17
Same scene. Door opens and enter Kirry.
Kirry [looking around]: Are you in, Lizzie? [Coming into room, calls again and knocks on floor.] Are you theer, Lizzie? Aw, well now, an’ me come all the way from Lhergy Rennie to be disappointed like this. [Lifts cosy from tea-pot.] Tea made, too, so she can’t be far. Gone over the road to see Jem’s mother, it’s like. Them two is thick thremenjus they’re sayin’–the both of them sartain sure the poor falla will come home again. [Looks at cakes on hearth, tries one, finishes it, then another.] These is good, though. I’m hungry, too. What’s keepin’ her at all? [Takes a chair and sits down.] I may as well be takin’ ress for all, for I’m tired scandalous walking about the town an’ houlin’ on to the parcels. You’d think the people was made of elbows the way they’re knockin’ up against you when you’re thryin’ to have a look in at the shop windows. It’s terribly lonely, too, among such a sight of people. Well Lizzie is better off than me, for she have got a memory anyway. [Taking picture from shelf and looking wistfully at it, holding it out to the light.] Isn’t that the very marra of Jem! What’s this readin’ below–middlin’ small writin’, too. [Reads slowly and laboriously]: “’Tis batther to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.” Well that’s nice readin’, too. I wonder did Jem send her that in a latther one time? Dear me, it’s time I was lookin’ roun’, too, or I’ll be goin’ a leavin’ worse nor Lizzie; but the men’s sceerce thremenjus–an’ middlin’ shy, too, they’re savin’. [Walks about restlessly, sees hat lying on settle, picks it up and turns it round admiringly in her hand.] Aw, see that now. She’ve been thrimmin’ a new hat for Sunday. Tossed up middlin’ stylish at her, too! Well, now, is the girl making out that he really will come home an’ not lost at all, as they said he was? [Tries on hat.] I would like to look in the glass now to see does it suit me. Hollantide an’ all, when they’re sayin’ the man you’re
