She had barely recovered herself when she saw a woman, apparently about fifty, coming towards her with a wicker basket on her arm. She sat down beside Madge, put her basket on the ground, and wiped her face with her apron.
‘Marnin’ miss! its rayther hot walkin’, isn’t it? I’ve come all the way from Darkin, and I’m goin’ to Great Oakhurst. That’s a longish step there and back again; not that this is the nearest way, but I don’t like climbing them hills, and then when I get to Letherhead I shall have a lift in a cart.’
Madge felt bound to say something as the sunburnt face looked kind and motherly.
‘I suppose you live at Great Oakhurst?’
‘Yes. I do: my husband, God bless him! he was a kind of foreman at The Towers, and when he died I was left alone and didn’t know what to be at, as both my daughters were out and one married; so I took the general shop at Great Oakhurst, as Longwood used to have, but it don’t pay for I ain’t used to it, and the house is too big for me, and there isn’t nobody proper to mind it when I goes over to Darkin for anything.’
‘Are you going to leave?’
‘Well, I don’t quite know yet, miss, but I thinks I shall live with my daughter in London. She’s married a cabinetmaker in Great Ormond Street: they let lodgings, too. Maybe you know that part?’
‘No, I do not.’
‘You don’t live in London, then?’
‘Yes, I do. I came from London this morning.’