‘May be,’ she continued, ‘it’ll be like its father’s. In our family all the gals take after the father, and all the boys after the mother. I suppose as _he_ has lightish hair?’
‘It isn’t easy to believe as the father of that blessed dear could have been a bad lot. I’m sure he isn’t, and yet there’s that Polesden gal at the farm, she as went wrong with Jim, a great ugly brute, and she herself warnt up to much, well, as I say, her child was the delicatest little angel as I ever saw. It’s my belief as God-a-mighty mixes Hisself up in it more nor we think. But there _was_ nothing amiss with him, was there, my sweet?’
Mrs Caffyn inclined her head towards Madge.
‘Don’t you think, my dear, if there’s nothing atwixt you, as it was a flyin’ in the face of Providence to turn him off? You were reglarly engaged to him, and I have heard you say he was very fond of you. I suppose there were some high words about something, and a kind of a quarrel like, and so you parted, but that’s nothing. It might all be made up now, and it ought to be made up. What was it about?’
‘Well, of course, if you don’t like to say anything more to me, I won’t ask you. I don’t want to hear any secrets as I shouldn’t hear. I speak only because I can’t abear to see you here when I believe as everything might be put right, and you might have a house of your own, and a good husband, and be happy for the rest of your days. It isn’t too late for that now. I know what I know, and as how he’d marry you at once.’
‘Oh, my dear Mrs Caffyn, I have no secret from you, who have been so good to me: I can only say I could not love him—not as I ought.’
‘If you can’t love a man, that’s to say if you can’t _abear_ him, it’s wrong to have him, but if there’s a child that does make a difference, for one has to think of the child and of being respectable. There’s something in being respectable; although, for that matter, I’ve see’d respectable people at Great Oakhurst as were ten times worse than those as aren’t. Still, a-speaking for myself, I’d put up with a goodish bit to marry the man whose child wor mine.’
‘For myself I could, but it wouldn’t be just to him.’
‘I mean that I could sacrifice myself if I believed it to be my duty, but I should wrong him cruelly if I were to accept him and did not love him with all my heart.’
