The Maidens' Lodge Part 39

"Mr Welles, give me leave to tell you the truth: you do not hear it often. You do not wish to marry me. You wish to obtain White-Ladies.

'Tis of no consequence to you whether the woman that must needs come with it be Phoebe Latrobe or Rhoda Peveril. My cousin would please you better than I; but you really care not a straw for either of us. You only want the estate. Allow me in my turn to a.s.sure you that, so far as I am concerned, you will not get it. The man who could use my cousin as you have done may keep away from endeavouring my favour. I wish you a very good morning, Mr Welles."

"I beg, Madam, that you will permit me to explain--" stammered Mr Welles, whose grace and tactics alike forsook him under the treatment to which he was subjected by Phoebe.

"Sir, there is nothing to explain."

And with a courtesy which could be construed into nothing but final dismissal, Phoebe left her astonished suitor to stand and look after her with the air of a beaten general, while she turned the corner of the Maidens' Lodge, and made her way to Lady Betty's door.

Lady Betty was at that moment giving an "at home" on the very minute scale permitted by the diminutive appointments of the Maidens' Lodge.

Mrs Jane Talbot and Mrs Dorothy Jennings were seated at her little tea-table.

"Why, my dear Mrs Phoebe! what an unlooked-for pleasure!" exclaimed Lady Betty, coming forward cordially.

If her cordiality had been a shade more distinct since Phoebe became heiress of Cressingham--well, she was only human. The other ladies present had sustained no such change.

"The Lord bless thee, dear child!" was the warm greeting of Mrs Dolly; but it had been quite as warm long before.

"Evening!" said Mrs Jane, with a sarcastic grin. "Got it over, has he?

Saw you through the side window. Bless you, child, I know all about it--I expected that all along. Hope you let him catch it--the jackanapes!"

"I did not let him catch me, Mrs Jane," answered Phoebe, with some dignity.

"That's right!" said Mrs Jane, decidedly. "That bundle of velvet and braid would never have made any way with me, when I was your age, my dear. Why, any mantua-maker could cut him out of snips, and have some stuff left over."

"He is of very good family, my dear Mrs Jane," observed Lady Betty; "at least, if I take you rightly in supposing you allude to Mr Welles."

"More pity for the family!" answered Mrs Jane. "Glad I'm not his mother. Ruin me to keep, him in order. Cost a fortune in whip-leather.

How's Mrs Rhoda?"

"She is very well, I thank you, Madam."

"Is she crying out her eyes over that piece of fiddle-faddle?"

"I think she has finished for the present," replied Phoebe, rather drily.

"Just you tell her he's been making up to you. Best thing you can do.

Cure her sooner than anything else."

"Mrs Phoebe, my dear, may I beg of you to do me the favour to let Madam know that my niece, my Lady Delawarr, is much disordered in her health?"

"Certainly, my Lady Betty; I am grieved to hear it."

"Very much so, as 'tis feared; and Sir Richard hath asked me thither to visit her, and see after matters a little while she is laid by. I purpose to go thither this next week, but I would not do so without paying my respects to Madam, for which honour I trust to wait on her to-morrow. Indeed, my dear--and if you will mention it to Madam, you will do me a service--Sir Richard's letter is not without some importunity that should my niece be laid aside for any time, as her physician fears, I would remove altogether, and make my home with them."

"Indeed, Madam, I will tell my mother all about it."

"I thank you, my dear; 'twill be a kindness. Of course, I would not like to leave without Madam's concurrence."

"That you will have," quietly said Mrs Dorothy.

"Indeed, so I hope," returned Lady Betty. "I dare say Mrs Phoebe here at least does not know that when my nephew Sir Richard was young, after his mother died--my poor sister Penelope--he was bred up wholly in my care, so that he looks on me rather as his mother than his aunt, and 'tis but natural that his thoughts should turn to me in this trouble."

"You must have been a young aunt, my Lady Betty," remarked Mrs Dorothy.

"Truly, but twelve years elder than my nephew," said Lady Betty, with a smile.

"Clarissa would have told us that, without waiting to be asked," laughed Mrs Jane. "How are the girls, my Lady Betty?"

"Very well, as I hear. You know, I guess, that Betty is engaged in marriage?"

"So we heard. To Sir Charles Rich, is it not?"

"The same. But maybe you have not heard of Molly's conquest?" asked Lady Betty, with an amused little laugh.

"What, is Mrs Molly in any body's chains?"

"Indeed, I guess not, Mrs Jane," replied Lady Betty, still laughing.

"I expect my friend Mr Thomas Mainwaring is in Molly's chains, if chains there be."

"Eh, she'll lead him a weary life!" said Mrs Jane.

"Let us hope she will sober down," answered Lady Betty. "I am not unwilling to allow there hath of late been room for improvement. Yet is there some good in Molly, as I think."

Phoebe remembered Molly's a.s.sistance in the matter of Mr Edmundson, and thought it might be so.

"Well, and what of Mrs Gatty?"

"Ah, poor maid! She, at least, can scarce hope to be happy, her disfigurement is so unfortunate."

"I must needs ask your pardon, my Lady Betty, but I trust that is not the case," said Mrs Dorothy, with a gentle smile. "Sure, happiness doth not depend on face nor figure?"

"The world mostly reckons so, I believe," answered Lady Betty, with a responsive smile. "Maybe, we pick up such words, and use them, in something too heedless a manner."

"I am mightily mistaken if Mrs Gatty do not prove the happiest of the three," was Mrs Dorothy's reply.

Mrs Dorothy rose to go home, and Phoebe took leave at the same time.

She felt tired and hara.s.sed, and longed for the rest of a little quiet talk with her old friend.

"And how doth Mrs Rhoda take this, my dear?" was the old lady's first question, when Phoebe had poured out her story.

"She seemed very much troubled at first, and angry; but I fancy she is getting over it now."

"Which most?--troubled or angry?"

"I think--after a few minutes, at least--more angry."

"Then she will quickly recover. I do not think she loved him, Phoebe.

She liked him, I have no doubt: and she flattered herself that he loved her; but if she be more angry than hurt, that shows that her pride suffers rather than her love. At least," said Mrs Dorothy, correcting herself, "I mean it looks so. Who am I, that I should judge her?"