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And if it was an appointment with any one belonging to Malsham, why couldn't it have stood over till Saturday? It must be something out of the common that won't keep a couple of days." Mrs. Tadman went on with her knitting, gazing at Ellen with an expectant countenance, waiting for her to make some suggestion.
Tadman, in her most plausible tone, and rubbing her thin hands with an air of suppressed enjoyment. "If you were going to marry a person of your own age, it would be different, of course; but young women have such extravagant notions. I could see Miss Carley did not think much of the furniture when I took her over the house on new-year's-day.
Tadman took occasion to launch out into enthusiastic praises of her cousin; to which the girl listened in profound silence, closely watched all the time by the woman's sharp gray eyes.
Tadman in her notion that Wyncomb Farm was going to change hands. She resumed her seat by the fire with a groan, and accepted Ellen's offer of a glass of spirits-and-water with a doleful shake of her head. "Didn't I tell you so?" she whispered, as Mrs. Whitelaw handed her the comforting beverage. The stranger was evidently on the point of departure.
Tadman was evidently not to be shaken; so Ellen said no more; and they sat on in silence, each occupied with her own thoughts. Ellen's were not about Stephen Whitelaw's financial condition, but they were very sad ones.
The house was clean enough, and the bare floors of the numerous bed-chambers, which were only enlivened here and there with small strips or bands of Dutch carpet, sent up a homely odour of soft soap; for Mrs. Tadman took a fierce delight in cleaning, and the solitary household drudge who toiled under her orders had a hard time of it.
Whitelaw; and, having finished it, he sank into his chair, quite exhausted by the unusual effort, and refreshed himself with copious libations of gin-and-water. "What was that man here for, then, Stephen? It's only natural I should want to know that," said Mrs. Tadman, abashed, but not struck dumb by her kinsman's reproof. "What's that to you? Business.
Tadman gazed after them, or rather at the door which had closed upon them, with a solemn awe-stricken stare. "I don't like the look of it, Ellen," she said; "I don't at all like the look of it." "What do you mean?" the girl asked indifferently. "I don't like the hold that man has got over Stephen, nor the way he speaks to him almost as if Steph was a dog. Did you hear him just now?
Yes, he was certainly handsome, remarkably handsome even, for a man whose youth was past; but there was something in his face, a something sinister and secret, as it were, which did not strike Mrs. Tadman favourably. She could not by any means have explained the nature of her sensations on looking at him, but, as she said afterwards, she felt all in a moment that he was there for no good.
If she complained, which she did very rarely, there was no one to sympathise with her. Mrs. Tadman had so many ailments of her own, such complicated maladies, such deeply-rooted disorders, that she could be scarcely expected to give much attention to the trivial sufferings of another person.
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