CHAPTER XI.
“Rhoda,” said Mrs. Daye, as her daughter entered the drawing-room nextmorning, “I have thought it all out, and have decided to ask them. Mrs.St. George quite agrees with me. _She_ says, sound the MilitarySecretary first, and of course I will; but she thinks they are certainto accept. Afterward we’ll have the whole party photographed on the backverandah—I don’t see how they could get out of it—and that will be asouvenir for you, if you like.”
The girl sank into a deep easy chair and crossed her knees withdeliberation. She was paler than usual; she could not deny a certainlassitude. As her mother spoke she put up her hand to hide an incipientyawn, and then turned her suffused eyes upon that lady, with the effectof granting a weary but necessary attention.
“You have decided to ask them?” she asked, with absent-mindedinterrogation. “Whom?”
“How ridiculous you are, Rhoda! The Viceroy and Lady Scansleigh, ofcourse! As if there could be the slightest doubt about anybody else! Youwill want to know next what I intend to ask them to. I have never knowna girl take so little interest in her own wedding.”
“That brings us to the point,” said Rhoda.
An aroused suspicion shot into Mrs. Daye’s brown eyes. “What point,pray? No nonsense, now, Rhoda!”
“No nonsense this time, mummie; but no wedding either. I havedecided—finally—not to marry Mr. Ancram.”
Mrs. Daye sat upright—pretty, plump, determined. She really looked atthe moment as if she could impose her ideas upon anybody. She had aperception of the effect, to this end, of an impressive _tournure_.Involuntarily she put a wispish curl in its place, and presented to herdaughter the outline of an unexceptionable shoulder and sleeve.
“Your decision comes too late to be effectual, Rhoda. People do notchange their minds in such matters when the wedding invitations areactually——”
“Written out to be lithographed—but not ordered yet, mummie.”
“In half an hour they will be.”
“Would have been, mummie dear.”
Mrs. Daye assumed the utmost severity possible to a countenance intendedto express only the amenities of life, and took her three steps towardthe door. “This is childish, Rhoda,” she said over her shoulder, “and Iwill not remain to listen to it. Retraction on your part at this hourwould be nothing short of a crying scandal, and I assure you once forall that neither your father nor I will hear of it.”
Mrs. Daye reached the door very successfully. Rhoda turned her head onits cushion, and looked after her mother in silence, with ahalf-deprecating smile. Having achieved the effect of her retreat, thatlady turned irresolutely.
“I cannot remain to listen to it,” she repeated, and stooped to pick upa pin.
“Oh, do remain, mummie! Don’t behave like the haughty and hard-heartedmamma of primitive fiction; she is such an old-fashioned person. Doremain and be a nice, reasonable, up-to-date mummie: it will save such alot of trouble.”
“You don’t seem to realise what you are talking of throwing over!”
Mrs. Daye, in an access of indignation, came as far back as the piano.
“Going down to dinner before the wives of the Small Cause Court! What aworldly lady it is!”
“I wish,” Mrs. Daye ejaculated mentally, “that I had been brought up tomanage daughters.” What she said aloud, with the effect of being forcedto do so, was that Rhoda had also apparently forgotten that her sisterLettice was to come out next year. Before the gravity of thisproposition Mrs. Daye sank into the nearest chair. And the expense, withnew frocks for Darjiling, would be really——
“All the arguments familiar to the pages of the _Family Herald_,” thegirl retorted, a dash of bitterness in her amusement, “‘with a littlestore of maxims, preaching down a daughter’s heart!’ Aren’t you ashamed,mummie! But you needn’t worry about that. I’ll go back to England andlive with Aunt Jane: she dotes on me. Or I’ll enter the Calcutta MedicalCollege and qualify as a lady-doctor. I shouldn’t like the cutting up,though—I really shouldn’t.”
“Rhoda, _tu me fais mal_! If you could only be serious for five minutestogether. I suppose you have some absurd idea that Mr. Ancram is notsufficiently—demonstrative. But that will all come in due time, dear.”
The girl laughed so uncontrollably that Mrs. Daye suspected herself ofan unconscious witticism, and reflected a compromising smile.
“You think I could win his affections afterwards. Oh! I should despairof it. You have no idea how coy he is, mummie!”
Mrs. Daye made a little grimace of sympathy, and threw up her eyes andher hands. They laughed together, and then the elder lady said withseverity that her daughter was positively indecorous. “Nothing couldhave been more devoted than his conduct yesterday afternoon. ‘Howridiculously happy,’ was what Mrs. St. George said—‘how ridiculouslyhappy those two are!’”
Mrs. Daye had become argumentative and plaintive. She imparted theimpression that if there was another point of view—which she doubted—shewas willing to take it.
“Oh! no doubt it was evident enough,” Rhoda said tranquilly: “we hadboth been let off a bad bargain. An afternoon I shall always rememberwith pleasure.”
“Then you have actually done it—broken with him!”
“Yes.”
“Irrevocably?”
“Very much so.”
“_Do_ tell me how he took it!”
“Calmly. With admirable fortitude. It occupied altogether about tenminutes, with digressions. I’ve never kept any of his notes—he doesn’twrite clever notes—and you know I’ve always refused to wear a ring. Sothere was nothing to return except Buzz, which wouldn’t have been fairto Buzz. It won’t make a scandal, will it, my keeping Buzz? He’s quite achanged dog since I’ve had him, and I love him for himself alone. Hedoesn’t look in the least,” Rhoda added, thoughtfully regarding theterrier curled up on the sofa, who turned his brown eyes on her andwagged his tail without moving, “like a Secretariat puppy.”
“And is that all?”
“That’s all—practically.”
“Well, Rhoda, of course I had to think of your interests first—_any_mother would; but if it’s really quite settled, I must confess that Ibelieve you are well out of it, and I’m rather relieved myself. When Ithought of being that man’s mother-in-law I used to be thankfulsometimes that your father would retire so soon—which was horrid, dear.”
“I can understand your feelings, mummie.”
“I’m sure you can, dear: you are always my sympathetic child. _I_wouldn’t have married him for worlds! I never could imagine how you madeup your mind to it in the first place. Now, I suppose that absurd Mrs.St. George will go on with her theory that no daughter of mine will evermarry in India, because the young men find poor old me so amusing!”
“She’s a clever woman—Mrs. St. George,” Rhoda observed.
“And now that we’ve had our little talk, dear, there’s one thing Ishould like you to take back—that quotation from Longfellow, or was itMrs. Hemans?—about a daughter’s heart, you know.” Mrs. Daye inclined herhead coaxingly towards the side. “I _shouldn’t_ like to have that toremember between us, dear,” she said, and blew her nose with as close anapproach to sentiment as could possibly be achieved in connection withthat organ.
“You ridiculous old mummie! I assure you it hadn’t the slightestapplication.”
“Then _that’s_ all right,” Mrs. Daye returned, in quite her sprightlymanner. “I’ll refuse the St. Georges’ dinner on Friday night; it’s onlydecent that we should keep rather quiet for a fortnight or so, till itblows over a little. And we shall get rid of you, my dear child, I’mperfectly certain, quite soon enough,” she added over her shoulder, asshe rustled out. “With your brains, you might even marry very well athome. But your father is sure to be put out about this—awfully put out!”
“Do you know, Buzz,” murmured Rhoda a moment later (the terrier hadjumped into her lap), “if I had been left an orphan in my early
youth, Ifancy I would have borne it better than most people.”