“O, O, O!” cried Keziah, bursting into a wail of misery, but only to stop short and dash away a tear right and left with the opposite corners of her apron. “There, I won’t have it, and if you talk to me again like that, I’ll—I’ll—I’ll go to Mr Brough at once. No, my child, I’m not going to sit still and see you murdered before my very eyes if I know it. But though I don’t want to be cruel I must tell you that your poor affections really were misplaced; for that Frank Marr is as well off now and as happy as can be. He lodges, you know, at Pash’s, and they’ve got all the best furnished rooms that he got ready for me; not that I was going to leave you, my pet; and he’s making money, and taking his mother out of town, and all sorts, I can tell you.”
It did not escape Keziah’s eye how every word was eagerly drunk in, and feeling at last that she was but feeding and fanning a flame that scorched and seared the young life before her, she forbore, and soon after left the room.
“But if I don’t see Mr Tom Brough, and put a stop to this marriage, and his preparations, and new house, and furnishing,” she cried, “my name isn’t Keziah Bay?”
And Keziah kept her word.
Story 5--Chapter V.
Mr Pash Looks Green.
Keziah Bay had made up her mind to go to Mr Tom Brough, and, attended by Peter Pash as her faithful squire, she started, loading him to begin with in case of rain, for on one arm Peter carried a large scarlet shawl, and under the other a vast blue-faded gingham umbrella, with a great staghorn beak and a grand ornamental brass ferule.
But Peter Pash looked proud at the confidence placed in him, and, following rather than walking by the side of his lady, he accompanied her to Finsbury-square, in one corner of which place lived Tom Brough.
All the same, though, Peter Pash was not comfortable, for he did not know the object of Keziah’s mission. What was she going to Mr Brough’s for? It was not because she was sent—she had declared that before starting, and when pressed for her reason she said that she was “going because she was going,” and Peter did not feel satisfied. In fact, before they were half-way to Finsbury, Peter was fiercely jealous, and telling himself that he was being made a fool of.