"Oh, I don't care who I marry," she answered. "I suppose I shall need a home when I'm turned out of here; and, if so, I'd better get to work while I'm still young enough to attract men. I'm open to any offer; the man mustn't be too hopeless a cad, that's all."
This mock-desperation would have been very cynical if it had not been so unconvincing. I said nothing at the time; but, when I had a moment alone with her poor mother, I did feel it my duty to say candidly that it was time somebody did something to change the girl's thoughts. Ruth agreed, but in a helpless, hopeless way that always makes me wonder how Brackenbury has put up with her for so many years. In her opinion, Phyllida was pining for her young soldier and would continue to pine, so far as I could gather, until she found him.
"Is it not better," I asked, "to face facts? Colonel Butler was certainly attracted, but he realized in time that he had hardly the means or the position to qualify him as husband to Phyllida and son-in-law to Brackenbury. Very properly he made himself scarce; and nothing in life became him so well as his leaving of it. You say he has not written? He won't write;—and I respect him for it. But, goodness me, I hope you're not going to encourage Phyllida to think that she's broken her heart in a hopeless passion. If you won't send her right away (as, you will have the justice to remember, I felt it my duty to suggest at the outset), let her come to me for a few weeks and let me see if London can't provide something to turn her thoughts."
The trouble was, if you will promise not to tell any one I said so, that Phyllida's vanity was hurt. When she was running after this young man, there was so much publicity that people began to wonder; they became spied on and whispered about; when he was summoned to Brackenbury, every one felt that now they were going to make certain of him; when he left before his time, without saying a word to her, it was naturally assumed that he had run away. Rather than believe that any man could weary of her charms, Phyllida will convince herself that I turned young Butler against her... Hence this terrible bitterness...
If you ask me whether I expected to have my offer accepted, I will frankly say "no". I think Phyllida must enjoy surprises, for she accepted the invitation at once, though perhaps a little ungraciously and with a suggestion that, within limits, any one was welcome to her... Will was at home; and, though I have never been able to decide what I should think if he told me that he was going to marry his cousin, I was certainly beginning to feel that it was time for him to find a suitable wife and settle down. Will is nearly thirty, and I have always considered that a popular and good-looking bachelor is unfairly exposed to temptation in England. They will let well alone if only others would leave them alone...
As witness that girl at Morecambe. I shall not tell you about that, because I hope—nay more; I pray—that it is all satisfactorily settled; and, also, I was never told the full story. It was enough for me that he had lost a splendid appointment and now, once more, has nothing to live on; he must marry or find a job... When the girl's father came to the house—one of these rugged, north-of-England clergymen who always have the air of intimidating you into a state of grace—, it was my husband whom he insisted on seeing. I had never known Arthur in a state of such ungovernable fury. Bursting into my room, he stamped up and down, incoherent, beside himself... To this day I do not know what Will is supposed to have done. The girl kissed him good-night or something. I suppose I am the last person to condone any freedom, but she was a mere child ten years younger than my boy—what more natural or innocent? The old father spied on them... Hence the storm. Reading between the lines, I should conjecture that the girl deliberately laid herself out to catch Will. The one time I saw this Molly Phenton, she seemed an attractive child, with deep-set, rather appealing eyes; a good deal of soft brown hair, too, and pretty hands. Quiet, simply dressed; a perfect specimen of "the old country clergyman's pretty little daughter." And that, I have no doubt, was the effect she wanted to achieve with Will, the appeal of innocence and youth to a palate grown weary of more sophisticated charms; I wonder more men are not caught in that way... Will, I am thankful to say, pulled back before the trap could close on him; I was really astounded that the father had the effrontery to come all the way from Morecambe on what was nothing less or more than a blackmailing expedition. Futile, if nothing else; Will is not one of those men who find it necessary to buy popularity by giving presents to all and sundry; and I am sure he is too prudent to write a girl foolish letters...
"Arthur, do stop walking about," I said, "and tell me what has happened."
Too often, only too often, when Will has been in trouble of any kind, I have been excluded on the pretext that this was not a woman's province. His own mother!
"What has happened?," he shouted. "Why, we have brought into this world as choice a young blackguard as any one is ever likely to meet. Phenton told me so to my face; and I had to agree with him. He said he wished he were young enough to horse-whip the fellow; I said I agreed. He wished the girl had a brother to do it; I said again that I agreed."
I really thought it best to let him wear himself out... When a man speaks in that tone about his own son, when a Christian minister talks about horse-whipping people... All these wild words made rather less than no impression on me, as I was quite sure that my boy hadn't written anything that could be used against him.