“Oh, my lady, there’s worse things than the bad weather,” cried Martha. She was her father’s child, and apt, like him, to moralize.
“That is very true: but the bad weather is at the bottom of a great deal of rheumatism and bronchitis as well as many other things.”
“Yes, my lady, but there’s things as you can’t have the doctor to, and them’s the worst of all.”
“I hope none of your brothers are a trouble to her, Martha; I thought they were all doing so well?”
“Oh, it ain’t none of the boys, my lady. It’s one as is nothing to us, not a blood relation at all. Father was telling master--or at least he come up a purpose to tell master, but I begged him not,” said the young woman, rubbing with redoubled energy. “I said, ‘father, what’s the good?’”
“You are very right there, Martha; Sir Edward is only annoyed with complaints from the village; he can’t do anything. It is much better in such a case to come to me.”
“Yes, my lady; I didn’t want them to trouble you neither. I told ’em her ladyship had a deal to think of. You see, my lady, mother’s deaf, and things might go on--oh, they might go on to any length afore she’d hear.”
“I know she is deaf, poor thing,” Lady Penton said.
“That was why I didn’t want her to take a lodger at all, my lady. But Emmy’s not a lodger after all. She’s a kind of relation. She’s Uncle Sam’s wife’s daughter, and she didn’t look like one as would give trouble. She’s just as nice spoken as any one could be, and said she was to help mother; and so she does, and always kind. Whatever father says she’s always been kind--and that handy, turning an old gown to look like new, and telling you how things is worn, and all what you can see in the shops, and as good-natured with it all--”
“Of whom are you speaking, Martha? Emmy, did you say? who is Emmy? I have never heard of her before.”
“She’s the young woman, my lady; oh! she’s the one--she’s the young person, she’s--it was her as father came to speak of, and wouldn’t hold his tongue or listen to me.”
“What is there to say about her? Sir Edward, I am afraid, did not understand. He has a great many things to think of. It would have been much better if your father had come to me. Who is she, and what has she done?”
Lady Penton spoke with a calm and composure that was almost too complete; but Martha was absorbed in her own distress and suspected nothing of this.