CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE BELL RINGS.
“Will that beast never go to bed—even there, I mind, she used to sleep with an eye open and an ear cocked—and nowhere safe from her never—here and there, up and down, without a stir or a breath, like a ghost or a devil?”—thought Mrs. Tarnley. “Thank God, she’s blind now, that will quiet her.”
Mildred was afraid of that woman. It was not only that she was cold and hard, but she was so awfully violent and wicked.
“Satan’s her name. Lord help us, in what hell did he pick her up?” Mildred would say to herself, in old times, as with the important fury of fear, she used to knock about the kitchen utensils, and deal violently with every chair, table, spoon, or “cannikin” that came in her way.
The woman had fits, and bad fits too, in old times, when she knew her well.
“And she drank like a fish cognac neat—and she was alive still, and millions of people, younger and better, that never had a fit, and kept their bodies in soberness and temperance, was gone dead and buried since; and that drunken, shattered, battered creature, wi’ her fallin’ sickness and her sins and her years, was here alive and strong to plague and frighten better folk. Well, she’s ’ad small-pox, thank God, and well mauled she is, and them spyin’, glarin’ eyes o’ hers, the wild beast.”
By this time Mrs. Tarnley was again in the kitchen. She did not take down the fire yet. She did not know, for certain, whether Charles Fairfield might not arrive. The London mail that passed by the town of Darwynd, beyond Cressley Common, came later than that divergent stage coach, that changed on the line of road that passes the Pied Horse.
What a situation it would have been if Charles Fairfield and the Vrau had found themselves vis-à-vis as inside passengers in the coach that night. Would the matter have been much mended if the Dutch woman had loitered long enough in the kitchen for Charles to step in and surprise her? It was a thought that occurred more than once to Mildred with a qualm of panic. But she was afraid to hasten the stranger’s departure to her room, for that lady’s mind swarmed with suspicion which a stir would set in motion.
“The Lord gave us dominion over the beast o’ the field, Parson Winyard said in his sermon last Sunday; but we ain’t allowed to kill nor hurt, but for food or for defence; and good old Parson Buckles, that was as good as two of he, said, I mind, the very same words. I often thought o’ them of late—merciful to them brutes, for they was made by the one Creator as made ourselves. So the merciful man is merciful to his beast—will ye?”
Mrs. Tarnley interrupted herself sharply, dealing on the lean ribs of the cat, who had got its head into a saucepan, a thump with a wooden spoon, which emitted a hollow sound and doubled the thief into a curve.