“Nay, my dear,” responded Lizzie, with a small secret smile. “’Tis Bartlett’s night, ye know. I do never ha’ time to think o’ chicken an’ sich when Bartlett be here.”
Phoebe stared; then, taking her umbrella, left the house. She heard Lizzie bolt the door behind her, and walked away, shaking her head and pursing up her lips. After proceeding fifty yards or so she paused, and presently turning retraced her steps as noiselessly as possible. The kitchen window was already shuttered, but Phoebe knew there was a wide chink beneath the hinge, and making her way towards it, peered into the fire-lit room.
Old Lizzie was still seated on the settle, in the far corner, so as to leave plenty of room for the other imaginary occupant. She was smiling, and glancing now up, now down, with that revived coyness of her youth.
Now she stretched out her trembling old hand with a curious little gesture, as though stroking something—the crisp brown locks perhaps which had been so long hidden away in the grave; now she was laughing.
“I never did hear any chap carry on like that,” she said. “Why we be old married folks now—six month wed come Tuesday.”
Phoebe turned away from the window and stepped forth briskly through the twilight. Her mind was irrevocably made up.
A wilful woman must have her way, we are told, and Mrs Caines’ way appeared so very reasonable that even the Squire fell in with it, though reluctantly. That he himself should take active measures to turn old Lizzie out of her cherished little house was certainly a most disagreeable necessity; nevertheless he appeared to have no choice. The old woman’s actual plight was undeniably dangerous, and she would no doubt be more cheerful as well as better looked after amid her daughter’s family.
Somehow or other, Lizzie never quite realised how, it was made clear to her that the Squire wanted her cottage for some important purpose, and moreover wanted possession of it so soon that she must turn out at once. Event succeeded event with such rapidity that she found herself uprooted almost before she had time to grasp the full extent of her misfortune, and was installed by Mrs Caines’ hearth and surrounded by Mrs Caines’ noisy little flock while still pleading and protesting.
“Now here you be, mother,” announced Phoebe, whisking off her parent’s bonnet and shawl, and firmly tying on her black net cap, “here you be so right as anything. Here be your own chair, d’ye see, for ye to sit in, and yonder’s the dresser—how well it do look in the carner, don’t it? Us’ll unpack the china by and by, and wash it and set it out—that’s summat to do, bain’t it? An’ there’s father’s chair opposite yours, same as usual.”
“Ah,” murmured Lizzie vaguely, “this be Sweet-apple’s week. ’Ees, sure—’ees, there be his chair. Where be—”