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

    Les Precieuses Ridicules

The detective arrived, looking so entirely the office clerk as to take in Mervyn himself at first sight; and the rest of the world understood that he was to stay till their master could go over the accounts with him.  As housekeeper’s room company, his attentions were doubly relished by the housemaids, and jealousy was not long in prompting the revelation that Jane Hart had been Smithson’s sweetheart, and was supposed to have met him since his dismissal.  Following up this trail, the detective proved to his own satisfaction that she had been at a ball at a public-house in the next village the night before the hunt, and had there met both Smithson and the poacher.  This, however, he reserved for Mervyn’s private ear, still watching his victim, in the hope that she might unconsciously give some clue to the whereabouts of her lover.  The espionage diverted Mervyn, and gave him the occupation for his thoughts that he sorely needed; but it oppressed Phœbe, and she shrank from the sight of the housemaid, as though she herself were dealing treacherously by her.

‘Phœbe,’ said Mervyn, mysteriously, coming into the library, where his tardy breakfast was spread, ‘that villain Smithson has been taken up at Liverpool; and here’s a letter for you to look at.  Fenton has captured a letter to that woman Hart, who, he found, was always wanting to go to the post—but he can’t make it out; and I thought it was German, so I brought it to you.  It looks as if old Lieschen—

‘No! no! it can’t be,’ cried Phœbe.  ‘I’ll clear it up in a moment.’

But as she glanced at the letter the colour fled from her cheek.

‘Well, what is it?’ said Mervyn, impatiently.

‘Oh, Mervyn!’ and she put her hands before her face.

‘Come, the fewer words the better.  Out with it at once!’

‘Mervyn!  It is to Bertha!’  She stood transfixed.

‘What?’ cried Mervyn.

‘To Bertha,’ repeated Phœbe, looking as if she could never shut her eyes.

‘Bertha?  What, a billet-doux; the little precocious pussycat!’ and he laughed, to Phœbe’s increased horror.

‘If it could only be a mistake!’ said she; ‘but here is her name!  It is not German, only English in German writing.  Oh, Bertha! Bertha!’

‘Well, but who is the fellow?  Let me look,’ said Mervyn.

‘It is too foolish,’ said Phœbe, guarding it, in the midst of her cold chills of dismay.  ‘There is no surname—only John.  Ah! here’s J. H.  Oh! Mervyn, could it be Mr. Hastings?’

‘No such thing!  John!  Why, my name’s John—everybody’s name is John!  That’s nothing.’

‘But, Mervyn, I was warned,’ said Phœbe, her eyes again dilating with dismay, ‘that Mr. Hastings never was received into a house with women without there being cause to repent it.’

‘Experience might have taught you how much slanderous gossip to believe by this time!  I believe it is some trumpery curate she has been meeting at Miss Charlecote’s school feasts.’

‘For shame, Mervyn,’ cried Phœbe, in real anger.

‘Curates like thirty thousand as much as other men,’ said Mervyn, sulkily.

‘After all,’ said Phœbe, controlling herself, ‘what signifies most is, that poor Bertha should have been led to do such a dreadful thing.’

‘If ever I take charge of a pack of women again!  But let’s hear what the rascal says to her.’

‘I do not think it is fair to read it all,’ said Phœbe, glancing over the tender passages.  ‘Poor child, how ashamed she will be!  But listen—’ and she read a portion, as if meant to restrain the girl’s impatience, promising to offer a visit to Beauchamp, or, if that were refused till the captives were carried off, assuring her there would be ways and means at Acton Manor, where a little coldness from the baronet always secured the lady’s good graces.

Acton Manor was in Mr. Hastings’ neighbourhood, and Mervyn struck his own knee several times.

‘Hum! ha!  Was not some chaff going on one day about the heiresses boxed up in the west wing?  Some one set you all down at a monstrous figure—a hundred thousand apiece.  I wonder if he were green enough to believe it!  Hastings!  No, it can’t be!  Here, we’ll have the impudent child down, and frighten it out of her.  But first, how are we to put off that fellow Fenton?  Make up something to tell him.’

‘Making up would be of no use,’ said Phœbe; ‘he is too clever.  Tell him it is a family matter.’

Mervyn left the room, and Phœbe hid her face in her hands, thunderstruck, and endeavouring to disentangle her thoughts, perturbed between shame, indignation, and the longing to shield and protect her sister.  She had not fully realized her sister’s offence, so new to her imagination, when she was roused by Mervyn’s return, saying that he had sent for Bertha to have it over.

Starting up, she begged to go and prepare her sister, but he peremptorily detained her, and, ‘Oh, be kind to her,’ was all that she could say, before in tripped Bertha, looking restless and amazed, but her retroussé nose, round features, and wavy hair so childish that the accusation seemed absurd.

So Mervyn felt it, and in vain drew in his feet, made himself upright, and tried to look magisterial.  ‘Bertha,’ he began, ‘Bertha, I have sent for you, Bertha—it is not possible—What’s that?’ pointing to the letter, as though it had been a stain of ink which she had just perpetrated.

Alarmed perhaps, but certainly not confounded, Bertha put her hands before her, and demurely said—‘What do you mean?’

‘What do you mean, Bertha, by such a correspondence as this?’

‘If you know that letter is for me, why did you meddle with it?’ she coolly answered.

‘Upon my word, this is assurance,’ cried Mervyn.

‘Give me my letter,’ repeated Bertha, reaching out for it.  ‘No one else has a right to touch it.’

‘If there be nothing amiss,’ said Phœbe, coming to the relief of her brother, who was almost speechless at this audacity, ‘why receive it under cover to a servant?’

‘Because prejudice surrounds me,’ stoutly replied Bertha, with barely a hitch in her speech, as if making a grand stroke; but seeing her brother smile, she added in an annihilating tone, ‘practical tyranny is exercised in every family until education and intellect effect a moral emancipation.’

‘What?’ said Mervyn, ‘education teaching you to write letters in German hand!  Fine results!  I tell you, if you were older, the disgrace of this would stick to you for life, but if you will tell the whole truth about this scoundrel, and put an end to it, we will do the best we can for you.’

She made up a disdainful mouth, and said, ‘Thank you.’

‘After all,’ said Mervyn, turning to Phœbe, ‘it is a joke!  Look at her!  She is a baby!  You need not have made such a rout.  This is only a toy-letter to a little girl; very good practice in German writing.’

‘I am engaged to John Hastings heart and hand,’ said Bertha in high dignity, little knowing that she thus first disclosed the name.

‘Yes, people talk of children being their little wives,’ said Mervyn, ‘but you are getting too old for such nonsense, though he does not think you so.’

‘It is the joint purpose of our lives,’ said Bertha.

Mervyn gave his scoffing laugh, and again addressing Phœbe, said, ‘If it were you, now, or any one with whom he was not in sport, it would be a serious matter.  The fellow got himself expelled from Harrow, then was the proverb of even a German university, ran through his means before he was five-and-twenty, is as much at home in the Queen’s Bench as I am in this study, has been outlawed, lived on rouge et noir at Baden till he got whitewashed when his mother died, and since that has lived on betting, or making himself agreeable to whoever would ask him.’

‘Many thanks on the part of your intimate friend,’ said Bertha, with suppressed passion.

Mervyn stamped his foot, and Phœbe defended him with, ‘Men may associate with those who are no companions for their sisters, Bertha.’

‘Contracted minds always accept malignant reports,’ was the reply.

‘Report,’ said Mervyn; ‘I know it as well as I know myself!’ then recollecting himself, ‘but she does not understand, it is of no use to talk to children.  Take her away, Phœbe, and keep her in the nursery till Mr. Crabbe comes to settle what is to be done with her.’

‘I insist on having my letter,’ said Bertha, with womanly grandeur.

‘Let her have it.  It is not worth bothering about a mere joke,’ said Mervyn, leaning back, wearied of the struggle, in which, provoking as he was, he had received some home thrusts.

Phœbe felt bewildered, and as if she had a perfect stranger on her hands, though Bertha’s high tone was, after all, chiefly from her extremity, and by way of reply to her brother’s scornful incredulity of her exalted position.  She was the first to speak on leaving the library.  ‘Pray, Phœbe, how came you to tamper with people’s letters?’