“Are you mad, child?” cried the mother again—“do something for you? What can I do? You promised to marry him of your own will; you were not forced to do it. You told me you liked him not so long ago. How does this change the matter, except to make you more fit to be his wife? Are you mad?”
“Perhaps,” said Rose softly; “if being very miserable is being mad, then I am mad, as you say.”
“But you were not very miserable yesterday; you were cheerful enough.”
“Oh, mamma, then there was no hope,” cried Rose, “I had to do it—there was no help; but now hope has come—and must every one share it, every one get deliverance, but me?”
“Rose,” said Mrs. Damerel, “when you are Mr. Incledon’s wife every one of these wild words will rise up in your mind and shame you. Why should you make yourself unhappy by constant discussions? you will be sorry enough after for all you have allowed yourself to say. You have promised Mr. Incledon to marry him and you must marry him. If I had six times Uncle Ernest’s money it would still be a great match for you.”
“Oh, what do I care for a great match!”
“But I do,” said Mrs. Damerel, “and whether you care or not has nothing to do with it. You have pledged your word and your honor, and you cannot withdraw from them. Rose, your marriage is fixed for the end of July. We must have no more of this.”
“Three months,” she said, with a little convulsive shudder. She was thinking that perhaps even yet something might happen to save her in so long a time as three months. “Not quite three months,” said Mrs. Damerel, whose thoughts were running on the many things that had to be done in the interval. “Rose, shake off this foolish repining, which is unworthy of you, and go out to good Mr. Nolan, who must be dull with only the children. Talk to him and amuse him till I am ready. I am going to take him up to Whitton to show him the house.”
Rose went out without a word; she went and sat down in the little shady summer-home where Mr. Nolan had taken refuge from the sun and from the mirth of the children. He had already seen there was something wrong, and was prepared with his sympathy: whoever was the offender Mr. Nolan was sorry for that one; it was a way he had; his sympathies did not go so much with the immaculate and always virtuous; but he was sorry for whosoever had erred or strayed, and was repenting of the same. Poor Rose—he began to feel himself Rose’s champion, because he felt sure that it was Rose, young, thoughtless, and inconsiderate, who must be in the wrong. Rose sat down by his side with a heart-broken look in her face, but did not say anything. She began to beat with her fingers on the table as if she were beating time to a march. She was still such a child to him, so young, so much like what he remembered her in pinafores, that his heart ached for her. “You are in some little bit of trouble?” he said at last.
“Oh, not a little bit,” cried Rose, “a great, very great trouble!” She was so full of it that she could not talk of anything else. And the feeling in her mind was that she must speak or die. She began to tell her story in the woody arbor with the gay noise of the children close at hand, but hearing a cry among them that Mr. Incledon was coming, started up and tied on her hat, and seizing Mr. Nolan’s arm, dragged him out by the garden door. “I cannot see him to-day!” she cried, and led the curate away, dragging him after her to a quiet by-way over the fields in which she thought they would be safe. Rose had no doubt whatever of the full sympathy of this old friend. She was not afraid even of his disapproval. It seemed certain to her that he must pity at least if not help. And to Rose, in her youthful confidence in others, there was nothing in this world which was unalterable of its nature: no trouble, except death, which could not be got rid of by the intervention of friends.