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

‘I think I have heard William speak of a Fulmort,’ said Mrs. Parsons.  ‘Was he at Winchester?’

‘Yes; and an infinite help the influence there has been to him.  I never saw any one more anxious to do right, often under great disadvantages.  I shall be very glad for him to be with you.  He was always intended for a clergyman, but now I am afraid there is a notion of putting him into the business; and he is here attending to it for the present, while his father and brother are abroad.  I am sorry he is gone.  I suppose he was seized with a fit of shyness.’

However, when all the party had been to their rooms and prepared for dinner, Robert reappeared, and was asked where he had been.

‘I went to dress,’ he answered.

‘Ah! where do you lodge?  I asked Phœbe, but she said your letters went to Whittington-street.’

‘There are two very good rooms at the office which my father sometimes uses.’

Phœbe and Miss Charlecote glanced at each other, aware that Mervyn would never have condescended to sleep in Great Whittington-street.  Mr. Parsons likewise perceived a straight-forwardness in the manner, which made him ready to acknowledge his fellow-Wykehamist and his son’s acquaintance; and they quickly became good friends over recollections of Oxford and Winchester, tolerably strong in Mr. Parsons himself, and all the fresher on ‘William’s’ account.  Phœbe, whose experience of social intercourse was confined to the stately evening hour in the drawing-room, had never listened to anything approaching to this style of conversation, nor seen her brother to so much advantage in society.  Hitherto she had only beheld him neglected in his uncongenial home circle, contemning and contemned, or else subjected to the fretting torment of Lucilla’s caprice.  She had never known what he could be, at his ease, among persons of the same way of thinking.  Speaking scarcely ever herself, and her fingers busy with her needle, she was receiving a better lesson than Miss Fennimore had ever yet been able to give.  The acquiring of knowledge is one thing, the putting it out to profit another.

Gradually, from general topics, the conversation contracted to the parish and its affairs, known intimately to Mr. Parsons a quarter of a century ago, but in which Honora was now the best informed; while Robert listened as one who felt as if he might have a considerable stake therein, and indeed looked upon usefulness there as compensation for the schemes he was resigning.

The changes since Mr. Parsons’s time had not been cheering.  The late incumbent had been a man whose trust lay chiefly in preaching, and who, as his health failed, and he became more unable to cope with the crying evils around, had grown despairing, and given way to a sort of dismal, callous indifference; not doing a little, because he could not do much, and quashing the plans of others with a nervous dread of innovation.  The class of superior persons in trade, and families of professional men, who in Mr. Charlecote’s time had filled many a massively-built pew, had migrated to the suburbs, and preserved only an office or shop in the parish, an empty pew in the church, where the congregation was to be counted by tens instead of hundreds.  Not that the population had fallen off.  Certain streets which had been a grief and pain to Mr. Charlecote, but over which he had never entirely lost his hold, had become intolerably worse.  Improvements in other parts of London, dislodging the inhabitants, had heaped them in festering masses of corruption in these untouched byways and lanes, places where honest men dared not penetrate without a policeman; and report spoke of rooms shared by six families at once.

Mr. Parsons had not taken the cue unknowing of what he should find in it; he said nothing, and looked as simple and cheerful as if his life were not to be a daily course of heroism.  His wife gave one long, stifled sigh, and looked furtively upon him with her loving eyes, in something of anxious fear, but with far more of exultation.

Yet it was in no dispirited tone that she asked after the respectable poor—there surely must be some employed in small trades, or about the warehouses.  She was answered that these were not many in proportion, and that not only had pew-rents kept them out of church, but that they had little disposition to go there.  They did send their children to the old endowed charity schools, but as these children grew up, wave after wave lapsed into a smooth, respectable heathen life of Sunday pleasuring.  The more religious became dissenters, because the earnest inner life did not approve itself to them in Church teaching as presented to them; the worse sort, by far the most numerous, fell lower and lower, and hovered scarcely above the depths of sin and misery.  Drinking was the universal vice, and dragged many a seemingly steady character into every stage of degradation.  Men and women alike fell under the temptation, and soon hastened down the descent of corruption and crime.

‘Ah!’ said Mrs. Parsons, ‘I observed gin palaces at the corner of every street.’

There was a pause.  Neither her husband nor Honor made any reply.  If they had done so, neither of the young Fulmorts would have perceived any connection between the gin palaces and their father’s profession; but the silence caused both to raise their eyes.  Phœbe, judging by her sisters’ code of the becoming, fancied that their friends supposed their feelings might be hurt by alluding to the distillery, as a trade, and cast about for some cheerful observations, which she could not find.

Robert had received a new idea, one that must be put aside till he had time to look at it.

There was a ring at the door.  Honor’s face lighted up at the tread on the marble pavement of the hall, and without other announcement, a young man entered the room, and as she sprang up to meet him, bent down his lofty head, and kissed her with half-filial, half-coaxing tenderness.

‘Yes, here I am.  They told me I should find you here.  Ah! Phœbe, I’m glad to see you.  Fulmort, how are you?’ and a well-bred shake of the hand to Mr. and Mrs. Parsons, with the ease and air of the young master, returning to his mother’s house.

‘When did you come?’

‘Only to-day.  I got away sooner than I expected.  I went to Lowndes Square, and they told me I should find you here, so I came away as soon as dinner was over.  They were dressing for some grand affair, and wanted me to come with them, but of course I must come to see if you had really achieved bringing bright Phœbe from her orbit.’

His simile conveyed the astronomical compliment at once to Honora and Phœbe, who were content to share it.  Honora was in a condition of subdued excitement and anxiety, compared to which all other sensations were tame, chequered as was her felicity, a state well known to mothers and sisters.  Intensely gratified at her darling’s arrival, gladdened by his presence, rejoicing in his endowments, she yet dreaded every phrase lest some dim misgiving should be deepened, and watched for the impression he made on her friends, as though her own depended upon it.

Admiration could not but come foremost.  It was pleasant to look upon such a fine specimen of manly beauty and vigour.  Of unusual height, his form was so well moulded, that his superior stature was only perceived by comparison with others, and the proportions were those of great strength.  The small, well-set head, proudly carried, the short, straight features, and the form of the free massive curls, might have been a model for the bust of a Greek athlete; the colouring was the fresh, healthy bronzed ruddiness of English youth, and the expression had a certain boldness of good-humoured freedom, agreeing with the quiet power of the whole figure.  Those bright gray eyes could never have been daunted, those curling, merry lips never at a loss, that smooth brow never been unwelcome, those easy movements never cramped, nor the manners restrained by bashfulness.

The contrast was not favourable to Robert.  The fair proportions of the one brought out the irregular build of the other; the classical face made the plain one more homely, the erect bearing made the eye turn to the slouching carriage, and the readiness of address provoked comparison with the awkward diffidence of one disregarded at home.  Bashfulness and depression had regained their hold of the elder lad almost as the younger one entered, and in the changes of position consequent upon the new arrival, he fell into the background, and stood leaning, caryatid fashion, against the mantelshelf, without uttering a word, while Owen, in a half-recumbent position on an ottoman, a little in the rear of Miss Charlecote and her tea equipage, and close to Phœbe, indulged in the blithe loquacity of a return home, in a tone of caressing banter towards the first lady, of something between good-nature and attention to the latter, yet without any such exclusiveness as would have been disregard to the other guests.

‘Ponto well!  Poor old Pon! how does he get on?  Was it a very affecting parting, Phœbe?’

‘I didn’t see.  I met Miss Charlecote at the station.’

‘Not even your eyes might intrude on the sacredness of grief!  Well, at least you dried them?  But who dried Ponto’s?’ solemnly turning on Honora.

‘Jones, I hope,’ said she, smiling.

‘I knew it!  Says I to myself, when Henry opened the door, Jones remains at home for the consolation of Ponto.’

‘Not entirely—’ began Honora, laughing; but the boy shook his head, cutting her short with a playful frown.

‘Cousin Honor, it grieves me to see a woman of your age and responsibility making false excuses.  Mr. Parsons, I appeal to you, as a clergyman of the Church of England, is it not painful to hear her putting forward Jones’s asthma, when we all know the true fact is that Ponto’s tastes are so aristocratic that he can’t take exercise with an under servant, and the housekeeper is too fat to waddle.  By the bye, how is the old thing?’

‘Much more effective than might be supposed by your account, sir, and probably wishing to know whether to get your room ready.’

‘My room.  Thank you; no, not to-night.  I’ve got nothing with me.  What are you going to do to-morrow?  I know you are to be at Charteris’s to luncheon; his Jewess told me so.’

‘For shame, Owen.’

‘I don’t see any shame, if Charles doesn’t,’ said Owen; ‘only if you don’t think yourselves at a stall of cheap jewellery at a fair—that’s all!  Phœbe, take care.  You’re a learned young lady.’

‘No; I’m very backward.’

‘Ah! it’s the fashion to deny it, but mind you don’t mention Shakespeare.’

‘Why not?’

‘Did you never hear of the Merchant of Venice?’

Phœbe, a little startled, wanted to hear whether Mrs. Charteris were really Jewish, and after a little more in this style, which Honor reasonably feared the Parsonses might not consider in good taste, it was explained that her riches were Jewish, though her grandfather had been nothing, and his family Christian.  Owen adding, that but for her origin, she would be very good-looking; not that he cared for that style, and his manner indicated that such rosy, childish charms as were before him had his preference.  But though this was evident enough to all the rest of the world, Phœbe did not appear to have the least perception of his personal meaning, and freely, simply answered, that she admired dark-eyed people, and should be glad to see Mrs. Charteris.

‘You will see her in her glory,’ said Owen; ‘Tuesday week, the great concern is to come off, at Castle Blanch, and a rare sight she’ll be!  Cilly tells me she is rehearsing her dresses with different sets of jewels all the morning, and for ever coming in to consult her and Rashe!’

‘That must be rather tiresome,’ said Honor; ‘she cannot be much of a companion.’

‘I don’t fancy she gets much satisfaction,’ said Owen, laughing; ‘Rashe never uses much “soft sawder.”  It’s an easy-going place, where you may do just as you choose, and the young ladies appreciate liberty.  By the bye, what do you think of this Irish scheme?’

Honora was so much ashamed of it, that she had never mentioned it even to Phœbe, and she was the more sorry that it had been thus adverted to, as she saw Robert intent on what Owen let fall.  She answered shortly, that she could not suppose it serious.

‘Serious as a churchyard,’ was Owen’s answer.  ‘I dare say they will ask Phœbe to join the party.  For my own part, I never believed in it till I came up to-day, and found the place full of salmon-flies, and the start fixed for Wednesday the 24th.’

‘Who?’ came a voice from the dark mantelshelf.

‘Who?  Why, that’s the best of it.  Who but my wise sister and Rashe?  Not a soul besides,’ cried Owen, giving way to laughter, which no one was disposed to echo.  ‘They vow that they will fish all the best streams, and do more than any crack fisherman going, and they would like to see who will venture to warn them off.  They’ve tried that already.  Last summer what did Lucy do, but go and fish Sir Harry Buller’s water.  You know he’s a very tiger about preserving.  Well, she fished coolly on in the face of all his keepers; they stood aghast, didn’t know what manner of Nixie it was, I suppose; and when Sir Harry came down, foaming at the mouth, she just shook her curls, and made him wade in up to his knees to get her fly out of a bramble!’

‘That must be exaggerated,’ said Robert.

‘Exaggerated!  Not a word!  It’s not possible to exaggerate Cilly’s coolness.  I did say something about going with them.’

‘You must, if they go at all!’ exclaimed Honora.

‘Out of the question, Sweet Honey.  They reject me with disdain, declare that I should only render them commonplace, and that “rich and rare were the gems she wore” would never have got across Ireland safe if she had a great strapping brother to hamper her.  And really, as Charles says, I don’t suppose any damage can well happen to them.’

Honora would not talk of it, and turned the conversation to what was to be done on the following day.  Owen eagerly proffered himself as escort, and suggested all manner of plans, evidently assuming the entire direction and protection of the two ladies, who were to meet him at luncheon in Lowndes Square, and go with him to the Royal Academy, which, as he and Honora agreed, must necessarily be the earliest object for the sake of providing innocent conversation.

As soon as the clock struck ten, Robert took leave, and Owen rose, but instead of going, lingered, talking Oxford with Mr. Parsons, and telling good stories, much to the ladies’ amusement, though increasing Honora’s trepidation by the fear that something in his tone about the authorities, or the slang of his manner, might not give her friends a very good idea of his set.  The constant fear of what might come next, absolutely made her impatient for his departure, and at last she drove him away, by begging to know how he was going all that distance, and offering to send Henry to call a cab, a thing he was too good-natured to permit.  He bade good night and departed, while Mr. Parsons, in answer to her eager eyes, gratified her by pronouncing him a very fine young man.