“Explain yourself, Jack. In what does Mrs Murdock differ from the rest of your Herefordshire fair?”
“One way, captain, in her not bein’ fair at all. ’Stead, she be dark complected; most as much as one o’ them women I’ve seed ’bout Cheltenham, nursin’ the children o’ old officers as brought ’em from India—ayers they call ’em. She a’nt one o’ ’em, but French, I’ve heerd say; which in part, I suppose explains the thickness ’tween her an’ the priest—he bein’ the same.”
“Oh! His reverence is a Frenchman, is he?”
“All o’ that, captain. If he wor English, he wouldn’t—couldn’t—be the contemptible sneakin’ hound he is. As for Mrs Murdock, I can’t say I’ve seed her more’n twice in my life. She keeps close to the house; goes nowhere; an’ it’s said nobody visits her nor him—leastwise none o’ the old gentry. For all Mr Murdock belongs to the best of them.”
“He’s a gentleman, is he?”
“Ought to be—if he took after his father.”
“Why so?”
“Because he wor a squire—regular of the old sort. He’s not been so long dead. I can remember him myself, though I hadn’t been here such a many years—the old lady too—this Murdock’s mother. Ah! now I think on’t, she wor t’other squire’s sister—father to the tallest o’ them two young ladies—the one with the reddish hair.”
“What! Miss Wynn?”
“Yes, captain; her they calls Gwen.”