All things continued favourable to Mrs. Peck's plans—she met with no disaster by sea in her voyage from Adelaide to Melbourne; the 'Havilah' brought her to her destination in three days, and she landed on the familiar shores with a light and hopeful heart. She was not long in discovering where Mrs. Phillips lived, which was in East Melbourne; and as no time was to be lost, she repaired to the house on the very day on which she landed, dressed decently and respectably, like the wife of an artisan, or perhaps with more of the appearance of a monthly nurse.
The girl who opened the door asked her name when she requested to see Mrs. Phillips, and she announced herself, not as Mrs. Peck, but as Mrs. Mahoney, under which name she had taken out her passage, and begged to see the missis by herself for a few minutes. Mrs. Phillips was then sitting in an easy-chair in the drawing-room, the nurse was engaged with the baby, and Elsie busy in Mrs. Phillips's room; so the stranger was introduced to have a quiet interview with her daughter.
"Well, Betsy, do you not recollect me?" said Mrs. Peck, in a subdued but intensely earnest voice, whenever the girl was out of hearing. "Have you forgotten your own mother?"
Mrs. Phillips grew deadly pale, and was about to scream.
"Hush! Betsy, be quiet," said her mother. "I've only come to pay you a friendly visit. I've longed so to see you again all these years, and now I heard you was by yourself, I thought I must run all risks to get a look at you. Why, how handsome you've grown, and everything handsome about you, too;" and Mrs. Peck gazed with wondering admiration at the beautiful, well-dressed, queen-like woman whom she had parted with when a mere girl, and had never seen since her marriage. "Rings on your fingers, and a gold chain round your neck, and everything you can wish for. Oh, Betsy, I made your fortune, and you never take a thought for me. I might be dead and buried, and you'd never care a straw. I have had a hard life, a very hard life—tossed about from place to place, and often in want of many things that at my time of life I need to get—and you in such luxury. My pretty girl, my beautiful daughter!"
Whatever might have been the resemblance between mother and daughter, there were but slight traces of it now. Mrs. Peck might have been beautiful at sixteen, but her life had not been so conservative of her charms as Mrs. Phillips's was; besides, Mrs. Phillips resembled her father much more than her mother, and he had been of a much more lymphatic temperament, and was at the same time a remarkably handsome man. Mrs. Peck was not yet sixty, but she looked old for her years, and more like the grandmother than the mother of Mrs. Phillips, whose easy circumstances, indulgent husband, and indolent, self-regarding life, with no emotion and little excitement, had kept her face free from a single line of care or anxiety. Her mother's face was ploughed up with innumerable lines, and her features seemed to work with every varying passion, while her expression was hungry, eager, and wolf-like, without showing anything more intellectual than cunning, even in its calmest moments.
"Oh!" said Mrs. Phillips, "if Stanley was to find you here, he would never forgive me."
"Is it your fault that I could not rest till I saw you again? I never thought he'd be so cruel and unreasonable as to blame you for what I'd do."
"But I heard you was in Adelaide, and Mr. Phillips says that, as long as you stay in Adelaide, he will see that you know no want. Oh, mother, you had better go back to Adelaide!" said Mrs. Phillips.
"Is that my girl as is talking?" said Mrs. Peck, disdainfully,—"my girl as I loved so dear, and was so proud of—that now, when I've come all the way from Adelaide, and risked all I've got to depend upon, just to please my old eyes with the sight of her handsome face, and my poor old ears with the sound of her voice, would banish me the minute I come! That's a pretty husband you've got—that you're so afeard of him. You deserve that your children should turn against you when they grow up. Oh, Betsy, how can you talk so cruel?" and the old woman caught her daughter's hand, and kissed it with much apparent, and no doubt some real feeling. "You're not expecting of him home for a while; let me come and let me go while he is away—my name is Mrs. Mahoney. Say as how I am an old servant of your mother's, or an old servant you had at Wiriwilta, or the mother of some one you know—call me what you like, but let me just have the liberty to come and see you and the baby, and then I will go back to Adelaide, and Mr. Phillips need never know nothing about it?"
Invention was not one of Mrs. Phillips's talents, but her mother revelled in it, as I have said before. She delighted to go amongst people who did not know her, where she could give out an entirely fictitious history of herself quite new. Even to her intimate acquaintances her narrations were singularly inconsistent. When her interest demanded that she should speak the truth she did so, but it was with an effort; when the balance lay the other way she had no hesitation and no scruple.
"I ain't good at these stories, mother," said Mrs. Phillips, "and I don't just see what good it will do me to get into trouble with Stanley on your account. It is just the one thing he is unreasonable about. When he married me he said he made only one stipulation, and that was, that I should have nothing to do with you or with Peck, and I said I wouldn't."
Mrs. Peck here began to sob, and Elsie who was sewing in the next room, hearing a little noise, and afraid that Mrs. Phillips was not well, came in at this moment. Mrs. Phillips was quite at a loss to account for the emotion of her visitor, but her mother was equal to the emergency.
"I am sure, Mrs. Phillips, I cannot say what I feel," said she, "but your goodness really overpowers me. To think as the little girl as I knowed when she played with my poor Susan as is now no more should recollect me now she's growed up so beautiful, and had such a fine house of her own, and should help me in my troubles! It is quite too much for me. But all I want is just a little to start me in a way of business, and I'll be sure to pay it back again if I get on—and I have got a good connection, a capital connection—your liberality I can never forget;" and Mrs. Peck fumbled with her purse, and looked very hard at Elsie. This was the person whom she wished to see, even more than her ungrateful daughter, from whom she had expected a kinder reception. Elsie looked simple-minded enough—there was no doubt she would be easily dealt with, and much better by speech than by letter.
"This is your maid, I suppose?"
Mrs. Phillips assented.
Mrs. Peck turned to Elsie and said, "I think as how the missis wants some sal volatile; she looks a bit faint—she don't seem to be strong yet."
Elsie fetched the sal volatile, and gave Mrs. Phillips a little of it, and then returned to her work. She was puzzled at the stranger's speaking of Mrs. Phillips's liberality—for she was not generally liberal—and at her fumbling at her purse as if she had received money, for she knew that Mrs. Phillips had left her purse in her bedroom.
"You must let me come and go for the few days I am to stay in Melbourne, Betsy," said her mother.
"Oh, I'd rather give you money, if you need it—at least, all I've got."
"I fear I will need money to take me back, for I made such an effort to get across, but I could not help it. But I won't hurt you, Betsy, and I may do you good. What sort of girl is it that you've got?"
"Oh, a very clever milliner, and a handy girl enough. Stanley says he thinks her pretty, but I don't see it. He makes a great fuss over both her and her sister, but Jane is plain."
"If he says he thinks her pretty, I'd not keep her in the house if I was you. I know what men are," said Mrs. Peck.
"I don't think you know what Stanley is," said Mrs. Phillips, with some dignity. "I did not like it at first, but I ain't frightened now; and besides, they are both so badly off it's quite a charity to keep them."
"If she is a milliner, I know of a capital situation," said Mrs. Peck.
"Stanley would be in a pretty state if I let her go to a situation of your recommending," said Mrs. Phillips.
"Oh, I don't mean to meddle with your affairs; but young people are very unwary. You think as how you're too handsome for your husband to think of looking at another woman; but I know the world better nor that. Howsomever, that is neither here nor there. But you know I am risking my annuity from Mr. Phillips by coming here to see you; but I heard in Adelaide that for the first time since you was married I might have the chance of seeing you, without making dispeace, which is the last thing I would wish to do. So, Betsy, if you will be reasonable, and let me come again, as Mrs. Mahoney (an old neighbour in New South Wales), and help me, as you say, with money to take me away, I will be as quiet as a mouse. It is a pleasure to see you, and to speak to you. Give me a little needlework, and let me sit with your maid, and just have a look at you now and then, and at the baby. I ain't seen none of your children, Betsy. Because you've been so well off, and had no cares, you shouldn't turn off your mother in that unfeeling way."
"Oh, I wish I dare do it. But if Stanley was to come—he may come suddenly. I've sent him a message to hurry home. You can't think what a good, kind husband he is to me, mother. But he'd be furious if he found you here."
"Oh, if he comes home you do not need me to work any longer; and you can give the girl that message; and you can drop me a hint if I happen to be in the house. Even if he was to see me here, I know I could find some reason. I am never without an excuse."
Mrs. Phillips was not particularly fond of her mother, who had been very harsh and violent-tempered to her in her childish days, while she was as fond of her husband as she could be of any one but herself, and she knew with what abhorrence he regarded this fierce, cunning old woman. She wished Mrs. Peck to be satisfied with this one visit and to come back no more, for she feared that Alice and the other servants might suspect something, and she had no confidence in her own powers of concealment. But Mrs. Peck had more ammunition in her chest; she again began to sob, and showed symptoms of going into violent hysterics, and bewailed her own hard lot and the cruelty of her ungrateful daughter so loudly, that she was glad to agree to her demands to make her keep quiet for the present.
Mrs. Peck then saw the baby, which she admired exceedingly, and accepted of some refreshments. Mrs. Phillips got her purse, and really gave her some money; and shortly after, her mother took leave, engaging to come back on the following morning to do some needlework, and uttering many blessings on Mrs. Phillips for her kindness and generosity in Alice's hearing. Mrs. Phillips looked greatly relieved when she was out of the house, but the apprehension of her return weighed considerably on her mind.
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