"Curse him!" muttered Gurdon, as he left the room; "a purse-proud,
haughty brute! looks upon a servant as if he were a dog. I know him,
though--read him like a book--turn him inside out like a glove. Waited
on him, served him as I have all these years, and yet, because a man
can't help giving way just a trifle to his weakness, he's to be
threatened always with the sack. He won't send me away, though, not
he--he knows better. Read him like a book I can, and he knows it too.
Pride must have a fall, and he's full of it--running over with it. Just
as if one man wasn't as good as another. Discharge me, will he?
Perhaps I'll discharge myself before he has the chance. Sitting and
sulking there in his old library, day after day. I haven't forgotten
the old affair. I ain't blind, and I'll tell him so as soon as I look
at him. Here, hi! Jane!"
Mr Gurdon's legs had conveyed him, as he went on muttering, as far as
the housekeeper's room, when, seeing the flutter of a garment just
turning a corner at the end of the passage, he called out, and Jane
Barker, rather red of eye, turned round and confronted him.
"Here, come in here, Jenny, I want to talk to you," he said, catching
her by the hand, when, without a word, she followed him into the
housekeeper's room, and he closed the door.
"I knew he hadn't," said Jane, who had been watching him from a
distance, and had seen him enter and leave the library, "you wouldn't
have looked cross like that, John, if he had."
"He don't dare!" said Gurdon, insolently. "It's all smoke, and he knows
now that I'm not blind. Discharge me, indeed! I'll discharge myself,
and have something for holding my tongue into the bargain! Don't tell
me: I can read him like a book, and his pride will humble itself before
me like a schoolboy's. Now, look here, Jenny: there's been enough
nonsense now. We've been courting years enough, and you've saved up a
bit of money. Let's go at once. I've saved nothing; but I've had my
eyes open, and if I don't leave the Castle a hundred pounds in pocket
it's a strange thing to me. I'm sick of it, I am; and I know of a
decent public-house to let over at Blankesley, where the iron-pits are.
There'll be no end of trade to it, so let's get married and take it.
Now, what do you say?"
"Say?" exclaimed Jane Barker, whose face had been working, while her
lips were nipped together, and her arms crossed over her breast, as if
to keep down her emotion--"say? Why, that sooner than marry you, and
have my little bit of money put in a public-house, for you to be pouring
it down your throat all day, I'd go into the union! I'll own that I
did, and I have, loved you very, very much; but you've half broke my
heart with seeing you, day after day, getting into such sotting ways.
You know you wouldn't have been here now if it hadn't been for me going
down on my knees to my own dear, sweet lady, to ask her not to complain,
when you've gone up to her, time after time, not fit to be seen, and
smelling that horrid that tap-rooms was flower-gardens compared to you!
And now, after all her kindness and consideration, you talk like that!
I'm ashamed of you--I'm ashamed of you!"
And Jane burst into tears.
"Now, don't be a fool, Jenny! What's the good of being so squeamish,
and talking such nonsense? We've both had enough of this place, and,
without anything to trouble me, I should never touch a drop from month's
end to month's end."
"No, John--no, John," she said, disengaging herself from the arm that he
had put round her. "I'll never marry a man who drinks. I'd give you my
bit of money if I thought it would do you good; but you've drunk till
it's made you hard, and cruel, and suspicious, and wicked; and, though
I've never said nothing, I've thought about all your wicked hints and
suspicions. And as to being tied up to a man who was going to get money
by telling lies of other people, I'd sooner go down and jump into the
lake--that I would!"
"'Tisn't lies," said Gurdon, sulkily: "it's truth, and you know it is."
"It is not, you bad, wicked fellow!" cried Jane, firing up, and stamping
one foot upon the floor.
"'Tis truth, and he knows it too, my fine, fierce madam!"
"What! have you dared to say a word, or drop one of your nasty,
underhanded hints?" cried Jane.
"Never mind," said Gurdon, maliciously. "I've not studied him all these
years for nothing. Perhaps I know something about letters--perhaps I
don't; perhaps I've seen somebody savage about somebody else taking long
walks, after being sulky and upset about what's to happen now after all
these years; perhaps I haven't seen anything of the kind, but I ain't
blind. I haven't forgotten what took place six years ago, and now we're
going--good luck to us!--to have an anniversary. I hope everybody will
be there to keep it, that's all I've got to say."
"Oh, you serpent!" cried Jane, pale with rage. "You bad, wicked fellow!
You're like the scorpion in the Holy Bible, you are, that turns to rend
the hand that fed it. Oh!" she cried, growing gradually more and more
furious, "to think that I've wasted all my best days about such a
traitor--such a cruel, malicious, spiteful, dirty story-teller! Shame
on you! How dare you, you villain, hint at such wickedness about my
poor dear sweet mistress, whose dear heart is as pure as an angel's--a
sweet, suffering lamb?"
"A sweet, suffering lamb, indeed!" cried Gurdon, savagely. "Yah!
There's a pair of you--she-wolves, more likely."
"Then I'll be the wolf that shall shake such a nasty lying cur as you!"
cried Jane, furiously. "Go down on your knees, you wicked--wicked--
nasty--story-telling--villain--you, or I'll shake all the breath out of
your body!"
In effect, beside herself with rage, Jane had caught the butler by the
collar with both hands, and at every word she had given him a furious
shake, till, utterly confounded at the suddenness of the attack, he had
really, to avoid the onslaught, sunk upon his knees, enabling her,
though, to deliver the correction more effectually.
"Say it was all stories--say it was all stories," cried Jane.
"I won't: it's all as true as true, and her--"
"Take that, you wicked villain!" shrieked Jane; and with the full force
of her by no means weak arm, she slapped him across the mouth just as
the door opened, and a knot of eager, curious servants appeared.
"What is the matter?" was the cry.
"Let him say a word if he dares," cried Jane, ending her punishment by a
tremendous box on the butler's ears, to the intense delight of the
lookers-on. "He told lies about me, and I hit him--there!" said Jane
defiantly, "and let him say it isn't true if he dares."
Then, utterly exhausted by her efforts, poor Jane threw herself,
sobbing, into a chair.
"Oh, take me away!--take me away!" she cried; and two of the
sympathising women ran to her, declaring that it was a shame, that it
was; while the stout cook delivered her opinion that it would be a
blessing if there wasn't a man left on the face of the earth, "breaking
poor women's hearts as was faithful unto death."
Whereupon one of the footmen winked at a very smart and aspiring
kitchen-maid, who had whispered to him her suspicions respecting cook's
possessing a similar weakness to Mr Gurdon's, and requiring stimulants
for the due invention of fresh dishes.
"It's a pity that people don't know their places," said Gurdon, sulkily,
"and keep to the kitchen and hall, instead of pushing themselves into
the housekeeper's room, where they're not wanted."
But somehow, the butler's words had but very little effect, for in spite
of their knowledge of his engagement to Jane Barker, and her great
influence in domestic matters with her mistress, John Gurdon's tenure at
the Castle was held to be in a very insecure state.
Nobody therefore stirred--Mr Gurdon's hint evidently not being
sufficiently potent; so, with a scowl at the sobbing woman, he turned
and left the room, to don a fresh cravat--the present one being limp,
crumpled, and displaying very clearly the encounter in which he had been
engaged.
"Let them look out, some of them," he cried, wrathfully, as soon as he
was alone. "If I'm to be dragged down, I'll pull somebody with me, so
let them look out, that's all I've got to say;" and with a savage scowl
upon his face, he brought down his fist with a heavy blow upon the table
by which he stood.
Book 1, Chapter XV.