“Do you mean to turn me out of the house?”
“I do,” she said, looking full at him, all eyes, with her grey hair coming dishevelled from under the large frill of her nightcap, with cheeks gaunt and yellow. Her extended hands were very thin. She had been very near death, and seemed, as he gazed at her, to be very near it now. If he went it might be her fate never to see him again.
“I cannot leave you like this,” he said.
“Then obey me.”
“Why should we not be married, mother?”
“I will not argue. You know as well as I do. Will you obey me?”
“Not in this, mother. I could not do so without perjuring myself.”
“Then go you out of this house at once.” She was sitting now bolt upright on her bed, supporting herself on her hands behind her. The whole thing was so dreadful that he could not endure to prolong the interview, and he left the room.
Then there came a message from the old housekeeper to Bessy, forbidding her to leave her own room. It was thus that Bessy first understood that her great sin was to be made public to all the household. Mrs. Knowl, who was the head of the domestics, had been told, and now felt that a sort of authority over Bessy had been confided to her. “No, Miss Bessy; you are not to go into her room at all. She says that she will not see you till you promise to be said by her.”
“But why, Mrs. Knowl?”
“Well, miss; I suppose it’s along of Mr. Philip. But you know that better than me. Mr. Philip is to go tomorrow morning and never come back any more.”
“Never come back to Launay?”
“Not while things is as they is, miss. But you are to stay here and not go out at all. That’s what Madam says.” The servants about the place all called Mrs. Miles Madam.
There was a potency about Mrs. Miles which enabled her to have her will carried out, although she was lying ill in bed—to have her will carried out as far as the immediate severance of the lovers was concerned. When the command had been brought by the mouth of a servant, Bessy determined that she would not see Philip again before he went. She understood that she was bound by her position, bound by gratitude, bound by a sense of propriety, to so much obedience as that. No earthly authority could be sufficient to make her abandon her troth. In that she could not allow even her aunt to sway her—her aunt though she were sick and suffering, even though she were dying! Both her love and her vow were sacred to her. But obedience at the moment she did owe, and she kept her room. Philip came to the door, but she sat mute and would not speak to him. Mrs. Knowl, when she brought her some food, asked her whether she intended to obey the order. “Your aunt wants a promise from you, Miss Bessy?”
“I am sure my aunt knows that I shall obey her,” said Bessy.
On the following morning Philip left the house. He sent a message to his mother, asking whether she would see him; but she refused. “I think you had better not disturb her, Mr. Philip,” said Mrs. Knowl. Then he went, and as the wagonette took him away from the door, Bessy sat and listened to the sound of the wheels on the gravel.
All that day and all the next passed on and she was not allowed to see her aunt. Mrs. Knowl repeated that she could not take upon herself to say that Madam was better. No doubt the worry of the last day or two had been a great trouble to her. Mrs. Knowl grew much in self-importance at the time, and felt that she was overtopping Miss Bessy in the affairs of Launay.
It was no less true than singular that all the sympathies of the place should be on the side of the old woman. Her illness probably had something to do with it. And then she had been so autocratic, all Launay and Budcombe had been so accustomed to bow down to her, that rebellion on the part of anyone seemed to be shocking. And who was Bessy Pryor that she should dare to think of marrying the heir? Who, even, was the supposed heir that he should dare to think of marrying anyone in opposition to the actual owner of the acres? Heir though he was called, he was not necessarily the heir. She might do as she pleased with all Launay and all Budcombe, and there were those who thought that if Philip was still obstinate she would leave everything to her elder son. She did not love her elder son. In these days she never saw him. He was a gay man of the world, who had never been dutiful to her. But he might take the name of Launay, and the family would be perpetuated as well that way as the other. Philip was very foolish. And as for Bessy; Bessy was worse than foolish. That was the verdict of the place generally.
I think Launay liked it. The troubles of our neighbours are generally endurable, and any subject for conversation is a blessing. Launay liked the excitement; but, nevertheless, felt itself to be compressed into whispers and a solemn demeanour. The Gregory girls were solemn, conscious of the iniquity of their friend, and deeply sensitive of the danger to which poor Philip was
