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Updated: June 25, 2025
Tadman would branch off into a graphic description of her own maladies, to which Ellen was fain to listen patiently, wondering vaguely as she listened whether the lapse of years would render her as wearisome a person as Mrs. Tadman. She had no sympathy from anyone. Her father came to Wyncomb Farm once a week or so, and sat drinking and smoking with Mr. Whitelaw; but Ellen never saw him alone.
Tadman had need to hold his every-day coat up to the light to convince him that the collar was threadbare, and that the sleeves shone as if purposely polished by some ingenious process. "Marriage is an expensive thing," she told him again, with a sigh; "and young girls expect to see a man dressed ever so smart on his wedding-day." "I don't care for her expectations," Mr.
Tadman stirred the fire into a blaze with an indifference to the consumption of fuel which made her kinsman stare, even on that hospitable occasion. The blaze made the dark wainscoted room cheerful of aspect, however, which the two candles could not have done, as their light was almost absorbed by the gloomy panelling.
Tadman had declared that Stephen would inevitably set the place on fire some night or other, and how little weight she had attached to the dismal prophecy. But the matron's fears had not been groundless, it seemed. The threatened calamity had come. "Stephen!" she cried, with all her might, and then flew to Mrs. Tadman's door and knocked violently.
He was left, therefore, with his bottle of rum about half emptied, to finish his night's entertainment after his own fashion. Mrs. Tadman ventured a mild warning about the fire when she wished him good night; but as she did not dare to hint that there had been any neglect in the chimney-sweeping, her counsel went for very little. Mr.
Nor on market-day had she expressed any wish to go with him to Malsham to spend money on drapery; and he had an idea, sedulously cultivated by Mrs. Tadman, that young women were perpetually wanting to spend money at drapers' shops. Altogether, that first fortnight of his married life had been most satisfactory, and Mr. Whitelaw was inclined to regard matrimony as a wise and profitable institution.
Tadman remonstrated in a feebly plaintive tone, "I've no wish to bother you; there's nothing farther from my thoughts; but it's only natural that I should be anxious about a place where I've lived so many years. Not but what I could get my living easy enough elsewhere, as you must know, Stephen, being able to turn my hand to almost anything." To this feeble protest Mr.
Tadman did not pursue the subject, but with a gentle sigh led the way to another room, and so on from room to room, till they had explored all that floor of the house. "There's the attics above; but you won't care to see them," she said. "The shepherd and five other men sleep up there.
As for you, mother Tadman, if you treat me to any more of this nonsense, you will find yourself turned out of house and home a precious deal sooner than you bargained for; but it won't be because of my selling Wyncomb. Sell Wyncomb, indeed! I've about as much thought of going up in a balloon, as of parting with a rood or a perch of my father's land." This was a very long speech for Mr.
Tadman, whose fragmentary lamentations only worried her, like the murmurs of some troublesome not-to-be-pacified child; whereby that doleful person, finding her soul growing heavier and heavier, for lack of counsel or consolation, could at last endure this state of suspense no longer in sheer inactivity, but was fain to bestir herself somehow, if even in the most useless manner.
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