No sooner had he handed them into their vehicle than he sank into a chair, and burst into one of the prolonged, vehement fits of laughter that are the reaction of early youth unwontedly depressed. Never had he seen such visages! They ought at once to be sketched—would be worth any money to Currie the architect, for gurgoyles.
‘For shame,’ said Lucilla, glad, however, once more to hear the merry peal; ‘for shame, to laugh at my master!’
‘I’m not laughing at old Pendy, his orifice is a mere crevice comparatively. The charm is in seeing it classified—the recent sloth accounted for by the ancient megatherium.’
‘The megatherium is my master. Yes, I’m governess to Glumdalclitch!’
‘You’ve done it?’
‘Yes, I have. Seventy pounds a year.’
He made a gesture of angry despair, crying, ‘Worse luck than I thought.’
‘Better luck than I did.’
‘Old Pendy thrusting in his oar! I’d have put a stop to your absurdity at once, if I had not been sure no one would be deluded enough to engage you, and that you would be tired of looking out, and glad to go back to your proper place at the Holt before I sailed.’
‘My proper place is where I can be independent.’
‘Faugh! If I had known it, they should never have seen the Roman coins! There! it is a lesson that nothing is too chimerical to be worth opposing!’
‘Your opposition would have made no difference.’
He looked at her silently, but with a half smile in lip and eye that showed her that the moment was coming when the man’s will might be stronger than the woman’s.
Indeed, he was so thoroughly displeased and annoyed that she durst not discuss the subject with him, lest she should rouse him to take some strong authoritative measures against it. He had always trusted to the improbability of her meeting with a situation before his departure, when, between entreaty and command, he had reckoned on inducing her to go home; and this engagement came as a fresh blow, making him realize what he had brought on those nearest and dearest to him. Even praise of Mrs. Prendergast provoked him, as if implying Lucilla’s preference for her above the tried friend of their childhood; he was in his lowest spirits, hardly speaking to his sister all dinner-time, and hurried off afterwards to pour out his vexation to Robert Fulmort. Poor Robert! what an infliction! To hear of such a step, and be unable to interfere; to admire, yet not approve; to dread the consequences, and perceive so much alloy as to dull the glitter of the gold, as well as to believe his own stern precipitation as much the cause as Owen’s errors; yet all the time to be the friend and comforter to the wounded spirit of the brother! It was a severe task; and when Owen left him, he felt spent and wearied as by bodily exertion, as he hid his face in prayer for one for whom he could do no more than pray.
Feelings softened during the fortnight that the brother and sister spent together. Childishly as Owen had undergone the relations and troubles of more advanced life, pettishly as he had striven against feeling and responsibility, the storm had taken effect. Hard as he had struggled to remain a boy, manhood had suddenly grown on him; and probably his exclusion from Hiltonbury did more to stamp the impression of his guilt than did its actual effects. He was eager for his new life, and pleased with his employer, promising himself all success, and full of enterprise. But his banishment from home and from Honor clouded everything; and, as the time drew nearer, his efforts to forget and be reckless gradually ceased. Far from shunning Lucilla, as at first, he was unwilling to lose sight of her, and they went about together wherever his preparations called him, so that she could hardly make time for stitching, marking, and arranging his purchases.
One good sign was, that, though hitherto fastidiously expensive in dress and appointments, he now grudged himself all that was not absolutely necessary, in the endeavour to leave as large a sum as possible with Mrs. Murrell. Even in the tempting article of mathematical instruments he was provident, though the polished brass, shining steel, and pure ivory, in their perfection of exactitude, were as alluring to him as ever gem or plume had been to his sister. That busy fortnight of chasing after the ‘reasonable and good,’ speeding about till they were foot-sore, discussing, purchasing, packing, and contriving, united the brother and sister more than all their previous lives.
It was over but too soon. The last evening was come; the hall was full of tin cases and leathern portmanteaus, marked O. C. S., and of piles of black boxes large enough to contain the little lady whose name they bore. Southminster lay in the Trent Valley, so the travellers would start together, and Lucilla would be dropped on the way. In the cedar parlour, Owen’s black knapsack lay open on the floor, and Lucilla was doing the last office in her power for him, and that a sad one, furnishing the Russia-leather housewife with the needles, silk, thread, and worsted for his own mendings when he should be beyond the reach of the womankind who cared for him.
He sat resting his head on his hand, watching her in silence, till she was concluding her work. Then he said, ‘Give me a bit of silk,’ turned his back on her, and stood up, doing something by the light of the lamp. She was kneeling over the knapsack, and did not see what he was about, till she found his hand on her head, and heard the scissors close, when she perceived that he had cut off one of her pale, bright ringlets, and saw his pocket-book open, and within it a thick, jet-black tress, and one scanty, downy tuft of baby hair. She made no remark; but the tears came dropping, as she packed; and, with a sudden impulse to give him the thing above all others precious to her, she pulled from her bosom a locket, hung from a slender gold chain, and held it to him—
‘Owen, will you have this?’
‘Whose? My father’s?’
‘And my mother’s. He gave it to me when he went to Nice.’
Owen took it and looked at it thoughtfully.
‘No, Lucy,’ he said; ‘I would not take it from you on any account. You have always been his faithful child.’
‘Mind you tell me if any one remembers him in Canada,’ said Lucilla, between relief and disappointment, restoring her treasure to the place it had never left before. ‘You will find out whether he is recollected at his mission.’
‘Certainly. But I do not expect it. The place is a great town now. I say, Lucy, if you had one bit of poor Honor’s hair!’
‘No: you will never forgive me. I had some once, made up in a little cross, with gold ends; but one day, when she would not let me go to Castle Blanch, I shied it into the river, in a rage.’
She was touched at his being so spiritless as not even to say that she ought to have been thrown in after it.
‘I wonder,’ she said, by way of enlivening him, ‘whether you will fall in with the auburn-haired Charlecote.’
‘Whereas Canada is a bigger place than England, the disaster may be averted, I hope. A colonial heir-at-law might be a monstrous bore. Moreover, it would cancel all that I can’t but hope for that child.’
‘You might hope better things for him than expectations.’
‘He shall never have any! But it might come without. Why, Lucy, a few years in that country, and I shall be able to give him the best of educations and release you from drudgery; and when independent, we could go back to the Holt on terms to suit even your proud stomach, and might make the dear old thing happy in her old age.’
‘If that Holt were but out of your head.’
‘If I knew it willed to the County Hospital, shouldn’t I wish as much to be with her as before? I mean to bring up my son as a gentleman, with no one’s help! But you see, Lucy, it is impossible not to wish for one’s child what one has failed in oneself—to wish him to be a better edition.’
‘I suppose not.’
‘For these first few years the old woman will do well enough for him, poor child. Robert has promised to look in on him.’
‘And Mrs. Murrell is to write to me once a month. I shall make a point of seeing him at least twice a year.’
‘Thank you; and by the time he is of any size I shall have a salary. I may come back, and we would keep house together, or you might bring him out to me.’
‘That will be the hope of my life.’
‘I’ll not be deluded into reckoning on young ladies. You will be disposed of long before!’
‘Don’t, Owen! No, never.’
‘Never?’
‘Never.’
‘I always wanted to know,’ continued Owen, ‘what became of Calthorp.’
‘I left him behind at Spitzwasserfitzung, with a message that ends it for ever.’
‘I am afraid that defection is to be laid to my door, like all the rest.’
‘If so, I am heartily obliged to you for it! The shock was welcome that brought me home. A governess? Oh! I had rather be a scullery-maid, than go on as I was doing there!’
‘Then you did not care for him?’
‘Never! But he pestered me, Rashe pestered me; nobody cared for me—I—I—’ and she sobbed a long, tearless sob.
‘Ha!’ said Owen, gravely and kindly, ‘then there was something in the Fulmort affair after all. Lucy, I am going away; let me hear it for once. If I ever come back, I will not be so heedless of you as I have been. If he have been using you ill!’
‘I used him ill,’ said Lucy, in an inward voice.
‘Nothing more likely!’ muttered Owen, in soliloquy. ‘But how is it, Cilla: can’t you make him forgive?’
‘He does, but as Honor forgives you. You know it was no engagement. I worked him up to desperation last year. Through Phœbe, I was warned that he would not stand my going to Ireland. I answered that it was no concern of his; I defied him to be able to break with me. They bothered me so that I was forced to go to spite them. He thought—I can’t wonder at it—that I was irreclaimable; he was staying here, was worked on by the sight of this horrible district, and, between pique and goodness run mad, has devoted self and fortune. He gave me to understand that he has made away with every farthing. I don’t know if he would wish it undone.’
She spoke into the knapsack, jerking out brief sentences.
‘He didn’t tell you he had taken a vow of celibacy?’
‘I should not think it worth while.’
‘Then it is all right!’ exclaimed Owen, joyously. ‘Do you think old Fulmort, wallowing in gold, could see a son of his living with his curates, as in the old Sussex rhyme?—
There were three ghostisses
Sitting on three postisses,
Eating of three crustisses.
No, depend on it, the first alarm of Robert becoming a ghost, there will be a famous good fat living bought for him; and then—’
‘No, I shall have been a governess. They won’t consent.’
‘Pshaw! What are the Fulmorts? He would honour you the more! No, Lucy,’ and he drew her up from the floor, and put his arm round her, ‘girls who stick to one as you have done to me are worth something, and so is Robert Fulmort. You don’t know what he has been to me ever since he came to fetch me. I didn’t believe it was in his cloth or his nature to be so forbearing. No worrying with preachments; not a bit of “What a good boy am I;” always doing the very thing that was comfortable and considerate, and making the best of it at Hiltonbury. I didn’t know how he could be capable of it, but now I see, it was for your sake. Cheer up, Lucy, you will find it right yet.’
Lucilla had no conviction that he was right; but she was willing to believe for the time, and was glad to lay her head on his shoulder and feel, while she could, that she had something entirely her own. Too soon it would be over. Lengthen the evening as they would, morning must come at last.
It came; the hurried breakfast, pale looks, and trivial words. Robert arrived to watch them off; Mrs. Murrell brought the child. Owen took him in his arms, and called her to the study. Robert sat still, and said—
‘I will do what I can. I think, in case I had to write about the child, you had better leave me your address.’
Lucilla wrote it on a card. The tone quashed all hope.
‘We trust to you,’ she said.
‘Mr. Currie has promised to let me hear of Owen,’ said Robert; but no more passed. Owen came back hasty and flushed, wanting to be gone and have it over. The cabs were called, and he was piling them with luggage; Robert was glad to be actively helpful. All were in the hall; Owen turned back for one more solitary gaze round the familiar room; Robert shook Lucilla’s hand.
‘O bid me good speed,’ broke from her; ‘or I cannot bear it.’
‘God be with you. God bless you!’ he said.
No more! He had not approved, he had not blamed. He would interfere no more in her fate. She seated herself, and drew down her black veil, a chill creeping over her.
‘Thank you, Robert, for all,’ was Owen’s farewell. ‘If you will say anything to Phœbe from me, tell her she is all that is left to comfort poor Honor.’
‘Good-bye,’ was the only answer.
Owen lingered still. ‘You’ll write? Tell me of her; Honor, I mean, and the child.’
‘Yes, yes, certainly.’
Unable to find another pretext for delay, Owen again wrung Robert’s hand, and placed himself by his sister, keeping his head out as long as he could see Robert standing with crossed arms on the doorstep.
When, the same afternoon, Mr. Parsons came home, he blamed himself for having yielded to his youngest curate the brunt of the summer work. Never had he seen a man not unwell look so much jaded and depressed.
Nearly at the same time, Lucilla and her boxes were on the platform of the Southminster station, Owen’s eyes straining after her as the train rushed on, and she feeling positive pain and anger at the sympathy of Dr. Prendergast’s kind voice, as though it would have been a relief to her tumultuous misery to have bitten him, like Uncle Kit long ago. She clenched her hand tight, when with old-world courtesy he made her take his arm, and with true consideration, conducted her down the hill, through the quieter streets, to the calm, shady precincts of the old cathedral. He had both a stall and a large town living; and his abode was the gray freestone prebendal house, whose two deep windows under their peaked gables gave it rather a cat-like physiognomy. Mrs. Prendergast and Sarah were waiting in the hall, each with a kiss of welcome, and the former took the pale girl at once up-stairs, to a room full of subdued sunshine, looking out on a green lawn sloping down to the river. At that sight and sound, Lucy’s face lightened. ‘Ah! I know I shall feel at home here. I hear the water’s voice!’
But she had brought with her a heavy cold, kept in abeyance by a strong will during the days of activity, and ready to have its way at once, when she was beaten down by fatigue, fasting, and disappointment. She dressed and came down, but could neither eat nor talk, and in her pride was glad to attribute all to the cold, though protesting with over-eagerness that such indisposition was rare with her.
She would not have suffered such nursing from Honor Charlecote as was bestowed upon her. The last month had made tenderness valuable, and without knowing all, kind Mrs. Prendergast could well believe that there might be more than even was avowed to weigh down the young head, and cause the fingers, when unobserved, to lock together in suppressed agony.
While Sarah only knew that her heroine-looking governess was laid up with severe influenza, her mother more than guessed at the kind of battle wrestled out in solitude, and was sure that more than brother, more than friend, had left her to that lonely suffering, which was being for the first time realized. But no confidence was given; when Lucilla spoke, it was only of Owen, and Mrs. Prendergast returned kindness and forbearance.
It was soothing to be dreamily in that summer room, the friendly river murmuring, the shadows of the trees lazily dancing on the wall, the cathedral bells chiming, or an occasional deep note of the organ stealing in through the open window. It suited well with the languor of sensation that succeeded to so much vehemence and excitement. It was not thought, it was not resignation, but a species of repose and calm, as if all interest, all feeling, were over for her, and as if it mattered little what might further befall her, as long as she could be quiet, and get along from one day to another. If it had been repentance, a letter would have been written very unlike the cold announcement of her situation, the scanty notices of her brother, with which she wrung the heart that yearned after her at Hiltonbury. But sorry she was, for one part at least, of her conduct, and she believed herself reduced to that meek and correct state that she had always declared should succeed her days of gaiety, when, recovering from her indisposition, she came down subdued in tone, and anxious to fulfil what she had undertaken.
‘Ah! if Robert could see me now, he would believe in me,’ thought she to herself, as she daily went to the cathedral. She took classes at school, helped to train the St. Jude’s choir, played Handel for Dr. Prendergast, and felt absolutely without heart or inclination to show that self-satisfied young curate that a governess was not a subject for such distant perplexed courtesy. Sad at heart, and glad to distract her mind by what was new yet innocent, she took up the duties of her vocation zealously; and quickly found that all her zeal was needed. Her pupil was a girl of considerable abilities—intellectual, thoughtful, and well taught; and she herself had been always so unwilling a learner, so willing a forgetter, that she needed all the advantages of her grown-up mind and rapidity of perception to keep her sufficiently beforehand with Sarah, whenever subjects went deep or far. If she pronounced like a native, and knew what was idiomatic, Sarah, with her clumsy pronunciation, had further insight into grammar, and asked perplexing questions; if she played admirably and with facility, Sarah could puzzle her with the science of music; if her drawing were ever so effective and graceful, Sarah’s less sightly productions had correct details that put hers to shame, and, for mere honesty’s sake, and to keep up her dignity, she was obliged to work hard, and recur to the good grounding that against her will she had received at Hiltonbury. ‘Had her education been as superficial as that of her cousins,’ she wrote to her brother, ‘Sarah would have put her to shame long ago; indeed, nobody but the Fennimore could be thoroughly up to that girl.’
Perhaps all her endeavours would not have impressed Sarah, had not the damsel been thoroughly imposed on by her own enthusiasm for Miss Sandbrook’s grace, facility, alertness, and beauty. The power of doing prettily and rapidly whatever she took up dazzled the large and deliberate young person, to whom the right beginning and steady thoroughness were essential, and she regarded her governess as a sort of fairy—toiling after her in admiring hopelessness, and delighted at any small success.
Fully aware of her own plainness, Sarah adored Miss Sandbrook’s beauty, took all admiration of it as personally as if it been paid to her bullfinch, and was never so charmed as when people addressed themselves to the governess as the daughter of the house. Lucilla, however, shrank into the background. She was really treated thoroughly as a relation, but she dreaded the remarks and inquiries of strangers, and wished to avoid them. The society of the cathedral town was not exciting nor tempting, and she made no great sacrifice in preferring her pretty schoolroom to the dinners and evening parties of the Close; but she did so in a very becoming manner, and delighted Sarah with stories of the great world, and of her travels.
There could be no doubt that father, mother, and daughter all liked and valued her extremely, and she loved Mrs. Prendergast as she had never loved woman before, with warm, filial, confiding love. She was falling into the interests of the cathedral and the parish, and felt them, and her occupations in the morning, satisfying and full of rest after the unsatisfactory whirl of her late life. She was becoming happier than she knew, and at any rate felt it a delusion to imagine the post of governess an unhappy one. Three years at Southminster (for Sarah strenuously insisted that she would come out as late as possible) would be all peace, rest, and improvement; and by that time Owen would be ready for her to bring his child out to him, or else—
Little did she reck of the grave, displeased, yet far more sorrowful letter in which Honor wrote, ‘You have chosen your own path in life, may you find it one of improvement and blessing! But I think it right to say, that though real distress shall of course always make what is past forgotten, yet you must not consider Hiltonbury a refuge if you grow hastily weary of your exertions. Since you refuse to find a mother in me, and choose to depend on yourself alone, it must be in earnest, not caprice.’
CHAPTER XIV
These are of beauty rare,
In holy calmness growing,
Of minds whose richness might compare
E’en with thy deep tints glowing.
Yet all unconscious of the grace they wear.Like flowers upon the spray,
All lowliness, not sadness,
Bright are their thoughts, and rich, not gay,
Grave in their very gladness,
Shedding calm summer light over life’s changeful day.To the Fuchsia.—S. D.
Phœbe Fulmort sat in her own room. The little round clock on the mantelpiece pointed to eleven. The fire was low but glowing. The clear gas shone brightly on the toilette apparatus, and on the central table, loaded with tokens of occupation, but neat and orderly as the lines in the clasped volume where Phœbe was dutifully writing her abstract of the day’s reading and observation, in childishly correct miniature round-hand.
The curtain was looped up, and the moon of a frosty night blanched a square on the carpet beneath the window, at which she often looked with a glistening gaze. Her father and brother had been expected at dinner-time; and though their detention was of frequent occurrence, Phœbe had deferred undressing till it should be too late for their arrival by the last train, since they would like her to preside over their supper, and she might possibly hear of Robert, whose doings her father had of late seemed to regard with less displeasure, though she had not been allowed to go with Miss Charlecote to the consecration of his church, and had not seen him since the Horticultural Show.
She went to the window for a final look. White and crisp lay the path, chequered by the dark defined shadows of the trees; above was the sky, pearly with moonlight, allowing only a few larger stars to appear, and one glorious planet. Fascinated by the silent beauty, she stood gazing, wishing she could distinguish Jupiter’s moons, observing on the difference between his steady reflected brilliance and the sun-like glories of Arcturus and Aldebaran, and passing on to the moral Miss Charlecote loved, of the stars being with us all day unseen, like the great cloud of witnesses. She hoped Miss Charlecote saw that moon; for sunrise or set, rainbow, evening gleam, new moon, or shooting star, gave Phœbe double pleasure by comparing notes with Miss Charlecote, and though that lady was absent, helping Mrs. Saville to tend her husband’s mortal sickness, it was likely that she might be watching and admiring this same fair moon. Well that there are many girls who, like Phœbe, can look forth on the Creator’s glorious handiwork as such, in peace and soothing, ‘in maiden meditation fancy free,’ instead of linking these heavenly objects to the feverish fancies of troubled hearts!
Phœbe was just turning from the window, when she heard wheels sounding on the frosty drive, and presently a carriage appeared, the shadow spectrally lengthened on the slope of the whitened bank. All at once it stopped where the roads diverged to the front and back entrances, a black figure alighted, took out a bag, dismissed the vehicle, and took the path to the offices. Phœbe’s heart throbbed. It was Robert!
As he disappeared, she noiselessly opened her door, guardedly passed the baize door of the west wing, descended the stairs, and met him in the hall. Neither spoke till they were in the library, which had been kept prepared for the travellers. Robert pressed her to him and kissed her fervently, and she found voice to say, ‘What is it? Papa?’
‘Yes,’ said Robert.
She needed not to ask the extent of the calamity. She stood looking in his face, while, the beginning once made, he spoke in low, quick accents. ‘Paralysis. Last night. He was insensible when Edwards called him this morning. Nothing could be done. It was over by three this afternoon.’
‘Where?’ asked Phœbe, understanding, but not yet feeling.
‘At his rooms at the office. He had spent the evening there alone. It was not known till eight this morning. I was there instantly, Mervyn and Bevil soon after, but he knew none of us. Mervyn thought I had better come here. Oh, Phœbe, my mother!’
‘I will see if she have heard anything,’ said Phœbe, moving quietly off, as though one in a dream, able to act, move, and decide, though not to think.
She found the household in commotion. Robert had spoken to the butler, and everywhere were knots of whisperers. Miss Fennimore met Phœbe with her eyes full of tears, tears as yet far from those of Phœbe herself. ‘Your mother has heard nothing,’ she said; ‘I ascertained that from Boodle, who only left her dressing-room since your brother’s arrival. You had better let her have her night’s rest.’
Robert, who had followed Phœbe, hailed this as a reprieve, and thanked Miss Fennimore, adding the few particulars he had told his sister. ‘I hope the girls are asleep,’ he said.
‘Sound asleep, I trust,’ said Miss Fennimore. ‘I will take care of them,’ and laying her hand on Phœbe’s shoulder, she suggested to her that her brother had probably not eaten all day, then left them to return to the library together. There had been more time for Robert to look the thought in the face than his sister. He was no longer freshly stunned. He really needed food, and ate in silence, while she mechanically waited on him. At last he looked up, saying, ‘I am thankful. A few months ago, how could I have borne it?’
‘I have been sure he understood you better of late,’ said Phœbe.
‘Sunday week was one of the happiest days I have spent for years. Imagine my surprise at seeing him and Acton in the church. They took luncheon with us, looked into the schools, went to evening service, and saw the whole concern. He was kinder than ever I knew him, and Acton says he expressed himself as much pleased. I owe a great deal to Bevil Acton, and, I know, to you. Now I know that he had forgiven me.’
‘You, Robin! There was nothing to forgive. I can fancy poor Mervyn feeling dreadfully, but you, always dutiful except for the higher duty!’
‘Hush, Phœbe! Mine was grudging service. I loved opposition, and there was an evil triumph in the annoyance I gave.’
‘You are not regretting your work. O no!’
‘Not the work, but the manner! Oh! that the gift of the self-willed son be not Corban.’
‘Robert! indeed you had his approval. You told me so. He was seeing things differently. It was so new to him that his business could be thought hurtful, that he was displeased at first, or, rather, Mervyn made him seem more displeased than he was.’
‘You only make me the more repent! Had I been what I ought at home, my principles would have been very differently received!’
‘I don’t know,’ said Phœbe; ‘there was little opportunity. We have been so little with them.’
‘Oh! Phœbe, it is a miserable thing to have always lived at such a distance from them, that I should better know how to tell such tidings to any old woman in my district than to my mother!’
Their consultations were broken by Miss Fennimore coming to insist on Phœbe’s sleeping, in preparation for the trying morrow. Robert was thankful for her heedfulness, and owned himself tired, dismissing his sister with a blessing that had in it a tone of protection.
How changed was Phœbe’s peaceful chamber in her eyes! Nothing had altered, but a fresh act in her life had begun—the first sorrow had fallen on her.
She would have knelt on for hours, leaning dreamily on the new sense of the habitual words, ‘Our Father,’ had not Miss Fennimore come kindly and tenderly to undress her, insisting on her saving herself, and promising not to let her oversleep herself, treating her with wise and soothing affection, and authority that was most comfortable.
Little danger was there of her sleeping too late. All night long she lay, with dry and open eyes, while the fire, groaning, sank together, and faded into darkness, and the moonbeams retreated slowly from floor to wall, and were lost as gray cold dawn began to light the window. Phœbe had less to reproach herself with than any one of Mr. Fulmort’s children, save the poor innocent, Maria; but many a shortcoming, many a moment of impatience or discontent, many a silent impulse of blame, were grieved over, and every kindness she had received shot through her heart with mournful gladness and warmth, filling her with yearning for another embrace, another word, or even that she had known that the last good-bye had been the last, that she might have prized it—oh, how intensely!
Then came anxious imaginings for the future, such as would not be stilled by the knowledge that all would settle itself over her head. There were misgivings whether her mother would be properly considered, fears of the mutual relations between her brothers, a sense that the family bond was loosed, and confusion and jarring might ensue; but, as her mind recoiled from the shoals and the gloom, the thought revived of the Pilot amid the waves of this troublesome world. She closed her eyes for prayer, but not for sleep. Repose even more precious and soothing than slumber was granted—the repose of confidence in the Everlasting Arms, and of confiding to them all the feeble and sorrowful with whom she was linked. It was as though (in the words of her own clasped book) her God were more to her than ever, truly a very present Help in trouble; and, as the dawn brightened for a day so unlike all others, her heart trembled less, and she rose up with eyes heavy and limbs weary, but better prepared for the morning’s ordeal than even by sleep ending in a wakening to the sudden shock.
When Miss Fennimore vigilantly met her on leaving her room, and surveyed her anxiously, to judge of her health and powers, there was a serious, sweet collectedness in air and face that struck the governess with loving awe and surprise.
The younger girls had known their father too little to be much affected by the loss. Maria stared in round-eyed amaze, and Bertha, though subdued and shocked for a short space, revived into asking a torrent of questions, culminating in ‘Should they do any lessons?’ Whereto Miss Fennimore replied with a decided affirmative, and, though Phœbe’s taste disapproved, she saw that it was wiser not to interfere.
Much fatigued, Robert slept late, but joined his sister long before the dreaded moment of hearing their mother’s bell. They need not have been fearful of the immediate effect; Mrs. Fulmort’s perceptions were tardy, and the endeavours at preparation were misunderstood, till it was needful to be explicit. A long stillness followed, broken at last by Phœbe’s question, whether she would not see Robert. ‘Not till I am up, my dear,’ she answered, in an injured voice; ‘do, pray, see whether Boodle is coming with my warm water.’
Her mind was not yet awake to the stroke, and was lapsing into its ordinary mechanical routine; her two breakfasts, and protracted dressing, occupied her for nearly two hours, after which she did not refuse to see her son, but showed far less emotion than he did, while he gave the details of the past day. Her dull, apathetic gaze was a contrast with the young man’s gush of tears, and the caresses that Phœbe lavished on her listless hand. Phœbe proposed that Robert should read to her—she assented, and soon dozed, awaking to ask plaintively for Boodle and her afternoon cup of tea.
So passed the following days, her state nearly the same, and her interest apparently feebly roused by the mourning, but by nothing else. She did not like that Phœbe should leave her, but was more at ease with her maid than her son, and, though he daily came to sit with her and read to her, he was grieved to be unable to be of greater use, while he could seldom have Phœbe to himself. Sorely missing Miss Charlecote, he took his meals in the west wing, where his presence was highly appreciated, though he was often pained by Bertha’s levity and Maria’s imbecility. The governess treated him with marked esteem and consideration, strikingly dissimilar to the punctilious, but almost contemptuous, courtesy of her behaviour to the other gentlemen of the family, and, after her pupils were gone to bed, would fasten upon him for a discussion such as her soul delighted in, and his detested. Secure of his ground, he was not sure of his powers of reasoning with an able lady of nearly double his years, and more than double his reading and readiness of speech, yet he durst not retreat from argument, lest he should seem to yield the cause that he was sworn to maintain, ‘in season and out of season.’ It was hard that his own troubles and other people’s should alike bring him in for controversy on all the things that end in ‘ism.’
He learnt by letter from Sir Bevil Acton that his father had been much struck by what he had seen in Cecily-row, and had strongly expressed his concern that Robert had been allowed to strip himself for the sake of a duty, which, if it were such at all, belonged more to others. There might have been wrongheaded haste in the action, but if such new-fangled arrangements had become requisite, it was unfair that one member of the family alone should bear the whole burthen. Sir Bevil strongly supported this view, and Mr. Fulmort had declared himself confirmed in his intention of making provision for his son in his will, as well as of giving him a fair allowance at present. There must have been warnings of failing health of which none had been made aware, for Mr. Fulmort had come to town partly to arrange for the safe guardianship of poor Maria and her fortune. An alteration in his will upon the death of one of the trustees had been too long neglected, and perhaps some foreboding of the impending malady had urged him at last to undertake what had been thus deferred. Each of the daughters was to have £10,000, the overplus being divided between them and their eldest brother, who would succeed both to the business, and on his mother’s death to the Beauchamp estate, while the younger had already received an ample portion as heir to his uncle. Mr. Fulmort, however, had proposed to place Robert on the same footing with his sisters, and Sir Bevil had reason to think he had at once acted on his design. Such thorough forgiveness and approval went to Robert’s heart, and he could scarcely speak as he gave Phœbe the letter to read.
When she could discuss it with him after her mother had fallen asleep for the night, she found that his thoughts had taken a fresh turn.
‘If it should be as Bevil supposes,’ he said, ‘it would make an infinite difference.’ And after waiting for an answer only given by inquiring looks, he continued—‘As she is now, it would not be a violent change; I do not think she would object to my present situation.’
‘Oh, Robert, you will not expose yourself to be treated as before.’
‘That would not be. There was no want of attachment; merely over-confidence in her own power.’
‘Not over confidence, it seems,’ murmured Phœbe, not greatly charmed.
‘I understood how it had been, when we were thrown together again,’ he pursued. ‘There was no explanation, but it was far worse to bear than if there had been. I felt myself a perfect brute.’
‘I beg your pardon if I can’t be pleased just yet,’ said Phœbe. ‘You know I did not see her, and I can’t think she deserves it after so wantonly grieving you, and still choosing to forsake Miss Charlecote.’
‘For that I feel accountable,’ said Robert, sadly. ‘I cannot forget that her determination coincided with the evening I made her aware of my position. I saw that in her face that has haunted me ever since. I had almost rather it had been resentment.’
‘I hope she will make you happy,’ said Phœbe, dolefully, thinking it a pity he should be disturbed when settled in to his work, and forced by experience to fear that Lucy would torment him.
‘I do not do it for the sake of happiness,’ he returned. ‘I am not blind to her faults; but she has a grand, generous character that deserves patience and forbearance. Besides, the past can never be cancelled, and it is due to her to offer her whatever may be mine. There may be storms, but she has been disciplined, poor dear, and I am more sure of myself than I was. She should conform, and my work should not be impeded.’
Grimly he continued to anticipate hurricanes for his wedded life, and to demonstrate that he was swayed by justice and not by passion; but it was suspicious that he recurred constantly to the topic, and seemed able to dwell on no other. If Phœbe could have been displeased with him, it would have been for these reiterations at such a time. Not having been personally injured, she pardoned less than did either Robert or Miss Charlecote; she could not foresee peace for her brother; and though she might pity him for the compulsion of honour and generosity, she found that his auguries were not intended to excite compassionate acquiescence, but cheerful contradiction, such as both her good sense and her oppressed spirits refused. If he could talk about nothing better than Lucy when alone with her, she could the less regret the rarity of these opportunities.
The gentlemen of the family alone attended the funeral, the two elder sisters remaining in town, whither their husbands were to return at night. Mrs. Fulmort remained in the same dreary state of heaviness, but with some languid heed to the details, and interest in hearing from Maria and Bertha, from behind the blinds, what carriages were at the door, and who got into them. Phœbe, with strong effort, then controlled her voice to read aloud till her mother dozed as usual, and she could sit and think until Robert knocked, to summon her to the reading of the will. ‘You must come,’ he said; ‘I know it jars, but it is Mervyn’s wish, and he is right.’ On the stairs Mervyn met her, took her from Robert, and led her into the drawing-room, where she was kindly greeted by the brothers-in-law, and seated beside her eldest brother. As a duty, she gave her attention, and was rewarded by finding that had he been living, her hero, Mr. Charlecote, would have been her guardian. The will, dated fifteen years back, made Humfrey Charlecote, Esquire, trustee and executor, jointly with James Crabbe, Esquire, the elderly lawyer at present reading it aloud. The intended codicil had never been executed. Had any one looked at the downcast face, it would have been with wonder at the glow of shy pleasure thrilling over cheeks and brow.
Beauchamp of course remained with the heiress, Mrs. Fulmort, to whom all thereto appertaining was left; the distillery and all connected with it descended to the eldest son, John Mervyn Fulmort; the younger children received £10,000 apiece, and the residue was to be equally divided among all except the second son, Robert Mervyn Fulmort, who, having been fully provided for, was only to receive some pictures and plate that had belonged to his great uncle.
The lawyer ceased. Sir Bevil leant towards him, and made an inquiry which was answered by a sign in the negative. Then taking up some memoranda, Mr. Crabbe announced that as far as he could yet discover, the brother and five sisters would divide about £120,000 between them, so that each of the ladies had £30,000 of her own; and, bowing to Phœbe, he requested her to consider him as her guardian. The Admiral, highly pleased, offered her his congratulations, and as soon as she could escape she hastened away, followed by Robert.
‘Never mind, Phœbe,’ he said; taking her hand; ‘the kindness and pardon were the same, the intention as good as the deed, as far as he was concerned. Perhaps you were right. The other way might have proved a stumbling-block.’ Speak as he would, he could not govern the tone of his voice nor the quivering of his entire frame under the downfall of his hopes. Phœbe linked her arm in his, and took several turns in the gallery with him.
‘Oh, Robin, if I were but of age to divide with you!’
‘No, Phœbe, that would be unfit for you and for me. I am only where I was before. I knew I had had my portion. I ought not to have entertained hopes so unbefitting. But oh, Phœbe! that she should be cast about the world, fragile, sensitive as she is—’
Phœbe could have said that a home at the Holt was open to Lucilla; but this might seem an unkind suggestion, and the same moment, Sir Bevil was heard impetuously bounding up the stairs. ‘Robert, where are you?’ he called from the end of the gallery. ‘I never believed you could have been so infamously treated.’
‘Hush!’ said Robert, shocked; ‘I cannot hear this said. You know it was only want of time.’
‘I am not talking of your father. He would have done his best if he had been allowed. It is your brother!—his own confession, mind! He boasted just now that his father would have done it on the spot, but for his interference, and expected thanks from all the rest of us for his care of our interests.’
‘What is the use of telling such things, Acton?’ said Robert, forcing his voice to calm rebuke, and grasping the baluster with an iron-like grip.
‘The use! To mark my detestation of such conduct! I did my best to show him what I thought of it; and I believe even Bannerman was astounded at his coolness. I’ll take care the thing is made public! I’ll move heaven and earth but I’ll get you preferment that shall show how such treatment is looked upon.’
‘I beg you will do nothing of the kind!’ exclaimed Robert. ‘I am heartily obliged to you, Acton. You gained me the certainty of forgiveness, without which I should have felt a curse on my work. For the rest, I complain of nothing. I have had larger means than the others. I knew I was to look for no more. I prefer my own cure to any other; and reflection will show you that our family affairs are not to be made public.’
‘At any rate, your mother might do something. Let me speak to her. What, not now? Then I will come down whenever Phœbe will summon me.’
‘Not now, nor ever,’ said Robert. ‘Even if anything were in her power, she could not understand; and she must not be harassed.’
‘We will talk that over on our way to town,’ said Sir Bevil. ‘I start at once. I will not see that fellow again, nor, I should think, would you.’
‘I stay till Saturday week.’
‘You had better not. You have been abominably treated; but this is no time for collisions. You agree with me, Phœbe; his absence would be the wisest course.’
‘Phœbe knows that annoyance between Mervyn and me is unhappily no novelty. We shall not revert to the subject, and I have reasons for staying.’
‘You need not fear,’ said Phœbe; ‘Robert always keeps his temper.’
‘Or rather we have the safeguard of being both sullen, not hot,’ said Robert. ‘Besides, Mervyn was right. I have had my share, and have not even the dignity of being injured.’
The need of cooling his partisan was the most effective means of blunting the sharp edge of his own vexation. Hearing Mervyn cross the hall, he called to offer to take his share in some business which they had to transact together. ‘Wait a moment,’ was the answer; and as Sir Bevil muttered a vituperation of Mervyn’s assurance, he said, decidedly, ‘Now, once for all, I desire that this matter be never again named between any of us. Let no one know what has taken place, and let us forget all but that my father was in charity with me.’
It was more than Sir Bevil was with almost any one, and he continued to pace the gallery with Phœbe, devising impossible schemes of compensation until the moment of his departure for London.
Robert had not relied too much on his own forbearance. Phœbe met her two brothers at dinner—one gloomy, the other melancholy; but neither altering his usual tone towards the other. Unaware that Robert knew of his father’s designs, nor of their prevention, Mervyn was totally exempt from compunction, thinking, indeed, that he had saved his father from committing an injustice on the rest of the family, for the sake of a fanatical tormentor, who had already had and thrown away more than his share. Subdued and saddened for the time, Mervyn was kind to Phœbe and fairly civil to Robert, so that there were no disturbances to interfere with the tranquil intercourse of the brother and sister in their walks in the woods, their pacings of the gallery, or low-voiced conferences while their mother dozed.
True to his resolve, Robert permitted no reference to his late hopes, but recurred the more vigorously to his parish interests, as though he had never thought of any wife save St. Matthew’s Church.
Home affairs, too, were matters of anxious concern. Without much sign of sorrow, or even of comprehension of her loss, it had suddenly rendered the widow an aged invalid. The stimulus to exertion removed, there was nothing to rouse her from the languid torpor of her nature, mental and physical. Invalid habits gave her sufficient occupation, and she showed no preference for the company of any one except Phœbe or her maid, to whose control her passive nature succumbed. At Boodle’s bidding, she rose, dressed, ate, drank, and went to bed; at Phœbe’s she saw her other children, heard Robert read, or signed papers for Mervyn. But each fresh exertion cost much previous coaxing and subsequent plaintiveness; and when Phœbe, anxious to rouse her, persuaded her to come down-stairs, her tottering steps proved her feebleness; and though her sons showed her every attention, she had not been in the drawing-room ten minutes before a nervous trembling and faintness obliged them to carry her back to her room.
The family apothecary, a kind old man, declared that there was nothing seriously amiss, and that she would soon ‘recover her tone.’ But it was plain that much would fall on Phœbe, and Robert was uneasy at leaving her with so little assistance or comfort at hand. He even wrote to beg his eldest sister to come for a few weeks till his mother’s health should be improved; but Sir Nicholas did not love the country in the winter, and Augusta only talked of a visit in the spring.
Another vexation to Robert was the schoolroom. During the last few months Bertha had outgrown her childish distaste to study, and had exerted her mind with as much eagerness as governess could desire; her translations and compositions were wonders of ease and acuteness; she had plunged into science, had no objection to mathematics, and by way of recreation wandered in German metaphysics. Miss Fennimore rather discouraged this line, knowing how little useful brain exercise she herself had derived from Kant and his compeers, but this check was all that was wanting to give Bertha double zest, and she stunned Robert with demonstrations about her ‘I’ and her ‘not I,’ and despised him for his contempt of her grand discoveries.
He begged for a prohibition of the study, but Miss Fennimore thought this would only lend it additional charms, and added that it was a field which the intellect must explore for itself, and not take on the authority of others. When this answer was reported through Phœbe, Robert shrugged his shoulders, alarmed at the hot-bed nurture of intellect and these concessions to mental independence, only balanced by such loose and speculative opinions as Miss Fennimore had lately manifested to him. Decidedly, he said, there ought to be a change of governess and system.
But Phœbe, tears springing into her eyes, implored him not to press it. She thoroughly loved her kind, clear-headed, conscientious friend, who had assisted her so wisely and considerately through this time of trouble, and knew how to manage Maria. It was no time for a fresh parting, and her mother was in no state to be harassed by alterations. This Robert allowed with a sigh, though delay did not suit with his stern, uncompromising youthfulness, and he went on to say, ‘You will bear it in mind, Phœbe. There and elsewhere great changes are needed. This great, disorderly household is a heavy charge. Acting for my mother, as you will have to do, how are you to deal with the servants?’
‘None of them come in my way, except dear old Lieschen, and Boodle, and Mrs. Brisbane, and they are all kind and thoughtful.’
‘Surface work, Phœbe. Taking my mother’s place, as you do now, you will, or ought to, become aware of the great mischiefs below stairs, and I trust you will be able to achieve a great reformation.’
‘I hope—’ Phœbe looked startled, and hesitated. ‘Surely, Robert, you do not think I ought to search after such things. Would it be dutiful, so young as I am?’
‘Perhaps you are right,’ said Robert; ‘only, Phœbe, Phœbe, never let toleration harden you to be indifferent to evil.’
‘I hope not,’ said Phœbe, gravely.
‘My poor child, you are in for a world of perplexities! I wish I had not to leave you to them.’
‘Every labyrinth has a clue,’ said Phœbe, smiling; ‘as Miss Fennimore says when she gives us problems to work. Only you know the terms of the problem must be stated before the solution can be made out; so it is of no use to put cases till we know all the terms.’
‘Right, Phœbe. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’
‘I cannot see the evil yet,’ said Phœbe; ‘the trouble has brought so much comfort. That happy Sunday with you, and my own year of being with them both, have been such blessings! Last year, how much worse it would have been for us all, when I scarcely knew mamma or Mervyn, and could not go about alone nor to church! And Miss Charlecote will soon come home. There is so much cause for thankfulness, that I can’t be afraid.’
Robert said no more, but felt that innocent buoyancy a mystery to his lower-pitched spirit. Never very gay or merry, Phœbe had a fund of happiness and a power of finding and turning outwards the bright side, which made her a most comfortable companion.
CHAPTER XV
Happy are they that learn in Him,
Though patient suffering teach
The secret of enduring strength,
And praise too deep for speech:
Peace that no pressure from without,
No strife within can reach.—A. L. Waring
Well was it for Phœbe that she had been trained to monotony, for her life was most uniform after Robert had left home. Her schoolroom mornings, her afternoons with her mother, her evenings with Mervyn, were all so much alike that one week could hardly be distinguished from another. Bertha’s vagaries and Mervyn’s periodical journeys to London were the chief varieties, certainly not her mother’s plaintiveness, her brother’s discontent, or the sacrifice of her own inclinations, which were pretty certain to be traversed, but then, as she said, something else happened that did as well as what she had wished.
One day, when Mervyn had been hunting, and had come home tired, he desired her to give him some music in the evening. She took the opportunity of going over some fine old airs, which the exigencies of drawing-room display had prevented her from practising for some time. Presently she found him standing by her, his face softer than usual. ‘Where did you get that, Phœbe?’
‘It is Haydn’s. I learnt it just after Miss Fennimore came.’
‘Play it again; I have not heard it for years.’
She obeyed, and looked at him. He was shading his face with his hand, but he hardly spoke again all the rest of the evening.
Phœbe’s curiosity was roused, and she tried the effect of the air on her mother, whose great pleasure was her daughter’s music, since a piano had been moved into her dressing-room. But it awoke no association there, and ‘Thank you, my dear,’ was the only requital.
While the next evening she was wondering whether to volunteer it, Mervyn begged for it, and as she finished, asked, ‘What does old Gay say of my mother now?’
‘He thinks her decidedly better, and so I am sure she is. She has more appetite. She really ate the breast of a partridge to-day!’
‘He says nothing of a change?’
‘She could not bear the journey.’
‘It strikes me that she wants rousing. Shut up in a great lonely house like this, she has nothing cheerful to look at. She would be much better off at Brighton, or some of those places where she could see people from the windows, and have plenty of twaddling old dowager society.’
‘I did ask Mr. Gay about the sea, but he thought the fatigue of the journey, and the vexing her by persuading her to take it, would do more harm than the change would do good.’
‘I did not mean only as a change. I believe she would be much happier living there, with this great place off her hands. It is enough to depress any one’s spirits to live in a corner like a shrivelled kernel in a nut.’
‘Go away!’ exclaimed Phœbe. ‘Mervyn! it is her home! It is her own!’
‘Well, I never said otherwise,’ he answered, rather crossly; ‘but you know very well that it is a farce to talk of her managing the house, or the estate either. It was bad enough before, but there will be no check on any one now.’
‘I thought you looked after things.’
‘Am I to spend my life as a steward? No, if the work is to be in my hands, I ought to be in possession at once, so as to take my place in the county as I ought, and cut the City business. The place is a mere misfortune and encumbrance to her as she is, and she would be ten times happier at a watering-place.’
‘Mervyn, what do you mean? You have all the power and consequence here, and are fully master of all; but why should not poor mamma live in her own house?’
‘Can’t you conceive that a man may have reasons for wishing to be put in possession of the family place when he can enjoy it, and she can’t? Don’t look at me with that ridiculous face. I mean to marry. Now, can’t you see that I may want the house to myself?’
‘You are engaged!’
‘Not exactly. I am waiting to see my way through the bother.’
‘Who is it? Tell me about it, Mervyn.’
‘I don’t mind telling you, but for your life don’t say a word to any one. I would never forgive you, if you set my Ladies Bannerman and Acton at me.’
Phœbe was alarmed. She had little hope that their likings would coincide; his manner indicated defiance of opinion, and she could not but be averse to a person for whose sake he wished to turn them out. ‘Well,’ was all she could say, and he proceeded: ‘I suppose you never heard of Cecily Raymond.’
‘Of Moorcroft?’ she asked, breathing more freely. ‘Sir John’s daughter?’
‘No, his niece. It is a spooney thing to take up with one’s tutor’s daughter, but it can’t be helped. I’ve tried to put her out of my head, and enter on a more profitable speculation, but it won’t work!’
‘Is she very pretty—prettier than Lucilla Sandbrook?’ asked Phœbe, unable to believe that any other inducement could attach him.
‘Not what you would call pretty at all, except her eyes. Not a bit fit to make a figure in the world, and a regular little parsoness. That’s the deuce of it. It would be mere misery to her to be taken to London and made to go into society; so I want to have it settled, for if she could come here and go poking into cottages and schools, she would want nothing more.’
‘Then she is very good?’
‘You and she will be devoted to each other. And you’ll stand up for her, I know, and then a fig for their two ladyships. You and I can be a match for Juliana, if she tries to bully my mother. Not that it matters. I am my own man now; but Cecily is crotchety, and must not be distressed.’
‘Then I am sure she would not like to turn mamma out,’ said Phœbe, stoutly.
‘Don’t you see that is the reason I want to have it settled beforehand. If she were a party to it, she would never consent; she would be confoundedly scrupulous, and we should be all worried to death. Come, you just sound my mother; you can do anything with her, and it will be better for you all. You will be bored to death here, seeing no one.’
‘I do not know whether it be a right proposal to make.’
‘Right? If the place had been my father’s, it would be a matter of course.’
‘That makes the whole difference. And even so, would not this be very soon?’
‘Of course you know I am proposing nothing at once. It would not be decent, I suppose, to marry within the half-year; but, poor little thing, I can’t leave her in suspense any longer. You should not have played that thing.’
‘Then you know that she cares for you?’
He laughed consciously at this home question.
‘It must be a long time since you were at Mr. Raymond’s.’
‘Eight years; but I have made flying visits there since, and met her at her uncle’s. Poor little thing, she was horribly gone off last time, and very ungracious, but we will find a remedy!’
‘Then you could not gain consent to it?’
‘It never came to that. I never committed myself.’
‘But why not? If she was so good, and you liked her, and they all wanted you to marry, I can’t see why you waited, if you knew, too, that she liked you—I don’t think it was kind, Mervyn.’
‘Ah! women always hang by one another. See here, Phœbe, it began when I was as green as yourself, a mere urchin, and she a little unconscious thing of the same age. Well, when I got away, I saw what a folly it was—a mere throwing myself away! I might have gone in for rank or fortune, as I liked; and how did I know that I was such a fool that I could not forget her? If Charles Charteris had not monopolized the Jewess, I should have been done for long ago! And apart from that, I wasn’t ready for domestic joys, especially to be Darby to such a pattern little Joan, who would think me on the highway to perdition if she saw Bell’s Life on the table, or heard me bet a pair of gloves.’
‘You can’t have any affection for her,’ cried Phœbe, indignantly.
‘Didn’t I tell you she spoilt the taste of every other transaction of the sort? And what am I going to do now? When she has not a halfpenny, and I might marry anybody!’
‘If you cared for her properly, you would have done it long before.’
‘I’m a dutiful son,’ he answered, in an indifferent voice, that provoked Phœbe to say with spirit, ‘I hope she does not care for you, after all.’
‘Past praying for, kind sister. Sincerely I’ve been sorry for it; I would have disbelieved it, but the more she turns away, the better I know it; so you see, after all, I shall deserve to be ranked with your hero, Bevil Acton.’
‘Mervyn, you make me so angry that I can hardly answer! You boast of what you think she has suffered for you all this time, and make light of it!’
‘It wasn’t my fault if my poor father would send such an amiable youth into a large family. Men with daughters should not take pupils. I did my best to cure both her and myself, but I had better have fought it out at once when she was younger and prettier, and might have been more conformable, and not so countrified, as you’ll grow, Phœbe, if you stay rusting here, nursing my mother and reading philosophy with Miss Fennimore. If you set up to scold me, you had better make things easy for me.’
Phœbe thought for a few moments, and then said, ‘I see plainly what you ought to do, but I cannot understand that this makes it proper to ask my mother to give up her own house, that she was born to. I suppose you would call it childish to propose your living with us; but we could almost form two establishments.’
‘My dear child, Cecily would go and devote herself to my mother. I should never have any good out of her, and she would get saddled for life with Maria.’
‘Maria is my charge,’ said Phœbe, coldly.
‘And what will your husband say to that?’
‘He shall never be my husband unless I have the means of making her happy.’
‘Ay, there would be a frenzy of mutual generosity, and she would be left to us. No; I’m not going to set up housekeeping with Maria for an ingredient.’
‘There is the Underwood.’
‘Designed by nature for a dowager-house. That would do very well for you and my mother, though Cheltenham or Brighton might be better. Yes, it might do. You would be half a mile nearer your dear Miss Charlecote.’
‘Thank you,’ said Phœbe, a little sarcastically; but repenting she added, ‘Mervyn, I hope I do not seem unkind and selfish; but I think we ought to consider mamma, as she cannot stand up for herself just now. It is not unlikely that when mamma hears you are engaged, and has seen and grown fond of Miss Raymond, she may think herself of giving up this place; but it ought to begin from her, not from you; and as things are now, I could not think of saying anything about it. From what you tell me of Miss Raymond, I don’t think she would be the less likely to take you without Beauchamp than with it; indeed, I think you must want it less for her sake than your own.’
‘Upon my word, Mrs. Phœbe, you are a cool hand!’ exclaimed Mervyn, laughing; ‘but you promise to see what can be done as soon as I’ve got my hand into the matter.’
‘I promise nothing,’ said Phœbe; ‘I hope it will be settled without me, for I do not know what would be the most right or most kind, but it may be plainer when the time comes, and she, who is so good, will be sure to know. O Mervyn, I am very glad of that!’
Phœbe sought the west wing in such a tingle of emotion that she only gave Miss Fennimore a brief good night instead of lingering to talk over the day. Indignation was foremost. After destroying Robert’s hopes for life, here was Mervyn accepting wedded happiness as a right, and after having knowingly trifled with a loving heart for all these years, coolly deigning to pick it up, and making terms to secure his own consequence and freedom from all natural duties, and to thrust his widowed mother from her own home. It was Phœbe’s first taste of the lesson so bitter to many, that her parents’ home was not her own for life, and the expulsion seemed to her so dreadful that she rebuked herself for personal feeling in her resentment, and it was with a sort of horror that she bethought herself that her mother might possibly prefer a watering-place life, and that it would then be her part to submit cheerfully. Poor Miss Charlecote! would not she miss her little moonbeam? Yes, but if this Cecily were so good, she would make up to her. The pang of suffering and dislike quite startled Phœbe. She knew it for jealousy, and hid her face in prayer.
The next day was Sunday, and Mervyn made the unprecedented exertion of going twice to church, observing that he was getting into training. He spent the evening in dwelling on Cecily Raymond, who seemed to have been the cheerful guardian elder sister of a large family in narrow circumstances, and as great a contrast to Mervyn himself as was poor Lucilla to Robert; her homeliness and seriousness being as great hindrances to the elder brother, as fashion and levity to the younger. It was as if each were attracted by the indefinable essence, apart from all qualities, that constitutes the self; and Haydn’s air, learnt long ago by Cecily as a surprise to her father on his birthday, had evoked such a healthy shoot of love within the last twenty-four hours, that Mervyn was quite transformed, though still rather unsuitably sensible of his own sacrifice, and of the favour he was about to confer on Cecily in entering on that inevitable period when he must cease to be a gentleman at large.
On Monday he came down to breakfast ready for a journey, as Phœbe concluded, to London. She asked if he would return by the next hunting day. He answered vaguely, then rousing himself, said, ‘I say, Phœbe, you must write her a cordial sisterly sort of letter, you know; and you might make Bertha do it too, for nobody else will.’
‘I wrote to Juliana on Friday.’
‘Juliana! Are you mad?’
‘Oh! Miss Raymond! But you told me you had said nothing! You have not had time since Friday night to get an answer.’
‘Foolish child, no; but I shall be there to-night or to-morrow.’
‘You are going to Sutton?’
‘Yes; and, as I told you, I trust to you to write such a letter as to make her feel comfortable. Well, what’s the use of having a governess, if you don’t know how to write a letter?’
‘Yes, Mervyn, I’ll write, only I must hear from you first.’
‘I hate writing. I tell you, if you write—let me see, on Wednesday, you may be sure it is all over.’
‘No, Mervyn, I will not be so impertinent,’ said Phœbe, and the colour rushed into her face as she recollected the offence that she had once given by manifesting a brother’s security of being beloved. ‘It would be insulting her to assume that she had accepted you, and write before I knew, especially after the way you have been using her.’
‘Pshaw! she will only want a word of kindness; but if you are so fanciful, will it do if I put a cover in the post? There! and when you get it on Wednesday morning, you write straight off to Cecily, and when you have got the notion into my mother’s understanding, you may write to me, and tell me what chance there is of Beauchamp.’
What chance of Beauchamp! The words made Phœbe’s honest brow contract as she stood by the chimney-piece, while her brother went out into the hall. ‘That’s all he cares for,’ she thought. ‘Poor mamma! But, oh! how unkind. I am sending him away without one kind wish, and she must be good—so much better than I could have hoped!’
Out she ran, and as he paused to kiss her bright cheek, she whispered, ‘Good-bye, Mervyn; good speed. I shall watch for your cover.’
She received another kiss for those words, and they had been an effort, for those designs on Beauchamp weighed heavily on her, and the two tasks that were left to her were not congenial. She did not know how to welcome a strange sister, for whose sake the last of the Mervyns was grudged her own inheritance, and still less did she feel disposed to harass her mother with a new idea, which would involve her in bewilderment and discussion. She could only hope that there would be inspiration in Mervyn’s blank cover, and suppress her fever for suspense.