“Get o’ my ’ouse!” stammered he,[stammered he,] in a low sort of growl like a dog about to spring.
“Well, I never!” retorted the woman, but she turned a bit pale.
“Get o’ my ’ouse,” panted the man again, “and don’t dare come to me with no more cowardly lies!”
At the word the flush flew back to her cheek.
“Lies!” shrieked she. “Ask the neighbours, ask the ’ole parish, ask the parson if it be a lie as this ’ere brat be Ben Forester’s!”
A shudder ran through him: she noticed it.
“But, Lord love ye,” she said with a brutal laugh, “you know well enough ’tain’t no lies! A blind bat ye was, I know, and so terrible sot on that woman, ye was the very one to be made a ninny on. But the wind do blow, and when smoke flies in yer face ye be bound to wonder where the fire be! You knowed they was old sweet’earts same as others did! Why didn’t ye see to it as they shouldn’t ’ave a chance to get so chummy? Pore soul, she weren’t all bad-like, p’r’aps! It were kind of agin ’er will. I was sorry for ’er, I was, when she took to pinin’ wus ’n ever as soon as ’e were gone to sea, and she in the family way! Why, the little un’ was born afore ’er time, if ye mind, the very night the Mary Jane went down with all ’ands. And as like that pore lad as two peas, it were, when I first dressed it! Why, you won’t go for to say Daisy be like you, I reckon! Nor yet like ’er mother, seein’ as yer wife was black-eyed as a gipsy. But there be none so blind as them as won’t see!”
Mrs. Goodenough had moved towards the door as she finished this speech, her back half turned towards the man, who was standing by the fender. She laughed again as she spoke the last words, the flush of anger still on her cheek.
But it paled once more as she turned to him for a last thrust.
He had stooped and had taken up the poker that lay at his feet: his face was horrible to behold. Wycombe had the name of a kindly man in deed, though surly and chary of speech; everybody said he had spoiled his wife, and was gentle to every woman for her sake; but Mrs. Goodenough opened his door and fled from him that night.