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Updated: June 23, 2025
Is this the house?" she said, looking earnestly at the neglected building before which they were standing. "Yes," replied Lucian, ringing the bell, "it was in this house that your father came to his untimely end. And here is Mrs. Kebby." That amiable crone had opened the door while the young man was speaking, and now stood eyeing her visitors with a blear-eyed look of dark suspicion.
Well, I don't care. He's paid me up till to-night. I'm going to enj'y myself, I am." "Don't you get drunk, Mrs. Kebby, or I'll lock you up." "Garn!" grunted the old beldame. "Wot's Christmas Eve for, if it ain't for folk to enj'y theirselves? Y'are on duty early." "I'm taking the place of a sick comrade, and I'll be on duty all night. That's my Christmas." "Well! well!
For these services Berwin paid her well, and only enjoined her to keep a quiet tongue about his private affairs, which Mrs. Kebby usually did until excited by too copious drams of gin, when she talked freely and unwisely to all the servants in the Square. It was to her observation and invention that Berwin owed his bad reputation. Well-known in every kitchen, Mrs.
Kebby sweeping so vigorously that she had raised a kind of dust storm. As soon as she saw the couple she hobbled towards them to cajole them, if possible, into giving her money. For a few moments Diana looked at her haughtily, not relishing the familiarity of the old dame, but unexpectedly she stepped forward with a look of excitement.
"Oh, I'm not so old but what I don't know two turtle doves. He! he! To kiss over yer father's blood! Lawks! what a match 'twill be! He! he!" Still laughing hoarsely, Mrs. Kebby, in the midst of her unholy joy, was pushed out of the door by Lucian, who immediately afterwards turned to see if Diana had overheard her ill-chosen and ominous words.
But it appeared that these were not in the landlord's keeping at the moment. "I gave them to Mrs. Kebby, the charwoman," said Mr. Peacock, a retired grocer, who owned the greater part of the square. "The house is in such a state that I thought I'd have it cleaned up a bit." "With a view to a possible tenant, I suppose?"
But when I perceived how grandly and richly both the young damsels were apparelled; and how, in their curtseys to me, they retreated, as if I were making up to them, in a way they had learned from Exeter; and how they began to talk of the Court, as if they had been there all their lives, and the latest mode of the Duchess of this, and the profile of the Countess of that, and the last good saying of my Lord something; instead of butter, and cream, and eggs, and things which they understood; I knew there must be somebody in the room besides Jasper Kebby to talk at.
You take Ruth; Uncle Ben take Sally; Master Debby pair off with Polly; and neighbour Nicholas will be good enough, if I can awake him, to stand up with fair Mistress Kebby. Lizzie will play us the virginal. Won't you, Lizzie dear? 'But who is to dance with you, madam? Uncle Ben asked, very politely. 'I think you must rearrange your figure.
Kebby near yonder door it is most probable that he left the kitchen by that passage for the cellar. Now it remains for me to find out how he made his exit from the cellar; and also I must look for the stiletto, which he possibly dropped in his flight, as he did the ribbon."
Berwin's breakfast waiting for her; so she hurried with it to Geneva Square as speedily as possible, fearful of a scolding. Having admitted herself into the house, Mrs. Kebby took up the tray with both hands, and pushed open the sitting-room door with her foot. Here, at the sight which met her eyes, she dropped the tray with a crash, and let off a shrill yell.
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