“E-es, indeed, my dear,” responded Mrs. Cross enthusiastically; it was a sentiment she cordially endorsed. “Lard! if a body was to keep upon their legs from morn till night, churchyard ’ud be fuller at the year’s end nor it needs to be. I be pure glad you’ve a-took this ’ere house,” she added graciously, “’tis what I scarce expected as any respectable party ’ud come to it. The chimbley smokes,” said Mrs. Cross delightedly; “there, ’tis summat awful how it do smoke! And in the bedroom the rain and wind do fair beat in when a bit of a storm do come—’tis these ’ere queer little vooty winder-panes—rain comes through them so easy as anything. And the damp! there, Mrs. Frizzel, what lived here last, used to say many a time: ‘Mrs. Cross, my dear,’ she did use to say, ‘the damp do seem to creep into my very bwones’. But I be pure glad to see you here, I’m sure,” she summed up cheerfully, “and ’tis to be hoped as you’ll find it comfortable.”
Mrs. Chaffey’s face, always somewhat plaintive in expression, had become more and more dismal as her neighbour proceeded, and she now heaved a deep sigh.
“I d’ ’low ’twill do for I,” she said gloomily; “I be a lone ’ooman, Mrs. ——?”
She paused tentatively.
“Mrs. Cross be my name, my dear. E-es—Maria Cross. E-es, that be my name, my dear.”
“Well, Mrs. Cross,” resumed the newcomer, taking up her discourse in a voice tuned to just the same note of melancholy patience as before, “well, Mrs. Cross, as I was a-sayin’, I be a lone ’ooman, a widow ’ooman, and I d’ ’low I must look to be put upon. I bain’t surprised to hear o’ the house bein’ damp and the chimbley smokin’—’tis jest what I mid have expected; and so I’ll tell the agent when I do go for to pay my rent.”
“It did ought to be considered in the rent,” suggested Mrs. Cross.
“It did,” agreed Mrs. Chaffey, and for a moment her eyes assumed an uncommonly wide-awake expression. “I’ll mention it to the gentleman, but I don’t look for much satisfaction—I don’t indeed, Mrs. Cross. A few shillin’s back maybe, and a new chimbley-pot, and toils put right on the roof, and a bit o’ lead paper maybe at back o’ my bed—no more nor that, Mrs. Cross—they’ll not do more than that for a lone ’ooman.”
“And didn’t ye never ha’ no childern?” inquired Mrs. Cross, with her head on one side; “it do seem molloncholy for ye to be left wi’out nobody to do a hand’s turn for ’ee, poor soul.”
Mrs. Chaffey shook her head with a portentous expression.