MR. INCLEDON went and came; he did not accept his dismissal, nor, indeed, had any dismissal been given to him. A young lover, like Edward Wodehouse, would have been at once crushed and rendered furious by the appeal Rose had made so ineffectually to the man of experience who knew what he was about. If she was worth having at all, she was worth a struggle; and Mr. Incledon, in the calm exercise of his judgment, knew that at the last every good thing falls into the arms of the patient man who can wait. He had not much difficulty in penetrating the thin veil which she had cast over the “some one” for whom she cared, but who, so far as she knew, did not care for her. It could be but one person, and the elder lover was glad beyond description to know that his rival had not spoken, and that he was absent and likely to be absent. Edward Wodehouse being thus disposed of, there was no one else in Mr. Incledon’s way, and with but a little patience he was sure to win.
As for Rose, though she felt that her appeal had been unsuccessful, she too was less discouraged by it than she could have herself supposed. In the first place she was let alone; nothing was pressed upon her; she had time allowed her to calm down, and with time everything was possible. Some miracle would happen to save her; or, if not a miracle, some ordinary turn of affairs would take the shape of miracle, and answer the same purpose. What is Providence, but a divine agency to get us out of trouble, to restore happiness, to make things pleasant for us? so, at least, one thinks when one is young; older, we begin to learn that Providence has to watch over many whose interests are counter to ours as well as our own; but at twenty, all that is good and necessary in life seems always on our side, and there seems no choice for Heaven but to clear the obstacles out of our way. Something would happen, and all would be well again; and Rose’s benevolent fancy even exercised itself in finding for “poor Mr. Incledon” some one who would suit him better than herself. He was very wary, very judicious, in his treatment of her. He ignored that one scene when he had refused to give up his proposal, and conducted himself for some time as if he had sincerely given up his proposal, and was no more than the family friend, the most kind and sympathizing of neighbors. It was only by the slowest degrees that Rose found out that he had given up nothing, that his constant visits and constant attentions were so many meshes of the net in which her simple feet were being caught. For the first few weeks, as I have said, she was relieved altogether from everything that looked like persecution. She heard of him, indeed, constantly, but only in the pleasantest way. Fresh flowers came, filling the dim old rooms with brightness; and the gardener from Whitton came to look after the flowers and to suggest to Mrs. Damerel improvements in her garden, and how to turn the hall, which was large in proportion to the house, into a kind of conservatory; and baskets of fruit came, over which the children rejoiced; and Mr. Incledon himself came, and talked to Mrs. Damerel and played with them, and left books, new books, all fragrant from the printing, of which he sometimes asked Rose’s opinion casually. None of all these good things was for her, and yet she had the unexpressed consciousness, which was pleasant enough so long as no one else remarked it and no recompense was asked, that but for her those pleasant additions to the family life would not have been. Then it was extraordinary how often he would meet them by accident in their walks, and how much trouble he would take to adapt his conversation to theirs, finding out (but this Rose did not discover till long after) all her tastes and likings. I suppose that having once made up his mind to take so much trouble, the pursuit of this shy creature, who would only betray what was in her by intervals, who shut herself up like the mimosa whenever she was too boldly touched, but who opened secretly with an almost childlike confidence when her fears were lulled to rest, became more interesting to Mr. Incledon than a more ordinary wooing, with a straightforward “yes” to his proposal at the end of it, would have been. His vanity got many wounds both by Rose’s unconsciousness and by her shrinking; but he pursued his plan undaunted by either, having made up his mind to win her and no other; and the more difficult the fight was, the more triumphant would be the success.
This state of affairs lasted for some time; indeed, everything went on quietly, with no apparent break in the gentle monotony of existence at the White House, until the spring was so far advanced as to have pranked itself out in a flood of primroses. It was something quite insignificant and incidental which for the first time reawakened Rose’s fears. He had looked at her with something in his eyes which betrayed him, or some word had dropped from his lips which startled her; but the first direct attack upon her peace of mind did not come from Mr. Incledon. It came from two ladies on the Green, one of whom at least was very innocent of evil meaning. Rose was walking with her mother on an April afternoon, when they met Mrs. Wodehouse and Mrs. Musgrove, likewise taking their afternoon walk. Mrs. Musgrove was a very quiet person, who interfered with nobody, yet who was mixed up with everything that went on on the Green, by right of being the most sympathetic of souls, ready to hear everybody’s grievance and to help in everybody’s trouble. Mrs. Wodehouse struck straight across the Green to meet Mrs. Damerel and Rose, when she saw them, so that it was by no ordinary chance meeting, but an encounter sought eagerly on one side at least, that this revelation came. Mrs. Wodehouse was full of her subject, vibrating, with it to the very flowers on her bonnet, which thrilled and nodded against the blue distance like a soldier’s plumes. She came forward with a forced exuberance of cordiality, holding out both her hands.
“Now tell me!” she said; “may we congratulate you? Is the embargo removed? Quantities of people have assured me that we need not hold our tongues any longer, but that it is all settled at last.”
“What is all settled at last?” asked Mrs. Damerel, with sudden stiffness and coldness. “I beg your pardon, but I really don’t in the least know what you mean.”
“I said I was afraid you were too hasty,” said Mrs. Musgrove.
“Well, if one can’t believe the evidence of one’s senses, what is one to believe?” cried Mrs. Wodehouse. “It is not kind, Rose, to keep all your old friends so long in suspense. Of course, it is very easy to see on which side the hesitation is; and I am sure I am very sorry if I have been premature.”
“You are more than premature,” said Mrs. Damerel with a little laugh, and an uneasy color on her cheek, “for you are speaking a language neither Rose nor I understand. I hope, Mrs. Wodehouse, you have good news from your son.”
“Oh, very good news indeed!” said the mother, whose indignation on her son’s behalf made the rose on her bonnet quiver: and then there were a few further interchanges, of volleys in the shape of questions and answers of the most civil description, and the ladies shook hands and parted. Rose had been struck dumb altogether by the dialogue, in which, trembling and speechless, she had taken no part. When they had gone on for a few yards in silence, she broke down in her effort at self-restraint.
“Mamma, what does she mean?”
“Oh, Rose, do not drive me wild with your folly!” said Mrs. Damerel. “What could she mean but one thing? If you think for one moment, you will have no difficulty in understanding what she means.”
Rose woke up, as a sick man wakes after a narcotic, feverish and trembling. “I thought,” she said, slowly, her heart beginning to throb, and her head to ache in a moment—“I thought it was all given up.”
“How could you think anything so foolish? What symptom can you see of its having been given up? Has he ceased coming? Has he ceased trying to please you, ungrateful girl that you are? Indeed you go too far for ordinary patience; for it cannot be stupidity—you are not stupid,” said Mrs. Damerel, excitedly; “you have not even that excuse.”
“Oh, mamma, do not be angry!” said poor Rose; “I thought—it seemed so natural that, as he saw more of me, he would give it up. Why should he care for me? I am not like him, nor fit to be a great lady; he must see that.”
“This is false humility, and it is very ill timed,” said Mrs. Damerel. “Strange though it may seem, seeing more of you does not make him give it up; and if you are too simple or too foolish to see how much he is devoted to you, no one else is. Mrs. Wodehouse had a spiteful meaning, but she is not the first who has spoken to me. All our friends on the Green believe, like her, that everything is settled between you; that it is only some hesitation about—about our recent sorrow which keeps it from being announced.”
Rose turned upon her mother for the first time with reproach in her eyes. “You should have told me!” she said, with momentary passion; “you ought to have told me,—for how was I to know?”
“Rose, I will not allow such questions; you are not a fool nor a child. Did you think Mr. Incledon came for me? or Agatha, perhaps? He told you he would not give you up. You were warned what his object was—more than warned. Was I to defeat my own wishes by keeping you constantly on your guard? You knew what he wanted, and you have encouraged him and accepted his attentions.”
“I—encouraged him?”
“Whenever a girl permits, she encourages,” said Mrs. Damerel, with oracular solemnity. “In matters of this kind, Rose, if you do not refuse at once, you commit yourself, and sooner or later you must accept.”
“You never told me so before. Oh, mamma! how was I to know? you never said this to me before.”
“There are things that one knows by intuition,” said Mrs. Damerel; “and, Rose, you know what my opinion has been all along. You have no right to refuse. On the one side, there is everything that heart can desire; on the other, nothing but a foolish, childish disinclination. I don’t know if it goes so far as disinclination; you seem now to like him well enough.”
“Do you not know the difference?” said Rose, turning wistful eyes upon her mother. “Oh, mamma, you who ought to know so much better than I do! I like him very well—what does that matter?”
“It matters everything; liking is the first step to love. You can have no reason, absolutely no reason, for refusing him if you like him. Rose, oh, how foolish this is, and what a small, what a very small place there seems to be in your mind for the thought of duty! You tell us you are ready to die for us—which is absurd—and yet you cannot make up your mind to this!”
“It is different,” said Rose; “oh, it is different! Mamma, listen a moment; you are a great deal better than I am; you love us better than we love each other; you are never tired of doing things for us; whether you are well or whether you are ill it does not matter; you are always ready when the children want you. I am not blind,” said the girl, with tears. “I know all you do and all you put up with; but, mamma, you who are good, you who know how to deny yourself, would you do this?”
“Rose!”
“Would you do it?” cried Rose, excited and breathless, pursuing her advantage.
Mrs. Damerel was not old, nor was life quenched in her either by her years or her sorrows. Her face flushed, under her heavy widow’s veil, all over, with a violent overwhelming blush like a girl’s.
“Rose,” she said, passionately, “how dare you—how dare you put such a question to your mother? I do it!—either you are heartless altogether, or you are mad, and don’t know what you say.”
“Forgive, me mamma; but, oh, let me speak! There is nothing else so hard, nothing so disagreeable, but you would do it for us; but you would not do this. There is a difference, then? you do not deny it now?”
“You use a cruel argument,” said Mrs. Damerel, the blush still warm upon her matron cheek, “and it is not a true one. I am your father’s wife. I am your mother and Bertie’s, who are almost man and woman. All my life would be reversed, all my relations confused, if I were to make such a sacrifice; besides, it is impossible,” she said, suddenly; “I did not think that a child of mine would ever have so insulted me.”
“I do not mean it for insult, mamma. Oh, forgive me! I want you only to see the difference. It is not like anything else. You would do anything else, and so would I; but, oh, not this! You see it yourself—not this, mamma.”
“It is foolish to attempt to argue with you,” said Mrs. Damerel; and she hurried in, and up-stairs to her room, leaving Rose, not less excited, to follow. Rose had scarcely calculated upon the prodigious force of her own argument. She was half frightened by it, and half ashamed of having used it, yet to some extent triumphant in her success. There was quite a bank of flowers in the hall as she passed through—flowers which she stopped to look at and caress, with little touches of fondness as flower-lovers use, before she recollected that they were Mr. Incledon’s flowers. She took up a book which was on the hall table, and hurried on to avoid that contemplation, and then she remembered that it was Mr. Incledon’s book. She was just entering the drawing-room as she did so, and threw it down pettishly on a chair by the door; and, lo! Mr. Incledon himself rose, a tall shadow against the window, where he had been waiting for the ladies’ return.
“Mamma has gone up-stairs; I will call her,” said Rose, with confusion, turning away.
“Nay, never mind; it is a pity to disturb Mrs. Damerel, and it is long, very long, since you have allowed me a chance of talking to you.”
“Indeed, we see each other very often,” said Rose, falteringly.
“Yes, I see you in a crowd, protected by the children, or with your mother, who is my friend, but who cannot help me—I wanted to ask about the book you threw down so impatiently as you came in. Don’t you like it?” said Mr. Incledon, with a smile.
What a relief it was! She was so grateful to him for not making love to her, that I almost think she would have consented to marry him, had he asked her, before he left that evening. But he was very cautious and very wise, and, though he had come with no other intention, he was warned by the excitement in her looks, and stopped the very words on her lips, for which Rose, short-sighted, like all mortals, was very thankful to him, not knowing how much the distinct refusal, which it was in her heart to give, would have simplified all their affairs.
This, however, was at once the first and the last of Rose’s successes. When she saw traces of tears about her mother’s eyes, and how pale she was, her heart smote her, and she made abject submission of herself, and poured out her very soul in excuses, so that Mrs. Damerel, though vanquished for the moment, took higher ground after it. The mother, indeed, was so much shaken by the practical application of her doctrines, that she felt there was no longer time for the gradual undermining which was Mr. Incledon’s policy. Mrs. Damerel did not know what reply she could make if Rose repeated her novel and strenuous argument, and felt that now safety lay in as rapid a conclusion of the matter as possible; so that from this moment every day saw the closing of the net over poor Rose. The lover became more close in his attendance, the mother more urgent in her appeals; but so cleverly did he manage the matter that his society was always a relief to the girl when hard driven, and she gradually got to feel herself safer with him, which was a great deal in his favor. Everything, however, went against Rose. The ladies on the Green made gentle criticisms upon her, and called her a sly little puss. Some hoped she would not forget her humble friends when she came into her kingdom; some asked her what she meant by dragging her captive so long at her chariot wheels; and the captive himself, though a miracle of goodness, would cast pathetic looks at her, and make little speeches full of meaning. Rose began to feel herself like a creature at bay; wherever she turned she could see no way of escape; even sharp-eyed Agatha, in the wisdom of fifteen, turned against her.
“Why don’t you marry Mr. Incledon, and have done with it?” said Agatha. “I would, if I were you. What a good thing it would be for you! and I suppose he would be kind to the rest of us, too. Why, you would have your carriage—two or three carriages, and a horse to ride, and you might go abroad if you liked, or do anything you liked. How I should like to have quantities of money, and a beautiful house, and everything in the world I wanted! I should not shilly-shally like you.”
“No one has everything in the world they want,” said Rose, solemnly, thinking also, if Mr. Incledon had been “some one else” how much easier her decision would have been.
“You seem to think they do,” said Agatha, “or you would not make such a fuss about Mr. Incledon. Why, what do you object to? I suppose it’s because he is not young enough. I think he is a very nice man, and very good-looking. I only wish he had asked me.”
“Agatha, you are too young to talk of such things,” said Rose, with the dignity of her seniority.
“Then I wish my eldest sister was too young to put them into my head,” said Agatha.
This conversation drove Rose from her last place of safety, the school-room, where hitherto she had been left in quiet. A kind of despair seized her. She dared not encounter her mother in the drawing-room, where probably Mr. Incledon also would appear towards the twilight. She put on her hat and wandered out, her heart full of a subdued anguish, poignant yet not unsweet, for the sense of intense suffering is in its way a kind of excitement and painful enjoyment to the very young. It was a spring afternoon, soft and sweet, full of promise of the summer, and Rose, quite unused to walking or indeed doing anything else alone, found a certain pleasure in the loneliness and silence. How tranquillizing it was to be alone; to have no one near who would say anything to disturb her; nobody with reproachful eyes; nothing around or about but the soft sky, the trees growing green, the grass which waved its thin blades in the soft air! It seemed to Rose that she was out for a long time, and that the silence refreshed her, and made her strong for her fate whatever it might be. Before she returned home she went in at the old familiar gate of the rectory, and skirted the lawn by a by-path she knew well, and stole down the slope to the little platform under the old May-tree. By this time it had begun to get dark; and as Rose looked across the soft undulations of the half visible country, every line of which was dear and well known to her, her eyes fell suddenly upon a gleam of light from among the trees. What friendly sprite had lighted the lights so early in the parlor of the cottage at Ankermead, I cannot tell, but they glimmered out from the brown clump of trees and took Rose so by surprise that her eyes filled with sudden moisture, and her heart beat with a muffled throbbing in her ears. So well she recollected the warm summer evening long ago (and yet it was not a year ago), and every word that was said. “Imagination will play me many a prank before I forget this night!” Did he mean that? had he forgotten it? or was he perhaps leaning over the ship’s side somewhere while the big vessel rustled through the soft broad sea, thinking of home, as he had said, seeing the lights upon the coast, and dreaming of his mother’s lighted windows, and of that dim, dreamy, hazy landscape, so soft and far inland, with the cottage lamp shining out from that brown clump of trees? The tears fell softly from Rose’s eyes through the evening dimness which hid them almost from herself; she was very sad, heart-broken—and yet not so miserable as she thought. She did not know how long she sat there, looking at the cottage lights through her tears. The new rector and his wife sat down to dinner all unaware of the forlorn young visitor who had stolen into the domain which was now theirs, and Rose’s mother began to get sadly uneasy about her absence, with a chill dread lest she should have pressed her too far and driven her to some scheme of desperation. Mr. Incledon came out to look for her, and met her just outside the rectory gate, and was very kind to her, making her take his arm and leading her gently home without asking a question.
“She has been calling at the rectory, and I fear it was too much for her,” he said; an explanation which made the quick tears start to Mrs. Damerel’s own eyes, who kissed her daughter and sent her up-stairs without further question. I almost think Mr. Incledon was clever enough to guess the true state of affairs; but he told this fib with an admirable air of believing it, and made Rose grateful to the very bottom of her heart.
Gratitude is a fine sentiment to cultivate in such circumstances. It is a better and safer beginning than that pity which is said to be akin to love. Rose struggled no more after this. She surrendered quietly, made no further resistance, and finally yielded a submissive assent to what was asked of her. She became “engaged” to Mr. Incledon, and the engagement was formally announced, and all the Green joined in with congratulations, except, indeed, Mrs. Wodehouse, who called in a marked manner just after the ladies had been seen to go out, and left a huge card, which was all her contribution to the felicitations of the neighborhood. There was scarcely a lady in the parish except this one who did not take the trouble to walk or drive to the White House and kiss Rose and congratulate her mother. “Such a very excellent match—everything that a mother could desire!” they said. “But you must get a little more color in your cheeks, my dear,” said old Lady Denvil. “This is not like the dear rector’s Rose in June. It is more like a pale China rose in November.” What could Rose do but cry at this allusion? It was kind of the old lady (who was always kind), to give her this excellent reason and excuse for the tears in her eyes.
And then there came, with a strange, hollow, far-off sound, proposals of dates and days to be fixed, and talk about the wedding dresses and the wedding tour. She listened to it all with an inward shiver; but, fortunately for Rose, Mrs. Damerel would hear of no wedding until after the anniversary of her husband’s death, which had taken place in July. The Green discussed the subject largely, and most people blamed her for standing on this punctilio; for society in general, with a wise sense of the uncertainty of all human affairs, has a prejudice against the postponement of marriages which it never believes in thoroughly till they have taken place. They thought it ridiculous in a woman of Mrs. Damerel’s sense, and one, too, who ought to know how many slips there are between the cup and the lip; but Mr. Incledon did not seem to object, and, of course, everybody said no one else had a right to interfere.
All this took place in April, when the Damerels had been but three months in their new house. Even that little time had proved bitterly to them many of the evils of their impoverished condition, for already Mr. Hunsdon had begun to write of the long time Bertie had been at school, and the necessity there was that he should exert himself; and even Reginald’s godfather, who had always been so good, showed signs of a disposition to launch his charge, too, on the world, suggesting that perhaps it might be better, as he had now no prospect of anything but working for himself, that he should leave Eton. Mrs. Damerel kept these humiliations to herself, but it was only natural that they should give fire to her words in her arguments with Rose; and it could not be denied that the family had spent more than their income permitted in the first three months. There had been the mourning, and the removal, and so many other expenses, to begin with. It is hard enough to struggle with bills as Mrs. Damerel had done in her husband’s lifetime, when by means of the wisest art and never-failing attention it was always possible to pay them as they became urgent; but when there is no money at all, either present or in prospect, what is a poor woman to do? They made her sick many a time when she opened the drawer in her desk and looked at them. Even with all she could accept from Mr. Incledon (and that was limited by pride and delicacy in many ways), and with one less to provide for, Mrs. Damerel would still have care sufficient to make her cup run over. Rose’s good fortune did not take her burden away.
Thus things went on through the early summer. The thought of Rose’s trousseau nearly broke her mother’s heart. It must be to some degree in consonance with her future position, and it must not come from Mr. Incledon; and where was it to come from? Mrs. Damerel had begun to write a letter to her brother, appealing, which it was a bitter thing to do, for his help, one evening early in May. She had written after all her children had left her, when she was alone in the old-fashioned house, where all the old walls and the old stairs uttered strange creaks and jars in the midnight stillness, and the branches of the creepers tapped ghostly taps against the window. Her nerves were over-strained, and her heart was sore, notwithstanding her success in the one matter which she had struggled for so earnestly; and after writing half her letter Mrs. Damerel had given it up, with a strange feeling that something opposed the writing of it, some influence which she could not define, which seemed to stop her words, and made her incapable of framing a sentence. She gave it up with almost a superstitious thrill of feeling, and a nervous tremor which she tried in vain to master; and, leaving it half-written in her blotting-book, stole up-stairs to bed in the silence, as glad to get out of the echoing, creaking room as if it had been haunted. Rose heard her come up-stairs, and thought with a little bitterness as she lay awake, her pillow wet with the tears which she never shed in the daylight, of her mother’s triumph over her, and how all this revolution was her work. She heard something like a sigh as her mother passed her door, and wondered almost contemptuously what she could have to sigh about, for Rose felt all the other burdens in the world to be as nothing in comparison with her burden; as, indeed we all do.
BEFORE ROSE WAS AWAKE MRS. DAMEREL CAME INTO HER ROOM.
Next morning, however, before Rose was awake, Mrs. Damerel came into her room in her dressing-gown, with her hair, which was still so pretty, curling about her shoulders, and her face lit up with a wonderful pale illumination like a northern sky.
“What is it?” cried Rose, springing up from her bed.
“Rose,” said Mrs. Damerel, gasping for breath, “we are rich again! No! it is impossible—but it is true; here it is in this letter—my uncle Ernest is dead, and he has left us all his money. We are richer than ever I was in all my life.”
Rose got up, and ran and kissed her mother, and cried, with a great cry that rang all over the house, “Then I am free!”