I’m sure I never witnessed in all my life such a scene as followed. I declare that Norah went on more like a mad thing than a Christian. At one moment, she was crying like a child, at another, she was raving like a maniac. Now she was all penitence, and the very next minute, her eyes were starting out of her head, and she was swearing to be revenged; and she had no sooner finished blessing us, in case we let her stop, than she would set to work and heap on our heads, if we sent her away, all kinds of the most dreadful curses one could think of, and which quite made my flesh crawl, I declare.
But Edward was very stern, and wouldn’t give in in the least; so that at last, Norah, finding all her tears thrown away upon us, and that she was only wasting her breath by going on in the way she did, turned round, and swearing that we shouldn’t send her away, went down to the kitchen again. On going to the top of the stairs and listening, I could hear her muttering all kinds of dreadful things against me, though I’m sure I hadn’t given her warning, and couldn’t see that I had done so much towards her, after all. But the fact was, the creature I knew had had a spite against me ever since she set foot in the house.
I went back into the parlour, and asked Edward just to come and listen how the woman was raving, but he is such a stupid, obstinate man, that he wouldn’t oblige me, and said that it was a meanness that any decent person would be ashamed of doing.
Really I was so frightened of the woman after what I had heard her say she would do to me, that I asked Edward whether he hadn’t better make it up with her this once, and tell Norah that she might stop—for as she had promised to work night and day for us, it really struck me that she couldn’t do more, and that she was a treasure that we ought not to think of parting with just for a hasty word or so. But of course Mr Sk—n—st—n must have his own way, and can’t believe any one to be in the wrong but his wife, for he merely answered, that it was ridiculous to think of it, for Norah was as combustible as a barrel of gunpowder, and I was no better than a brimstone match to her. Whereupon I very properly said that I didn’t know what on earth he meant by his brimstone indeed, and that as for the matter of matches he needn’t talk, for I could tell him that he was more than a match for anybody—so come! Then he went on with some more of his high-flown rubbish upon what I had said about the woman’s own offer to work night and day for us, telling me that I seemed to look upon all servants as mere bundles of muscles, without for one moment thinking that the poor things had a heart as well as I had; to which I, with my usual satire, answered—“Did I! then it only showed how much he knew about it.”
As soon as Mr. Sk—n—st—n had left the house, and I had seen him well off, I just slipt on my bonnet and shawl, and stept round to dear mother’s, to ask the good soul for some of her valuable advice under the painful circumstances.
Dear mother said she was truly gratified to find me flying to her bosom in my moments of peril, and told me, with beautiful affection, that she only lived for me and my father’s business now; though what with her duty to me and my husband, my coming to her did place her so awkwardly, that she really felt as if she was between two fires, and if she turned her face to one, she would have the other on her back. She said it all amounted to this—If she rowed in the same boat as myself, and went against Edward, she must run him down in my presence, which would pain her much to do; or else she must throw me overboard, and sink her own child in order to find favour in Mr. Sk—n—st—n’s eyes; so that I must see what a trying position hers was, and how wrong it was of me, as matters stood, to ask her to express any opinion upon my husband’s shameful, indecent, and, she would add, unmanly conduct. Of course, it would never do for her, she said, to tell me that he had behaved to me worse than a savage. But still this she would say, that if her husband, my own father, had behaved to her one half as brutally as Mr. Sk—n—st—n had to me, that she would not have stopped in the house of the monster another moment; and that though he had come after her the very next day, begging and praying of her to return—as of course he would—still she would have turned a deaf ear to all his entreaties, and insisted upon having a handsome separate maintenance from the wretch, and never willingly have set eyes upon him again. Not that she wished me to understand that she was counselling me to do anything of the kind—far from it; for, as she truly observed, she trusted she knew herself too well to be in any way instrumental to the separation of husband and wife; as it must be very clear to me, she added, that if through anything she said, I might be induced to pack up whatever dresses and jewellery Mr. Sk—n—st—n had presented me with, and leave my ungrateful husband for ever, that maybe, when my dear little innocent babe was born, I might repent of my rash step, and visit her with it. This, she told me, she felt would be a dreadful punishment to her, and a return, indeed, that she little dreamt of. So she really must again beg and pray to be allowed to remain perfectly neutral in the business; especially as from the insight she had had into Mr. Sk—n—st—n’s character of late, she was sure that he would not act towards me as he ought, but would settle on me an allowance that would scarcely procure me the common necessaries of life. And how I was to live then, she would not attempt to say.
Concerning Norah, however, she said it was quite a different thing, and that she felt no such delicacy about taking that matter in hand, as, from the experience she had had in the management of servants, (which, of course, Mr. Sk—n—st—n could not possibly understand anything about, or he would have known that kindness was utterly thrown away upon the creatures,) she flattered herself that she would very soon bring the woman to her senses, indeed. So she would slip her things on that very moment, and step round with me to Miss Norah, although I told her that she was too good to me, and that I was afraid that I was riding the willing horse to death when I saddled her with the baggage.
When we reached our cottage orné, I allowed dear mother to go down into the kitchen by herself, thinking it best not to interfere between her and that spitfire of a Norah, as there was no knowing what the consequences might be. I shouldn’t think she could have been away five minutes, when up she came rushing into the room, with her face as white as the head of a cauliflower, and all of a tremble, just like a steam-boat. As soon as she had recovered her breath, (which indeed, has been bad for these many years past,) she declared that it was quite a mercy she had even been able to escape with her life up the kitchen stairs, as she never had stood face to face with such a fury in all her born days before; for directly she told the woman that she ought to be ashamed of herself for the way in which she had treated so kind a mistress, and that, for her part, she only wished that she had the management of her, and she would take good care to rule her with a rod of iron,—when, no sooner had she said as much, than the dragon screamed out, “A rod of iron, is it?” and snatching up the heavy kitchen poker, swore that, by the powers, if mother didn’t lave the kitchen directly, she would crack her ugly ould nob for her like a cocoa-nut, saying the likes of her had no rights in the kitchen at all at all, and she’d just tache her not to put her foot in it agin. Then she twisted about the great heavy kitchen poker over her head, and began capering and screaming away, and then, giving vent to a horrible oath, the fury flew after poor dear mother, and followed her half way up the kitchen stairs; and mother said she really believed if the vixen could have caught hold of her, that she would have been a melancholy corpse that moment—adding, that if she were me, she would go down stairs that very minute, and turn the blood-thirsty tigress out of the house, neck and crop. When I very properly observed, that as she had so kindly undertaken the management of the creature for me, I felt I should not like to take it out of her hands, she said that as Norah Connor seemed to object very naturally to her interference, she would have nothing more to do with her—as, upon second thoughts, it certainly was no place of hers.
When my mother found that I was determined not to have anything more to do with Miss Norah, she said that if I chose to let the fury remain in the house, I must abide by the consequences, and that if the spiteful creature poisoned the whole family, I must not blame her. Indeed, the woman was clearly so mad about leaving, that mother would stake her existence that it wouldn’t be long before the vixen gave us such a dose of arsenic—either in the pudding, the soup, or the vegetables, or something—as would put a miserable end to both Edward and myself. And I declare dear mother frightened me so by what she said, that I really couldn’t get the arsenic out of my head for weeks.
Edward only laughed at me for my suspicions, and called me a stupid woman, and pooh-poohed me in a most unfeeling manner. But the worst of it was, that though he assured me he knew the disposition of Norah Connor better than I did, still everything conspired to convince me that I was a doomed woman—for the very day dear mother had filled my mind with the horrid idea, I declare, if I didn’t knock down the looking-glass off the dressing-room table and break it all to shivers, which of course fully persuaded me that a death must shortly occur in the family. And again, one evening, after tea, when I was sitting by the fire with dear Edward, if as perfect a coffin as ever I saw in all my life didn’t jump out from between the bars, and fell upon the hearth-rug just close to my feet, while upon turning round, who can imagine my horror when I saw hanging to the side of the candle one of the clearest winding-sheets that I think I ever beheld.