Is this weak? is it childish indifference? thought Honor, or is it a spirit superior to the selfish personal dread that would proclaim its own injured innocence by a vehement commotion.
Phœbe rejoiced that she had secured her interview with her friend, for when the guests were gone, Mervyn claimed her whole attention, and was vexed if she were not continually at his back. After their téte-à-téte dinner, he kept her sitting over the dessert while he drank his wine. She tried this opportunity of calling his attention to the frauds of the servants, but he merely laughed his mocking laugh at her simplicity in supposing that everybody’s servants did not cheat.
‘Miss Charlecote’s don’t.’
‘Don’t they? Ha—ha! Why, she’s the very mark for imposition, and hypocrisy into the bargain.’
Phœbe did not believe it, but would not argue the point, returning to that nearer home. ‘Nonsense, Phœbe,’ he said; ‘it’s only a choice who shall prey upon one, and if I have a set that will do it with a civil countenance, and let me live out of the spoil, I’ll not be bothered.’
‘I cannot think it need go on so.’
‘Well, it won’t; I shall break up the concern, and let the house, or something.’
‘Let the house? Oh, Mervyn! I thought you meant to be a county man.’
‘Let those look to that who have hindered me,’ said Mervyn, fiercely swallowing one glassful, and pouring out another.
‘Should you live in London?’
‘At Jericho, for aught I care, or any one else.’
Her attempt to controvert this remark brought on a tirade against the whole family, which she would not keep up by reply, and which ended in moody silence. Again she tried to rise, but he asked why she could not stay with him five minutes, and went on absently pouring out wine and drinking it, till, as the clock struck nine, the bottom of the decanter was reached, when he let her lead the way to the drawing-room, and there taking up the paper, soon fell asleep, then awoke at ten at the sound of her moving to go to bed, and kept her playing piquet for an hour and a half.
An evening or two of this kind convinced Phœbe that even with Mervyn alone it was not a desirable life. She was less shocked than a girl used to a higher standard at home might have been, but that daily bottle and perpetual cards weighed on her imagination, and she felt that her younger sisters ought not to grow up to such a spectacle. Still her loving heart yearned over Mervyn, who was very fond of her, and consulted her pleasure continually in his own peculiar and selfish way, although often exceedingly cross to her as well as to every one else; but this ill-temper was so visibly the effect of low spirits that she easily endured and forgave it. She saw that he was both unwell and unhappy. She could not think what would become of him when the present arrangement should be broken up; but could only cling to him, as long as she could pity him. It was no wonder that on the Sunday, Honora seeing her enter the church, could only help being reminded of the expression of that child-saint of Raffaelle, wandering alone through the dragon-haunted wood, wistful and distressed, yet so confident in the Unseen Guide and Guardian that she treads down evils and perils in innocence, unconscious of her full danger and of their full blackness.
CHAPTER XIX
Close within us we will carry, strong, collected, calm, and brave,
The true panoply of quiet which the bad world never gave;
Very serpents in discretion, yet as guileless as the dove,
Lo! obedience is the watchword, and the countersign is love.W. G. Tupper
On the next hunting day, Mervyn took Phœbe with him to the meet, upon a favourite common towards Elverslope, where on a fine morning ladies were as apt to be found as hounds and huntsmen, so that she would be at no loss for companions when he left her.
Phœbe rode, as she did everything else, well, quietly and firmly, and she looked very young and fresh, with her rounded rosy cheeks and chin. Her fair hair was parted back under a round hat, her slenderly plump figure appeared to advantage mounted on her bright bay, and altogether she presented a striking contrast to her brother. She had not seen him in hunting costume for nearly a year, and she observed with pain how much he had lost his good looks; his well-made youthful air was passing away, and his features were becoming redder and coarser; but he was in his best humour, good-natured, and as nearly gay as he ever was; and Phœbe enjoyed her four-miles’ ride in the beauty of a warm December’s day, the sun shining on dewy hedges, and robins and thrushes trying to treat the weather like spring, as they sang amid the rich stores of coral fruit that hung as yet untouched on every hawthorn or eglantine.
The ladies mustered strong on the smooth turf of the chalk down bordering the copse which was being drawn. Phœbe looked out for acquaintance, but a few gentlemen coming up to greet her, she did not notice, as Mervyn did, that the girls with whom he had wished to leave her had become intent on some doings in the copse, and had trotted off with their father. He made his way to the barouche where sat the grande dame of the county, exchanged civilities, and asked leave to introduce his sister. Phœbe, who had never seen the lady before, thought nothing of the cold distant bow; it was for Mervyn, who knew what her greetings could be, to fume and rage inwardly. Other acknowledgments passed, but no party had approached or admitted Phœbe, and when the hounds went away, she was still riding alone with her brother and a young officer. She bade them not to mind her, she would ride home with the servant, and as all were in motion, she had enough to do to hold in her horse, while Mervyn and his friend dashed forward, and soon she found herself alone, except for the groom; the field were well away over the down, the carriages driving off, the mounted maidens following the chase as far as the way was fair and lady-like.
Phœbe had no mind to do so. Her isolation made her feel forlorn, and brought home Miss Charlecote’s words as to the opinion entertained of her by the world. Poor child, something like a tear came into her eye and a blush to her cheek, but, ‘never mind,’ she thought, ‘they will believe Miss Charlecote, and she will take care of me. If only Mervyn will not get angry, and make an uproar! I shall soon be gone away! When shall I come back?’
She rode up to the highest part of the down for a take-leave gaze. There lay Elverslope in its basin-like valley scooped out in the hills, with the purple bloom of autumnal haze veiling its red brick and slate; there, on the other side, the copses and arable fields dipped and rose, and rose and dipped again, till the undulations culminated in the tall fir-trees in the Holt garden, the landmark of the country; and on the bare slope to the west, Beauchamp’s pillars and pediment made a stately speck in the landscape. ‘Home no longer!’ thought Phœbe; ‘there will be strangers there—and we shall be on the world! Oh! why cannot Mervyn be like Robert? How happy we could be!’
Beauchamp had not been a perfect Eden in itself, but still it had all the associations of the paradise of her guileless childhood; and to her the halo around it would always have the radiance of the loving spirit through which she viewed it. The undefined future was hard to bear, but she thought of Robert, and of the promise that neither her sisters nor Miss Fennimore should be parted from her, and tried to rest thankful on that comfort.
She had left the down for the turnpike road, the sounds of the hunt often reaching her, with glimpses of men and dogs in the distance taking a direction parallel with her own. Presently a red coat glanced through the hedge of one of the cross lanes, as if coming towards the road, and as she reached the opening at the end, a signal was made to her to stop. Foreboding some accident, she hastily turned up the narrow white muddy lane, and was met by an elderly gentleman.
‘Don’t be alarmed,’ he said kindly; ‘only your brother seems rather unwell, and I thought I had best see him under your charge.’
Mervyn was by this time in sight, advancing slowly, and Phœbe with rapid thanks rode on to meet him. She knew that dull, confused, dazzled eye belonged to his giddy fits, and did not wonder at the half-uttered murmur, rather in the imprecation line, with which he spoke; but the reel in his saddle terrified her greatly, and she was dismayed to see that the gentleman had proceeded into the high road instead of offering further assistance. She presently perceived that the danger of falling was less real than apparent, and that her brother could still keep his seat, and govern his horse, though nearly unable to look or speak. She kept close to him, and was much relieved to find that the stranger had not returned to the sport, but was leisurely following at some distance behind the groom. Never had two miles seemed so long as under her frequent alarms lest Mervyn should become unable to keep the saddle; but at each moment of terror, she heard the pace of the hunter behind quickened to come to her help, and if she looked round she met an encouraging sign.
When the lodge was reached, and Mervyn, somewhat revived, had ridden through the gates, she turned back to give her warm thanks. A kind, fatherly, friendly face looked at her with a sort of compassion, as putting aside her thanks, the gentleman said, quickly, yet half-reluctantly, ‘Have you ever seen him like this before?’
‘Yes; the giddiness often comes on in the morning, but never so badly as this. I think it was from the rapid motion.’
‘Has he had advice?’
‘I cannot persuade him to see any one. Do you think he ought? I would send at once, at the risk of his being angry.’
‘Does Dr. Martyn attend you? Shall I leave a message as I go home?’
‘I should be most thankful!’
‘It may be nothing, but you will be happier that it should be ascertained;’ and with another kindly nod, he rode off.
Mervyn had gone to his room, and answered her inquiries at the door with a brief, blunt ‘better,’ to be interpreted that he did not wish to be disturbed. She did not see him till dinnertime, when he had a sullen headache, and was gruff and gloomy. She tried to learn who the friend in need had been, but he had been incapable of distinguishing anybody or anything at the moment of the attack, and was annoyed at having been followed. ‘What a pottering ass to come away from a run on a fool’s errand!’ he said. ‘Some Elverslope spy, who will set it about the country that I had been drinking, and cast that up to you!’ and then he began to rail against the ladies, singly and collectively, inconsistently declaring it was Phœbe’s own fault for not having called on them, and that he would have Augusta to Beauchamp, give a ball and supper, and show whether Miss Fulmort were a person to be cut.
This mode of vindication not being to Miss Fulmort’s taste, she tried to avert it by doubts whether Augusta could be had; and was told that, show Lady Bannerman a bottle of Barton’s dry champagne, and she would come to the world’s end. Meantime, Phœbe must come out to-morrow for a round of visits, whereat her heart failed her, as a thrusting of herself where she was not welcome; but he spoke so fiercely and dictatorially, that she reserved her pleading for the morning, when he would probably be too inert not to be glad of the escape.
At last, Dr. Martyn’s presence in the drawing-room was announced to her. She began her explanation with desperate bravery; and though the first words were met with a scoffing grunt, she found Mervyn less displeased than she had feared—nay, almost glad that the step had been taken, though he would not say so, and made a great favour of letting her send the physician to him in the dining-room.
After a time, Dr. Martyn came to tell her that he had found her brother’s head and pulse in such a state as to need instant relief by cupping; and that the young Union doctor had been sent for from the village for the purpose. A constitutional fulness of blood in the head had been aggravated by his mode of life, and immediate discipline, severe regimen, and abstinence from business or excitement, were the only means of averting dangerous illness; in fact, his condition might at any time become exceedingly critical, though perseverance in care might possibly prevent all absolute peril. He himself was thoroughly frightened. His own sensations and forebodings seconded the sentence too completely for resistance; it was almost a relief to give way; and his own method of driving away discomfort had so signally failed, that he was willing to resign himself to others.
Phœbe assisted at the cupping valorously and handily. She had a civil speech from young Mr. Jackson, and Mervyn, as she bade him good night, said, ‘I can’t spare you now, Phœbe.’
‘Not till you are better,’ she answered.
And so she told Miss Charlecote, and wrote to Robert; but neither was satisfied. Honora said it was unlucky. It might certainly be a duty to nurse Mervyn if he were really ill, and if he made himself fit company for her, but it would not set her straight with the neighbourhood; and Robert wrote in visible displeasure at this complication of the difficulty. ‘If Mervyn’s habits had disordered his health, it did not render his pursuits more desirable for his sisters. If he wanted Phœbe’s attendance, let him come to town with her to the Bannermans; but his ailments must not be made an excuse for detaining her in so unsuitable a position as that into which he had brought her.’
It was not so kind a letter as Phœbe would have claimed from Robert, and it was the more trying as Mervyn, deprived of the factitious exhilaration that had kept him up, and lowered by treatment, was dispirited, depressed, incapable of being entertained, cross at her failures, yet exacting of her attendance. He had business at his office in the City that needed his presence, so he insisted till the last morning upon going, and then owned himself in no state to go farther than the study, where he tried to write, but found his brain so weak and confused that he could hardly complete a letter, and was obliged to push over even the simplest calculation to Phœbe. In vain she tried to divert his mind from this perilous exertion; he had not taste nor cultivation enough to be interested in anything she could devise, and harping upon some one of the unpleasant topics that occupied his thoughts was his only entertainment when he grew tired of cards or backgammon.
Phœbe sat up late writing to Robert a more minute account of Mervyn’s illness, which she thought must plead for him; and rather sad at heart, she had gone to bed and fallen asleep, when far on in the night a noise startled her. She did not suspect her own imagination of being to blame, except so far as the associations with illness in the house might have recalled the sounds that once had been wont to summon her to her mother’s room. The fear that her brother might be worse made her listen, till the sounds became matters of certainty. Springing to the window, her eyes seemed to stiffen with amaze as she beheld in the clear, full moonlight, on the frosty sward, the distinctly-traced shadow of a horse and cart. The objects themselves were concealed by a clump of young trees, but their forms were distinctly pictured on the turf, and the conviction flashed over her that a robbery must be going forward.
‘Perils and dangers of this night, indeed!’ One prayer, one thought. She remembered the great house-bell, above the attic stairs in the opposite wing, at the other end of the gallery, which led from the top of the grand staircase, where the chief bedroom doors opened, and a jet of gas burnt all night on the balustrade. Throwing on her dressing-gown, she sped along the passage, and pushing open the swing-door, beheld Mervyn at the door of his own room, and at the head of the stairs a man, in whom she recognized the discarded footman, raising a pistol. One swift bound—her hand was on the gas-pipe. All was darkness, save a dim stripe from within the open door of her mother’s former dressing-room, close to where she stood. She seized the lock, drew it close, and had turned the key before the hand within had time to wrench round the inner handle. That same instant, the flash and report of a pistol made her cry out her brother’s name.
‘Hollo! what did you put out the light for?’ he angrily answered; and as she could just distinguish his white shirt sleeves, she sprang to him. Steps went hurriedly down the stairs. ‘Gone!’ they both cried at once; Mervyn, with an imprecation on the darkness, adding, ‘Go and ring the bell. I’ll watch here.’
She obeyed, but the alarm had been given, and the house was astir. Candle-light gleamed above—cries, steps, and exclamations were heard, and she was obliged to hurry down, to save herself from being run over. Two figures had joined Mervyn, the voice of one proclaiming her as Bertha, quivering with excitement. ‘In there? My emeralds are in there! Open the door, or he will make off with my—my emeralds!’
‘Safe, my child? Don’t stand before that door,’ cried Miss Fennimore, pulling Phœbe back with a fond, eager grasp.
‘Here, some of you,’ shouted Mervyn to the men, whose heads appeared behind the herd of maids, ‘come and lay hold of the fellow when I unlock the door.’
The women fell back with suppressed screams, and readily made way for the men, but they shuffled, backed, and talked of pistols, and the butler suggested the policeman.
‘The policeman—he lives two miles off,’ cried Bertha. ‘He’ll go out of window with my emeralds! Unlock the door, Mervyn.’
‘Unlock it yourself,’ said Mervyn, with an impatient stamp of his foot. ‘Pshaw! but thank you,’ as Miss Fennimore put into his hand his double-barrelled gun, the first weapon she had found—unloaded, indeed, but even as a club formidable enough to give him confidence to unlock the door, and call to the man to give himself up. The servants huddled together like sheep, but there was no answer. He called for a light. It was put into his hand by Phœbe, and as he opened the door, was blown out by a stream of cold air from the open window.
The thief was gone. Everybody was ready to press in and look for him in every impossible place, but he had evidently escaped by the leads of the portico beneath; not, however, with ‘my emeralds’—he had only attempted the lock of the jewel cabinet.
Phœbe hurried to see whether Maria had been frightened, and finding her happily asleep, followed the rest of the world down-stairs, where the servants seemed to be vying with each other in the magnitude of the losses they announced, while Mervyn was shouting himself hoarse with passionate orders that everything should be left alone—doors, windows, plate-chests, and all—for the inspection of the police; and human nature could not resist lifting up and displaying signs of the robbery every moment, in the midst of the storm of vituperation thus excited.
Mervyn could hardly attend to Phœbe’s mention of the cart, but as soon as it reached his senses, he redoubled his hot commands to keepers and stablemen to set off in pursuit, and called for his horse to ride to Elverslope, to give information at the police station and telegraph office. Phœbe implored him to rest and send a messenger, but he roughly bade her not to be so absurd, commanded again that nothing should be disturbed, or, if she would be busy, that she should make out a list of all that was missing.
‘Grateful!’ indignantly thought Miss Fennimore, as Phœbe was left leaning on a pillar in the portico, watching him ride away, the pale light of the yellow setting moon giving an almost ghostly appearance to her white drapery and wistful attitude. Putting an arm round her, the governess found her shivering from head to foot, and pale and cold as marble; her knees knocked together when she walked, and her teeth chattered as she strove to smile, but her quietness still showed itself in all her movements, as she returned into the hall, and reached the welcome support of a chair beside the rekindled fire.
Miss Fennimore chafed her hands, and she looked up, smiled, and said, ‘Thank you.’
‘Then you were frightened, after all, Phœbe,’ cried Bertha, triumphantly.
‘Was I?—I don’t know,’ said Phœbe, as in a dream.
‘What, when you don’t know what you are talking of, and are still trembling all over?’
‘I can’t tell. I think what came on me then was thankfulness.’
‘I am sure we may be thankful that our jewels are the only things safe!’
‘Oh! Bertha, you don’t know, then, that the man was taking aim at Mervyn!’ and the shudder returned.
‘There, Phœbe, for the sake of candour and psychology, confess your terror.’
‘Indeed, Bertha,’ said Phœbe, with a smile on her tremulous lip, ‘it is very odd, but I don’t think I was afraid; there was a feeling of shadowing Wings that left no room for terror.’
‘That enabled you to think and act?’ asked Miss Fennimore.
‘I didn’t think; it came to me,’ said Phœbe. ‘Pray, let me go; Bertha dear, you had better go to bed. Pray lie down, Miss Fennimore.’
She moved slowly away, her steps still unsteady and her cheeks colourless, but the sweet light of thankfulness on her face; while Bertha said, in her moralizing tone, ‘It is a curious study to see Phœbe taking her own steady nerves and power of resource for something external to herself, and being pious about it.’
Miss Fennimore was not gratified by her apt pupil’s remark. ‘If Phœbe’s conduct do not fill you with reverence, both for her and that which actuates her, I can only stand astonished,’ she said.
Bertha turned away, and erected her eyebrows.
No one could go to bed, and before five o’clock Phœbe came down, dressed for the day, and set to work with the butler and the inventory of the plate to draw up an account of the losses. Not merely the plate in common use was gone, but the costly services and ornaments that had been the glory of old Mr. Fulmort’s heart; and the locks had not been broken but opened with a key; the drawing-rooms had been rifled of their expensive bijouterie, and the foray would have been completely successful had it included the jewels. There were no marks of a violent entrance; windows and doors were all fastened as usual, with the single exception of the back door, which was found ajar, but with no traces of having been opened in an unusual manner, though the heavy bolts and bars would have precluded an entrance from the outside even with a false key.
Early in the day, Mervyn returned with the superintendent of police. He was still too much excited to rest, and his heavy tread re-echoed from floor to floor, as he showed the superintendent round the house, calling his sister or the servants to corroborate his statements, or help out his account of what he had hardly seen or comprehended. Thus he came to Phœbe for her version of the affair in the gallery, of which he only knew his own share—the noise that had roused him, the sight of the burglar, the sudden darkness, the report of the pistol; and the witness of his danger—the bullet—was in the wall nearly where his head had been. When Phœbe had answered his questions, he gazed at her, and exclaimed—‘Hallo! why, Phœbe, it seems that but for you, Parson Robert would be in possession here!’ and burst into a strange nervous laugh, ending by coming to her and giving a hearty kiss to her forehead, ere hurrying away to report her evidence to the policeman.
When all measures had been taken, intelligence sent back to the station, and a search instituted in every direction, Mervyn consented to sit down to breakfast, but talked instead of eating, telling Phœbe that even without her recognition of James Smithson, the former footman, the superintendent would have attributed the burglary to a person familiar with the house, provided with facsimiles of all the keys, except those of the jewels, as well as sufficiently aware of the habits of the family to make the attempt just before the jewels were to be removed, and when the master was likely to be absent. The appearance of the back door had led to the conclusion that the thieves had been admitted from within; a London detective had therefore been sent for, who was to come in the guise of a clerk from the distillery, bringing down the books to Mr. Fulmort, and Phœbe was forbidden to reveal his true character to any one but Miss Fennimore. So virulently did Mervyn talk of Smithson, that Phœbe was sorry she had recognized him, and became first compassionate, then disconcerted and shocked. She rose to leave the room as the only means of silencing him; he got up to come after her, abusing the law because house-breaking was not a hanging matter, his face growing more purple with passion every moment; but his steps suddenly failed, his exclamation transferred his fury to his own giddiness, and Phœbe, flying to his side, was only just in time to support him to a couch. It was the worst attack he had yet had, and his doctors coming in the midst of it, used prompt measures to relieve him, and impressed on both him and his sister that everything would depend on perfect quiet and absence from all disturbance; and he was so much exhausted by the reaction of his excitement, loss of blood, and confusion of head, that he attempted little but long fretful sighs when at length he was left to her. After much weariness and discomfort he fell asleep, and Phœbe ventured to creep quietly out of the library to see Miss Charlecote, who was hearing the night’s adventures in the schoolroom. Scarcely, however, had Honor had time to embrace the little heroine, whose conduct had lost nothing in Miss Fennimore’s narration, when a message came from Elverslope. It was the day of the petty sessions, and a notable bad character having been taken up with some suspicious articles upon him, the magistrates were waiting for Mr. Fulmort to make out the committal on his evidence.
‘I must go instead,’ said Phœbe, after considering for a moment.
‘My dear,’ exclaimed Honor, ‘you do not know how unpleasant it will be!’
‘Mervyn must sleep,’ said Phœbe; ‘and if this be an innocent man, he ought to be cleared at once. If it be not improper, I think I ought to go. May I?’ looking at the governess, who suggested her speaking to the superintendent, and learning whether her brother had been absolutely summoned.
It proved to be only a verbal message, and the superintendent urged her going, telling her that her evidence would suffice for the present, and that she would be the most important witness at the assizes—which he evidently considered as a great compliment.
Miss Charlecote undertook to go and take care of her young friend, and they set off in silence, Phœbe leaning back with her veil down, and Honor, perceiving that she needed this interval of quiet repose, watching her with wonder. Had it been Honor’s own case, she would have hung back out of dislike to pursuing an enemy, and from dread of publicity, but these objections had apparently not occurred to the more simple mind, only devising how to spare her brother; and while Honor would have been wretched from distrust of her own accuracy, and her habits of imperfect observation would have made her doubt her own senses and memory, she honoured Phœbe’s careful training in seeing what she saw, and hearing what she heard, without cross lights or counter sounds from imagination. Once Phœbe inquired in a low, awe-struck voice, ‘Shall I be put on oath?’
‘Most likely, my dear.’
Phœbe’s hands were pressed together as though in preparation for a religious rite. She was not dismayed, but from her strict truth at all times, she was the more sensible of the sacredness and solemnity of the great appeal.
An offence on so large a scale had brought a throng of loiterers to the door of the town-hall, and Honor felt nervous and out of place as way was made for the two ladies to mount the stairs to the justice-room; but there she was welcomed by several of the magistrates, and could watch Phœbe’s demeanour, and the impression it made on persons accustomed to connect many strange stories with the name of Miss Fulmort. That air of maidenly innocence, the girlish form in deep mourning, the gentle seriousness and grave composure of the young face, the simple, self-possessed manner, and the steady, distinct tones of the clear, soft voice were, as Honor felt, producing an effect that was shown in the mood of addressing her, always considerate and courteous, but increasing in respect and confidence.
And as Phœbe raised her eyes, the chairman’s face—the first to meet her glance—was the kind ruddy one, set in iron gray hair, that she remembered as belonging to the hunter who had sacrificed the run to see Mervyn safely home. The mutual recognition, and the tone of concern for his illness, made her feel in the presence of a friend, and she was the more at ease in performing her part.
To her great relief, the man in custody was unknown to her. James Smithson, she said, was taller, and had a longer face, and she had not seen him whom she had locked into the dressing-room. However, she identified a gold and turquoise letter-weight; and the setting of a seal, whence the stone with the crest had been extracted, both of which had been found in the man’s pocket, together with some pawnbroker’s tickets, which represented a buhl-clock and other articles from Beauchamp. She was made to give an account of the robbery. Honor had never felt prouder of any of her favourites than of her, while listening to the modest, simple, but clear and circumstantial recital, and watching how much struck the country gentlemen were by the girl who had been of late everywhere pitied or censured.
The statement over, she was desired to answer a few questions from Captain Morden, the chief of the constabulary force, who had come from the county town to investigate the affair. Taking her aside, he minutely examined her on the appearance of some of the articles mentioned in the inventory, on the form of the shadow of the horse and cart, on the thieves themselves, and chiefly on Smithson, and how she could be so secure of the identity of the robber in the pea-jacket with the footman in powder and livery.
‘I can hardly tell,’ said Phœbe; ‘but I have no doubt in my own mind.’
‘Was he like this?’ asked Captain Morden, showing her a photograph.
‘Certainly not.’
‘Nor this?’
‘No.’
‘Nor this?’
‘Yes, that is Smithson in plain clothes.’
‘Right, Miss Fulmort. You have an eye for a likeness. These fellows have such a turn for having their portraits done, that in these affairs we always try if the shilling photographers have duplicates. This will be sent to town by the next train.’
‘I am not sure that I should have known it if I had not seen it before.’
‘Indeed! Should you object to tell me under what circumstances?’
‘At the photographer’s, at the time he was at Hiltonbury,’ said Phœbe. ‘I went to him with one of my sisters, and we were amused by finding many of the likenesses of our servants. Smithson and another came in to be taken while we were there, and we afterwards saw this portrait when calling for my sister’s.’
‘Another—another servant?’ said the keen captain.
‘Yes, one of the maids.’
‘Her name, if you please.’
‘Indeed,’ said Phœbe, distressed, as she saw this jotted down. ‘I cannot bring suspicion and trouble on any one.’
‘You will do no such thing, Miss Fulmort. We will only keep our eye on her. Neither she, nor any one else, shall have any ground for supposing her under suspicion, but it is our duty to miss no possible indication. Will you oblige me with her name?’
‘She is called Jane, but I do not know her real name,’ said Phœbe, with much reluctance, and in little need of the injunction to secrecy on this head. The general eagerness to hunt down the criminals saddened her, and she was glad to be released, with thanks for her distinct evidence. The kind old chairman then met her, quite with an air of fatherly protection, such as elderly men often wear towards orphaned maidens, and inquired more particularly for her brother’s health. She was glad to thank him again for having sent the physician, when his aid was so needful, and she was in so much difficulty. ‘A bold stroke,’ he, said, smiling; ‘I thought you might throw all the blame on me if it were needless.’
‘Needless—oh! it may have saved him. Is that the carriage? I must get home as soon as I can.’
‘Yes, I am sure you must be anxious, but I hope to see more of you another time. Lady Raymond must come and see if you cannot find a day to spend with my girls.’
Lady Raymond! So this was Sir John! Mervyn’s foe and maligner! Was he repenting at the sight of what he had done? Yet he really looked like a very good, kind old man, and seemed satisfied with the very shabby answer he obtained to a speech that filled Honor with a sense of her young friend’s victory. There was Phœbe, re-established in the good graces of the neighbourhood, favoured by the very élite of the county for goodness, sought by those who had never visited at Beauchamp in the days of its gaiety and ostentation! Ungrateful child, not to be better pleased—only saying that she supposed she should go away when her brother should be well again, and not seeing her way to any day for Moorcroft! Was she still unforgiving for Mervyn’s rejection, or had she a feeling against visiting those who had not taken notice of her family before?
Mervyn met Phœbe in the hall, still looking very ill, with his purple paleness, his heavy eyes, and uncertain steps, and though he called himself all right, since his sleep, it was with a weary gasp that he sank into his chair, and called on her for an account of what she had done. His excitement seemed to have burnt itself out, for he listened languidly, and asked questions by jerks, dozing half-way through the answer, and wakening to some fresh inquiry; once it was—‘And did the old sinner take any notice of you?’
‘The prisoner?’
‘Nonsense. Old Raymond. Of course he was in the chair.’
‘He was very kind. It was he who came home from the hunt with us the other day.’
‘Ha! I said it was some old woman of a spy, wanting to get up a story against me!’
‘Nay, I think he felt kindly, for he talked of Lady Raymond calling, and my spending a day at Moorcroft.’
‘Oh! so the godly mean to rescue you, do they?’
‘I did not accept. Perhaps they will never think of it again.’
‘No; his ladies will not let him!’ sneered Mervyn.
Nevertheless, his last words that night were, ‘So the Raymonds have asked you!’
He was in a more satisfactory state the next day; feeble, but tamed into endurance of medical treatment, and almost indifferent about the robbery; as though his passion were spent, and he were tired of the subject. However, the police were alert. The man whom they had taken up was a squatter in the forest, notorious as a poacher and thief, and his horse and cart answered to Phœbe’s description of the shadow. He had been arrested when returning with them from the small seaport on the other side of the forest in the next county, and on communicating with the authorities there, search at a dealer’s in marine stores had revealed hampers filled with the Beauchamp plate, as yet unmelted. The spoils of lesser bulk had disappeared with Smithson and the other criminal.
CHAPTER XX
Mascarille.—Oh! oh! je ne prenois pas garde;
Tandis que sans songer à mal, je vous regarde
Votre œil en tapinois me dérobe mon coeur,
Au voleur! au voleur! au voleur! au voleur!Cathos.—Ah! voilà qui est poussé dans le dernier galant!
Les Precieuses Ridicules
The detective arrived, looking so entirely the office clerk as to take in Mervyn himself at first sight; and the rest of the world understood that he was to stay till their master could go over the accounts with him. As housekeeper’s room company, his attentions were doubly relished by the housemaids, and jealousy was not long in prompting the revelation that Jane Hart had been Smithson’s sweetheart, and was supposed to have met him since his dismissal. Following up this trail, the detective proved to his own satisfaction that she had been at a ball at a public-house in the next village the night before the hunt, and had there met both Smithson and the poacher. This, however, he reserved for Mervyn’s private ear, still watching his victim, in the hope that she might unconsciously give some clue to the whereabouts of her lover. The espionage diverted Mervyn, and gave him the occupation for his thoughts that he sorely needed; but it oppressed Phœbe, and she shrank from the sight of the housemaid, as though she herself were dealing treacherously by her.
‘Phœbe,’ said Mervyn, mysteriously, coming into the library, where his tardy breakfast was spread, ‘that villain Smithson has been taken up at Liverpool; and here’s a letter for you to look at. Fenton has captured a letter to that woman Hart, who, he found, was always wanting to go to the post—but he can’t make it out; and I thought it was German, so I brought it to you. It looks as if old Lieschen—
‘No! no! it can’t be,’ cried Phœbe. ‘I’ll clear it up in a moment.’
But as she glanced at the letter the colour fled from her cheek.
‘Well, what is it?’ said Mervyn, impatiently.
‘Oh, Mervyn!’ and she put her hands before her face.
‘Come, the fewer words the better. Out with it at once!’
‘Mervyn! It is to Bertha!’ She stood transfixed.
‘What?’ cried Mervyn.
‘To Bertha,’ repeated Phœbe, looking as if she could never shut her eyes.
‘Bertha? What, a billet-doux; the little precocious pussycat!’ and he laughed, to Phœbe’s increased horror.
‘If it could only be a mistake!’ said she; ‘but here is her name! It is not German, only English in German writing. Oh, Bertha! Bertha!’
‘Well, but who is the fellow? Let me look,’ said Mervyn.
‘It is too foolish,’ said Phœbe, guarding it, in the midst of her cold chills of dismay. ‘There is no surname—only John. Ah! here’s J. H. Oh! Mervyn, could it be Mr. Hastings?’
‘No such thing! John! Why, my name’s John—everybody’s name is John! That’s nothing.’
‘But, Mervyn, I was warned,’ said Phœbe, her eyes again dilating with dismay, ‘that Mr. Hastings never was received into a house with women without there being cause to repent it.’
‘Experience might have taught you how much slanderous gossip to believe by this time! I believe it is some trumpery curate she has been meeting at Miss Charlecote’s school feasts.’
‘For shame, Mervyn,’ cried Phœbe, in real anger.
‘Curates like thirty thousand as much as other men,’ said Mervyn, sulkily.
‘After all,’ said Phœbe, controlling herself, ‘what signifies most is, that poor Bertha should have been led to do such a dreadful thing.’
‘If ever I take charge of a pack of women again! But let’s hear what the rascal says to her.’
‘I do not think it is fair to read it all,’ said Phœbe, glancing over the tender passages. ‘Poor child, how ashamed she will be! But listen—’ and she read a portion, as if meant to restrain the girl’s impatience, promising to offer a visit to Beauchamp, or, if that were refused till the captives were carried off, assuring her there would be ways and means at Acton Manor, where a little coldness from the baronet always secured the lady’s good graces.
Acton Manor was in Mr. Hastings’ neighbourhood, and Mervyn struck his own knee several times.
‘Hum! ha! Was not some chaff going on one day about the heiresses boxed up in the west wing? Some one set you all down at a monstrous figure—a hundred thousand apiece. I wonder if he were green enough to believe it! Hastings! No, it can’t be! Here, we’ll have the impudent child down, and frighten it out of her. But first, how are we to put off that fellow Fenton? Make up something to tell him.’
‘Making up would be of no use,’ said Phœbe; ‘he is too clever. Tell him it is a family matter.’
Mervyn left the room, and Phœbe hid her face in her hands, thunderstruck, and endeavouring to disentangle her thoughts, perturbed between shame, indignation, and the longing to shield and protect her sister. She had not fully realized her sister’s offence, so new to her imagination, when she was roused by Mervyn’s return, saying that he had sent for Bertha to have it over.
Starting up, she begged to go and prepare her sister, but he peremptorily detained her, and, ‘Oh, be kind to her,’ was all that she could say, before in tripped Bertha, looking restless and amazed, but her retroussé nose, round features, and wavy hair so childish that the accusation seemed absurd.
So Mervyn felt it, and in vain drew in his feet, made himself upright, and tried to look magisterial. ‘Bertha,’ he began, ‘Bertha, I have sent for you, Bertha—it is not possible—What’s that?’ pointing to the letter, as though it had been a stain of ink which she had just perpetrated.
Alarmed perhaps, but certainly not confounded, Bertha put her hands before her, and demurely said—‘What do you mean?’
‘What do you mean, Bertha, by such a correspondence as this?’
‘If you know that letter is for me, why did you meddle with it?’ she coolly answered.
‘Upon my word, this is assurance,’ cried Mervyn.
‘Give me my letter,’ repeated Bertha, reaching out for it. ‘No one else has a right to touch it.’
‘If there be nothing amiss,’ said Phœbe, coming to the relief of her brother, who was almost speechless at this audacity, ‘why receive it under cover to a servant?’
‘Because prejudice surrounds me,’ stoutly replied Bertha, with barely a hitch in her speech, as if making a grand stroke; but seeing her brother smile, she added in an annihilating tone, ‘practical tyranny is exercised in every family until education and intellect effect a moral emancipation.’
‘What?’ said Mervyn, ‘education teaching you to write letters in German hand! Fine results! I tell you, if you were older, the disgrace of this would stick to you for life, but if you will tell the whole truth about this scoundrel, and put an end to it, we will do the best we can for you.’
She made up a disdainful mouth, and said, ‘Thank you.’
‘After all,’ said Mervyn, turning to Phœbe, ‘it is a joke! Look at her! She is a baby! You need not have made such a rout. This is only a toy-letter to a little girl; very good practice in German writing.’
‘I am engaged to John Hastings heart and hand,’ said Bertha in high dignity, little knowing that she thus first disclosed the name.
‘Yes, people talk of children being their little wives,’ said Mervyn, ‘but you are getting too old for such nonsense, though he does not think you so.’
‘It is the joint purpose of our lives,’ said Bertha.
Mervyn gave his scoffing laugh, and again addressing Phœbe, said, ‘If it were you, now, or any one with whom he was not in sport, it would be a serious matter. The fellow got himself expelled from Harrow, then was the proverb of even a German university, ran through his means before he was five-and-twenty, is as much at home in the Queen’s Bench as I am in this study, has been outlawed, lived on rouge et noir at Baden till he got whitewashed when his mother died, and since that has lived on betting, or making himself agreeable to whoever would ask him.’
‘Many thanks on the part of your intimate friend,’ said Bertha, with suppressed passion.
Mervyn stamped his foot, and Phœbe defended him with, ‘Men may associate with those who are no companions for their sisters, Bertha.’
‘Contracted minds always accept malignant reports,’ was the reply.
‘Report,’ said Mervyn; ‘I know it as well as I know myself!’ then recollecting himself, ‘but she does not understand, it is of no use to talk to children. Take her away, Phœbe, and keep her in the nursery till Mr. Crabbe comes to settle what is to be done with her.’
‘I insist on having my letter,’ said Bertha, with womanly grandeur.
‘Let her have it. It is not worth bothering about a mere joke,’ said Mervyn, leaning back, wearied of the struggle, in which, provoking as he was, he had received some home thrusts.
Phœbe felt bewildered, and as if she had a perfect stranger on her hands, though Bertha’s high tone was, after all, chiefly from her extremity, and by way of reply to her brother’s scornful incredulity of her exalted position. She was the first to speak on leaving the library. ‘Pray, Phœbe, how came you to tamper with people’s letters?’
Phœbe explained.
‘From Mervyn and his spy one could expect no delicacy,’ said Bertha, ‘but in you it was treachery.’
‘No, Bertha,’ said Phœbe, ‘I was grieved to expose you, but it was my duty to clear the innocent by examining the letter, and Mervyn had a right to know what concerned you when you were under his charge. It is our business to save you, and a letter sent in this way does not stand on the same ground as one coming openly under your own name. But I did not read it to him, Bertha—not all.’
‘If you had,’ said Bertha, more piqued than obliged by this reserve, ‘he would have known it was in earnest and not childish nonsense. You saw that it was earnest, Phœbe?’ and her defiant voice betrayed a semi-distrust.
‘I am afraid it looked very much so,’ said Phœbe; ‘but, Bertha, that would be saddest of all. I am afraid he might be wicked enough to be trying to get your fortune, for indeed—don’t be very much vexed, dearest, I am only saying it for your good—you are not old enough, nor formed, nor pretty enough, really to please a man that has seen so much of the world.’
‘He never met so fresh, or original, or so highly cultivated a mind,’ said Bertha; ‘besides, as to features, there may be different opinions!’
‘But, Bertha, how could you ever see him or speak to him?’
‘Hearts can find more ways than you dream of,’ said Bertha, with a touch of sentiment; ‘we had only to meet for the magnetism of mind to be felt!’
Argument was heartless work. Flattery and the glory of her conquest had entirely filled the child’s mind, and she despised Mervyn and Phœbe far too much for the representations of the one or the persuasions of the other to have the smallest weight with her. Evidently, weariness of her studies, and impatience of discipline had led her to lend a willing ear to any distraction, and to give in to the intercourse that both gratified and amused herself and outwitted her governess, and thence the belief in the power of her own charms, and preference for their admirer, were steps easier than appeared credible to Phœbe. From listening in helpless amaze to a miserable round of pertness and philosophy, Phœbe was called down-stairs to hear that Mervyn had been examining Jane Hart, and had elicited from her that after having once surprised Mr. Hastings and Miss Bertha in conversation, she had several times conveyed notes between them, and since he had left Beauchamp, she had posted two letters to him from the young lady, but this was the first answer received, directed to herself, to be left at the post-office to be called for.
‘Earnest enough on his part,’ said Mervyn; ‘a regular speculation to patch up his fortunes. Well, I knew enough of him, as I told you, but I was fool enough to pity him!’
He became silent, and so did Phœbe. She had been too much overset to look the subject fairly in the face, and his very calmness of voice and the absence of abusive epithets were a token that he was perfectly appalled at what he had brought on his sisters. They both sat still some minutes, when she saw him lean back with his hand to his head, and his eyes closed. ‘There’s a steeple chase!’ he said, as Phœbe laid her cool hand on his burning brow, and felt the throbbing of the swollen veins of his temples. Both knew that this meant cupping, and they sent in haste for the Hiltonbury doctor, but he was out for the day, and would not return till evening. Phœbe felt dull and stunned, as if her decision had caused all the mischief, and more and more were following on, and her spirit almost died within her at Mervyn’s interjection of rage and suffering.
‘Though they curse, yet bless thou,’ had of necessity been her rule while clinging to this brother; a mental ejaculation had become habitual, and this time it brought reaction from her forlorn despondency. She could do something. Twice she had assisted in cupping, and she believed she could perform the operation. No failure could be as hurtful as delay, and she offered to make the attempt. Mervyn growled at her folly, yawned, groaned, looked at his watch, counted the heavy hours, and supposed she must do as she chose.
Her heart rivalled his temples in palpitation, but happily without affecting eye, voice, or hand, and with Lieschen’s help the deed was successfully done, almost with equal benefit to the operator and the patient.
Success had put new life into her; the troubles had been forgotten for the moment, and recurred not as a shameful burthen, caused by her own imprudence, but as a possible turning-point, a subject for action, not for despair, and Phœbe was herself again.
‘What’s that you are writing?’ asked Mervyn, starting from a doze on the sofa.
‘A letter to Robert,’ she answered reluctantly.
‘I suppose you will put it in the Times. No woman can keep a thing to herself.’
‘I would tell no one else, but I wanted his advice.’
‘Oh, I dare say.’
Phœbe saw that to persist in her letter would utterly destroy the repose that was essential in Mervyn’s state, and she laid aside her pen.
‘Going to do it out of sight?’ he petulantly said.
‘No; but at any rate I will wait till Miss Fennimore has talked to Bertha. She will be more willing to listen to her.’
‘Because this is the result of her emancipating education. Ha!’
‘No; but Bertha will attend to her, and cannot say her notions are servile and contracted.’
‘If you say any more, I shall get up and flog them both.’
‘Miss Fennimore is very wise,’ said Phœbe.
‘Why, what has she taught you but the ologies and the Rights of Women?’
‘The chief thing she teaches,’ said Phœbe, ‘is to attend to what we are doing.’
Mervyn laughed, but did not perceive how those words were the key of Phœbe’s character.
‘Sir John and Lady Raymond and Miss Raymond in the drawing-room.’
Unappreciating the benefit of changing the current of thought, Phœbe lamented their admission, and moved reluctantly to the great rooms, where the guests looked as if they belonged to a more easy and friendly region than to that world of mirrors, damask, and gilding.
Sir John shook hands like an old friend, but his wife was one of those homely ladies who never appear to advantage in strange houses, and Phœbe had not learnt the art of ‘lady of the house’ talk, besides feeling a certain chilliness towards Mervyn’s detractors, which rendered her stiff and formal. To her amaze, however, the languishing talk was interrupted by his entrance; he who regarded Sir John as the cause of his disappointment; he who had last met Susan Raymond at the time of his rejection; he whom she had left prostrate among the sofa cushions; he had absolutely exerted himself to brush his hair and put on coat and boots, yet how horribly ill and nervous he looked, totally devoid of his usual cool assurance, uncertain whether to shake hands with the two ladies, and showing a strange restless eagerness as though entirely shaken off his balance.
Matters were mended by his entrance. Phœbe liked Lady Raymond from the moment she detected a sign to the vehement Sir John not to keep his host standing during the discussion of the robbery, and she ventured on expressing her gratitude for his escort on the day of the hunt. Then arose an entreaty to view the scene of the midnight adventure, and the guests were conducted to the gallery, shown where each party had stood, the gas-pipe, the mark of the pistol-shot, and the door was opened to display the cabinet, and the window of the escape. To the intense surprise of her brother and sister, Bertha was examining her emeralds.
She came forward quite at her ease, and if she had been ten years a woman could not more naturally have assumed the entertainment of Lady Raymond, talking so readily that Phœbe would have believed the morning’s transactions a delusion, but for Mervyn’s telegraph of astonishment.
The visitors had been at the Holt, and obtained a promise from Miss Charlecote to spend the ensuing Saturday week at Moorcroft. They begged the sisters to accompany her. Phœbe drew back, though Mervyn hurried out declarations of his not wanting her, and the others never going out, till she hardly knew how it had been decided; but as the guests departed she heard Mervyn severely observing to Bertha—‘no, certainly I should not send you to keep company with any well-behaved young ladies.’
‘Thank you, I have no desire to associate with commonplace girls,’ said Bertha, marching off to the west wing.
‘You will go, Phœbe,’ said Mervyn.
‘Indeed, if I did it would be partly for the sake of giving change to Bertha, and letting her see what nice people really are.’
‘Are you crazy, Phœbe? I would not have Bertha with her impudence and her pedantry go among the Raymonds—no, not for the Bank of England.’
Those words darted into Phœbe’s mind the perception why Mervyn was, in his strange way, promoting her intercourse with Moorcroft, not only as stamping her conduct with approval of people of their worth and weight, but as affording him some slight glimmering of hope. She could not but recollect that the extra recklessness of language which had pained her, ever since his rejection had diminished ever since her report of Sir John’s notice of her at the justice room. Sister-like, she pitied and hoped; but the more immediate care extinguished all the rest, and she was longing for Miss Fennimore’s sympathy, though grieving at the pain the disclosure must inflict. It could not be made till the girls were gone to bed, and at half-past nine, Phœbe sought the schoolroom, and told her tale. There was no answer, but an almost convulsive shudder; her hand was seized, and her finger guided to the line which Miss Fennimore had been reading in the Greek Testament—‘By their fruits ye shall know them.’
Rallying before Phœbe could trace what was passing in her mind, she shut the book, turned her chair to the fire, invited Phœbe to another, and was at once the clear-headed, metaphysical governess, ready to discuss this grievous marvel. She was too generous by nature not to have treated her pupils with implicit trust, and this trust had been abused. Looking back, she and Phœbe could recollect moments when Bertha had been unaccounted for, and must have held interviews with Mr. Hastings. She had professed a turn for twilight walks in the garden, and remained out of doors when the autumn evenings had sent the others in, and on the Sunday afternoons, when Phœbe and Maria had been at church, Miss Fennimore reproached herself exceedingly with having been too much absorbed in her own readings to concern herself about the proceedings of a pupil, whose time on that day was at her own disposal. She also thought that there had been communications by look and sign across the pew at church; and she had remarked, though Phœbe had been too much occupied with her brother to perceive the restlessness that had settled on Bertha from the time of the departure of Mervyn’s guests, and had once reproved her for lingering, as she thought, to gossip with Jane Hart in her bedroom. ‘And now,’ said Miss Fennimore, ‘she should have a thorough change. Send her to school, calling it punishment, if you please, but chiefly for the sake of placing her among laughing girlish girls of the same age, and, above all, under a thoroughly religious mistress of wide intelligence, and who has never doubted.’
‘But we were all to keep together, dear Miss Fennimore—you—’
‘One whose mind has always been balancing between aspects of truth may instruct, but cannot educate. Few minds can embrace the moral virtues unless they are based on an undoubted foundation, connected with present devotional warmth, and future hopes and fears. I see this now; I once thought excellence would approve itself, for its own sake, to others, as it did to myself. I regarded Bertha as a fair subject for a full experiment of my system, with good disposition, good abilities, and few counter influences. I meant to cultivate self-relying, unprejudiced, effective good sense, and see—with prejudices have been rooted up restraints!’
‘Education seems to me to have little to do with what people turn out,’ said Phœbe. ‘Look at poor Miss Charlecote and the Sandbrooks.’
‘Depend upon it, Phœbe, that whatever harm may have ensued from her errors in detail, those young people will yet bless her for the principle she worked on. You can none of you bless me, for having guided the hands of the watch, and having left the mainspring untouched.’
Miss Fennimore had been, like Helvetius and the better class of encyclopædists, enamoured of the moral virtues, but unable to perceive that they could not be separated from the Christian faith, and she learnt like them that, when doctrine ceased to be prominent, practice went after it. Bertha was her Jacobin—and seemed doubly so the next morning, when an interview took place, in which the young lady gave her to understand that she, like Phœbe, was devoid of the experience that would enable them to comprehend the sacred mutual duty of souls that once had spoken. Woman was no longer the captive of the seraglio, nor the chronicler of small beer. Intellectual training conferred rights of choice superior to conventional ties; and, as to the infallible discernment of that fifteen year old judgment, had not she the sole premises to go upon, she who alone had been admitted to the innermost of that manly existence?
‘I always knew Jack to be a clever dog,’ said Mervyn, when this was reported to him, ‘but his soft sawder to a priggish metaphysical baby must have been the best fun in the world?’
Mervyn’s great desire was to keep Bertha’s folly as great a secret as possible; and, by his decision, she was told that grace should be granted her till Mr. Crabbe’s arrival, when, unless she had renounced what he called her silly child’s fancy, stringent measures would be taken, and she would be exposed to the family censure.
‘So,’ said Bertha, ‘you expect to destroy the attraction of souls by physical force!’
And Phœbe wrote to Robert a sorrowful letter, chiefly consisting of the utmost pleadings for Mervyn and Bertha that her loving heart could frame. She was happier when she had poured out her troubles, but grieved when no answer came by the next post. Robert’s displeasure must be great—and indeed but too justly so—since all this mischief was the consequence of the disregard of his wishes. Yet justice was hard between brothers and sisters, especially when Mervyn was in such a suffering state, threatened constantly by attacks of his complaint, which were only warded off by severe and weakening treatment. Phœbe was so necessary to his comfort in waiting on him, and trying to while away his tedious hours of inaction and oppression, that she had little time to bestow upon Bertha, nor, indeed, was talking of any use, as it only gave the young lady an occasion for pouring forth magniloquent sentiments, utterly heedless of the answers. Sad, lonely, and helpless were Phœbe’s feelings, but she was patient, and still went on step by step through the strange tangle, attending to Mervyn hour by hour, always with a gentle cheerful word and smile, and never trusting herself, even when alone, to think of the turmoil and break up that must ensue on her guardian’s arrival.
All was darkness and perplexity before her, but submission and trust were her refuge, and each day of waiting before the crisis was to her feelings a gain.
CHAPTER XXI
O fy gar ride and fy gar rin
And haste ye to find these traitors agen,
For shees be burnt and hees been slein,
The wearifu gaberlunzie man.
Some rade upon horse, some ran afit,
The wife was wud and out of her wit,
She couldna gang, nor yet could she sit,
But aye did curse and ban.—King James V
Mervyn and Phœbe were playing at billiards, as a means of inducing him to take exercise enough to make him sleep. The governess and the two girls were gone to the dentist’s at Elverslope. The winter’s day was closing in, when there was a knock at the door, and they beheld Miss Fennimore, deadly white, and Maria, who flew up to Phœbe, crying—‘Bertha’s gone, Phœbe!’
‘The next up-train stops at Elverslope at 8.30,’ said the governess, staring in Mervyn’s face, as though repeating a lesson. ‘A carriage will be here by seven. I will bring her home, or never return.’
‘Gone!’
‘It was inexcusable in me, sir,’ said Miss Fennimore, resting a hand on the table to support herself. ‘I thought it needlessly galling to let her feel herself watched; and at her request, let her remain in the waiting-room while her sister was in the dentist’s hands. When, after an hour, Maria was released, she was gone.’
‘Alone?’ cried Phœbe.
‘Alone, I hope. I went to the station; the train had been ten minutes gone; but a young lady, alone, in mourning, and with no luggage but a little bag, had got in there for London. Happily, they did not know her; and it was the parliamentary train, which is five hours on the road. I telegraphed at once to your brother to meet her at the terminus.’
‘I have no hope,’ said Mervyn, doggedly, seating himself on the table, his feet dangling. ‘He will be in the lowest gutter of Whittingtonia, where no one can find him. The fellow will meet that miserable child, go off to Ostend this very night, marry her before to-morrow morning. There’s an end of it!’
‘Where does Mr. Hastings lodge, sir?’
‘Nowhere that I know of. There will be no end of time lost in tracing him! No train before 8.30! I’ll go in at once, and have a special.’
‘They cannot put on one before nine, because of the excursion trains for the cattle-show. I should not have been in time had I driven to catch the express at W.,’ said Miss Fennimore, in her clear voice of desperation. ‘The 8.30 reaches town at 11.23. Will you give me the addresses where I may inquire, sir?’
‘You! I am going myself. You would be of no use,’ said Mervyn, in a stunned, mechanical way; and looking at his watch, he went to give orders.
‘He should not go, Phœbe. In his state the mere journey is a fearful risk.’
‘It can’t be helped,’ said Phœbe. ‘I shall go with him. You stay to take care of Maria. There will be Robert to help us;’ and as the governess would have spoken farther, she held up her hands in entreaty—‘O pray don’t say anything! I can’t go on if I do anything but act.’
Yet in the endeavour to keep her brother quiet, and to husband his powers, Phœbe’s movements and words had rather an additional gentleness and deliberation; and so free from bustle was her whole demeanour, that he never comprehended her intention of accompanying him till she stepped into the carriage beside him.
‘What’s this? You coming?’
‘I will give you no trouble.’
‘Well, you may help to manage the girl;’ and he lay back, relieved to be off, but already spent by the hurry of the last two hours. Phœbe could sit and—no—not think, except that Robert was at the other end of the line.
The drive seemed to have lasted half the night ere the lamps of Elverslope made constellations in the valley, and the green and red lights of the station loomed out on the hill. They drove into the circle of gaslights, among the vaporous steeds of omnibuses and flies, and entered the station, Phœbe’s veil down, and Mervyn shading his dazzled eyes from the glare. They were half an hour too soon; and while waiting, it occurred to Phœbe to inquire whether a telegram for Beauchamp had been received. Even so, and they must have crossed the express; but a duplicate was brought to them.
‘Safe. We shall be at Elverslope at 10.20, P.M.’
Assuredly Phœbe did not faint, for she stood on her feet; and Mervyn never perceived the suspension of senses, which lasted till she found him for the second time asking whether she would go home or await the travellers at Elverslope.
‘Home,’ she said, instinctively, in her relief forgetting all the distress of what had taken place, so that her sensations were little short of felicity; and as she heard the 8.30 train roaring up, she shed tears of joy at having no concern therewith. The darkness and Mervyn’s silence were comfortable, for she could wipe unseen her showers of tears at each gust of thankfulness that passed over her; and it was long before she could command her voice even to ask her companion whether he were tired. ‘No,’ he said; but the tone was more than half-sullen; and at the thought of the meeting between the brothers, poor Phœbe’s heart seemed to die within her. Against their dark looks and curt sayings to one another she had no courage.
When they reached home, she begged him to go at once to bed, hoping thus to defer the meeting; but he would not hear of doing so; and her only good augury was that his looks were pale, languid, and subdued, rather than flushed and excited. Miss Fennimore was in the hall, and he went towards her, saying, in a friendly tone, ‘So, Miss Fennimore, you have heard that this unlucky child has given us a fright for nothing.’
The voice in which she assented was hoarse and scarcely audible, and she looked as if twenty years had passed over her head.
‘It was all owing to your promptitude,’ said Mervyn; ‘a capital thought that telegram.’
‘I am glad,’ said Miss Fennimore; ‘but I do not lose sight of my own negligence. It convinces me that I am utterly unfit for the charge I assumed. I shall leave your sisters as soon as new plans can be formed.’
‘Why, I’ll be bound none of your pupils ever played you such a trick before!’
Miss Fennimore only looked as if this convinced her the more; but it was no time for the argument, and Phœbe caressingly persuaded her to come into the library and drink coffee with them, judging rightly that she had tasted nothing since morning.
Afterwards Phœbe induced Mervyn to lie on the sofa, and having made every preparation for the travellers, she sat down to wait. She could not read, she could not work; she felt that tranquillity was needful for her brother, and had learnt already the soothing effect of absolute repose. Indeed, one of the first tokens by which Miss Fennimore had perceived character in Phœbe was her faculty of being still. Only that which has substance can be motionless. There she sat in the lamplight, her head drooping, her hands clasped on her knee, her eyes bent down, not drowsy, not abstracted, not rigid, but peaceful. Her brother lay in the shade, watching her with a half-fascinated gaze, as though a magnetic spell repressed all inclination to work himself into agitation.