I remember one thing more—an attack which Betty the servant made upon
me one day as I came in through the kitchen where she was churning, and
stopped to ask her for a drink of buttermilk.
“I say, cousin Paul” (she had adopted the family habit of addressing
me generally as Cousin Paul, and always speaking of me in that form),
“something’s amiss with our Phillis, and I reckon you’ve a good guess
what it is. She’s not one to take up wi’ such as you” (not complimentary,
but that Betty never was, even to those for whom she felt the highest
respect), “but I’d as lief yon Holdsworth had never come near us. So
there you’ve a bit o’ my mind.”
And a very unsatisfactory bit it was. I did not know what to answer to
the glimpse at the real state of the case implied in the shrewd woman’s
speech; so I tried to put her off by assuming surprise at her first
assertion.
“Amiss with Phillis! I should like to know why you think anything is
wrong with her. She looks as blooming as anyone can do.”
“Poor lad! you’re but a big child after all; and you’ve likely never
heared of fever-flush. But you know better nor that, my fine fellow!
So don’t think for to put me off wi’ blooms and blossoms and suchlike
talk. What makes her walk about for hours and hours o’ nights when she
used to be abed and asleep? I sleep next room to her, and hear her plain
as can be. What makes her come in panting and ready to drop into that
chair”—nodding to one close to the door—“and it’s ‘Oh! Betty, some water,
please?’ That’s the way she comes in now, when she used to come back
as fresh and bright as she went out. If yon friend o’ yours has played
her false, he’s a deal for t’ answer for; she’s a lass who’s as sweet
and as sound as a nut, and the very apple of her father’s eye, and of
her mother’s too, only wi’ her she ranks second to th’ minister. You’ll
have to look after yon chap, for I, for one, will stand no wrong to our
Phillis.”
What was I to do or to say? I wanted to justify Holdsworth, to keep
Phillis’s secret, and to pacify the woman all in the same breath. I did
not take the best course, I’m afraid.
“I don’t believe Holdsworth ever spoke a word of—of love to her in all
his life. I’m sure he didn’t.”
“Ay, ay! but there’s eyes, and there’s hands, as well as tongues; and a
man has two o’ th’ one and but one o’ t’other.”
“And she’s so young; do you suppose her parents would not have seen it?”
“Well! if you ax me that, I’ll say out boldly, ‘No.’ They’ve called her
‘the child’ so long—‘the child’ is always their name for her when they
talk on her between themselves, as if never anybody else had a ewe-lamb
before them—that she’s grown up to be a woman under their very eyes, and
they look on her still as if she were in her long clothes. And you ne’er
heard on a man falling in love wi’ a babby in long clothes.
“No!” said I, half laughing. But she went on as grave as a judge.
“Ay! you see you’ll laugh at the bare thought on it—and I’ll be bound
th’ minister, though he’s not a laughing man, would ha’ sniggled at th’
notion of falling in love wi’ the child. Where’s Holdsworth off to?”
“Canada,” said I shortly.
“Canada here, Canada there,” she replied testily. “Tell me how far he’s
off, instead of giving me your gibberish. Is he a two day’s journey away,
or a three, or a week?”
“He’s ever so far off—three weeks at the least,” cried I in despair. “And
he’s either married, or just going to be. So there!” I expected a fresh
burst of anger. But no; the matter was too serious. Betty sate down, and
kept silence for a minute or two. She looked so miserable and downcast,
that I could not help going on and taking her a little into my confidence.
“It is quite true what I said. I know he never spoke a word to her. I
think he liked her, but it’s all over now. The best thing we can do—the
best and kindest for her—and I know you love her, Betty——”
“I nursed her in my arms; I gave her little brother his last taste o’
earthly food,” said Betty, putting her apron up to her eyes.
“Well! don’t let us show her we guess that she is grieving; she’ll get
over it the sooner. Her father and mother don’t even guess at it, and we
must make as if we didn’t. It’s too late now to do anything else.”
“I’ll never let on; I know nought. I’ve known true love mysel’, in my
day. But I wish he’d been farred before he ever came near this house,
with his ‘Please Betty’ this, and ‘Please Betty’ that, and drinking up
our new milk as if he’d been a cat. I hate such beguiling ways.”
I thought it was as well to let her exhaust herself in abusing the absent
Holdsworth; if it was shabby and treacherous in me, I came in for my
punishment directly.
“It’s a caution to a man how he goes about beguiling. Some men do it as
easily and innocent as cooing doves. Don’t you be none of ’em, my lad.
Not that you’ve got the gifts to do it, either; you’re no great shakes
to look at, neither for figure, nor yet for face, and it would need be a
deaf adder to be taken in wi’ your words, though there may be no great
harm in ’em.” A lad of nineteen or twenty is not flattered by such an
outspoken opinion even from the eldest and ugliest of her sex; and I was
only too glad to change the subject by my repeated injunctions to keep
Phillis’s secret. The end of our conversation was this speech of hers:
“You great gaupus, for all you’re called cousin o’ th’ minister—many a
one is cursed wi’ fools for cousins—d’ye think I can’t see sense except
through your spectacles? I give you leave to cut out my tongue, and nail
it up on th’ barn door for a caution to magpies, if I let out on that
poor wench, either to herself, or anyone that is hers, as the Bible says.
Now you’ve heard me speak Scripture language perhaps you’ll be content,
and leave me my kitchen to myself.”