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Tadman if my appetite hasn't fell off within this last six months to a degree that has frightened her; and a man of my regular habits must be very far gone in love, Miss Carley, when his appetite forsakes him.
Tadman could only show her friendly feelings in a very small way, by being especially active and brisk in assisting all the household labours of the new mistress of Wyncomb, and by endeavouring to cheer her with such petty gossip as she was able to pick up.
Tadman rushed at once to the expression of her fears. "Stephen Whitelaw," she exclaimed solemnly, "tell us the worst at once. It's no good keeping things back from us. That man has come here to turn us out of house and home. You've sold Wyncomb." "Sold Wyncomb! Have you gone crazy, you old fool?" cried Mr. Whitelaw, contemplating his kinswoman with a most evil expression of countenance.
The day's work was done, and Ellen was sitting with Mrs. Tadman in the every-day parlour, waiting for the return of her lord and master from Malsham. It was not a market-day, but Stephen Whitelaw had announced at dinner-time that he had an appointment at Malsham, and had set out immediately after dinner in the chaise-cart, much to the wonderment of Mrs.
We left him drinking in the parlour last night. I've called to him again and again, but there's been no answer." "Don't you take on, mum; master's all right, I daresay. Here be the gals and Mrs. Tadman coming downstairs; they'll take care o' you, while I go and look arter him. You've no call to be frightened.
There was to be no honeymoon trip. Stephen Whitelaw did not understand the philosophy of running away from a comfortable home to spend money in furnished lodgings; and he had said as much, when the officious Tadman suggested a run to Weymouth, or Bournemouth, or a fortnight in the Isle of Wight. To Ellen it was all the same where the rest of her life should be spent.
Tadman, too anxious to go on with her accustomed knitting, only able to wring her hands in a feeble way, and groan every now and then, or from time to time burst into some fragmentary speech. "And Stephen's just the man to have such a thing on his mind and keep it from everybody till the last moment," she cried piteously.
Tadman, sharply, aroused from the contemplation of her own woes by this avowal; "you must be cleverer than I took you for, Sarah Batts, to be able to save money, and yet be always bedizened with some new bit of finery, as you've been." "It was give to me," Sarah answered indignantly, "by them as had a right to give it." "For no good, I should think," replied Mrs.
He was not a lively stranger; he seemed, indeed, to have something on his mind, to be brooding upon some trouble or difficulty, as Mrs. Tadman remarked to her kinsman's wife afterwards. Both the women watched him; Ellen always perplexed by that unknown likeness, which seemed sometimes to grow stronger, sometimes to fade away altogether, as she looked at him; Mrs.
Whitelaw, he should prefer a glass of brandy-and-water; whereupon the brandy-bottle was produced from a cupboard by the fire-place, of which Stephen himself kept the key, judiciously on his guard against a possible taste for ardent spirits developing itself in Mrs. Tadman.
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