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

She received another kiss for those words, and they had been an effort, for those designs on Beauchamp weighed heavily on her, and the two tasks that were left to her were not congenial.  She did not know how to welcome a strange sister, for whose sake the last of the Mervyns was grudged her own inheritance, and still less did she feel disposed to harass her mother with a new idea, which would involve her in bewilderment and discussion.  She could only hope that there would be inspiration in Mervyn’s blank cover, and suppress her fever for suspense.

Wednesday came—no cover, blank or unblank.  Had he been taken with a fit of diffidence, and been less precipitate than he intended?  Womanhood hoped so, and rather enjoyed the possibility of his being kept a little in suspense.  Or suppose he had forgotten his cover, and then should think the absence of a letter her fault?  Thursday—still no tidings.  Should she venture a letter to him?  No; lovers were inexplicable people, and after all, what could she say?  Perhaps he was only waiting for an opportunity, and if Cecily had been ungracious at the last meeting, she might not afford one.  Day after day wore on, and still the post-bag was emptied in vain, and Phœbe’s patience was kept on tenterhooks, till, when a full fortnight had passed, she learnt through the servants that Mr. Mervyn’s wardrobe and valet, grooms and horses, had been sent for to London.

So he had been refused, and could not bear to tell her so!  And here she was disappointed and pitying, and as vexed with Miss Raymond as if it had not been no more than he deserved.  But poor Mervyn! he had expected it so little, and had been so really attached, that Phœbe was heartily grieved for him, and longed to know how he bore it.  Nay, with all the danger of removal, the flatness of the balked excitement was personally felt, and Phœbe would have been glad, in her monotonous life, of something to hope or to fear.

Her greatest pleasure was in Miss Charlecote’s return.  The long watch over her old friend was over.  Honor had shared his wife’s cares, comforted and supported her in her sorrow, and had not left her till the move from her parsonage was made, and she was settled among her own relations.  Much as Honor had longed to be with Phœbe, the Savilles had nearer claims, and she could not part with them while there was any need of her.  Indeed, Mr. Saville, as once the husband of Sarah Charlecote, the brother-in-law of Humfrey, and her own friend and adviser, was much esteemed and greatly missed.  She felt as if her own generation were passing away, when she returned to see the hatchment upon Beauchamp, and to hear of the widow’s failing health.  Knowing how closely Phœbe was attending her mother, Honor drove to Beauchamp the first day after her return, and had not crossed the hall before the slender black figure was in her arms.

Friends seem as though they must meet to know one another again, and begin afresh, after one of the great sorrows of life has fallen on either side, and especially when it is a first grief, a first taste of that cup of which all must drink.  As much of the child as could pass from Phœbe’s sweet, simple nature had passed in those hours that had made her the protector and nurse of her mother, and though her open eyes were limpid and happy as before, and the contour of the rounded cheek and lip as youthful and innocent, yet the soft gravity of the countenance was deepened, and there was a pensiveness on the brow, as though life had begun to unfold more difficulties than pleasures.

And Honor Charlecote?  That ruddy golden hair, once Owen’s pride, was mingled with many a silvery thread, and folded smoothly on a forehead paler, older, but calmer than once it had been.  Sorrow and desertion had cut deeply, and worn down the fair comeliness of heathful middle age; but something of compensation there was in the less anxious eye, from which had passed a certain restless, strained expression; and if the face were more habitually sad, it was more peaceful.  She did not love less those whom she ‘had seen,’ but He whom she ‘had not seen’ had become her rest and her reliance, and in her year of loneliness and darkness, a trust, a support, a confiding joy had sprung up, such as she had before believed in, but never experienced.  ‘Her Best, her All;’ those had been words of devotional aspiration before, they were realities at last.  And it was that peace that breathed into her fresh energy to work and love on, unwearied by disappointment, but with renewed willingness to spend and be spent, to rejoice with those who rejoiced, to weep with them that wept, to pray and hope for those who had wrung her heart.

Her tears were flowing as she tenderly embraced Phœbe, and the girl clung fast to her, not weeping, but full of warm, sweet emotion.  ‘Dear Miss Charlecote, now you are come, I have help and comfort!’

‘Dear one, I have grieved to be away, but I could not leave poor Mrs. Saville.’

‘Indeed, I know you could not; and it is better to have you now than even at the time.  It is a new, fresh pleasure, when I can enjoy it better.  And I feel as if we had a right to you now—since you know what I told you,’ said Phœbe, with her pretty, shy, lover-like colouring.

‘That you are Humfrey’s ward?—my legacy from him?  Good!’ said Honora, ratifying the inheritance with a caress, doubly precious to one so seldom fondled.  ‘Though I am afraid,’ she added, ‘that Mr. Crabbe would not exactly recognize my claim.’

‘Oh, I don’t want you for what Mr. Crabbe can do for us, but it does make me feel right and at ease in telling you of what might otherwise seem too near home.  But he was intended to have taken care of us all, and you always seem to me one with him—’

Phœbe stopped short, startled at the deep, bright, girlish blush on her friend’s cheek, and fearing to have said what she ought not; but Honor, recovering in a moment, gave a strange bright smile and tightly squeezed her hand.  ‘One with him!  Dear Phœbe, thank you.  It was the most undeserved, unrequited honour of my life that he would have had it so.  Yes, I see how you look at me in wonder, but it was my misfortune not to know on whom or what to set my affections till too late.  No; don’t try to repent of your words.  They are a great pleasure to me, and I delight to include you in the charges I had from him—the nice children he liked to meet in the woods.’

‘Ah! I wish I could remember those meetings.  Robert does, and I do believe Robert’s first beginning of love and respect for what was good was connected with his fondness for Mr. Charlecote.’

‘I always regard Bertha as a godchild inherited from him, like Charlecote Raymond, whom I saw ordained last week.  I could not help going out of my way when I found I might be present, and take his sister Susan with me.’

‘You went.’

‘Yes, Susan had been staying with her uncle at Sutton, and met me at Oxford.  I am glad we were able to go.  There was nothing that I more wished to have seen.’

Irrepressible curiosity could not but cause Phœbe to ask how lately Miss Raymond had been at Sutton, and as Miss Charlecote answered the question she looked inquisitively at her young friend, and each felt that the other was initiated.  Whether the cousin ought to have confided to Miss Charlecote what she had witnessed at Sutton was an open question, but at least Honor knew what Phœbe burnt to learn, and was ready to detail it.

It was the old story of the parish priest taking pupils, and by dire necessity only half fulfilling conflicting duties, to the sacrifice of the good of all.  Overworked between pupils and flock, while his wife was fully engrossed by children and household cares, the moment had not been perceived when their daughter became a woman, and the pupil’s sport grew to earnest.  Not till Mervyn Fulmort had left Sutton for the University were they aware that he had treated Cecily as the object of his affection, and had promised to seek her as soon as he should be his own master.  How much was in his power they knew not, but his way of life soon proved him careless of deserving her, and it was then that she became staid and careworn, and her youth had lost its bloom, while forced in conscience to condemn the companion of her girlhood, yet unable to take back the heart once bestowed, though so long neglected.

But when Mervyn, declaring himself only set at liberty by his father’s death, appeared at Sutton, Cecily did not waver, and her parents upheld her decision, that it would be a sin to unite herself to an irreligious man, and that the absence of principle which he had shown made it impossible for her to accept him.

Susan described her as going about the next morning looking as though some one had been killing her, but going through her duties as calmly and gently as ever, though preyed on by the misery of the parting in anger, and the threat that if he were not good enough for her, he would give her reason to think so!  Honor had pity on the sister, and spared her those words, but Phœbe had well-nigh guessed them, and though she might esteem Cecily Raymond, could not but say mournfully that it was a last chance flung away.

‘Not so, my dear.  What is right comes right.  A regular life without repentance is sometimes a more hopeless state than a wilder course, and this rejection may do him more good than acceptance.’

‘It is right, I know,’ said Phœbe.  ‘I could advise no one to take poor Mervyn; but surely it is not wrong to be sorry for him.’

‘No, indeed, dear child.  It is only the angels who do not mourn, though they rejoice.  I sometimes wonder whether those who are forgiven, yet have left evil behind them on earth, are purified by being shown their own errors reduplicating with time and numbers.’

‘Dear Miss Charlecote, do not say so.  Once pardoned, surely fully sheltered, and with no more punishment!’

‘Vain speculation, indeed,’ answered Honor.  ‘Yet I cannot help thinking of the welcome there must be when those who have been left in doubt and fear or shipwreck come safely into haven; above all, for those who here may not have been able to “fetch home their banished.”’

Phœbe pressed her hand, and spoke of trying whether mamma would see her.

‘Ah!’ thought Honora, ‘neither of us can give perfect sympathy.  And it is well.  Had my short-sighted wish taken effect, that sweet face might be clouded by such grief as poor Cecily Raymond’s.’

Mrs. Fulmort did see Miss Charlecote, and though speaking little herself, was gratified by the visit, and the voices talking before her gave her a sense of sociability.  This preference enabled Phœbe to enjoy a good deal of quiet conversation with her friend, and Honora made a point of being at Beauchamp twice or three times a week, as giving the only variety that could there be enjoyed.  Of Mervyn nothing was heard, and house and property wanted a head.  Matters came to poor Mrs. Fulmort for decision which were unheard-of mysteries and distresses to her, even when Phœbe, instructed by the steward, did her utmost to explain, and tell her what to do.  It would end by feeble, bewildered looks, and tears starting on the pale cheeks, and ‘I don’t know, my dear.  It goes through my head.  Your poor papa attended to those things.  I wish your brother would come home.  Tell them to write to him.’

‘They’ wrote, and Phœbe wrote, but in vain, no answer came; and when she wrote to Robert for tidings of Mervyn’s movements, entreating that he would extract a reply, he answered that he could tell nothing satisfactory of his brother, and did not know whether he were in town or not; while as to advising his mother on business, he should only make mischief by so doing.

Nothing satisfactory!  What could that imply?  Phœbe expected soon to hear something positive, for Bertha’s teeth required a visit to London, and Miss Fennimore was to take her to Lady Bannerman’s for a week, during which the governess would be with some relations of her own.

Phœbe talked of the snugness of being alone with her mother and Maria, and she succeeded in keeping both pleased with one another.  The sisters walked in the park, and brought home primroses and periwinkles, which their mother tenderly handled, naming the copses they came from, well known to her in childhood, though since her marriage she had been too grand to be allowed the sight of a wild periwinkle.  In the evening Phœbe gave them music, sang infant-school hymns with Maria, tried to teach her piquet; and perceived the difference that the absence of Bertha’s teasing made in the poor girl’s temper.  All was very quiet, but when good night was said, Phœbe felt wearied out, and chid herself for her accesses of yawning, nay, she was shocked at her feeling of disappointment and tedium when the return of the travellers was delayed for a couple of days.

When at length they came, the variety brightened even Mrs. Fulmort, and she was almost loquacious about some mourning pocket-handkerchiefs with chess-board borders, that they were to bring.  The girls all drank tea with her, Bertha pouring out a whole flood of chatter in unrestraint, for she regarded her mother as nobody, and loved to astonish her sisters, so on she went, a slight hitch in her speech giving a sort of piquancy to her manner.

She had dined late every day, she had ridden with Sir Bevil in the Park, her curly hair had been thought to be crépé, she had drunk champagne, she would have gone to the Opera, but the Actons were particular, and said it was too soon—so tiresome, one couldn’t do anything for this mourning.  Phœbe, in an admonitory tone, suggested that she had seen the British Museum.

‘Oh yes, I have it all in my note-book.  Only imagine, Phœbe, Sir Nicholas had been at Athens, and knew nothing about the Parthenon!  And, gourmet as he is, and so long in the Mediterranean, he had no idea whether the Spartan black broth was made with sepia.’

‘My dear,’ began her mother, ‘young ladies do not talk learning in society.’

‘Such a simple thing as this, mamma, every one must know.  But they are all so unintellectual!  Not a book about the Bannermans’ house except Soyer and the London Directory, and even Bevil had never read the Old Red Sandstone nor Sir Charles Lyell.  I have no opinion of the science of soldiers or sailors.’

‘You have told us nothing of Juliana’s baby,’ interposed Phœbe.

‘She’s exactly like the Goddess Pasht, in the Sydenham Palace!  Juliana does not like her a bit, because she is only a girl, and Bevil quite worships her.  Everything one of them likes, the other hates.  They are a study of the science of antipathies.’

‘You should not fancy things, Bertha.’

‘It is no fancy; every one is observing it.  Augusta says she has only twice found them together in their own house since Christmas, and Mervyn says it is a warning against virulent constancy.’

‘Then you saw Mervyn?’ anxiously asked Phœbe.

‘Only twice.  He is at deadly feud with the Actons, because Bevil takes Robert’s part, and has been lecturing him about the withdrawing all the subscriptions!’

‘What?’ asked Phœbe again.

‘Oh! I thought Robert told you all, but there has been such a row!  I believe poor papa said something about letting Robert have an evening school for the boys and young men at the distillery, but when he claimed it, Mervyn said he knew nothing about it, and wouldn’t hear of it, and got affronted, so he withdrew all the subscriptions from the charities and everything else, and the boys have been mobbing the clergy, and Juliana says it is all Robert’s fault.’

‘And did you see Robert?’

‘Very little.  No one would come to such an old fogy’s as Sir Nicholas, that could help it.’

‘Bertha, my dear, young ladies do not use such words,’ observed her mother.

‘Oh, mamma, you are quite behindhand.  Slang is the thing.  I see my line when I come out.  It would not do for you, Phœbe—not your style—but I shall sport it when I come out and go to the Actons.  I shall go out with them.  Augusta is too slow, and lives with nothing but old admirals and gourmands; but I’ll always go to Juliana for the season, Phœbe, wear my hair in the Eugenie style, and be piquante.’

‘Perhaps things will be altered by that time.’

‘Oh no.  There will be no retrograde movement.  Highly educated women have acquired such a footing that they may do what they please.’