‘I always understood that she was a beauty,’ said Mr. Trippett.
‘And you understood rightly. There wasn’t Lucy’s equal for beauty in all the county,’ affirmed Mr. Pepperdine. ‘The lad has her eyes—eh, dear, I’ve heard high and low talk of her eyes. But he’s naught else of hers—all the rest his father’s—Lucy was fair.’
He paused to apply a glowing coal to the tobacco in his long pipe, and he puffed out several thick clouds of smoke before he resumed his story.
‘Well, Lucy was nineteen when this Mr. Cyprian Damerel came along. You can ask your missis what like he was—women are better hands at describing a man’s looks than a man is. He were a handsome young man, but foreign in appearance, though you wouldn’t ha’ told it from his tongue. The boy’ll be like him some day. He came walking through Simonstower on his way from Scarhaven, and naught would content him but that he must set up his easel and make a picture of the village. He found lodgings at old Mother Grant’s, and settled down, and he was one of that sort that makes themselves at home with everybody in five minutes. He’d an open face and an open hand; he’d talk to high and low in just the same way; and he’d a smile for everybody.’
‘And naturally all the lasses fell in love with him,’ suggested Mr. Trippett, with a hearty laugh. ‘I’ve heard my missis say he’d a way with him that was taking with the wenches—specially them as were inclined that way, like.’
‘Undoubtedly he had,’ said Mr. Pepperdine. ‘Undoubtedly he had. But after he’d seen her, he’d no eyes for any lass but our Lucy. He fell in love with her and she with him as naturally as a duckling takes to water. Ah! I don’t think I ever did see two young people quite so badly smitten as they were. It became evident to everybody in the place. But he acted like a man all through—oh yes! My mother was alive then, you know, Trippett,’ Mr. Pepperdine continued, with a sigh. ‘She was a straight-laced ’un, was my mother, and had no liking for foreigners, and Damerel had a livelyish time with her when he came to th’ house and asked her, bold as brass, if he might marry her daughter.’
‘I’ll lay he wo’d; I’ll lay he wo’d,’ chuckled Mr. Trippett.
‘Ay, and so he had,’ continued Mr. Pepperdine. ‘She was very stiff and stand-off, was our old lady, and she treated him to some remarks about foreigners and papists, and what not, and gave him to understand that she’d as soon seen her daughter marry a gipsy as a strolling artist, ’cause you see, being old-fashioned, she’d no idea of what an artist, if he’s up to his trade, can make. But he was one too many for her, was Damerel. He listened to all she had to say, and then he offered to give her references about himself, and he told her who he was, the son of an Italian gentleman that had come to live in England ’cause of political reasons, and what he earned, and he made it clear enough that Lucy wouldn’t want for bread and butter, nor a silk gown neither.’
‘Good reasoning,’ commented Mr. Trippett. ‘Very good reasoning. Love-making’s all very well, but it’s nowt wi’out a bit o’ money at th’ back on’t.’
‘Well, there were no doubt about Damerel’s making money,’ said Mr. Pepperdine, ‘and we’d soon good proof o’ that; for as soon as he’d finished his picture of the village he sold it to th’ Earl for five hundred pound, and it hangs i’ the dining-room at th’ castle to this day. I saw it the last time I paid my rent there. Mistress Jones, th’ housekeeper, let me have a look at it. And of course, seeing that the young man was able to support a wife, th’ old lady had to give way, and they were married. Fifteen year ago that is,’ concluded Mr. Pepperdine with a shake of the head. ‘Dear-a-me! it seems only like yesterday since that day—they made the handsomest bride and bridegroom I ever saw.’