The Maidens' Lodge Part 29

The picnic was a success. The weather was beautiful, and the young people in good temper--two important points. Lady Delawarr herself, in the absence of her housekeeper, superintended the packing of the light van which carried the provisions to the old tower. There was to be a gipsy fire to boil the kettle, with three poles tied together over it, from which the kettle was slung in the orthodox manner. Phoebe, who was trying to make herself useful, stretched out her hand for the kettle, when Lady Delawarr's voice said behind her, "My dear Mrs Phoebe, you may be relieved of that task. Mr Osmund Derwent--Mrs Phoebe Latrobe.

Mrs Latrobe--Mr Derwent."

There was one advantage, now lost, in this double introduction; if the name were not distinctly heard in the first instance, it might be caught in the second.

Phoebe looked up, and saw a rather good-looking young man, whose good looks, however, lay more in a pleasant expression than in any special beauty of feature. A little shy, yet without being awkward; and a little grave and silent, but not at all morose, he was one with whom Phoebe felt readily at home. His shyness, which arose from diffidence, not pride, wore off when the first strangeness was over. It was evident that Lady Delawarr had given him, as she had said, a hint to wait on Phoebe.

The peculiarity of Lady Delawarr's conduct rather puzzled Phoebe. At times she was particularly gracious, whilst at others she utterly neglected her. Simple, unworldly Phoebe did not guess that while Rhoda Peveril and Phoebe Latrobe were of no consequence in the eyes of her hostess, the future possessor of White-Ladies was of very much. Lady Delawarr never felt quite certain who that was to be. She expected it to be Rhoda; yet at times the conviction smote her that, after all, there was no certainty that it might not be Phoebe. Madam was impulsive; she had already surprised people by taking up with Phoebe at all; and Rhoda might displease her. In consequence of these reflections, though Phoebe was generally left unnoticed, yet occasionally Lady Delawarr warmed into affability, and cultivated the girl who might, after all, come to be the heiress of Madam's untold wealth. For Lady Delawarr's mind was essentially of the earth, earthy; gold had for her a value far beyond goodness, and pleasantness of disposition or purity of mind were not for a moment to be set in comparison with a suite of pearls.

Mr Derwent took upon himself the responsibility of the kettle, and chatted pleasantly enough with Phoebe, to whom the other damsels were only too glad to leave all trouble. He walked home with her, insisting with playful persistence upon carrying her scarf and the little basket which she had brought for wild flowers; talked to her about his mother and sisters, his own future prospects as a younger son who must make his way in the world for himself, and took pains to make himself generally agreeable and interesting. Under his kindly notice Phoebe opened like a flower to the sun. It was something new to her to find a sensible, grown-up person who really seemed to take pleasure in talking with her-- except Mrs Dorothy Jennings, and she and Phoebe were not on a level.

In conversation with Mrs Dorothy she felt herself being taught and counselled; in conversation with Mr Derwent she was entertained and gratified.

Judging from his conduct, Mr Derwent was as much pleased with Phoebe as she was with him. During the whole time she remained at Delawarr Court, he const.i.tuted himself her cavalier. He was always at hand when she wanted anything, at times supplying the need even before she had discovered its existence. Phoebe tasted, for the first time in her life, the flattering ease of being waited on, instead of waiting on others; the delicate pleasure of being listened to, instead of snubbed and disregarded; the intellectual treat of finding one who was willing to exchange ideas with her, rather than only to impart ideas to her.

Was it any wonder if Osmund Derwent began to form a nucleus in her thoughts, round which gathered a floating island of fair fancies and golden visions, all the more beautiful because they were vague?

And all the while, Phoebe never realised what was happening to her. She let herself drift onwards in a pleasant dream, and never thought of pausing to a.n.a.lyse her sensations.

The absentees returned home in the afternoon of the third day. And beyond the roll of the coaches, and the noise and bustle inseparable from the arrival of eighteen persons, the first intimation of it which was given in the drawing-room was caused by the entrance of Molly, who swept into the room with tragi-comic dignity, and mounting a chair, cleared her voice, and held forth, as if it had been a sceptre, a minute bow of black gauze ribbon.

"Ladies and gentlewomen!" said Molly with solemnity. "(The gentlemen don't count.) Ladies and gentlewomen! I engaged myself, before leaving the Court, to bring back to you in triumph a snip from the Queen's gown.

Behold it! (Never mind how I got it,--here it is.) Upon honour, as sure as my name is Mary--('tisn't,--I was christened Maria)--but, as sure as there is one rent and two spots of mud on this white gown which decorates my charming person,--the places whereof are best known to myself,--this bow of gauze, on which all your eyes are fixed,--now there's a shame! Sophy Rich isn't looking a bit--this bow was on the gown of Her Majesty Queen Anne yesterday morning! _Plaudite vobis_!"

And down came Miss Molly.

"If I might be excused, Mrs Maria," hesitatingly began Mr Edmundson, who seemed almost afraid of the sound of his own voice, "_vobis_ is, as I cannot but be sensible, not precisely the--ah--not quite the word-- ah--"

"You shut up, old Bandbox," said Molly, dropping her heroics. "None of your business. Can't you but be sensible? First time you ever were!"

"I ask your pardon, Mrs Maria. I trust, indeed,--ah--I am not--ah-- insensible, to the many--ah--many things which--"

The youthful company were convulsed with laughter. They were all aware that Molly was intentionally talking at cross purposes with her pastor; and that while he clung to the old signification of sensible, namely, to be aware of, or sensitive to, a thing, she was using it in the new, now universally accepted, sense of sagacious. The fun, of course, was enhanced by the fact that poor Mr Edmundson was totally unacquainted with the change of meaning.

"I don't believe she cut it off a bit!" whispered Kitty Mainwaring.

"She gave a guinea to some orange-girl who was cousin to some other maid in the Queen's laundry,--some stuff of that sort. Cut it off!--how could she? Just tell me that."

Before the last word was well out of Kitty's lips, Molly's small, bright scissors were snapped within an inch of Kitty's nose.

"Perhaps you would have the goodness to say that again, Mrs Catherine Mainwaring!" observed that young person, in decidedly menacing tones.

"Thank you, no, I don't care to do," replied Kitty, laughing, but shrinking back from the scissors.

"When I say I will do a thing, I will do it, Madam!" retorted Molly.

"If you can, I suppose," said Kitty, defending herself from another threatening snap.

"Say I can't, at your peril!"

And Molly and her scissors marched away in dudgeon.

"You are very tired, I fear, Mrs Gatty," said Phoebe, when Gatty came up to the room they shared, for the night.

"Rather," answered Gatty, with a sad smile on her white face.

But she did not tell Phoebe what had tired her. It was not the journey, nor the ceremony, but her mother's greeting.

"Why, Betty, you are quite blooming!" Lady Delawarr had said. "It hath done you good, child. And Molly, too, as sprightly as ever! Child, did you get touched?"

"I did, Madam," answered Molly, with an extravagant courtesy.

"Ah!" said her mother, in a tone of great satisfaction. "Then we need apprehend no further trouble from the evil. I am extreme glad. O Gatty! you poor, scarred, wretched creature! Really, had it not been that the absence of one of my daughters would be remarked on, I vow I wish you had not gone! 'Tis such a sight to show, that dreadful face of yours. You will never give me any more comfort--that is certain."

"Pos.!" echoed Molly, exactly in the same tone.

"I would not mind, Gatty!" was Betty's kindly remark.

"Thank you," said Gatty, meekly. "I wish I did not!"

Gatty did not repeat this to Phoebe. But Phoebe saw there was something wrong.

Rhoda came rustling in before much more could be said. She was full of details of the journey. What the Queen looked like,--a tall, stout woman, with such blooming cheeks that Rhoda felt absolutely certain she wore rouge,--how she was dressed,--all in black, with a black calash, or high, loose hood, and adorned with diamonds--how she had been received,--with ringing cheers from the Tory part of the population, but ominous silence, or very faint applause, from such as were known to be Whigs: how Sophia Rich had told Rhoda that all the Whig ladies of mark had made up their minds to attend no drawing-rooms the next season: how it was beginning to be dimly suspected that Lord Mar was coquetting with the exiled members of the royal family, and more than suspected that the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough were no longer all powerful with Queen Anne, as they had once been: how the Queen always dined at three p.m., never drank French wine, held drawing-rooms on Sundays after service, would not allow any gentleman to enter her presence without a full-bottomed periwig: all these bits of information Rhoda dilated on, pa.s.sing from one to another with little regard to method, and wound up with an account of the presentation of the bouquet, and how the Queen had received it from Lady Diana with a smile, and, "I thank you all, young gentlewomen," in that silver voice which was Anne's pre-eminent charm.

But half an hour later, when Gatty was asleep, Rhoda said to Phoebe,--

"I have made up my mind, Phoebe."

"Have you?" responded Phoebe. "What about?"

"I mean to marry Marcus Welles."

"Has he asked you?" said Phoebe, rather drily.

"Yes," was Rhoda's short answer.

Phoebe lay silent.

"Well?" said Rhoda, rather sharply.

"I think, Cousin, I had better be quiet," answered Phoebe; "for I am afraid I can't say what you want me."

"What I want you!" echoed Rhoda, more sharply than ever. "What do I want you to say, Mrs Prude, if you please?"

"Well, I suppose you would like me to say I was glad: and I am not: so I can't."

"I don't suppose it signifies to us whether you are glad or sorry,"

snapped Rhoda. "But why aren't you glad?--you never thought he'd marry you, surely?"

Phoebe said "No" with a little laugh, as she thought how very far she was from any such expectation, and how very much farther from any wish for it. But Rhoda was not satisfied.

"Well, then, what's the matter?" said she.