“Well! he may take his reach out of my reach,” answered Phoebe, in a disgusted tone. “I shall think the time uncommonly short, I can promise you, till I see him again; for I never wish to do it.”
“Phoebe, I do believe you haven’t one bit of discernment!”
But Phoebe held her peace.
Madam called in due form on her new guest at the Maidens’ Lodge, and Mrs Darcy returned the visit next day. She proved to be a short, stout, little woman, with a face which, while undeniably and excessively plain, was so beaming with good humour that it was difficult to remember her uncomeliness after the first coup d’oeil. Mr Welles accompanied her on the return visit. What had induced him to take up his quarters at the Bear, at Tewkesbury, was an enigma to the inhabitants of White-Ladies. Of course he could not live at the Maidens’ Lodge, Madam being rigidly particular with respect to the intrusion of what Betty called “he creeturs” into that enchanted valley, and not tolerating the habitual presence even of a servant of the obnoxious sex. According to the representations of Mr Welles himself, he was fascinated by the converse and character of Madam, and was also completely devoted to his dear Aunt Eleanor. But Mr Welles had not favoured the Bear with very much of his attention before it dawned upon one person at least that neither Madam nor Mrs Eleanor had much to do with his frequent visits to Cressingham. Mrs Dorothy Jennings quickly noticed that Mr Welles was quite clever enough to discover what pleased different persons, and to adapt himself accordingly with surprising facility; and she soon perceived that the attraction was Rhoda, or rather Rhoda’s prospects as the understood heiress of White-Ladies. Mr Welles accommodated himself skilfully to the prejudices of Madam; his manners assumed a graver and more courtly air, his conversation a calm and sensible tone; and Madam at length remarked to her grand-daughters, how very much that young man had improved since his first arrival at Cressingham.
With Rhoda, in the absence of her grandmother, he was an entirely different being. A great deal of apparent interest in herself, and deference to her opinions; a very little skilful flattery, too delicately administered for its hollowness to be perceived; a quick apprehension of what pleased and amused her, and a ready adaptation to her mood of the moment—these were Mr Welles’ tactics with the heiress for whom he was angling. As to Phoebe, he simply let her alone. He soon saw that she was of no account in Rhoda’s eyes, and was not her chosen confidante, but simply the person to whom she talked for want of any other listener. There was not, therefore, in his opinion, any reason why he should trouble himself to propitiate Phoebe.
Ever since the visit of the Delawarrs, Rhoda had seemed disinclined for another call on Mrs Dorothy Jennings. Now and then she went to see Mrs Clarissa, when the conversation usually turned on the fashions and cognate topics; sometimes she drank tea with Lady Betty, whose discourse was of rather a more sensible character. Rarely, she looked in on Mrs Marcella. Mrs Jane had thoroughly estranged her by persisting in her sarcastic nickname for Rhoda’s chosen hero, and letting off little shafts against him, more smart than nattering. On Mrs Darcy she called perpetually, perhaps with a view to meet him at her house; but all Mr Welles’ alleged devotion to his dear Aunt Eleanor scarcely ever seemed to result in his going to see her at the Maidens’ Lodge. When Rhoda met him, which she very often did, it was either by his calling at the Abbey, or by an accidental rencontre—if accidental it were—in some secluded glade of the Park.
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 tit, and came to tell you myself. You’ll come, won’t you, old hag?”