Kitty. Good heavens, Rose, ’twas the man William.
[Kitty looks in consternation from Rose to the cousins and then to Jeremy, who remains impassive and uninterested, sucking a straw. Rose clasps her hands round the forget-me-nots and sits gazing at them, desolately unhappy. Robert enters. He is very grandly dressed for the wedding, but as he comes into the room he sees Isabel’s cotton bonnet on the floor. He stoops, picks it up and laying it reverently on the table, sinks into a chair opposite Rose and raising one of its ribbons, kisses this with passion.
Robert. There—I’d not change this for a thousand sacks of gold—I swear I’d not.
Kitty. Now Robert—get up, the two of you. Are you bewitched or sommat—O Jerry, stir them, can’t you.
Liz. Robert, ’tisn’t hardly suitable—with the young miss so sweetly pretty in her white gown.
Jane. And wedding veil and all. And sister and me hooked up into our new sprigs, ready for the ceremony.
Jeremy. [Looking at them with cold contempt.] Let them bide. The mush’ll swim out of they same as ’twill swim off the cider vat. Just let the young fools bide.
Kitty. O this’ll never do. Jerry forgetting of his manners and all. [Calling at the garden door.] John, John, come you here quickly, there’s shocking goings on. [John, in best clothes comes in.
John. What’s the rattle now, Kitty? I declare I might be turning round on top of my own mill wheel such times as these.
Kitty. Rose says she won’t wed Robert, and Robert’s gone off his head all along of that naughty servant maid.