“I don’t know—it might be better for you as well as for us if the whole parish didn’t know so much about your affairs.”
“And I reckon you think as no one knows about yourn?”
Nell flushed—
“Leave my affairs alone. I’ve none for you to meddle with.”
“Oh, no—you aun’t sweet on Parson—not you, and nobody knows you go after un!”
“Adone-do wud your vulgar talk,” cried Nell furiously, forgetting in her anger to clip and trim her blurry Sussex speech. “I’ve warned you about young Sumption, and it aun’t my fault if you have trouble.”
“There woan’t be no trouble. I’ve naun to do wud Jerry nor he wud me—I got shut of him a year agone.”
All the same, she was not so easy as her words made out. It was evil luck which had brought Jerry Sumption back at just this time. He was bound to be a pest anyhow, though perhaps if his jealousy had not been roused he might have had enough sense to keep away. Now he would most likely come and make a scene. Even though she would not be his girl, he could never bear to see her another man’s; he might even try to make mischief between her and Seagrim—be hemmed to the gipsy! At all events he would be sure to come and kick up trouble.
She was partly right. Jerry came, but he did not make a scene. He turned up the next morning, looking strangely dapper and subdued. Ivy interviewed him in the outer kitchen, where she was blackleading the fireplace. It spoke much for the sincerity of his passion that he had hardly ever seen his charmer in a presentable state—she was always either scrubbing the floor, or cooking the dinner, or washing the clothes, or cleaning the hearth. To-day there was a big smudge of black across her cheek, and her hair was tumbling over ears and forehead, from which she occasionally swept it back with a smutty hand.