Page:Mehalah 1920.djvu/236

226 "What has brought you here?" asked Elijah surlily. Mrs. Pettican looked round, then drew nearer. "I think," she said, "you once advised me something, but I don't know how far your interest is the same as it was." "What do you mean?"

"I don't know whether you would be satisfied to get Mehalah Sharland off your hands now, or keep her here." "She remains here, she never shall leave it."

"It is just this," said Admonition. " My husband has of late been plucking up a little courage, or showing obstinacy. My cousin Timothy—I don't know what to make of him—he is not what he was. He is always making some excuse or other to get away, and I find he goes to Mersea. He hasn't been as dutiful and amiable to me of late, as I have a right to expect, considering how I have found him in food and drink and tobacco, the best of all, and no stint. There's some game up between him and my husband, and I believe it is this, I know it is this. Charles is bent on getting Mrs. Sharland and her daughter, the latter especially, to come and live with him and take care of him. He dares to say I neglect him. He reckons on pitting that girl against me; he thinks that she would be more than a match for me." "He thinks right," burst in Rebow with a laugh. "I won't have her in the house. I don't mind taking in the old woman, but the daughter I will not admit." "You are right. She'd master you and make you docile or drive you out," jeered Rebow. "She shall not come. I have told her so. I will not be opposed and brow-beaten in my own house. I will not have the care of my husband wrested from me." "Have you come here to tell me this?" "I know that Charles and Timothy have put their heads together. They are both up in rebellion against me, and Timothy has walked over to Mersea to get a boat and row here to invite that girl to come with her mother to Wyvenhoe, and take up their abode with my husband. Charles promises if they will do so to provide for them and leave them everything in his will, so as to make them independent at my cost. When I got wind of this—I overheard the scheme by the merest accident—I got a gig and was driven