“Mrs. Sweeting,” she said, “I am surprised at you! You do not consider what the moral effect on the lower orders of patronising a female of this kind will be, probably an abandoned woman. The child, no doubt, was not born in wedlock. We are sinners ourselves if we support sinners.”
“Miss Tarrant,” retorted Mrs. Sweeting, “I’m the respectable mother of five children, and I don’t want any sermons on sin except in church. If it wasn’t a sin of Swanley to charge me three guineas for that pelisse, and wouldn’t take it back, I don’t know what sin.”
Mrs. Bingham, although she was accustomed to tea-table disputes, and even enjoyed them, was a little afraid of Mrs. Sweeting’s tongue, and thought it politic to interfere.
“I agree with you entirely, Mrs. Sweeting, about the inferiority of Mrs. Swanley to this newcomer, but we must consider Miss Tarrant’s position in the parish and her responsibilities. She is no doubt right from her point of view.”
So the conversation ended, but Mrs. Fairfax’s biography, which was to be published under authority in Langborough, was now rounded off and complete. She was a Parisian, father and mother unknown, was found in Paris in 1815 by Captain Fairfax, who, by her intrigues and threats of exposure, was forced into a marriage with her. A few years afterwards he had grounds for a divorce, but not wishing a scandal, consented to a compromise and voluntary separation. He left one child in her custody, as it showed signs of resemblance to its mother, to whom he gave a small monthly allowance. She had been apprenticed as a dressmaker in Paris, had returned thither in order to master her trade, and then came back to England. In a very little time, so clever was she that she learned to speak English fluently, although, as Mrs. Bingham at once noticed, the French accent was very perceptible. It was a good, intelligible, working theory, and that was all that was wanted. This was Mrs. Fairfax so far as her female neighbours were concerned. To the men in Langborough she was what she was to the women, but with a difference. When she went to Mr. Sweeting’s shop to order her groceries, Mr. Sweeting, notwithstanding the canonical legend of her life, served her himself, and was much entangled by her dark hair, and was drawn down by it into a most polite bow. Mr. Cobb, who had a little cabin of an office in his coal-yard, hastened back to it from superintending the discharge of a lighter, when Mrs. Fairfax called to pay her little bill, actually took off his hat, begged her to be seated, and hoped she did not find the last lot of coals dusty. He was now unloading some of the best Wallsend that ever came up the river, and would take care that the next half ton should not have an ounce of small in it.
“You’ll find it chilly where you are living, ma’am, but it isn’t damp, that’s one comfort. The bottom of your street is damp, and down here in a flood anything like what we had fourteen years ago, we are nearly drowned. If you’ll step outside with me I’ll show you how high the water rose.” He opened the door, and Mrs. Fairfax thought it courteous not to refuse. He walked to the back of his cabin bareheaded, although the morning was cold, and pointed out to her the white paint mark on the wall. She, dropped her receipted bill in the black mud and stooped to pick it up. Mr. Cobb plunged after it and wiped it carefully on his silk pocket-handkerchief. Mrs. Cobb’s bay window commanded the whole length of the coal-yard. In this bay window she always sat and worked and nodded to the customers, or gossiped with them as they passed. She turned her back on Mrs. Fairfax both when she entered the yard and when she left it, but watched her carefully. Mr. Cobb came into dinner, but his wife bided her time, knowing that, as he took snuff, the handkerchief would be used. It was very provoking, he was absent-minded, and forgot his usual pinch before he sat down to his meal. For three-quarters of an hour his wife was afflicted with painfully uneasy impatience, and found it very difficult to reply to Mr. Cobb’s occasional remarks. At last the cheese was finished, the snuff-box appeared, and after it the handkerchief.
“A pretty mess that handkerchief is in, Cobb.” She always called him simply “Cobb.”
“Yes, it was an a-a-accident. I must have a clean one. I didn’t think it was so dirty.”
“The washing of your snuffy handkerchiefs costs quite enough as it is, Cobb, without using them in that way.”
“What way?” said Mr. Cobb weakly.