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

‘Don’t come, don’t—it will only make more fuss—nobody has seen.  Go to Madame Hedwig; tell her from me to go on to her next, and cover her retreat,’ said Lucilla, as fast as the words would come, signing back Honora, and hastily disappearing between the curtains.

There was a command in Lucilla’s gestures which always made obedience the first instinct even with Honora, and her impulse to assist thus counteracted, she had time to recollect that Lucy might be supposed to know best what to do with the schoolmistress, and that to dispose of her among her ladies’ maid friends was doubtless the kindest measure.

‘I must say I am glad,’ she said; ‘the poor thing cannot be quite so much spoilt as they wished.’

The concert proceeded, and in the next pause Honor fell into conversation with a pleasant lady who had brought one pair of young daughters in the morning, and now was doing the same duty by an elder pair.

Phœbe was standing near the window when a touch on her arm and a whispered ‘Help! hush!’ made her look round.  Holding the curtain apart, so as to form the least possible aperture, and with one finger on her lip, was Lucy’s face, the eyes brimming over with laughter, as she pointed to her head—three of the hooks had set their barbs deep into the crimson satin curtain, and held her a prisoner!

‘Hush!  I’ll never forgive you if you betray me,’ she whispered, drawing Phœbe by the arm behind the curtain; ‘I should expire on the spot to be found in Absalom’s case.  All that little goose’s fault—I never reckoned on having to rush about this way.  Can’t you do it?  Don’t spare scissors,’ and Lucilla produced a pair from under her skirt.  ‘Rashe and I always go provided.’

‘How is she?—where is she?’ asked Phœbe.

‘That’s exactly what I can’t tell.  He took her out to the fountain; she was quite like a dead thing.  Water wouldn’t make her come to, and I ran for some salts; I wouldn’t call anybody, for it was too romantic a condition to have Owen discovered in, with a fainting maiden in his arms.  Such a rummage as I had.  My own things are all jumbled up, I don’t know how, and Rashe keeps nothing bigger than globules, only fit for fainting lady-birds, so I went to Lolly’s, but her bottles have all gold heads, and are full of uncanny-looking compounds, and I made a raid at last on Sweet Honey’s rational old dressing-case, poked out her keys from her pocket, and got in; wasting interminable time.  Well, when I got back to my fainting damsel, non est inventus.’

‘Inventa,’ murmured the spirit of Miss Fennimore within Phœbe.  ‘But what? had she got well?’

‘So I suppose.  Gone off to the servants’ rooms, no doubt; as there is no White Lady in the fountain to spirit them both away.  What, haven’t you done that, yet?’

‘Oh! Lucy, stand still, please, or you’ll get another hook in.’

‘Give me the scissors; I know I could do it quicker.  Never mind the curtain, I say; nobody will care.’

She put up her hand, and shook head and feet to the entanglement of a third hook; but Phœbe, decided damsel that she was, used her superior height to keep her mastery, held up the scissors, pressed the fidgety shoulder into quiescence, and kept her down while she extricated her, without fatal detriment to the satin, though with scanty thanks, for the liberation was no sooner accomplished than the sprite was off, throwing out a word about Rashe wanting her.

Phœbe emerged to find that she had not been missed, and presently the concert was over, and tea coming round, there was a change of places.  Robert came towards her.  ‘I am going,’ he said.

‘Oh! Robert, when dancing would be one chance?’

‘She does not mean to give me that chance; I would not ask it while she is in that dress.  It is answer sufficient.  Good night, Phœbe; enjoy yourself.’

Enjoy herself!  A fine injunction, when her brother was going away in such a mood!  Yet who would have suspected that rosy, honest apple face of any grievance, save that her partner was missing?

Honora was vexed and concerned at his neglect, but Phœbe appeased her by reporting what Lucy had said.  ‘Thoughtless! reckless!’ sighed Honora; ‘if Lucy would leave the poor girl on his hands, of course he is obliged to make some arrangement for getting her home!  I never knew such people as they are here!  Well, Phœbe, you shall have a partner next time!’

Phœbe had one, thanks chiefly to Rashe, and somehow the rapid motion shook her out of her troubles, and made her care much less for Robin’s sorrows than she had done two minutes before.  She was much more absorbed in hopes for another partner.

Alas! he did not come; neither then nor for the ensuing.  Owen’s value began to rise.

Miss Charlecote did not again bestir herself in the cause, partly from abstract hatred of waltzes, partly from the constant expectation of Owen’s reappearance, and latterly from being occupied in a discussion with the excellent mother upon young girls reading novels.

At last, after a galoppe, at which Phœbe had looked on with wishful eyes, Lucilla dropped breathless into the chair which she relinquished to her.

‘Well, Phœbe, how do you like it?’

‘Oh! very much,’ rather ruefully; ‘at least it would be if—’

‘If you had any partners, eh, poor child?  Hasn’t Owen turned up?

‘It’s that billiard-room; I tried to make Charlie shut it up.  But we’ll disinter him; I’ll rush in like a sky-rocket, and scatter the gentlemen to all quarters.’

‘No, no, don’t!’ cried Phœbe, alarmed, and catching hold of her.  ‘It is not that, but Robin is gone.’

‘Atrocious,’ returned Cilly, disconcerted, but resolved that Phœbe should not perceive it; ‘so we are both under a severe infliction,—both ashamed of our brothers.’

‘I am not ashamed of mine,’ said Phœbe, in a tone of gravity.

‘Ah! there’s the truant,’ said Lucilla, turning aside.  ‘Owen, where have you hidden yourself?  I hope you are ready to sink into the earth with shame at hearing you have rubbed off the bloom from a young lady’s first ball.’

‘No! it was not he who did so,’ stoutly replied Phœbe.

‘Ah! it was all the consequence of the green and white; I told you it was a sinister omen,’ said Owen, chasing away a shade of perplexity from his brow, and assuming a certain air that Phœbe had never seen before, and did not like.  ‘At least you will be merciful, and allow me to retrieve my character.’

‘You had nothing to retrieve,’ said Phœbe, in the most straightforward manner; ‘it was very good in you to take care of poor Miss Murrell.  What became of her?  Lucy said you would know.’

‘I—I?’ he exclaimed, so vehemently as to startle her by the fear of having ignorantly committed some egregious blunder; ‘I’m the last person to know.’

‘The last to be seen with the murdered always falls under suspicion,’ said Lucilla.

‘Drowned in the fountain?’ cried Owen, affecting horror.

‘Then you must have done it,’ said his sister, ‘for when I came back, after ransacking the house for salts, you had both disappeared.  Have you been washing your hands all this time after the murder?’

‘Nothing can clear me but an appeal to the fountain,’ said Owen; ‘will you come and look in, Phœbe?  It is more delicious than ever.’

But Phœbe had had enough of the moonlight, did not relish the subject, and was not pleased with Owen’s manner; so she refused by a most decided ‘No, thank you,’ causing Lucy to laugh at her for thinking Owen dangerous.

‘At least you will vouchsafe to trust yourself with me for the Lancers,’ said Owen, as Cilla’s partner came to claim her, and Phœbe rejoiced in anything to change the tone of the conversation; still, however, asking, as he led her off, what had become of the poor schoolmistress.

‘Gone home, very sensibly,’ said Owen; ‘if she is wise she will know how to trust to Cilly’s invitations!  People that do everything at once never do anything well.  It is quite a rest to turn to any one like you, Phœbe, who are content with one thing at a time!  I wish—’

‘Well, then, let us dance,’ said Phœbe, abruptly; ‘I can’t do that well enough to talk too.’

It was not that Owen had not said the like things to her many times before; it was his eagerness and fervour that gave her an uncomfortable feeling.  She was not sure that he was not laughing at her by putting on these devoted airs, and she felt herself grown up enough to put an end to being treated as a child.  He made her a profound bow in a mockery of acquiescence, and preserved absolute silence during the first figures, but she caught his eye several times gazing on her with looks such as another might have interpreted into mingled regret and admiration, but which were to her simply discomfiting and disagreeable, and when he spoke again, it was not in banter, but half in sadness.  ‘Phœbe, how do you like all this?’

‘I think I could like it very much.’

‘I am almost sorry to hear you say so; anything that should tend to make you resemble others is detestable.’

‘I should be very sorry not to be like other people.’

‘Phœbe, you do not know how much of the pleasure of my life would be lost if you were to become a mere conventional young lady.’

Phœbe had no notion of being the pleasure of any one’s life except Robin’s and Maria’s, and was rather affronted that Owen should profess to enjoy her childish ignorance and naïveté.

‘I believe,’ she said, ‘I was rude just now when I told you not to talk.  I am sorry for it; I shall know better next time.’

‘Your knowing better is exactly what I deprecate.  But there it is; unconsciousness is the charm of simplicity.  It is the very thing aimed at by Rashe and Cilly, and all their crew, with their eccentricities.’