Free The Toll-Gate by Georgette Heyer Page B

because Miss Nell knows him for a respectable party, and said so to me with her own lips. So then," pursued Mrs. Skeffling, sinking her voice conspiratorially, "Mr. Sopworthy stared at me very hard, and he says to me, slow-like, that if so be Mr. Jack was a friend of Miss Nell's it wouldn't become no one to start gabbing about him, because anyone as wished her well couldn't but be glad if it should happen that a fine, lusty chap like Mr. Jack was courting her, and no doubt he had his reasons—the way things are up at the Manor—for coming here secret. Of course, I don't know nothing about that, which I told Mr. Sopworthy."
    She ended on a distinct note of interrogation, her mild gaze fixed hopefully on her visitor's face. Miss Durward, who had been thinking rapidly, got up with a great show of haste, and begged her not to say that she had ever said such a thing. "I'm sure I don't know what Mr. Sopworthy can have been thinking about, and I hope to goodness he won't spread such a tarradiddle! Now, mind, Mrs. Skeffling! I never breathed a word of it, and I trust and pray no one else will!"
    "No, no!" Mrs. Skeffling assured her, her eyes glistening with excitement. "Not a word, Miss Durward, ma'am!"
    Satisfied that before many hours had passed no member of a small community affectionately disposed towards the Squire's granddaughter would think the presence in her gig of the new gatekeeper remarkable, and reckless of possible consequences, Miss Durward took leave of Crowford's most notable gossip, and departed. She found John passing the time of day with the local carrier, and concluded, from such scraps of the dialogue as she was privileged to overhear, that he was making excellent progress in his study of the vulgar tongue. She told him, as soon as the carrier had driven through the gate, that he should think shame to himself, but rightly judging this censure to be perfunctory he only grinned at her, so endearing a twinkle in his eye that any misgivings lingering in her anxious breast were routed. She then put him swiftly in possession of such details of his genealogy as her fertile imagination had fabricated, and adjured him to drum these well into Ben's head.
    "I will," he promised, enveloping her in a large hug, and planting a kiss on one plump cheek. "You're a woman in a thousand, Rose!"
    "Get along with you, do, Mr. Jack!" she commanded, blushing and dimpling. "Carrying on like the Quality, and you trying to hoax everyone you're Brean's cousin! You keep your kisses for them as may want them!"
    "I don't know that anyone does," he said ruefully.
    "Well, I'm sure I can't tell that!" she retorted tartly. "Now, don't forget what I've been telling you!"
    "I won't. What is my father's name, by the by?"
    "Gracious, I can't think of everything!"
    "Didn't you give him one? Then I think I'll keep my own. I daresay there are many more Staples in England than ever I heard of. Tell me this! In what way can I be of service to your mistress?"
    The dimple vanished, and her mouth hardened. She did not answer for a minute, but stood with her gaze fixed on the gate post, her face curiously set. Suddenly she brought her eyes up to his face, in a searching look. "Are you wishful to be of service to her?" she demanded.
    "I never wished anything so much in my life."
    He spoke perfectly calmly, but she was quick to hear the note of sincerity in his deep, rather lazy voice. Her lip quivered, and she blinked rapidly. "I don't know what's to become of her, when the master dies!" she said. "She and Mr. Henry are the last of the Stornaways, and it's him that will have Kellands, not her that's looked after it these six years past! Long before the master was struck down it was Miss Nell that was as good as a bailiff to him, and better! It was she that turned off all the lazy, good-for-nothing servants that used to eat master out of house and home, let alone cheating him the way it was a shame to see! Scraping, and saving, breeding pigs for the market,