“You tell truth. How do you know Mr. Charles from Mr. Harry?”
“Mr. Charles has bigger eyes, ma’am, and Mr. Harry has lighter hair, and a red face, please ’m, and Mr. Charles’s face is brown, and he talks very quiet-like, and Mr. Harry talks very loud, and he’s always travellin’ about a-horseback, and Mr. Charles is the eldest son, and the little child they’re lookin’ for is to be the Squire o’ Wyvern.”
The interrogator here gave her a hard pinch by the ear, perhaps without thinking of it, for she said nothing for a minute nearly, and the girl remained with her head buried between her shoulders, and her eyes wide open, staring straight up where she conjectured her examiner’s face might be.
“Is the man that talks loud—Mr. Harry—here often?” asked the voice at her bedside.
“But seldom, ma’am—too busy at fairs and races, I hear them say.”
“And Mr. Charles—is he often here?”
“Yes ’m; master be always here, exceptin’ this time only; he’s gone about a week.”
“About a week, Mr. Charles?”
“Oh, la, ma’am—yes, indeed, ma’am, dear, it’s just a week today since master went.”
Here was a silence.
“That will do. If I find you’ve been telling me lies I’ll take ye by the back of the neck and squeeze your face against the kitchen bars till it’s burnt through and through—do you see; and I give you this one chance, if you have been telling lies to say so, and I’ll forgive you.”
“Nothing but truth, indeed and indeed, ma’am.”
“Old Tarnley will beat you if she hears you have told me anything. So keep your own secret, and I’ll not tell of you.”
She saw the brawny outline of the woman faintly like a black shadow as she made her way through the door into the kitchen, and she heard the door close, and the table shoved cautiously back into its place, and then, with a beating heart, she lay still and awfully wide awake in the dark.
XXVII
Through the House
This stalwart lady stumbled and groped her way back to her chair, and sat down again in the kitchen. The chair in which she sat was an old-fashioned armchair of plain wood, uncoloured and clumsy.
When Mildred Tarnley returned, the changed appearance of her guest struck her.
“Be ye sick, ma’am?” she asked, standing, candle in hand, by the chair.
The visitor was sitting bolt upright, with a large hand clutched on each arm of the chair, with a face deadly pale and distorted by a frown or a spasm that frightened old Mildred, who fancied, as she made no sign, not the slightest stir, that she was in a fit, or possibly dead.
“For God’s sake, ma’am,” conjured old Mildred, fiercely, “will ye speak?”
The lady in the chair started, shrugged, and gasped. It was like shaking off a fit.
“Ho! oh, Mildred Tarnley, I was thinking—I was thinking—did you speak?”
Mildred looked at her, not knowing what to make of it. Too much laudanum—was it? or that nervous pain in her head.
“I only asked you how you were, ma’am—you looked so bad. I thought you was just going to work in a fit.”
“What an old fool! I never was better in my life—fit! I never had a fit—not I.”
“You used to have ’em sometimes, long ago, ma’am, and they came in the snap of a finger, like,” said Mildred, sturdily.
“Clear your head of those fits, for they have left me long ago. I’m well, I tell you—never was better. You’re old—you’re old, woman, and that which has made you so pious is also making you blind.”
“Well, you look a deal better now—you do,” said Mildred, who did not want to have a corpse or an epileptic suddenly on her hands, and was much relieved by the signs of returning vivacity and colour.
“Tarnley, you’ve been a faithful creature and true to me; I hope I may live to reward you,” said the lady, extending her hand vaguely towards the old servant.
“I’m true to them as gives me bread, and ever was, and that’s old Mildred Tarnley’s truth. If she eats their bread, she’ll maintain their right, and that’s only honest—that’s reason, ma’am.”
“I have no right to cry no; I cry excellent, good, good, very good, for as you are my husband’s servant, I have all the benefit of your admirable fidelity. Boo! I am so grateful, and one day or other, old girl, I’ll reward you—and very good tea, and every care of me. I will tell Mr. Vairvield when he comes how good you have been—and, tell me, how is the fire, and the bed, and the bedroom—all quite comfortable?”
“Comfortable, quite, I hope, ma’am.”
“Do I look quite well now?”
“Yes ’m, pure and hearty. It was only just a turn.”
“Yes, just so, perhaps, although I never felt it, and I could dance now only for—fifty things, so I won’t mind.” She laughed. “I’m sleepy, and I’m not sleepy; and I love you, old Mildred Tarnley, and you’ll tell me some more about Master Harry and his wife when we get upstairs. Who’d have thought that wild fellow would ever tie himself to a wife? Who’d have fancied that clever young man that loves making money so well, would have chosen out a wife without a florin to her fortune? Everything is so surprising. Come, let’s have a laugh, you and me together.”
“My laughing days is over, ma’am—not that I see much to laugh at for anyone, and many a thing I thought a laughing matter when I was young seems o’erlike a crying matter now I’m grown old,” said old Mildred, and snuffed the kitchen candle with her fingers.
“Well, give me your arm, Mildred; there’s a good old thing—yes.”
And up she got her long length. Mildred took the candle, and took the tall lady gently by the wrist. The guest, however, placed her great hand upon Mildred’s shoulder, and thus they proceeded through the passages. Leaving
