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

‘For shame, Mervyn.  You don’t really believe it is all out of honour.’

‘I should never have believed a man of his years could be so green; but some men get crotchets about honour in the army, especially if they get elderly there.’

‘It is very noble, if it be right, and he can take those vows from his heart,’ moralized Phœbe.  ‘But no, Mervyn, she cannot think so.  No woman could take any one on such terms.’

‘Wouldn’t she, though?’ sneered her brother.  ‘She’d have him if grim death were hanging on to his other hand.  People aren’t particular, when they are nigh upon their third ten.’

‘Don’t tell me such things!  I don’t believe them; but they ought never to be suggested.’

‘You ought to thank me for teaching you knowledge of the world.’

He was called off, but heavy at her heart lay the text, ‘The knowledge of wickedness is not wisdom.’

Mervyn’s confidences were serious troubles to Phœbe.  Gratifying as it was to be singled out by his favour, it was distressing to be the repository of what she knew ought never to have been spoken, prompted by a coarse tone of mind, and couched in language that, though he meant it to be restrained, sometimes seemed to her like the hobgoblins’ whispers to Christian.  Oh! how unlike her other brother!  Robert had troubles, Mervyn grievances, and she saw which were the worst to bear.  It was a pleasing novelty to find a patient listener, and he used it to the utmost, while she often doubted whether to hear without remonstrance were not undutiful, yet found opposition rather increased the evil by the storm of ill-temper that it provoked.

This last communication was dreadful to her, yet she could not but feel that it might be a wholesome warning to avoid giving offence to the jealousy which, when once pointed out to her, she could not prevent herself from tracing in Juliana’s petulance towards herself, and resolve to force her into the background.  Even Bertha was more often brought forward, for in spite of a tongue and temper cast somewhat in a similar mould, she was rather a favourite with Juliana, whom she was not unlikely to resemble, except that her much more elaborate and accurate training might give her both more power and more self-control.

As Mervyn insinuated, Juliana was prudent in not lengthening out the engagement, and the marriage was fixed for Christmas week, but it was not to take place at Hiltonbury.  Sir Bevil was bashful, and dreaded county festivities, and Juliana wished to escape from Maria as a bridesmaid, so they preferred the privacy of an hotel and a London church.  Phœbe could not decently be excluded, and her heart leapt with the hope of seeing Robert, though so unwelcome was his name in the family that she could not make out on what terms he stood, whether proscribed, or only disapproved, and while sure that he would strive to be with her, she foresaw that the pleasure would be at the cost of much pain.  Owen Sandbrook was spending his vacation at the Holt, and Miss Charlecote looked so bright as she walked to church leaning on his arm, that Phœbe had no regrets in leaving her.  Indeed, the damsel greatly preferred the Holt in his absence.  She did not understand his discursive comments on all things in art or nature, and he was in a mood of flighty fitful spirits, which perplexed her alike by their wild, satirical mirth, and their mournful sentiment.  She thought Miss Charlecote was worried and perplexed at times by his tone; but there was no doubt of his affection and attention for his ‘Sweet Honey,’ and Phœbe rejoiced that her own absence should be at so opportune a moment.

Sir Bevil went to make his preparations at home, whence he was to come and join the Fulmorts the day after their arrival in town.  Mrs. Fulmort was dragged out in the morning, and deposited at Farrance’s in time for luncheon, a few minutes before a compact little brougham set down Lady Bannerman, jollier than ever in velvet and sable, and more scientific in cutlets and pale ale.  Her good-nature was full blown.  She was ready to chaperon her sisters anywhere, invited the party to the Christmas dinner, and undertook the grand soirée after the wedding.  She proposed to take Juliana at once out shopping, only lamenting that there was no room for Phœbe, and was so universally benevolent, that in the absence of the bride elect, Phœbe ventured to ask whether she saw anything of Robert.

‘Robert?  Yes, he called when we first came to town, and we asked him to dinner; but he said it was a fast day; and you know Sir Nicholas would never encourage that sort of thing.’

‘How was he?’

‘He looked odder than ever, and so ill and cadaverous.  No wonder! poking himself up in such a horrid place, where one can’t notice him.’

‘Did he seem in tolerable spirits?’

‘I don’t know.  He always was silent and glum; and now he seems wrapped up in nothing but ragged schools and those disgusting City missions; I’m sure we can’t subscribe, so expensive as it is living in town.  Imagine, mamma, what we are giving our cook!’

Juliana returned, and the two sisters went out, leaving Phœbe to extract entertainment for her mother from the scenes passing in the street.

Presently a gentleman’s handsome cabriolet and distinguished-looking horse were affording food for their descriptions, when, to her surprise, Sir Bevil emerged from it, and presently entered the room.  He had come intending to take out his betrothed, and in her absence transferred the offer to her sister.  Phœbe demurred, on more accounts than she could mention, but her mother remembering what a drive in a stylish equipage with a military baronet would once have been to herself, overruled her objections, and hurried her away to prepare.  She quickly returned, a cheery spectacle in her russet dress and brown straw bonnet, and her scarlet neck-tie, the robin redbreast’s livery which she loved.

‘Your cheeks should be a refreshing sight to the Londoners, Phœbe,’ said Sir Bevil, with his rare, but most pleasant smile.  ‘Where shall we go?  You don’t seem much to care for the Park.  I’m at your service wherever you like to go.’  And as Phœbe hesitated, with cheeks trebly beneficial to the Londoners, he kindly added, ‘Well, what is it?  Never mind what!  I’m open to anything—even Madame Tussaud’s.’

‘If I might go to see Robert.  Augusta said he was looking ill.’

‘My dear!’ interposed her mother, ‘you can’t think of it.  Such a dreadful place, and such a distance.’

‘It is only a little way beyond St. Paul’s, and there are no bad streets, dear mamma.  I have been there with Miss Charlecote.  But if it be too far, or you don’t like driving into the City, never mind,’ she continued, turning to Sir Bevil; ‘I ought to have said nothing about it.’

But Sir Bevil, reading the ardour of the wish in the honest face, pronounced the expedition an excellent idea, and carried her off with her eyes as round and sparkling as those of the children going to Christmas parties.  He stole glances at her as if her fresh innocent looks were an absolute treat to him, and when he talked, it was of Robert in his boyhood.  ‘I remember him at twelve years old, a sturdy young ruffian, with an excellent notion of standing up for himself.’

Phœbe listened with delight to some characteristic anecdotes of Robert’s youth, and wondered whether he would be appreciated now.  She did not think Sir Bevil held the same opinions as Robert or Miss Charlecote; he was an upright, high-minded soldier, with honour and subordination his chief religion, and not likely to enter into Robert’s peculiarities.  She was in some difficulty when she was asked whether her brother were not under some cloud, or had not been taking a line of his own—a gentler form of inquiry, which she could answer with the simple truth.

‘Yes, he would not take a share in the business, because he thought it promoted evil, and he felt it right to do parish work at St. Wulstan’s, because our profits chiefly come from thence.  It does not please at home, because they think he could have done better for himself, and he sometimes is obliged to interfere with Mervyn’s plans.’

Sir Bevil made the less answer because they were in the full current of London traffic, and his proud chestnut was snuffing the hat of an omnibus conductor.  Careful driving was needed, and Phœbe was praised for never even looking frightened, then again for her organ of locality and the skilful pilotage with which she unerringly and unhesitatingly found the way through the Whittingtonian labyrinths; and as the disgusted tiger pealed at the knocker of Turnagain Corner, she was told she would be a useful guide in the South African bush.  ‘At home,’ was the welcome reply, and in another second her arms were round Robert’s neck.  There was a thorough brotherly greeting between him and Sir Bevil; each saw in the other a man to be respected, and Robert could not but be grateful to the man who brought him Phœbe.

Her eyes were on the alert to judge how he had been using himself in the last half-year.  He looked thin, yet that might be owing to his highly clerical coat, and some of his rural ruddiness was gone, but there was no want of health of form or face, only the spareness and vigour of thorough working condition.  His expression was still grave even to sadness, and sternness seemed gathering round his thin lips.  Heavy of heart he doubtless was still, but she was struck by the absence of the undefined restlessness that had for years been habitual to both brothers, and which had lately so increased on Mervyn, that there was a relief in watching a face free from it, and telling not indeed of happiness, but of a mind made up to do without it.

She supposed that his room ought to satisfy her, for though untidy in female eyes, it did not betray ultra self-neglect.  The fire was brisk, there was a respectable luncheon on the table, and he had even treated himself to the Guardian, some new books, and a beautiful photograph of a foreign cathedral.  The room was littered with half-unrolled plans, which had to be cleared before the guests could find seats, and he had evidently been beguiling his luncheon with the perusal of some large MS. sheets, red-taped together at the upper corner.

‘That’s handsome,’ said Sir Bevil.  ‘What is it for?  A school or almshouses.’

‘Something of both,’ said Robert, his colour rising.  ‘We want a place for disposing of the destitute children that swarm in this district.’

‘Oh, show me!’ cried Phœbe.  ‘Is it to be at that place in Cicely Row?’

‘I hope so.’

The stiff sheets were unrolled, the designs explained.  There was to be a range of buildings round a court, consisting of day-schools, a home for orphans, a crèche for infants, a reading-room for adults, and apartments for the clergy of the Church which was to form one side of the quadrangle.  Sir Bevil was much interested, and made useful criticisms.  ‘But,’ he objected, ‘what is the use of building new churches in the City, when there is no filling those you have?’

‘St. Wulstan’s is better filled than formerly,’ said Robert.  ‘The pew system is the chief enemy there; but even without that, it would not hold a tenth part of the Whittingtonian population, would they come to it, which they will not.  The Church must come to them, and with special services at their own times.  They need an absolute mission, on entirely different terms from the Woolstone quarter.’

‘And are you about to head the mission?’

‘To endeavour to take a share in it.’

‘And who is to be at the cost of this?’ pursued Sir Bevil.  ‘Have you a subscription list?’

Robert coloured again as he answered, ‘Why, no; we can do without that so far.’

Phœbe understood, and her face must have revealed the truth to Sir Bevil, for laying his hand on Robert’s arm, he said, ‘My good fellow, you don’t mean that you are answerable for all this?’

‘You know I have something of my own.’

‘You will not leave much of it at this rate.  How about the endowment?’

‘I shall live upon the endowment.’

‘Have you considered?  You will be tied to this place for ever.’

‘That is one of my objects,’ replied Robert, and in reply to a look of astonished interrogation, ‘myself and all that is mine would be far too little to atone for a fraction of the evil that our house is every day perpetrating here.’

‘I should hate the business myself,’ said the baronet; ‘but don’t you see it in a strong light?’

‘Every hour I spend here shows me that I do not see it strongly enough.’

And there followed some appalling instances of the effects of the multiplicity of gin-palaces, things that it well-nigh broke Robert’s heart to witness, absorbed as he was in the novelty of his work, fresh in feeling, and never able to divest himself of a sense of being a sharer in the guilt and ruin.

Sir Bevil listened at first with interest, then tried to lead away from the subject; but it was Robert’s single idea, and he kept them to it till their departure, when Phœbe’s first words were, as they drove from the door, ‘Oh, thank you, you do not know how much happier you have made me.’

Her companion smiled, saying, ‘I need not ask which is the favourite brother.’

‘Mervyn is very kind to me,’ quickly answered Phœbe.