Let Him Lie by Ianthe Jerrold Page A

we?”
    â€œYes,” said Jeanie with youthful dogmatism. “I think we do know that no harm comes of knowledge. It’s ignorant superstitions that do harm.”
    Mrs. Barchard was instantly on the defensive. Her sallow cheeks grew pink. She said in a voice that held an indignant quiver:
    â€œIt isn’t only ignorant people thinks so, Miss! Mr. Fone was dead against it. He’d’ve done anything to stop it!”
    Jeanie smiled and stretched.
    â€œOh, well, Mr. Fone’s a poet.”
    â€œHe’s the best, cleverest gentleman that ever lived!” cried Mrs. Barchard vehemently. “And the kindest, too! He wouldn’t squeeze a poor man to pay him back money he’d lent, when he’d got more than he knew what to do with! He wouldn’t go poking his nose in a man’s private affairs!”
    Mrs. Barchard stopped abruptly, trembling a little.
    Jeanie looked thoughtfully at the little indignant woman, remembering gossip she had heard about Hugh Barchard and his ill-starred chicken farm and ill-starred love adventure.
    â€œDo you mean,” she asked directly, “that Mr. Molyneux did do these things?”
    The little woman was plainly disconcerted at this directness. A half-ashamed, half-sullen look came over her expressive face.
    â€œI’m not saying so. Only, it wasn’t my Hugh’s fault that he couldn’t make chicken-farming pay when he came back from Canada. He always paid the interest regular on what was lent him. And as for a man’s private affairs, what business are they of other folk?”
    It was obvious from Mrs. Barchard’s unhappy rancorous tone that her son’s sinful living had caused her a good deal of suffering. She had the gossip’s fear of gossip.
    â€œWas Mr. Molyneux pressing your son to repay a loan?”
    Mrs. Barchard looked uneasy.
    â€œI’m not saying so,” she muttered. “I didn’t say he did. I only said Mr. Fone didn’t.”
    â€œBut it was Mr. Molyneux who lent your son money to start his chicken-farm, wasn’t it?”
    â€œI’m not saying so.”
    Mrs. Barchard was evidently not saying anything at all about Robert Molyneux, now that Robert Molyneux had joined old Grim among the awful, unknown, propitiated shades.
    â€œStill,” she added resentfully, “it wasn’t my Hugh’s fault the bottom dropped out of chicken-farming, was it? And when everything went wrong at once like that—chickens doing no good, I mean, and that Val treating him so bad and then to be hard on the poor lad about a loan he’d never asked for—”
    She glanced defensively at Jeanie, and Jeanie saw that she wanted to defend her boy against the imagined gossips who might already, with their calumnies, have assailed Jeanie’s virtuous ears.
    â€œVal?” murmured Jeanie encouragingly.
    â€œThat Valentine Frazer that treated him so bad Coming here and spending his money and making all sorts of nasty talk about the place with her silly painted face and red gloves and then to go and break his heart like that!”
    â€œOh dear!”
    â€œYes, I told him the sort she was! Often. But he wouldn’t listen to me! Oh no! Red gloves, indeed!”
    â€œOh dear!”
    â€œOne thing I do thank Heaven for!” said Mrs. Barchard. “One thing on my knees I thank God for! He never married her.”
    â€œOh dear.”
    â€œNo. So when she went off with her painter he was well shut of her. He didn’t think so, of course. Two years ago last July it was. He come to my house early in the morning, white as a sheet, poor lad. Val’s gone! he says. What? I said. Val’s gone, he said, she’s sick of me, he said, and she’s gone up to London to be an artist’s model, he said. An artist’s model! I said. That’s what you call it, is it? I told you what she was! I said. Oh, Mother, it isn’t what you think! he says, poor boy,