Her open hand was extended, and gently moving over the tray at about the level of the top of a bottle.
“No, ma’am, I haven’t none in my charge, but there’s a smell o’ brandy about,” said Mildred, who liked saying a disagreeable thing.
“So there ought,” said the gaunt woman placidly, and lifted a big black bottle that lay in her lap, like a baby, folded in a grey shawl. “But I’ll want this, don’t you see, when I’m on my rambles again—get a little, there’s a good girl, or if you can’t get that, there’s rum or gin, there never was a country-house without something in it; you know very well where Harry Vairvield is there will be liquor—I know him well.”
“But he baint here now, as is well known to you, ma’am,” said Mildred, dryly.
“I’m not going to waste my drink, while I think there’s drink in the house. Who has a right before me, old girl?” said the stranger, grimly.
“Tut, ma’am, ’tis childish talkin’ so, there’s none in my charge, never a drop. Master Harry, I dare say, has summat under lock and key, but not me, and why should I tell you a lie about the like?”
“You never tell lies, old Mildred, I forgot that—but young as she is, I lay my life the woman, Mrs. Harry Vairvield, upstairs, likes a nip now and then, hey? and she has a boddle, I’ll be bound, in her wardrobe, or if she’s shy, ’twixt her bed and her mattress, ole rogue! you know very well, I think, does she? and if she likes it she sleeps sound, and go you, and while she snores, borrow you the bottle.”
“She’s nothing of the sort, she drinks nothing nowhere, much less in her bed-room, she’s a perfect lady,” said Mrs. Tarnley, in no mood to flatter her companion.
“Oh, ho! that’s so like old Mildred Tarnley! Dear old cat, I’m so amused, I could stroke her thin ribs, and pet her for making me laugh so by her frisks and capers instead of throwing you by the neck out of the window for scratching and spitting—I’m so good-natured. Do you tell lies, Mildred?”
“I ’a told a shameful lot in my day, ma’am, but not more mayhap than many a one that hasn’t grace to say so.”