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

‘She has one thing more to say,’ added Honor.  ‘Do you think that throwing aside Phœbe’s little services will make you fitter to go among the little children?’

There was no answer, but a reluctant approach to a smile gave Phœbe courage to effect her restorations, and her whispered ‘You will not disturb them?’ met with an affirmative satisfactory to herself.

Perhaps he felt as of old, when the lady of the Holt had struck him for his cruelty to the mouse, or expelled him for his bad language.  The same temper remained, although self-revenge had become the only outlet.  He knew what it was that he had taken for devoted self-denial.

‘Yes, Robin,’ were Miss Charlecote’s parting words, as she went back to days of her own long past.  ‘Wilful doing right seldom tends to good, above all when it begins by exaggeration of duty.’

And Robert was left with thoughts such as perchance might render him a more tractable subordinate for Mr. Parsons, instead of getting into training for the Order of St. Dominic.

Phœbe had to return less joyfully than she had gone forth.  Her first bright star of anticipation had faded, and she had partaken deeply of the griefs of the two whom she loved so well.  Not only had she to leave the one to his gloomy lodgings in the City, and the toil that was to deaden suffering, but the other must be parted with at the station, to return to the lonely house, where not even old Ponto would meet her—his last hour having, to every one’s grief, come in her absence.

Phœbe could not bear the thought of that solitary return, and even at the peril of great disappointment to her sisters, begged to sleep that first night at the Holt, but Honor thanked her, and laughed it off: ‘No, no! my dear, I am used to be alone, and depend upon it, there will be such an arrear of farm business for me, that I should hardly have time to speak to you.  You need not be uneasy for me, dear one, there is always relief in having a great deal to do, and I shall know you are near, to come if I want you.  There’s a great deal in that knowledge, Phœbe.’

‘If I were of any use—’

‘Yes, Phœbe, this visit has made you my friend instead of my playfellow.’

Phœbe’s deepening colour showed her intense gratification.  ‘And there are the Sundays,’ added Honor.  ‘I trust Miss Fennimore will let you come to luncheon, and to the second service with me.’

‘I will try very hard!’

For Phœbe could not help feeling like the canary, who sees his owner’s hand held out to catch him after his flight, or the pony who marks his groom at the gate of the paddock.  Cage and rein were not grievous, but liberty was over, and free-will began to sink into submission, as the chimneys of home came nearer, even though the anticipation of her sister’s happiness grew more and more on her, and compensated for all.

Shrieks of ecstasy greeted her; she was held as fast as though her sisters feared to lose her again, and Miss Fennimore showed absolute warmth of welcome.  Foreign tongues were dispensed with, and it was a festival evening of chatter, and display of purchases, presents, and commissions.  The evidences of Phœbe’s industry were approved.  Her abstracts of her reading, her notes of museums and exhibitions, her drawing, needlework, and new pieces of music, exceeded Miss Fennimore’s hopes, and appalled her sisters.

‘You did all that,’ cried Bertha, profiting by Miss Fennimore’s absence; ‘I hope to goodness she won’t make it a precedent.’

‘Wasn’t it very tiresome?’ asked Maria.

‘Sometimes; but it made me comfortable, as if I had a backbone for my day.’

‘But didn’t you want to feel like a lady?’

‘I don’t think I felt otherwise, Maria.’

‘Like a grown-up lady, like mamma and my sisters?’

‘O examples!’ cried Bertha.  ‘No wonder Maria thinks doing nothing the great thing to grow up for.  But, Phœbe, how could you be so stupid as to go and do all this heap?  You might as well have stayed at home.’

‘Miss Fennimore desired me!’

‘The very reason why I’d have read stories, and made pictures out of them, just to feel myself beyond her talons.’

‘Talents, not talons,’ said Maria.  ‘Cats have talons, people have talents.’

‘Sometimes both, sometimes neither,’ observed Bertha.  ‘No explanation, Phœbe; what’s the use?  I want to know if Owen Sandbrook didn’t call you little Miss Precision?’

‘Something like it.’

‘And you went on when he was there?’

‘Generally.’

‘Oh! what opportunities are wasted on some people.  Wouldn’t I have had fun!  But of course he saw you were a poor little not-come-out thing, and never spoke to you.  Oh! if Miss Charlecote would ask me to London!’

‘And me!’ chimed in Maria.

‘Well, what would you do?’

‘Not act like a goose, and bring home dry abstracts.  I’d make Miss Charlecote take me everywhere, and quite forget all my science, unless I wanted to amaze some wonderful genius.  Oh dear! won’t I make Augusta look foolish some of these days!  She really thinks that steel attracts lightning!  Do you think Miss Charlecote’s society will appreciate me, Phœbe?’

‘And me?’ again asked Maria.

Phœbe laughed heartily, but did not like Bertha’s scoffing mirth at Maria’s question.  Glad as she was to be at home, her glimpse of the outer world had so enlarged her perceptions, she could not help remarking the unchildlike acuteness of the younger girl, and the obtuse comprehension of the elder; and she feared that she had become discontented and fault-finding after her visit.  Moreover, when Bertha spoke much English, a certain hesitation occurred in her speech which was apt to pass unnoticed in her foreign tongues, but which jarred unpleasantly on her sister’s ear, and only increased when noticed.

At nine, when Phœbe rose as usual to wish good night, Miss Fennimore told her that she need not for the future retire before ten, the hour to which she had of late become accustomed.  It was a great boon, especially as she was assured that the additional hour should be at her own disposal.

‘You have shown that you can be trusted with your time, my dear.  But not to-night,’ as Phœbe was turning to her desk; ‘remember how long I have suffered a famine of conversation.  What! were you not sensible of your own value in that respect?’

‘I thought you instructed me; I did not know you conversed with me.’

‘There’s a difference between one susceptible of instruction, and anything so flippant and volatile as Bertha,’ said Miss Fennimore, smiling.  ‘And poor Maria!’

‘She is so good and kind!  If she could only see a few things, and people, and learn to talk!’

‘Silence and unobtrusiveness are the only useful lessons for her, poor girl!’ then observing Phœbe’s bewildered looks, ‘My dear, I was forced to speak to Bertha because she was growing jealous of Maria’s exemptions; but you, who have been constantly shielding and supplying her deficiencies, you do not tell me that you were not aware of them?’

‘I always knew she was not clever,’ said Phœbe, her looks of alarmed surprise puzzling Miss Fennimore, who in all her philosophy had never dreamt of the unconscious instinct of affection.

‘I could not have thought it,’ she said.

‘Thought what?  Pray tell me!  O what is the matter with poor Maria?’

‘Then, my dear, you really had never perceived that poor Maria is not—has not the usual amount of capacity—that she cannot be treated as otherwise than deficient.’

‘Does mamma know it?’ faintly asked Phœbe, tears slowly filling her eyes.

Miss Fennimore paused, inwardly rating Mrs. Fulmort’s powers little above those of her daughter.  ‘I am not sure,’ she said; ‘your sister Juliana certainly does, and in spite of the present pain, I believe it best that your eyes should be opened.’

‘That I may take care of her.’

‘Yes, you can do much in developing her faculties, as well as in sheltering her from being thrust into positions to which she would be unequal.  You do so already.  Though her weakness was apparent to me the first week I was in the house, yet, owing to your kind guardianship, I never perceived its extent till you were absent.  I could not have imagined so much tact and vigilance could have been unconscious.  Nay, dear child, it is no cause for tears.  Her life may perhaps be happier than that of many of more complete intellect.’

‘I ought not to cry,’ owned Phœbe, the tears quietly flowing all the time.  ‘Such people cannot do wrong in the same way as we can.’

‘Ah! Phœbe, till we come to the infinite, how shall the finite pronounce what is wrong?’

Phœbe did not understand, but felt that she was not in Miss Charlecote’s atmosphere, and from the heavenly, ‘from him to whom little is given, little will be required,’ came to the earthly, and said, imploring, ‘And you will never be hard on her again!’