“Such fancies as she d’ take even in the way o’ courtin’,” resumed Mrs. Adlam. “Says she to me once: ‘Mother,’ says she, ‘don’t you count on me ever gettin’ wed, for I assure ye I abhor mankind.’”
“Dear, dear!” exclaimed Mr. Fripp, much startled and infinitely scandalised. “’Twas an unnait’ral thing for a maid to say, sure. Never heard o’ such a thing. I be sorry for ye, Mrs. Adlam, that I be.”
“She takes them notions out o’ the books that she d’ read when she be porely,” returned the mother, apologetically. “Ah, that’s where she gets ’em; but I do assure you, neighbours, them was her very words. I don’t notice her no more than if she was a child. I did think a few months ago, in spite of all, that she’d be gettin’ settled so comfortable as she could be. Tom Locke ’s a good, studdy young chap, earnin’ a good bit, now. He’ll be havin’ the farm, too, when his father dies. But the maid is so upset about that accident, I don’t know whatever to do wi’ her. I thought she’d get over the feelin’ about his losin’ that eye; but it laisses so strong as ever. He came to our place this evenin’, an’ she did jump up an’ run straight away here. He’ve a-been waitin’ an’ waitin’, pore young man, but at laist he gets up, an’ says he: ‘I’ll go, Mrs. Adlam. Will ’ee tell Susan that if she wants to see me again, she can meet me up the lane at the wold place on Sunday?’”
“Well,” said Mrs. Fripp, gazing thoughtfully up the street again, and then suffering her glance to revert to Mrs. Adlam’s lean, anxious face, “’tis terrible hard for ’ee, ’tis indeed. I’m sorry for pore Tom, yet ’tis an awk’ard thing for a girl to wed wi’ a man as has but one eye. An’ Susan being so bashful an’ tewly seems to make it worse. Does he look terrible bad, Mrs. Adlam?”
Mrs. Adlam considered. “One side looks much the same as ever,” she said. “Aye, one eye’s jest like it always was, but t’other side”—She paused. “Well, there’s no eye at all t’other side.”
“Doctor took it out, did he?” inquired Fripp, deeply interested. “Well, Mrs. Adlam, ’tisn’t so bad but it mid have been worse—we must comfort ourselves so well as we can. If keeper hadn’t been by, an’ hadn’t out wi’s knife, same as he did, an’ took shots out o’ Tom’s eye at once, he’d very like have lost t’other one. As I say, it mid ha’ been worse.”
“Tom said jest now as doctor thought keeper’d ha’ done better to ha’ left his eye alone,” sighed Mrs. Adlam. “But there’s no tellin’—doctors is jealous folk; they can’t abear a body to do a thing for theirselves. Why, laist winter when I had the inflammation, an’ made mysel’ a drop o’ gruel wi’ rum in it to strengthen me a bit, Doctor Richmond was that vexed! Well, I must be goin’. Will ’ee call my maid, Mr. Fripp?”
The good man complied. Screwing his person a little sideways round the door-post, and turning his head over his shoulder, he bellowed forth, first the name of his own daughter and then that of Mrs. Adlam’s, at intervals of about a quarter of a minute, until there was a hasty banging of doors in the back premises, a patter of feet across the kitchen, and the two girls appeared simultaneously on the threshold. Susan Adlam, tall, fair, and blue-eyed, with the complexion of a rose-leaf, and hands so white that they told their own tale of selfishness and incapacity; Lizzie Fripp, dark, with a brown merry face, and a squat sturdy form. With a little more height and a little less breadth she might have been pretty.
“Oh, ’tis you, Mother,” said Susan, with a bashful wriggle. “Is Tom gone? I’m sure I hope he is. Don’t ask me to go home if he’s there, for I couldn’t abear to see en.”
Mrs. Adlam cast up her eyes to heaven, and then looked round with a certain melancholy pride.