Rosamond heard wheels and the rattling of milk-pails.
“It must be nearly five,” she said.
“Oh, Mrs. Mearely.”
She looked up to see Corinne tiptoeing in, with glances daring,
mischievous and fearful too; for this most delicious act of
disobedience was sure of its tragic sequel. Mabel followed her. There
was nothing playful in Miss Crewe’s demeanour. She was pale and tense.
Her prettily modelled rose-pink lips were compressed into a narrow
chalky line. She stood in the doorway, staring at Rosamond as if the
lady of Villa Rose were some strange being she had never seen before.
“Oh Mrs. Mearely, I’m so _glad_ you’re all right. We have been so
frightened about you. Mamma ordered me to stay at home--and she
wouldn’t let Mabel come at all--but we’ve disobeyed. It’ll be awful!
But Mamma was so mysterious. I felt that you must be in some trouble
and I wanted to be here, even if I couldn’t do anything. You know, I
...” she looked down, shyly, “I think you so beautiful. You mustn’t be
in trouble.”
Rosamond’s eyes filled.
“You dear Corinne!” She embraced her warmly. The young girl’s childlike
tenderness and confidence were very welcome to her in this hour of
condemnation.
“We came on the milk-wagon,” Corinne explained.
“I heard it--more wheels from Roseborough!”
“We had to shout and run across the field to catch it.” She giggled.
“Mabel has been all stirred up too. You see we telephoned her, when we
thought you were dying, to wire to your sister. Then I told her about
Mr. Mills; and what the stupid policeman said about the chauffeur. And
she got as excited as I was. Then mamma....” She laughed heartily, then
stopped herself with two fingers over her mouth, as if she had been
guilty of sad irreverence. “Well, _you_ know mamma. She has _such_
an imagination. And she never can wait to know things. She had you
poisoned, murdered, shot, and then she thought you had shot Mr. Mills.
And now she says--what do you think?”
“I--I can’t imagine,” Mrs. Mearely stammered. She tried to smile at
Corinne, but she was too conscious of Miss Crewe’s hostile gaze and
tense mouth. Corinne shrieked joyously at the word.
“Can’t _imagine_! No. It takes _mamma_ to _imagine_! She said: ‘No
doubt Mrs. Mearely will announce her engagement to Mr. Howard at once.
He’ll see his opportunity, and I’ll trust him to make the most of it.’
Now, can you think of anybody but mamma imagining you’d choose the
middle of the night to announce an engagement--even if Mr. Howard’s
heart wasn’t very much engaged elsewhere.” She glanced archly over her
shoulder at her cousin. “But that’s mamma. She _imagines_ wonderfully;
but she doesn’t see things that really happen--right under her nose.
Where is she?”
“In the dining room, I think.” Rosamond said aloud. Inwardly she
was connecting Corinne’s repetitions with Mabel’s appearance, and
questioning, in trepidation, just what Miss Crewe had come there to do.
“I’d better go in and get my scolding now,” Corinne rattled on. “Poor
mamma. It’s naughty of me to laugh at her. But she was _so_ excited. Of
course, you can’t blame mamma for making the most of this. Because it’s
the first time _anything_ has really _happened_ in Roseborough.”
She ran to the door then back to her cousin.
“I won’t tell on you,” she promised. “You’ll get a worse wigging than I
shall.” She scampered off on her tiptoes, giggling.
Rosamond decided, presently, that it was unbearable to be stared at as
Miss Crewe was staring at her. She would break the silence, no matter
what might come afterwards.
“It is very kind of you to come, Miss Crewe. I am sure that....”
“Oh what is the use of talking like that! I’m not Corinne. Don’t you
suppose _I_ know the meaning of Aunt Emma’s innuendoes and sneers--and
her nods and winks? _I’ve_ had years of them. Do you think _I_ don’t
know why she is here--and why she expects the immediate announcement of
your engagement?”
“Miss Crewe!”
Ignoring Mrs. Mearely’s indignant interruption, Mabel rushed on:
“She’ll chaperon and stand by you; and you’ll tempt him with your
money, to marry you, so that the rich Mrs. Mearely shall not be
disgraced. I know!”
Rosamond did not take kindly to criticism at any time. In the last
twelve hours she had received enough of it, she felt, to last her a
life time. There was something more than offended protest rising in her
now. It was _battle_ that beat its drums in her temples and her pulses.
“How dare you?” She stepped forward, with her head high.
“Yes! I dare. But don’t think it will be so easy.” Of a sudden her
insolence and derision melted away in suffering. She pleaded. “Oh how
can you do it--if you love this other man? You have money. You can
force people to accept him, even if he is a nobody. You don’t need to
marry Wilton. And you know--everybody knows--that he’d have married me
long ago, if we’d had any money.” Then she cried out, defiantly: “Don’t
think you can do it, though! I’ll stop it somehow.”
The charge that somebody must do something desperate to prevent her
from throwing herself into Wilton’s arms in order to maintain her
standing in Roseborough, set another match to Mrs. Mearely’s temper.
“Oh--it’s _insufferable_! How dare you and your aunt and such people
slander me? The man who entered my house to-night is under arrest.”
This was said to wither Mabel. Mrs. Mearely did not think it necessary,
therefore, to add that she had tried, by a dozen tricks, to let the
prisoner escape. The effect of her dramatic _coup_ was the reverse of
what she had expected.
“Under arrest! I thought it was only _men_ who were cowards in love.
If you’ll send _him_ to gaol, no wonder you’ll try to steal the man I
love.”
Mrs. Mearely could not believe her ears.
“What? Oh! Oh-h!” She wrung her hands. “Do I _have_ to bear this?” she
asked of the twittering dawn.
“I came here--I hardly know what I hoped. I thought perhaps I could
appeal to you, because you were brave. Yes, even if you were wicked,
you were brave, I thought. To dare so much--but....” Mabel looked at
Rosamond Mearely with the sly, shocked admiration the very correct feel
for those who venture to be incorrect in the sphere of morals. Rosamond
comprehended the look, and it put her into a fury.
“Oh! I know what you thought. You remembered that I was Rosamond Cort,
of Poplars Vale--whose mother sold butter. It was to be expected that
I should do something dreadful--and _impolite_. I suppose Roseborough
_does_ consider that amorous midnight escapades are impolite? But
Roseborough isn’t surprised at me. Oh, no! All along Roseborough knew
that, some time or other, I’d show the butter strain.”
Miss Crewe did not know what to make of this.
“Why, Mrs. Mearely!”
Rosamond’s rage mounted.
“Oh, yes! Roseborough knew that one day my bran-fed morals would fail,
and--and--I’d go to the devil in my own common, _Milky Way_. Moo-o!
Moo-o! That’s all I care for Roseborough. It can’t _cow_ me.”
“Oh--Mrs. Mearely!”
It was one thing to have a sly admiration for Hibbert Mearely’s widow’s
brave and farm-like _improprieties_--not to use a harsher word--but
one could only be affronted when she forgot that she had left farm
_manners_ behind her, and put her arms akimbo!
It seemed that Mrs. Mearely had still a great deal to say, with clear,
raised voice and hands on her hips.
“I’d rather be descended from good, sweet butter--than--than--be the
silly, braying donkeys _you’ll_ all be to-morrow. I must say I’m
surprised at _you_, Miss Crewe--who have had the advantages of high
birth, denied to me, not to mention the wonderful opportunity of moral
training under Mrs. Witherby--that you should come here and expose
your tender feelings for a gentleman, who proposed to me this very
evening--_before_ all this happened. Where’s your ancestral pride?
_Before_ it happened, he proposed to me.”
“He told me he was going to,” Mabel answered quietly. She sank into
the big chair and leaned her face against the cushioned back. Rosamond
stared at her speechlessly.
“He told you?” she repeated, presently.
“Yes. He said we must give up our hopes--and marry money.”
“I--_I_ was--_Money_?” she gasped.
“Yes. And I said I’d do something to stop it. And I _have_!” She broke
down, suddenly, and wept. “Oh, Mrs. Mearely. You don’t know what it
is to almost have things, and then be pushed aside. It makes you
desperate and wicked. To think that just because we’re poor, we can’t
marry.”
Rosamond stared at her.
“Of course I knew he paid you attentions--but I had no idea there
was really an understanding.” Her blankness disappeared before a
humiliating sense of outrage.
“Oh! the insufferable--the wretched, false, insulting man. To dare to
offer himself to me! Oh the--the....” She turned on Mabel. “What are
you crying about? I should think you’d be glad of your escape.”
She strode the length of the room and back again, breaking out in
interjections and tumbled phrases.
“_I_ was Money! How dare he humble me in this fashion? Oh! But I’ll be
even with him. Oh yes! I’ll find a revenge. I was to be his dear little
Money, eh?”
Mabel’s helpless sobbing was reaching her sympathies and making her
doubly angry, because she did not want her sympathies reached. She
stamped her foot.
“Stop that crying. Do you hear me? Do you mean to say you can still
love the wretch? You can’t respect him.”
Mabel wiped her eyes, and looked at her curiously.
“Oh--respect! I wonder if women ever respect men a great deal. Perhaps
that is what makes them love so much--to make up for the lack. I think
men have to respect women. But women just have to love. I love him. I
don’t know why. Maybe just because he is a man and I’m a woman. One
must love somebody.”
Rosamond sank down on the settee. During Mabel’s words she had been
moved increasingly; her heart echoing that the words were true--tragic,
but true.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “One must love somebody. Oh, yes, Mabel.” Tears
welled over her own lids.
“It’s all over, now,” Mabel sobbed. “Even if you don’t take Wilton.
It’s hopeless.”
Rosamond’s lips quivered.
“Oh, it’s very sad to be just a lonely woman in this dreadful little
place. And to be young--young! Oh, Mabel, dear!”
“Yes. Yes. Oh, Rosamond!”
“Love only comes in at the window and--and--kisses you--once--and flies
away again.”
“Flies away again,” Mabel echoed. They found, first each other’s hands,
then each other’s arms, and finally grieved upon each other’s bosoms
contentedly.
“He’ll never forgive me for telling,” Mabel said. “Oh, Rosamond,
you--you--don’t want to marry him, do you? Perhaps I ought to try to
give him up?”
Mrs. Mearely’s injured pride leaped again into wrathy flames.
“Not to me! The wretch! The deceitful,
deluding--deluding--de--de--deceitful thing. Yes, _thing_. I’d like to
make him pay, with his whole life, for the insults he has heaped on me
to-night.” Even as she wished, the way to realize her desire suggested
itself to her. “Ah! I can do it! Certainly I can. And you shall help
me. He and your aunt are so nice and smug and busy over my affairs--eh?
I’ll give them a bit of scandal of their own to take care of. I’ll
make her writhe. I’ll avenge myself. I’ll make him pay--all his life
long. I’ll show them all who’s who in Roseborough. Let them see if the
butter-maker’s daughter isn’t a match for them!” She marched--sailed is
perhaps the better word--to the door, threw it open and called with a
great authority to the tea-drinking conspirators in the dining room:
“Mrs. Witherby, kindly put _my_ cups down on _my_ table and come out of
_my_ dining room.”
She walked swiftly to the stand by the settee and picked up the
_Digest_. She stood there holding the paper, waiting. Mrs. Witherby
looked flustered but belligerent. Howard was patently apprehensive.
Corinne, who had received a terrible scolding, was excited and scared,
but not too much so, for she clung to one of Jemima’s fresh cookies and
occasionally nibbled at it.