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

‘Ah! but if they prey on one, one cannot help it.’

Rashe made a face of great distaste.  Phœbe felt as if it were becoming too confidential to permit of listening, all the more as she heard Lucilla’s reply.

‘That’s what comes of being tall, and stately, and dignified!  There’s so much less of me that I can carry off my troubles twice as well.’

‘Oh, dear Miss Sandbrook, you can have no troubles!’

‘Haven’t I?  Oh, Edna, if you knew!  You that have a mother can never know what it is to be like me!  I’m keeping it all at bay, lest I should break down; but I’m in the horridest bother and trouble.’

Not knowing what might come next, ashamed of having listened to so much, yet with one gleam of renewed hope, Phœbe resolutely disobeyed Ratia’s frowns and gestures, and made her presence known by decided movements and words spoken aloud.

She saw the immediate effect in Edna Murrell’s violent start; but Lucilla, without moving, at once began to sing, straining her thin though sweet voice, as though to surmount a certain tremulousness.  Edna joined, and the melody was lovely to hear; but Phœbe was longing all the time for Robert to be at hand for this softer moment, and she hoped all the more when, the practising being over, and Edna dismissed, Lucy came springing towards her, notifying her presence by a caress—to outward appearance merely playful, but in reality a convulsive clasp of vehement affection—and Phœbe was sure that there had been tears in those eyes that seemed to do nothing but laugh.

The security that this wild elf was true at heart was, however, not enough for Phœbe.  There was the knowledge that each moment’s delay would drive Robert farther aloof, and that it was a mere chance whether he should encounter this creature of impulse at a propitious instant.  Nay, who could tell what was best for him after all?  Even Phœbe’s faithful acceptance of her on his word had undergone sundry severe shocks, and she had rising doubts whether Lucy, such as she saw her, could be what would make him happy.

If the secrets of every guest at a fête were told, would any be found unmixedly happy?  Would there be no one devoid of cares of their own or of other people’s, or if exempt from these, undisturbed by the absence of the right individual or by the presence of the wrong one, by mishaps of deportment, difficulties of dress, or want of notice?  Perhaps, after all, it may be best to have some one abiding anxiety, strong enough to destroy tedium, and exclude the pettier distresses, which are harder to contend with, though less dignified; and most wholesome of all is it that this should be an interest entirely external.  So, after all, Phœbe’s enjoyment might hardly have been increased had her thoughts been more free from Robin’s troubles, when she came down dressed for her first party, so like a lily of the valley in her delicate dress, that Owen acknowledged that it justified her choice, and murmured something of ‘in vernal green and virgin white, her festal robes, arrayed.’  Phœbe was only distressed at what she thought the profanation of quoting from such a source in compliment to her.  Honora was gratified to find the lines in his memory upon any terms.  Poor dear Honor, in one case at least believing all things, hoping all things!

Phœbe ought to have made the most of her compliment.  It was all she obtained in that line.  Juliana herself could not have taken umbrage at her success.  Nobody imagined her come out, no one attempted to disturb her from under Miss Charlecote’s wing, and she kept close to her the whole afternoon, sometimes sitting upon a haycock, sometimes walking in the shrubbery, listening to the band, or looking at the archery, in company with dignified clergyman, or elderly lady, astonished to meet Honor Charlecote in so unwonted a scene.  Owen Sandbrook was never far off.  He took them to eat ices, conducted them to good points of view, found seats for them, and told them who every one was, with droll comments or anecdotes which entertained them so much, that Phœbe almost wished that Robin had not made her sensible of the grain of irreverence that seasoned all Owen’s most brilliant sallies.

They saw little of the others.  Mr. and Mrs. Charteris walked about together, the one cordial, the other stately and gorgeous, and Miss Charlecote came in for her due and passing share of their politeness.  Rashe once invited Phœbe to shoot, but had too many on her hands to be solicitous about one.  Flirting no longer herself, Rashe’s delight was in those who did flirt, and in any assembly her extreme and unscrupulous good-nature made her invaluable to all who wanted to have themselves taken off their own hands, or pushed into those of others.  She ordered people about, started amusements, hunted gentlemen up, found partners, and shook up the bashful.  Rashe Charteris was the life of everything.  How little was wanting to make her kind-hearted activity admirable!

Lucilla never came in their way at all.  She was only seen in full and eager occupation embellishing the archery, or forcing the ‘decidedly pious’ to be fascinated by her gracious self-adaptation.  Robert was equally inaccessible, always watching her, but keeping aloof from his sister, and only consorting at times with Mr. Prendergast.

It was seven o’clock when this act of the drama was finally over, and the parties staying in the house met round a hurried meal.  Rashe lounging and yawning, laughing and quizzing, in a way amazing to Phœbe; Lucilla in the very summit of spirits, rattling and laughing away in full swing.  Thence the party dispersed to dress, but Honora had no sooner reached her room than she said, ‘I must go and find Lucy.  I must do my duty by her, little hope as I have.  She has avoided me all day; I must seek her now.’

What a difference time and discipline had made in one formerly so timid and gentle as to be alarmed at the least encounter, and nervous at wandering about a strange house.  Nervous and frightened, indeed, she still was, but self-control kept this in check, and her dislike was not allowed to hold her back from her duty.  Humfrey’s representative was seldom permitted to be weak.  But there are times when the difference between man and woman is felt in their dealings with others.  Strength can be mild, but what is strained can seldom be gentle, and when she knocked at Horatia Charteris’s door, her face, from very unhappiness and effort, was sorrowfully reproachful, as she felt herself an unwelcome apparition to the two cousins, who lay on their bed still laughing over the day’s events.

Rashe, who was still in her morning dress, at once gave way, saying she must go and speak to Lolly, and hastened out of the room.  Lucy, in her dishabille, sat crouched upon the bed, her white bare shoulders and floating hair, together with the defiant glance of the blue eye, and the hand moodily compressing the lips, reminding Honor of the little creature who had been summarily carried into her house sixteen years since.  She came towards her, but there was no invitation to give the caress that she yearned to bestow, and she leant against the bed, trembling, as she said, ‘Lucy, my poor child, I am come that you may not throw away your last chance without knowing it.  You do not realize what you are about.  If you cast aside esteem and reliance, how can you expect to retain the affection you sometimes seem to prize?’

‘If I am not trusted, what’s the good of affection?’

‘How can you expect trust when you go beyond the bounds of discretion?’ said Honor, with voice scarcely steadied into her desired firmness.

‘I can, I do!’

‘Lucy, listen to me.’  She gave way to her natural piteous, pleading tone: ‘I verily believe that this is the very turn.  Remember how often a moment has decided the fate of a life!’  She saw the expression relax into some alarm, and continued: ‘The Fulmorts do not say so, but I see by their manner that his final decision will be influenced by your present proceedings.  You have trifled with him too long, and with his mind made up to the ministry, he cannot continue to think of one who persists in outraging decorum.’

Those words were effort enough, and had better have been unsaid.  ‘That is as people may think,’ was all the answer.

‘As he thinks?’

‘How do I know what he thinks?’

Heartsick at such mere fencing, Honor was silent at first, then said, ‘I, for one, shall rate your good opinion by your endeavour to deserve it.  Who can suppose that you value what you are willing to risk for an unladylike bet, or an unfeminine sporting expedition!’

‘You may tell him so,’ said Lucilla, her voice quivering with passion.

‘You think a look will bring him back, but you may find that a true man is no slave.  Prove his affection misplaced, and he will tear it away.’

Had Honora been discreet as she was good, she would have left those words to settle down; but, woman that she was, she knew not when to stop, and coaxingly coming to the small bundle of perverseness, she touched the shoulder, and said, ‘Now you won’t make an object of yourself to-night?’

The shoulder shook in the old fashion.

‘At least you will not go to Ireland.’

‘Yes, I shall.’

‘Miss Charlecote, I beg your pardon—’ cried Rashe, bursting in—(oh! that she had been five seconds earlier)—‘but dressing is imperative.  People are beginning to come.’

Honora retreated in utter discomfiture.

‘Rashe!  Rashe!  I’m in for it!’ cried Lucilla, as the door shut, springing up with a look of terror.

‘Proposed by deputy?’ exclaimed Horatia, aghast.

‘No, no!’ gasped Lucilla; ‘it’s this Ireland of yours—that—that—’ and she well-nigh sobbed.

‘My bonny bell!  I knew you would not be bullied into deserting.’

‘Oh! Rashe, she was very hard on me.  Every one is but you!’ and Lucilla threw herself into her cousin’s arms in a paroxysm of feeling; but their maid’s knock brought her back to composure sooner than poor Honora, who shed many a tear over this last defeat, as, looking mournfully to Phœbe, she said, ‘I have done, Phœbe.  I can say no more to her.  She will not hear anything from me.  Oh! what have I done that my child should be hardened against me!’

Phœbe could offer nothing but caresses full of indignant sorrow, and there was evidently soothing in them, for Miss Charlecote’s tears became softer, and she fondly smoothed Phœbe’s fair hair, saying, as she drew the clinging arms closer round her: ‘My little woodbine, you must twine round your brother and comfort him, but you can spare some sweetness for me too.  There, I will dress.  I will not keep you from the party.’

‘I do not care for that; only to see Robin.’

‘We must take our place in the crowd,’ sighed Honora, beginning her toilet; ‘and you will enjoy it when you are there.  Your first quadrille is promised to Owen, is it not?’

‘Yes,’ said Phœbe, dreamily, and she would have gone back to Robin’s sorrows, but Honora had learnt that there were subjects to be set aside when it was incumbent on her to be presentable, and directed the talk to speculations whether the poor schoolmistress would have nerve to sing; and somehow she talked up Phœbe’s spirits to such a hopeful pitch, that the little maiden absolutely was crossed by a gleam of satisfaction from the ungrateful recollection that poor Miss Charlecote had done with the affair.  Against her will, she had detected the antagonism between the two, and bad as it was of Lucy, was certain that she was more likely to be amenable where there was no interference from her best friend.

The music-room was already crowded when the two made their way into it, and Honora’s inclination was to deposit herself on the nearest seat, but she owed something otherwise to her young charge, and Phœbe’s eyes had already found a lonely black figure with arms crossed, and lowering brow.  Simultaneously they moved towards him, and he towards them.  ‘Is she come down?’ he asked.

Phœbe shook her head, but at the same moment another door near the orchestra admitted a small white butterfly figure, leading in a tall queenly apparition in black, whom she placed in a chair adjacent to the bejewelled prima donna of the night—a great contrast with her dust-coloured German hair and complexion, and good-natured plain face.

Robert’s face cleared with relief; he evidently detected nothing outré in Lucilla’s aspect, and was rejoicing in the concession.  Woman’s eyes saw further; a sigh from Honora, an amused murmur around him, caused him to bend his looks on Phœbe.  She knew his eyes were interrogating her, but could not bear to let her own reply, and kept them on the ground.

He was moving towards Lucilla, who, having consigned her protegée to the good-humoured German, had come more among the guests, and was exchanging greetings and answering comments with all her most brilliant airs of saucy animation.

And who could quarrel with that fairy vision?  Her rich double-skirted watered silk was bordered with exquisitely made and coloured flies, radiant with the hues of the peacock, the gold pheasant, the jay, parrots of all tints, everything rich and rare in plumage.  A coronal of the same encircled her glossy hair, the tiny plumes contrasting with the blonde ringlets, and the bonâ fide hooks ostentatiously displayed; lesser and more innocuous flies edged the sleeves, corsage, shoes, and gloves; and her fan, which she used as skilfully as Jenny Wren, presented a Watteau-like picture of an angling scene.  Anything more daintily, quaintly pretty could not be imagined, and the male part of the assembly would have unanimously concurred in Sir Harry Buller’s ‘three cheers for the queen of the anglers.’

But towards the party most concerned in her movements, Lucilla came not; and Phœbe, understanding a desire to keep as near as might be to Miss Murrell, tried to suggest it as the cause, and looking round, saw Owen standing by Miss Charlecote, with somewhat of an uneasy countenance.

‘Terribly hot here,’ he said, restlessly; ‘suffocating, aren’t you, Honor?  Come and take a turn in the cloister; the fountain is stunning by moonlight.’

No proposal could have been more agreeable to Honora; and Phœbe was afraid of losing her chaperon, though she would rather have adhered to her brother, and the barbs of that wicked little angler were tearing him far too deeply to permit him to move out of sight of his tormentor.

But for this, the change would have been delicious.  The white lights and deep shadows from the calm, grave moon contrasted with the long gleams of lamp-light from every window, reddened by the curtains within; the flowers shone out with a strange whiteness, the taller ones almost like spiritual shapes; the burnished orange leaves glistened, the water rose high in silvery spray, and fell back into the blackness of the basin made more visible by one trembling, shimmering reflection; the dark blue sky above seemed shut into a vault by the enclosing buildings, and one solitary planet shone out in the lustrous neighbourhood of the moon.  So still, so solemn, so cool!  Honora felt it as repose, and pensively began to admire—Owen chimed in with her.  Feverish thoughts and perturbations were always gladly soothed away in her company.  Phœbe alone stood barely confessing the beauty, and suppressing impatience at their making so much of it; not yet knowing enough of care or passion to seek repose, and much more absorbed in human than in any other form of nature.

The music was her first hope of deliverance from her namesake in the sky; but, behold, her companions chose to prefer hearing that grand instrumental piece softened by distance; and even Madame Hedwig’s quivering notes did not bring them in.  However, at the first sounds of the accompaniment to the ‘Three Fishers’ Wives,’ Owen pulled back the curtain, and handed the two ladies back into the room, by a window much nearer to the orchestra than that by which they had gone out, not far from where Edna Murrell had just risen, her hands nervously clasped together, her colour rapidly varying, and her eyes roaming about as though in quest of something.  Indeed, through all the music, the slight sounds of the entrance at the window did not escape her, and at the instant when she should have begun to sing, Phœbe felt those black eyes levelled on herself with a look that startled her; they were at once removed, the head turned away; there was an attempt at the first words, but they died away on her lips; there was a sudden whiteness, Lucilla and the German both tried to reseat her; but with readier judgment Owen made two long steps, gathered her up in his strong arms, and bore her through the curtains and out at the open window like a mere infant.