Baxter softened it a little in repeating it to Mrs. Latrobe. But he could not soften the hard fact that her mother refused to see her. She was turning away,
“Take it to her! ’Tis a boy.”
Mrs. Latrobe knew Madam. If a grandchild of the nobler sex produced no effect upon her, no more could be hoped. Baxter carried the child in, but he shook his grey head when he brought it back. He did not repeat the message this time.
“I’ll have nought to do with that beggar tradesfellow’s brats!” said Madam, in a fury.
“Mrs. Anne, there’s one bit of comfort,” said old Baxter, in a whisper. “Master slipped out as soon as I told of you, and I saw him cross the field towards the church. Go you that way, and meet him.”
She did not speak another word, but she clasped the child tight to her bosom, and hurried away. As she passed a narrow outlet at the end of the Abbey Church, close to the road, Mr. Furnival shambled out and met her.
“Eh, Nancy, poor soul, God bless thee!” faltered the poor father, who was nearly as much to be pitied as his child. “She’ll not see thee, my girl. And she’ll blow me up for coming. But that’s nothing—it comes every day for something. Look here, child,” and Mr. Furnival emptied all his pockets, and poured gold and silver into Anne’s thin hand. “I can do no more. Poor child! poor child! But if thou art in trouble, my girl, send to me at any time, and I’ll pawn my coat for thee if I can do no better.”
“Father,” said Mrs. Latrobe, in an unsteady voice, “I am sorry I was ever an undutiful child to you.”
The emphasis was terribly significant.
So they parted, with much admiration of the grandson, and Mr. Furnival trotted back to his penance; for Madam kept him very short of money, and required from him an account of every shilling. The storm which he anticipated broke even a little more severely than he expected; but he bore it quietly, and went to bed when it was over.
Since that night nothing whatever had been heard of Mrs. Latrobe until four months before the story opens. When Mr. Furnival was on his death-bed, he braved his wife’s anger by naming the disowned daughter. His last words were, “Perpetua, seek out Anne!”
Madam sat listening to him with lips firmly set, and without words. It was not till he was past speech that she gave him any answer.
“Jack,” she said at last, to the pleading eyes which were more eloquent than the hushed voice had been, “look you here. I will not seek the girl out. She has made her bed, and let her lie on it! But I will do this for you—and I should never have done that without your asking and praying me now. If she comes or sends to me, I will not refuse her some help. I shall please myself what sort. But I won’t turn her quite away, for your sake.”
The pleading eyes turned to grateful ones. An hour later, and Madam was a widow.
Fourteen years passed, during which Rhoda grew up into a maiden of nineteen years, always in the custody of her grandmother. Her father had fallen in one of the Duke of Marlborough’s battles, and before his death had been compelled to sell Peveril Manor to liquidate his gambling debts. He left nothing for Rhoda beyond his exquisite wardrobe and jewellery, a service of gold plate, and a number of unpaid bills, which Madam flatly refused to take upon herself, and defied the unhappy tradesmen to impose upon Rhoda. She did, however, keep the plate and jewels; and by way of a sop to Cerberus, allowed the “beggarly craftsmen,” whom she so heartily despised, to sell and divide the proceeds of the wardrobe.
When the fourteen years were at an end, on an afternoon in September, a letter was brought to the Abbey for Madam. Its bearer was a respectable, looking middle-aged woman. Madam ordered her to have some refreshment, while she read the letter. Rhoda noticed that her hand shook as she held it, and wondered what it could be about. Letters were unusual and important documents in those days. But it was the signature that had startled Madam—“Anne Latrobe.”
Mrs. Latrobe wrote in a strain of suffering, penitence, and entreaty. She was in sore trouble. Her husband was dead; of her five children only one was living. She herself was capable of taking a situation as lady’s maid—a higher position then than now—and she knew of one lady who was willing to engage her, if she could provide otherwise for Phoebe. Phoebe was the second of her children, and was now seventeen. She expressed her sorrow for the undutiful behaviour of which she had been guilty towards both parents; and she besought in all ignorance the father who had been dead for fourteen years, to plead with Madam, to help her, in any way she pleased, to put Phoebe into some respectable place where she could earn her own living. Mrs. Latrobe described her as a “quiet, meek, good girl—far better than ever I was,”—and said that she would be satisfied with any arrangement which would effect the end proposed.
For some minutes Madam sat gazing out of the window, yet seeing nothing, with the letter lying open before her. Her promise to her dead husband bound her to answer favourably. What should she do with Phoebe? After some time of absolute silence, she startled Rhoda with the question—
“Child, how old are you?”
“Nineteen, Madam,” answered Rhoda, in much surprise.
“Two years!” responded Madam—which words were an enigma to her granddaughter.
But as Rhoda was of a romantic temperament, and the central luminary of her sphere was Rhoda Peveril, visions began to dance before her of some eligible suitor, whom Madam was going to put off for two years. She was more perplexed than ever with the next question.
“Would you like a companion, child?”
“Very much, Madam.” Anything which was a change was welcome to Rhoda.
“I think I will,” said Madam. “Ring the bell.”
I have already stated that Madam was impulsive. When her old butler came in—a man who looked the embodiment of awful respectability—she said, “Send that woman here.”
The woman appeared accordingly, and stood courtesying just within the door.
“Your name, my good woman?” asked Madam, condescendingly.
“An’t please you, Molly Bell, Madam.”
“Whence come you, Molly?”
“An’t please you, from Bristol, Madam.”
“How came you?”
“An’t please you, on foot, Madam; but I got a lift in a carrier’s cart for a matter of ten miles.”
“Do you know the gentlewoman that writ the letter you brought?”
“Oh, ay, Mistress Latrobe! The Lord be thanked, Madam, that ever I did know her, and her good master, the Reverend, that’s gone to the good place.”
“You are sure of that?” demanded Madam; but the covert satire was lost on Molly Bell.
“Sure!” exclaimed she; adding, very innocently, “You can never have known Mr. Latrobe, Madam, to ask that; not of late years, leastwise.”
“I never did,” said Madam, rather grimly. “And do you know Mrs. Phoebe?”
“Dear heart, Madam!” said Molly, laughing softly, “but how queer it do sound, for sure, to hear you say Mrs. Phoebe! She’s always been Miss Phoebe with us all these years; and we hadn’t begun like to think she was growing up. Oh, dear, yes, Madam, I knew them all—Master Charles, and Miss Phoebe, and Master Jack, and Miss Perry, and Miss Kitty.”
“Miss Perry?” said Madam, in an interrogative tone.
“Miss Perpetua, Madam—we always called her Miss Perry