"Another way of calling me a tight-ass," Stella muttered.
"Not precisely. But if you were promiscuous, it would still be your business and not mine. You don't need my approval. "
"I want it - because I'm working for you and living in your house. And because I respect you. "
"All right, then. " Roz moved on to impatiens. "You have it. One of the reasons I wanted you to live in the house was because I wanted to get to know you, on a personal level. When I hired you, I was giving you a piece of something very important to me, personally important. So if I'd decided, after the first few weeks, that you weren't the sort of person I could like and respect, I'd have fired you. " She glanced back. "No matter how competent you were. Competent just isn't that hard to find. "
"Thanks. I think. "
"I think I'll take in some of these geraniums that are already potted. Saves me time and trouble, and we've got a good supply of them. "
"Let me know how many, and I'll adjust the inventory. Roz, there was something else I wanted to talk to you about. "
'Talk away," Roz invited as she started to select her plants. ;
"It's about the ghost. "
Roz lifted a salmon-pink geranium, studied it from all sides. "What about her?"
"I feel stupid even talking about this, but. . . have you ever felt threatened by her?"
"Threatened? No. I wouldn't use a word that strong. " Roz set the geranium in a plastic tray, chose another. "Why?"
"Because, apparently, I've seen her. "
"That's not unexpected. The Harper Bride tends to show herself to mothers, and young boys. Young girls, occasionally. I saw her myself a few times when I was a girl, then fairly regularly once the boys started coming along. "
"Tell me what she looks like. "
"About your height. " As she spoke, Roz continued to select her geraniums for the Garden Club. "Thin. Very thin. Mid- to late twenties at my guess, though it's hard to tell. She doesn't look well. That is," she added with an absent smile, "even for a ghost. She strikes me as a woman who had a great deal of beauty, but was ill for some time. She's blond, and her eyes are somewhere between green and gray. And very sad. She wears a gray dress - or it looks gray, and it hangs on her as if she'd lost weight. "
Stella let out a breath. "That's who I saw. What I saw. It's too fantastic, but I saw. "
"You should be flattered. She rarely shows herself to anyone outside the family - or so the legend goes. You shouldn't feel threatened, Stella. "
"But I did. Last night, when I got home, and went in to check on the boys. I heard her first. She sings some sort of lullaby. "
" 'Lavender's Blue. ' It's what you could call her trademark. " Taking out small clippers, Roz trimmed off a weak side stem. "She's never spoken that I've heard, or heard of, but she sings to the children of the house at night. "
" 'Lavender's Blue. ' Yes, that's it. I heard her, and rushed in. There she was, standing between their beds. She looked at me. It was only for a second, but she looked at me. Her eyes weren't sad, Roz, they were angry. There was a blast of cold, like she'd thrown something at me in temper. Not like the other times, when I'd just felt a chill. "
Interested now, Roz studied Stella's face. "I felt as if I'd annoyed her a few times, on and off. Just a change of tone. Very like you described, I suppose. "
"It happened. "
"I believe you, but primarily, from most of my experiences, she's always been a benign sort of presence. I always took those temper snaps to be a kind of moodiness. I expect ghosts get moody. "
"You expect ghosts get moody," Stella repeated slowly. "I just don't understand a statement like that. "
"People do, don't they? Why should that change when they're dead?"
"Okay," Stella said after a moment. "I'm going to try to roll with all this, like it's not insanity. So, maybe she doesn't like me being here. "
"Over the last hundred years or so, Harper House has had a lot of people live in it, a lot of houseguests. She ought to be used to it. If you'd feel better moving to the other wing - "
"No. I don't see how that would make a difference. And though I was unnerved enough last night to sleep in the boys' room with them, she wasn't angry with them. It was just me. Who was she?"
"Nobody knows for sure. In polite company, she's referred to as the Harper Bride, but it's assumed she was a servant. A nurse or governess. My theory is one of the men in the house seduced her, maybe cast her off, especially if she got pregnant. There's the attachment to children, so it seemed most logical she had a connection to kids. It's a sure bet she died in or around the house. "