“You don’t mind, then, about the light and the fire of other men,” she said, “if we were to give your stockings to other women to knit for you. But you’re none so fond of spending your money even for the yarn, let alone the knitting. You’re a heavy man upon your feet, and wear out a deal of heels and toes. Some one’s bound to knit them for you. If you like better to pay, I don’t mind, you may make sure of that.”
“You!” cried her father, “a piece of stale goods that can’t find a market; who cares for you? You should have been the plague of some other house these ten years, and not sucking the life out of mine, and setting up your face before your betters. She don’t make any observations; and whatever else she is, she’s my wife, and has some right to speak.”
Joan’s brown eyes gave out a flash. She was no longer cowed.
“I have had a good lesson,” she said. “I can see how nice it is to be your wife, father, and I don’t want to try it on my own account.”
“Oh, hush! hush! Joan,” the mother said, her hands coming together once more.
“You don’t want to try!” said Joscelyn. “Who’s given you a chance? that’s what I’d like to know. If I had my own way I’d clear you all out of this house. I’d have no useless women here. When a man gets sense he knows what a fool he’s been, burdening himself with a wife and children—a wife that gets old and ugly, and a set of children that defy him under his own roof. Good Lord! think of me, a man in my prime, with a middle-aged woman like that saying father to me! when I might have had my fling, and been a gay young fellow with the best of them. There’s your son too, madam, just gone out of here shaking his fist in my face; and if I knock him down there will be a great hulabooloo got up because he’s my son. Son! what’s a son? or daughter either? A rebellious scamp that will neither do anything for himself nor do what you tell him to do. By the Lord Harry! when I think what a snug comfortable life I might have been living here with nothing to trouble me. And now I can’t stretch my legs under my own mahogany but there’s a brat of a boy to contradict me, or come into my own parlour but there’s a brat of a girl—— no, by Jove no,” he added, with a coarse laugh, “there I’m going too far; not a girl, or anything like it—an old maid. That’s what a man makes by marrying young, like a fool, as I was.”
While he thus discharged his volleys on both sides, the women relapsed into absolute silence. Mrs. Joscelyn was too much afraid to interfere, while Joan shrugged her shoulders, with the philosophy that was natural to her. What does it matter to me what he says? she said to herself; I didn’t choose him for a father, and she expressed her indifference as a Frenchwoman might have done by that shrug of her shoulders. He was allowed to talk on without any reply; and if there is one thing more exasperating than another to a violent temper, it is the silence of the natural antagonists who ought to furnish it with the means of prolonging its utterances. He thought, like all other bad-tempered men, that this was done “a’ purpose,” and his passion rose higher.
“Women,” he said, snarling, with a furious fear that he was not really touching them to the quick, as he intended, “women! that are supposed to clean up a house and make it pleasant! a deuced deal of that we ever see here. Train up lads in rebellion, and in thinking themselves wiser than them that’s before them, that’s what you can do. And sit about in the warmest corners and clog up the whole space, so that a man can’t move for them—that’s women! And eat of the best like fighting-cocks, and dress themselves up like peacocks, that’s all they think of. By Jove! I’d make a clean sweep of them out of this house if I had my way.”
“Then you’d better have your way,” said Joan; “sweep as much as you please. Mother, will you mind what I tell you, and not make a fuss? I hope I’m worth my salt wherever I go: and he knows well enough I’m the best servant he has in the house, and work for no wages, and stand bullying like ne’er another. What do I care for that rubbish? Come along upstairs with me, and let him have his room to himself and his fire to himself. He should have his house to himself if it were not for you; but for mercy’s sake don’t you make a fuss, and clasp your hands like that. Come along upstairs with me, and let him talk.”
“Joan! Joan!” the mother whispered. “Joan! who will there be to let Harry in if you take me away? It’s too early yet,” she said faltering, aloud. “I’ve got the things to put away. I’ve got—many little things to do. I haven’t half finished my mending. Your father’s put out, he does not mean it. It’s too early yet to go to bed.”