Hopes and Fears or, scenes from the life of a spinster

‘You will see,’ said Phœbe, smiling.

‘What do you think, then?’ he demanded, in some alarm.  ‘You know I can’t take to the pious tack.  Will nothing else satisfy her?’

‘You are not the same as you were.  You don’t know what will happen to you yet,’ said Phœbe, playfully.

‘The carriage is ready, ma’am; my lady is waiting,’ said a warning voice.

‘I say,’ quoth Mervyn, intercepting her, ‘not a word to my lady.  It is all conditional, you understand—only that I may ask again, in a year, or some such infernal time, if I am I don’t know what—but they do, I suppose.’

‘Perhaps you will by that time.  Dear Mervyn, I am sorry, but I must go, or Augusta will be coming here.’

He made a ludicrous gesture of shrinking horror, but still detained her to whisper, ‘You’ll meet her at Moorcroft; they will have her for the Forest to-do.’

Phœbe signed her extreme satisfaction, and ran away.

‘I am surprised at you, Phœbe; you have kept me five minutes.’

‘Some young ladies do worse,’ said the Admiral, who was very fond of her; ‘and her time was not lost.  I never saw her look better.’

‘I don’t like such a pair of milkmaid’s cheeks, looking so ridiculously delighted, too,’ said Lady Bannerman, crossly.  ‘Really, Phœbe, one would think you were but just come up from the country, and had never been to a concert before.  Those stupid little white marabouts in your hair again, too!’

‘Well,’ said Sir Nicholas, ‘I take them as a compliment—Phœbe knows I think they become her.’

‘I don’t say they are amiss in themselves, but it is all obstinacy, because I desire her to buy that magnificent ruby bandeau!  How is any one to believe in her fortune if she dresses in that twopenny-halfpenny fashion?  I declare I have a great mind to leave her behind.’

Phœbe could almost have said ‘pray do,’ so much did she long to join the party in Woolstone-lane, where the only alloy was, that poor Maria’s incapacity for secrecy forbade her hearing the good news.

Miss Charlecote, likewise, was secretly a little scandalized at the facility with which the Raymonds had consented to the match; she thought Mervyn improved, but neither religious nor repentant, and could not think Cecily or her family justified in accepting him.  Something of the kind became perceptible to Robert when they first talked over the matter together.

‘It may be so,’ he said, ‘but I really believe that Mervyn will be more susceptible of real repentance when he has imperceptibly been led to different habits and ways of thinking.  In many cases, I have seen that the mind has to clear itself, and leave old things behind before it has the capacity of perceiving its errors.’

‘Repentance must precede amendment.’

‘Some repentance must, but even the sense of the inexpedience and inconvenience of evil habits may be the first step above them, and in time the power of genuine repentance may be attained.’

‘Still, glad as I am for all your sakes, I cannot understand it on Cecily’s part, or how a girl of her tone of mind can marry where there can as yet be no communion of the highest kind.  You would be sorry to see Phœbe do so.’

‘Very sorry.  It is no example, but there may be claims from the mere length of the attachment, which seems to mark her as the appointed instrument for his good.  Besides, she has not fully accepted him; and after such change as he has made, she might not have been justified in denying all encouragement.’

‘She did not seek such justification,’ said Honor laughing, but surprised to find Robert thus lenient in his brother’s case, after having acted so stern a part in his own.

CHAPTER XXVI

Then Robin Hood took them both by the hands,
And danced about the oak tree,
For three merry men, and three merry men,
And three merry men we be.

    —Old Ballad

The case of the three sisters remained a difficulty.  The Bannermans professed to have ‘washed their hands of them,’ their advice not being taken, and Mr. Crabbe could not think himself justified in letting them return to the protection that had so egregiously failed.  Bertha was fretted by the uncertainty, and became nervous, and annoyed with Phœbe for not showing more distress—but going on from day to day in the confidence that matters would arrange themselves.

Phœbe, who had come of age during her foreign tour, had a long conference with her guardian when he put her property into her hands.  The result was that she obtained his permission to inhabit with her sisters the Underwood, a sort of dowager-house belonging to Beauchamp, provided some elderly lady could be found to chaperon them—Miss Fennimore, if they preferred her.

Miss Fennimore was greatly touched with the earnestness of the united entreaties of her pupils, and though regretting the field of usefulness in which she had begun to work, could not resist the pleasure of keeping house with Phœbe, and resuming her studies with Bertha on safer ground.  She could not, however, quit her employment without a half-year’s notice, and when Mervyn went down for a day to Beauchamp, he found the Underwood in such a woful state of disrepair, that turn in as many masons, carpenters, and paperers as he would, there was no hope of its being habitable before Martinmas.  Therefore the intermediate time must be spent in visiting, and though the head-quarters were at the Holt, the Raymonds of Moorcroft claimed the first month, and the promise of Cecily’s presence allured Bertha thither, though the Fulmort mind had always imagined the house highly religious and dull.  Little had she expected to find it ringing with the wild noise and nonsense of a joyous home party of all ages, full of freaks and frolics, laughter and merriment.  Her ready wit would have made her shine brilliantly if her speech had been constantly at command, but she often broke down in the midst of a repartee, and was always in danger of suffering from over-excitement.  Maria, too, needed much watching and tenderness.  Every one was very kind to her, but not exactly knowing the boundary of her powers, the young people would sometimes have brought her into situations to which she was unequal, if Phœbe had not been constantly watching over her.

Between the two sisters, Phœbe’s visit was no sinecure.  She was always keeping a motherly eye and hand over one or the other, sometimes over both, and not unseldom incurring Bertha’s resistance under the petulance of overwrought spirits, or anger at troublesome precautions.  After Cecily’s arrival, however, the task became easier.  Cecily took Bertha off her hands, soothing and repressing those variable spirits, and making a wise and gentle use of the adoration that Bertha lavished on her, keeping her cousins in order, and obviating the fast and furious fun that was too great a change for girls brought up like the Fulmorts.  Maria was safe whenever Cecily was in the room, and Phœbe was able to relax her care and enjoy herself doubly for feeling all the value of the future sister.

She thought Miss Charlecote and Lucilla both looked worn and dispirited, when one day she rode with Sir John to see them and inspect the Underwood, as well as to make arrangements for the Forest Show.  Poor Honora was seriously discomposed at having nothing to show there.  It was the first time that the Holt had failed to shine in its produce, but old Brooks had allowed the whole country round to excel so palpably in all farm crops, and the gardener had taken things so easily in her absence, that everything was mediocre, and she was displeased and ashamed.  Moreover, Brooks had controverted her strictest instructions against harbouring tenants of bad character; he had mismanaged the cattle, and his accounts were in confusion.  He was a thoroughly faithful servant, but like Ponto and the pony, he had grown masterful with age.  Honor found that her presiding eye had certainly done some good, since going away had made things so much worse, and she took Sir John with her to the study to consult him on her difficulties.  Phœbe and Lucilla were left together.

‘I am afraid you are not much better,’ said Phœbe, looking at the languid fragile little being, and her depressed air.

‘Yes, I am,’ she answered, ‘in essentials—but, oh! Phœbe, if you could only teach me to get on with Honor.’

‘Oh,’ said Phœbe, with a tone of disappointment, ‘I hoped all was comfortable now.’

‘So it ought to be!  I am a wretch that it is not; but somehow I get tired to death.  I should like it to be my own fault, but with her I always have a sense of fluffiness.  There is so much figurativeness and dreamy sentiment that one never gets to the firm, clear surface.’

‘I thought that her great charm,’ said Phœbe.  ‘It is a pity to be so dull and unimaginative as I am.’

‘I like you best as you are!  I know what to be at.’

‘Besides, her sensibility and poetry are a fund of happy youthfulness.  Abroad, her enjoyment was multiplied, because every place was full of associations, lighted up by her fancy.

‘Made unsubstantial by her fluff!  No, I cannot like mutton with the wool on!  It is a shame, though, good creature as she is!  I only wanted to make out the philosophy of the wearied, worried condition that her conversation is so apt to bring on in me.  I can’t think it pure wickedness on my own part, for I esteem, and love, and venerate the good soul with all my heart.  I say, Phœbe, were you never in an inward rage when she would say she would not let some fact be true, for the sake of some mythical, romantic figment?  You smile.  Own that you have felt it.’

‘I have thought of Miss Fennimore’s theory, that legends are more veritable exponents of human nature than bare facts.’

‘Say it again, Phœbe.  It sounds very grand.  Whipped cream is a truer exponent of milk than cheese, especially when it tastes of soap-suds.  Is that it?’

‘It is a much prettier thing, and not near so hard and dry,’ said Phœbe; ‘but, you see, you are talking in figures after all.’

‘The effect of example.  Look here, my dear, the last generation was that of mediævalism, ecclesiology, chivalry, symbolism, whatever you may call it.  Married women have worked out of it.  It is the middle-aged maids that monopolize it.  Ours is that of common sense.’

‘I don’t know that it is better or prettier,’ said Phœbe.

‘And it may be worse!  But how are the two to live together when there is no natural conformity—only undeserved benefits on one side and gratitude on the other?’

‘You will be more at ease when you are stronger and better,’ said Phœbe.  ‘Your brother will make you feel more natural with her.’

‘Don’t talk of it, Phœbe.  Think of the scene those two will get up!  And the showing him that terrible little Cockney, Hoeing, as the old woman calls him.  If I could only break the neck of his h’s before poor Owen hears them.’

‘Miss Charlecote did say something of having him here, but she thought you were not strong enough.’

‘Justly judged!  I shall have enough of him by and by, if I take him out to Canada.  Once I used to think that would be deliverance; now it has become nothing but a gigantic trouble!’

‘If you are really equal to it, you will not feel it so, when the time comes.  Bertha was miserable at the thought of moving, till just when she had come to the right point, and then she grew eager for it.’