“I doan’t waonder as she’s vrothered,” said Mrs. Beatup. “Courted, cried, and married, all in a huddle lik that. Ivy, I hope as this ull be a lesson to you, and you’ll bide your banns praaperly and buy your bits of things in more’n one day’s shopping. Pore Nell, she sims all swummy and of a daze, and I doan’t woander, nuther, wud all the hurriment thur’s bin. Reckon she scarce knows yit if she’s maid or wife.”
“Reckon she does,” said Ivy.
PART VI: BABY
1
TOM did not come home till March, and the baby had been christened before he arrived, Thyrza having proved too soft to resist ecclesiastical pressure. But her husband was not so disappointed as she had feared. Indeed, Tom’s whole attitude towards the miracle she had wrought in his absence puzzled her a little.
She had met him at the cottage door with the baby in her arms, and after their first greeting he had said:
“Put the baby down, Thyrza. I can’t kiss you praaperly.” Then, with his face hidden in her neck, had murmured: “It’s my wife I want.”
“But aun’t you justabout pleased wud your boy, dear?” she asked him later, when they were having tea and eggs in a cosy blur of firelight and sunshine.