It but remained for Charlotte Dexter to take her revenge in her way. Going very seldom out of her house, and never visiting at the Inn she was really very ignorant of the doings of either Mr. George or Mr. Joseph Foxley. Towards the one she had never been greatly drawn, for the other she felt all the passion that only a supremely lonely woman can feel in middle age for a man younger than herself who charms her as a child, while he captivates her as a lover. Of Mrs. Cox and Milly moreover, she hardly ever thought, and in fact had not seen the latter for a long time. If she had it is not likely she would even have recognized in the tall pale shapely young woman with braids of dark hair and white linen cuffs fastened—must I tell it? with a pair of antique monogram studs, the plump little handmaiden of four years back. As it was, she only waited on day after day, to hear Mr. Joseph speak. Instead of Mr. Joseph however appeared another and less welcome confidante. This was the most malignant gossip in the village, Mrs. Woods, the wife of the butcher, a tall red faced woman with high cheek-bones on which the color seemed to have been badly smirched, watery eyes and a couple of protruding yellow teeth. She looked more like a butcher than the butcher himself who was a mild little man with soft silky fair hair and small nervous fluttering hands. Yet he managed to summon sufficient character to go on a tremendous burst—I know of no other word, every third or fourth month and disappear for a week When these periodical eclipses took place, his wife would come flying into the Inn with her bonnet hanging round her neck and a large green and red plaid shawl streaming out behind her.
“Where's Woods?” She would say. “Where's Woods? Give me Woods! Give 'im up, I tell you; give 'im up now!”
But Woods was never found inside Mrs. Cox's neat dwelling, nor indeed anywhere, although it had been whispered on, one occasion that he had been seen in the back room of the little “Temperance Hotel” with the male Methodist in attendance. This, of course, was clearly impossible.
It was this Mrs. Woods then that stopped at Dexter's Oak one Friday morning with her donkey-cart and a small piece of the neck of mutton in it. She was not an entirely bad woman, though a downright cunning virago, and perhaps some inkling of the nature of the blow that was about to fall on Miss Dexter's head caused her to come prepared by an acceptable present to somewhat mitigate its appalling approach.
“I be at the Inn bright and early this morning Miss,” she began, “and brought 'em their bit of fresh meat. And I'm bringin' you a bit as was over, and it is'nt a bad piece for a stew, if you like a stew, Miss, with an onion or two.”
“Thank you very much, Mrs. Woods,” said Charlotte, who had come out to the front door and now stood on the lower step, looking over the cart. “I'm afraid I can't settle with you just at present,” she said further, with some effort, “you can call some other time when you are passing. Will that do? and is it weighed?”
“It is, miss, and I'll not say a word about the payin'! Six pound and a 'alf, and Woods gone agen—I weighed it myself.”
“Oh! I am sorry to hear that,” said Charlotte. “Your husband gives you a great deal of trouble. I am very sorry, and he is not at the inn?”
If Charlotte was guilty at that moment of purposely leading the conversation up to this always for her most enthralling, most engrossing subject, she soon enough received her punishment. On she went to her own destruction.
“At the inn!” repeated the butcher's wife, with ineffable scorn on her cruel mouth. She wiped her watery eyes and settled the refractory bonnet before going on.