‘Lard!’ said Sharpe with a sniff, ‘I know’d him all his life, I may say; I were with him when he were confirmed—and I were at both his weddin’s. Yours was the only one I was n’t at.’
Rosalie straightened herself, feeling as if a douche of cold water had been unexpectedly applied to her.
‘Ah,’ went on Isaac, shaking his head mournfully, ‘I knowed his fust and his second missus well—they was nice women, both on ’em. The fust was a bit near, but, as poor ’Lias used to say, ’twas a good fault. Ah, he’d say that—a good fault.’
He put his pipe between his lips, and immediately took it out again.
‘The second Mrs. Fiander,’ he went on, ‘was a good creatur’ too—very savin’; delicate, though; but he’d al’ays make allowances, her husband would, though it did seem to me sometimes as it was a bit disheartenin’ to a man when his wife got the ’titus just at the busiest time of year. Ah, he used to tell me often as it were n’t no use to be a dairy-farmer without you had a active wife.’
Rosalie fidgeted in her chair: these little anecdotes of Isaac seemed to her rather pointless under the present circumstances.
‘All I can say is,’ she remarked after a pause, ‘that I always found poor dear Elias the most considerate of men.’
‘I d’ ’low ye did,’ said Isaac, turning his moist eyes upon her. ‘He thought a deal o’ you—he did that. Says he to me the first night I come here, when you come home arter getting wed, “I d’ ’low,” says he, “she’s the best o’ the three.”’
There was comfort in this thought, and Rosalie looked gratefully at her visitor, whose eyes had again become suffused with tears as he recalled this touching tribute.
‘He used to say,’ she observed presently in a low voice, ‘that I was a very good manager, but I don’t think it was on that account alone he was so fond of me.’