Then in a moment she remembered the little dressmaker, forgotten hitherto. A rush of hot blood suffused Jessie's face. Miss Sophy Coxen had seen, and Miss Sophy Coxen would talk. Not a man, woman, or child in Old Maxham would fail to receive from Miss Sophy a full and detailed description of precisely how Jessie Perkins had looked, had spoken, had acted, upon that notable occasion when she was informed that Jack Groates had met his end.
Jessie could easily picture to herself what would be said. "That poor dear girl Jessie!" Miss Sophy Coxen would remark. "Now would you have thought it? I shouldn't! I didn't know she cared for young Groates any more than for anybody else. But she does! O yes, it is quite certain. I can answer for that. You see, I was told that poor young Groates had been drowned, and when Jessie heard it, why, the poor dear was like a thing demented. She kept saying, 'Jack Groates drowned!' over and over again and she hid her face, and didn't seem half to know where she was. And of course anybody can guess what that sort of thing means!" And so on, and so on.
"It's horrid! Horrid! How could I be so foolish?" cried Jessie. One burning blush followed upon another. "Oh dear, oh dear, what ever shall I do? What can I say? How can I put things right? And if it should come to Jack's ears! Oh! And it will; I know it will! Everybody tells everything to everybody in this horrid place."
Jessie groaned aloud, and another rush of crimson came.
Miss Perkins chose this instant to enter with the promised "basin" of steaming gruel. A dubious expression crept into her long narrow visage as she surveyed Jessie's face. Had she been anything of an experienced nurse, she would have known quickly that the heat was moist in kind, not fever heat. As it was, she took alarm.
"I declare you're as feverish as can be. You weren't that colour downstairs."
"I'm not a scrap feverish." Jessie accentuated the assertion by an added glow. "It's nothing of the sort. I'm not ill one bit, only just nicely warm."
"If I was you, I'd speak the truth another time, and not go along making believe. Your face is es hot as fire; and if that isn't fever, my name isn't Barbara Perkins." A rather rash assertion, since she possessed no other name.
Jessie broke into a nervous giggle.
"It's a chill you've got; and you'll just lay quiet in bed till it's gone. I'll have no more rampaging about, without I give you leave."