The Maidens' Lodge Part 37

For once in his life, Mr Marcus Welles seemed startled and taken at a disadvantage.

"I was afraid you wanted her chiefly for her money, but I did not believe you capable of this! So you do not care for her at all? And you run away, afraid to face the pangs you have created, and to meet the eyes of the maid you have so foully wronged. Shame on you!"

"Phoebe, you must be mad!" exclaimed Mrs Latrobe, rising. "Don't listen to her, dear Mr Welles; 'tis a most distressing scene for you to bear. I am infinitely concerned my daughter should have so far forgotten herself as to address you with such vulgar abuse. I can only excuse her on the ground--"

"Dearest Madam, there is every excuse," said Mr Welles, with the sweetest magnanimity. "Sweet Mrs Phoebe is a woodland bird, untrammelled as yet by those fetters which we men and women of the world must needs bear. 'Tis truly delightful to see the charming generosity and the admirable fire with which she plays the knight-errant. Indeed, Madam, such disinterested warmth and fervour of heart are seen but too seldom in this worn old world. Suffer me to entreat you not to chide Mrs Phoebe for her charming simplicity and high spirit."

"Since Mr Welles condescends to intercede for you, Phoebe, notwithstanding your shocking behaviour, I am willing to overlook it this time; but I warn you I shall not prove thus easy another time."

"I am sure I hope there will never be another time!" cried Phoebe, her eyes flashing.

"Phoebe, go to your chamber, and don't let me hear one word more," said Mrs Latrobe, severely.

And Phoebe obeyed, rushing upstairs with feet that seemed to keep pace with the whirlwind in her heart.

"Phoebe, I wonder whether of these ribbons, the silk or the gauze, would go best with-- Why, whatever in the world is the matter?" said Rhoda, breaking off.

"You may well ask, my dear," answered the voice of Mrs Latrobe, behind Phoebe. "Your cousin has been conducting herself in a most improper manner--offering gross insults to my guests in my house."

"Phoebe!" cried Rhoda, as if she could not believe her ears.

"Yes, Phoebe. She really has. I can only fear--indeed, I had almost said hope--that her wits are something impaired. What think you of her telling a gentleman who had acted in a most n.o.ble and honourable manner--exactly as a gentleman should do--that she could not have believed him capable of such baseness? and she cried shame on him!"

"Not Phoebe!" exclaimed Rhoda again, looking from one to the other very much as Phoebe had done. "Why, Phoebe, what does all this mean?"

"Oh, Rhoda, I can't tell you!" said Phoebe, sobbing, for the reaction had come. "Mother, you will have to tell her. I can't."

"Of course I shall tell her," calmly answered Mrs Latrobe. "I came for that very thing. Rhoda, my dear, I am sure you are a maid of sense and discretion."

"I hope so, Madam."

"So do I, child: and therefore you will hear me calmly, and not fly into pa.s.sions like that silly maid yonder. My dear, you must have remembered, I am certain, that when you promised yourself to Mr Welles, you were in a very different situation from now."

Rhoda only bowed. Perhaps, on that subject, she was afraid to trust her voice.

"And, of course, it has also occurred to you, my dear, that this being the case, you could not in honour hold Mr Welles bound to you any longer, if he wished to be free?"

"But we don't wish to be free," said Rhoda, in a puzzled tone.

"You are mistaken, my dear, so far as one of you is concerned. Perhaps it had been yet more graceful had you been the one to loose the bond: yet Mr Welles has done it with so infinite a grace and spirit that I can scarce regret your omission. My dear, you are now entirely free.

He sets you completely at liberty, and has retired from all pretension to you."

"But what, Aunt Anne--I do not understand you!" exclaimed Rhoda, in accents of bewildered amazement, which had a ring of agony beneath, as though she was struggling against the comprehension of a grief she was reluctant to face.

"Surely, my dear, you must have understood me," said Mrs Latrobe. "Mr Welles resigns his suit to you."

"He has given me up?" bursts from Rhoda's lips.

"He has entirely given you up. You cannot have really expected anything else?"

"I thought _he_ was true!" said Rhoda through her set teeth. "Are you sure you understood him? Phoebe, you tell me,--did he mean that?"

"O Rhoda! poor Rhoda! I am afraid he did!" said Phoebe, as distinctly as tears would let her.

"But, my dear," interposed Mrs Latrobe, remonstratingly, "surely you cannot be surprised? When Mr Welles engaged himself to you, it was (as he thought) to the heiress of a large estate. You could not expect him to enc.u.mber himself with a wife who brought him less than one year's income of his own. 'Tis not reasonable, child. No man in his senses would do such a thing. We live in the world, my dear,--not in Utopia."

"We live in a hard, cold, wicked, miserable world, and the sooner we are out of it the better!" came in a constrained voice from Rhoda.

"I beg, my dear," answered Mrs Latrobe, "you will not make extravagant speeches. There might be not another man in the world, that you should go into such a frenzy. We shall yet find you a husband, never fear."

"Not one like him, I hope!" murmured Phoebe. "And I don't think Rhoda wants anybody else."

"Phoebe," said her mother, "I am extreme concerned at the coa.r.s.eness of your speeches. I had hoped you were a gentlewoman."

"Well, Mother," said Phoebe, firing up again, "if Mr Welles be a gentleman, I almost hope not!"

"My dear," said Mrs Latrobe, "Mr Welles is a gentleman. The style in which he announced his desire to withdraw from his suit to your cousin, was perfect. A prince could not have done it better."

"I should hope a prince would not have done it at all!" was the blunt response from Phoebe.

"You are not a woman of the world, my dear, but a very foolish, ignorant child, that does not know properly what she is saying. 'Tis so near bed-time you need not descend again. You will get over your disappointment, Rhoda, when you have slept, and I shall talk with you presently. Good-night, my dears."

And Mrs Latrobe closed the door, and left the cousins together.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

PHOEBE IN A NEW CHARACTER.

"We mend broken china, torn lace we repair; But we sell broken hearts cheap in Vanity Fair."

"Did _she_ ever love anybody?" came in a low voice from Rhoda, when Mrs Latrobe had withdrawn, "Oh, I don't know!" sobbed Phoebe, who was crying violently, and might have seemed to a surface observer the more unhappy of the two.

"Don't weep so," said Rhoda. "I'm sure you don't need. Aunt Anne will never be angry long--she does not care enough about anything to keep it up."

"Oh, it is not for myself, Rhoda--poor Rhoda!"

"For me? Surely not, Phoebe. I have never been so good to you as to warrant that."

"I don't know whether you have been good to me or you have not, Cousin; but I am so sorry for you!"

Phoebe was kneeling beside the bed. Rhoda came over to her, and kissed her forehead, and said--what was very much for Rhoda to say--"I scarce think I deserve you should weep for me, Phoebe."

"But I can't help it!" said Phoebe.

"Well! I reckon I should have known it," said Rhoda, in a rather hard tone. "I suppose that is what all men are like. But I did think he was true--I did!"