‘I detest you when you preach, Artémise; you have so fine a position for that; hands so clean! From whence do you come now? from wandering to and fro upon the earth——’
‘Seeking whom I may devour? No, I am devouring no one; I have settled myself—at your very door, too—to do good, my dear.’
‘To do—— good!’
‘You are surprised. Don’t you know there comes a time when we would all like to be sisters of charity? But I have not gone so far as that. I have a very nice little post in the village, gained chiefly by a recommendation you once gave me, and your poor husband—— naturally that had great weight here—and other things. I am schoolmistress of the girls’ school, Watcham parish. At your service, Madame Cecile.’
Mrs. Swinford uttered that exclamation, which means so little in French and so much in English. She did not join in the laugh with which her visitor broke off. She was a more tragical person altogether than Mrs. Brown.
‘Mistress of the school, living in the village! You are welcome, as you know, to live with me. Why should you demean yourself in such a way? Why do you always try to compromise——’
‘Not you, Mrs. Swinford. I have never compromised you. I don’t choose to be your dependent; to eat that bitter bread. But you have never had any trouble brought into your life by me.’
‘Not that of being ignorant for years together where you are? of not knowing what you are doing? whether you may be in want? whether you may be ill? if you may have died——’
‘On some roadside, or in some hospital, nobody knowing anything about me,’ said Mrs. Brown, with a harsh little laugh, ‘and not a bad thing either, and probably the way it will happen at the last. But I should always, unless it was sudden, take care that you knew. It is a curious thing,’ she said, laughing again, and winking her eyes rapidly, as if to shake off some moisture, ‘that you and I, two such women as we are, not of the soft kind, should in a sort of a way, not caring much for anybody else, love each other, Cecile!’
We need not be sentimental and talk of it at least,’ said the other; ‘I see nothing wonderful in it. With others always contradiction and contrariety, but between you and me understanding—even when you take upon you, so much younger as you are, not to approve.’