The Wicked, Wicked Ladies in the Haunted House by Mary Chase

Author:Mary Chase
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2015-05-20T04:00:00+00:00

The seven heads were now lifted and seven pairs of eyes were staring at her intently across the snowy linen cloth. The mother lifted a little brass bell. It went “tinkle-tinkle.” Nora came through the swinging door from the kitchen, picked up a plate off the table, and carried it out.

“Except who?” the tallest girl prompted her.

“What?” asked Maureen. She had been watching Nora. When her mother cleared the table she picked up two dishes at one time.

“You said somebody lived—someplace,” the tall girl repeated. “Where? Who?”

Maureen decided not to answer her. She looked at the mother and pointed to the walls of the room. “There’s pictures like those. Castles and bridges and lots of girls with sheep. Only they’re all dirty and when you hit them hard—does the dust ever fly—whew!”

“This tapestry was woven especially for us, we thought.” The mother was eyeing the walls. Then she shrugged. “Apparently someone else ordered it also.”

“There’s a big thing like that.” Maureen pointed across the hall toward the chandelier with the candles flickering. It looked like a birthday cake suspended from the ceiling. “But it’s all hanging down now. Somebody swung on it, maybe.”

Nora came back in and picked up another plate. She was carrying it out when Maureen said, “There’s crazy pictures in the hall upstairs, pictures of ladies in long silk dresses.”

The mother smiled fondly at her daughters. “Someday we plan to have our daughters’ portraits painted.”

Maureen didn’t seem to hear her. “When they moved, they took out all the furniture except those seven pictures.”

“Seven?—there?” The mother was so surprised again. “We have seven little ladies here,” and she smiled at her daughters. “This is beginning to sound strange. Who are these people, I wonder?”

“Nobody,” said the girl who played the piano. “She is making it up, Mama—to tease us.”

“Please, Lucrece.” And even though the mother looked at her fondly, she said firmly, “We must not be rude to our little guest.”

Maureen was indignant. “I am not making it up. There’s pictures of seven ladies in the upstairs hall of the Old Messerman Place. There’s Cleo and there’s Constance and there’s Maude—”

Nobody was eating now. The mother wasn’t even smiling. Her eyes were fixed on Maureen, her fork was in midair, halfway to her mouth. But the seven sisters were all smiling. The tallest one spoke softly, “And Sylvia and Lucrece and Mavis and Ingrid.”

“How did you know?” asked Maureen, after she had found her breath.

“Those are our names, silly.” She smiled at her mother. “Mama, don’t you see? She is making it up.”

The mother hadn’t moved her eyes from Maureen’s face. And she wasn’t smiling now. She looked frightened. She nodded. “Yes, Ingrid, I am afraid she is.”

Maureen started to shout, but there was the sound outside of carriage wheels, voices raised, and then the thump-thump of somebody stamping snow off shoes. The big front door was flung open and the father came in, his cheeks red from the cold.

“Papa!” The seven daughters waved to him as he stood in the hall and handed his hat and gloves to Nora.

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