“Well, he shan’t do that, I’ll take care,” said the lady, maintaining her immovable pose, which, with a certain peculiarity in the tone of her voice, gave to her an indescribable and unpleasant languor.
“I never have two pounds to lay on top o’ one another. Jarity begins at home. I’ll not starve for Master Harry,” and she laughed softly and unpleasantly.
“His wife, you say, is a starved gurate’s daughter!”
“Parson Maybell—poor he was, down at Wyvern Vicarage—meat only twice or thrice a week, as I have heard say, and treated old Squire Harry bad, I hear, about his rent; and old Squire Fairfield was kind—to her anyhow, and took her up to the hall, and so when she grew up she took her opportunity and married Master Harry.”
“She was clever to catch such a shrewd chap—clever. Light again; I shall have three four other puff before I go to my bed—very clever. How did she take so well, and hold so fast, that wise fellow, Harry Fairfield?”
“Hoo! fancy, I do suppose, and liken’. She’s a pretty lass. All them Fairfields married for beauty mostly. Some o’ them got land and money, and the like, but a pretty face allays along with the fortune.”
The blind stranger, for blind she was, smiled downward, faintly and slyly, while she was again preparing the pipe.
“When will Harry come again?” she asked.
“I never knows, he’s so wary; do you want to talk to him, ma’am?” said Mildred.
“Yes, I do,” said she; “hold the match now, Mrs. Tarnley, please.”
So she did, and—puff, puff, puff—about a dozen times, went the smoke, and the smoker was satisfied.
“Well, I never knows the minute, but it mightn’t be for a fortnight,” said Mrs. Tarnley.
“And when Mr. Charles Fairfield come?” asked the visitor.
“If he’s got your letter he’ll be here quick enough. If it’s missed him he mayn’t set foot in it for three months’ time. That’s how it is wi’ him,” answered Mildred.
“What news of old Harry at Wyvern?” asked the stranger.
“No news in partic’lar,” answered Mildred, “only he’s well and hearty—but that’s no news; the Fairfields is a long-lived stock, as everyone knows; he’ll not lie in oak and wool for many a day yet, I’m thinkin’.”
Perhaps she had rightly guessed the object of the lady’s solicitude, for a silence followed.
“There’s a saying in my country—‘God’s children die young,’ ” said the tall lady.
“And here about they do say, the Devil takes care of his own,” said Mildred Tarnley. “But see how my score o’ years be runnin’ up; I take it sinners’ lives be lengthened out a bit by the Judge of all, to gi’e us time to stay our thoughts a little, and repent our misdeeds, while yet we may.”
“You have made a little fire in my room, Mrs. Tarnley?” inquired the stranger, who had probably no liking for theology.
“Yes ’m; everything snug.”
“Would you mind running up and looking? I detest a chill,” said this selfish person.
At that hour no doubt Mrs. Tarnley resented this tax on her rheumatics; but though she was not a woman to curb her resentments, she made shift on this occasion; that did not prevent her, however, from giving the stranger a furious look, while she muttered inaudibly a few words.
“I’ll go with pleasure, ma’am; but I’m sure it’s all right,” she said aloud, very civilly, and paused, thinking perhaps that the lady would let her off the long walk upstairs to the front of the house.
“Very good; I’ll wait here,” said the guest, unfeelingly.
“As you please ’m,” said Mildred, and, with a parting look round the kitchen, she took the candle, and left the lady to the light of the fire.
The lady was almost reclining in her chair, as if she were dozing; but in a few moments up she stood, and placing her hand by her ear, listened; then, with her hands advanced, she crept slowly, and as noiselessly as a cat, across the floor. She jostled a little against the table at Lilly Dogger’s door; then she stopped perfectly still, withdrew the table without a sound; the door swung a little open, and the gaunt figure in grey stood at it, listening. A very faint flicker from the fire lighted this dim woman, who seemed for the moment to have no more life in her than the tall, gray stone of the Druid’s hoe on Cressley Common.
Lilly Dogger was fast asleep; but broken were her slumbers destined to be that night. She felt a hand on her neck, and, looking up, could not for a while see anything, so dark was the room.
She jumped up in a sitting posture, with a short cry of fear, thinking that she was in the hands of a robber.
“Be quiet, fool,” said the tall woman, slipping her hand over the girl’s mouth. “I’m a lady, a friend of Mrs. Mildred Tarnley, and I’m come to stay in the house. Who is the lady that sleeps upstairs in the room that used to be Mr. Harry’s? You must answer true, or I’ll pull your ear very hard.”
“It is the mistress, please ’m,” answered the frightened girl.
“Married lady?”
“Yes ’m.”
“Who is her husband?”
With this question the big fingers of her visitor closed upon Lilly Dogger’s ear with a monitory pinch.
“The master, ma’am.”
“And what’s the master’s name, you dirdy liddle brevarigator?”
And with these words her ear was wrung sharply.
She would have cried, very likely, if she had been less frightened, but she only winced, with her shoulders up to her ears, and answered in tremulous haste—
“Mr. Fairfield, sure.”
“There’s three Mr. Vairvields: there’s old Mr. Vairvield, there’s Mr. Charles Vairvield, and there’s Mr. Harry Vairvield—you shall speak plain.”
And at each name in her catalogue she twisted the child’s ear with a sharp separate wring.
“Oh, law, ma’am. Please ’m, I mean Mr. Charles Fairfield. I didn’t mean to tell you no story, indeed, my lady.”
“Ho, ho—yes—Charles, Charles—very goot. Now, you tell me how you know Mr. Harry from Mr. Charles?”
“Oh, law, ma’am! oh, law! oh, ma’am, dear! sure, you won’t
