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

‘Well, but who is the shy man?  Is it the little Henniker, who used to look as if he would dive under the table when you brought him from Westminster?’

‘If I told you, you would remember it against the poor creature for life, as a deliberate insult and want of taste.  Good night.’

He took his hat, and went out, leaving Lucy balancing her guesses between Ensign Henniker and him whom she could not mention.  Her rejection of Mr. Calthorp might have occasioned the present secrecy, and she was content to leave herself the pleasant mystery, in the hope of having it dispelled by her last glance of Kingstown quay.

In that hope, she rocked herself to sleep, and next morning was so extra vivacious as to be a sore trial to poor Rashe, in the anticipation of the peine forte et dure of St. George’s Channel.  Owen was also in high spirits, but a pattern of consideration and kind attention, as he saw the ladies on board, and provided for their comfort, not leaving them till the last moment.

Lucilla’s heart had beaten fast from the moment she had reached Kingstown; she was keeping her hand free to wave a most encouraging kiss, and as her eye roamed over the heads upon the quay without a recognition, she felt absolutely baffled and cheated; and gloriously as the Bay of Dublin spread itself before her, she was conscious only of wrath and mortification, and of a bitter sense of dreariness and desertion.  Nobody cared for her, not even her brother!

CHAPTER IX

My pride, that took
Fully easily all impressions from below,
Would not look up, or half despised the height
To which I could not, or I would not climb.
I thought I could not breathe in that fine air.

    Idylls of the King

‘Can you come and take a turn in the Temple-gardens, Phœbe?’ asked Robert, on the way from church, the day after Owen’s visit to Woolstone-lane.

Phœbe rejoiced, for she had scarcely seen him since his return from Castle Blanch, and his state of mind was a mystery to her.  It was long, however, before he afforded her any clue.  He paced on, grave and abstracted, and they had many times gone up and down the least frequented path, before he abruptly said, ‘I have asked Mr. Parsons to give me a title for Holy Orders.’

‘I don’t quite know what that means.’

‘How simple you are, Phœbe,’ he said, impatiently; ‘it means that St. Wulstan’s should be my first curacy.  May my labours be accepted as an endeavour to atone for some of the evil we cause here.’

‘Dear Robin! what did Mr. Parsons say?  Was he not very glad?’

‘No; there lies the doubt.’

‘Doubt?’

‘Yes.  He told me that he had engaged as many curates as he has means for.  I answered that my stipend need be no consideration, for I only wished to spend on the parish, but he was not satisfied.  Many incumbents don’t like to have curates of independent means; I believe it has an amateur appearance.’

‘Mr. Parsons cannot think you would not be devoted.’

‘I hope to convince him that I may be trusted.  It is all that is left me now.’

‘It will be very cruel to you, and to the poor people, if he will not,’ said Phœbe, warmly; ‘what will papa and Mervyn say?’

‘I shall not mention it till all is settled; I have my father’s consent to my choice of a profession, and I do not think myself bound to let him dictate my course as a minister.  I owe a higher duty and if his business scatters the seeds of vice, surely “obedience in the Lord” should not prevent me from trying to counteract them.’

It was a case of conscience to be only judged by himself, and where even a sister like Phœbe could do little but hope for the best, so she expressed a cheerful hope that her father must know that it was right, and that he would care less now that he was away, and pleased with Augusta’s prospects.

‘Yes,’ said Robert, ‘he already thinks me such a fool, that it may be indifferent to him in what particular manner I act it out.’

‘And how does it stand with Mr. Parsons?’

‘He will give me an answer to-morrow evening, provided I continue in the same mind.  There is no chance of my not doing so.  My time of suspense is over!’ and the words absolutely sounded like relief, though the set stern face, and the long breaths at each pause told another tale.

‘I did not think she would really have gone!’ said Phœbe.

‘This once, and we will mention her no more.  It is not merely this expedition, but all I saw at Wrapworth convinced me that I should risk my faithfulness to my calling by connecting myself with one who, with all her loveliness and generosity, lives upon excitement.  She is the very light of poor Prendergast’s eyes, and he cannot endure to say a word in her dispraise; she is constantly doing acts of kindness in his parish, and is much beloved there, yet he could not conceal how much trouble she gives him by her want of judgment and wilfulness; patronizing and forgetting capriciously, and attending to no remonstrance.  You saw yourself the treatment of that schoolmistress.  I thought the more of this, because Prendergast is so fond of her, and does her full justice.  No; her very aspect proves that a parish priest has no business to think of her.’

Large tears swelled in Phœbe’s eyes.  The first vision of her youth was melting away, and she detected no relenting in his grave resolute voice.

‘Shall you tell her?’ was all she could say.

‘That is the question.  At one time she gave me reason to think that she accepted a claim to be considered in my plans, and understood what I never concealed.  Latterly she has appeared to withdraw all encouragement, to reject every advance, and yet—  Phœbe, tell me whether she has given you any reason to suppose that she ever was in earnest with me?’

‘I know she respects and likes you better than any one, and speaks of you like no one else,’ said Phœbe; then pausing, and speaking more diffidently, though with a smile, ‘I think she looks up to you so much, that she is afraid to put herself in your power, for fear she should be made to give up her odd ways in spite of herself, and yet that she has no notion of losing you.  Did you see her face at the station?’

‘I would not!  I could not meet her eyes!  I snatched my hand from the little clinging fingers;’ and Robert’s voice almost became a gasp.  ‘It was not fit that the spell should be renewed.  She would be miserable, I under constant temptation, if I endeavoured to make her share my work!  Best as it is!  She has so cast me off that my honour is no longer bound to her; but I cannot tell whether it be due to her to let her know how it is with me, or whether it would be mere coxcombry.’

‘The Sunday that she spent here,’ said Phœbe, slowly, ‘she had a talk with me.  I wrote it down.  Miss Fennimore says it is the safest way—’

‘Where is it?’ cried Robert.

‘I kept it in my pocket-book, for fear any one should see it, and it should do harm.  Here it is, if it will help you.  I am afraid I made things worse, but I did not know what to say.’

It was one of the boldest experiments ever made by a sister; for what man could brook the sight of an unvarnished statement of his proxy’s pleading, or help imputing the failure to the go-between?

‘I would not have had this happen for a thousand pounds!’ was his acknowledgment.  ‘Child as you are, Phœbe, had you not sense to know, that no woman could endure to have that said, which should scarcely be implied?  I wonder no longer at her studied avoidance.’

‘If it be all my bad management, cannot it be set right?’ humbly and hopefully said Phœbe.

‘There is no right!’ he said.  ‘There, take it back.  It settles the question.  The security you childishly showed, was treated as offensive presumption on my part.  It would be presuming yet farther to make a formal withdrawal of what was never accepted.’

‘Then is it my doing?  Have I made mischief between you, and put you apart?’ said poor Phœbe, in great distress.  ‘Can’t I make up for it?’

‘You?  No, you were only an over plain-spoken child, and brought about the crisis that must have come somehow.  It is not what you have done, or not done; it is what Lucy Sandbrook has said and done, shows that I must have done with her for ever.’

‘And yet,’ said Phœbe, taking this as forgiveness, ‘you see she never believed that you would give her up.  If she did, I am sure she would not have gone.’

‘She thinks her power over me stronger than my principles.  She challenges me—desires you to tell me so.  We shall see.’

He spoke as a man whose steadfastness had been defied, and who was piqued on proving it to the utmost.  Such feelings may savour of the wrath of man, they may need the purifying of chastening, and they often impel far beyond the bounds of sober judgment; but no doubt they likewise frequently render that easy which would otherwise have appeared impossible, and which, if done in haste, may be regretted, but not repented, at leisure.

Under some circumstances, the harshness of youth is a healthy symptom, proving force of character and conviction, though that is only when the foremost victim is self.  Robert was far from perfect, and it might be doubted whether he were entering the right track in the right way, but at least his heart was sound, and there was a fair hope that his failings, in working their punishment, might work their cure.

It was in a thorough brotherly and Christian spirit that before entering the house he compelled himself to say, ‘Don’t vex yourself, Phœbe, I know you did the best you could.  It made no real difference, and it was best that she should know the truth.’

‘Thank you, dear Robin,’ cried Phœbe, grateful for the consolation; ‘I am glad you do not think I misrepresented.’

‘You are always accurate,’ he answered.  ‘If you did anything undesirable, it was representing at all.  But that is nothing to the purpose.  It is all over now, and thank you for your constant good-will and patience, my dear.  There! now then it is an understood thing that her name is never spoken between us.’

Meanwhile, Robert’s proposal was under discussion by the elders.  Mr. Parsons had no abstract dread of a wealthy curate, but he hesitated to accept gratuitous services, and distrusted plans formed under the impulse of disappointment or of enthusiasm, since in the event of a change, both parties might be embarrassed.  There was danger too of collisions with his family, and Mr. Parsons took counsel with Miss Charlecote, knowing indeed that where her affections were concerned, her opinions must be taken with a qualification, but relying on the good sense formed by rectitude of purpose.