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“Yes, I mean to see to the bottom of it,” said Mrs Jenkles. “I haven’t patience with such ways.”
“They can’t help being poor.”
“I don’t mean them; I mean those people they’re with. I couldn’t do it.”
“Not you,” said Sam. “But I say, don’t Mr Lacy go next week?”
“Yes.”
“And the rooms will be empty?”
“Yes,” said Mrs Jenkles. “I have put the bill up in the window; he said he didn’t mind.”
Sam Jenkles went and sat down in his chair with an air of relief and looked at his wife.
Mrs Jenkles looked at Sam, as if the same idea was in both hearts. Then she jumped up suddenly.
“Oh, Sam, the potatoes are spoiling!”
They were, but they were not spoilt; and Sam Jenkles made a very hearty meal, washing it down with the pint of beer which he termed his allowance.
“Ah!” he said, speaking like a man with a load off his mind, “this here’s a luxury as the swells never gets – a regular good, hot, mealy tater, fresh from the fire. It’s a wonderful arrangement of nature that about taters.”
“Why?” said Mrs Jenkles, as she emptied the brown coat of another potato on her husband’s plate. “What do you mean?”
“Why, the way in which roast potatoes and beer goes together. Six mouthfuls of tater, and then a drink of beer to get rid of the dryness.”
“I wish you wouldn’t be so fond of talking about beer, Sam,” said Mrs Jenkles.
“All right, my dear,” said Sam; and he finished his supper, retook his place by the fireside, filled his pipe, glanced at the Dutch clock swinging its pendulum to and fro; and then, as he lit the tobacco – “Ah! this is cheery. Glad I aint on the night shift.”
Mrs Jenkles was very quiet as she bustled about and cleared the table, before once more taking her place on the other side of the fire.
“Ratty went first-rate to-day,” said Sam, after a few puffs.
But Mrs Jenkles did not take any notice; she only made her needle click, and Sam kept glancing at her as he went on smoking. At last she spoke.
“I shall go up and see those people, Sam, for I’m afraid you’ve been taken in. Was she a married woman.”
“Yes,” said Sam; “I saw her ring. But I say, you know, ’taint my fault, Sally,” he said, plaintively. “I was born a soft un.”
“Then it’s time you grew hard, Sam,” said Mrs Jenkles, bending over her work. “Thirty shillings takes a deal of saving with people like us.”
“Yes,” said Sam, “it do, ’specially when you has so many bad days to make up.”
“You ought not to have to pay more than twelve shillings a day for that cab, Sam.”
“I told the gov’nor so, and he said as it oughter be eighteen, and plenty would be glad to get it at that.”
Mrs Jenkles tightened her mouth, and shook her head.
“Oh! I say, Sally,” said Sam, plaintively, “I’ve been worried about that money; and now it was off my mind, I did think as it was all right. You’ve reglarly put my pipe out.”
Mrs Jenkles rose, took a splint from the chimney-piece, lit it, and handed it to her husband.
“No,” he said, rubbing his ear with the stem of his pipe, “it aint that, my dear; I meant figgeratively, as old Jones says.”
Mrs Jenkles threw the match into the fire, and resumed her work for a few minutes; then glanced at the clock, and put away her work.
“Yes, Sam, I shall go to Upper Holloway to-morrow, and see what I think.”
“Do, my lass, do,” said Sam, drearily. Then, in an undertone, as he tapped his pipe-bowl on the hob, “Well, it’s out now, and no mistake. Shall we go to bed?”
“Our next meeting.”
Fin Rea stood gazing down for a few moments, and then said – “No, indeed, I can’t, Mr Mervyn. Pray go.”
“Oh, Mr Mervyn,” said Tiny, softly, “don’t tease her any more.”
“It is hard to refuse such a request,” said the newcomer; “but, as trespassers, you must leave me to administer punishment. And, besides, I owe Miss Fin here a grudge. She has been laughing at me, I hear.”
“I’ll never do so any more, Mr Mervyn – I won’t indeed,” cried Fin; “only let me off this time.”
“Jump, you little gipsy, jump,” cried Mr Mervyn.
“It’s too high – I daren’t,” cried Fin.
“I have seen you leap down from a place twice as high, my little fawn. Now, then, jump at once.”
Fin looked despairingly round for a few moments, then made a piteous grimace, and lastly sprang boldly down into the strong arms, which held her as if she had been a child.
“Now,” said Mr Mervyn, “about the mistletoe?”
“Mr Mervyn, pray. Oh, it’s too bad. I…”
“Don’t be frightened, little one,” he said, tenderly, as he retained her with one hand, to smooth her breeze-blown hair with the other. “There, come along; let me help you down.”
But Fin started from him, like the fawn he had called her, and sprang down the great bank.
“Mind my soup,” shouted Mr Mervyn; and only just in time, for it was nearly overset. Then he helped Tiny down, blushing and vexed; but no sooner were they in the lane, than Fin clapped her hands together, and exclaimed —
“Oh, Mr Mervyn, don’t go and tell everybody what a rude tomboy of a sister Tiny is blessed with. I am so ashamed.”
“Come along, little ones,” he said, laughing, as he stooped to pick up the tin, and at the same time handed Fin her basket.
“How nice the soup smells,” said Fin, mischievously.
“Yes; you promised to come and taste it some day,” said Mr Mervyn; “but you have never been. I’m very proud of my soup, young ladies, and have many a hard fight with Mrs Dykes about it.”
“Do you?” said Tiny, for he looked seriously at her as he spoke.
“What about?” said Fin, coming to her sister’s help.
“About the quantity of water,” said Mr Mervyn. “You know we’ve a big copper for the soup; and Mrs Dykes has an idea in her head that eight quarts of water go to the gallon, mine being that there are only four.”
“Why, of course,” laughed Fin.
“So,” said Mr Mervyn, “she says I have the soup too strong, while I say she wants to make it too weak.”
“And what does old Mrs Trelyan say?”
“Say?” laughed Mr Mervyn. “Oh, the poor old soul lets me take it to her as a favour, and says she eats it to oblige me.”
“It’s so funny with the poor people about,” said Fin; “they want things, but they won’t take them as if you were being charitable to them; they all try to make it seem like a favour they are doing you.”
“Well, I don’t know that I object to that much,” said Mr Mervyn.
“They’re all pleased enough to see us,” continued Fin; “but when Aunt Matty and papa go they preach at them, and the poor people don’t like it.”
“Fin!” said Tiny, in a warning voice.
“I don’t care,” said Fin; “it’s only Mr Mervyn, and we may speak to him. I say, Mr Mervyn, did you hear about old Mrs Poltrene and Aunt Matty?”
“Fin!” whispered Tiny, colouring.
“I will tell Mr Mervyn; it isn’t any harm,” cried downright Fin.
And her sister, seeing that she only made matters worse, remained silent.
“Mr Mervyn, you know old Mrs Poltrene, of course?”
“Oh yes, the old fisherman’s wife down by the cliff.”
“Yes; and Aunt Matty went to see her, and talked to her in her way, and it made the old lady so cross that – that – oh, I mustn’t tell you.”
“Nonsense, child, go on.”
“She – she told Aunt Matty to go along and get married,” tittered Fin, “and she could stay at home and mend her husband’s stockings, and leave people alone; and Aunt Matty thought it so horrible that she came home and went to bed.”
“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed Mr Mervyn. “Mrs Poltrene has a temper; but here we are – you’ll come in?”
Tiny was for drawing back, but her sister prevailed. They had been walking along the lane, and had now reached a long, low cottage, built after the fashion of the district, with massive blocks of granite, and roofed with slabs of the same. There was a strip of garden, though gardens were almost needless, banked up as the place was on all sides with the luxuriant wild growth of the valley. On one side, though, of the doorway was the simple old fuchsia of bygone days, with a stem here as thick as a man’s wrist – a perfect fuchsia tree, in fact; and on the other side, leafing and flowering right over the roof, a gigantic hydrangea, the flower we see in eastern England in pots, but here of a delicious blue.
“Any one at home,” said Mr Mervyn, walking straight in. “Here, Mrs Trelyan, I’ve brought you two visitors,” and a very old, white-haired woman, who was making a pilchard net, held her hand over her forehead.
“Sit down, girls – sit down,” she said, in the melodious sing-song voice of the Cornish people. “I know them – they come and see me sometimes. Eh? How am I? But middling – but middling. It’s been a bad season for me. Oh, soup? Ah, you’ve brought me some more soup; you may empty it into that basin. I didn’t want it; but you may leave it. They’ve brought me up some hake and a few herrings, so I could have got on without. That last soup was too salt, master.”
“Was it?” said Mr Mervyn, giving a merry glance at Fin. “Well, never mind, I’ll speak to Mrs Dykes about it.”
“Ay, she’s an east-country woman. Those folks don’t know much about cooking. Well, young ladies, I hear you have been to London.”
“Yes, Mrs Trelyan.”
“And you’re glad to come back?”
“Yes, that we are,” said Fin.
“Ay, I’ve heard it’s a poor, lost sort of place, London,” said the old lady. “I never went, and I never would. My son William wanted to take me once in his boot; but I wouldn’t go. Your father was a wise man to buy Tolcarne; but it’ll never be such a place as Penreife.”
“You know young Trevor’s coming back?” said Mr Mervyn.
“Ay, I know,” said the old lady. “Martha Lloyd came up to tell me, as proud as a peacock, about her young master, talking about his fine this and fine that, till she nearly made me sick. I should get rid of her and her man if I was him.”
“What, Lloyd, the butler?” said Mr Mervyn, smiling.
“Yes,” said the old lady, grimly, “they’re Welsh people; so’s that young farm-bailiff of his.”
“You know the whole family?” said Mr Mervyn.
“Why, I was born here!” said the old lady, “and I ought to. We’ve been here for generations. Ah! and so the young squire’s coming back. Time he did; going gadding off into foreign countries all this time. Why, he’s six or seven and twenty now. Ay, how time goes,” continued the old lady, who was off now on her hobby. “Why, it was like yesterday that the Lloyds got Mrs Trevor to send for their sister from some place with a dreadful name; and she did, and I believe it was her death, when she might have had a good Cornish nurse; and the next thing we heard was that there was a son, and the very next week there was a grand funeral, and the poor squire was never the same man again. Ah! it was an artful trick that – sending for the nurse because Mrs Lloyd wanted her too; and young Humphrey Lloyd was born the same week. Ay, they were strange times. It seemed directly after that we had the news about the squire, who got reckless-like, always out in his yacht, a poor matchwood sort of a thing, not like our boots, and it was blown on the Longships one night, and there wasn’t even a body came ashore.”
“Rather a sad family history,” said Mr Mervyn.
“Ay, sad enough,” said the woman; “and now the young squire’s coming home at last from sea, but he’ll never be such a man as his father.”
“Think not?” said Mr Mervyn, musing.
“Sure not,” said the old woman. “Why, he was petted and spoiled by those Lloyds while he was a boy, and a pretty limb he was. Him and that young Lloyd was always in some mischief. Pretty pranks they played me. I’ve been out with the stick to ’em scores of times; but he was generous – I will say that – and many’s the conger and bass he’s brought me here, proud of ’em as could be, because he caught them himself.”
“Well, Mrs Trelyan, we must say good morning,” said Tiny, rising and taking the old lady’s hand. “Is there anything you would like – anything we can bring you?”
“No, child, no,” said the old lady; “I don’t want anything. If you’d any good tea, I’d use a pinch; but I’m not asking for it, mind that.”
“Where’s your snuff-box, granny?” said Mr Mervyn, bringing out a small canister from his pocket.
“Oh, it’s here,” said the old lady, fishing out and opening her box to show it was quite empty. “I don’t know that I want any, though.”
“Try that,” said Mr Mervyn, filling it full; and the old lady took a pinch. “That’s not bad, is it?”
“N-n-no, it’s not bad,” said the old lady, “but I’ve had better.”
“No doubt,” said Mr Mervyn, smiling.
“By the way, Mrs Trelyan, how old are you?”
“Ninety next month,” said the old lady; “and – dear, dear, what a bother visitors are. Here’s somebody else coming.”
For at that moment there was a firm step heard without, and some one stooped and entered the doorway, hardly seeing the group on his left in the gloomy room.
