Janet Matheson was busy with her broth, which was boiling softly, slowly over the fire, ready to receive the vegetables—red, white, and green—the carrots and turnips and early crisp cabbage, all nicely cut and glistening with freshness and cleanness, which she had just prepared to add to the contents of the pot. She had a large brown holland apron covering her cotton gown, and a thick white cap surrounding her frosty-apple cheeks. The room was as neat and bright as her own little active figure. The little greenish window behind was open to admit the scent of the mignonette in the garden, and the pale pink monthly rose which looked in. On the sill of the opened window there was a line of books, and a writing-table stood under it, slightly inappropriate, yet disturbing nothing of the homely harmony of the cottage. The door to the street was open too, and any passing stranger could have seen Janet, who now and then looked out, with a carrot in one hand, and the knife with which she was scraping it in the other, wondering where that lassie J’yce could have gone to. The holidays had begun, and Joyce was free. She had done her share of the household service before she went out; but her tender old guardian was of opinion that about this hour ‘a piece’ was essential, though that was a thing of which Joyce could never be got to take proper heed. She had turned her back to the world, however, and was emptying her bowlful of vegetables into the pot, when Mrs. Hayward tapped at the open door. Janet said mechanically, ‘Come in—come away in’ without hurrying the operation in which she was engaged. When she turned she found another bright-eyed woman looking in at her from the pavement.
‘May I come in?’ said Mrs. Hayward.
‘Certainly, mem, ye may come in, and welcome. Come away,’ said Janet, lifting a wooden chair, and placing it, though the day was very warm, within reach of the fire. It was clean as scrubbing could make it, yet she dusted it mechanically with her apron, as is the cottager’s use. Mrs. Hayward watched every movement with her bright eyes, and observed all the details of the little house. A simple woman, looking like a French peasant with her thick cap; a little rustic village house, without the slightest pretension of anything more. And this was the house in which the girl had been bred who Henry said was a lady—a lady! He knew so little, poor fellow, and men are taken in so easily. No doubt she was dressed in cheap finery, like so many of the village girls.
‘I wanted, if you will allow me, to make some inquiries about your—but she is not your daughter?’
‘About Joyce?’ said the old woman quickly. She put down the bowl and came forward a few steps, from henceforward departing from her rôle of simple hospitality and friendliness, and becoming at once one of the parties to a duel, watching every step her adversary made. ‘And what will ye be wanting with Joyce?’ she asked, planting her foot firmly on the floor of her little kingdom. She was queen and mistress there, let the other be what she might.
‘It is difficult to say it in a few words,’ said Mrs. Hayward. ‘I have heard that though you have brought her up like your child, and been so tender to her, yet that she is no relation of yours.’
‘There are idle folk in every place,’ said Janet sententiously, ‘who have nothing to do but to stir up a’ the idle tales that ever were heard about the country-side.’
‘Do you mean, then, that this is an idle tale?’
The two antagonists watched each other with keen observation, and Janet saw that there was something like pleasure, or at least relief, in her adversary’s manner of putting the question. ‘It a’ depends on the sense it’s put in,’ she said.
‘We can’t go on fencing like this all day,’ cried Mrs. Hayward quickly. ‘I will tell you plainly what I want. My husband has seen the girl whom you call Joyce.’