“Oh, ay,” put in the widow drily; “and they say right once i’ a way. They’re half-brothers. I should know, for I kept house for Gaunt’s father before I was fool enough to marry Mathewson o’ Ghyll.”
Cilla did not wish to hear the tale, and yet she stood there, irresolute, her face half turned to Mrs. Mathewson’s.
“You heard tell o’ the night when a stranger-woman came knocking at the door o’ Marshlands?” The widow was still regarding Cilla with hard, keen eyes, and it seemed that she, who kept silence with her neighbours usually, had some purpose behind all this talk. “Well, I was cooking supper for Reuben Gaunt’s father at the time, and I mind saying to young Reuben, who was larking i’ the kitchen and nigh teasing the life out o’ me—he was fourteen or so then, was Reuben—I mind saying to him that it war a night ye couldn’t find heart to turn a dog out in. Th’ wind war blowing sleet an’ hail in sheets agen the window-panes, an’ it war crying down the chimbleys till ye could hardly see across th’ floor for peat-smoke.”
Cilla was listening. She had lost all desire to escape. The widow’s gaunt, tall figure, the impassive hardness of her voice as she brought the bygone scene before Priscilla’s eyes, were part of the snow and the white stone fences, part of the falling wind that sobbed through every cranny of the walls and ruffled the water of the drinking-pool that divided the two women.
“Th’ smoke was making me sneeze and cough, but it warn’t that made me so mad wi’ ’t. It war spoiling th’ master’s supper, an’ his temper war fearful when aught went wrang i’ th’ house. Well, I needn’t hev bothered my head about that, for at that minute there came a rapping at th’ front door, an’ I ran out into th’ hall to see who it war. There war a woman standing there, an’ th’ wind blew her fair indoors, without a by-your-leave, soon as I lifted th’ sneck. She war nigh as bonnie an’ slim as ye, Miss Cilla,” she went on, after a long glance at the other. “The master was a fairish judge o’ women i’ that way, I’ll own, like his son ’at followed him. She had a bairn wi’ her—may be four-year-old—an’ she wanted the master; so I called him, after shutting th’ door to keep all yond mak’ o’ wind out.”
She paused and looked across the shrouded fields, and shivered. Hard as she was, the misery of that night returned to her. Cilla stood waiting silently.
“The master came, an’ looked once at th’ stranger-woman, an’ a sort o’ devil came into his face. Then I knew that one of his black moods was on him; for I was used to the look o’ them. The woman was very pitiful to look at an’ to listen to, an’ she said she war his wife—married by stealth a year after the first mistress died. I believed her, for my part, an’ a woman can tell most times when another woman’s lying. She was plain of her speech, though, and Reuben’s father always had a queer mak o’ pride about him,—must have a ladyish wife at Marshlands, or else hide her i’ the haymow out o’ folk’s sight. That’s Reuben’s way, too.”
Priscilla wondered at the sudden bitterness in her voice, then remembered that this was Peggy’s mother; and the widow knew, it was plain, that she was her daughter’s rival. Tears of pride and humiliation started to the girl’s eyes. It was easier to conquer a secret trouble than an open one.
“Well, to shorten a sad tale,” went on the older woman, after seeing that her taunt had struck home, “Mr. Gaunt turned both mother an’ th’ little lad out into th’ cold; an’ I could have throttled him for ’t, if he’d been a thought less strong. The rest o’ the tale ye know, Miss Cilla. They found the mother dead on the door-stone, an’ Billy the Fool war strong enough to weather the cold—else he’d not have been here at the drinking-pool to-day.”
Cilla gathered her strength again. “Why do you tell me this?” she asked. “I say, with father, that one day’s trouble is enough as it comes, without going back to the old sorrows.”