"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, unobtrusive 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 circumstances 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 sex. 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 passive
obedience, had been the mother's favourite. Her obedience was by no
means passive. 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 assembled 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 nobler sex 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 passed 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, God 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 pawn 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
anticipated 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 passed, 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 documents 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.
"An't please you, Molly Bell, Madam."
"Whence come you, Molly?"
"An't please you, from Bristol, Madam."
"How came you?"
"An't please you, on foot, Madam; but I got a lift in a carrier's cart
for a matter of ten miles."
"Do you know the gentlewoman that writ the letter you brought?"
"Oh, ay, Mistress Latrobe! The Lord be thanked, Madam, that ever I did
know her, and her good master, the Reverend, that's gone to the good
place."
"You are sure of that?" demanded Madam; but the covert satire was lost
on Molly Bell.
"Sure!" exclaimed she; adding, very innocently, "You can never have
known Mr Latrobe, Madam, to ask that; not of late years, leastwise."
"I never did," said Madam, rather grimly. "And do you know Mrs
Phoebe?"
"Dear heart, Madam!" said Molly, laughing softly, "but how queer it do
sound, for sure, to hear you say Mrs Phoebe! She's always been Miss
Phoebe with us all these years; and we hadn't begun like to think she
was growing up. Oh, dear, yes, Madam, I knew them all--Master Charles,
and Miss Phoebe, and Master Jack, and Miss Perry, and Miss Kitty."
"Miss Perry?" said Madam, in an interrogative tone.
"Miss Perpetua, Madam--we always called her Miss Perry for short. A
dear little blessed child she was!"
Rhoda saw the kind which held the letter tremble again.
"And they are all dead but Miss Phoebe?"
"It's a mercy Miss Phoebe wasn't taken too," said Molly, shaking her
head. "They died of the fever, in one fortnight's time--Miss Perry went
the first; and then Master Jack, and then Master Charles, and the
Reverend himself, and Miss Kitty last of all. Miss Phoebe was down like
all of 'em, and the doctor did say he couldn't ha' pulled her through
but for her dear good mother. She never had her gown off, Madam, night
nor day, just a-going from one sick bed to another; and they all died in
her arms. I wonder she didn't lie down and die herself at last. I do
think it was Miss Phoebe beginning to get better as kept her in life."
"Poor Anne!"
If anything could have startled Rhoda, it was those two words. She
recognised her aunt's name, and knew now of whom they were speaking.
Had Molly been retained as counsel for Mrs Latrobe, she could hardly
have spoken more judiciously than she did. She went on now,--
"And, O Madam! when all was done, and the five coffins carried out, she
says to me, Mrs Latrobe says, `Molly,' she says, `I'd ought to be very
thankful. I haven't been a good child,' she says, `to my father and
mother. But _they'll_ never pay me back my bitter ways,' she says. And
I'm right sure, Madam, as Miss Phoebe never will, for she's that sweet
and good, she is! So you see, Madam, Mrs Latrobe, she's had her
troubles, and if so be she's sent to you for comfort, Madam, I take the
liberty to hope as you'll give her a bit."
"You can go back to the kitchen, Molly," said Madam, in what was for her
a very gracious tone. "I will order you a night's lodging here, and
to-morrow one of my carters, who is going to Gloucester, shall take you
so far on your way. I will give you a letter to carry."
"Thank you kindly, Madam!"
And with half a dozen courtesies, one for Rhoda, and the rest for Madam,
Molly retreated, well pleased. Madam sat down and wrote her letter.
This was Madam's letter, written in an amiable frame of mind:--
"Daughter,--I have yowr leter. Your father is ded thise foreteen
yeres. I promissed him as he lay a dyeing yt wou'd doe some thing for
you. You have nott desarv'd itt, but I am sory to here of your
troble. If you will sende youre childe to mee, I will doe so mutch
for yow as too brede her upp with my granedor Roda, yowr sistar
Catterin's child. I wou'd not have yow mistak my meaneing, wch is
nott that shee shou'd be plac'd on a levell with her cosin, for Roada
is a jantlewoman, and yt is moar than she can say. But to be Rodes
wating mayd, and serve her in her chamber, and bere her cumpany when
she hath need. I will give the girle too sutes of close by the yere,
and some tims a shillinge in her pockit, and good lodgeing and enow of
victle. And if shee be obediant and humbel, and order her self as I
wou'd she may, I will besyde al this give her if shee mary her weding
close and her weddying diner,--yt is, if she mary to my minde,--and if
noe, thenn shee may go whissel for anie thing I will doe for her. It
is moar than she cou'd look for anie whear els. You will bee a foole
to say Noe.
"P. Furnival.
"Lett the girle come when you goe to your place. There is a carrer
goes from Bristoll to Teukesburry, and a mann with an horse shal mete
her at the Bell."
Be not horrified, accomplished modern reader, at Madam's orthography.
She spelt fairly well--for a lady in 1712.
An interval of about two months followed, and then came another letter
from Mrs Latrobe. She wrote in a most grateful strain; she was
evidently even more surprised than pleased with the offer for Phoebe.
There was a reference of penitent love to her father; a promise that
Phoebe should be at Cressingham on or as near as possible to the
twenty-ninth of January; and warm thanks for her mother's undeserved
kindness, more especially for the consideration which had prompted the
promise that Phoebe should be met at Tewkesbury, instead of being left
to find her way alone in the dark through the two miles which lay
between that town and Cressingham.
So, on the afternoon of that twenty-ninth of January, an hour after the
man and horses had started, Madam and Rhoda sat in the Abbey parlour,
sipping their tea, and both meditating on the subject of Phoebe.
Madam, as became a widow, was attired in black. A stiff black bombazine
petticoat was surmounted by a black silk gown adorned with flowers in
raised embroidery, and the train of the gown was pulled through the
pocket-hole of the petticoat. At that time, ladies of all ages wore
their dresses low and square at the neck, edged with a tucker of nett or
lace; the sleeves ended at the elbows with a little white ruffle of
similar material to the tucker. In London, the low head-dress was
coming into fashion; but country ladies still wore the high commode, a
superb erection of lace and muslin, from one to three feet in height.
Long black silk mittens were drawn up to _meet_ the sleeves. The shoes
reached nearly to the ankles, and were finished with large silver
buckles.
Rhoda was much smarter. She wore a cotton gown--for when all cotton
gowns were imported from India, they were rare and costly articles--of
an involved shawl-like pattern, in which the prevailing colour was red.
Underneath was a petticoat of dark blue quilted silk. Her commode was
brightened by blue ribbons; she wore no mittens; and her shoe-buckles
rivalled those of her grandmother. Rhoda's figure was good, but her
face was commonplace. She was neither pretty nor ugly, neither
intellectual nor stupid-looking. Of course she wore powder (as also did
Madam); but if her hair had been released from its influence, it would
have been perceived that there was about it a slight, very slight, tinge
of red.
The coming of her cousin was an event of the deepest interest to Rhoda,
for she had been ever since her birth absolutely without any society of
her own age. Never having had an opportunity of measuring herself by
other girls, Rhoda imagined herself a most learned and accomplished
young person. It would be such a triumph to see Phoebe find it out, and
such a pleasure to receive--with a becoming deprecation which meant
nothing--the admiration of one so far her inferior. Rhoda had dipped
into a score or two of her grandfather's books, had picked up sundry
fine words and technical phrases, with a smattering of knowledge, or
what would pass for it; and she sat radiant in the contemplation of the
delightful future which was to exalt herself and overawe Phoebe.
So lost was she in her own imaginations, that she neither heard Madam
ring her little hand-bell, nor was conscious that the horses had trotted
past the window, until Sukey, one of Madam's maids, came in answer to
the bell, and courtesying, said, "An it please you, Madam, Mrs Phoebe
Latrobe."
Rhoda lifted her eyes eagerly, and saw her cousin. The first item which
she noticed was that Phoebe's figure was by no means so good as her own,
her shoulders being so high as almost to reach deformity; the next point
was that the expression of Phoebe's face was remarkably sweet; the third
was that Phoebe's dress was particularly shabby. It was a brown stuff,
worn threadbare, too short for the fashion, and without any of the
flounces and furbelows then common. Over it was tied a plain white
linen apron--aprons were then worn both in and out of doors--and
Phoebe's walking costume consisted of a worn black mantua or pelisse,
and a hood, brown like the dress, which was the shabbiest of all. The
manner of the wearer, however, while extremely modest and void of
self-assertion, was not at all awkward nor disconcerted. She
courtesied, first to her grandmother, then to her cousin, and stood
waiting within the door till she was called forward.
"Come hither, child!" said Madam.
Phoebe walked forward to her, and dropped another courtesy. Madam put
two fingers under Phoebe's chin, and lifting up the young face, studied
it intently. What she saw there seemed to please her.
"You'll do, child," she said, letting Phoebe go. "Be a good maid, and
obedient, and you shall find me your friend. Sit down, and loose your
hood. Rhode, pour her a dish of tea."
And this was Madam's welcome to her granddaughter.
Phoebe obeyed her instructions with no words but "Thank you, Madam."
Her voice was gentle and low. If the tears burned under her eyelids, no
one knew it but herself.
"Take Phoebe upstairs, Rhoda, to your chamber," said Madam, when the
new-comer had finished her tea. "I see, child, your new clothes had
better not be long a-coming."
"I have a better gown than this, Madam, in my trunk," she answered.
"Well, I am glad of it," said Madam shortly.
Rhoda led her cousin up the wide stone staircase, and into a pretty
room, low but comfortable, fitted with a large bed, a washstand, a
wardrobe, and a dressing-table. The two girls were to occupy it
together. And here Rhoda's tongue, always restrained in her
grandmother's presence, felt itself at liberty, and behaved accordingly.
A new cousin to catechise was a happiness that did not occur every day.
"Have you no black gown?" was the first thing which Rhoda demanded of
Phoebe.
"Oh, yes," said Phoebe. "I wear black for my father, and all of them."
Heedless of what she might have noticed--the tremor of Phoebe's voice--
Rhoda went on with her catechism.
"How long has your father been dead?"
"Eight months."
"Did you like him?"
"_Like_ him!" Phoebe seemed to have no words to answer.
"I never knew anything about mine," went on Rhoda. "He lived till I was
thirteen; and I never saw him. Only think!"
Phoebe gave a little shake of her head, as if _her_ thoughts were too
much for her.
"And my mother died when I was a week old; and I never had any brother
or sister," pursued Rhoda.
"Then you never had any one to love? Poor Cousin!" said Phoebe, looking
at Rhoda with deep compassion.
"Love! Oh, I don't know that I want it," said Rhoda lightly. "How is
Aunt Anne, and where is she?"
"Mother?" Phoebe's voice shook again. "She is going to live with a
gentlewoman at the Bath. She stayed till I was gone."
"Well, you know," was the next remark of Rhoda, whose ideas were not at
all neatly put in order, "you'll have to wear a black gown to-morrow.
It is King Charles."
"Yes, I know," said Phoebe.
"Was your father a Dissenter?" queried Rhoda.
"No," said Phoebe, looking rather surprised.
"Because I can tell you, Madam hates Dissenters," said Rhoda. "She
would as soon have a crocodile to dinner. Why didn't you come in your
black gown?"
"It is my best," answered Phoebe. "I cannot afford to spoil it."
"What do you think of Madam?"