I heard you correctly?"
"Well, there's a room on the second floor that none of the staff are willing to enter," Victoria said, lowering her voice as if she was afraid of being overheard. "I don't know whether or not you knew that."
"I didn't know that, no."
"They don't talk about it. They won't even admit it if you ask them about it directly—they act as if they just don't know what you're talking about. But I've seen the way they are. The way they avoid that room. In two years living here, I have never seen one of them enter it, not even to clean."
"I see," James said. It didn't sound very conclusive to him. "And based on that, you believe the place is haunted?"
"Of course notonlybased on that. I went into the room myself once."
"And what happened?"
"Nothing, at first. But then, all at once, I felt a chill come over me. The windows were closed, and besides, it was a perfectly warm day out, so there's no reason I should have felt such a thing. It was very mysterious."
"That still doesn't prove anything. I certainly wouldn't conclude ghosts based on what you're telling me."
"There's also the matter of everything that gets lost around here," Victoria said. "Things are forever going missing. When I lost my mother's earrings the first month I lived here, I thought one of the servants must have taken them. They were a precious treasure to me, and I would never have misplaced them myself. But when I asked the servants, they all insisted they hadn't touched them."
"If someone stole your earrings, they would hardly be likely to confess it to you just because you asked."
"No, I agree, but I am usually a good judge of whether or not someone is telling the truth, and I believed them," Victoria said.
"You still might have been wrong."
"Shortly after that happened," Victoria went on, ignoring his last comment, "the servants also began to report that things were missing. And not treasures like my mother's earrings, but little things. Inconsequential things. One of the maids set down a cleaning rag and looked away for a moment, and when she looked back, it was gone."
"A maid lost her cleaning rag?"
"James, I've already told you that I don't need you to believe me. If you don't think this is true, that's all right. All I'm saying is that it will be a relief for me to get out of this house and away from the worries over whether or not the haunting is real. It's something I worry about. That's all I'm saying."
"Well, I'm glad you won't have to worry anymore, then," James said. He was struggling to keep a straight face. He wanted to burst out laughing at the things she'd told him. It was so obvious what was happening—she'd made up this tale about a haunting to try to get him to abandon the house. Not only was it not going to work, she was doing a very clumsy job of presenting it to him. All the servants knew about these things, but would they lie if they were asked? He was almost disappointed in how obvious she had made what she was doing.
He decided to have a little fun with her. It was only fair, he thought, since she had tried to toy with him.
"You know," he said, "I think I might have experienced something like what you're talking about."
"Oh? Don't tell me something of yours has gone missing too."
"Oh, several things," James said. "But I often misplace my possessions, so I thought nothing of it." That wasn't true at all. He was fastidious about keeping track of his things. But he was very much enjoying the enthralled look on her face. She believed that he had bought into her story, and she was pleased with herself for having sold it to him. The knowledge that she was so happy about the possibility of a lie having worked against James made him very unhappy, but on the other hand, he was taking control of the situation now by using her own lie against her and that made him feel as if he was back in control of things.
