“No, thank ye,” said he in the same tone. “I can make a poultice as well as most. But Daisy ain’t coughed once, and she don’t fancy poultices.”
“Oh, and she ain’t never to ’ave nothin’ as she don’t fancy, o’ course!” sneered the woman. “Ye’d best bring ’er up a borned lady! She won’t never ’ave no cause to ’ide ’er ’ead and be thankful for what she can get—no, not she, I s’pose!”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said the man. “She’ll ’ave what I can give ’er so long as I be above ground. It’d be queer if she didn’t and she my only one.”
“Yes, but ye won’t be above ground for ever, Tom Wycombe. Ye be old—and she but a mite. And then what’ll she do? Folk may look askance at her then as don’t now, mind ye! A pretty piece o’ goods you’re a-makin’ of ’er to stand what she’ll ’ave to stand!”
“What’ll she ’ave to stand?” asked Wycombe, suspicious, though he knew not of what.
“Well, I’ve give ye warnin’s enough,” began the busybody evasively, drawing her shawl pettishly around her preparatory to departure; but the man interrupted her with a muttered oath.
“Yes, warnin’s enough and to spare, thank ye,” said he. “Daisy’s to my likin’, and I don’t care to ’oo’s else’s she be or no! She be my child, and I’ll bring ’er up as I please and be damned to them as don’t approve.”
Mrs. Goodenough flushed. She was wont to be thought an oracle upon all subjects connected with children, because she had, in her youth, been a nurse for a year or so; and she had vowed in the village that she would make Tom Wycombe hear reason about this brat.
She had vowed it, and instead of that, she was being sworn at for her pains; it was too much.
“For shame on ye, then, Tom Wycombe, for a godless ungrateful wretch!” shrieked she. “Oh, ye’ve ’ad warnin’s enough, ’ave ye! Well, ye shall jist ’ave this one afore I’ve done wi’ ye! She be yer own child, be she? Just you make quite sure o’ that afore ye swear at yer old friends, a-worritin’ as to ’ow ye shall bring ’er up!”
Her anger had bubbled and boiled over; it would not go down all at once, though she was frightened at the effect of her words.
For Wycombe had turned not white but blue: his features twitched, his lips trembled, but no words came from them.
“If it weren’t as I ha’ knowed ye this twenty year, and closed yer pore mother’s eyes for ye fifteen year ago come Martinmas, and was with that pore wife o’ yours in ’er trouble, I’d ha’ spoke long ago, I would,” said the woman, as though trying to find good reason and excuse for her hastiness. “I allers said as ye did ought to know and you wastin’ yerself on that brat! And them’s my feelin’s.”