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

When her maid left her, she only moved to extinguish her light, and then cowered down again as if to hide in the darkness; but the soft summer twilight gloom seemed to soothe and restore her, and with a longing for air to refresh her throbbing brow, she leant out into the cool, still night, looking into the northern sky, still pearly with the last reminiscence of the late sunset, and with the pale large stars beaming calmly down.

‘Oh mother, mother!  Well might you long to take your poor Maria with you—there where the weary are at rest—where there is mercy for the weak and slow!  Home! home! we have none but with you!’

Nay, had she not a home with Him whose love was more than mother’s love; whose soft stars were smiling on her now; whose gentle breezes fanned her burning cheeks, even as a still softer breath of comfort was stilling her troubled spirit!  She leant out till she could compose herself to kneel in prayer, and from prayer rose up quietly, weary, and able to rest beneath the Fatherly Wings spread over the orphan.

She was early astir, though with heavy, swollen eyelids; and anxious to avoid Bertha’s inquiries till all should be more fully settled, she betook herself to the garden, to cool her brow and eyes.  She was bathing them in the dewy fragrant heart of a full-blown rose, that had seemed to look at her with a tearful smile of sympathy, when a step approached, and an arm was thrown round her, and Robert stood beside her.

‘My Phœbe,’ he said tenderly, ‘how are you?  It was a frightful evening!’

‘Oh! Robert, were you displeased with me?’

‘No, indeed.  You put us all to shame.  I grieved that you had no more preparation, but some of the guests stayed late, afterwards I was hindered by business, and then Bevil laid hands on me to advise me privately against this establishment for poor Maria.’

‘I thought it was Juliana who pressed it!’

‘Have you not learnt that whatever he dislikes she forwards?’

‘Oh! Robert, you can hinder that scheme from ever being thought of again!’

‘Yes,’ said Robert; ‘there she should never have been, even had you not made resistance.’

‘And, Robert, may we stay here?’ asked Phœbe, trembling.

‘Crabbe sees no objection,’ he answered.

‘Do you, Robert?  If you think we ought not, I will try to change; but Mervyn is kind, and it is home!  I saw you thought me wrong, but I could not help being glad he relented to Maria.’

‘You were right.  Your eldest brother is the right person to give you a home.  I cannot.  It would have shown an evil, suspicious temper if you had refused him.’

‘Yet you do not like it.’

‘Perhaps I am unjust.  I own that I had imagined you all happier and better in such a home as Mrs. Parsons or Miss Charlecote could find for you; and though Mervyn would scarcely wilfully take advantage of your innocence, I do not trust to his always knowing what would be hurtful to you or Bertha.  It is a charge that I grudge to him, for I do not think he perceives what it is.’

‘I could make you think better of him.  I wonder whether I may.’

‘Anything—anything to make me think better of him,’ cried Robert eagerly.

‘I do not know it from him alone, so it cannot be a breach of confidence,’ said Phœbe.  ‘He has been deeply attached, not to a pretty person, nor a rich nor grand one, but she was very good and religious—so much so that she would not accept him.’

‘How recently?’

‘The attachment has been long; the rejection this spring.’

‘My poor Phœbe, I could not tell you how his time has been passed since early spring.’

‘I know in part,’ she said, looking down; ‘but, Robin, that arose from despair.  Oh, how I longed for him to come and let me try to comfort him!’

‘And how is this to change my opinion,’ asked Robert, ‘except by showing me that no right-minded woman could trust herself with him?’

‘Oh, Robert, no!  Sisters need not change, though others ought, perhaps.  I meant you to see that he does love and honour goodness for itself, and so that he will guard his sisters.’

‘I will think so, Phœbe.  You deserve to be believed, for you draw out his best points.  For my own part, the miserable habits of our boyhood have left a habit of acrimony, of which, repent as I will, I cannot free myself.  I gave way to it last night.  I can be cool, but I cannot help being contemptuous.  I make him worse, and I aggravated your difficulties by insulting him.’

‘He insulted you,’ said Phœbe.  ‘When I think of those words I don’t know how I can stay with him.’

‘They fell short!  They were nothing,’ said Robert.  ‘But it was the more unbefitting in me to frame my warning as I did.  Oh, Phœbe, your prayers and influence have done much for me.  Help me now to treat my brother so as not to disgrace my calling.’

‘You—when you freely forgive all the injuries he has done you!’

‘If I freely forgave, I suppose I should love;’ and he murmured sadly, ‘He that hateth his brother is a murderer.’

Phœbe shrank, but could not help thinking that if the spirit of Cain existed among them, it was not with the younger brother.

When she next spoke, it was to express her fear lest Miss Fennimore should refuse to remain, since the position would be uncomfortable.  Her talent was thrown away on poor Maria, and Bertha had been very vexing and provoking of late.  Phœbe greatly dreaded a change, both from her love for her governess, and alarm lest a new duenna might be yet more unwelcome to Mervyn, and she was disappointed to see that Robert caught at the hope that the whole scheme might be baffled on this score.

Phœbe thought a repetition of the dinner-table offence would be best obviated by taking her place as tea-maker at once.  Mervyn first came down, and greeted her like something especially his own.  He detected the red blistered spot on her cheek, and exclaimed, ‘Eh! did they make you cry?  Never mind; the house will soon be clear of them, and you my little queen.  You have nothing to say against it.  Has any one been putting things in your head?’ and he looked fiercely at his brother.

‘No, Mervyn; Robert and I both think you very kind, and that it is the right thing.’

‘Yes,’ said Robert, ‘no arrangement could be more proper.  I am sorry, Mervyn, if my manner was offensive last night.’

‘I never take offence, it is not my way,’ said Mervyn, indifferently, almost annoyed that his brother had not spirit to persevere in the quarrel.

After the breakfast, where the elder sisters were cold and distant, and Sir Bevil as friendly as he durst, Mervyn’s first move was to go, in conjunction with Mr. Crabbe, to explain the arrangement to Miss Fennimore, and request her to continue her services.  They came away surprised and angry: Miss Fennimore would ‘consider of it.’  Even when Mervyn, to spare himself from ‘some stranger who might prove a greater nuisance,’ had offered a hundred in addition to her present exorbitant salary, she courteously declined, and repeated that her reply should be given in the evening.

Mervyn’s wrath would have been doubled had he known the cause of her delay.  She sent Maria to beg Robert to spare her half an hour, and on his entrance, dismissing her pupils, she said, ‘Mr. Fulmort, I should be glad if you would candidly tell me your opinion of the proposed arrangement.  I mean,’ seeing his hesitation, ‘of that part which relates to myself.’

‘I do not quite understand you,’ he said.

‘I mean, whether, as the person whose decision has the most worth in this family, you are satisfied to leave your sisters under my charge?  If not, whatever it may cost me to part with that sweet and admirable Phœbe,’ and her voice showed unwonted emotion, ‘I would not think of remaining with them.’

‘You put me in a very strange position, Miss Fennimore; I have no authority to decide.  They could have no friend more sincerely anxious for their welfare or so welcome to Phœbe’s present wishes.’

‘Perhaps not; but the question is not of my feelings nor theirs, but whether you consider my influence pernicious to their religious principles.  If so, I decline their guardian’s terms at once.’  After a pause, she added, pleased at his deliberation, ‘It may assist you if I lay before you the state of my own mind.’

She proceeded to explain that her parents had been professed Unitarians, her mother, loving and devout to the hereditary faith, beyond which she had never looked—‘Mr. Fulmort,’ she said, ‘nothing will approve itself to me that condemns my mother!’

He began to say that often where there was no wilful rejection of truth, saving grace and faith might be vouchsafed.

‘You are charitable,’ she answered, in a tone like sarcasm, and went on.  Her father, a literary man of high ability, set aside from work by ill-health, thought himself above creeds.  He had given his daughter a man’s education, had read many argumentative books with her, and died, leaving her liberally and devoutly inclined in the spirit of Pope’s universal prayer—‘Jehovah, Jove, or Lord.’  It was all aspiration to the Lord of nature, the forms, adaptations to humanity, kaleidoscope shapes of half-comprehended fragments, each with its own beauty, and only becoming worthy of reprobation where they permitted moral vices, among which she counted intolerance.

What she thought reasonable—Christianity, modified by the world’s progress—was her tenet, and she had no scruple in partaking in any act of worship; while naturally conscientious, and loving all the virtues, she viewed the terrors of religion as the scourge of the grovelling and superstitious; or if suffering existed at all, it could be only as expiation, conducting to a condition of high intellect and perfect morality.  No other view, least of all that of a vicarious atonement, seemed to her worthy of the beneficence of the God whom she had set up for herself.

Thus had she rested for twenty years; but of late she had been dissatisfied.  Living with Phœbe, ‘though the child was not naturally intellectual,’ there was no avoiding the impression that what she acted and rested on was substantial truth.  ‘The same with others,’ said Miss Fennimore, meaning her auditor himself.  ‘And, again, I cannot but feel that devotion to any system of faith is the restraint that Bertha is deficient in, and that this is probably owing to my own tone.  These examples have led me to go over the former ground in the course of the present spring; and it has struck me that, if the Divine Being be not the mere abstraction I once supposed, it is consistent to believe that He has a character and will—individuality, in short—so that there might be one single revelation of absolute truth.  I have not thoroughly gone through the subject, but I hope to do so; and when I mark what I can only call a supernatural influence on an individual character, I view it as an evidence in favour of the system that produced it.  My exposition of my opinions shocks you; I knew it would.  But knowing this, and thinking it possible that an undoubting believer might have influenced Bertha, are you willing to trust your sisters to me?’

‘Let me ask one question—why was this explanation never offered before to those who had more right to decide?’

‘My tenets have seldom been the subject of inquiry.  When they have, I have concealed nothing; and twice have thus missed a situation.  But these things are usually taken for granted; and I never imagined it my duty to volunteer my religious sentiments, since I never obtruded them.  I gave no scandal by objecting to any form of worship, and concerned myself with the moral and intellectual, not the religious being.’