Fiander's Widow: A Novel — Edition Insights

e said. ‘My dear grandfather’s mare, and the trap, and even my cocks and hens. Dear grandfather! he always used to tell me that everything in the whole place was to be mine when he died—and now they won’t so much as leave me the old rooster.’

‘Poor maid!’ ejaculated Fiander, full of commiseration, and guiltily conscious of having bought that turnip-hoer a bargain. ‘’T is unfort’nate for ye, I’m sure. Did n’t your grandfather make no provision for ’ee?’

‘Oh, it is n’t that I mind,’ retorted Rosalie quickly; ‘it’s seeing everything go. Everything that I love—all the live things that I knew and used to take care of—even my churn, and my cheese-presses—granfer used always to say I was wonderful about cheese-making—and the pails and pans out of my dairy—everything that I kept so nice and took such pride in. They’ll all go to strangers now—all scattered about, one here, one there. And to-morrow they’ll be selling the things out of the house. If they leave me the clothes I stand up in that’ll be all.’

She sobbed so pitifully and looked so forlorn that Fiander’s heart was positively wrung.

‘My word!’ he ejaculated, ‘I do ’low it’s hard—’t is that, ’t is cruel hard; what was ye thinkin’ o’ doin’, my dear? You’ll have some relations most like as ’ll be glad to take ye in?’

‘I have n’t a relation in the world,’ returned Rosalie with another sob; ‘I had nobody but grandfather. If I had,’ she added quickly, ‘I don’t know that I should have gone to them—I don’t like to be beholden to anybody. I’ll earn my own bread, though I don’t know how I shall do it; grandfather could never bear the notion of my going to service.’

‘Ah! and could n’t he?’ returned Fiander, deeply interested.

‘No, indeed. Of course when he was alive we never thought of things coming to this pass. He always told me I should be mistress here when he was gone, and that I should be well off. Dear granfer, he grudged me nothing.’

‘Such a good education as he gi’ed ye too!’ observed Elias commiseratingly.

‘Oh, yes. I was at boarding-school for three years. I can play the piano and work the crewel-work, and I learnt French.’

‘Dear heart alive!’ groaned Fiander, ‘and now ye be a-thrown upon the world. But I was meanin’ another kind of education. Cheese-making and dairy-work and that—you was sayin’ you was a good hand at suchlike.’ While he spoke he eyed her sharply, and listened eagerly for the response.

‘Yes, yes,’ agreed Rosalie, ‘I can do all that. We made all kinds of cheeses every day in the winter, “Ramil,” and “Ha’skim,” and “Blue Vinny” and all. Yes, I was kept busy—my butter always took top price in the market; and then there were the accounts to make up of an evening. My life was n’t all play, I can tell you, but I was very happy.’

‘My missus,’ remarked Fiander, following out his own train of thoughts—‘that’s the second one: I buried her a year come Michaelmas—she was a wonderful hand at the Ha’skim cheeses. A very stirring body she was! I do miss her dreadful; and these here dairy-women as ye hire they be terrible folk for waste—terrible! I reckon I’ll be a lot out of pocket this year.’

‘We all have our troubles, you see,’ said Rosalie, with tears still hanging on her black lashes. ‘Well, I thank you for your kind words, sir; they seem to have done me good. I think I’ll go in, now. I don’t want to meet any of the folk.’

‘Bide a bit, my dear,’ said the farmer, ‘bide a bit! I’ve summat to ax ye. You bain’t thinkin’ of going to service, ye say, and ye don’t rightly know where to look for a home?’

Rosalie stared at him. He was laughing in a confused, awkward way, and his face was growing redder and redder. Before she could answer he went on:

‘There’s your name now—it be a pretty ’un. I do ’low it ’ud seem almost a pity to change it, an’ yet if ye was to lose the name ye might get the thing.’

‘I don’t understand you, sir,’ cried she, growing red in her turn.