Mrs. Swayne’s kitchen was by far the most cheerful place in the house. It had a brick floor, which was as red as the hearth was white, and a great array of shining things about the walls. There was a comfortable cat dozing and blinking before the fire, which was reflected out of so many glowing surfaces, copper, pewter, and tin, that the walls were hung with a perfect gallery of cats. Mrs. Swayne herself had a wickerwork chair at one side, which she very seldom occupied; for there was a great multiplicity of meals in the house, and there was always something just coming to perfection in the oven or on the fire. But opposite, in a high-backed chair covered with blue and white checked linen, was Mr. Swayne, who was the object of so much care, and was subject to the rheumatics, like Betty. The difference of his rheumatics was, that they went off and on. One day he would be well—so well as to go out and see after his business; and the next day he would be fixed in his easy-chair. Perhaps, on the whole, it was more aggravating than if he had gone in steadily for a good long bout when he was at it, and saved his wife’s time. But then that was the nature of the man. There was a visitor in the kitchen when Mrs. Preston went in—no less a personage than old Betty, who, with a daring disregard for her rheumatics, had come across the road, wrapped in an old cloak, to talk over the news of the day. It was a rash proceeding, no doubt; but yet rheumatics were very ordinary affairs, and it was seldom—very seldom—that any thing so exciting came in Betty’s way. Mrs. Swayne, for her part, had been very eloquent about it before her lodger appeared.
“I’d make short work with him,” she said, “if it was me. I’d send him about his business, you take my word. It ain’t me as would trust one of ’em a step farther than I could see ’em. Coming a-raging and a-roaring round of a house, as soon as they found out as there was a poor little tender bit of a lamb to devour.”
“What is that you say about a bit o’ lamb, Nancy?” cried Mr. Swayne; “that’s an awful treat, that is, at this time of the year. I reckon it’s for the new lodgers and not for us. I’ll devour it, and welcome, my lass, if you’ll set it afore me.”
Mrs. Swayne gave no direct answer to this question. She cast a glance of mild despair at Betty, who answered by lifting up her hands in sympathy and commiseration. “That’s just like the men,” said Mrs. Swayne. “Talk o’ something to put into them, and that’s all as they care for. It’s what a poor woman has to put up with late and early. Always a-craving and a-craving, and you ne’er out of a mess, dinner and supper—dinner and supper. But as I was a-saying, if it was me, he should never have the chance of a word in her ear again.”
“It’s my opinion, Mrs. Swayne,” said Betty, unwinding her shawl a little, “as in those sort of cases it’s mostly the mother’s fault.”
“I don’t know what you mean by the mother’s fault,” said Mrs. Swayne, who was contradictory, and liked to take the initiative. “She never set eyes on him, as I can tell, poor soul. And how was she to know as they were all about in the avenue? It’s none o’ the mother’s fault; but if it was me, now as they’ve took the first step—”
“That was all as I meant,” said Betty humbly; “now as it’s come to that, I would take her off, as it were, this very day.”
“And a deal of good you’d do with that,” said Mrs. Swayne, with natural indignation; “take her off! and leave my parlor empty, and have him a-running after her from one place to another. I thought you was one as knew better; I’d brave it out if it was me—he shouldn’t get no advantages in my way o’ working. Husht both of you, and hold your tongues; I never see the like of you for talk, Swayne—when here’s the poor lady out o’ the parlor as can’t abide a noise. Better? ay, a deal better, Mrs. Preston: if he wasn’t one as adored a good easy-chair afore the fire—”
“And a very good place, too, this cold weather,” said Mr. Swayne with a feeble chuckle. “Nancy, you tell the lady about the lamb.”
Mrs. Swayne and Betty once more exchanged looks of plaintive comment. “That’s him all over,” she said; “but you’re one as understands what men is, Mrs. Preston, and I’ve no mind to explain. I hear as Miss Sara took awful to our young Miss, meeting of her promiscuous in the avenue. Betty here, she says as it was wonderful; but I always thought myself as that was how it would be.”
“Yes,” said the gratified mother; “not that I would have my Pamela build upon it. A young lady like that might change her mind; but I don’t deny that it would be very nice. Whatever is a pleasure to Pamela is twice a pleasure to me.”
“And a sweet young lady as ever I set eyes on,” said Betty, seizing the opportunity, and making Mrs. Preston one of her usual bobs.
Pamela’s mother was not a lady born; the two women, who were in their way respectful to her, saw this with lynx eyes. She was not even rich enough, poor soul, to have the appearance of a lady; and it would have been a little difficult for them to have explained why they were so civil. No doubt principally it was because they knew so little of her, and her appearance had the semi-dignity of preoccupation—a thing very difficult to be comprehended in that region of society which is wont to express all its sentiments freely. She had something on her mind, and she did not relieve herself by talking, and she lived in the parlor, while Mrs. Swayne contented herself with the kitchen. That was about the extent of her claim on their respect.
“I suppose you are all very fond of Miss Sara, knowing her all her life,” Mrs. Preston said, after she had received very graciously Betty’s tribute to her own child. Though she warned Pamela against building on it, it would be hard to describe the fairy structures which had already sprung in her own mind on these slight foundations; and though she would not have breathed his name for worlds, it is possible that Pamela’s mother, in her visions, found a place for Mr. John too.
“Fond! I don’t know as we’re so fond of her neither,” said Mrs. Swayne. “She’s well, and well enough, but I can’t say as she’s my sort. She’s too kind of familiar like—and it ain’t like a real county lady neither. But it’s Betty as sees her most. And awful good they are, I will say that for them, to every creature about the place.”
“Ah, mum, they ain’t the real old gentry,” said Betty, with a touch of pathos. “If I was one as had come with ’em, or that—but I’m real old Dewsbury, me, and was at the Hall, coming and going, for twenty years afore their time. I ain’t got nothing to say again’ Miss Sara. She comed there, that’s all—she wasn’t born. It makes a difference when folks have been forty years and more about a place. To see them pass away as has the right,” said Betty growing sentimental, “and them come in as has only a bag o’ money!”
“Little enough money the old Squire had,” said Mrs. Swayne, turning her head, “nor manners neither. Don’t you be ungrateful, Betty Caley. You was as poor as a church-mouse all along o’ your old Squires, and got as fat as fat when the new folks come and put you all comfortable. Deny it, if you can. I would worship the very ground Miss Sara sets foot on, if I was you.”
“Ah, she ain’t the real old gentry,” said Betty, with a sigh.
Perhaps Mrs. Preston had a weakness for real old gentry too, and she had a dull life, poor woman, and was glad of a little gossip. She had heard the story before, but she asked to hear it again, hoping for a little amusement; for a woman, however bowed down to the level of her fortune, gets tired sometimes, even of such a resource as needlework. She would not sit down, for she felt that might be considered lowering herself to their level. But she stood with her hand upon the back of an old high wooden chair, and asked questions. If they were not the real old gentry, and were such upstarts, why was it that the place was called by their name, and how did they come there?
“Some say as it was a poor old creature in Masterton as give him the money,” said Mrs. Swayne, “away from her own child as was gone off a-soldiering. I wouldn’t say it was money that would thrive. He was called to make the will for her, or something; an old miser, that was what she was; and with that he bought the place. And the folks laughed and said it was Brownlow’s. But he ain’t a man to laugh at, ain’t Mr. Brownlow hisself. A body may