The Maidens' Lodge.

by Emily Sarah Holt.

CHAPTER ONE.

PHOEBE ARRIVES AT WHITE-LADIES.

"The sailing of a cloud hath Providence to its pilot."

_Martin Farquhar Tupper_.

In the handsome parlour of Cressingham Abbey, commonly called White-Ladies, on a dull afternoon in January, 1712, sat Madam and her granddaughter, Rhoda, sipping tea.

Madam--and nothing else, her dependants would have thought it an impertinence to call her Mrs Furnival. Never was Empress of all the Russias more despotic in her wide domain than Madam in her narrow one.

As to Mr Furnival--for there had been such a person, though it was a good while since--he was a mere appendage to Madam's greatness--useful in the way of collecting rents and seeing to repairs, and capable of being put away when done with. He was a little, meek, un.o.btrusive man, fully (and happily) convinced of his own insignificance, and ready to sink himself in his superb wife as he might receive orders. He had been required to change his name as a condition of alliance with the heiress of Cressingham, and had done so with as much readiness as he would in similar circ.u.mstances have changed his coat. It was about fourteen years since this humble individual had ceased to be the head servant of Madam; and it was Madam's wont to hint, when she condescended to refer to him at all, that her marriage with him had been the one occasion in her life wherein she had failed to act with her usual infallibility.

It had been a supreme disappointment to Madam that both her children were of the inferior s.e.x. Mrs Catherine to some extent resembled her father, having no thoughts nor opinions of her own, but being capable of moulding like wax; and like wax her mother moulded her. She married, under Madam's orders, at the age of twenty, the heir of the neighbouring estate--a young gentleman of blood and fortune, with few brains and fewer principles--and died two years thereafter, leaving behind her a baby daughter only a week old, whom her careless father was glad enough to resign to Madam, in order to get her out of his way.

The younger of Madam's daughters, despite her sister's pa.s.sive obedience, had been the mother's favourite. Her obedience was by no means pa.s.sive. She inherited all her mother's self-will, and more than her mother's impulsiveness. Much the handsomer of the two, she was dressed up, flattered, indulged, and petted in every way. Nothing was too good for Anne, until one winter day, shortly after Catherine's marriage, when the family a.s.sembled round the breakfast table, and Anne was found missing. A note was brought to Madam that evening by one of Mr Peveril's under-gardeners, in which Anne gaily confessed that she had taken her destiny into her own hands, and had that morning been married to the Reverend Charles Latrobe, family chaplain to her brother-in-law, Mr Peveril. She hoped that her mother would not be annoyed, and would receive her and her bridegroom with the usual cordiality exhibited at weddings.

Madam's, face was a study for a painter. Had Anne Furnival searched through her whole acquaintance, and selected that one man who would be least acceptable at Cressingham, she could not have succeeded better.

A chaplain! the son of a French Huguenot refugee, concerned in trade!-- every item, in Madam's eyes, was a lower deep beyond the previous one.

It was considered in those days that the natural wife for a family chaplain was the lady's maid. That so mean a creature should presume to lift his eyes to the sister of his patroness, was monstrous beyond endurance. And a Frenchman!--when Madam looked upon all foreigners as nuisances whose removal served for practice to the British fleet, and boasted that she could _not_ speak a word of French, with as much complacency as would have answered for laying claim to a perfect knowledge of all the European tongues. And a tradesman's son! A tradesman, and a gentleman, in her eyes, were terms as incompatible as a blue rose or a vermilion cat. For a man to soil his fingers with sale, barter or manufacture, was destructive of all pretension not only to birth, but to manners.

On the head of her innocent spouse Madam's fury had been outpoured in no measured terms. Receive the hussy, she vehemently declared, she would not! She should never set foot in that house again. From this moment she had but one daughter.

Two years afterwards, on the evening of Catherine's funeral, and of the transference of baby Rhoda to the care of her grandmother, a young woman, shabbily dressed, carrying an infant, and looking tired and careworn, made her way to the back door of the Abbey. She asked for an interview with Madam.

"I cannot disturb Madam," said the grey-haired servant, not unkindly; "her daughter was buried this morning. You must come again, my good woman."

"Must I so, Baxter?" replied the applicant. "Tell her she has one daughter left. Surely, if ever she will see me, it were to-night."

"Eh, Mrs Anne!" exclaimed the man, who remembered her as a baby in arms. "Your pardon, Madam, that I knew you not sooner. Well, I cannot tell! but come what will, it shall never be said that I turned my young mistress from her mother's door. If I lose my place by it, I'll take in your name to Madam."

The answer he received was short and stern. "_My daughter_ was buried this morning. I will not see the woman."

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, when suddenly she lifted her head and held out her child to him.

"Take it to her! 'Tis a boy."

Mrs Latrobe knew Madam. If a grandchild of the n.o.bler s.e.x 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 pa.s.sed 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, G.o.d 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 p.a.w.n 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 antic.i.p.ated 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 pa.s.sed, 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 doc.u.ments 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.