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He began to remark also, that besides the presence of the old dame, which was surely a sufficient safeguard against any warmth of manner he might be betrayed into, Lucy always contrived to have Susan Larkin with her. Should she be absent, Lucy would be telling Modbury what a good, industrious, excellent girl she was; which, indeed, was the truth.
Neither Lucy nor Modbury had made much progress in their several aims; scarcely a tithe of the requisite sum for Luke's discharge had been saved; neither could Modbury perceive that his suit advanced. Lucy's conduct sorely perplexed him.
'My husband, he sent Harry to Plymouth School at our own expense; and after that he got an exhibition from the school, and an open scholarship, I think they call it, at the college; and he's been no more beholden to patronage, ma'am, than your brother the Archdeacon was, nor for the matter o' that not so much neither; for I've a'ways understood the old Squire sent him first to the Charterhouse, and afterwards he got a living through Lord Modbury's influence, as the Squire voted regular with the Modbury people for the borough and county.
By this time the old dame had completely recovered from her illness, and was able to move about, so as to attend to the little domestic concerns of the cottage; Lucy could therefore give her undivided attention to her work. Her proceedings were by no means agreeable to her father or to Modbury.
Her father, a broken and decayed man, had come to live near her, and was now nearly dependent on her for support. Both Modbury and Farmer Larkin gave him little jobs to do, for which they liberally recompensed him.
The interest of the 'squire, however, whose son was a cornet in Luke's troop, was set to work, the hard-earned money paid, and the discharge obtained. Damerel got a farm let to him on advantageous terms, close to his native village, and was married amidst more noisy demonstrations by Roger and his company of ringers. Modbury had taken to wife Lucy's friend, Susan Larkin.
Rhodes of Modbury, in South Devon, to whose son, a young gentleman of Oxford, she was promptly married. Burke further describes the husband as Mr. Ambrose Rhodes of Buckland House, Buckland-Tout-Saints. His son, Mr. Rhodes of Bellair, near Exeter, was gentleman of the Privy Chamber to George III.; and one of his descendants possessed a picture which passed for the portrait of Sophia Western.
When the old dame had strength to speak, she whispered Lucy not to give way, but to bear up against it. The past, she wisely said, was incurable; 'We must keep our senses whole for the future. While we keep heart, there is no fear of our seeing him again, yet. The story reached Farmer Modbury as he was sitting down to breakfast.
The quantity of lace Lucy was employed to make was so small, that it just sufficed to keep her and her father; while her little capital, instead of increasing, was gradually absorbed by the purchase of materials for the stock her industry accumulated. Susan Larkin frequently visited her, and Modbury was seldom absent. No ill-fortune seemed to depress the persevering girl.
The former wrote enjoining her by no means to leave the farmer's house; but the letter came too late, for she had already taken her departure. Modbury, however, in replying to an epistle in which Fennel had given him free consent to marry his daughter, expressed a thorough conviction of the firmness of the girl's purpose, and that at present it was impossible to shake it.
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