“Well!” he remarked, after a pause. “There ain’t no wiser man in all this here parish than what I’m reckoned for to be, and I do allow as all this here mystery have a woman at the bottom of it—sure-ly!”
“A woman?” exclaimed Blick.
“Well, it med be wimmin,” continued Benny. “Woman or wimmin, ’tis all one! Wimmin is pison! Ain’t never been nothing go wrong since ever this here old world was created out of nothing, as it do tell in first chapter of Genesis, but wimmin was at the bottom of it! I tell ’ee, sir, the wimmin makes all the mischief—men is peaceable animals, but wimmin is oneasy critters.”
“What would Mrs. Cripps say if she heard you?” asked Blick.
“Ain’t no Mrs. Cripps!” retorted Benny. “Not that there ain’t been! Been three on ’em, one time or another—buried ’em all, I did, and the last ’un it be five year ago. Never another, says I, when I covers her in—third time, says I, pays for all! They was tur’ble old toads, all three on ’em, and I fare to do deal better as a widow-man. If you ain’t a wed man, don’t ’ee ever go for to be one, my dear—’tain’t wuth it!”
“I’ll bear your advice in mind,” said Blick. “You’ve evidently tried it pretty well. But I say—what woman do you think’s at the bottom of this affair?”
“Med be one, and med be another,” replied Benny. “I ain’t at all comfortable in my mind about that there young Jezebel at the Dower House—deal too much mystery and queer goings-on about she to suit my disposition. Knowed her ever since she was the height o’ sixpennorth o’ copper, I have, and never knew her to do nothing but mischief. Reckon her’s something to do wi’ this affair, and keeps it so deep as my well. And then again there’s that there Mistress Braxfield—I ain’t no opinion o’ she!”
“Why, what about her?” asked Blick. “Highly respectable woman, isn’t she?”
Benny sniffed.
“Depends on what ’ee calls highly ’spectable,” he answered. “Don’t call it neither high nor yet ’spectable for a woman what used to keep a public-house to go marrying her gal, hole-and-corner like, to a young gentleman of old family! Low conduck, I calls it! But her thought as how there was a good chance of her daughter being my Lady Markenmore—that was her notion. And ’twouldn’t surprise me if she wasn’t at the bottom o’ this, some way or another way. Wimmin, I tell ’ee, is allays at the bottom o’ all unpleasantness. If ’ee was as well acquanted wi’ the Bible as what I am—which ain’t to be expected, considering as I be a pillar of the church—you’d know that what I tell ’ee is Gospel truth—so ’tis! Ain’t you never heard tell about what Eve did to poor old Adam?”