“Tell the young lady quick and plain,” ejaculated Mrs. Wotnot at this point, clutching Vennie’s arm and arresting their advance.
“I am ’a tellin’ her,” retorted Mrs. Fringe, “I’m a tellin’ as fast as my besom can breathe. Don’t ’ee push a body so! The young lady ain’t in such a tantrum-hurry as all that.”
“I am rather anxious to get on with my walk,” threw in Vennie, looking from one to another with some embarrassment, “and I really don’t care very much about hearing things of this kind.”
“Tell ’er! Tell ’er! Tell ’er!” cried Mrs. Wotnot.
Mrs. Fringe cast a contemptuous look at her rival housekeeper.
“Our friend baint quite her own self today, miss,” she remarked with a wink at Vennie, “the weather or summat’ ’ave moved ’er rheumatiz from ’er legs, and settled it in ’er stummick.”
“Tell her! Tell her!” reiterated the other.
Mrs. Fringe lowered her voice to a pregnant whisper.
“The truth be, miss, that our friend here heered these wicked young things talk quite open-like about their gay goings on. So plain did they talk, that all wot the Blessed Lord ’is own self do know, of such as most folks keeps to ’emselves, went burnin’ and shamin’ into our friend’s ’stonished ears. And wot she did gather was that Miss Gladys, for certin’ and sure, be a lost girl, and Mr. Luke ’as ’ad ’is bit of fun down to the uttermost drop.”
The extraordinary solemnity with which Mrs. Fringe uttered these words and the equally extraordinary solemnity with which Mrs. Wotnot nodded her head in corroboration of their truth had a devastating effect upon Vennie. There was no earthly reason why these two females should have invented this squalid story. Mrs. Fringe was an incurable scandal-monger, but Vennie had never found her a liar. Besides there was a genuine note of shocked sincerity about her tone which no mere morbid suspicion could have evoked.