Scotch Marriages, Volume 1 by Sarah Tytler

Apart from Peggy's despair at the separation from her husband, / following so close on the death of her mother, the young wife felt / as pleased as she could feel that she was to have her cousin Jenny / for her helper and counsellor. Peggy had always looked up to Jenny, / putting her under a different classification from that bestowed on / ordinary servants. Peggy knew how clever and diligent her older, / better-instructed kinswoman had proved herself. It had been entirely / by her own laudable exertions that she had attained a higher standing, / from which she had always been reasonably condescending and indulgent / to her little cousin.

The tables were turned now, but it never entered Peggy's head to be / anything save highly gratified that she could be of use to Jenny, while / Peggy was grateful in proportion for the services which she was sure / Jenny would render her. Jenny, who had lived as an upper servant among / ladies, would show Peggy how to behave like a lady, so that she might / no longer annoy the laird and affront his mother. And Jenny would speak / to the poor, yearning, mourning girl's hungry heart of the mother whose / name had come to be a forbidden word at Drumsheugh, long before Peggy / had left off wearing her first crape. Luckie Hedderwick's memory must / be cherished in a measure by Jenny also, since she had known the widow / well, and had even been indebted to her in her better days.

Jenny was quite of Peggy's opinion that she ought to profit by her / cousin's good fortune. But there the thoughts of the kinswomen diverged / widely, and ran in two distinct and opposing channels. Jenny Hedderwick / was a calculating, unscrupulous young woman, bent on making her / own -- and that as quickly as might be -- out of Peggy's advantages, and of / what Johnnie Fuggie had confidently reckoned, in more senses than one, / her relations' share in them. Johnnie was a forward fool, as obtuse / as he was intrusive, but Jenny was worse. She had viewed what was to / her Peggy's utterly unwarrantable exaltation with indignant amazement / and disgust, while she had at the same time endeavoured to swallow her / jealous vexation, and reap all the benefit she could gain from her / cousin's prosperity without paying any heed to what Peggy might lose in / the process.

Jenny did not go the length of hating Peggy, or even of bearing her / decided ill-will. She was not worth it in Jenny's estimation. She was / a silly ‘coof,' who, if one lost sight of her fair face, had not a / single claim to rise above her old allies, and was as totally unfitted / to do so as a girl could be. All the use she was for, in Jenny's sharp, / mocking estimate, was to serve as available prey for those who had / spirit and wit to spoil the new-made lady.

In accomplishing her object Jenny would not dream of being harsh / or cruel to young Mrs. Ramsay. She would be as good to Peggy in a / half-jeering, contemptuous manner as the girl would permit. Jenny / was too astute a schemer as well as too reasonable a mortal for the / opposite course of conduct. Indeed, hers was not a harsh or cruel / nature, though she was wholly worldly and in many respects unfeeling.

At the same time, Jenny would not take the trouble or undergo the / personal mortification of keeping up much of a disguise before / Peggy -- her own cousin, who had been wont to convoy Jenny and carry / her bundle for her in the elder woman's earlier visits to the Cotton, / when Peggy had felt amply rewarded for her trudge and toil by an old / riband of Jenny's or a handful of the ‘sweeties' which had been her / last ‘market fare' -- a silly lass, who could not hold up her head in her / own house, fill the place she had won, give orders and exact obedience / and deference from a laird himself, as Jenny would have done with a / high hand in Peggy's place. But Peggy must ‘pinge' like a senseless / bairn for the poor old mother well out of the way. Who was to stand on / ceremony and put herself about to maintain a great show of appearances / before such an unmitigated goose?

Accordingly, the very day after the setting out of Drumsheugh and his / mother, Jenny -- a strapping-enough figure, with a foxy head and steely / eyes -- proceeded to ‘rake' through the house, up and down, backwards / and forwards, opening cupboards and turning out the contents of / drawers; taking an inventory, as it were, of what might be useful to / her, with an eye to future raids.

Peggy came upon her cousin standing on a chair, narrowly inspecting the / articles of dress put away on the shelves of Mrs. Ramsay's wardrobe, to / which the prowler had found access by means of a key on the bunch which / she carried with her ready for action.

‘Eh, Jenny, ye mauna meddle there, nor touch a preen in this room,' / cried Peggy, in the utmost dismay. ‘There's naething o' mine there, / it's a' Mrs. Ramsay's; this is her room.'

‘Hoot, Peggy,' said Jenny lightly, in no manner discomposed. ‘Div ye no / ken yet a' the rooms here are yours, and it is only by your will and / pleasure that the auld flytin' wife gets house-room now at Drumsheugh?'

Peggy was in greater distress than before. ‘But, Jenny, you're sair / mista'en; Mrs. Ramsay is Drumsheugh's leddy-mither. She has the best / title to be here, and she is nae randy. She has behaved as I could / never have looked for her to behave, as no common woman would have / acted. She neither flat nor grat, but took me in as her dochter without / a word against it, though we had deceived her -- Drumsheugh and me; and / she has been gude to me, and patient wi' me. Oh, Jenny, surely I never / said a word to the contrary.'