THE parlor at Grocombe Vicarage was but a small room and a shabby one. There was a drawing-room which was the admiration of the parish into which all visitors were shown, but Mrs. Hill and her daughters had too much respect for it to use it commonly; and the centre of their domestic life was the parlor, where all their makings and mendings were done, and where Agnes did not disdain to boil the eggs in the morning and make the toast for tea, both of which operations were so much better done, she thought, when “you did them yourself.” She had been making a dress for her mother; indeed, the very dress in which Mrs. Hill intended to appear “at the ceremony,” and the large old sofa which stood between the door and the window was rendered unavailable for all the ordinary uses of a sofa by having the materials of this dress stretched out upon it. Mary was in a chair by the fire with a white knitted shawl wrapped round her, much oppressed with her cold. There was a little tea kettle upon the old-fashioned hob of the grate. It may be supposed with what a start of discomposure and vexation the invalid of the moment started up when the door of this sanctuary was flung open and the visitors appeared. Fearful under any circumstances would have been the sight of Letitia to Mary at this moment, but in the drawing-room she might at least have been kept at arm’s length. She stumbled to her feet with a cry; her nose was red, her eyes were streaming, and the feverish misery of her cold depressed any spirit with which she might have met this invasion. Letitia on the other hand swept in like an army, her head high, her hazel eyes blazing like fire, full of the energy of wrath. She was a small woman, but she might have been a giantess for the effect she produced. After her there came a personage really large enough to fill the little parlor, but who produced no such effect as Letitia, notwithstanding that she swept down a rickety table with the wind of her going as she hobbled and halted in. But Mary recognized with another thrill of alarm the Dowager Lady Frogmore, and felt as if her last day had come.
Letitia swept in and did not say a word till she had reached the chair which Mary had hurriedly vacated. She had the air of bearing down upon her unfortunate friend, who retreated towards the only window which filled the little room with cold wintry light. “Well!” Mrs. Parke cried, as she came to a sudden pause, facing Mary with a threatening look. “Well!” But it was ill she meant.
“Well,—Letitia,” cried poor Mary, faintly.
“I have come to know if it was you that wrote me that disgraceful letter. Could it be you? Tell me, Mary, it’s all some terrible mistake, and that I have not lost my friend.”
“Oh, Letitia! You have lost no friend. I—I hope—we shall always be friends.”
“Did you write that letter?” said Letitia, coming a step nearer. “You—that I trusted in with my whole heart—that I took out of this wretched place where you were starving, and made you as happy as the day is long. Was it you—that wrote to me like that, Mary Hill?”
Mary was capable of no response. She fell back upon the window, and stood leaning against it, nervously twisting and untwisting her shawl.
“Letitia,” said the dowager, from behind, “don’t agitate yourself—and me: tell this person that it can’t go any further: we won’t allow it, and that’s enough. We’ve come here to put a stop to it.” Lady Frogmore emphasized what she said with the stamp of a large foot upon the floor. Her voice was husky and hoarse by nature, and she was out of breath either with fretting or with the unusual rapidity of motion, which had brought her in like a heavy barge, tugged in the wake of a little bustling steamboat. She cast a glance round to see if there was a comfortable chair, and dropped heavily into that which was sacred to the vicar on the other side of the fire, from which she looked round, contemplating the shabby parlor and the figure of Mary in her shawl against the window. “We’ve come—— to put a stop to it,” she repeated in her deep voice.
Now Mary, though held by many bonds to Letitia, had at the bottom of her mild nature a spark of spirit—and it flashed through her mind involuntarily that it was she who would soon be Lady Frogmore, and that this large disagreeable woman was only the dowager. She put a stop to it! So impudent a threat gave Mary courage. “I don’t know,” she said, “who has any business to interfere; and I don’t think there is anyone who has any right. I don’t say that to you, Letitia. You are not like anyone else. I very much wish—oh, if you would only let me! to explain everything to you.”
“She has every right,” said Mrs. Parke; “and so has my husband. I suppose you don’t know that this is Lady Frogmore?”
“I know—that it is the dowager,” said Mary. She was aware, quite aware of what was in her heart, the meaning underneath, which Letitia understood with an access of fury. In Mary’s mild voice there was a distinct consciousness that this title was hers—hers! the poor dependent, the less than governess! Mrs. Parke made a step forward as if she would have fallen upon her antagonist.
“You think that’s what you’ll be! Oh, you Judas, taking advantage of all I’ve done for you. Oh, you wicked, treacherous, designing woman! You wouldn’t have had enough to eat if I hadn’t taken you in. Look at this wretched hole of a place and think what rooms you’ve had to live in the last six years—and pretending to care for the children, and bringing them to ruin! I’ve heard of such treachery, but I never, never thought I’d ever live to see it, and see it in you. I trusted you like a sister; you know I did. It was all I could do to keep the children from calling you Aunt Mary, as if you belonged to them; and you nobody, nobody at all! I got into trouble with my husband about you, for he couldn’t bear to see you always there. Oh, Mary, Mary Hill! where would you have been all these years but for me—and to turn upon me like this—and ruin me! I that was always so good to you!”
This address melted Mary into tears and helplessness. “Letitia,” she said, with a sob, “I never, never denied you had been kind: and I love the children, as if—as if—they were my own. It will be no worse for the children. Oh, if you only would believe what I say! I asked him before I would give him any answer, and he said, no, no, it would make no difference to the children. I would rather die than hurt them; but he said no, no, that it would hurt them if I refused. Letitia!”
“Oh!” said Mrs. Parke. “So you’re our benefactor, it appears. Grandmamma, this lady is going to patronize us you’ll be glad to hear. She has taken care of the children before she would accept his beautiful love. Oh!” cried Letitia, in her desperation, clenching the hand which was out of her muff as if she would have knocked down her former friend. She drew a long breath of fury, and then she said, “You think nobody can interfere! You think a noble family can be played upon by any wicked treacherous thing that likes to try, and that no one can do anything to stop it! but you’re mistaken, there, you’re mistaken there!”
Foam flew from Letitia’s lips. In her excitement she began to cry—hot tears of rage gathering in her eyes, and a spasm in her throat breaking the words. She sat down in the chair which Mary had so hurriedly vacated, overcome by passion, but carrying on her angry protest with mingled sobs and threats only half articulate. Poor Mary could not stand against the storm. A cold shiver of alarm lest this might turn out to be true, mingled with the shiver of her cold, which answered to the draughts from the window. Hunted out of her warm corner by the fire, exposed to the chill, her heart sinking, her cough coming on, there is no telling to what depth of dejection poor Mary might have fallen. She was saved for the moment at least by the rush at the door of her mother and sister, who, after a pause of wonder and many consultations, had at last decided that it was their duty to be present to support Mary—however grand and exalted her visitors might be. They came in one after the other a little awed but eager, not knowing what to expect. But they both in the same moment recognized Letitia and rushed toward her with open arms and a cry of “Oh, Tisch!” in the full intention of embracing and rejoicing over such an old friend. “Why didn’t you send for me, Mary?” cried Mrs. Hill. “I thought it was some grand stranger, and it’s Tisch, our dear old Tisch! What a pleasure to see you here again, my dear!”
Mrs. Parke put on a visage of stone. She could not avoid the touch of the mistress of the house who seized upon her hand with friendly eagerness, but she drew back from the kiss which was about to follow, and ignored Agnes altogether with a stony gaze. “I’m sorry I can’t meet you in the old way,” she said. “I was a child then and everything’s changed now. We have come here upon business, and unpleasant business too. I’m glad to see you, however, for you will have sense enough to know what I mean.”
“Sense enough to know what she means!” cried the vicar’s wife. “I am sure I don’t know what that means to begin with, Tisch Ravelstone! You were never so wonderfully clever that it wanted sense to understand you—so far as I know.”
“I am the Honorable Mrs. Parke and this is Lady Frogmore,” said Letitia with angry dignity. “Now perhaps you understand.”
“Not in the least, unless it’s congratulations you mean, and that sort of thing; but you do not look much like congratulators,” said Mrs. Hill. She drew a chair to the table and sat down and confronted the visitors firmly. “It looks as if you did not like the match,” she said.
“The match—shall never be,” said Lady Frogmore, in that voice which proceeded out of her boots, waving her arm, which was made majestic by the lace and jet of her cloak.
“It shall never be!” cried Letitia. “Never! My husband has already taken steps——”
“My son—has taken steps—the family will not allow it. They will never allow it.”
“Never!” said Letitia, raising her voice until it was almost a scream. “Never! if we should carry it into every court in the land.”
The ladies of the vicarage were very much startled. They lived out of the world. They did not know what privileges might remain with the nobility, for whom such excellent people have an almost superstitious regard, and the boldness of an assertion, whatever it was, had at all times a great effect upon them. For the moment Mrs. Hill could only stare, and did not know what to reply. She reflected that she might do harm if she spoke too boldly, and that it might be wiser to temporize. And she also reflected that the sight of a man was apt to daunt feminine visitors who might be going too far. She said, therefore, after that stare of consternation, “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Tisch, nor how you can put a stop to a marriage; but perhaps the vicar may understand. Agnes, tell your father to come here. I am sorry you did not take this lady to the drawing-room, Tisch, you who know the house so well. This is the room we sit in in the morning, where we do all our little household jobs. Agnes is making me my dress for the ceremony, and everything is in confusion. Dress-making always does make a mess,” said Mrs. Hill, rising with dignity to arrange, yet with a quick fling of the long breadths of the silk spread out on the sofa to dazzle the spectators with a glimpse of the dress which she was to wear at the ceremony. She then addressed herself to Mary, who still stood shivering in the window. “My dear,” she said, “you’ll get your cold a great deal worse, standing there. Yes, I see Tisch has got your chair—but come here to the corner of the fire—she’ll make a little room for you. It’s a pity she should have such a bad cold just on the eve—Oh, here is the vicar. This is Lady Frogmore, my dear. What did you say, Mary? The Dowager Lady Frogmore? Yes, to be sure. And this is my husband, Mr. Hill. As for the other lady, you know very well, my dear, who she is.”
“Why, it’s Tisch!” said the vicar, “my little Tisch! Who would have thought it? Why we ought to have the bells ringing, for you haven’t been here, have you, since you were married, Tisch? and cheated me out of that too, which was unkind. Anyhow, you are very welcome, my dear.” He took her hand in both of his and swung her by it, which was the vicar’s way. He was a large flabby old man, with much bonhommie of manner, and ended off everything he said with a laugh. Letitia had not been able to avoid the paternal greeting. But she pulled her hand away as soon as that was possible. All these references to her absence and to her marriage were gall and wormwood to Mrs. Parke.
The vicar looked around after this, much discomfited by finding himself ousted from his usual chair. He wavered for a moment not knowing where to go, but finally planted himself in front of the fire, leaning his shoulders against the mantel-piece. He had an old coat on, very much glazed and shabby, and a large limp white neckcloth, fully deserving of that name, loosely tied. He looked round him amiable and a little unctuous, not perceiving, for his faculties were not very alert, the storm in the air. “Well, ladies,” he said, “I suppose you’ve come to talk things over, and all the fal-lals and things for the wedding, eh? It’s astonishing what interest ladies always take in anything of this kind, though they can’t be called, can they, on this occasion, the young couple?” He chuckled in his limp good humor, as he stood and warmed himself. “Only six years, I’ll give you my word for it, younger than myself—and going to be my son-in-law—but Mary there doesn’t seem to mind.”
His laugh had the most curious effect in that atmosphere charged with fiery elements. It was so easy, so devoid of any alarm or possibility of disturbance. Tisch, who knew very well that all that could be done was to frighten these simple people if possible, had too much sense not to see that her mission would be a failure furious as she was—but the dowager had not this saving salt. She held out her arm again with all the lace and jet. “We’ve come to put a stop to it,” she said.
“Eh?” said the vicar. His chuckle was a little different now, and he repeated it at the end of his ejaculation, which was scarcely a question.
“They’ve come,” said Mrs. Hill, raising her voice, “to put a stop to Mary’s marriage. Don’t you know? They won’t have it, they won’t allow it—they say a noble family—Mr. Hill, don’t you hear?”
For he went on chuckling, which was exasperating, and made his wife and daughters long to seize him by the shoulders and shake him. “Oh,” he said, “they’re going to put a stop to Mary’s marriage. How are they going to do that, my dear? Has he got another wife living?” And the vicar chuckled more than ever at such a good joke.
“Father!” and “my dear!” cried daughter and wife, simultaneously, in indignation. But the vicar went on laughing unmoved.
“Well?” he said. “We don’t know much about his life. He might have had several other wives living, he’s old enough. And that’s the only way I know.”
“It shall be put a stop to,” cried the dowager, “my son has taken steps. My son has been heir presumptive ever since he was born. It shall be put a stop to. If no one else will do it, I’ll do it. I’ll have him shut up. I’ll have him put in an asylum. He can’t be allowed to ruin the family. Letitia, can’t you speak?”
“My good lady,” said the vicar, carried out of himself and out of his natural respect for a peeress by his amusement and elation in being sent for and looked up to as the arbiter, which was a new and unusual position for this good man. “My good lady, is it Frogmore you are speaking of?” He laughed all the time so that all the women could have murdered him. “Frogmore! I’d like to see any one shut up Frogmore in an asylum, or dictate to him what he is to do.” He stopped to laugh again with the most profound enjoyment of the joke. “I think I never heard anything so good. Frogmore! Why he’s only in his sixties—six years younger than I am. Do you think you could put me in an asylum, or make me give up anything I wanted to do, my dear?” He looked up at his wife and rippled over with laughter, while she, almost put upon the other side by this appeal, gave him a glance which might have slain the vicar on the spot. The ladies of his house habitually dictated to the vicar; they put no faith in his power of acting for himself. What he proposed to do they generally found much fault with, and considered him to require constant guidance. But now for once he had his revenge. He went on chuckling over it till their nerves could scarcely sustain the irritation; but for the moment the vicar was master of the situation, and no one dared say him nay.
Letitia had taken no part in this, such sense as she had showing her that it was vain to maintain that altogether hopeless struggle. She had her own undertaking ready to her hand, and a much more hopeful one. Mary, who had been placed by her mother in a low chair close to the corner of the fire, was so near to her as to be at her mercy. The vicar’s large person standing in front of the fire shut them off from the rest, throwing a shadow over this pair; and while he occupied the entire space over them with his voice and his laugh, Letitia caught at Mary’s shoulder and began another argument in her ear. “Mary Hill,” she said, “you know you daren’t look me in the face.”
“I have done you no harm, Letitia,” said Mary trembling.
“You are going to take my children’s bread out of their mouths. They’ll have nothing—nothing! For how can we save off our allowance? The little things will be ruined, and all through you.”
“Letitia, oh, for goodness sake, listen to me for a minute. He says it will make no difference. They will not be the worse. I told him I would do nothing against them—and he says if I refuse he will cut them off altogether—Letitia——!”
“Don’t talk nonsense to me, Mary Hill! Do you think he will not rather leave his money to his own children than to ours.”
“He has no children,” said Mary.
“No, not now; but when a man is going to get married——”
“Letitia!”
“Oh, don’t be a fool, Mary Hill! You’re not a baby not to know. When a man marries—if he were Methuselah—one knows what he looks for. John and I would scorn to ask anything from you, though you will ruin us too. But the children! A mother must fight for her children. Poor little Duke, whom you always pretended to be so fond of—he’s fond of you, poor child—he sent his love to his Aunt Mary, little thinking they will all be ruined—because of you——”
“Letitia, oh what can I do?”
“You can give him up,” said Mrs. Parke, “in a moment. It will not give you much trouble to do that. An old fool like Frogmore, an old precise, wearisome old——. Why, he’s older than your father: and you who are engaged to my poor brother Ralph, such a fine man.”
“I never was engaged to your brother Ralph!” cried Mary, with indignation.
“You say so now: but if one had asked you ten years ago. We might make up a little something for him even now—a little goes a long way in Australia: and with someone whom he was fond of to keep him right, Mary!”
“Letitia! It is all a mistake. I never, never was fond of him.”
“And now, when you might save him if you liked! This has been such a blow to him. He would marry you to-morrow and take you away out of everybody’s reach. The man that was really, really, oh, you won’t deny it! the man of your heart.”
“I do deny it! Never, never! I would not marry your brother Ralph if—if there was not another. I would marry nobody,” said Mary, raising her head, “nobody—except the man I am going to marry!”
“You will say you are in love with him next. A man that is older than your father—that has lived such a life, oh, such a life! all to humble us and bring us down to the ground—that have been so kind to you, treated you like a sister—and trusted you with everything, Mary.”
Mary knew very well that this was not true—but it is so difficult to contradict any one who asserts thus boldly that she has been kind. Perhaps Letitia meant to be kind. She could not have had any other notion—at least at first. But Mary could not be warm in her response. She said, “It is misery to me to think of doing you any harm. I would not harm—a hair of one of their heads—not for the world!”
“No—you wouldn’t stab them or give them poison—but you would do far worse, take everything from them—their whole living. You would change everything for us. I,” cried Letitia, tears coming into her voice as she realized the emancipation of her once slave, “would not mind—for myself—I’m used to—putting up with things—for the sake of my family; but there is John—and little Duke—their inheritance taken from them that came from their ancestors—that they’ve always been brought up to—everything changed for them. And all because a friend—one we’ve been so kind to—my oldest friend, Mary, one brought into the family by me; oh, that is the worst of it! If it had not been for me you would never, never have known that there was such a person as Lord Frogmore. They’ve a right to say it’s all my doing. Oh, Mary Hill, it was a fine thing for me to marry John Parke, and then to bring my friends with me into the family and ruin them all!”
Mary felt herself as obdurate and hard as the nether millstone. She folded her shoulders in her shawl and her mind in what she felt to be a determined ingratitude. Yes, she was ungrateful. They had been kind to her, but she would not give up her life for that. It was not fair to ask her. And how could she change when everything was settled? She turned her shoulder to her friend. “He said it should do them no harm,—I told him I would not consent to do them any harm.”
“Oh, as for that!” Letitia cried. She leaned down close, near to Mary’s ear with her hand upon her shoulder. “Mary,” she said, “you’re my oldest friend. We used to play together, don’t you recollect? It was you who was kind to me in those days. Sometimes I’ve seemed to forget, but I don’t forget, Mary. It wouldn’t have mattered if we had cut each other out as girls—that’s natural; but now! You might win the day and welcome. Get the title and go out of the room before me and all that——” Letitia’s laboring bosom gave forth a sob at the dreadful possibility, but she went on. “But it is the others I am thinking of. It isn’t me, Mary! And we that were always such friends.”
There came from Mary’s bosom an answering sob of excitement and misery, but she made no reply.
“I can understand, dear,” said Letitia, putting her arm around the arched shoulders, “that now you have made up your mind to marry you don’t feel as if you could give it up. I don’t ask you to give it up—but oh, think how far better than an old man like that it would be to have one that was really fond of you, one of your own age, a person that was natural! Oh, Mary, hear me out. Father has settled to give him something, and we could make out between us what would be quite a fortune in Australia. And he worships the very ground you tread on—and you were always fond of him you know, you know—— Oh, Mary!”
“Don’t you know that you’re insulting me?” cried Mary, so miserable that to be angry was a relief to her. “Oh! take away your hand. Oh! go away and leave me. I won’t listen to you any more.”
“Mary—John told me to tell you that he had turned that insolent Saunders and all those horrid servants out of the house. He never even consulted me, and it’s a dreadful inconvenience, every servant we had. But he turned them every one out of the house. You might be satisfied after that, to see how much we think of you. He said no one should ever be suffered to be insolent to you in our house. We have all esteemed you above everything, Mary. Insulting! Is it insulting to want you to marry my own brother—my favorite—and to make sacrifices that you should have something to marry on.”
“Letitia,” said Mary, in her passion springing up from her seat, “so long as you talk of the children my heart’s ready to break, and I don’t know what to do—but you shall not put this scandal upon me. Oh! no, no. I won’t bear it. It is an insult! Mother, don’t let her come after me. I won’t have it. I won’t hear another word.”
For Letitia, too, had risen to her feet. She stood staring for a moment while Mary pushed past her flying. But the fugitive had no more than reached the door when she was caught by the shriek of Mrs. Parke’s valediction. “Mary Hill! If you go and do it after all I’ve said—oh! I hope you’ll be miserable! I hope you’ll be cursed for it—you and all belonging to you. I’ll never forgive you—never, never, never! I hope if you have a child it’ll be an idiot and kill you. I wish you were dead. I wish you would go mad. I wish the lightning might strike you. I wish——”
Letitia fell back in her chair, choking with rage and hatred; and Mary, like a hunted creature, with a cry of pain flew sobbing upstairs. The others looked on aghast, not knowing what to think or say.