Free The Toll-Gate by Georgette Heyer Page A

the kitchen, where she found Mrs. Skeffling, a widow of many years' standing, zestfully engaged in turning out the contents of the cupboard, and scrubbing its shelves: a thing which, as she informed Miss Durward, she had long wanted to do.
    After both ladies had expressed, with great frankness, their respective opinions of the absent Mr. Brean's dirty and disorderly habits, Mrs. Skeffling paused from her labours in order to enjoy a quiet gossip about the new gatekeeper.
    "Miss Durward, ma'am," she said earnestly, "I was that flabbergasted when I see him, which I done first thing this morning, Monday being my day for lending Mrs. Sopworthy a hand with the washing, and Mr. Jack stepping up to the Blue Boar to buy a barrel of beer! Even Mr. Sopworthy was fairly knocked acock when Mr. Jack says as he was Mr. Brean's soldier-cousin, come to mind the gate for him for a while. 'Lor'!' he says, 'I thought it was the Church tower got itself into my tap!' Which made Mr. Jack laugh hearty, though Mrs. Sopworthy was quite put out, thinking at first it was a gentleman walked in, which Landlord shouldn't have spoke so free to. Then they got to talking, Mr. Jack and Landlord, and I'm sure none of us didn't know what to think, because he didn't talk like he was Quality, not a bit! And yet it didn't seem like he was a common soldier, not with them hands of his, and the sort of way he has with him, let alone the clothes he wears! Miss Durward, ma'am, I've got a shirt of his in the wash-house this moment, with a neck-cloth, and some handkerchers, and I declare to you I've never seen the like! Good enough for Sir Peter himself, they are, and whatever would a poor man be doing with such things?"
    "Oh, he's not a poor man! Whatever put that into your head?" said Rose airily. "Didn't Mr. Brean ever tell you how one of his aunts married a man that was in a very good way of business? I forget what his name was, but he was a warm man, by all accounts, and this young fellow's his son."
    Mrs. Skeffling shook her head wonderingly. "He never said nothing to me about no aunts."
    "Ah, I daresay he wouldn't, because when she set up for a lady she didn't have any more to do with her own family!" said the inventive Rose. She added, with perfect truth: "I forget how it came about that he mentioned her to me. But this Mr. Jack—being as he's got his discharge, and not one to look down on his relations—took a fancy to visit Mr. Brean. He's just been telling me so."
    "But whatever made Mr. Brean go off like he has?" asked Mrs. Skeffling, much mystified.
    "That was where it was very fortunate his cousin happened to come to visit him," said Rose, improvising freely. "It seems he was wanting to go off on some bit of business—don't ask me what, because I don't know what it was!—only, being a widower, and not having anyone fit to mind the gate for him, he couldn't do it. So that's how it came about—Mr. Jack, being, as you can see, a good-natured young fellow, and willing to do anyone a kindness."
    This glib explanation appeared to satisfy Mrs. Skeffling. She said: "Oh, is that how it was? Mr. Sopworthy took a notion Mr. Jack was gammoning us. 'Mark my words,' he says, 'it's a bubble! It's my belief,' he says, 'he's one of them young bucks as has got himself into trouble.' What he suspicioned was that maybe there was a fastener out for him, for debt, very likely; or p'raps he up and killed someone, in one of them murdering duels."
    "Nothing of the sort!" said Rose sharply. "He's a very respectable young man, and if Mr. Sopworthy was to set such stories about it'll be him that will find himself in trouble!"
    "Oh, he wouldn't do that!" Mrs. Skeffling assured her. "What he said was, however it might be it wasn't no business of his, and them as meddled in other folks' concerns wouldn't never prosper. Setting aside he took a fancy to Mr. Jack. 'Whatever he done, he ain't no hedge-bird,' he says, very positive. 'That I'll swear to!' Which I told him was sure as check,