“No wonder, indeed,” I assented.
“Well, now, many’s the time I’ve said things agin her, but there’s no doubt she’s got a feelin’ heart,” said Julia. “I’ll tell you, now, the quare thing I heard to-day, miss. ’Twas me afthernoon out, an’ I walked into Wootong to do me little bit of shoppin’, an’ who should I meet but little Miss Parker—wan of thim two ould-maid sisters the thief’s afther robbin’ the other night. They’re nice little ould things, them two sisters: I often stop an’ have a chat wid them an’ I goin’ by. Little Miss Sarah she med me go in to-day an’ have a cup of tay wid her an’ her sister. An’ what do you think them two told me?”
I said I didn’t know.
“A baby cud have knocked me down wid a feather!” said Julia dramatically. “This morning, who should call on them but the misthress herself!”
“Mrs. McNab?” I asked.
Julia nodded.
“Herself, an’ no wan else. Bence druv her in, but he never let on to annywan where she’d gone. She doesn’t know them well, so they were surprised at her comin’. She didn’t waste much time in chat, but told them she was terrible sorry to hear about the robbery. An’ finally she brings out five-an’-twinty pounds, just what the thief stole from them, an’ lays it on the table, sayin’ she was better able to afford the loss than they were. They argued against her, but nothin’ ’ud move her from the determination she had. ‘Let you take it now,’ she says, ‘or I’ll throw it in the fire,’ says she. There was no fire there, by reason of the hot weather that was in it, but the bare idea made the ould maids shiver. So they gev in at the lasht, after they’d argued an’ protested, but to no good: she wouldn’t listen to annything they’d be sayin’. An’ she lef the notes on the table an’ wished them a Happy New Year, an’ said good-bye. That was the lasht they saw of her, an’ they was still fingerin’ the notes to make sure they was real. What would you make of that now, miss?”—and Julia cocked her head on one side and looked at me like an inquisitive bird.
It was a queer story, and I said so. Mrs. McNab did not strike one ordinarily as a person of deep feeling or sympathy: and, despite the surroundings of wealth at The Towers, she kept a fairly sharp eye upon the household expenses and checked the bills with much keenness. It was difficult to imagine her going out of her way to pay so large a sum as twenty-five pounds to women of whom she knew personally very little. It just showed that one shouldn’t judge anyone’s character by outward appearances. Like Julia, I felt rather ashamed of having thought hardly of Mrs. McNab.
“Me ould Mother used to say you couldn’t tell an apple by its skin,” remarked Julia. “I’d have said plump enough that the misthress hadn’t much feelin’ for annywan but herself. She’s that cold in her manner you’d imagine all the warrm blood in her body had turned to ink—but there you are! There’s a mighty lot of warmth in five-an’-twinty pounds, so there is: particularly when you get it back afther havin’ lost it. Mrs. Winter, she’s as surprised as I was. ‘To think of that, now!’ says she—’an’ only this morning the misthress was down on me sharp enough for all the butter we do be usin’. An’ indeed, there’s butter used in this house to that extent you’d think they greased the motor with it,’ she says; ‘but where’s the use of scrapin’, an’ so I told her,’ says she. Terrible stiff she was about it to Mrs. Winter. But you’d forgive her for keepin’ one eye in the butter when she’d go off an’ make up all that money to thim two poor ould maids.”
Julia took up her tray and turned to go. But at the door, she hesitated.