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

‘Well, Phœbe, how’s Bertha?  Ready to leave this hot-vapour-bath of a hole?’

‘I don’t know what you will say to it now,’ she answered looking down, and a little tremulous.  ‘Who do you think is here?’

‘Not Hastings?  If he dares to show his nose here, I’ll get him hissed out of the place.’

‘No, no, something very different.’

‘Well, make haste,’ he said, in the grim voice of a tired man.

‘She is here—Cecily Raymond.’

‘What of that?’  He sat down, folded his arms, and crossed his ankles, the picture of dogged indifference.

‘Mervyn!’

‘What does it matter to me who comes or goes?  Don’t stop to rehearse arrivals, but ring for something to eat.  An atrocious mistral!  My throat is like a turnpike road?  Call it January?  It is a mockery!’

Phœbe obeyed him; but she was in a ferment of wrath and consternation, and clear of nothing save that Cecily must be prepared for his appearance.  She was leaving the room when he called her to ask what she was doing.

‘I am going to tell the others that you are come.’

‘Where are they?’

‘In the olive yards behind the hotel.’

‘Don’t be in such a hurry, and I’ll come.’

‘Thank you, but I had better go on before.  Miss Raymond is with them.’

‘It makes no odds to her.  Stop a minute, I tell you.  What is the matter with her?’  (Said with some uneasiness, hidden by gruffness.)

‘She is not here for her own health, but Major Holmby is rheumatic.’

‘Oh! that intolerable woman is here, is she?  Then you may give Miss Charlecote notice to pack up her traps, and we’ll set off to-morrow!’

If a desire to box a man’s ears ever tingled in Phœbe’s fingers, it was at that moment.  Not trusting herself to utter a word, she went up-stairs, put on her hat, and walked forth, feeling as if the earth had suddenly turned topsy-turvy with her, and as if she could look no one in the face.  Set off to-morrow!  He might tell Miss Charlecote himself, she would not!  Yet, after all, he had been rejected.  His departure might not torture Cecily like the sight of his indifference.  But what despair for Bertha, thought Phœbe, as she saw the friends pacing the paths between the rows of olives, while Miss Charlecote and Maria were gathering magnificent blue violets.  At the first hint, Miss Charlecote called to Bertha, who came reluctantly, while Phœbe, with almost sickening pity, murmured her tidings to Cecily—adding, ‘I do not think he is coming out.  He is having something to eat,’ in hopes that this tardiness might be a preparation.  She was relieved that Bertha rushed back again to monopolize Miss Raymond, and overwhelm her with schemes for walks under Mervyn’s escort.  Cecily let her talk, but made no promises, and the soft gentleness of those replies thrilled as pangs of pain on Phœbe’s pitying heart.

As they walked homewards, Mervyn himself appeared, slowly sauntering towards them.  The younger sisters sprang to meet him, Cecily fell back to Miss Charlecote.  Phœbe held her breath, and scarcely durst look.  There was a touch of the hand, a greeting, then Bertha pounced on her brother to tell the adventure of the ravine; and Cecily began to set Maria off about the flowers in her nosegay.  Phœbe could only come close to Miss Charlecote and squeeze her hand vehemently.

The inn-door was reached, and Mervyn waiting till Cecily came up, said with grave formality, ‘I hear my sisters are indebted to you for your assistance in a very unpleasant predicament.

She bowed, and he bowed.  That was all, and they were in their several apartments.  Phœbe had never felt in such a fever.  She could discern character, but love was but an external experience to her, and she could not read the riddle of Mervyn’s repudiation of intercourse with their fellow-inmates, and his restlessness through the evening, checking Bertha for boring about her friend, and then encouraging her to go on with what she had been saying.  At last, however, Bertha voluntarily ceased her communications and could be drawn out no farther; and when the candle was put out at night, she electrified Phœbe with the remark, ‘It is Mervyn, and you know it; so you may as well tell me all about it.’

Phœbe had no choice but compliance; advising Bertha not to betray her knowledge, and anxious to know the conclusions which this acute young woman would draw from the present conjuncture.  But Bertha was too fond of both parties not to be full of unmitigated hope.  ‘Oh, Phœbe!’ she said, ‘with Cecily there, I shall not mind going home, I shall not mind anything.’

‘If only she will be there.’

‘Stuff, Phœbe!  The more Mervyn sulks, the more it shows that he cares for her; and if she cares for him, of course it will come right.’

‘Do you remember what she said about the two wills contending?’

‘Well, if she ever did think Mervyn the genie, she has crossed him once, twice, thrice, till she may turn him from Urgan into Ethert Brand.’

‘She thinks it her duty not to hear that she has.’

‘Oh, oh! from you who know all about it; but didn’t I tell her plenty about Mervyn’s kindness to me?  Yes, indeed I did.  I couldn’t help it, you know.  It did not seem true to let anybody begin to be my friend unless she knew—all that.  So I told her—and oh! Phœbe, she was so dear and nice, better than ever after that,’ continued Bertha, with what sounded like sobs; ‘and then you know she could not help hearing how good and patient he was with me—only growing kinder and kinder the more tiresome I was.  She must feel that, Phœbe, must not she?  And then she asked about Robert, and I told her how Mervyn has let him get a chaplain to look after the distillery people, and the Institute that that old gin-palace is to be made into.’

‘Those were just the things I was longing to tell her.’

‘She could not stop me, you know, because I knew nothing,’ cried Bertha, triumphantly.  ‘Are not you satisfied, Phœbe?’

‘I ought to be, if I were sure of his feelings.  Don’t plunge about so, Bertha,—and I am not sure either that she will believe him yet to be a religious man.’

‘Don’t say that, Phœbe.  I was just going to begin to like religion, and think it the only true key to metaphysics and explanation of existence, but if it sticks between those two, I shall only see it as a weak, rigid superstition, parting those who were meant for one another.’

Phœbe was strongly tempted to answer, but the little travelling clock struck, and thus acted as a warning that to let Bertha pursue an exciting discussion at this time of night would be ruinous to her nerves the next day.  So with a good-night, the elder sister closed her ears, and lay pondering on the newly disclosed stage in Bertha’s mind, which touched her almost as closely as the fate of her brother’s attachment.

The ensuing were days of suppressed excitement, chiefly manifested by the yawning fits that seized on Bertha whenever no scene in the drama was passing before her.  In fact, the scenes presented little.  Cecily was not allowed to shut herself up, and did nothing remarkable, though avoiding the walks that she would otherwise have taken with the Fulmort party; and when she found that Bertha was aware of her position, firmly making silence on that head the condition of their interviews.  Mervyn let her alone, and might have seemed absolutely indifferent, but for the cessation of all complaints of Hyères, and for the noteworthy brightness, obligingness, and good humour of his manners.  Even in her absence, though often restless and strangely watchful, he was always placable and good-tempered, never even scolding Phœbe; and in her presence, though he might not exchange three words, or offer the smallest service, there was a repose and content on his countenance that gave his whole expression a new reading.  He was looking particularly well, fined down into alertness by his disciplined life and hill climbing, his complexion cleared and tanned by mountain air, and the habits and society of the last year leaving an unconscious impress unlike that which he used to bring from his former haunts.  Phœbe wondered if Cecily remarked it.  She was not aware that Cecily did not know him without that restful look.

Phœbe came to the conclusion that Cecily was persuaded of the cessation of his attachment, and was endeavouring to be thankful, and to accustom herself to it.  After the first, she did not hide herself to any marked degree; and, probably to silence her aunt, allowed that lady to take her on one of the grand Monday expeditions, when all the tolerably sound visiting population of Hyères were wont to meet, to the number of thirty or forty, and explore the scenery.  Exquisite as were the views, these were not romantic excursions, the numbers conducing to gossip and chatter, but there were some who enjoyed them the more in consequence; and Mervyn, who had been loudest in vituperation of his first, found the present perfectly delightful, although the chief of his time was spent in preventing Mrs. Holmby’s cross-grained donkey from lying down to roll, and administering to the lady the chocolate drops that he carried for Bertha’s sustenance; Cecily, meantime, being far before with his sisters, where Mrs. Holmby would gladly have sent him if bodily terror would have permitted her to dismiss her cavalier.

Miss Charlecote and Phœbe, being among the best and briskest of the female walkers, were the first to enter the town, and there, in the Place des Palmiers, looking about him as if he were greatly amazed at himself, they beheld no other than the well-known figure of Sir John Raymond, standing beside the Major, who was sunning himself under the palm-trees.

‘Miss Charlecote, how are you?  How d’ye do, Miss Fulmort?  Is your sister quite well again?  Where’s my little niece?’

‘Only a little way behind with Bertha.’

‘Well, we never thought to meet in such a place, did we?  What a country of stones I have come over to-day, enough to break the heart of a farmer; and the very sheep are no better than goats!  Vineyards?  What they call vineyards are old black stumps that ought to be grubbed up for firewood!’

‘Nay, I was struck by the wonderful cultivation of every available inch of ground.  It speaks well for the Provençals, if we judge by the proverb, “Autant vaut l’homme que vaut sa terre.”’

‘Ah! there she comes;’ and he hastened to join Cecily, while the deserted Bertha, coming up to her sister, muttered, ‘Wretched girl!  I hear she had written to him to fetch her home.  That was what made her stay so quietly, was it?’

No one could accuse Mervyn of indifference who saw the blank look that overspread his face on hearing of Sir John’s arrival, but he said not a word, only hurried away to dress for the table d’hôte.  The first notice the anxious ladies had that the tedious dinner was broken up, was a knock at their door, and Cecily’s entrance, looking exceedingly white, and speaking very low.  ‘I am come to wish you good-bye,’ she said.  ‘Uncle John has been so kind as to come for me, and I believe we shall set out to-morrow.’

Maria alone could dare to shriek out, ‘Oh! but you promised to show me how to make a crown of my pink heaths, and I have been out with Lieschen, and gathered such beauties!’

‘If you will come with me to my room I will show you while I pack up,’ said Cecily, reducing Bertha to despair by this most effectual barrier to confidence; but she entreated leave to follow, since seeing Cecily playing with Maria was better than not seeing her at all.

After some time, Mervyn came in, flushed and breathless, and Honor kindly made an excuse for leaving him alone with Phœbe.  After diligently tossing a book from one hand to the other for some minutes, he observed, sotto voce, ‘That’s a more decent old fellow than I gave him credit for.’

‘Who, Sir John?’

‘Aye.’

And that was the whole result of the tête-à-tête.  He was in no mood for questions, and marched out of the room for a moonlight cigar.  Phœbe only remained with the conviction that something had happened.

Miss Charlecote was more fortunate.  She had met the Baronet in the passage, and was accosted by him with, ‘Do you ever do such a thing as take a turn on that terrace?’