“Taken care of me, indeed,” cried Amanda; “any servant could have taken care of me. You have been a nuisance since ever I can recollect: always reminding one that mamma was not a lady, and pulling us down as far as you could. What were you? Nothing but a lady’s maid. Here you’ve been tried to be made a lady of, and had handsome dresses given you, and all sorts of things. Of course it was for our own sakes. What was there in you to make us take any trouble? You are old, you are plain, and vulgar, and disagreeable. What right have you to be kept like a lady in pa’s house? You are only good enough to scrub the floor. Why have you always stayed on when nobody wanted you? I suppose you thought you might marry pa when ma was dead and gone, though it’s against the law. Of course that was what you wanted—to be mistress of the house, and get him under your thumb, and rule over me. Try it, aunty! You won’t find me so easy to rule over! Just try! An old, ugly, vulgar, spiteful creature, with no recommendation and no character——”
“’Manda, ’Manda,” cried the other, “Oh, don’t be so cruel!—--”
“I will be cruel, if you call that cruel. There’s more than that coming. What is the good of you, but to make a slave and a drudge of? Why should pa keep you but for that? Aunty, indeed! He was a fool ever to let me call you so. And so he is a soft-hearted fool, or he never would have kept you on for years and years. If he had but asked me, you should have been packed off ages ago. You to put on airs, indeed, and say you won’t do anything you’re told to do! Go, this minute, you wicked woman, and don’t worry me. Fancy, me! to sit here and listen to you as if you were worthy to be listened to—you who are no better than the dirt under my feet.”
“’Manda, you dare to speak like that to your own flesh and blood!”
“I dare do a great deal more,” cried Amanda. “I dare to turn you out of doors, bag and baggage; and I will, if you don’t mind. You old Jezebel—you old hag, as pa says—you horrid painted witch—you wicked woman! Get out of my sight, or I’ll throw something at you—I will! Go away! If you are not gone in one moment—you witch—you old hag——”
Here a smash of something breaking told that the gentle Amanda had kept her word. There was a suppressed cry, a scuffle, a scream, and then the bell was rung violently.
“Oh, I suppose it’s my fault,” cried the other voice, with a whimpering cry. “Bring the bottle out of her room—the one at her bedside. Give me the eau-de-cologne. Here’s she been and fainted. Quick! Quick! ’Manda! I didn’t mean it, dear! I don’t mind! Manda! Lord, you were red enough just now—don’t look so dead white!”
Was it Frederick’s guardian angel that had made him an auditor of this scene? The loud voice declaiming, the string of abusive words, the clash of the missile thrown, were horrible and strange to him as the language of demons. He was thunderstruck. Her language had not always been pleasant to him, but he was not prepared for anything like this. He walked up and down in a state of mind which it would be impossible to describe. His first impulse was flight. There was still time for him to get away altogether, to escape from this horrible infatuation, to escape from her and her dreadful father, and everything belonging to her. Should he go? Then he reflected he had given his card, and so far compromised himself. Was this sufficient to detain a man who had just been subjected to the hardest trial in the world, a sudden disgust for the woman whom he thought he loved? Frederick stood still, he paused, his heart was rent in two. He was within reach of her, almost within sight of her, and must he go without seeing her, unworthy as she might be? It was not necessary, he said to himself, that anything should follow, that he should carry out the intention with which he came. That was impossible—however lovely and sweet and fair she might be, he would not take a low-bred termagant into his bosom. No, no! that was over for ever. But how could he go without seeing her, after he had given his card and announced himself? This would be to expose himself to her wrath and her father’s, in whose power to some extent he was. He could hear the voices through the open window as he wandered about the garden, arguing with himself. Should he go? Should he stay? Strangely enough, though he had been told that agitation might be fatal to her, he was not anxious about her, though he surmised that she had fainted. His disgust took this form. If she were ill after her outbreak, she deserved it. On the whole he was almost pleased that she should be ill. She had humiliated him as well as herself, and he had a vindictive satisfaction in feeling that she was punished for it; but further than this he did not go. No; of course all was over; he could never be her suitor, never ask her to give him the hand with which she had thrown something which crashed and broke at her companion’s head. Never! that was over; but why should not he see her, behold her beauty once more—give himself that last pleasure? He would never seek her again; she had disgusted, revolted, turned his mind away from her. But since he was already so near, since he had given his card, since it would be known at once why he went away, this once, not for love, but for scornful gratification of his contemptuous admiration, just as he would look at a statue or picture, he would see her again.
This was the foolish reasoning with which he subdued the wiser instinct that prompted him to fly. Why should he fly? A woman capable of speaking, acting, thinking as this woman had done, could no longer have any power over a man who, whatever might be his moral character, had still the tastes and impulses of a gentleman. She had made an end of her sway over him, he thought; that dream could never come back again. Nobody but a madman would ask such a creature to marry him. To marry him? to be taken to his mother’s house, and promoted into the society of gentlefolk? Never! He laughed bitterly at the notion. But, thank Heaven! he had not betrayed himself. Thank Heaven! that merely to see her would commit him to nothing. No, he ended by convincing himself the most manly course was to pay his visit as if nothing had happened, to see the syren who was no longer a syren to him, but only a beautiful piece of flesh and blood, whom he might look at and admire like a statue. This was, he repeated to himself, the most manly course. The phrase was pleasant to him. To run away would look as if he had no confidence in his own moral force and power of resisting temptation. But the fact was that there could be no longer any temptation in the matter. To see her, and prove to himself that disgust had altogether destroyed the fierce violent wild love which had swallowed up all his better resolution, was the only manly course to take.
He was standing by one of the flower-beds, stamping down unconsciously with his boot the border of long-leaved crocuses which had gone out of flower, but quite unaware of the damage he was doing, when the maid who admitted him came back. She apologized for keeping him so long waiting. Miss ’Manda had been taken bad sudden—one of her bad turns—nothing out of the common—but now was better, and would he go up-stairs, please?