"Ay, well, next time you feel sure of anything, you can make certain you're dead wrong!" she told him cruelly, surveying his bland countenance with cold contempt. "Jim's my eldest, if you want to know, and as much the better o' Geordie as Blindbeck's the better o' yon mudhole down on the marsh! He was always the smarter lad o' the two,--'tisn't likely he'd ha' been left.... I'll lay what you like it's Jim as is really coming, after all!"
"But in that case you would surely have heard from him yourself?" Elliman was still disporting himself with the brazen folly of innocence upon the forbidden ground. "He'd have written to tell his mother, surely,--not his aunt?"
A distinct thrill of apprehension ran through the company at this tactful speech. Mary Phyllis's nudge on this occasion was one of sharp reproof. The clouds thickened on Eliza's brow.
"Nay, then, he just wouldn't, Mr. Clever-Lad-Know-All, so that's that! I'm his mother right enough, as nobody but a fool would ha' needed telling, but he wouldn't ha' written me, all the same. Me and Jim got across a while back, and he's taken sulks with me ever since. He'd be like enough to write to Sarah, by way of giving me back a bit o' my own. She always cockered him fearful, did Sarah, and set him agen me whenever she could. And if there's brass about, as she says, she'll keep it warm for him, never fear! She'll take right good care it never gets past her to Blindbeck or any of his own!"
"Jim would ha' been right enough but for Geordie all along." Mrs. Addison shook a loose and agile bonnet with an impressive air. "He was a right-down nuisance, was Geordie Thornthet,--a bad lad as well as a reg'lar limb! Such tricks as he was up to, I'm sure,--turmut-lanterns and the like, booin' at folks' winders after dark, and hiding behind hedges when folk was courtin' about t'lanes! Stephen and me wasn't wed then, you'll think on, and I mind a terble fright as Geordie give us one summer night. Stephen was terble sweet on me, as you'll likely know, though he'd choke himself black in the face afore he'd own to it now. Well, yon night as I'm speaking of he had hold o' my hand, and was looking as near like a dying duck in a thunderstorm as ever I see. 'Jenny Sophia,' he was saying, as sweet as a field of clover, 'I'm that set on you, Jenny Sophia'--when up pops Geordie on t'far side o' the hedge, girning and making a hullaballoo like a donkey afore rain!"
"You've no call to go raking up yon d--d rubbish!" Mr. Addison burst out, crimson to the hair, and quite forgetting the obligations of his Christian mission. He had said the same thing to Eliza's eldest lass, and much about the same time, and knew that Eliza knew it as well as he. "Folks isn't right in their heads when they're courtin', as everybody knows, and it's real mean to bring it agen 'em after all these years. As for Geordie Thornthet, there was lile or nowt I could learn him, and that's sure! T'lasses was always after him like bees at a bottle o' rum."
"Nay, now, you mean our Jim!" Jim's mother corrected him with an air of offence. "Nobody never reckoned nowt o' Geordie but May Fleming. He couldn't hold a candle to Jim, any day o' the week. Folk said they couldn't tell 'em apart, but I never see a scrap o' likeness myself." She glanced defiantly round the table, as if expecting opposition, and then swung round eagerly as Sally reappeared. "Well, my lass, well?" she rapped out,--"did she tell you anything more? You've taken your time about coming back, I'm sure!"
"Nay, she said nowt fresh," Sally answered evasively, without meeting her eyes. She advanced to the table and began to gather the china together, ready for clearing away. Her mother pushed back her chair with an angry scrape.
"Well, of all the gert, helpless gabies!" she exploded violently. "I made sure she'd talk when she'd gitten you by herself. Didn't she say when letter come, or how much brass there was, or owt? ... Eh, well, it's never Geordie as made it, that I'll swear!"
"She said it was Geordie." Sally went on mechanically with her task, collecting cups and plates from under the noses of the still-stupefied clan. "It's real nice, anyway, to see somebody happy," she added suddenly, raising her eyes to look at the smug cousin. Elliman met them unexpectedly and coloured furiously. On a sudden remorseful impulse he shuffled a couple of plates together, and handed them to her with a deprecating air.