CHAPTER XXXV.
When he came back several hours later to bid her farewell she was lying quiet with her eyes shut. Phebe whispered cautiously:
“She is asleep!”
The dark eyes opened quickly.
“I am not asleep. I was only thinking,” she said.
Then she met her brother-in-law’s kind eyes fixed on her full of pity.
She drew him down to her and whispered:
“I have been thinking of what I promised you, but I’m afraid it will be useless to try, for how can I win him back if I never see him?”
“You must see him,” Doctor Charley replied firmly.
“But how? I can not send for him again, and he will not come of his own will.”
“That is true. But, Molly—how strange it sounds to call you Molly! You must get strong enough to go out of this room, to meet your husband at the table, and in the parlor daily. You must accept invitations to places where he will be compelled to attend you. Gradually you will win him back to his old attendance on you, his old loving care. Then the rest will be easy.”
“I will try, oh, so hard,” she said, and deeply moved, he pressed the little nervous hand.
“When you get stronger you will write to me and tell me how you get on with your labor of love,” he said. “And now, little sister, I must bid you adieu, Imust return to Paris tonight, having missed all the lectures during the weeks I have been chasing that runaway Cecil.”
“God bless you for all your goodness to me,” she whispered, and he went away with those grateful words ringing like music in his ears.
She turned wistfully to Phebe.
“Do you not think I am strong enough to go into the parlor tonight?”
“No, indeed, that you are not!” replied the maid decidedly, and after a minute she added with a snort of displeasure, “besides there would be no use. I heard Mrs. Laurens’ maid saying just now that her mistress and Mr. Cecil were going to the opera with the Barrys. I’ll tell you one thing, Mrs. Laurens. That yellow-eyed deceitful woman is going to take your husband from you if she can!”
“She can not do that, for he is bound to me,” Molly exclaimed, but the warning never left her thoughts, for she knew that Louise would try to widen the gulf between her and Cecil until it should become impassable.
“It will be so easy to do that,” she thought, bitterly. “Ah, Doctor Charley’s words were but sophistry. He will not let me win him back. Perhaps already his thoughts have gone after beautiful Louise.”
Tortured by such thoughts as these it was no wonder that her strength came back so slowly that Phebe would not consent to her leaving the room for more than a week.
Indeed the maid would have liked to keep her mistress from mingling at all with the rest of the family, for she knew that her orders to the footman had beencountermanded by Cecil, and that the Barrys were frequent and honored guests at The Acacias.
Phebe knew another thing that made her uneasy for the sake of her forlorn young mistress.
There was a conspiracy afoot to discharge her by way of punishment for what was deemed her impertinence to Miss Barry. Phebe had heard the rumor, but she kept silence, hoping that her young mistress would insist on retaining her for her own sake.
About ten days after that marriage ceremony in the invalid’s chamber Molly declared that she was well enough to go out of her room and that she should breakfast with the family that morning.
Phebe gave a ready assent to the plan and dressed her very tastefully, taking pains to bring out every one of her young mistress’ beauties by her well-chosen morning dress.
Then she led her herself to the dining-room, fearful that her agitation might make her faint by the way.
Mr. Laurens, his wife and son were already in the room. They looked up in surprise at Molly’s entrance.
Poor Molly, poor trembling little culprit! She would have given worlds for one kind look from her husband’s eyes. She turned an imploring glance on his cold face, but he met it with one of surprise and displeasure, supplemented by a slight bow, then let her take her seat at the table without further notice.
Her mother-in-law made a curt inquiry after her health, and her father-in-law supplemented it by a careless “Good-morning.”
Evidently her presence was unexpected and undesired by the small family.
The meal proceeded in embarrassing silence. Mollytried to eat, but it was a melancholy and mechanical proceeding. She burned her tongue with hot coffee, but she was afraid to cry out at the pain; she nearly choked herself trying to swallow things that she put into her mouth in the pretense of eating; and at last she gave it up and sat quiet, with her eyes on her plate, until the ordeal was over. How she groped her way to the morning-room she scarcely knew. Cecil had left the dining-room before her, and she followed slowly in his train.
He was cutting the leaves of a book for his mother. At Molly’s entrance he rose and placed a chair for her with distant courtesy.
She thanked him and sat down, and for some moments an embarrassing silence reigned.
Cecil broke it with a curt sentence that made Molly start.
“You are better?” he said.
“Thank you, oh, yes, much better,” she faltered, grateful for even this notice.
A glance at the pale, wan face did not assure him of the fact, but he went on, pitilessly:
“You no longer need the care of a sick-nurse?”
“Oh, no,” she faltered again, miserably, feeling as if he desired the negative; but she started when he exclaimed, with curt emphasis:
“I am very glad to hear it.”
“Why?” she faltered, looking up at him, but the handsome face was averted.
But he had heard the timid question, for presently he answered, coldly:
“I have been trying to be patient and wait until you were able to dispense with your maid. That impertinent woman has to go!”
“My good Phebe to leave me? Oh, I can not let her go!” Molly cried, wildly; but Cecil answered, relentlessly:
“I expected this. It does not matter to you that the woman has been grossly impertinent to my mother and to our friend, Miss Barry. Perhaps,” scornfully, “you tutored her to that end.”
“I cannot let her go!” Molly cried, her head dropping forlornly on her breast.
“She shall go! She has been rude to my mother, and my wife, as her guest, has no right to retain a servant distasteful to her hostess,” Cecil said, loftily.
She hesitated a moment, then said, desperately:
“Take me away, then, to a home of my own, where none can interfere with my choice of a servant.”
He answered instantly, with offensivehauteur:
“Under the present circumstances, such a course would not be agreeable!”
He turned away and stood at the window, with his back to her, determined not to be moved by the sight of the little hands writhing in and out of each other in her lap, and the face with its expression of dumb, patient agony, while hot tears stole from under her lashes and dripped down her cheeks.
The door opened, and his proud, stately mother entered with her graceful, gliding motion. She frowned when she saw poor Molly sitting there with the tears stealing down her cheeks.
“If you are ill, Mrs. Laurens, perhaps I had better assist you to your room,” she said, with pointed courtesy.
Molly shook her head without reply, and Cecil turned around.
“She is not ill, mother; she is angry,” he said, sharply.
“Angry?”
“Yes. I have been telling her that Phebe must go, and she objects.”
“Objects, Cecil?” loftily. “Surely she would not wish to retain a servant who had been rude tome?”
“She is my only friend,” Molly muttered, in a despairing tone, and the mother-in-law rejoined, testily:
“I might say that you do not deserve any friends, if I chose to speak plainly, but I do not wish to wound you. You can not expect me to retain that woman at The Acacias. I have secured another maid for you—a splendid woman with a good recommendation—and she will take Phebe’s place tomorrow.”
From the pale lips of the despised young wife came a moan of remonstrance; but no one heeded it, for Cecil had gone abruptly out of the room, and Mrs. Laurens, after her final sentence, sat down coolly to her book.
Phebe had been on the alert and knew that Cecil had taken his hat and left the house.
She peered into the morning-room and saw her young mistress in tears and her mother-in-law absorbed in her novel.
Stalking boldly across the room, she said:
“You are tired out with coming down to breakfast, Mrs. Laurens. Hadn’t you better come back to your room and rest?”
Molly put her hand on the strong arm and went away sobbing unheeded by the reader, who did not turn her head to notice the departure.
“Now then, who has hurt you, my pet?” Phebe demandedwhen she had laid Molly down on her soft sofa, and with bitter sobs the whole story was blurted out, for Molly’s heart was too full to hold it.
“Phebe, if they send you away I shall go with you. I will not be parted from the only friend that is left to me,” she exclaimed.
Phebe stroked the pretty, dark head in silence some minutes before she replied, gravely:
“No, my dear young mistress, you must not defy your husband like that or you will never win him back. You must give me up as he wishes you to do, and perhaps when he sees how you obey his wishes even against your own desire he will send for me to come back to you soon, for I don’t think his anger can hold out long, seeing how sweet and humble and good you are.”
After a few moments she continued, sadly:
“I have known this for some time, Mrs. Laurens, but I would not distress you with it. But now I will give you one warning. Mrs. Laurens has hired a maid for you who was selected and recommended by Miss Louise Barry. Hush, my dear! Do not say you will not have her, for that would anger your husband. Let her come, but be wary and watchful. She may be a tool in Miss Barry’s hands and may mean to do you harm at her instigation.”