“Don’t, my dear. But I’m going to walk over to your brother William’s to-night, and have a bit o’ chat with him ’bout things in general, and I thought I’d give him my opinion on the pynte.”
Fanny had reached the door of the vinery; but these words stopped her short, and she came back with her face changing from red to white and back again. “You are going to tell my brother William?”
“Yes, my dear, as is right and proper too. Sir James aren’t fit to be talked to; and it’s a thing as I couldn’t say to her ladyship. It aren’t in the doctor’s way; and if I was to so much as hint at it to Miss Raleigh, she’d snap my head off, and then send you home.”
Fanny stood staring mutely with her lips apart at the old gardener, who went on deliberately snapping out the shoots, and staring up at the roof with his head amongst the vines. One moment her eyes flashed; the next they softened and the tears brimmed in them. She made a movement towards the old man where he sat perched upon his steps calmly ruminating with his mouth full of acid shoots; then, in a fit of indignation, she shrank back, but ended by going close up to him and laying her hand upon his arm.
“Leave that now,” she said.
“Nay, nay, my lass; I’ve no time to spare. Here’s all these shoots running away with the jushe and strength as ought to go into the grapes; and the master never touches them now. It all falls upon my shoulders since he’s ill.”
“Yes, yes; you work very hard; but I want to talk to you a minute.”
“Well; there then,” he said. “Now, what is it?” and he left off his task to select a nice fresh tendril to munch.
“You—you won’t tell Brother William.”
“Ay, but I shall, lass. Why, what do it matter to you, if it was all a lie and you warn’t there?”