Part 19

Miss Cosser snorted.

“I’ve a-repented, my dear, ever since. E-es, I have! Sure I have! Phœbe!”

“Well?”

“I’ve a-been thinkin’--would ye go to church wi’ me now?”

“This minute?” queried Phœbe with alacrity; the muscles of her face relaxed, and she twitched down first one of her rolled-up sleeves and then the other.

“E-es, this very minute; the Reverend ’ull tie us up right enough if I ax en.”

“Gie me a clean apron!” cried Phœbe, turning quickly to Mary Ann and jerking at the string of the very damp garment which protected her dress.

She already wore her hat, and by the time her cousin, who had vanished with a bound, reappeared shaking out the crisp folds of the clean white apron, she had unpinned her skirt.

“Now, then,” she remarked after tying it on, and she fixed her best eye with a business-like air on her Daniel, who had been gazing at her with almost incredulous rapture. He left off embracing the hawthorn and reached the garden gate at the same moment as Phœbe herself; and before Mrs. Cosser, attracted by Mary Ann’s shrieks of enjoyment, had had time to reach the door they had set off arm-in-crook and disappeared round the angle of the lane.

“A TERR’BLE VOOLISH LITTLE MAID.”

The cottage next door to Mrs. Cross had long been occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Frizzel, but when that good couple went to live “Darchester-side” near their married daughter Susan, their discarded dwelling was taken by a respectable widow woman named Chaffey; and on a certain autumn morning she entered into possession.

From under the green “shed” of his cart the carrier extracted a variety of goods and chattels, exciting keen interest in the mind of Mrs. Cross, who, with her nose flattened against the leaded panes of her bedroom window, watched the proceedings closely. The large articles of furniture had arrived on the previous day in a waggon--a wooden bedstead, so solid in construction and uncompromising in shape that its legs had hung over the edge; an oak settle and carved linen chest at which Mrs. Cross had turned up her nose, deeming them “terr’ble old-fayshioned”.

She was better pleased with the parlour suite of painted wood cushioned with brightly coloured cretonne--couch, armchair and three small chairs; the lot must have cost at least three pound ten, thought Mrs. Cross, for she had seen the like in the upholsterer’s window at Branston. Her respect for the newcomer immediately increased, and this morning as she squinted down at her from her attic, vainly endeavouring to see all round her at once, she was much impressed by her appearance.

Mrs. Chaffey was a spare woman of middle height, wearing a decent brown stuff gown and grey fringed shawl. Her black bonnet with its yellow flowers was quite “fayshionable” in shape, and though her black kid gloves were unbuttoned and had moreover grown somewhat grey about the finger-tips, they nevertheless conveyed the idea of exceeding respectability.

“Quite a genteel sort o’ body,” commented Mrs. Cross, “and do seem to know what she be about too,” she added a moment later, as Mrs. Chaffey, having entered the house presently emerged again, having changed her headgear for a gathered print sun-bonnet, and protected her dress by the addition of a large white apron.

Mrs. Cross screwed her head in the other angle of the window and again squinted down.

“That’s a feather bed,” she observed as a large tied-up bundle was placed in the expectant arms of the newcomer who clearly staggered beneath its weight; “carrier did ought to carry it for she. Pillows next! And a basket--chaney most like. Fender--fire-irons--kettle--pots and a pan or two--very small ’uns they be. ’Tis but a lone ’ooman they d’ say, she’ll not want so much cookin’--clock--hassock----”

The carrier’s voice now interrupted the inventory: “This ’ere basket, mum--that do make the lot. I hope ye’ll find all reg’lar, mum, and no damage done.”

Mrs. Cross, who had been breathing hard in her excitement, was at this point constrained to polish the window with her apron; by the time the operation was concluded and her nose again applied, Mrs. Chaffey had taken out her purse and was slowly counting out a certain number of coins into the carrier’s hand. Mrs. Cross could not for the life of her see how many, but she observed that the man’s face lengthened.

“Bain’t there nothin’ for luck?” he inquired. “I did take a deal o’ trouble wi’ they arnaments and sich-like.”

“You’ve a-had what I did agree for,” responded Mrs. Chaffey with dignity; her voice was high and clear, and as she spoke she turned towards the cottage with a final air.

“I d’ ’low she’s a bit near,” remarked Mrs. Cross as she retired from the window, rubbing her nose pensively. “Poor Martha Frizzel! She was a good soul, she _was_! Just about!”

She stood a moment looking round the little attic chamber, but without seeing either the somewhat untidy bed with its soiled patchwork quilt, or the washstand with its cracked jug, or the torn curtain pinned half-across the window; she saw instead her neighbour’s shrewd, kindly face bending over a pot of well-stewed tea, or nodding briefly in response to sundry requests for the use of a bucket, or the loan of a pan, and sometimes a few “spuds”.

“Mind you do bring ’em back,” was all Mrs. Frizzel would say. Well, sometimes Mrs. Cross did bring them back, and sometimes Martha came and fetched ’em, but she never made a bit of fuss, and was always as kind and neighbourly as she could be.

Mrs. Chaffey must be getting a bit settled by this time, Mrs. Cross thought, and resolved to pop in and ask how she was getting on. She smoothed her rough hair with the palms of her hands, jerked down her sleeves, which she usually wore rolled up till dinner-time, not because she fatigued herself with over-much work, but because it seemed somehow the proper thing to do of a morning; she twitched her apron straight, pinned over a gap in her bodice--Mrs. Cross was a great believer in the efficacy of pins, and rarely demeaned herself by using a needle and thread--and finally composing her features to an expression of polite and sympathetic interest, strolled leisurely downstairs and into her neighbour’s premises.

Mrs. Chaffey was standing by her table, busily unpacking china, but when the other entered remarking genially that she thought she’d just look in to see how Mrs. Chaffey liked her noo place, and if she could lend a hand anywheres, she came forward with a somewhat frosty smile and set a chair.

“Sit down, won’t ye?” she said. “I’m a bit busy, but there! it do do folks good to set a bit now and then.”

“E-es, indeed, my dear,” responded Mrs. Cross enthusiastically; it was a sentiment she cordially endorsed. “Lard! if a body was to keep upon their legs from morn till night, churchyard ’ud be fuller at the year’s end nor it needs to be. I be pure glad you’ve a-took this ’ere house,” she added graciously, “’tis what I scarce expected as any respectable party ’ud come to it. The chimbley smokes,” said Mrs. Cross delightedly; “there, ’tis summat awful how it do smoke! And in the bedroom the rain and wind do fair beat in when a bit of a storm do come--’tis these ’ere queer little vooty winder-panes--rain comes through them so easy as anything. And the damp! there, Mrs. Frizzel, what lived here last, used to say many a time: ‘Mrs. Cross, my dear,’ she did use to say, ‘the damp do seem to creep into my very bwones’. But I be pure glad to see you here, I’m sure,” she summed up cheerfully, “and ’tis to be hoped as you’ll find it comfortable.”

Mrs. Chaffey’s face, always somewhat plaintive in expression, had become more and more dismal as her neighbour proceeded, and she now heaved a deep sigh.

“I d’ ’low ’twill do for I,” she said gloomily; “I be a lone ’ooman, Mrs. ----?”

She paused tentatively.

“Mrs. Cross be my name, my dear. E-es--Maria Cross. E-es, that be my name, my dear.”

“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.”