as I judge," she returned. "Do you know nothing of a woman’s anger?"
"You have a saucy tongue, Jade," said Mr. Dombey.
"Not usually," she answered, without any show of emotion: "I speak to you now, that you may understand us better, and rely more on us. A woman’s anger is pretty much the same here, as in your fine house. I am angry. I have been so, many years. I have as good cause for my anger as you have for yours, and its object is the same man."
He started, in spite of himself, and looked at her with astonishment.
"Yes," she said, with a kind of laugh. "Wide as the distance may seem between us, it is so. How it is so, is no matter; that is my story, and I keep my story to myself. I would bring you and him together, because I have a rage against him. My mother there, is avaricious and poor; and she would sell any tidings she could glean, or anything, or anybody, for money. It is fair enough, perhaps, that you should pay her some, if she can help you to what you want to know. But that is not my motive. I have told you what mine is, and it would be as strong and all-sufficient with me if you haggled and bargained with her for a sixpence. I have done. My saucy tongue says no more, if you wait here till sunrise to-morrow."
The old woman, who had shown great uneasiness during this speech, which had a tendency to depreciate her expected gains, pulled Mr. Dombey softly by the sleeve, and whispered to him not to mind her. He glared at them both, by turns, with a haggard look, and said, in a deeper voice than was usual with him:
"Go on—what do you know?"
"Oh, not so fast, your worship! we must wait for some one," answered the old woman. "It’s to be got from some one else—wormed out—screwed and twisted from him."
"What do you mean?" said Mr. Dombey.
"Patience," she croaked, laying her hand, like a claw, upon his arm. "Patience. I ’ll get at it. I know I can! If he was to hold it back from me," said Good Mrs. Brown, crooking her ten fingers, "I’d tear it out of him!"
Mr. Dombey followed her with his eyes as she hobbled to the door, and looked out again: and then his glance sought her daughter; but she remained impassive, silent, and regardless of him.
"Do you tell me, woman," he said, when the bent figure of Mrs. Brown came back, shaking its head and chattering to itself, "that there is another person expected here?"
"Yes!" said the old woman, looking up into his face, and nodding.
"From whom you are to exact the intelligence that is to be useful to me?"
"Yes," said the old woman, nodding again.
"A stranger?"
"Chut!" said the old woman, with a shrill laugh. "What signifies! Well, well; no. No stranger to your worship. But he won’t see you. He’d be afraid of you, and wouldn’t talk. You’ll stand behind that door, and judge him for yourself. We don’t ask to be believed on trust What!
