“Here, you may have it,” said Charlotte, dropping it into the trembling hand held out. “But you know you are nothing but an old sinner, Mrs. Bond.”
“I knows I be,” humbly acquiesced Mrs. Bond. “’Tain’t of no good denying of it to you, ma’am: you be up to things.”
Charlotte laughed, taking the words, perhaps, rather as a compliment. “You’ll go and change this at the nearest gin-shop, and you’ll reel into bed to-night blindfold. That’s the only good you’ll do with it. There, don’t say I left Prior’s Ash, forgetting you.”
She walked on rapidly, leaving Mrs. Bond in her ecstasy of delight to waste her thanks on the empty air. The lodgings George had taken were at the opposite end of the town, nearer to Ashlydyat, and to them Charlotte was bound. They were not on the high-road, but in a quiet side lane. The house, low and roomy, and built in the cottage style, stood in the midst of a flourishing garden. A small grass-plat and some flowers were before the front windows, but the rest of the ground was filled with fruit and vegetables. Charlotte opened the green gate and walked up the path, which led to the house.
The front door was open to a small hall, and Charlotte went in, finding her way, and turned to a room on the left: a cheerful, good-sized, old-fashioned parlour, with a green carpet, and pink flowers on its walls. There stood Margery, laying out tea-cups and bread and butter. Her eyes opened at the sight of Mrs. Pain.
“Have they come yet, Margery?”
“No,” was Margery’s short answer. “They’ll be here in half an hour, maybe; and that’ll be before I want ’em—with all the rooms and everything to see to, and only me to do it.”
“Is that all you are going to give them for tea?” cried Charlotte, looking contemptuously at the table. “I should surprise them with a dainty dish or two on the table. It would look cheering: and they might soon be cooked.”
“I dare say they might, where there’s time and convenience,” wrathfully returned Margery, who relished Mrs. Pain’s interference as little as she liked her presence. “The kitchen we are to have is about as big as a rat-hole, and my hands are full enough this evening without dancing out to buy meats and dainties.”
“Of course you will light a fire here?” said Charlotte, turning to the grate. “I see it is laid.”