“Lor, Jem!” returned the girl, laughing, “she hant no more his wife than I be yourn, I tell you.”
“Why, what be she then, Bess?” said the fellow, gaping in stupid wonderment, “thou didst hear what Master Jasper said.”
“Why she be his sweetheart. Just what we be, Jem,” said the unblushing girl—“what the quality folks calls his ‘miss.’ Why, Jem, he’s slept in her room every night since she came here. He’s only said this here, about her being his wife, to save her character.”
“No blame to him for that, Bess, if it be so. But if you’re wise, lass, you’ll keep this to yourself. She’s a beauty, anyways; and I don’t fault him, if she be his wife, or his ‘miss,’ either, for that matter.”
“Lor!” replied the girl. “I shan’t go to say nothing, I’m sure. I’ve got a good place, and I mean to keep it too. It’s naught to me how they amuse themselves, so they don’t meddle with my sweet-hearting. But do you think her so pretty, Jem? She’s a poor slight little slip of a thing, seems to me.”
“She beant such an armful as thou, Bess, that’s a fact,” answered the fellow, making a dash at her, which she avoided, and took to her heels, looking back, however, over her shoulders, and beckoning him to follow.
Such were not the only comments of the kind which passed that evening; and although, fortunately for Jasper’s and Theresa’s peace of mind, they never dreamed of what was going on below, it was in fact generally understood among the younger men and women, both of those within and without the house, that Jasper’s declaration was a mere stratagem, resorted to in order to procure more respect and consideration for his concubine; and, although she was every where treated and addressed as St. Aubyn’s wife, every succeeding day and hour she was more generally regarded as his victim, and his mistress.
Such is the consequence of a single lapse from rectitude and truth.
Alas for Theresa! her doom, though she knew it not, was but too surely sealed forever.
Had it not been for the exceeding gentleness and humility of the unhappy girl, it is probable that she would have been very shortly made acquainted, one way or other, with the opinion which was entertained concerning her, in her own house, and in the neighborhood. But the winning affability of her manners, the total absence of all arrogance or self elevation in her demeanor toward her inferiors in station, her respect every where manifested to old age and virtue, her kindness to the poor and the sick, her considerate good-nature to her servants, and above all her liberal and unostentatious charities, rendered it impossible that any could be so cruel as to offer her rudeness or indignity, on what was at most mere suspicion. Added to this, the fierce impetuosity of Jasper, when crossed by any thing, or opposed in his will, and the certainty that he would stop at nothing to avenge any affront aimed at Theresa, so long as he chose to style her his wife, deterred not only the household and village gossips, but even that more odious class, the hypocritical, puritanic, self-constituted judges of society, and punishers of what they choose to deem immorality, from following out the bent of their mischievous or malicious tempers.