It was all done, all she had to do, before breakfast time next day. After breakfast Rotha was in great doubt how to manage. If she dressed for her departure, Mr. and Mrs. Purcell would find out that something was going to happen, and perhaps try to hinder it. If she waited in her room until called for, she did not know but they would deny her being in the house at all and bar access to her. Doubtless Mr. Digby would not be permanently barred out, or thwarted in what he meant to do; but Rotha could not endure the thought of delay or disappointment. She would have gone out to meet him; but she was no longer a child, and a feeling of maidenly reserve forbade her. She made everything ready; knew she could change her dress in five minutes; and went down to the kitchen about ten o'clock; she could not stay any longer away from the scene of action. She took a knife and helped Mrs. Purcell pare the pears for stewing.
"You have been very kind to me, Prissy," she said, after some time of busy silence.
"'Cause I warnt no more put out about the pears, you mean? Well, I'll tell you. I was fit to bite a tenpenny nail off, when I see you come in with that lapful last night. But I knowed you didn't know no better. If Joe warn't so set I'd make him pick the pears; but he always says and sticks to it, the fruits o' the earth what grows on trees aint no good. He'll eat 'em fast enough, I tells him, and so he will; as long as I'll stand to cook 'em; but he won't lift never a hand to get 'em off the trees. No thin' but corn and oats, and them things, is work for a man, he thinks."
"Unreasonable—" said Rotha.
"When isn't men unreasonable?—What do you want, sir? This aint the front o' the house."
And Rotha came round with a start, for there, at the door of the kitchen, at the top of the steps leading up from the scullery, stood Mr. Southwode; and Prissy's question had been put with a strong displeased emphasis.
"I know it," said the intruder in answer, "and I beg your pardon; but—
Does anybody live at the front of the house?
"Them as tries, finds out," said Mrs. Purcell, with a fierce knitting of her brows.
"That is also true, as I have learned by experience. I found that nobody lived there."
"Who did you think lived there? Who do you want?" asked Prissy, ungrammatically, but pointedly.