There was something subdued in Jonathan Kail’s tone which had not been there in the day, and lines of concern were ploughed upon his forehead in addition to the lines of years. He continued—
“We’ve all been gallied at the dairy at what might ha’ been a most terrible affliction since you and your Mis’ess—so to name her now—left us this a’ternoon. Perhaps you ha’nt forgot the cock’s afternoon crow?”
“Dear me;—what—”
“Well, some says it do mane one thing, and some another; but what’s happened is that poor little Retty Priddle hev tried to drown herself.”
“No! Really! Why, she bade us goodbye with the rest—”
“Yes. Well, sir, when you and your Mis’ess—so to name what she lawful is—when you two drove away, as I say, Retty and Marian put on their bonnets and went out; and as there is not much doing now, being New Year’s Eve, and folks mops and brooms from what’s inside ’em, nobody took much notice. They went on to Lew-Everard, where they had summut to drink, and then on they vamped to Dree-armed Cross, and there they seemed to have parted, Retty striking across the water-meads as if for home, and Marian going on to the next village, where there’s another public-house. Nothing more was zeed or heard o’ Retty till the waterman, on his way home, noticed something by the Great Pool; ’twas her bonnet and shawl packed up. In the water he found her. He and another man brought her home, thinking ’a was dead; but she fetched round by degrees.”
Angel, suddenly recollecting that Tess was overhearing this gloomy tale, went to shut the door between the passage and the ante-room to the inner parlour where she was; but his wife, flinging a shawl round her, had come to the outer room and was listening to the man’s narrative, her eyes resting absently on the luggage and the drops of rain glistening upon it.
“And, more than this, there’s Marian; she’s been found dead drunk by the withy-bed—a girl who hev never been known to touch anything before except shilling ale; though, to be sure, ’a was always a good trencher-woman, as her face showed. It seems as if the maids had all gone out o’ their minds!”
“And Izz?” asked Tess.
“Izz is about house as usual; but ’a do say ’a can guess how it happened; and she seems to be very low in mind about it, poor maid, as well she mid be. And so you see, sir, as all this happened just when we was packing your few traps and your Mis’ess’s night-rail and dressing things into the cart, why, it belated me.”