Part 21

“Well, Mrs. Cross,” resumed the newcomer, taking up her discourse in a voice tuned to just the same note of melancholy patience as before, “well, Mrs. Cross, as I was a-sayin’, I be a lone ’ooman, a widow ’ooman, and I d’ ’low I must look to be put upon. I bain’t surprised to hear o’ the house bein’ damp and the chimbley smokin’--’tis jest what I mid have expected; and so I’ll tell the agent when I do go for to pay my rent.”

“It did ought to be considered in the rent,” suggested Mrs. Cross.

“It did,” agreed Mrs. Chaffey, and for a moment her eyes assumed an uncommonly wide-awake expression. “I’ll mention it to the gentleman, but I don’t look for much satisfaction--I don’t indeed, Mrs. Cross. A few shillin’s back maybe, and a new chimbley-pot, and toils put right on the roof, and a bit o’ lead paper maybe at back o’ my bed--no more nor that, Mrs. Cross--they’ll not do more than that for a lone ’ooman.”

“And didn’t ye never ha’ no childern?” inquired Mrs. Cross, with her head on one side; “it do seem molloncholy for ye to be left wi’out nobody to do a hand’s turn for ’ee, poor soul.”

Mrs. Chaffey shook her head with a portentous expression.

“A-h-h-h, Mrs. Cross, my dear,” she said, “if there was sich a thing as a bit o’ gratitood in this world, I wouldn’t be left wi’out a creature to do for me at my time o’ life. Childern of my own I have not,” said Mrs. Chaffey, with an air which indicated that the fact was very much to her credit, “but there’s them livin’ now as I’ve been more than a mother to, what have gone and left I in my ancient years--as thankless.”

“Lard, now!” ejaculated her neighbour, much interested; “ye don’t tell I so, Mrs. Chaffey. Somebody what you’ve a-been very good to, I suppose, mum?”

“Good!” echoed Mrs. Chaffey. “Good’s not the word for it, Mrs. Cross. ’Twas my first cousin’s child--a poor little penniless maid what was brought up in a institootion--an orphan, my dear, as hadn’t nobody in the world to look to. Well, when her time was up at the institootion, I come for’ard, and I says, ‘I’ll take her,’ I says; ‘she don’t need to go to service,’ I says. ‘I’m her mother’s cousin,’ I told ’em, ‘and she can come to live wi’ I.’”

“And they were delighted of course,” suggested Mrs. Cross, as she paused impressively.

“No; if you’ll believe me, they fair dathered I wi’ axin’ questions, and wantin’ I to make promises and that. ‘Why didn’t I come and see the maid afore?’ says they, as if ’twas likely, Mrs. Cross, as I’d go trapesin’ off to a institootion to ax arter a maid as was too small to be any good to anybody. Then they did want I to give her wages. Wages to a little bit of a thing as knowed nothin’, and couldn’t do nothin’! ‘No,’ I says, ‘I’ll give her a home,’ I says, ‘and I’ll be a mother to her, and train her same as if she was my own child, but more than that I will _not_ do.’”

“O’ course not,” agreed Mrs. Cross; “lucky enough she was to get sich a good offer, _I_ think.”

“And so you may,” agreed the other solemnly, “and so I did often say to the maid herself. ‘You may think yourself lucky,’ I did say to her often and often; ‘many another,’ I did tell her, ‘’ud put you out on the road when you do behave so voolish. But me! look at the patience I’ve had wi’ you!’ ’Twas a terr’ble voolish maid, Mrs. Cross--she was a bit silly in herself to begin with, and they institootions--Lard, they do never seem to teach a maid a thing as ’ull be a bit o’ use to ’em! She could scrub a stone passage a mile long if she was put to it, but there bain’t no passages in cottages, and she couldn’t so much as peel a potato or wash a cabbage. Well, I did take so much pains wi’ her as a mother could ha’ done--I did make her find out for herself how to hold a knife, no matter how much she did cut herself. ‘Find out,’ I did say; and she _did_ find out. And when grubs come up on the dish wi’ the cabbages, I’d cut off the bits as was nearest to ’em and put ’em on her plate; so she did soon learn, ye see. Sleep! that maid ’ud sleep many an’ many a cold morning arter I’d pulled blankets off her--e-es, there she’d lay so fast as anything, and never take a bit o’ notice till I got a drap o’ cold water--an that didn’t always wake her up all to once. There, she was fair aggravatin’!--when I did get her up at last and get back to bed again, I couldn’t get a wink o’ sleep for thinkin’ on’t.”

“Dear, to be sure! Well now!” commented Mrs. Cross, scratching her elbows appreciatively.

“E-es, indeed,” continued Mrs. Chaffey, warming with her theme. “I did tell her many a time, ‘You’ll come to no good’. Ah, that I did, and she didn’t come to no good neither.”

“Didn’t she though?” queried the other with interest. “Took up with a soldier, very like?”

“Nothin’ o’ the kind. There weren’t no soldiers anywheres near us. ’Twas another kind of a man altogether.”

“A-h-h,” groaned Mrs. Cross sympathetically. “And I s’pose he wouldn’t marry her, mum?”

“E-es, he married her, Mrs. Cross,” responded the widow in a tone of dignified surprise. “E-es, he married her. Indeed he did.”

“But there was carryin’s on, I s’pose?” suggested Mrs. Cross respectfully.

Mrs. Chaffey fixed her with a stony stare.

“I’m not one as ’ud allow no carryin’s on,” she returned loftily. “When the man come and axed Jenny--that was her name--I says to her, ‘Not with my consent,’ I says--well, she took and got married wi’out it.”

“Lard ha’ mercy me,” ejaculated the listener, seeing that she was expected to say something, “well, that was----” she hesitated, “I s’pose the man wasn’t one as you’d ha’ picked for her, Mrs. Chaffey? Maybe,” she added darkly, “he wasn’t in work?”

“He was in work,” replied Mrs. Chaffey solemnly, “reg’lar. Oh, e-es, he was in _work_.”

Mrs. Cross was a good deal mystified, and being too uncertain of her ground to venture on a comment, contented herself with clicking her tongue and turning up her eyes.

“’Tis a queer tale; ’tis indeed,” resumed the widow; “but as I did often say to she arter the job was done: ‘Don’t blame me, Jenny--what you did do, you did do wi’ your eyes open. I’ve a-told you plain,’ I says, ‘I’ve gied ye the best advice. Stay,’ I says, ‘where you’re well off. You’ve a-got a good home,’ I did tell her, ‘and one what is a mother to ye--don’t ye go for to take up with this ’ere stranger.’”

“Ah,” interrupted Mrs. Cross, beginning to think she at last saw daylight, “he was a stranger, was he?”

“He was a man what come to the door,” returned the other impressively, “what come to the door like any tramp. I did take en to be a tramp first off.”

“Oh, and he wasn’t a tramp then?” put in her neighbour, slightly disappointed.

“He _mid_ ha’ been one,” resumed the narrator, with a dignified wave of the hand intended to discourage further unnecessary and frivolous questions. “I’m willing to tell ’ee about it, Mrs. Cross, if you be willing to listen. ’Twas a Sunday of all days. We’d a’ been pretty busy till dinner-time. I’d got Jenny up soon arter four to get through wi’ cleanin’ up--I’m always one what likes to have the place reg’lar perfect, ye know--and by the time I come down for breakfast she’d a’ got everything straight. Well, her an’ me fell out--she did want if ye please to go to church wi’ I--so I says to her, ‘Who’s to get dinner then? Be I to wait on you?’ says I. ‘No,’ I says, ‘you stay at home and do your dooty, and you can go to the childern’s service in the afternoon if you behave well,’ says I. Well, but she wouldn’t hear reason; I did leave her cryin’ like a baby.

“I were a bit late comin’ back--chattin’ to this one and that one, an’ when I got in, what did I see but a strange man by the fire. Ye could ha’ knocked I down wi’ a feather. I did jist drap in the first chair I come to and p’int that way wi’ my finger--I couldn’t get out a word.

“‘Please ye, ma’am,’ says Jenny (I wouldn’t have her callin’ I _Cousin Maria_, d’ye see, a little maid same as her out of a institootion! She did offer to call I so once or twice, but I soon checked her). ‘Please ye, ma’am,’ she says, ‘this ’ere poor chap was so terr’ble cold--froze up he was--he’d a-been walkin’ ten mile an’ more in the snow; and when he axed I to let en in to warm hisself a bit, I didn’t think you’d object.’

“‘You didn’t think I’d object,’ says I. ‘You little good-for-nothin’ hussy! We might ha’ been robbed an’ murdered for all you care.’

“The man turned round laughin’ as impident as ye like. He was a Irishman, Mrs. Cross--I could tell it the very minute I clapped eyes on his face, afore he so much as opened his mouth, and when he did begin to speak, Lard ha’ mercy me! I never did hear sick languidge.”

“Swearin’ an’ that?” questioned Mrs. Cross, with her head on one side.

“Oh no, nothin’ o’ that sort, but sick a queer, ignorant fayshion o’ talkin’. ‘The top o’ the mornin’ to ye, ma’am,’ says he. ‘Is it murther ye’re talkin’ of? Sure, how could I be afther murtherin’ ye when ye weren’t here?’ he says. ‘Don’t ye be afeerd,’ he went on--I can’t really remember his queer talk, but he said he had come over harvestin’ an’ then got laid up wi’ a fever, an’ was a long time in hospital, and now, he said, he was on his way to see a friend who had been in the hospital at the same time, and after that he had the promise of work.

“A reg’lar cock-and-bull story; I didn’t believe a word on’t. I did tell en so.

“‘Why be ye a-trapsin’ the roads then,’ says I, ‘if you’ve a-been invited to stay with a friend?’

“‘I missed my road,’ says he, ‘I took the wrong turn; I shan’t get there till night now,’ he says. ‘I’m a bit weak still with being sick so long, and it’ll take me all my time to get there.’

“‘You’d best be startin’ then,’ says I, p’intin’ to the door. Then if ye’ll believe it that little impident maid ups and interferes.

“‘Oh, ma’am,’ she says, ‘let him bide and eat a bit o’ dinner wi’ us. I’m sure he’s a respectable man, and it’s Sunday and all. And there’s more dinner nor we can eat.’

“Well, I could ha’ shook her--‘I’ll thank ye, Jenny, to mind your own business,’ I says, ‘a little chit like you, what’s kept for charity. Bain’t it enough,’ I says, ‘to be beholden to I for every bit you do put into your own mouth wi’out wantin’ to waste the food what don’t belong to ye on good-for-nothin’ tramps and idlers?’ I says. Then the man gets up.

“‘That’ll do, ma’am,’ he says, ‘I wouldn’t touch bite or sup of yours,’ he says, ‘for fear it ’ud stick in my throat. Good-bye my dear,’ he says to Jenny, ‘an’ blessin’s on your pretty face and your kind heart. Maybe better times ’ull be comin’ for you as well as for me,’ he says.”

“Ah,” put in Mrs. Cross excitedly, “he had summat in his mind about her, you mid be sure.”

Mrs. Chaffey threw out a warning hand once more and pursued her narrative.

“I did give the maid a right-down good talkin’-to, you mid think, but it didn’t seem to do her much good.

“About a week or two arter, I was sendin’ her to fetch the washin’ back--I did use to wash for a lady what lived a mile away, and sometimes carrier did fetch it, and sometimes I did send Jenny. Well, ’twas a heavyish basket, and when I did see her marchin’ back down the path, I says to her:--

“‘You’ve a-been quicker nor I could ha’ looked for,’ I says.

“‘Oh, e-es,’ says she, ‘somebody helped I for to carry it.’

“‘Somebody,’ I says. ‘Who?’

“She went quite red, and opened her mouth and shut it again, and then she says very quick:--

“‘Oh, a man what I met, as said it did seem too heavy for I.’”

“Ah-h-h!” said Mrs. Cross, seizing her opportunity as the other paused for breath, “it was him?”

Mrs. Chaffey resented the other’s eagerness to jump to a conclusion, and continued in a voice of increased sternness, and without noticing the interruption:--

“Next day was a Sunday again. I wasn’t feelin’ so very well, so I did tell her she mid go to church that mornin’ an’ I’d bide at home. Well, that there little maid took so long a-dressin’ of herself as if she was a queen; so arter I’d called her once or twice I just went upstairs an’ looked in at her. I had my soft shoes on, and she didn’t hear I comin’.

“There she was, if you please, a-kneeling before her bed, a-turnin’ of her head this way an’ that, an’ a-lookin’ at herself in a wold lid of a biscuit-box, what she’d picked up somewheres an’ rubbed up till it did seem so bright as silver. There! the little impident hussy; she had stood it up against her pillow, an’ she was a-lookin’ at herself an’ a-holdin’ up a bit o’ blue ribbon, fust under her chin an’ then sideways again her hat.

“‘Jenny,’ I says, an’, dear, to be sure, how the voolish maid did jump!

“‘Lard, ma’am,’ says she, ‘you did fray me!’

“‘What be doin’ there?’ I axes her very sharp. ‘What be doin’ with that there ribbon? Where did you get it?’ I says, for I knowed very well she hadn’t a penny of her own.

“She went so red as a poppy, an’ stood still, gawkin’ at I, wi’out making no answer.

“‘You did steal it, I d’ ’low,’ I says, an’ I gives a kind of a scream.

“Then she did go white, and her teeth fair chattered in her head.

“‘Oh, no, ma’am,’ she cried; ‘no, indeed. It be mine, honest. It was give me.’

“‘Give ye,’ says I. ‘Who give it?’

“Then she did begin a-cryin’ and a-rockin’ of herself backwards an’ forrads. ‘It be mine,’ she sobs; ‘somebody did give it to I.’

“‘_Somebody!_’ I says, an’ the notion come to I all to once. ‘It was never that man as you met on the road yesterday?’

“Not a word would she answer, but goes on cryin’.

“‘Jenny Medway,’ I says to her, ‘I’ll come to the bottom of this here tale if I do have to call Policeman Jackson in for to take ’ee to prison. Tell I the truth this minute, or I’ll run out an’ fetch en. It won’t be the first time as you’ve met that man, whoever he be. Own up, or I’ll call Jackson.’

“Well, she was real scared, an’ she ketched hold o’ my arm:--

“‘Oh don’t, ma’am, don’t do that!’ she says, ‘I’ll tell ’ee--I’ll tell ’ee. ’Twas the man what did come to the door----’

“‘You wicked, wicked wench!’ I says. ‘I d’ ’low ye’ve a-been meetin’ of en regular.’

“‘No, indeed, ma’am,’ she cries, ‘I never set eyes on en since that day, till yesterday, when I did meet en quite accidental-like--an’ he did offer to carry my basket for I, an’ he did put his hand in’s pocket an’ pull out this bit o’ ribbon--he’d a-been carryin’ it about hopin’ to meet I, he did say, for he did think it jist the same colour as my eyes.’”

“Well! well! well!” exclaimed Mrs. Cross, clapping her hands together and shaking her head. “Lard now! dear to be sure! What nonsense-talk, weren’t it, ma’am?”

“I did tell her so indeed,” returned Mrs. Chaffey, severely. “I did tell her plain what I thought of her--‘Courtin’ an’ carryin’ on wi’ a tramp on the road!’ I says.

“‘He bain’t a tramp,’ she cries, quite in a temper, if you please. ‘He’s an honest, respectable young man. He’ve a-got good work now, an’ he be a-lookin’ for to settle.’”

“Ah!” put in the irrepressible Mrs. Cross. “He was lookin’ out for a wife.”

Once more Mrs. Chaffey quelled her with a glance and proceeded:--

“‘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.”