“Beautiful!” exclaimed old Mildred, kindling for a moment into her earlier admiration of the French and London finery, with which once this tall and faded beauty had amazed the solitudes of Carwell.
The bleached, big woman smiled—almost laughed with gratified vanity.
“Yes, I was well dressed—something better than the young dowdies and old fromps, in this part of the world. How I used to laugh at them! I went to church, and to the races, to see them. Well, we’ll have better times yet at Wyvern; the old man there can’t live forever; he’s not the Wandering Jew, and he can’t be far from a hundred; and so sure as Charles is my husband, I’ll have you there, if you like it, or give you a snug house, and a bit of ground, and a garden, and a snug allowance monthly, if you like this place best. I love my own, and you’ve been true to me, and I never failed a friend.”
“I’m growing old and silly, ma’am—never so strong as I was took for. The will was ever stronger with Mildred than the body, bless ye—no, no; two or three quiet years to live as I should a lived always, wi’ an eye on my Bible and an eye on my ways—not that I ever did aught I need be one bit ashamed on—no, not I; honest and sober, and most respectable, thank God, as the family will testify, and the neighbours; but I’ll not deny, ’twould be something not that bad, if my old bones could rest a bit,” said old Mildred.
“Ha, girl, they shall; your old bones shall rest, my child,” said the lady.
“They’ll rest some day in the old churchyard o’ Carwell, but not much sooner, I’m thinking,” said Mrs. Tarnley.
“Folly, folly! ole girl! you’ve many a year to go before that journey; you’ll live to see me, Mrs. Vairvield of Wyvern, and it won’t be a bad day for you, old Mildred.”
The “Dutchwoman,” or the old soldier, as they used to call her long ago in this sequestered nook, drawled this languidly, and yawned a long, listless yawn.
“Well, ma’am, if you’re tired, so am I,” said Mildred, a little tartly; “and as for dreamin’ o’ quiet in this world, I ha’ cleared my head o’ that nonsense many a year ago. There’s little good can happen old Mildred now, and less I look for, and none I’ll seek, ma’am; and as for a roof over my head for nothing, and that bit o’ ground ye spoke of, and wages to live on without no work, I don’t believe there’s no such luck going for no one.”
“Listen to me, Mildred,” said the stranger, more sternly than before; “is it because I don’t swear you won’t believe? Hear, now, once for all, and understand: I’ll make that a good day for you that makes me the lady of Wyvern. Sharp and hard I’ve been with those I owed a knock to, but I never yet forgot a friend; you may do me a service tomorrow or next day, mind, and if you stand by me, I’ll stand by you; you need but ask and have, ask what you will.”
“Well, now, ma’am—bah! what talk it is! Lawk, ma’am; don’t I know the world, ma’am, and what sort o’ place it is? I a’ bin promised many a fine thing in my day, and here I am still—old and weary—among the pots and pans every night and mornin’, and up to my elbows in suds every Saturday; that’s all that ever came o’ fine promises to Mildred Tarnley.”
“Well, you used to say, it’s a long lane that has no turn. You’ll have a glass of this?” and she popped the brandy-bottle on the table beside her, with her hand fast on its neck.
“No brandy—no nothing, ma’am, I thank ye.”
“What! no brandy? Pish, girl, nonsense.”
“No, ma’am, I thank ye, I never drinks nothing o’ the sort—a mug o’ beer after washing or the like—but my headache never would abear brandy.”
“Once and away—come,” solicited the old soldier.
“No, I thank ye, ma’am; I’ll swallow nothing o’ the kind, please.”
“What a mule! You won’t have a nip with an old friend, after so long an absence—come, Mildred, come; where’s the glass?”
“Here’s the glass, ’m, but not a drop for me, ma’am; I won’t drink nothing o’ the sort, please.”
“Not from me, I suppose; but if you mean to say you never do, I don’t believe you,” said the Dutchwoman, more nettled, it seemed, than such a failure of good fellowship in Mrs. Tarnley would naturally have warranted. Perhaps she had particularly strong reasons for making old Mildred frank, genial, and intimate that night.
“I don’t tell lies,” said Mildred.
“Don’t you?” said the “old soldier,” and elevated the brows of her sightless eyes, and screwed her lips with ugly ridicule.
Mrs. Tarnley looked with a dark shrewdness upon this meaning mask, trying to discover the exact force of its significance. She felt very uncomfortable.
The blind woman’s face expanded into a broad smile. She shrugged, shook her head, and laughed. How odiously wide her face looked as she laughed! Mildred did not know exactly what to make of her.
“But if you did tell lies,” drawled the lady, “even to me, what does it matter, if you promised to tell no more? So let us shake hands—where’s your hand?”
And she kept shuffling her big hand upon the table, palm upward, with its fingers groping in the air like the claws of a crab upon its back.
“Give me—give me—give me your hand, I say,” said she.
“ ’Tain’t for the like o’ me,” replied Mildred, with grim formality.
“You’d better be friendly. Come, give me your hand.”
“Well, ma’am, ’tain’t for me to dispute your pleasure,” answered the old servant, and she slipped her hard fingers upon
