Chapter Ten.
Mr Welles does it beautifully.
“Thy virtues lost, thou would’st not look
Me in thy chains to hold?
Know, friend, thou verily hast lost
Thy chiefest virtue—gold.”
Nine o’clock on the Monday morning was the hour appointed for reading Madam’s will. When Rhoda and Phoebe, in their deep mourning, entered the parlour, they were startled to find the number of persons already assembled. Not only all the household and outdoor servants, but all the inmates of the Maidens’ Lodge, excepting Mrs Marcella, and several others, stood up to receive the young ladies as they passed on to the place reserved for them.
Mr Dawson handed the girls to their places, and then seated himself at the table, and proceeded to unfold a large parchment.
“It will be well that I should remark,” said he, looking up over his spectacles, “that the late Madam Furnival had intended, at the time of her death, to execute a fresh will. I am sorry to say it was not signed. This, therefore, is her last will, as duly executed. It bears date the fourteenth of November, in the year 1691—”
An ejaculation of dismay, though under her breath, came from Rhoda, the lawyer went on:—
”—When Mrs Catherine Peveril, mother of Mrs Rhoda here, was just married, and before the marriage of Mrs Anne Furnival, mother to Mrs Phoebe Latrobe, who is also present. The intended will would have made provision for both of these young gentlewomen, grand-daughters to Madam Furnival. By the provisions of the present one, one of them is worsened, and the other bettered.”
Rhoda’s alarm was over. The last sentence reassured her.
Mr Dawson cleared his voice, and began to read. The will commenced with the preamble then usual, in which the testatrix declared her religious views as a member of the Church of England; and went on to state that she wished to be buried with her ancestors, in the family vault, in the nave of Tewkesbury Abbey. One hundred pounds was bequeathed to the Vicar of Tewkesbury, for the time being; twenty pounds and a suit of mourning to every servant who should have been in her employ for five years at the date of her death; six months’ wages to those who should have been with her for a shorter time; a piece of black satin sufficient to make a gown, mantua, and hood, and forty pounds in money, to each inmate of the Maidens’ Lodge. Mourning rings were left to the Maidens, the Vicar. Dr Saunders, Mr Dawson, and several friends mentioned by name, of whom Sir Richard Delawarr was one. Then the testatrix gave, devised, and bequeathed to her “dear daughter Catherine, wife of Francis Peveril, Esquire, with remainder to the heirs of her body, the sum of two thousand pounds of lawful money.”
Rhoda’s face grew eager, as she listened for the next sentence.
“Lastly, I give, devise, and bequeath the Abbey of Cressingham, commonly called White-Ladies, and all other my real and personal estate whatsoever, not hereinbefore excepted, to my dear daughter Anne Furnival, her heirs, assigns, administrators, and executors for ever.”
The effect was crushing. That one sentence had changed everything. Not Rhoda, but Phoebe, was the heiress of White-Ladies.
Mr Dawson calmly finished reading the signatures and attestation clause, and then folded up the will, and once more looked over his spectacles.
“Mrs Phoebe, as your mother’s representative, give me leave to wish you joy. Shall you wish to write to her? I must, of course. The letters could go together.”
Phoebe looked up, half-bewildered.
“I scarcely understand,” she said. “There is something left to Mother, is there not?”
“My dear young gentlewoman, there is everything left to her. She is the lady of the manor.”
“Just what is there for Rhoda?” gasped Phoebe, apparently not at all elated by her change of position.
“A poor, beggarly two thousand pounds!” burst out Rhoda. “’Tis a shame! And I always thought I was to have White-Ladies! I shall just be nobody now! Nobody will respect me, and I can never cut any figure. Well! I’m glad I am engaged to be married. That’s safe, at any rate.”
The elevation of Mr Dawson’s eyebrows, and the pursing of his lips, might have implied a query on that score.
“I’m so sorry, dear!” said Phoebe, gently. “For you, of course, I mean. I could not be sorry that there was something for Mother, because she is not well off; but I am very sorry you are disappointed.”
“You can’t help it!” was Rhoda’s rather repelling answer. Still, through all her anger, she remembered to be just.
“Certainly not, my dear Mrs Phoebe,” said the lawyer. “’Tis nobody’s fault—not even Madam Furnival’s, for the new will would have given White-Ladies to Mrs Rhoda, and five thousand pounds to Mrs Anne Latrobe. Undoubtedly she intended, Mrs Rhoda, you should have it.”
“Then why can’t I?” demanded Rhoda, fiercely.
Mr Dawson shook his head, with a pitying smile. “The law knows nothing of intentions,” said he: “only of deeds fully performed. Still, it may be a comfort in your disappointment, to remember that this was meant for you.”
“Thank you for your comfort!” said Rhoda, bitterly. “Why, it makes it all the worse.”
“I wish—” but Phoebe stopped short.
“Oh, I don’t blame you,” said Rhoda, impetuously. “’Tis no fault of yours. If she’d done it now, lately, I might have thought so. But a will that was made before either you or me was born—” Rhoda’s grammar always suffered from her excitement—“can’t be your fault, nor anybody else’s. But ’tis a shame, for all that. She’d no business to let me go on all these years, expecting to have everything, and knew all the while her will wasn’t right made. ’Tis too bad! My Lady Betty!—Mrs Dorothy!—don’t you think so?”
“My dear,” said Lady Betty, “I am indeed grieved for your disappointment. But there is decorum, my dear Mrs Rhoda—there is decorum!”
“No, my dear,” was Mrs Dorothy’s answer. “I dare not call anything bad that the Lord doth. Had it been His will you should have White-Ladies, be sure you would have had it.”
“Well, you know,” said Rhoda, in a subdued tone, and folding one of her black gauze ribbons into minute plaits, “of course, one can’t complain of God.”
“Ah, child!” sighed Mrs Dorothy, “I wish one could not!”
“O my dear Mrs Rhoda, I feel for you so dreadfully!” accompanied the tragically clasped hands of Mrs Clarissa. “My feelings are so keen, and run away with me so—”
“Then let ’em!” said Mrs Jane Talbot’s voice behind. “Mine won’t. My dears, I’m sorry you’ve lost Madam. But as to the money and that, I’ll wait ten years, and then I’ll tell you which I’m sorry for.”
“Well, I’m sorry for both of you,” added Mrs Eleanor Darcy. “I don’t think, Mrs Phoebe, my dear, you’ll lie on roses.”
No one was more certain of that than Phoebe herself.
She wrote a few lines to her mother, which went inside Mr Dawson’s letter. Mrs Latrobe was in service near Reading. Her daughter felt sure that she would lose no time in taking possession. The event proved that she was right. The special messenger whom Mr Dawson sent with the letters returned with an answer to each. Phoebe’s mother wrote to her thus:—
“Child,—Mr Dawson hath advertized me of the deth of Madam Furnivall, my mother. I would have you, on rect of this, to lett your cousen know that shee need not lieve the house afore I come, wich will be as soon as euer I can winde all upp and bee wth you. I would like to make aquaintance wth her ere anything be settled. I here from the layer (by which Mrs Latrobe meant lawyer) that she is to be maried, and it will be soe much ye better for you. I trust you may now make a good match yrself. But I shal see to all yt when I com.
“Yr mother, A. Latrobe.”
Phoebe studied every word of this letter, and the more she studied it, the less she liked it. First, it looked as if Mrs Latrobe did mean Rhoda to leave the house, though she graciously intimated her intention of making acquaintance with her before she did so. Secondly, she was evidently in a hurry to come. Thirdly, she congratulated herself on Rhoda’s approaching marriage, because it would get rid of her, and leave the way open for Phoebe. And lastly, she threatened Phoebe with “a good match.” Phoebe thought, with a sigh, that “the time was out of joint,” and heartily wished that the stars would go back into their courses.
Mrs Latrobe managed to wind all up in a surprisingly short time. She reached her early home in the cool of a summer evening, Rhoda having sent the family coach to meet her at Tewkesbury. Phoebe had said nothing to her cousin of any approaching change, which she thought it best to leave to her mother; so she contented herself by saying that Mrs Latrobe wished to make the acquaintance of her niece. Lady Betty kindly came up to help the inexperienced girls in making due preparation for the arrival of the lady of the manor. When the coach rolled up to the front door, Phoebe was standing on the steps, Lady Betty and Rhoda further back in the hall.
Mrs Latrobe was attired in new and stylish mourning.
“Ah, child, here you are!” was her first greeting to Phoebe. “The old place is grown greyer. Those trees come too near the windows; I shall cut some of them down. Where is your cousin?”
Rhoda heard the inquiry, and she stepped forward.
“Let us look at you, child,” said Mrs Latrobe, turning to her. “Ah, you are like Kitty—not so good-looking, though.”
“Mother,” said Phoebe, gently, “this is my Lady Betty Morehurst. She was so kind as to help us in getting ready for you.”
Mrs Latrobe appraised Lady Betty by means of one rapid glance. Then she thanked her with an amount of effulgence which betrayed either subservience or contempt. Lady Betty received her thanks with a quiet dignity which refused to be ruffled, kissed Rhoda and Phoebe, and took her leave, declining to remain even for the customary dish of tea. Mrs Latrobe drew off her gloves, sat down in Madam’s cushioned chair, and desired Phoebe to give her some tea.
“Let me see, child!” she said, looking at Rhoda. “You are near one-and-twenty, I suppose?”
Rhoda admitted the fact.
“And what do you think of doing?”
Rhoda looked blankly first at her aunt, then at her cousin. Phoebe came hastily to the rescue.
“She is shortly to be married, Mother; did you forget?”
“Ah!” said Mrs Latrobe, still contemplating Rhoda. “Well—if it hold—you may as well be married from hence, I suppose. Is the day fixed?”
“No, Aunt Anne.”
“I think, my dear,” remarked Mrs Latrobe, sipping her tea, “’twould be better if you said Madam.—Why, Phoebe, what old-fashioned china! Sure it cannot have been new these forty years. I shall sweep away all that rubbish.—Whom are you going to marry? Is he well off?—Phoebe, those shoe-buckles of yours are quite shabby. I cannot have you wear such trumpery. You must remember what is due to you.—Well, my dear?”
Rhoda had much less practice in the school of patience than Phoebe, and she found the virtue difficult just then. But she restrained herself as well as she could.
“I am engaged in marriage with Mr Marcus Welles; and he has an estate, and spends three thousand pounds by the year.”
“Welles! A Welles of Buckinghamshire?”
“His estate is in this shire,” said Rhoda.
“Three thousand! That’s not much. Could you have done no better? He expected you would have White-Ladies, I suppose?”
“I suppose so. I did,” said Rhoda, shortly.
“My dear, you have some bad habits,” said Mrs Latrobe, “which Phoebe should have broken you of before I came. ’Tis very rude to answer without giving a name.”
“You told me not to give you one, Aunt Anne.”
“You are slow at catching meanings, my dear,” replied Mrs Latrobe, with that calm nonchalance so provoking to an angry person. “I desired you to call me Madam, as ’tis proper you should.”
“Phoebe doesn’t,” burst from Rhoda.
“Then she ought,” answered Mrs Latrobe, coolly examining the crest on a tea-spoon.
“Oh, I will, Rhoda, if Mother wishes it,” put in Phoebe, anxious above all things to keep the peace.
Rhoda vouchsafed no reply to either.
“Well!” said the lady of the manor, rising, “you will carry me to my chamber, child,” addressing Rhoda. “You can stay here, Phoebe. Your cousin will wait on me.”
It was something new for Rhoda to wait on anyone. She swallowed her pride with the best grace she could, and turned to open the door.
“I suppose you have had the best room made ready for me?” inquired Mrs Latrobe, as she passed out.
“Madam’s chamber,” replied Rhoda.
“Oh, but—not the one in which she died?”
“Yes,” answered Rhoda; adding, after a momentary struggle with herself, “Madam.”
“Oh, but that will never do!” said Mrs Latrobe, hastily. “I couldn’t sleep there! A room in which someone died scarce a month ago! Where is my woman? Call her. I must have that changed.”
Rhoda summoned Betty, who came, courtesying. Her mistress was too much preoccupied in mind to notice the civility.
“Why, what could you all be thinking of, to put me in this chamber? I must have another. This is the best, I know; but I cannot think of sleeping here. Show me the next best—that long one in the south wing.”
“That is the young gentlewomen’s chamber, Madam,” objected Betty.
“Well, what does that matter?” demanded Mrs Latrobe, sharply. “Can’t they have another? I suppose I come first!”
“Yes, of course, Madam,” said subdued Betty.
Rhoda looked dismayed, but kept silence. She was learning her lesson. Mrs Latrobe looked into the girls’ room, rapidly decided on it, and ordered it to be got ready for her.
“Then which must the young gentlewomen have, Madam?” inquired Betty.
“Oh, any,” said Mrs Latrobe, carelessly. “There are enough.”
“Which would you like, Mrs Rhoda?” incautiously asked Betty.
Before Rhoda could reply, her aunt said quickly,—
“Ask Mrs Phoebe, if you please.”
And Betty remembered that the cousins had changed places. It was a very bitter pill to Rhoda; and it was not like Rhoda to say—yet she said it, as soon as she had the opportunity—
“Phoebe, Aunt Anne means you to choose our room: please don’t have a little stuffy one.”
“Dear Rhoda, which would you like?” responded Phoebe at once.
A little sob escaped Rhoda.
“Oh, Phoebe, you are going to be the only one who is good to me! I should like that other long one in the north wing, that matches ours; but don’t choose it if you don’t like it.”
“We will have that,” said Phoebe, reassuringly; “at least, if Mother leaves it to me.”
Thus early it was made evident that the old nature in Anne Latrobe was scotched, not killed. Sorrow seemed to have laid merely a repressive hand upon her bad qualities, and to have uprooted none but good ones. The brilliance and playfulness of her early days were gone. The coeur leger had turned to careless self-love, the impetuosity had become peevish obstinacy.
“Old Madam never spoke to me in that way!” said Betty. “She liked to have her way, poor dear gentlewoman, as well as anybody; and she wouldn’t take a bit of impudence like so much barley-sugar, I’ll not say she would; but she was a gentlewoman, every inch of her, that she was. And that’s more than you can say for some folks!”
The next morning, all the Maidens—the invalid, as usual, excepted—came trooping up one after another, to pay their respects to the new lady of the manor.
Lady Betty came first; then Mrs Dorothy and Mrs Eleanor, together; after a little while, Mrs Clarissa; and lastly, Mrs Jane.
“My dear Mrs Anne, I remember you well, though perhaps you can scarce recollect me,” said Mrs Dorothy, “for you were but nine years old the last time that I saw you. May the Lord bless you, my dear, and make you a blessing!”
“Oh, I don’t doubt I shall do my duty,” was the response of Mrs Latrobe, which very much satisfied herself and greatly dissatisfied Mrs Dorothy.
“’Tis delightful to see you back, dear Madam Latrobe!” said Mrs Clarissa, gushingly. “How touching must it be to return to the home of your youth, after so many years of banishment!”
Mrs Latrobe had not felt in the least touched, and hardly knew how to reply. “Oh, to be sure!” she said. “Glad to see you,” said Mrs Jane. “Great loss we’ve had in Madam. Hope you’ll be as good as she was. My sister desired me to make her compliments. Can’t stir off the sofa. Fine morning!”
When the Maidens left the Abbey—which they did together—they compared notes on the new reign.
Lady Betty’s sense of decorum was very much shocked. Mrs Latrobe had not spoken a word of her late mother, and had hinted at changes in matters which had existed at White-Ladies from time immemorial.
Mrs Clarissa was charmed with the new lady’s manners and mourning, both which she thought faultless.
Mrs Eleanor thought “she was a bit shy, poor thing! We must make allowances, my dear friends—we must make allowances!”
“Make fiddlestrings!” growled Mrs Jane. “She’s Anne Furnival still, and she’ll be Anne Furnival to the end of the chapter. As if I didn’t know Nancy! Ever drive a jibbing horse?”
Mrs Clarissa, who was thus suddenly appealed to, declared in a shocked tone that she never drove a horse of any description since she was born.
“Ah, well! I have,” resumed Mrs Jane, ignoring the scandalised tone of her sister Maiden: “and that’s just Nancy Furnival. She’s as sleek in the coat as ever a Barbary mare. But you’ll not get her along the road to Tewkesbury, without you make her think you want to drive her to Gloucester. I heard plenty of folks pitying Madam when she bolted. My word!—but I pitied somebody else a vast deal more, and that was Charles Latrobe. I wouldn’t have married her, if she’d been stuck all over with diamonds.”
“I fancy she drove him,” said Mrs Eleanor with a smile.
“Like enough, poor soul!” responded Mrs Jane. “Only chance he had of any peace. He was a decent fellow enough, too,—if only he had kept clear of Nancy.”
“What made him marry her?” thoughtfully asked Mrs Eleanor.
“Deary me!” exclaimed Mrs Jane. “When did you ever see a man that could fathom a woman? Good, simple soul that he was!—she made him think black was white with holding up a finger. She glistened bravely, and he thought she was gold. Well!—we shan’t have much peace now,—take my word for it. Eh, this world!—’tis a queer place as ever I saw.”
“True, my dear,” replied Mrs Dorothy: “let us therefore be thankful there is a better.”
But her opinion of Mrs Latrobe was not given.
The same evening, as Phoebe sat in the parlour with her mother, Betty came in with a courtesy.
“Mr Marcus Welles, to speak with Madam.”
“With Mrs Rhoda?” asked Phoebe, rising. “I will go seek her.”
“No, if you please, Mrs Phoebe: Mr Welles said, Madam or yourself.”
“Phoebe, my dear, do not be such a fid-fad!” entreated Mrs Latrobe. “If Rhoda is wanted, she can be sought.—Good evening, Sir! I am truly delighted to have the pleasure of seeing you, and I trust we shall be better acquainted.”
Mr Welles bowed low over Mrs Latrobe’s extended hand.
“Madam, the delight is mine, and the honour. Mrs Phoebe, your servant,—your most humble servant.”
It was the first time that Mr Welles had ever addressed Phoebe with more than a careless “good evening.”
“Ready to serve you, Sir,” said she, courtesying. “Shall I seek my cousin? She has wanted your company, I think.”
This was a very audacious speech for Phoebe: but she thought it so extraordinary that Mr Welles had not paid one visit to his betrothed since the funeral, that she took the liberty of reminding him of it.
“Madam,” said Mr Welles, with a complacent smile, toying with his gold chatelaine, “I really could not have visited you sooner, under the circumstances in which I found myself.”
“Phoebe! have you lost your senses?” inquired Mrs Latrobe, sharply.
“I am sure,” resumed Mr Marcus Welles, with an extremely graceful wave of his hand towards Mrs Latrobe, “that Madam will fully enter into my much lacerated feelings, and see how very distressing ’twould have been both to myself and her, had I forced my company on Mrs Rhoda, as matters stand at present.”
Phoebe sat listening with a face of utter bewilderment. By what means had Mr Welles’ feelings been lacerated?—and why should it be more distressing for him to meet Rhoda now than before?—But she kept silence, and Mrs Latrobe said,—
“I think, Sir, I have the honour to understand you.”
“Madam!” replied Mr Marcus Welles, with his courtliest bow, “I am sure that a gentlewoman of your parts and discretion can do no less, I cannot but be infinitely sensible of the severe and cruel loss I am about to sustain: still, to my small estate, any other dealing would be of such mischievous consequence, that I think myself obliged to resign the views I proposed to myself.”
Phoebe tried to understand him, and found it impossible.
“This being the case,” continued he, “you will understand, dear Madam, that I thought myself engaged to wait until I might be honoured by some discourse with you: and meanwhile to abstain from any commerce of discourse in other quarters, till I had permission to acquaint you of the affair. I have indeed been in pain until I was able to wait upon you. I shall now be something eased. You, I am certain, dearest Madam, will contrive the business far better than my disordered mind would allow me; and I doubt not ’twould be more agreeable to all parties to communicate by that canal.”
“If you wish it, Sir, it shall certainly be so,” answered Mrs Latrobe, who seemed to be under no doubt concerning Mr Welles’ meaning. “I am yours to serve you in the matter.”
“Dearest Madam, you are an angel of mercy! The sooner I retire, then, the better.”
He kissed Mrs Latrobe’s hand, and came round to Phoebe.
“Mr Welles, you have not seen Rhoda yet. I do not understand!” said Phoebe blankly, as he bowed iver her hand.
“Madam, I have but just now engaged myself—”
“Phoebe, don’t be a goose!” burst from her mother. “You must be a baby if you do not understand. Cannot you see that Mr Welles, in a most honourable manner, which does him infinite credit, withdraws all pretensions to your cousin’s hand, leaving her free to engage herself elsewhere? Really, I should have thought you had sense enough for that.”
For a moment Phoebe looked, with a bewildered air, from her mother to Mr Welles. Then shyness, fear and reserve gave way before indignation. She did understand now.
“You mean to desert Rhoda, because she has lost the paltry money that you expected she would have?”
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 noble 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 passions 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 encumber 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 coarseness 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.