about anything," said Priscilla. As Miss Priscilla Stanbury was also very fond of having her own way, it was not surprising that she should object to that quality in this lady, who had come to live under the same roof with her.
The country about Nuncombe Putney is perhaps as pretty as any in England. It is beyond the river Teign, between that and Dartmoor, and is so lovely in all its variations of rivers, rivulets, broken ground, hills and dales, old broken, battered, time-worn timber, green knolls, rich pastures, and heathy common, that the wonder is that English lovers of scenery know so little of it. At the Stag and Antlers old Mrs. Crocket, than whom no old woman in the public line was ever more generous, more peppery, or more kind, kept two clean bed-rooms, and could cook a leg of Dartmoor mutton and make an apple pie against any woman in Devonshire. "Drat your fish!" she would say, when some self-indulgent and exacting traveller would wish for more than these accustomed viands. "Cock you up with dainties! If you can't eat your victuals without fish, you must go to Exeter. And then you'll get it stinking mayhap." Now Priscilla Stanbury and Mrs. Crocket were great friends, and there had been times of deep want, in which Mrs. Crocket's friendship had been very serviceable to the ladies at the cottage. The three young women had been to the inn one morning to ask after a conveyance from Nuncombe Putney to Princetown, and had found that a four-wheeled open carriage with an old horse and a very young driver could be hired there. "We have never dreamed of such a thing," Priscilla Stanbury had said, "and the only time I was at Princetown I walked there and back." So they had called at the Stag and Antlers, and Mrs. Crocket had told them her mind upon several matters.
"What a dear old woman!" said Nora, as they came away, having made their bargain for the open carriage.
"I think she takes quite enough upon herself, you know," said Mrs. Trevelyan.
"She is a dear old woman," said Priscilla, not attending at all to the last words that had been spoken. "She is one of the best friends I have in the world. If I were to say the best out of my own family, perhaps I should not be wrong."
"But she uses such very odd language for a woman," said Mrs. Trevelyan. Now Mrs. Crocket had certainly "dratted" and "darned" the boy, who wouldn't come as fast as she had wished, and had laughed at Mrs. Trevelyan very contemptuously, when that lady had suggested that the urchin, who was at last brought forth, might not be a safe charioteer down some of the hills.
"I suppose I'm used to it," said Priscilla. "At any rate I know I like it. And I like her."
"I dare say she's a good sort of woman," said Mrs. Trevelyan, "only—"
"I am not saying anything about her being a good woman now," said Priscilla, interrupting the other with some vehemence, "but only that she is my friend."
"I liked her of all things," said Nora. "Has she lived here always?"
"Yes; all her life. The house belonged to her father and to her grandfather before her, and I think she says she has never slept out of it a dozen times in her life. Her husband is dead, and her daughters are married away, and she has the great grief and trouble of a ne'er-do-well son. He's away now, and she's all alone." Then after a pause, she continued; "I dare say it seems odd to you, Mrs. Trevelyan, that we should speak of the innkeeper as a dear friend; but you must remember that we have been poor among the poorest—and are so indeed now. We only came into our present house to receive you. That is where we used to live," and she pointed to the tiny cottage, which now that it was dismantled and desolate, looked to be doubly poor. "There have been times when we should have gone to bed very hungry if it had not been for Mrs. Crocket."
Later in the day Mrs. Trevelyan, finding Priscilla alone, had apologized for what she had said about the old woman. "I was very thoughtless and forgetful, but I hope you will not be angry with me. I will be ever so fond of her if you will forgive me."
"Very well," said Priscilla, smiling; "on those conditions I will forgive you." And from that time there sprang up something like a feeling of friendship between Priscilla and Mrs. Trevelyan. Nevertheless Priscilla was still of opinion that the Clock House arrangement was dangerous, and should never have been made; and Mrs. Stanbury, always timid of her own nature, began to fear that it must be so, as soon as she was removed from the influence of her son. She did not see much even of the few neighbours who lived around her, but she fancied that people looked at her in church as though she had done that which she ought not to have done, in taking herself to a big and comfortable house for the sake of lending her protection to a lady who was separated from her husband. It was not that she believed that Mrs. Trevelyan had been wrong; but that, knowing herself to be weak, she fancied that she and her daughter would be enveloped in the danger and suspicion which could not but attach themselves to the lady's condition, instead of raising the lady out of the cloud,—as would have been the case had she herself been strong. Mrs. Trevelyan, who was sharpsighted and clear-witted, soon saw that it was so, and spoke to Priscilla on the subject before she had been a fortnight in the house. "I am afraid your mother does not like our being here," she said.
"How am I to answer that?" Priscilla replied.
"Just tell the truth."
"The truth is so uncivil. At first I did not like it. I disliked it very much."
"Why did you give way?"
"I didn't give way. Hugh talked my mother over. Mamma does what I tell her, except when Hugh tells her something else. I was afraid, because, down here, knowing nothing of the world, I didn't wish that we, little people, should be mixed up in the quarrels and disagreements of those who are so much bigger."
"I don't know who it is that is big in this matter."
"You are big,—at any rate by comparison. But now it must go on. The house has been taken, and my fears are over as regards you. What you observe in mamma is only the effect, not yet quite worn out, of what I said before you came. You may be quite sure of this,—that we neither of us believe a word against you. Your position is a very unfortunate one; but if it can be remedied by your staying here with us, pray stay with us."
"It cannot be remedied," said Emily; "but we could not be anywhere more comfortable than we are here."
CHAPTER XV.
WHAT THEY SAID ABOUT IT IN THE CLOSE.
When Miss Stanbury, in the Close at Exeter, was first told of the arrangement that had been made at Nuncombe Putney, she said some very hard words as to the thing that had been done. She was quite sure that Mrs. Trevelyan was no better than she should be. Ladies who were separated from their husbands never were any better than they should be. And what was to be thought of any woman, who, when separated from her husband, would put herself under the protection of such a Paladin as Hugh Stanbury? She heard the tidings of course from Dorothy, and spoke her mind even to Dorothy plainly enough; but it was to Martha that she expressed herself with her fullest vehemence.
"We always knew," she said, "that my brother had married an addle-pated, silly woman, one of the most unsuited to be the mistress of a clergyman's house that ever a man set eyes on; but I didn't think she'd allow herself to be led into such a stupid thing as this."
"I don't suppose the lady has done anything amiss,—any more than combing her husband's hair, and the like of that," said Martha.
"Don't tell me! Why, by their own story, she has got a lover."
"But he ain't to come after her down here, I suppose. And as for lovers, ma'am, I'm told that the most of 'em have 'em up in London. But it don't mean much, only just idle talking and gallivanting."
"When women can't keep themselves from idle talking with strange gentlemen, they are very far gone on the road to the devil. That's my notion. And that was everybody's notion a few years ago. But now, what with divorce bills, and women's rights, and penny papers, and false hair, and married women being just like giggling girls, and giggling girls knowing just as much as married women, when a woman has been married a year or two she begins to think whether she mayn't have more fun for her money by living apart from