Elizabeth looked down the garden. Slowly she patted the tranquil baby; slowly she pondered on this last statement. She was disposed to see quite a fair amount of truth in it. But then——
“What exactly do you advise?” Her eyes held a gleam of amusement.
“Talk to him straight,” said Mrs. Trimwell briefly. “I’ll own I wasn’t for having him miss his chances myself at first, but now—Lor’ bless you! I see ’tis no chance but a trap he’s laid hold on, and he’ll be caught sure enough before he’s done, if someone doesn’t speak.”
“Y-yes,” demurred Elizabeth, the little gleam lighting to laughter, “but how? What, for instance, would you say under the circumstances?”
Mrs. Trimwell put her iron on the stove. She turned deliberately to Elizabeth. Brows frowning she sought for inspiration.
“Well, I can’t rightly say as I’m a good hand at fashioning speeches. Leastways not the kind as’ll take with gentle-folk. But I reckon it’s something after this way I’d speak.”
One hand on hip, the other shaking an admonitory finger at an imaginary young man, Mrs. Trimwell proceeded.
“Young sir, seeing as how you ain’t got no friends handy to tell you the truth, which may be unpalatable, but which I’m thinking you needs the taste of, I’m speaking in the friend’s place. It don’t require no mighty sharp sight to see that you’re as uneasy as a cat on hot bricks in contemplating the situation before you, the situation being one which you ain’t been brought up to, and as different from the life you’ve led as chalk is from cheese. It ain’t no use trying to bend a tree to new shapes when it’s full-growed, leastways if you do, you run a pretty fair risk of breaking it, and that’s what’s going to happen to you. ’Tisn’t as though you’d been took in childhood, when the bending to new ways can be done without over much harm. Lor’ bless you, can’t you see what you’re trying to do with yourself? ’Twill be like putting a sea fish in one of them little glass bowls you see in shops for you to try and get used to the ways of folks like them at the Castle. They’s born to it, and don’t feel all the finiky little things that comes as easy to them as breathing. It’s bigger things you’re wanting, and by that I’m not meaning the size of the rooms, for you’ll find them big enough at the Castle. It’s your mind you’ll be shutting up, and your body too, for all the size of the place. You’ve found a cage, that’s what you’ve found, and partly because it’s a glittery thing, and partly because it’s yours, you’re feeling bound to live in it. Turn your back on it, I says; leave it to them as doesn’t know the caging. ’Tis God’s earth is your heritage, and not the castles men folk have built on it.”
Mrs. Trimwell paused.
“That’s the manner of talk I’d be giving him,” she announced. “It’ll put things clear to him, and he’s not got them over clear in his mind yet. ’Tis what he’s seeing though, half-blind like, and it’s a friend he needs to open his eyes before ’tis too late.”