“An’ you abode on de doorstep, throughout all, Gra’?”
Mrs. Ashcroft nodded.
“Then I went away, an’ a man passin’ says to me: ‘Didn’t you know that house was empty?’ ‘No,’ I says. ‘I must ha’ been give the wrong number.’ An’ I went back to our ’ouse, an’ I went to bed; for I was fair flogged out. ’Twas too ’ot to sleep more’n snatches, so I walked me about, lyin’ down betweens, till crack o’ dawn. Then I went to the kitchen to make me a cup o’ tea, an’ I hitted meself just above the ankle on an old roastin’-jack o’ mine that Mrs. Ellis had moved out from the corner, her last cleanin’. An’ so—nex’ after that—I waited till the Marshalls come back o’ their holiday.”
“Alone there? I’d ha’ thought you’d ’ad enough of empty houses,” said Mrs. Fettley, horrified.
“Oh, Mrs. Ellis an’ Sophy was runnin’ in an’ out soon’s I was back, an’ ’twixt us we cleaned de house again top-to-bottom. There’s allus a hand’s turn more to do in every house. An’ that’s ’ow ’twas with me that autumn an’ winter, in Lunnon.”
“Then na’un hap—overtook ye for your doin’s?”
Mrs. Ashcroft smiled. “No. Not then. ’Long in November I sent Bessie ten shillin’s.”
“You was allus free-’anded,” Mrs. Fettley interrupted.
“An’ I got what I paid for, with the rest o’ the news. She said the hoppin’ ’ad set ’im up wonderful. ’E’d ’ad six weeks of it, and now ’e was back again carterin’ at Smalldene. No odds to me ’ow it ’ad ’appened—’slong’s it ’ad. But I dunno as my ten shillin’s eased me much. ’Arry bein’ dead, like, ’e’d ha’ been mine, till Judgment. ’Arry bein’ alive, ’e’d like as not pick up with some woman middlin’ quick. I raged over that. Come spring, I ’ad somethin’ else to rage for. I’d growed a nasty little weepin’ boil, like, on me shin, just above the boot-top, that wouldn’t heal no shape. It made me sick to look at it, for I’m clean-fleshed by nature. Chop me all over with a spade, an’ I’d heal like turf. Then Mrs. Marshall she set ’er own doctor at me. ’E said I ought to ha’ come to him at first go-off, ’stead o’ drawin’ all manner o’ dyed stockin’s over it for months. ’E said I’d stood up too much to me work, for it was settin’ very close atop of a big swelled vein, like, behither the small o’ me ankle. ‘Slow come, slow go,’ ’e says. ‘Lay your leg up on high an’ rest it,’ he says, ‘an’ ’twill ease off. Don’t let it close up too soon. You’ve got a very fine leg, Mrs. Ashcroft,’ ’e says. An’ he put wet dressin’s on it.”
“’E done right.” Mrs. Fettley spoke firmly. “Wet dressin’s to wet wounds. They draw de humours, same’s a lamp-wick draws de oil.”