Secundina had as much as she could do to
keep the rooms in order; and the only other service she was able to give
the visitors was to recount gruesome stories of the villa while she made
their beds or took a top layer of dust off their dressing-tables.
According to her, the Bella Vista was the cheapest furnished house to
let in the principality, because years ago a murder had been committed
in it. A woman had been killed for the sake of her jewels by the
tenants, a husband and wife. They had kept her body in a trunk for days,
and had attempted to get out of France with it, but had been arrested on
their way to Italy. Nobody who was superstitious would live in the
house, and so it was not often let. Secundina did not know where the
murder had taken place, but believed it was in the dining-room, and that
the trunk had been kept in the cellar.
It was Dodo to whom the tale was told, and she repeated it to Mrs.
Collis and her daughter, the three having forgotten their slight
differences in making common, secret cause against the Dauntreys, or,
rather, against Lady Dauntrey; for they were inclined to like and be
sorry for her husband, pitying him because misfortune or weakness had
brought him to the pass of marrying such a woman. "You could make a
whole macadamized road out of her heart," remarked Mrs. Collis.
"It would serve her right if we all marched out of this loathsome den in
a body," said Dodo, emphatically, when they had met to talk things over
in the Collises' room.
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