Mrs. Tim of the Regiment by D. E. Stevenson

an owl. ‘I comed in a few minutes ago and you was asleep, Miss,’ he continues. ‘The landlord ’as word that the road is open to Berwick.’
    â€˜Yes, I know,’ I reply. ‘The gentleman said so.’
    â€˜The gentleman? There ’asn’t bin no gentleman ’ere as I know of,’ Thomas says, as he arranges the table for tea and puts the muffins on a trivet near the fire. ‘What kind of a gentleman would he be, Miss?’ He looks round at me with a curious expression on his smooth face. ‘It wasn’t by any chance a lady now was it? A young lady in a red dress.’
    â€˜What do you know of a lady in a red dress?’ I ask quickly.
    â€˜Nothing, Miss. Nothing.’
    â€˜What a pity!’ I reply, watching his face closely. ‘I am anxious to know what happened.’
    â€˜How should I know what ’appened?’ he says, looking down at his feet and shuffling them in an embarrassed way. ‘You was dreaming, Miss – just dreaming. I come in and found you fast asleep.’
    â€˜It was a queer dream,’ I reply.
    â€˜Ah, folks often ’as queer dreams.’
    Once more the door opens, but this time it is the twentieth-century figure of Tim.
    He stamps his feet and claps his hands and the wraiths of Edward and Angelina have vanished. ‘Tea,’ he says cheerfully. ‘ And muffins – that’s good.’
    I ask after Cassandra and am told that she is none the worse for her adventure and that she will be ready to start tomorrow morning. We doze and dream in the firelight and presently make our way up the shiny oak staircase to bed.
    Eighth February
    I sleep dreamlessly and waken early, and soon the events of yesterday come crowding into my mind. I switch on the light beside my bed and the old, beautiful room takes shape – the four-poster with its carved oak pillars, the dark oak chest, the dressing table with its prude petticoat of spotted muslin, the low, uneven ceiling, the wavy oak floor. How many hundreds and thousands of people have awakened in this room; awakened to their sorrows and their joys, their hopes and their fears? Strange that I should have slept so well, untroubled by the haunting of their thoughts!
    Soon the old house stirs, and I hear the usual domestic sounds of cleaning and cooking. A bright young chambermaid brings us hot water and morning tea, and asks if she shall turn on the bath which is next door. The ‘Black Swan’ has evidently swum with the times.
    Tim is shaving when I return from my bath; he is not impressed with the age of the place, but is delighted with the modern improvements. ‘All the same,’ he says as he screws his face into terrifying contortions to reach a difficult corner of his chin, ‘all the same, Hester, I don’t care for these old houses – the drains are apt to be unhealthy. When we retire we’ll have an absolutely modern house with all the latest improvements. . . . Sickening, isn’t it?’ he adds grumblingly. ‘This trip is going to cost us a damn sight more than our railway fares would have been. An extra night on the road – and heaven knows how much this chap will rook us – and the garage charges for rescuing Cassandra, etc.’
    I reply with soothing noises. Personally I think it has been a lovely adventure and well worth the money.
    We eat our breakfast, pay our bill, and take the road for Berwick which Edward and Angelina travelled last night or two hundred years ago – I really don’t know which. As we fly along I can’t help watching for a lumbering post chaise which may so easily have skidded off the road and overturned in a ditch.
    We have engaged rooms in Westburgh at a certain ‘Brown’s Hotel’, and here we arrive without further adventure – cold and tired and very late. So late that I ask for a glass of hot milk and tumble sleepily into bed.
    Ninth February
    â€“ We visit