The Maidens' Lodge Part 23

At length, one day, without any warning, a horse cantered up to the side door, and Molly Delawarr's voice in its loudest tones (and very loud they were) demanded where all those stupid creatures were who ought to be there to take her horse. Then Miss Molly, having been helped off, came marching in, and greeted her friends with a recitative--

"Lucy Locket lost her pocket; 'Kitty Fisher found it!'"

"My dear Mrs Molly, I am quite rejoiced to see you!"

"No! you aren't, are you?" facetiously responded Molly. "Rhoda--I vow, child, you're uglier than ever!--mother wants you for a while. There's that jade Betty going to come of age, and she means to make the biggest fuss over it ever was heard. She said she would send Wilson over, but I jumped on my t.i.t, and came to tell you myself. You'll come, won't you, old hag?"

Rhoda looked at her grandmother.

"My dear, of course you will go!" responded Madam, "since my Lady Delawarr is so good. 'Tis so kind in Mrs Molly to take thus much trouble on herself."

"Fiddle-de-dee!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Molly. "I'm no more kind than she's good.

She wants a fuss, and a lot of folks to make it; and I wanted a ride, and some fun with Rhoda. Where's the goodness, eh?"

"Shall I take Phoebe?" asked Rhoda, doubtfully.

"You'd better," returned Molly, before Madam could speak. "You'll want somebody to curl your love-locks and st.i.tch your fal-lals; and I'm not going to do it--don't you fancy so. Oh, I say, Rhoda! you may have Marcus Welles, if you want him. There's another fellow turned up, with a thousand a year more, that will suit me better."

"Indeed! I thank you!" said Rhoda, with a little toss of her head.

"My dear Mrs Molly, you are so diverting," smiled Madam.

"You don't say so!" rejoined that fascinating young person. "You'll put on your Sunday bombazine, Rhoda. We're all going to be as fine as fiddlers. As for you"--and Molly's bold eyes surveyed Phoebe, seeming to take in the whole at a glance--"it won't matter. You aren't an heiress, so you can come in rags."

Phoebe said nothing.

"I don't think," went on Molly, in a reflective tone, "that you can make a catch; but you can try. There is the chaplain--horrid old centipede!

And there's old Walford"--Molly never favoured any man with a Mr to his name--"an ugly, spiteful old bear that n.o.body'll have: he's rich enough; and he might look your way if you play your cards well. Any way, you'll not have much chance else; so you'd better keep your eyes pretty well open. Now, Rhoda, come along, and we'll have some fun."

And away went Molly and Rhoda, with a smiling a.s.sent from Madam.

What a very repulsive, vulgar disagreeable girl this Molly Delawarr is!

True, my gentle reader. And yet--does she do much more than say, in plain language, what a great number of Mollys are not ashamed to think?

Phoebe's sensations, in view of the coming visit to the Court, were far removed from pleasure. Must she go? She braced up her courage, and ventured to ask.

"If you please, Madam--"

"Well, child?" was the answer, in a sufficiently gracious tone to encourage Phoebe to proceed.

"Must I go with Mrs Rhoda to Delawarr Court, if you please, Madam?"

"Why, of course, child." Madam's tone expressed surprise, though not displeasure.

Phoebe swallowed her regret with a sigh, and tried to comfort herself with the thought of meeting Gatty, which was the only bright spot in the darkness. But would Gatty be there?

Rhoda and Molly came in to tea arm-in-arm.

"And how has my Lady Delawarr her health, Mrs Molly?" inquired Madam, as she poured out the refreshing fluid.

Molly had allowed no time for inquiries on her first appearance.

"Oh, _she's_ well enough," said Molly, carelessly.

"And Mrs Betty is now fully recovered of her distemper?"

"She's come out of the small-pox, and tumbled into the vapours," said Molly.

"The vapours" was a most convenient term of that day. It covered everything which had no other name, from a pain in the toe to a pain in the temper, and was very frequently descriptive of the latter ailment.

Betty's condition, therefore, as subject to this malady, excited little regret.

"And how goes it with Mrs Gatty? Is she now my Lady Polesworth?"

"My Lady Fiddlestrings!" responded Molly. "Not she--never will. Old Polesworth wanted a pretty face, and after Gatty's small-pox, why, you couldn't--"

"Small-pox!" cried Madam and Rhoda in concert.

"What, didn't you know?" answered Molly. "To be sure--took it the minute she got home. But that wasn't all, neither. Old Polesworth told Mum"--which meant Lady Delawarr--"that he might have stood small-pox, but he couldn't saintship; so Saint Gatty lost her chance, and much she'll ever see of such another. Dad and Mum were as mad as hornets.

Dad said he'd have horsewhipped her if she'd been out of bed. Couldn't, _in_ bed, you see--wouldn't have looked well."

"But, my dear, she could not help taking the small-pox?"

"Maybe not, but she might have helped taking the saint-pox," said Molly.

"I believe she caught it from you," nodding at Phoebe. "But what vexed Mum most was that the grey goose actually made believe to be pleased when she lost her chance of the tinsel. Trust me, but Mum blew her up-- a little! All leather and prunella, you know, of course. Pleased to be an old maid!--just think, what nonsense. She will be an old maid now, sure as eggs are eggs, unless she marries some conventicle preacher.

That would be the best end of her, I should think."

Phoebe sat wondering why Molly paid so poor a compliment to her own denomination as to suppose that the natural gravitation of piety was towards Dissent. But Molly's volatile nature pa.s.sed to a different subject the next moment.

"I say, old Roadside, bring a white gown. The Queen's coming to the Bath, and a lot of folks are trying to make her come on to Berkeley; and if she do, a whole parcel of young gentlewomen are to be there to courtesy to her, and give her a posy, and all that sort of flummery.

And Mum says she'll send us down, if they do it."

"Who's to give the posy?" eagerly asked Rhoda.

"Don't know. Not you. You won't have a chance, old Fid-fad. No more shan't I. It'll be some thing of quality. I'll tread on her tail, though,--see if I don't."

"Whose?" whispered Rhoda; for Molly's last remark had been confidential.

"You don't mean the Queen?"

"Of course I do,--who better? Her grandmother was a baronet's daughter; what else am I? I'll have a snip of her gown, if I can."

"O Molly!" exclaimed Rhoda in unfeigned horror.

"Why not? I've scissors in my pocket."

"Molly, you never could!"

"Don't you lay much on those odds, my red currant bush. I can do pretty near anything I've a mind--when I _have_ a mind."