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

‘Not what you would call pretty at all, except her eyes.  Not a bit fit to make a figure in the world, and a regular little parsoness.  That’s the deuce of it.  It would be mere misery to her to be taken to London and made to go into society; so I want to have it settled, for if she could come here and go poking into cottages and schools, she would want nothing more.’

‘Then she is very good?’

‘You and she will be devoted to each other.  And you’ll stand up for her, I know, and then a fig for their two ladyships.  You and I can be a match for Juliana, if she tries to bully my mother.  Not that it matters.  I am my own man now; but Cecily is crotchety, and must not be distressed.’

‘Then I am sure she would not like to turn mamma out,’ said Phœbe, stoutly.

‘Don’t you see that is the reason I want to have it settled beforehand.  If she were a party to it, she would never consent; she would be confoundedly scrupulous, and we should be all worried to death.  Come, you just sound my mother; you can do anything with her, and it will be better for you all.  You will be bored to death here, seeing no one.’

‘I do not know whether it be a right proposal to make.’

‘Right?  If the place had been my father’s, it would be a matter of course.’

‘That makes the whole difference.  And even so, would not this be very soon?’

‘Of course you know I am proposing nothing at once.  It would not be decent, I suppose, to marry within the half-year; but, poor little thing, I can’t leave her in suspense any longer.  You should not have played that thing.’

‘Then you know that she cares for you?’

He laughed consciously at this home question.

‘It must be a long time since you were at Mr. Raymond’s.’

‘Eight years; but I have made flying visits there since, and met her at her uncle’s.  Poor little thing, she was horribly gone off last time, and very ungracious, but we will find a remedy!’

‘Then you could not gain consent to it?’

‘It never came to that.  I never committed myself.’

‘But why not?  If she was so good, and you liked her, and they all wanted you to marry, I can’t see why you waited, if you knew, too, that she liked you—I don’t think it was kind, Mervyn.’

‘Ah! women always hang by one another.  See here, Phœbe, it began when I was as green as yourself, a mere urchin, and she a little unconscious thing of the same age.  Well, when I got away, I saw what a folly it was—a mere throwing myself away!  I might have gone in for rank or fortune, as I liked; and how did I know that I was such a fool that I could not forget her?  If Charles Charteris had not monopolized the Jewess, I should have been done for long ago!  And apart from that, I wasn’t ready for domestic joys, especially to be Darby to such a pattern little Joan, who would think me on the highway to perdition if she saw Bell’s Life on the table, or heard me bet a pair of gloves.’

‘You can’t have any affection for her,’ cried Phœbe, indignantly.

‘Didn’t I tell you she spoilt the taste of every other transaction of the sort?  And what am I going to do now?  When she has not a halfpenny, and I might marry anybody!’

‘If you cared for her properly, you would have done it long before.’

‘I’m a dutiful son,’ he answered, in an indifferent voice, that provoked Phœbe to say with spirit, ‘I hope she does not care for you, after all.’

‘Past praying for, kind sister.  Sincerely I’ve been sorry for it; I would have disbelieved it, but the more she turns away, the better I know it; so you see, after all, I shall deserve to be ranked with your hero, Bevil Acton.’

‘Mervyn, you make me so angry that I can hardly answer!  You boast of what you think she has suffered for you all this time, and make light of it!’

‘It wasn’t my fault if my poor father would send such an amiable youth into a large family.  Men with daughters should not take pupils.  I did my best to cure both her and myself, but I had better have fought it out at once when she was younger and prettier, and might have been more conformable, and not so countrified, as you’ll grow, Phœbe, if you stay rusting here, nursing my mother and reading philosophy with Miss Fennimore.  If you set up to scold me, you had better make things easy for me.’

Phœbe thought for a few moments, and then said, ‘I see plainly what you ought to do, but I cannot understand that this makes it proper to ask my mother to give up her own house, that she was born to.  I suppose you would call it childish to propose your living with us; but we could almost form two establishments.’

‘My dear child, Cecily would go and devote herself to my mother.  I should never have any good out of her, and she would get saddled for life with Maria.’

‘Maria is my charge,’ said Phœbe, coldly.

‘And what will your husband say to that?’

‘He shall never be my husband unless I have the means of making her happy.’

‘Ay, there would be a frenzy of mutual generosity, and she would be left to us.  No; I’m not going to set up housekeeping with Maria for an ingredient.’

‘There is the Underwood.’

‘Designed by nature for a dowager-house.  That would do very well for you and my mother, though Cheltenham or Brighton might be better.  Yes, it might do.  You would be half a mile nearer your dear Miss Charlecote.’

‘Thank you,’ said Phœbe, a little sarcastically; but repenting she added, ‘Mervyn, I hope I do not seem unkind and selfish; but I think we ought to consider mamma, as she cannot stand up for herself just now.  It is not unlikely that when mamma hears you are engaged, and has seen and grown fond of Miss Raymond, she may think herself of giving up this place; but it ought to begin from her, not from you; and as things are now, I could not think of saying anything about it.  From what you tell me of Miss Raymond, I don’t think she would be the less likely to take you without Beauchamp than with it; indeed, I think you must want it less for her sake than your own.’

‘Upon my word, Mrs. Phœbe, you are a cool hand!’ exclaimed Mervyn, laughing; ‘but you promise to see what can be done as soon as I’ve got my hand into the matter.’

‘I promise nothing,’ said Phœbe; ‘I hope it will be settled without me, for I do not know what would be the most right or most kind, but it may be plainer when the time comes, and she, who is so good, will be sure to know.  O Mervyn, I am very glad of that!’

Phœbe sought the west wing in such a tingle of emotion that she only gave Miss Fennimore a brief good night instead of lingering to talk over the day.  Indignation was foremost.  After destroying Robert’s hopes for life, here was Mervyn accepting wedded happiness as a right, and after having knowingly trifled with a loving heart for all these years, coolly deigning to pick it up, and making terms to secure his own consequence and freedom from all natural duties, and to thrust his widowed mother from her own home.  It was Phœbe’s first taste of the lesson so bitter to many, that her parents’ home was not her own for life, and the expulsion seemed to her so dreadful that she rebuked herself for personal feeling in her resentment, and it was with a sort of horror that she bethought herself that her mother might possibly prefer a watering-place life, and that it would then be her part to submit cheerfully.  Poor Miss Charlecote! would not she miss her little moonbeam?  Yes, but if this Cecily were so good, she would make up to her.  The pang of suffering and dislike quite startled Phœbe.  She knew it for jealousy, and hid her face in prayer.

The next day was Sunday, and Mervyn made the unprecedented exertion of going twice to church, observing that he was getting into training.  He spent the evening in dwelling on Cecily Raymond, who seemed to have been the cheerful guardian elder sister of a large family in narrow circumstances, and as great a contrast to Mervyn himself as was poor Lucilla to Robert; her homeliness and seriousness being as great hindrances to the elder brother, as fashion and levity to the younger.  It was as if each were attracted by the indefinable essence, apart from all qualities, that constitutes the self; and Haydn’s air, learnt long ago by Cecily as a surprise to her father on his birthday, had evoked such a healthy shoot of love within the last twenty-four hours, that Mervyn was quite transformed, though still rather unsuitably sensible of his own sacrifice, and of the favour he was about to confer on Cecily in entering on that inevitable period when he must cease to be a gentleman at large.

On Monday he came down to breakfast ready for a journey, as Phœbe concluded, to London.  She asked if he would return by the next hunting day.  He answered vaguely, then rousing himself, said, ‘I say, Phœbe, you must write her a cordial sisterly sort of letter, you know; and you might make Bertha do it too, for nobody else will.’

‘I wrote to Juliana on Friday.’

‘Juliana!  Are you mad?’

‘Oh! Miss Raymond!  But you told me you had said nothing!  You have not had time since Friday night to get an answer.’

‘Foolish child, no; but I shall be there to-night or to-morrow.’

‘You are going to Sutton?’

‘Yes; and, as I told you, I trust to you to write such a letter as to make her feel comfortable.  Well, what’s the use of having a governess, if you don’t know how to write a letter?’

‘Yes, Mervyn, I’ll write, only I must hear from you first.’

‘I hate writing.  I tell you, if you write—let me see, on Wednesday, you may be sure it is all over.’

‘No, Mervyn, I will not be so impertinent,’ said Phœbe, and the colour rushed into her face as she recollected the offence that she had once given by manifesting a brother’s security of being beloved.  ‘It would be insulting her to assume that she had accepted you, and write before I knew, especially after the way you have been using her.’

‘Pshaw! she will only want a word of kindness; but if you are so fanciful, will it do if I put a cover in the post?  There! and when you get it on Wednesday morning, you write straight off to Cecily, and when you have got the notion into my mother’s understanding, you may write to me, and tell me what chance there is of Beauchamp.’

What chance of Beauchamp!  The words made Phœbe’s honest brow contract as she stood by the chimney-piece, while her brother went out into the hall.  ‘That’s all he cares for,’ she thought.  ‘Poor mamma!  But, oh! how unkind.  I am sending him away without one kind wish, and she must be good—so much better than I could have hoped!’

Out she ran, and as he paused to kiss her bright cheek, she whispered, ‘Good-bye, Mervyn; good speed.  I shall watch for your cover.’