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

Robert had not relied too much on his own forbearance.  Phœbe met her two brothers at dinner—one gloomy, the other melancholy; but neither altering his usual tone towards the other.  Unaware that Robert knew of his father’s designs, nor of their prevention, Mervyn was totally exempt from compunction, thinking, indeed, that he had saved his father from committing an injustice on the rest of the family, for the sake of a fanatical tormentor, who had already had and thrown away more than his share.  Subdued and saddened for the time, Mervyn was kind to Phœbe and fairly civil to Robert, so that there were no disturbances to interfere with the tranquil intercourse of the brother and sister in their walks in the woods, their pacings of the gallery, or low-voiced conferences while their mother dozed.

True to his resolve, Robert permitted no reference to his late hopes, but recurred the more vigorously to his parish interests, as though he had never thought of any wife save St. Matthew’s Church.

Home affairs, too, were matters of anxious concern.  Without much sign of sorrow, or even of comprehension of her loss, it had suddenly rendered the widow an aged invalid.  The stimulus to exertion removed, there was nothing to rouse her from the languid torpor of her nature, mental and physical.  Invalid habits gave her sufficient occupation, and she showed no preference for the company of any one except Phœbe or her maid, to whose control her passive nature succumbed.  At Boodle’s bidding, she rose, dressed, ate, drank, and went to bed; at Phœbe’s she saw her other children, heard Robert read, or signed papers for Mervyn.  But each fresh exertion cost much previous coaxing and subsequent plaintiveness; and when Phœbe, anxious to rouse her, persuaded her to come down-stairs, her tottering steps proved her feebleness; and though her sons showed her every attention, she had not been in the drawing-room ten minutes before a nervous trembling and faintness obliged them to carry her back to her room.

The family apothecary, a kind old man, declared that there was nothing seriously amiss, and that she would soon ‘recover her tone.’  But it was plain that much would fall on Phœbe, and Robert was uneasy at leaving her with so little assistance or comfort at hand.  He even wrote to beg his eldest sister to come for a few weeks till his mother’s health should be improved; but Sir Nicholas did not love the country in the winter, and Augusta only talked of a visit in the spring.

Another vexation to Robert was the schoolroom.  During the last few months Bertha had outgrown her childish distaste to study, and had exerted her mind with as much eagerness as governess could desire; her translations and compositions were wonders of ease and acuteness; she had plunged into science, had no objection to mathematics, and by way of recreation wandered in German metaphysics.  Miss Fennimore rather discouraged this line, knowing how little useful brain exercise she herself had derived from Kant and his compeers, but this check was all that was wanting to give Bertha double zest, and she stunned Robert with demonstrations about her ‘I’ and her ‘not I,’ and despised him for his contempt of her grand discoveries.

He begged for a prohibition of the study, but Miss Fennimore thought this would only lend it additional charms, and added that it was a field which the intellect must explore for itself, and not take on the authority of others.  When this answer was reported through Phœbe, Robert shrugged his shoulders, alarmed at the hot-bed nurture of intellect and these concessions to mental independence, only balanced by such loose and speculative opinions as Miss Fennimore had lately manifested to him.  Decidedly, he said, there ought to be a change of governess and system.

But Phœbe, tears springing into her eyes, implored him not to press it.  She thoroughly loved her kind, clear-headed, conscientious friend, who had assisted her so wisely and considerately through this time of trouble, and knew how to manage Maria.  It was no time for a fresh parting, and her mother was in no state to be harassed by alterations.  This Robert allowed with a sigh, though delay did not suit with his stern, uncompromising youthfulness, and he went on to say, ‘You will bear it in mind, Phœbe.  There and elsewhere great changes are needed.  This great, disorderly household is a heavy charge.  Acting for my mother, as you will have to do, how are you to deal with the servants?’

‘None of them come in my way, except dear old Lieschen, and Boodle, and Mrs. Brisbane, and they are all kind and thoughtful.’

‘Surface work, Phœbe.  Taking my mother’s place, as you do now, you will, or ought to, become aware of the great mischiefs below stairs, and I trust you will be able to achieve a great reformation.’

‘I hope—’ Phœbe looked startled, and hesitated.  ‘Surely, Robert, you do not think I ought to search after such things.  Would it be dutiful, so young as I am?’

‘Perhaps you are right,’ said Robert; ‘only, Phœbe, Phœbe, never let toleration harden you to be indifferent to evil.’

‘I hope not,’ said Phœbe, gravely.

‘My poor child, you are in for a world of perplexities!  I wish I had not to leave you to them.’

‘Every labyrinth has a clue,’ said Phœbe, smiling; ‘as Miss Fennimore says when she gives us problems to work.  Only you know the terms of the problem must be stated before the solution can be made out; so it is of no use to put cases till we know all the terms.’

‘Right, Phœbe.  Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’

‘I cannot see the evil yet,’ said Phœbe; ‘the trouble has brought so much comfort.  That happy Sunday with you, and my own year of being with them both, have been such blessings!  Last year, how much worse it would have been for us all, when I scarcely knew mamma or Mervyn, and could not go about alone nor to church!  And Miss Charlecote will soon come home.  There is so much cause for thankfulness, that I can’t be afraid.’

Robert said no more, but felt that innocent buoyancy a mystery to his lower-pitched spirit.  Never very gay or merry, Phœbe had a fund of happiness and a power of finding and turning outwards the bright side, which made her a most comfortable companion.

CHAPTER XV

Happy are they that learn in Him,
Though patient suffering teach
The secret of enduring strength,
And praise too deep for speech:
Peace that no pressure from without,
No strife within can reach.

    —A. L. Waring

Well was it for Phœbe that she had been trained to monotony, for her life was most uniform after Robert had left home.  Her schoolroom mornings, her afternoons with her mother, her evenings with Mervyn, were all so much alike that one week could hardly be distinguished from another.  Bertha’s vagaries and Mervyn’s periodical journeys to London were the chief varieties, certainly not her mother’s plaintiveness, her brother’s discontent, or the sacrifice of her own inclinations, which were pretty certain to be traversed, but then, as she said, something else happened that did as well as what she had wished.

One day, when Mervyn had been hunting, and had come home tired, he desired her to give him some music in the evening.  She took the opportunity of going over some fine old airs, which the exigencies of drawing-room display had prevented her from practising for some time.  Presently she found him standing by her, his face softer than usual.  ‘Where did you get that, Phœbe?’

‘It is Haydn’s.  I learnt it just after Miss Fennimore came.’

‘Play it again; I have not heard it for years.’

She obeyed, and looked at him.  He was shading his face with his hand, but he hardly spoke again all the rest of the evening.

Phœbe’s curiosity was roused, and she tried the effect of the air on her mother, whose great pleasure was her daughter’s music, since a piano had been moved into her dressing-room.  But it awoke no association there, and ‘Thank you, my dear,’ was the only requital.

While the next evening she was wondering whether to volunteer it, Mervyn begged for it, and as she finished, asked, ‘What does old Gay say of my mother now?’

‘He thinks her decidedly better, and so I am sure she is.  She has more appetite.  She really ate the breast of a partridge to-day!’

‘He says nothing of a change?’

‘She could not bear the journey.’

‘It strikes me that she wants rousing.  Shut up in a great lonely house like this, she has nothing cheerful to look at.  She would be much better off at Brighton, or some of those places where she could see people from the windows, and have plenty of twaddling old dowager society.’

‘I did ask Mr. Gay about the sea, but he thought the fatigue of the journey, and the vexing her by persuading her to take it, would do more harm than the change would do good.’

‘I did not mean only as a change.  I believe she would be much happier living there, with this great place off her hands.  It is enough to depress any one’s spirits to live in a corner like a shrivelled kernel in a nut.’

‘Go away!’ exclaimed Phœbe.  ‘Mervyn! it is her home!  It is her own!’

‘Well, I never said otherwise,’ he answered, rather crossly; ‘but you know very well that it is a farce to talk of her managing the house, or the estate either.  It was bad enough before, but there will be no check on any one now.’

‘I thought you looked after things.’

‘Am I to spend my life as a steward?  No, if the work is to be in my hands, I ought to be in possession at once, so as to take my place in the county as I ought, and cut the City business.  The place is a mere misfortune and encumbrance to her as she is, and she would be ten times happier at a watering-place.’

‘Mervyn, what do you mean?  You have all the power and consequence here, and are fully master of all; but why should not poor mamma live in her own house?’

‘Can’t you conceive that a man may have reasons for wishing to be put in possession of the family place when he can enjoy it, and she can’t?  Don’t look at me with that ridiculous face.  I mean to marry.  Now, can’t you see that I may want the house to myself?’

‘You are engaged!’

‘Not exactly.  I am waiting to see my way through the bother.’

‘Who is it?  Tell me about it, Mervyn.’

‘I don’t mind telling you, but for your life don’t say a word to any one.  I would never forgive you, if you set my Ladies Bannerman and Acton at me.’

Phœbe was alarmed.  She had little hope that their likings would coincide; his manner indicated defiance of opinion, and she could not but be averse to a person for whose sake he wished to turn them out.  ‘Well,’ was all she could say, and he proceeded: ‘I suppose you never heard of Cecily Raymond.’

‘Of Moorcroft?’ she asked, breathing more freely.  ‘Sir John’s daughter?’

‘No, his niece.  It is a spooney thing to take up with one’s tutor’s daughter, but it can’t be helped.  I’ve tried to put her out of my head, and enter on a more profitable speculation, but it won’t work!’

‘Is she very pretty—prettier than Lucilla Sandbrook?’ asked Phœbe, unable to believe that any other inducement could attach him.