"Oh, father, do not speak like that! I will do all you wish."
"Out of your own loving heart?"
"Yes, father, out of my own loving heart!"
"Swear it!" he cried, in a loud, commanding tone, pushing his dead wife"s prayer-book to the guileless girl. "Kiss your mother"s prayer-book, and prove to me whether you are lying or speaking the truth!"
In an impulse of fervour and self-reproach she kissed the prayer-book.
He took it from her hands.
"You are a witness, Jeremiah," he said.
"I am a witness, sir," said Jeremiah.
"You have sworn," said Miser Farebrother to his daughter, "that you will not leave Parksides while I live, unless I drive you forth. That is your oath."
"Yes, father." But she said it with a sinking heart. It seemed to her as if a net were being spread around her, from which it was impossible to escape.
In her bed that night this impression of a forced, inexorable imprisonment became accentuated by a review of what had pa.s.sed between herself and her father. For what other reason had he made her swear upon her dead mother"s prayer-book that she would not leave Parksides without his permission? Could he not have taken her word? Was she to regard all that he had said as of equal value with Mrs. Pamflett"s false statements? Were they all leagued against her? and what would be the end of the plot? Could they now compel her to marry Jeremiah Pamflett? No; she would endure a thousand deaths first. But she was imprisoned here in Parksides; she had no longer a will of her own. Her father had turned her only friends from his house, and he and they were the bitterest enemies; he had turned her lover from his house; she was cut off from all she held dear, and was here unprotected, at the mercy of Mrs.
Pamflett and her son, and of her father, whose inexplicable behaviour toward her afflicted her with shuddering doubts. Had she been aware of what transpired between her aunt Leth and her father after she had fainted in the earlier part of the day, she would not so readily have fallen into the trap her father had set for her.
When she fell to the ground Aunt Leth and Fred Cornwall started forward with sympathizing eagerness to a.s.sist her, but they were motioned sternly back by Miser Farebrother.
"I have ordered you to leave my house," he said. "I can attend to my daughter."
Sadly they turned to the door, but Aunt Leth came swiftly back.
"Listen to me, my dead sister"s husband," she said, in a quick, trembling voice. "At my sister"s death-bed, in this very room, I promised her to look after her child, my poor niece lying here at our feet, as tenderly as though she were one of my own. I love her as my own child, and I shall redeem my promise to my dead sister. This person"--she pointed to Jeremiah Pamflett--"to whom you say you have promised your daughter"s hand, is utterly unworthy of her. She loves an honourable gentleman, and what I can do to bring about her happiness shall be done. If you have a plot against her welfare I will endeavour to circ.u.mvent it. My heart and the hearts of my husband and children are ever open to her. Our home is hers; she can come to us at any moment, and we will receive her with joy. In this house there was never for her nor for her dead mother the slightest sign of love."
"My daughter has told you so?" demanded Miser Farebrother.
"She has not told me so," said the indignant woman. "She has always spoken of you with tenderness and gentleness. You know best how you deserved it at her hands. If she cannot find love and protection here, she can find them with me and mine!" She knelt and kissed Phoebe"s pale face. "My sweet child! so happy but an hour ago! Come to me if they oppress you here--my child! my daughter!"
"Bundle them out," cried Miser Farebrother, "neck and crop!"
They had no right to stay, and they left the place mournfully.
"Do not be false to Phoebe," said Aunt Leth to Fred.
"No need to say that to me, Aunt Leth," said the young fellow.
"Phoebe, and no other woman, shall be my wife."
This encounter it was between Aunt Leth and Miser Farebrother which had caused the miser to extract a binding oath from Phoebe that she would not leave Parksides without his permission.
"How was that done, Jeremiah?" he asked, when his daughter left the room.
"Capitally! capitally, sir!" said Jeremiah. "What an actor you would have made!"
"Perhaps--perhaps," said Miser Farebrother, with a sneer. "I am not half so ill as I look, Jeremiah. Don"t reckon too soon upon my death.
Excitement like this does me a power of good. They came to trap me, my fine lawyer and tearful sister-in-law; but I have turned the tables upon them. As I will upon every one"--with a keen look at Jeremiah--"who dares to play me false!"
It was fortunate for the miser that his managing clerk did not possess the power of striking a man dead by a glance; if he had, that moment would have been Miser Farebrother"s last.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE ENGAGEMENT RING.
From that day Phoebe"s life in Parksides was, as Mrs. Pamflett had threatened, a torture, and had it not been that she was endowed with a reserved strength which lies latent in many gentle natures until a supreme occasion calls it forth, it is likely she could not have lived through the next three or four months. One day her father summoned her.
"It is time now," he said, "that our plans for your future should be finally settled. I have already waited too long."
Phoebe knew what was coming, and though she dreaded it, she had nerved herself to meet it.
"Cannot things remain as they are?" she asked.
It was impossible for her to speak with any show of affection. She had discovered that her father"s wish that she should be his nurse was a mere pretence. Believing in it, she had endeavoured to carry it out and to perform her duty; but the stern repulses she met with had convinced her that she had been deceived and betrayed. The oaths she had sworn were binding upon her; she knew that she could not escape from them, and that her life"s happiness was blasted; but she resolved not to be beguiled by any further treachery. So she suffered in silence, and with some fort.i.tude, praying for strength, and in some small degree finding it; but she was growing daily thinner and paler, and sometimes an impression stole upon her that her life was slowly ebbing away. "It will be better that I should die," she thought; "then I shall see my mother, and my torture will be at an end."
It was a torture subtly carried out. Phoebe had gauged Mrs. Pamflett, and had rejected with quiet scorn all attempts at an affectionate intimacy. Mrs. Pamflett repaid her with interest.
"When you are my son"s wife," she said, "you will be more tractable; you will know me better, and you will love me."
"I shall never know you better," Phoebe replied, "and I shall never love you."
"Proud spirits can be broken," said Mrs. Pamflett.
"Yes," sighed Phoebe; "but I am not proud--I am only faithful; and perhaps I shall soon die."
"You will be no loss," said Mrs. Pamflett; "but before you die you will be my daughter-in-law."
At this period Miser Farebrother had not spoken positively to Phoebe about Jeremiah; he had left it to the young villain to make his way, and, indeed, Jeremiah had attempted to do so. But Phoebe utterly baffled him. He brought her flowers, and at her father"s command she received them from his hands. An hour afterward he saw them lying on the floor or in the grounds, where she had dropped or thrown them. He arrayed himself in new suits of clothes and laid himself out for admiration, which she never bestowed upon him. He strove to draw her into conversation, and if he managed to extract a word from her it was but a word--often not even that; a look of scorn and contempt was then his reward. At meals his offers of small courtesies were disregarded. By her father"s order she sat at the head of the breakfast and tea table, but she would never pa.s.s Jeremiah"s cup nor accept it from him. His mean nature resented this treatment in mean ways, and after a while he indulged in sarcasms, speaking at her instead of to her. This change pa.s.sed unnoticed by her; she might have been deaf and blind to everything he said and did. Two or three weeks after the visit of her aunt and Fred Cornwall to Parksides, Phoebe went to her father with a letter.
"I wish to post this letter," she said. "May I do so?"
"You have sworn not to leave Parksides without my permission," he replied. "I will not allow you to go to the village."
"I had no intention of going without your permission," she said.
He kept her so strictly to her oath that she was virtually a prisoner in Parksides.
"I will have the letter posted for you," he said.
She gave it to him, and he opened it, read it, and burnt it. No answer, of course, could come to a letter that was not sent; but Aunt Leth, of her own accord, wrote to Phoebe, very careful in what she said, because she suspected treachery, and feared that her letter might not reach Phoebe"s hands. It did not; nor did letters written by f.a.n.n.y.
They were all opened by Miser Farebrother, read, and burnt.