“Oh, dear! dear! dear! my heart, how it goes!”
“Come, come, woman, you’re nothin’ so squeamish, I dare say.”
“Well,” said Dulcibella; “it may be all as you say, ma’am, and I’ll say ye this justice, I ha’n’t missed to the value of a pennypiece since we come here, but if ye promise me, only ye won’t come up here no more while we’re out, Mrs. Tarnley, I won’t say nothing about it.”
“That settles it, keep your word, Mrs. Crane, and I’ll keep mine; I’ll burn my fingers no more in other people’s messes;” and she shook the key with a considerable jingle of the whole bunch from the keyhole, and popped it grimly into her pocket.
“Your sarvant, Mrs. Crane.”
“Yours, Mrs. Tarnley, ma’am,” replied Dulcibella.
And the interview which had commenced so brusquely, ended with ceremony, as Mildred Tarnley withdrew.
That old woman was in a sort of fever that afternoon and the next day, and her temper, Lilly Dogger thought, grew more and more savage as night approached. She had in her pocket a friendly fulsome little letter, which had reached her through the post, announcing an arrival for the night that was now approaching. The coach that changed horses at the “Pied Horse,” was due there at half-past eleven, p.m., but might not be there till twelve, and then there was a long drive to Carwell Grange.
“I’m wore out wi’ them, I’m tired to death; I’m wore off my feet wi’ them; I’m worked like a hoss. ’Twould be well for Mildred Tarnley, I’m thinkin’, she was under the mould wi’ a stone at her head, and shut o’ them all.”
XXV
Lilly Dogger Is Sent to Bed
That night the broad-shouldered child, Lilly Dogger, was up later than usual. An arrear of pots and saucepans to scour, along with customary knives and forks to clean, detained her.
“Bustle, you hussy, will ye?” cried the harsh voice of old Mildred, who was adjusting the kettle on the kitchen fire, while in the scullery the brown-eyed little girl worked away at the knife-board. A mutton-fat, fixed in a tin sconce on the wall, so as to command both the kitchen and the scullery, economically lighted each, the old woman and her drudge, at her work.
“Yes’m, please,” she said interrogatively, for the noise of her task prevented her hearing distinctly.
“Be alive, I say. It’s gone eleven, you slut; ye should a bin in your bed an hour,” screeched Mildred, and then relapsed into her customary grumble.
“Yes, Mrs. Tarnley, please’m,” answered the little girl, resuming with improved energy.
Drowsy enough was the girl. If there had been a minute’s respite from her task, I think she would have nodded.
“Be them things rubbed up or no, or do you mean to ’a done tonight, hussy?” cried Mrs. Tarnley, this time so near as to startle her, for she had unawares put her wrinkled head into the scullery. “Stop that for tonight, I say. Leave ’em lay, ye’ll finish in the morning.”
“Shall I take down the fire, Mrs. Tarnley, ma’am, please?” asked Lilly Dogger, after a little pause.
“No, ye shan’t. What’s that ye see on the fire; have ye eyes in your head? Don’t you see the kettle there? How do I know but your master’ll be home tonight, and want a cup o’ tea, or—law knows what?”
Mrs. Tarnley looked put about, as she phrased it, and in one of those special tempers which accompanied that state. So Lilly Dogger, eyeing her with wide open eyes, made her a frightened little courtesy.
“Why don’t ye get up betimes in the morning, hussy, and then ye needn’t be mopin’ about half the night? All the colour’s washed out o’ your big, ugly, platter face, wi’ your laziness—as white as a turnip. When I was a girl, if I left my work over so, I’d ’a the broomstick across my back, I promise ye, and bread and water next day too good for my victuals; but now ye thinks ye can do as ye like, and all’s changed! An’ every upstart brat is as good as her betters. But don’t ye think ye’ll come it over me, lass, don’t ye. Look up there at the clock, will ye, or do ye want me to pull ye up by the ear—ten minutes past eleven—wi’ your dawdling, ye limb!”
The old woman whisked about, and putting her hand on a cupboard door, she turned round again before opening it, and said—
“Come on, will ye, and take your bread if you want it, and don’t ye stand gaping there, ye slut, as if I had nothing to do but attend upon you, with your impittence. I shouldn’t give ye that.”
She thumped a great lump of bread down on the kitchen table by which the girl was now standing.
“Not a bit, if I did right, and ye’ll not be sittin’ up to eat that, mind ye; ye’ll take it wi’ ye to yer bed, young lady, and tumble in without delay, d’ye mind? For if I find ye out o’ bed when I go in to see all’s right, I’ll just gi’e ye that bowl o’ cold water over yer head. In wi’ ye, an’ get ye twixt the blankets before two minutes—get along.”
The girl knew that Mrs. Tarnley could strike as well as “jaw,” and seldom threatened in vain, so with eyes still fixed upon her, she took up her fragment of loaf, with a hasty courtesy, of which the old woman took no notice, and vanished frightened through a door that opened off the kitchen.
The old woman holding the candle over her head, soon peeped in as she had threatened.
Lilly Dogger lay close affecting to be asleep, though that feat in the time was impossible, and was afraid that the thump, thump of her heart, for she greatly feared Mrs. Tarnley, might be audible to that severe listener.
Out she went,
