AN ANGRY INTERVIEW.
Next morning George Rosewarne was seated on the old oak bench in front
of the inn reading a newspaper. Happening to look up, he saw Mr.
Roscorla hurrying toward him over the bridge with no very pleasant
expression on his face. As he came nearer he saw that the man was
strangely excited. "I want to see your daughter alone," he said.
"You needn't speak as if I had tried to run away with her," Rosewarne
answered, with more good-nature than was his wont. "Well, go in-doors:
ask for her mother."
As Roscorla passed him there was a look in his eyes which rather
startled George Rosewarne.
"Is it possible," he asked himself, "that this elderly chap is really
badly in love with our Wenna?"
But another thought struck him. He suddenly jumped up, followed
Roscorla into the passage, where the latter was standing, and said to
him, "Don't you be too harsh with Wenna: she's only a girl, and they
are all alike." This hint, however discourteous in its terms, had some
significance as coming from a man who was six inches taller than Mr.
Roscorla.
Mr. Roscorla was shown into an empty room. He marched up and down,
looking at nothing. He was simply in an ungovernable rage. Wenna came
and shut the door behind her, and for a second or so he stared at her
as if expecting her to burst into passionate professions of remorse.
On the contrary, there was something more than calmness in her
appearance: there was the desperation of a hunted animal that is
driven to turn upon its pursuer in the mere agony of helplessness.
"Well," said he--for indeed his passion almost deprived him of his
power of speech--"what have you to say? Perhaps nothing. It is
nothing, perhaps, to a woman to be treacherous--to tell smooth lies to
your face and to go plotting against you behind your back. You have
nothing to say? You have nothing to say?"
"I have nothing to say," she said with some little sadness in her
voice, "that would excuse me, either to you or to myself: yes, I know
that. But--but I did not intentionally deceive you."
He turned away with an angry gesture.
"Indeed, indeed I did not," she said piteously. "I had mistaken my own
feelings--the temptation was too great. Oh, Mr. Roscorla, you need not
say harsh things of me, for indeed I think worse of myself than you
can do."
"And I suppose you want forgiveness now?" he added bitterly. "But I
have had enough of that. A woman pledges you her affection, promises
to marry you, professes to have no doubts as to the future; and all
the while she is secretly encouraging the attentions of a young
jackanapes who is playing with her and making a fool of her."
Wenna Rosewarne's cheeks began to burn red: a less angry man would
have taken warning.
"Yes, playing with her and making a fool of her. And for what? To pass
an idle time and make her the by-word of her neighbors."
"It is not true, it is not true," she said indignantly; and there was
a dangerous light in her eyes. "If he were here, you would not dare to
say such things to me--no, you would not dare."
"Perhaps you expect him to call after the pretty exploit of last
night?" asked Roscorla with a sneer.
"I do not," she said. "I hope I shall never see him again. It is--it
is only misery to every one." And here she broke down, in spite of
herself. Her anger gave way to a burst of tears.
"But what madness is this?" Roscorla cried. "You wish never to meet
him again, yet you are ready at a moment's notice to run away with
him, disgracing yourself and your family. You make promises about
never seeing him: you break them the instant you get the opportunity.
You profess that your girlish fancy for a barber's block of a fellow
has been got over; and then, as soon as one's back is turned, you
reveal your hypocrisy."
"Indeed I did not mean to deceive you," she said imploringly. "I did
believe that all that was over and gone. I thought it was a foolish
fancy."
"And now?" said he hotly.
"Oh, Mr. Roscorla, you ought to pity me instead of being angry with
me. I do love him: I cannot help it. You will not ask me to marry you?
See, I will undertake not to marry him--I will undertake never to see
him again--if only you will not ask me to keep my promise to you. How
can I? How can I?"
"Pity you! and these are the confessions you make!" he exclaimed.
"Why, are you not ashamed of yourself to say such things to me? And so
you would undertake not to marry him? I know what your undertakings
are worth."
He had struck her hard--his very hardest indeed--but she would not
suffer herself to reply, for she believed she deserved far more
punishment than he could inflict. All that she could hope for, all
that her whole nature cried out for, was that he should not think her
treacherous. She had not intentionally deceived him. She had not
planned that effort at escape. But when, in a hurried and pathetic
fashion, she endeavored to explain all this to him, he would not
listen. He angrily told her he knew well how women could gloss over
such matters. He was no schoolboy to be hoodwinked. It was not as if
she had had no warning: her conduct before had been bad enough, when
it was possible to overlook it on the score of carelessness, but now
it was such as would disgrace any woman who knew her honor was
concerned in holding to the word she had spoken.
"And what is he?" he cried, mad with wrath and jealousy. "An ignorant
booby! a ploughboy! a lout who has neither the manners of a gentleman
nor the education of a day-laborer."
"Yes, you may well say such things of him now," said she with her eyes
flashing, "when his back is turned. You would not say so if he were
here. But he--yes, if he were here--he would tell you what he thinks
of you, for he is a gentleman, and not a coward."
Angry as he was, Mr. Roscorla was astounded. The fire in her eyes, the
flush in her cheeks, the impetuosity of her voice--were these the
patient Wenna of old? But a girl betrays herself sometimes if she
happens to have to defend her lover.
"Oh it is shameful of you to say such things!" she said. "And you know
they are not true. There is not any one I have ever seen who is so
manly and frank and unselfish as Mr. Trelyon--not any one; and if I
have seen that, if I have admired it too much, well, that is a great
misfortune, and I have to suffer for it."
"To suffer? yes," said he bitterly. "That is a pretty form of
suffering that makes you plan a runaway marriage--a marriage that
would bring into your possession the largest estates in the north of
Cornwall. A very pretty form of suffering! May I ask when the
experiment is to be repeated?"
"You may insult me as you like--I am only a woman," she said.
"Insult you?" he cried with fresh vehemence. "Is it insult to speak
the truth? Yesterday forenoon, when I saw you, you were all smiles and
smoothness. When I spoke of our marriage you made no objection. But
all the same you knew that at night--"
"I did not know--I did not know," she said. "You ought to believe me
when I tell you I knew no more about it than you did. When I met him
there at night, it was all so sudden, so unexpected, I scarcely knew
what I said; but now--but now I have time to think. Oh, Mr. Roscorla,
don't think that I do not regret it. I will do anything you ask me--I
will promise what you please--indeed, I will undertake never to see
him again as long as I live in this world; only, you won't ask me to
keep my promise to you?"
He made no reply to this offer, for a step outside the door caused him
to mutter something very like an oath between his teeth. The door was
thrown open. Mabyn marched in, a little pale, but very erect.
"Mabyn, leave us alone for a moment or two," said Wenna, turning away
so as to hide the tears on her face.
"I will not. I want to speak a word or two to Mr. Roscorla."
"Mabyn, I want you to go away just now."
Mabyn went over to her sister and took her by the hand: "Wenna, dear,
go away to your own room. You've had quite enough--you are trembling
all over. I suppose he'll make me tremble next."
"Really, I think your interference is lather extraordinary, Miss
Mabyn," said Mr. Roscorla, striving to contain his rage.
"I beg your pardon," said Mabyn meekly. "I only want to say a word or
two. Wouldn't it be better here than before the servants?" With that
she led Wenna away. In a minute or two she returned.
Mr. Roscorla would rather have been shut up in a den with a hungry
tigress. "I am quite at your service," he said with a bitter irony. "I
suppose you have some very important communication to make,
considering the way in which you--"
"Interfered? Yes, it is time that I interfered," Mabyn said, still
quite calm and a trifle pale. "Mr. Roscorla, to be frank, I don't like
you, and perhaps I am not quite fair to you. I am only a young girl,
and don't know what the world would say about your relations with
Wenna. But Wenna is my sister, and I see she is wretched; and her
wretchedness--Well, that comes of her engagement to you."
She was standing before him with her eyes cast down, apparently
determined to be very moderate in her speech. But there was a cruel
frankness in her words which hurt Mr. Roscorla a good deal more than
any tempest of passion into which she might have worked herself. "Is
that all?" said he. "You have not startled me with any revelations."
"I was going to say," continued Mabyn, "that a gentleman who has
really a regard for a girl would not insist on her keeping a promise
which only rendered her unhappy. I don't see what you are to gain by
it. I suppose you--you expect Wenna to marry you? Well, I dare say if
you called on her to punish herself that way, she might do it. But
what good would that do you? Would you like to have a wife who was in
love with another man?"
"You have become quite logical, Miss Mabyn," said he, "and argument
suits you better than getting into a rage. And much of what you say is
quite true. You _are_ a very young girl. You don't know much of what
the world would say about anything. But being furnished with these
admirable convictions, did it never occur to you that you might not be
acting wisely in blundering into an affair of which you know nothing?"
The coldly sarcastic fashion in which he spoke threatened to disturb
Mabyn's forced equanimity. "Know nothing?" she said. "I know
everything about it, and I can see that my sister is miserable: that
is sufficient reason for my interference. Mr. Roscorla, you won't ask
her to marry you?"
Had the proud and passionate Mabyn condescended to make an appeal to
her ancient enemy? At last she raised her eyes, and they seemed to
plead for mercy.
"Come, come," he said, roughly: "I've had enough of all this sham
beseeching. I know what it means. Trelyon is a richer man than I am:
she has let her idle girlish notions go dreaming day-dreams, and so I
am expected to stand aside. There has been enough of this nonsense.
She is not a child; she knows what she undertook of her own free will;
and she knows she can get rid of this school-girl fancy directly if
she chooses. I, for one, won't help her to disgrace herself."
Mabyn began to breathe a little more quickly. She had tried to be
reasonable; she had even humbled herself and begged from him; now
there was a sensation in her chest as of some rising emotion that
demanded expression in quick words. "You will try to make her marry
you?" said she, looking him in the face.
"I will try to do nothing of the sort," said he. "She can do as she
likes. But she knows what an honorable woman would do."
"And I," said Mabyn, her temper at length quite getting the better of
her, "I know what an honorable man would do. He would refuse to bind a
girl to a promise which she fears. He would consider her happiness to
be of more importance than his comfort. Why, I don't believe you care
at all whether Wenna marries you or not: it is only you can't bear her
being married to the man she really does love. It is only envy, that's
what it is. Oh, I am ashamed to think there is a man alive who would
force a girl into becoming his wife on such terms!"
"There is certainly one considerable objection to my marrying your
sister," said he with great politeness. "The manners of some of her
relatives might prove embarrassing."
"Yes, that is true enough," Mabyn said with hot cheeks. "If ever I
became a relative of yours, my manners no doubt would embarrass you
very considerably. But I am not a relative of yours as yet, nor is my
sister."
"May I consider that you have said what you had to say?" said he,
taking up his hat.
Proud and angry, and at the same time mortified by her defeat, Mabyn
found herself speechless. He did not offer to shake hands with her. He
bowed to her in passing out. She made the least possible
acknowledgment, and then she was alone. Of course a hearty cry
followed. She felt she had done no good. She had determined to be
calm, whereas all the calmness had been on his side, and she had been
led into speaking in a manner which a discreet and well-bred young
lady would have shrunk from in horror. Mabyn sat still and sobbed,
partly in anger and partly in disappointment: she dared not even go
to tell her sister.
But Mr. Roscorla, as he went over the bridge again and went up to
Basset Cottage, had lost all his assumed coolness of judgment and
demeanor. He felt he had been tricked by Wenna and insulted by Mabyn,
while his rival had established a hold which it would be in vain for
him to seek to remove. He was in a passion of rage. He would not go
near Wenna again. He would at once set off for London, and enjoy
himself there while his holiday lasted: he would not write a word to
her; then, when the time arrived, he would set sail for Jamaica,
leaving her to her own conscience. He was suffering a good deal from
anger, envy and jealousy, but he was consoled by the thought that she
was suffering more. And he reflected, with some comfort to himself,
that she would scarcely so far demean herself as to marry Harry
Trelyon so long as she knew in her heart what he, Roscorla, would
think of her for so doing.