“There’s fire here, I feel it; place my chair near it. The bed in the old place?” said the tall woman, coming to a halt.
“Yes ’m. Little change here, ever, I warrant ye, only the room’s bin new papered,” answered Mildred.
“New papered, has it? Well, I’ll sit down—thanks—and I’ll get to my bed, just now.”
“Shall I assist ye, ma’am?”
“By-and-by, thanks; but not till I have eaten a bit. I have grown hungry, what your master calls peckish. What do you advise?”
“I would advise your eating something,” replied Mildred.
“But what?”
“There’s very little; there’s eggs quite new, there’s a bit o’ bacon, and there’s about half a cold chicken—roast, and there’s a corner o’ Cheddar cheese, and there’s butter, and there’s bread—’taint much,” answered Mrs. Tarnley, glibly.
“The chicken will do very nicely, and don’t forget bread and salt, Mrs. Tarnley, and a glass of beer.”
“Yes ’m.”
Mrs. Tarnley poked the fire and looked about her, and then took the only candle, marched boldly off with it, shutting the door.
Toward the door the lady turned her face and listened. She heard old Mildred’s step receding.
This tall woman was not pleasant to look at. Her large features were pitted with the smallpox and deadly pale with the pallor of anger, and an unpleasant smile lighted up the whiteness of her face.
“Patience, patience,” she repeated, “what a d⸺d trick! no matter, wait a little.”
She did wait a little in silence, screwing her lips and knitting her brows, and then a new resource struck her, and she groped in her bag and drew forth a bottle, which she applied to her lips more than once, and seemed better. It was no febrifuge nor opiate; but though the flicker of the fire showed no flush on her pallid features, the odour declared it brandy.
XXVIII
The Bell Rings
“Will that beast never go to bed—even there, I mind, she used to sleep with an eye open and an ear cocked—and nowhere safe from her never—here and there, up and down, without a stir or a breath, like a ghost or a devil?”—thought Mrs. Tarnley. “Thank God, she’s blind now, that will quiet her.”
Mildred was afraid of that woman. It was not only that she was cold and hard, but she was so awfully violent and wicked.
“Satan’s her name. Lord help us, in what hell did he pick her up?” Mildred would say to herself, in old times, as with the important fury of fear, she used to knock about the kitchen utensils, and deal violently with every chair, table, spoon, or “cannikin” that came in her way.
The woman had fits, and bad fits too, in old times, when she knew her well.
“And she drank like a fish cognac neat—and she was alive still, and millions of people, younger and better, that never had a fit, and kept their bodies in soberness and temperance, was gone dead and buried since; and that drunken, shattered, battered creature, wi’ her fallin’ sickness and her sins and her years, was here alive and strong to plague and frighten better folk. Well, she’s ’ad smallpox, thank God, and well mauled she is, and them spyin’, glarin’ eyes o’ hers, the wild beast.”
By this time Mrs. Tarnley was again in the kitchen. She did not take down the fire yet. She did not know, for certain, whether Charles Fairfield might not arrive. The London mail that passed by the town of Darwynd, beyond Cressley Common, came later than that divergent stage coach, that changed on the line of road that passes the Pied Horse.
What a situation it would have been if Charles Fairfield and the Vrau had found themselves vis-à-vis as inside passengers in the coach that night. Would the matter have been much mended if the Dutch woman had loitered long enough in the kitchen for Charles to step in and surprise her? It was a thought that occurred more than once to Mildred with a qualm of panic. But she was afraid to hasten the stranger’s departure to her room, for that lady’s mind swarmed with suspicion which a stir would set in motion.
“The Lord gave us dominion over the beast o’ the field, Parson Winyard said in his sermon last Sunday; but we ain’t allowed to kill nor hurt, but for food or for defence; and good old Parson Buckles, that was as good as two of he, said, I mind, the very same words. I often thought o’ them of late—merciful to them brutes, for they was made by the one Creator as made ourselves. So the merciful man is merciful to his beast—will ye?”
Mrs. Tarnley interrupted herself sharply, dealing on the lean ribs of the cat, who had got its head into a saucepan, a thump with a wooden spoon, which emitted a hollow sound and doubled the thief into a curve.
“Merciful, of course, except when they’re arter mischief; but them that’s noxious, and hurtful, and dangerous, we’re free to kill; and where’s the beast so dangerous as a real bad man or woman? God forbid I should do wrong. I’m an old woman, nigh-hand the grave, and murder’s murder!—I do suppose and allow that’s it. Thou shalt do no murder. No more I would—no, not if an angel said do it; no, I wouldn’t for untold goold. But I often wondered why if ye may, wi’ a good conscience, knock a snake on the head wi’ a stone, and chop a shovel down smack on a toad, ye should stay your hand, and let a devil incarnate go her murdering way through the world, blastin’ that one wi’ lies, robbin’ this one wi’ craft, and murderin’ t’other, if it make for her interest, wi’ poison or perjury. Lord help my
