If you’re another one of them answering the advert for cleaning, quit your knocking, we don’t need you here. You heard me, get on with you….Well, hello! Sorry about that. Have a seat. Don’t mind me, I’m that worked up about Miss Simmons and her grand ideas about hired help. Can you image—I’ve been the housekeeper at Stoney Grove for over fifty years, and she comes in, and without a word to me writes in the paper that she thinks I’m not up to cleaning this house. I’ve cleaned it a million times, I reckon. The nerve…I’ve half a mind to cancel my subscription to that good-for-nothing rag after the last issue. First there’s her highness making me look useless, and then on the front page—bless me—little Eddie Waterfall is all but accusing me of being a poisoner.  Well, many’s the day he sat at my table when he was a child, eating my good cooking, and asking for seconds. He wasn’t afraid of a good meal then, was he? Now that he’s a doctor, it’s another story. He takes his middle name and moves in with the Upper set. You’d think he’d have grander things to do than attack my cooking. Ooh, there’s the kettle. I’ll just be a minute…

Here you are, dear. Digestive? Go on, take two. What was I saying? Ah, yes, little Eddie... Oh, that reminds me, I’ve got some news that I wouldn’t share with most folks. Yesterday, just after lunch, Martin came in looking paler than one of them onions he loves so much, and trembling like he had the palsy. What do you think? He saw HER, didn’t he? Said she came up out of the lake, all dripping and slimy, crossed the lawn, and headed into the west door of the house. Wouldn’t you know, less than a minute later, out comes his lordship, Tinsley, whistling a tune—never saw a thing, or at least that’s how Martin tells it. She’s back though, that’s sure enough. And you can be sure no good will come of it. Oh, there’s the door again. If it’s one of them cleaners, I think I’ll spit.

Yes Miss Simmons? What do you want? Are you ill? You look like you’ve seen a ghost…..