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

Lucilla had no conviction that he was right; but she was willing to believe for the time, and was glad to lay her head on his shoulder and feel, while she could, that she had something entirely her own.  Too soon it would be over.  Lengthen the evening as they would, morning must come at last.

It came; the hurried breakfast, pale looks, and trivial words.  Robert arrived to watch them off; Mrs. Murrell brought the child.  Owen took him in his arms, and called her to the study.  Robert sat still, and said—

‘I will do what I can.  I think, in case I had to write about the child, you had better leave me your address.’

Lucilla wrote it on a card.  The tone quashed all hope.

‘We trust to you,’ she said.

‘Mr. Currie has promised to let me hear of Owen,’ said Robert; but no more passed.  Owen came back hasty and flushed, wanting to be gone and have it over.  The cabs were called, and he was piling them with luggage; Robert was glad to be actively helpful.  All were in the hall; Owen turned back for one more solitary gaze round the familiar room; Robert shook Lucilla’s hand.

‘O bid me good speed,’ broke from her; ‘or I cannot bear it.’

‘God be with you.  God bless you!’ he said.

No more!  He had not approved, he had not blamed.  He would interfere no more in her fate.  She seated herself, and drew down her black veil, a chill creeping over her.

‘Thank you, Robert, for all,’ was Owen’s farewell.  ‘If you will say anything to Phœbe from me, tell her she is all that is left to comfort poor Honor.’

‘Good-bye,’ was the only answer.

Owen lingered still.  ‘You’ll write?  Tell me of her; Honor, I mean, and the child.’

‘Yes, yes, certainly.’

Unable to find another pretext for delay, Owen again wrung Robert’s hand, and placed himself by his sister, keeping his head out as long as he could see Robert standing with crossed arms on the doorstep.

When, the same afternoon, Mr. Parsons came home, he blamed himself for having yielded to his youngest curate the brunt of the summer work.  Never had he seen a man not unwell look so much jaded and depressed.

Nearly at the same time, Lucilla and her boxes were on the platform of the Southminster station, Owen’s eyes straining after her as the train rushed on, and she feeling positive pain and anger at the sympathy of Dr. Prendergast’s kind voice, as though it would have been a relief to her tumultuous misery to have bitten him, like Uncle Kit long ago.  She clenched her hand tight, when with old-world courtesy he made her take his arm, and with true consideration, conducted her down the hill, through the quieter streets, to the calm, shady precincts of the old cathedral.  He had both a stall and a large town living; and his abode was the gray freestone prebendal house, whose two deep windows under their peaked gables gave it rather a cat-like physiognomy.  Mrs. Prendergast and Sarah were waiting in the hall, each with a kiss of welcome, and the former took the pale girl at once up-stairs, to a room full of subdued sunshine, looking out on a green lawn sloping down to the river.  At that sight and sound, Lucy’s face lightened.  ‘Ah! I know I shall feel at home here.  I hear the water’s voice!’

But she had brought with her a heavy cold, kept in abeyance by a strong will during the days of activity, and ready to have its way at once, when she was beaten down by fatigue, fasting, and disappointment.  She dressed and came down, but could neither eat nor talk, and in her pride was glad to attribute all to the cold, though protesting with over-eagerness that such indisposition was rare with her.

She would not have suffered such nursing from Honor Charlecote as was bestowed upon her.  The last month had made tenderness valuable, and without knowing all, kind Mrs. Prendergast could well believe that there might be more than even was avowed to weigh down the young head, and cause the fingers, when unobserved, to lock together in suppressed agony.

While Sarah only knew that her heroine-looking governess was laid up with severe influenza, her mother more than guessed at the kind of battle wrestled out in solitude, and was sure that more than brother, more than friend, had left her to that lonely suffering, which was being for the first time realized.  But no confidence was given; when Lucilla spoke, it was only of Owen, and Mrs. Prendergast returned kindness and forbearance.

It was soothing to be dreamily in that summer room, the friendly river murmuring, the shadows of the trees lazily dancing on the wall, the cathedral bells chiming, or an occasional deep note of the organ stealing in through the open window.  It suited well with the languor of sensation that succeeded to so much vehemence and excitement.  It was not thought, it was not resignation, but a species of repose and calm, as if all interest, all feeling, were over for her, and as if it mattered little what might further befall her, as long as she could be quiet, and get along from one day to another.  If it had been repentance, a letter would have been written very unlike the cold announcement of her situation, the scanty notices of her brother, with which she wrung the heart that yearned after her at Hiltonbury.  But sorry she was, for one part at least, of her conduct, and she believed herself reduced to that meek and correct state that she had always declared should succeed her days of gaiety, when, recovering from her indisposition, she came down subdued in tone, and anxious to fulfil what she had undertaken.

‘Ah! if Robert could see me now, he would believe in me,’ thought she to herself, as she daily went to the cathedral.  She took classes at school, helped to train the St. Jude’s choir, played Handel for Dr. Prendergast, and felt absolutely without heart or inclination to show that self-satisfied young curate that a governess was not a subject for such distant perplexed courtesy.  Sad at heart, and glad to distract her mind by what was new yet innocent, she took up the duties of her vocation zealously; and quickly found that all her zeal was needed.  Her pupil was a girl of considerable abilities—intellectual, thoughtful, and well taught; and she herself had been always so unwilling a learner, so willing a forgetter, that she needed all the advantages of her grown-up mind and rapidity of perception to keep her sufficiently beforehand with Sarah, whenever subjects went deep or far.  If she pronounced like a native, and knew what was idiomatic, Sarah, with her clumsy pronunciation, had further insight into grammar, and asked perplexing questions; if she played admirably and with facility, Sarah could puzzle her with the science of music; if her drawing were ever so effective and graceful, Sarah’s less sightly productions had correct details that put hers to shame, and, for mere honesty’s sake, and to keep up her dignity, she was obliged to work hard, and recur to the good grounding that against her will she had received at Hiltonbury.  ‘Had her education been as superficial as that of her cousins,’ she wrote to her brother, ‘Sarah would have put her to shame long ago; indeed, nobody but the Fennimore could be thoroughly up to that girl.’

Perhaps all her endeavours would not have impressed Sarah, had not the damsel been thoroughly imposed on by her own enthusiasm for Miss Sandbrook’s grace, facility, alertness, and beauty.  The power of doing prettily and rapidly whatever she took up dazzled the large and deliberate young person, to whom the right beginning and steady thoroughness were essential, and she regarded her governess as a sort of fairy—toiling after her in admiring hopelessness, and delighted at any small success.

Fully aware of her own plainness, Sarah adored Miss Sandbrook’s beauty, took all admiration of it as personally as if it been paid to her bullfinch, and was never so charmed as when people addressed themselves to the governess as the daughter of the house.  Lucilla, however, shrank into the background.  She was really treated thoroughly as a relation, but she dreaded the remarks and inquiries of strangers, and wished to avoid them.  The society of the cathedral town was not exciting nor tempting, and she made no great sacrifice in preferring her pretty schoolroom to the dinners and evening parties of the Close; but she did so in a very becoming manner, and delighted Sarah with stories of the great world, and of her travels.

There could be no doubt that father, mother, and daughter all liked and valued her extremely, and she loved Mrs. Prendergast as she had never loved woman before, with warm, filial, confiding love.  She was falling into the interests of the cathedral and the parish, and felt them, and her occupations in the morning, satisfying and full of rest after the unsatisfactory whirl of her late life.  She was becoming happier than she knew, and at any rate felt it a delusion to imagine the post of governess an unhappy one.  Three years at Southminster (for Sarah strenuously insisted that she would come out as late as possible) would be all peace, rest, and improvement; and by that time Owen would be ready for her to bring his child out to him, or else—

Little did she reck of the grave, displeased, yet far more sorrowful letter in which Honor wrote, ‘You have chosen your own path in life, may you find it one of improvement and blessing!  But I think it right to say, that though real distress shall of course always make what is past forgotten, yet you must not consider Hiltonbury a refuge if you grow hastily weary of your exertions.  Since you refuse to find a mother in me, and choose to depend on yourself alone, it must be in earnest, not caprice.’

CHAPTER XIV

These are of beauty rare,
In holy calmness growing,
Of minds whose richness might compare
E’en with thy deep tints glowing.
Yet all unconscious of the grace they wear.

Like flowers upon the spray,
All lowliness, not sadness,
Bright are their thoughts, and rich, not gay,
Grave in their very gladness,
Shedding calm summer light over life’s changeful day.

    To the Fuchsia.—S. D.

Phœbe Fulmort sat in her own room.  The little round clock on the mantelpiece pointed to eleven.  The fire was low but glowing.  The clear gas shone brightly on the toilette apparatus, and on the central table, loaded with tokens of occupation, but neat and orderly as the lines in the clasped volume where Phœbe was dutifully writing her abstract of the day’s reading and observation, in childishly correct miniature round-hand.

The curtain was looped up, and the moon of a frosty night blanched a square on the carpet beneath the window, at which she often looked with a glistening gaze.  Her father and brother had been expected at dinner-time; and though their detention was of frequent occurrence, Phœbe had deferred undressing till it should be too late for their arrival by the last train, since they would like her to preside over their supper, and she might possibly hear of Robert, whose doings her father had of late seemed to regard with less displeasure, though she had not been allowed to go with Miss Charlecote to the consecration of his church, and had not seen him since the Horticultural Show.

She went to the window for a final look.  White and crisp lay the path, chequered by the dark defined shadows of the trees; above was the sky, pearly with moonlight, allowing only a few larger stars to appear, and one glorious planet.  Fascinated by the silent beauty, she stood gazing, wishing she could distinguish Jupiter’s moons, observing on the difference between his steady reflected brilliance and the sun-like glories of Arcturus and Aldebaran, and passing on to the moral Miss Charlecote loved, of the stars being with us all day unseen, like the great cloud of witnesses.  She hoped Miss Charlecote saw that moon; for sunrise or set, rainbow, evening gleam, new moon, or shooting star, gave Phœbe double pleasure by comparing notes with Miss Charlecote, and though that lady was absent, helping Mrs. Saville to tend her husband’s mortal sickness, it was likely that she might be watching and admiring this same fair moon.  Well that there are many girls who, like Phœbe, can look forth on the Creator’s glorious handiwork as such, in peace and soothing, ‘in maiden meditation fancy free,’ instead of linking these heavenly objects to the feverish fancies of troubled hearts!

Phœbe was just turning from the window, when she heard wheels sounding on the frosty drive, and presently a carriage appeared, the shadow spectrally lengthened on the slope of the whitened bank.  All at once it stopped where the roads diverged to the front and back entrances, a black figure alighted, took out a bag, dismissed the vehicle, and took the path to the offices.  Phœbe’s heart throbbed.  It was Robert!

As he disappeared, she noiselessly opened her door, guardedly passed the baize door of the west wing, descended the stairs, and met him in the hall.  Neither spoke till they were in the library, which had been kept prepared for the travellers.  Robert pressed her to him and kissed her fervently, and she found voice to say, ‘What is it?  Papa?’

‘Yes,’ said Robert.

She needed not to ask the extent of the calamity.  She stood looking in his face, while, the beginning once made, he spoke in low, quick accents.  ‘Paralysis.  Last night.  He was insensible when Edwards called him this morning.  Nothing could be done.  It was over by three this afternoon.’

‘Where?’ asked Phœbe, understanding, but not yet feeling.

‘At his rooms at the office.  He had spent the evening there alone.  It was not known till eight this morning.  I was there instantly, Mervyn and Bevil soon after, but he knew none of us.  Mervyn thought I had better come here.  Oh, Phœbe, my mother!’

‘I will see if she have heard anything,’ said Phœbe, moving quietly off, as though one in a dream, able to act, move, and decide, though not to think.

She found the household in commotion.  Robert had spoken to the butler, and everywhere were knots of whisperers.  Miss Fennimore met Phœbe with her eyes full of tears, tears as yet far from those of Phœbe herself.  ‘Your mother has heard nothing,’ she said; ‘I ascertained that from Boodle, who only left her dressing-room since your brother’s arrival.  You had better let her have her night’s rest.’

Robert, who had followed Phœbe, hailed this as a reprieve, and thanked Miss Fennimore, adding the few particulars he had told his sister.  ‘I hope the girls are asleep,’ he said.

‘Sound asleep, I trust,’ said Miss Fennimore.  ‘I will take care of them,’ and laying her hand on Phœbe’s shoulder, she suggested to her that her brother had probably not eaten all day, then left them to return to the library together.  There had been more time for Robert to look the thought in the face than his sister.  He was no longer freshly stunned.  He really needed food, and ate in silence, while she mechanically waited on him.  At last he looked up, saying, ‘I am thankful.  A few months ago, how could I have borne it?’

‘I have been sure he understood you better of late,’ said Phœbe.

‘Sunday week was one of the happiest days I have spent for years.  Imagine my surprise at seeing him and Acton in the church.  They took luncheon with us, looked into the schools, went to evening service, and saw the whole concern.  He was kinder than ever I knew him, and Acton says he expressed himself as much pleased.  I owe a great deal to Bevil Acton, and, I know, to you.  Now I know that he had forgiven me.’

‘You, Robin!  There was nothing to forgive.  I can fancy poor Mervyn feeling dreadfully, but you, always dutiful except for the higher duty!’

‘Hush, Phœbe!  Mine was grudging service.  I loved opposition, and there was an evil triumph in the annoyance I gave.’