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

‘To Mr. Randolf, Miss Charlecote’s Canadian cousin.’

Mervyn, who had expected no less than John Raymond, whirled round in indignant surprise, and looked incredulously at her, but was confronted by her two open, unabashed eyes, as she stood firm on both her feet, and continued: ‘I have been thrown a good deal with him, so as to learn his goodness and superiority.  I know you will think it a very bad match, for he has nothing but his hands and head; but we mean to wait till he can offer what are considered as equal terms.  We thought it right you should know.’

‘Upon my word, that’s a clever fellow!’

Phœbe knew very well that this was ironical, but would not so reply.  ‘He has abilities,’ she said, ‘and we are ready to wait till he has made proof of them.’

‘Well, what now?’ he cried in despair.  ‘I did think you the sensible one of the lot.’

‘When you know him,’ she said, with her fearless smile, ‘you will own that I was sensible there.’

‘Really, the child looks so complacent that she would outface me that this mad notion was a fine thing!  I declare it is worse than Bertha’s business; and you so much older!  At least Hastings was a man of family, and this is a Yankee adventurer picked out of the back of a ditch by that young dog, Sandbrook.  Only a Yankee could have had the impudence!  I declare you are laughing all the time.  What have you to say for yourself?’

‘His father was major in the –th dragoons, and was one of the Randolfs of  –shire.  His mother was a Charlecote.  His birth is as good as our own, and you saw that he is a gentleman.  His character and talents have gained his present situation, and it is a profession that gives every opening for ability; nor does he ask for me till his fortune is made.’

‘But hinders you from doing better!  Pray, what would Augusta say to you?’ he added, jocosely, for even while lashing himself up, his tone had been placable.

‘He shall satisfy her.’

‘How long has this been going on?’

‘We only spoke of it yesterday.  Bertha found it out; but I wish no one else to know it except Robert.’

‘Somehow she looks so cool, and she is so entirely the last girl I expected to go crazy, that I can’t laugh at the thing as I ought!  I say, what’s this about Miss Charlecote; will she do anything for him?’

‘I believe not.’

‘And pray who vouches for his antecedents, such as they are.’

‘Mr. Currie and Owen Sandbrook both know the whole.’

‘Is Sandbrook at the Holt?’

‘Yes,’ answered Phœbe, suppressing her strong distaste against bringing him into the affair.

‘Well, I shall make inquiries, and—and—it is a horrid unlucky business, and the old girl should be scarified for putting you in his way.  The end will be that you’ll marry on your own means, and be pinched for life.  Now, look here, you are no fool at the bottom; you will give it up if I find that he is no go.’

‘If it be proved that I ought,’ said Phœbe.  ‘And if you find him what I have told you, you will make no opposition.  Thank you, Mervyn.’

‘Stay,’ said he, laughing, and letting her kiss him, ‘I have made no promises, mind!’

The confidence that Phœbe had earned had stood her in good stead.  Mervyn had great trust in her judgment, and was too happy besides for severity on other people’s love.  Nor were her perfect openness, and fearless though modest independence, without effect.  She was not one who invited tyranny, but truly ‘queen o’er herself,’ she ruled herself too well to leave the reins loose for others to seize.

The result of the interview had surpassed her hopes, and she had nothing to regret but her brother’s implied purpose of consulting Owen Sandbrook.  Friend of Humfrey though he were, she could not feel secure of his generosity, and wished the engineer had been the nearer referee; but she did not say so, as much for shame at her own uncharitableness, as for fear of rousing Mervyn’s distrust; and she was afraid that her injunctions to secrecy would be disregarded.  Fully aware that all would be in common between the husband and wife, she was still taken by surprise when Cecily, coming early next day to the Underwood to see Bertha, took her aside to say, ‘Dearest, I hope this is all right, and for your happiness.’

‘You will soon know that it is,’ said Phœbe, brightly.

‘Only, my dear, it must not be a long engagement.  Ah! you think that nothing now, but I could not bear to think that you were to go through a long attachment.’

Was this forgiving Cecily really fancying that her sorrows had been nothing worse than those incidental to a long attachment?

‘Ah!’ thought Phœbe, ‘if she could ever have felt the full reliance on which I can venture, she need never have drooped!  What is time to trust?’

Mervyn kept his word, and waiving ceremony, took his wife at once to the Holt, and leaving her with Miss Charlecote, made a visit to Owen in the study, wishing, in the first place, to satisfy himself of the young man’s competence to reply to his questions.  On this he had no doubt; Owen had made steady progress ever since he had been in England, and especially during the quiet time that had succeeded his sister’s marriage.  His mental powers had fully regained their keenness and balance, and though still incapable of sustained exertion of his faculties, he could talk as well as ever, and the first ten minutes convinced Mervyn that he was conversing with a shrewd sensible observer, who had seen a good deal of life, and of the world.  He then led to the question about young Randolf, endeavouring so to frame it as not to betray the occasion of it.

The reply fully confirmed all that Phœbe had averred.  The single efforts of a mere youth, not eighteen at the time of his father’s failure, without capital, and set down in a wild uncleared part of the bush, had of course been inadequate to retrieve the ruined fortunes of the family; but he had shown wonderful spirit, patience, and perseverance, and the duteous temper in which he had borne the sacrifice of his prospects by his father’s foolish speculations and unsuitable marriage, his affectionate treatment of the wife and children when left on his hands, and his cheerful endurance of the severest and most hopeless drudgery for the bare support of life, had all been such as to inspire the utmost confidence in his character.  Of his future prospects, Owen spoke with a sigh almost of envy.  His talent and industry had already made him a valuable assistant to Mr. Currie, and an able engineer had an almost certain career of prosperity open to him.  Lastly Mervyn asked what was the connection with Miss Charlecote, and what possibilities it held out.  Owen winced for a moment, then explained the second cousinship, adding, however, that there was no entail, that the disposal of Miss Charlecote’s property was entirely in her own power, and that she had manifested no intention of treating the young man with more than ordinary civility, in fact that she had rather shrunk from acknowledging his likeness to the family.  His father’s English relatives had, in like manner, owned him as a kinsman; but had shown no alacrity in making friends with him.  The only way to be noticed, as the two gentlemen agreed, when glad to close their conference in a laugh, is to need no notice.

‘Uncommon hard on a fellow,’ soliloquized Owen, when left alone.  ‘Is it not enough to have one’s throat cut, but must one do it with one’s own hands?  It is a fine thing to be magnanimous when one thinks one is going off the stage, but quite another thing when one is to remain there.  I’m no twelfth century saint, only a nineteenth century beggar, with an unlucky child on my hands!  Am I to give away girl, land, and all to the fellow I raked out of his swamps?  Better have let him grill and saved my limbs!  And pray what more am I to do?  I’ve introduced him, made no secret of his parentage, puffed him off, and brought him here, and pretty good care he takes of himself!  Am I to pester poor Honey if she does prefer the child she bred up to a stranger?  No, no, I’ve done my part: let him look out for himself!’

Mervyn allowed to Phœbe that Randolf was no impostor, but warned her against assuming his consent.  She suspected that Owen at least guessed the cause of these inquiries, and it kept her aloof from the Holt.  When Miss Charlecote spoke of poor Owen’s want of spirits, discretion told her that she was not the person to enliven him; and the consciousness of her secret made her less desirous of confidences with her kind old friend, so that her good offices chiefly consisted in having little Owen to the Underwood to play with Maria, who delighted in his society, and unconsciously did much for his improvement.

Honor herself perceived that Phœbe’s visits only saddened her convalescent, and that in his present state he was happiest with no one but her, who was more than ever a mother to him.  They were perfectly at ease together, as she amused him with the familiar books, which did not strain his powers like new ones, the quiet household talk, the little playful exchanges of tender wit, and the fresh arrangement of all her museum on the natural system, he having all the entertainment, and she all the trouble, till her conversion astonished Bertha.  The old religious habits of the Holt likewise seemed to soothe and give him pleasure; but whether by force of old association, or from their hold on his heart, was as yet unknown to Honora, and perhaps to himself.  It was as if he were deferring all demonstration till he should be able again to examine the subject with concentrated attention.  Or it might be that, while he shrank from exerting himself upon Randolf’s behalf, he was not ready for repentance, and therefore distrusted, and hung back from, the impulses that would otherwise have drawn him to renew all that he had once cast aside.  He was never left alone without becoming deeply melancholy, yet no companionship save Honor’s seemed to suit him for many minutes together.  His brain was fast recovering the injury, but it was a trying convalescence; and with returning health, his perfect helplessness fretted him under all the difficulties of so tall and heavy a man being carried from bed to sofa, from sofa to carriage.

‘Poor Owen!’ said Phœbe to herself, one day when she had not been able to avoid witnessing this pitiable spectacle of infirmity; ‘I can’t think why I am always fancying he is doing Humfrey and me some injustice, and that he knows it.  He, who brought Humfrey home, and has praised him to Mervyn!  It is very uncharitable of me, but why will he look at me as if he were asking my pardon?  Well, we shall see the result of Mervyn’s inspection!’

Mervyn and his wife were going for two nights to the rooms at the office, in the first lull of the bridal invitations, which were infinitely more awful to Cecily than to Phœbe.  After twenty-nine years of quiet clerical life, Cecily neither understood nor liked the gaieties even of the county, had very little to say, and, unless her aunt were present, made Phœbe into a protector, and retired behind her, till Phœbe sometimes feared that Mervyn would be quite provoked, and remember his old dread lest Cecily should be too homely and bashful for her position.  Poor dear Cecily!  She was as good and kind as possible; but in the present close intercourse it sometimes would suggest to Phœbe, ‘was she quite as wise as she was good?’

And Miss Fennimore, with still clearer eyes, inwardly decided that, though religion should above all form the morals, yet the morality of common sense and judgment should be cultivated with an equal growth.

Cecily returned from London radiant with sisterly congratulation, in a flutter of delight with Mr. Randolf, and intimating a glorious project in the background, devised between herself and Mervyn, then guarding against possible disappointment by declaring it might be all her own fancy.

The meaning of these prognostics appeared the next morning.  Mervyn had been much impressed by Humfrey Randolf’s keen business-like appearance and sensible conversation, as well as by Mr. Currie’s opinion of him; and, always detesting the trouble of his own distillery, it had occurred to him that to secure an active working partner, and throw his sister’s fortune into the business, would be a most convenient, generous, and brotherly means of smoothing the course of true love; and Cecily had been so enchanted at the happiness he would thus confer, that he came to the Underwood quite elevated with his own kindness.

Phœbe heard his offer with warm thankfulness, but could not answer for Humfrey.

‘He has too much sense not to take a good offer,’ said Mervyn, ‘otherwise, it is all humbug his pretending to care for you.  As to Robert’s folly, have not I given up all that any rational being could stick at?  I tell you, it is the giving up those houses that makes me in want of capital, so you are bound to make it up to me.’

Mervyn and Phœbe wrote by the same post.  ‘I will be satisfied with whatever you decide upon as right,’ were Phœbe’s words; but she refrained from expressing any wish.  What was the use of a wise man, if he were not to be let alone to make up his mind?  She would trust to him to divine what it would be to her to be thus one with her own family, and to gain him without losing her sisters.  The balance must not be weighted by a woman’s hand, when ready enough to incline to her side; and why should she add to his pain, if he must refuse?

How ardently she wished, however, can be imagined.  She could not hide from herself pictures of herself and Humfrey, sometimes in London, sometimes at the Underwood, working with Robert, and carrying out the projects which Mervyn but half acted on, and a quarter understood.

The letter came, and the first line was decisive.  In spite of earnest wishes and great regrets, Humfrey could not reconcile the trade to his sense of right.  He knew that as Mervyn conducted it, it was as unobjectionable as was possible, and that the works were admirably regulated; but it was in going over the distillery as a curiosity he had seen enough to perceive that it was a line in which enterprise and exertion could only find scope by extending the demoralizing sale of spirits, and he trusted to Phœbe’s agreeing with him, that when he already had a profession fairly free from temptation, it was his duty not to put himself into one that might prove more full of danger to him than to one who had been always used to it.  He had not consulted Robert, feeling clear in his own mind, and thinking that he had probably rather not interfere.

Kind Humfrey!  That bit of consideration filled Phœbe’s heart with grateful relief.  It gave her spirits to be comforted by the tender and cheering words with which the edge of the disappointment was softened, and herself thanked for her abstinence from persuasion.  ‘Oh, better to wait seven years, with such a Humfrey as this in reserve, than to let him warp aside one inch of his sense of duty!  As high-minded as dear Robert, without his ruggedness and harshness,’ she thought as she read the manly, warm-hearted letter to Mervyn, which he had enclosed, and which she could not help showing to Bertha.

It was lost on Bertha.  She thought it dull and poor-spirited not to accept, and manage the distillery just as he pleased.  Any one could manage Mervyn, she said, not estimating the difference between a petted sister and a junior partner, and it was a new light to her that the trade—involving so much chemistry and mechanic ingenuity—was not good enough for anybody, unless they were peacocks too stupid to appreciate the dignity of labour!  For the first time Phœbe wished her secret known to Miss Charlecote, for the sake of her appreciation of his triumph of principle.

‘This is Robert’s doing!’ was Mervyn’s first exclamation, when Phœbe gave him the letter.  ‘If there be an intolerable plague in the world, it is the having a fanatical fellow like that in the family.  Nice requital for all I have thrown away for the sake of his maggots!  I declare I’ll resume every house I’ve let him have for his tomfooleries, and have a gin bottle blown as big as an ox as a sign for each of them.’

Phœbe had a certain lurking satisfaction in observing, when his malediction had run itself down, ‘He never consulted Robert.’

‘Don’t tell me that!  As if Robert had not run about with his mouth open, reviling his father’s trade, and pluming himself on keeping out of it.’

‘Mervyn, you know better!  Robert had said no word against you!  It is the facts that speak for themselves.’

‘The facts?  You little simpleton, do you imagine that we distil the juices of little babies?’

Phœbe laughed, and he added kindly, ‘Come, little one, I know this is no doing of yours.  You have stuck by this wicked distiller of vile liquids through thick and thin.  Don’t let the parson lead you nor Randolf by the nose; he is far too fine a fellow for that; but come up to town with me and Cecily, as soon as Lady Caroline’s bear fight is over, and make him hear reason.’