elizabeth was talking to mrs. trimwell.
she was sitting in a low chair by the open back door. the baby lay in her lap, peacefully sucking a small pink thumb, round eyes gazing at elizabeth’s face the while. the baby was as at home with elizabeth, as elizabeth was at home with the baby.
before them lay the garden,—cabbages, potatoes, and onions neatly surrounded by flower borders. on a clothes-line, white pinafores and little blue and pink cotton frocks swung gently in the breeze.
mrs. trimwell was at the ironing-table, but it is very certain that the work of her hands in no way impeded the action of her tongue. every now and then she turned from the table to the stove, exchanging a cooling iron for one which she would [pg 262]momentarily hold in what appeared to be dangerous proximity to her cheek. then down it would go on to the crumpled linen, which smoothed to snowy whiteness beneath the magic of her touch.
“i wouldn’t have said it to no one but you, ma’am,” remarked mrs. trimwell, in conclusion, it would appear, to some foregoing speech, “but i do say as how a helping hand at the moment would be a godsend to the poor young gentleman.”
elizabeth looked entire agreement.
“yes,” quoth she. “but then, what right have i to interfere.”
“lor’ bless you, ma’am,” ejaculated mrs. trimwell, “if we was all to wait for our rights to make a move, i reckon there’d be precious little moving. when you think you’ve got a right there’s a dozen folk will tell you you haven’t got none. and when you’re for letting a job be, they’ll all be giving you a shift towards it. and spending the time arguing about it is mostly like talking over who’s got the best right to throw a rope to a drowning man. it’s the handiest has got to do it, i’m thinking, and let rights take their chance.”
“but,” said elizabeth, and her eyes were [pg 263]smiling, though her voice was sufficiently grave, “supposing he doesn’t want any interference.”
“there’s a deal of folk as don’t know what’s good for them,” remarked mrs. trimwell dryly, “and maybe he’s one of the number, though i’m not for that way of thinking myself. to my mind he has got hisself into a bit of a boggle, and don’t know the way out, though ’tis as plain as the nose on my face.”
she folded a table-cloth with rapid dexterity.
“but,” argued elizabeth, and she patted the baby gently, “if i broach the subject when he doesn’t want it broached, what will he think of me?”
“same as most men,” returned mrs. trimwell calmly, whisking a handkerchief from a basket, “that women’s for ever busy over what ain’t no concern of theirs. but lor’ bless you, what does that matter! if we’re so everlasting prudent as to wait for chances to be certainties, we’ll miss giving a sight of help. there’s fifty chances in a month to one certainty, and the chances want a friend’s hand to them a precious sight more than the certainties.”
elizabeth looked down the garden. slowly she [pg 264]patted the tranquil baby; slowly she pondered on this last statement. she was disposed to see quite a fair amount of truth in it. but then——
“what exactly do you advise?” her eyes held a gleam of amusement.
“talk to him straight,” said mrs. trimwell briefly. “i’ll own i wasn’t for having him miss his chances myself at first, but now—lor’ bless you! i see ’tis no chance but a trap he’s laid hold on, and he’ll be caught sure enough before he’s done, if someone doesn’t speak.”
“y-yes,” demurred elizabeth, the little gleam lighting to laughter, “but how? what, for instance, would you say under the circumstances?”
mrs. trimwell put her iron on the stove. she turned deliberately to elizabeth. brows frowning she sought for inspiration.
“well, i can’t rightly say as i’m a good hand at fashioning speeches. leastways not the kind as’ll take with gentle-folk. but i reckon it’s something after this way i’d speak.”
one hand on hip, the other shaking an admonitory finger at an imaginary young man, mrs. trimwell proceeded.
“young sir, seeing as how you ain’t got no [pg 265]friends handy to tell you the truth, which may be unpalatable, but which i’m thinking you needs the taste of, i’m speaking in the friend’s place. it don’t require no mighty sharp sight to see that you’re as uneasy as a cat on hot bricks in contemplating the situation before you, the situation being one which you ain’t been brought up to, and as different from the life you’ve led as chalk is from cheese. it ain’t no use trying to bend a tree to new shapes when it’s full-growed, leastways if you do, you run a pretty fair risk of breaking it, and that’s what’s going to happen to you. ’tisn’t as though you’d been took in childhood, when the bending to new ways can be done without over much harm. lor’ bless you, can’t you see what you’re trying to do with yourself? ’twill be like putting a sea fish in one of them little glass bowls you see in shops for you to try and get used to the ways of folks like them at the castle. they’s born to it, and don’t feel all the finiky little things that comes as easy to them as breathing. it’s bigger things you’re wanting, and by that i’m not meaning the size of the rooms, for you’ll find them big enough at the castle. it’s your mind you’ll be shutting up, and your body too, for all the size [pg 266]of the place. you’ve found a cage, that’s what you’ve found, and partly because it’s a glittery thing, and partly because it’s yours, you’re feeling bound to live in it. turn your back on it, i says; leave it to them as doesn’t know the caging. ’tis god’s earth is your heritage, and not the castles men folk have built on it.”
mrs. trimwell paused.
“that’s the manner of talk i’d be giving him,” she announced. “it’ll put things clear to him, and he’s not got them over clear in his mind yet. ’tis what he’s seeing though, half-blind like, and it’s a friend he needs to open his eyes before ’tis too late.”
elizabeth gazed at her. there was admiration, frank and genuine admiration, in her eyes. of course mrs. trimwell had merely voiced her own entire opinion, but quite probably it was on this very account that the admiration was thus unstinted. there is the same curious pleasure in finding another at one with you on a matter even slightly near your heart, as there is in finding your own unexpressed and half-articulate thoughts in the pages of some book. also there was admiration for the fact that mrs. trimwell had arrived at so [pg 267]rapid a conclusion. elizabeth totally forgot that her own conclusion had been even more rapid.
“i shall never,” said elizabeth, “be able to speak with half your verve.”
though totally ignorant of the last word, mrs. trimwell was aware that same compliment was intended.
“you’ll put it a sight more polished than i can,” she remarked bluntly.
“he’d prefer the original speech,” smiled elizabeth.
“but he’ll not get it,” mrs. trimwell’s voice was grim. “i knows my place.”
elizabeth raised amused eyebrows.
“and all the time you’ve been assuring me that it isn’t a question of rights,” she protested.
“there’s rights and rights,” announced mrs. trimwell, “and ’tis you’ve the bigger right than me. you’re gentle-folk, same as he, and he’ll take it better from you. i’d speak fast enough, lor’ bless you, if there wasn’t you to do it.”
she turned again to her ironing.
elizabeth again took to patting the small bundle of warmth in her lap. over the low hedge of the garden, she could see the churchyard, and the [pg 268]white and grey headstones of the graves. from the old church came the intermittent sound of hammering, and the occasional clinking of metal. pigeons wheeled against the blue sky, alighting now and again on the church tower. beyond the church stretched meadows, and the silver line of a river twisting among them past rushes and pollard willows.
a heat haze covered the landscape; it shimmered, elusively golden, above the red-flagged path of the garden. a cat dozed on a bit of sun-baked earth; it appeared the embodiment of feline contentment. elizabeth felt something of the same contentment. there was still that little gleam of amusement in her eyes.
unquestionably she was a conspirator.
