“‘An’ be he wantin’ you to settle wi’ en?’ I axed the maid straight-out.
“She hangs her head, an’ begins a-playin’ wi’ the buttons of her bodice.
“‘He did say so,’ she says, very low; ‘he did ax I to walk wi’ en an’
think it over--he be gettin’ good wage,’ she says, lookin’ up at me.
‘He says he’ll do all what he can for me--I think I could like en very
well--I d’ ’low he be a good man.’”
Mrs. Cross clicked her tongue and shook her head with an air of
disapproval.
“Yes, indeed, my dear,” cried Mrs. Chaffey warmly, “that was my own
opinion. My dooty did stare I in the face.”
“‘Put that there notion out of your head, Jenny,’ I says to her, very
firm, ‘for I’ll never hear on’t--never!’ I says. ‘If you was a-thinkin’
o’ meetin’ that idle good-for-nothin’ fellow this mornin’, you may give
up the notion. Take off your hat,’ I says, ‘an’ put by that jacket of
yours. Outside this house you don’t set foot this day. You bide at
home,’ I says.”
Mrs. Cross looked dubious at first, but catching the other’s severe
eye, shook her head once more in an impersonal way, and folded her arms
with an appearance of great unconcern.
“The way that maid did go on,” pursued Mrs. Chaffey, “was scandalous,
quite scandalous, I do assure ’ee. She cried an’ sobbed, and acskally
tried for to dodge round to the door, but I were too quick for her. I
nipped out first, and turned the key in the lock.
“Well, if you’ll believe me, jist about dinner-time, who should come
walkin’ up to the house as bold as brass, but my gentleman himself, an’
before I could shut door in’s face if that little bold hussy didn’t
call out to en from the window: ‘I’m locked in, Mr. Connor, I’m locked
in!’
“‘Locked in, are ye?’ says he; an’ for the minute I was frightened at
the looks of en.
“If ye’ll believe me, Mrs. Cross, the fellow walks straight into the
house, makin’ no more o’ me nor if I wasn’t there. He pushes past I,
and marches upstairs and bursts open the door o’ Jenny’s room.
“‘Locked in, are ye?’ he says. ‘I’ll soon settle that. Come down,
asthore’--E-es, ’twas some such name as that he did call her--‘come
down, asthore. I’ve a little word to say to ye, an’ I want this good
lady to hear it as well as yerself.’
“‘I’ll call the police,’ I says. ‘I’ll call them in a minute,’ I says.”
“I’d a-done that, I’m sure,” cried Mrs. Cross. “I’m sure I would.
Housebreakin’ ye know. _Did_ ye call ’em?” she added, as Mrs. Chaffey
seemed to hesitate.
“Well, no, my dear,” returned that lady. “I did not. I was all shaky
an’ trembley like. Besides,” she added, casting up her eyes, “I be
always for peace, Mrs. Cross. ‘Peace an’ quietness,’ is my motto. I
could no more break the law o’ Christian lovin’ kindness nor--nor
anything, Mrs. Cross.”
“‘Now, Jenny, alanna,’” says the man, ‘you an’ me was talkin’
yesterday, so I may as well come to the p’int at once. I want a home,
an’ you want a home.’
“‘You make a mistake,’ says I, ‘the girl does _not_ want a home. Jenny
has got a good home--a better home nor she do deserve,’ I says.
“‘A pretty home!’ says he; ‘a prison! Don’t mind her, me darlin’. Just
look me in the face, an’ tell me will ye have me?’
“‘I will,’ she says, so bold as brass--the little barefaced, impident
wench! I did really blush for her.
“‘Then,’ says he, ‘I’ll put up the banns on Sunday, an’ the two of us
’ull be j’ined together before the month’s out.’
“Well! To think of the chap settlin’ everythin’ straight off, an’ she
givin’ in wi’out so much as a question! I stood gawkin’ at ’em both,
wi’ my tongue quite speechless. Then the chap goes up to Jenny, and
says he:--
“‘I’m sorry we can’t walk out by ourselves,’ he says, ‘but we must do
wi’out that.’ An’ before my very eyes, Mrs. Cross, he puts his arm
round her waist, an’ kisses her. ‘I’ll strive to be a good husband to
ye,’ says he, ‘an’ I’ll engage I’ll have the best little wife in the
world.’
“Then he turns round to I an’ whips off his hat, jist out o’ pure
impidence.
“‘Good mornin’ to ye, ma’am,’ he says; ‘I’m afraid its losin’ yer black
slave ye’ll be.’”
“_Oh!_” interrupted Mrs. Cross, much scandalised. “Such a thing to say.”
“E-es, indeed,” responded Mrs. Chaffey, “an’ me as had a-been so good
to her. I did tell her so, so soon as I’d got my breath. ‘Me, what has
been a mother to ye,’ I did tell her, ‘that ye should go a-backbitin’
o’ I an’ a-sayin’ such things.’
“‘I never said nothin’, ma’am,’ says she.
“Such a story. It do stand to reason as if she must ha’ gone abusin’ o’
I.”
“Maybe he thought of hissel’ you was a bit hard on her,” said Mrs.
Cross, struck by a brilliant idea.
The inspiration, however, was not a happy one apparently. Mrs. Chaffey
took great umbrage, and it was, indeed, some time before her neighbour
could pacify her sufficiently to induce her to continue her tale.
“I did talk to her kind, an’ I did talk to her sharp,” she resumed, in
an aggrieved tone. “But no; she wouldn’t hear reason, an’ at last I did
fair lose patience.
“‘Well, then,’ says I, ‘I be done wi’ ’ee; I’ll ha’ no more to say to
’ee from this out. If you do leave yer good home,’ I says, ‘an’ desert
one what’s the same as yer mother, I be done wi’ ’ee. Mark my words,’ I
did tell her, ‘this ’ere marriage’ll turn out unlucky. You’ll repent it
all the days of your life.’”
“Ah!” said Mrs. Cross, sucking in her breath with gruesome relish. “An’
she did, Mrs. Chaffey, I should think. She _did_.”
“She did ought to,” returned Mrs. Chaffey, impressively, and paused.
“I d’ ’low she hasn’t done so very well for herself?” insinuated the
other. “She hasn’t a-got such a very good home.”
Mrs. Chaffey rubbed her nose and coughed, but apparently did not feel
called upon to enter into particulars as to the recreant Jenny’s
domicile.
“Her man be out o’ work pretty often, I dare say?” hinted Mrs. Cross.
“Not as I’ve heerd on, so far,” returned her neighbour, in a tone which
implied that Mr. Connor would probably find himself thrown upon the
world in a very short time.
“Any family, my dear?”
“Two,” replied the widow. “Two childern, Mrs. Cross--a boy an’ a girl.”
“You haven’t ever seen them, of course?”
“E-es, my dear,” responded Mrs. Chaffey, with a superior air. “I do see
’em two or three times a year. I bain’t one for to bear malice. When
her ’usband do drive her over on a Bank Holiday I could never have the
’eart for to shut my door i’ their faces.”
“Drive over!” exclaimed Mrs. Cross. “They must be free wi’ their dibs
to go throwin’ ’em about on car-hire.”
“It don’t cost them nothin’,” said Mrs. Chaffey hastily. “’Tis their
own trap.”
Mrs. Cross gasped.
“They keeps a trap! They must be pretty well off.”
Seeing that this remark was evidently unpleasing to her new friend, she
obsequiously hastened to allude to what she felt sure must be a genuine
grievance.
“An’ not a bit grateful, as you was a-sayin’ jist now! She don’t
remember, I shouldn’t think, all what you’ve a-done for her. She don’t
never make you no return I d’ ’low. She don’t never give ’ee nothin’,
do she?”
“Nothin’ to speak of,” retorted the other, peevishly, and closed her
mouth with a snap.
“Such as half a dozen fresh eggs, I suppose?” suggested Mrs. Cross.
“She wouldn’t ever give ’ee a fowl now, would she? Would she?” she
persisted, as Mrs. Chaffey did not answer. “I shouldn’t think she’d
ever give ’ee a fowl. Lard, no, not a fowl--would she?”
Mrs. Chaffey was at length goaded into an answer.
“If she did it wouldn’t be so very much. I wouldn’t think meself at
all beholden to her--no, that I wouldn’t. Seein’ that she’s got dozens
of ’em a-runnin’ about her place, I don’t think I need be so very
thankful if she do spare a couple every now an’ then, an’ a ham at
Christmas, wi’ all the pigs they’ve got.”
“A ham!” ejaculated Mrs. Cross. “A _ham_! Why, they _must_ be doin’
pretty well!”
“Well--not so bad,” conceded Mrs. Chaffey, very unwillingly. “Connor,
he did take a kind o’ little farm a few year ago, a kind o’ dairy farm.
They’ve a-got pigs an’ chickens an’ sich-like--a deal of ’em. I hope
there mayn’t be too many,” she added darkly. “I hope they mayn’t be
a-livin’ too free an’ a-spendin’ too fast. I hope not. I hope there
mayn’t be a day o’ reckonin’ comin’.”
She shook her head in an ominous manner, and Mrs. Cross hastened to
follow her example.
“They bain’t a-layin’ anything by, ye may be sure,” she exclaimed
conclusively.
A kind of spasm crossed the other lady’s face, and she rose hastily,
remarking that if she didn’t begin to straighten up a bit she wouldn’t
get the house put to rights before bedtime.
Mrs. Cross took the hint, rose likewise, and backed meditatively
towards the door.
“Well, ’tis a strange tale what you’ve a-told I, Mrs. Chaffey, an’ I do
feel for ye terr’ble. As for that there voolish----”
She paused suddenly, a slow grin dawning on her face.
“She don’t seem to ha’ done so very bad for herself, after all,” she
remarked, and vanished.