The Maidens Lodge | Page 3

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