‘Rubbish! Nonsense! What are you talking about?’ exclaimed the old farmer angrily. ‘A discharged servant! Why, didn’t you tell mother and me that you gave his lordship warning yourself? Haven’t you told the truth about your leaving? Is there anything hid under it all as we know nothing about? Come, now, no more secrets, if you please; let us have the plain truth at once, or I will go up the first thing in the morning and see his lordship myself.’
‘Lor’, father, don’t be so hard on the lass!’ exclaimed his wife. ‘You’ve turned her as white as a lily with your noise. What should be under it, except that the maid wanted to come home? And time enough, too, after being three years away. Don’t you mind him, Nell, my girl. He’s just put out and cranky about the cow. If you don’t want to see his lordship, why, no more you shall. Here, sup up your beer and get to bed. I don’t half like the way in which you flushes on and off. It’s just how my sister’s girl went off in a waste. You sha’n’t be worried to do anything as you don’t wish to, take my word for it.’
‘That’s how you fools of women go on together, without a thought of the business, and how it’s going to the devil,’ grumbled her husband. ‘Here’s Lord Ilfracombe come here, as you may say, in the very nick o’ time, and Nell the very one to ask a favour of him, and you cram her head with a pack o’ nonsense about not going near him. Sir Archibald is going to raise the rent, and send us all to the workhouse, when a word from his lordship might turn his mind the other way, especially if Nell put it to him, on account of her long service and good character, and you tell her not to do it. Bah! I’ve no patience with you.’
‘Oh, that’s a different thing,’ quoth the old woman. ‘If Nell can get Lord Ilfracombe to plead with Sir Archibald on our account, why, of course, she’ll do it, for her own sake as well as for ours; won’t you, my lass?’
‘Plead with Lord Ilfracombe!’ cried Nell hysterically. ‘No, no, indeed, I cannot. What has he to do with Sir Archibald’s rents? He is only a guest in the house. It would be too much to ask. It would place him in an unpleasant position. I would not presume to do such a thing.’
Both her parents rounded on her at once.
‘Well, of all the ungrateful hussies as I ever saw,’ said her father, ‘you’re the worst. You come home to see your poor parents toiling and moiling to keep a roof above their heads, and nigh breaking their hearts over the raising of the rent and the idea of having to leave the old homestead, and you refuse even to speak a word to save them from starvation.’
‘Well, I never did!’ cried her mother. ‘Here you’ve been home for nearly a year, and no more use than a baby, what with your London training and your illness, and your fid-fads and the first thing as your poor father asks you to do for him you downright refuse. I didn’t think it of you, Nell, and I begin to fear, like father, that there must be something under it all as you’re afraid to let us know.’
‘But I shall know it for all that,’ said the farmer; ‘for I’ll see this fine lord with the break of day, and ask him downright under what circumstances you left his service. If he’s a gentleman, he’ll answer the question, and give me some sort of satisfaction. I won’t put up with this sort of treatment from you no longer, my lass, and so I give you plain notice.’
‘Very well. Do as you like. It’s all the same to me,’ cried Nell, as she rose from the table and rushed from the room.