“Not if ye pay yer way as ye should do,” said the post-mistress sententiously. “Folk ’as been kind cos o’ yer misfortune, but ’tain’t in reason they should keep it up. I’ve ’eard tell as ye ’an’t so much as paid for the smart funeral ye thought fit to ’ave a year ago.”
A spark of anger flew to Lucy’s weary eyes.
“Then it’s a lie!” she cried. “If I’d owed for the bread I put into the children’s mouths, I’d ha’ paid for that! And I don’t see what business it is o’ nobody’s neither if I chose to spend my money so as my own ’usbin’ should be nailed down in a coffin better nor some.”
She ended in a whimper, and sat shaking, the tears slowly trickling down her cheeks. But the post-mistress had no mercy. She was incensed at being thus set at naught, and put no guard on her tongue.
“Ye’ll ’ave them children on the parish,” she said, “and a disgrace to ye it’ll be! Ye ’ad wits enough and spunk enough so long as ’e was to do for! Didn’t ye wrong ’em enough whiles ’e was livin’ but what ye must wrong ’em worse now the Lord ’ave mercifully delivered ye from ’im? I’m ashamed of ye, Lucy Wood! And all for the sake o’ a drunken blackguard as couldn’t so much as keep ’isself to ye!”
Lucy had said she would never be the woman she was; but in a moment all her old energy returned to her.
“What d’ye mean?” she said.
“Well, if ye don’t know ye’d p’ra’ps best should,” said the post-mistress, half ashamed yet determined to have her say. “I mean as yer man....”
But she stepped aside hurriedly, for Lucy had risen tottering to her feet, and stood pointing to the road.
“Get out o’ ’ere!” interrupted she fiercely, her whole little body trembling with rage. “I know well enough what ye mean! But if ye dare so much as breathe a word agin my man in my ’ouse, I’ll knock ye down them stairs.”