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

The gentlemen of the family alone attended the funeral, the two elder sisters remaining in town, whither their husbands were to return at night.  Mrs. Fulmort remained in the same dreary state of heaviness, but with some languid heed to the details, and interest in hearing from Maria and Bertha, from behind the blinds, what carriages were at the door, and who got into them.  Phœbe, with strong effort, then controlled her voice to read aloud till her mother dozed as usual, and she could sit and think until Robert knocked, to summon her to the reading of the will.  ‘You must come,’ he said; ‘I know it jars, but it is Mervyn’s wish, and he is right.’  On the stairs Mervyn met her, took her from Robert, and led her into the drawing-room, where she was kindly greeted by the brothers-in-law, and seated beside her eldest brother.  As a duty, she gave her attention, and was rewarded by finding that had he been living, her hero, Mr. Charlecote, would have been her guardian.  The will, dated fifteen years back, made Humfrey Charlecote, Esquire, trustee and executor, jointly with James Crabbe, Esquire, the elderly lawyer at present reading it aloud.  The intended codicil had never been executed.  Had any one looked at the downcast face, it would have been with wonder at the glow of shy pleasure thrilling over cheeks and brow.

Beauchamp of course remained with the heiress, Mrs. Fulmort, to whom all thereto appertaining was left; the distillery and all connected with it descended to the eldest son, John Mervyn Fulmort; the younger children received £10,000 apiece, and the residue was to be equally divided among all except the second son, Robert Mervyn Fulmort, who, having been fully provided for, was only to receive some pictures and plate that had belonged to his great uncle.

The lawyer ceased.  Sir Bevil leant towards him, and made an inquiry which was answered by a sign in the negative.  Then taking up some memoranda, Mr. Crabbe announced that as far as he could yet discover, the brother and five sisters would divide about £120,000 between them, so that each of the ladies had £30,000 of her own; and, bowing to Phœbe, he requested her to consider him as her guardian.  The Admiral, highly pleased, offered her his congratulations, and as soon as she could escape she hastened away, followed by Robert.

‘Never mind, Phœbe,’ he said; taking her hand; ‘the kindness and pardon were the same, the intention as good as the deed, as far as he was concerned.  Perhaps you were right.  The other way might have proved a stumbling-block.’  Speak as he would, he could not govern the tone of his voice nor the quivering of his entire frame under the downfall of his hopes.  Phœbe linked her arm in his, and took several turns in the gallery with him.

‘Oh, Robin, if I were but of age to divide with you!’

‘No, Phœbe, that would be unfit for you and for me.  I am only where I was before.  I knew I had had my portion.  I ought not to have entertained hopes so unbefitting.  But oh, Phœbe! that she should be cast about the world, fragile, sensitive as she is—’

Phœbe could have said that a home at the Holt was open to Lucilla; but this might seem an unkind suggestion, and the same moment, Sir Bevil was heard impetuously bounding up the stairs.  ‘Robert, where are you?’ he called from the end of the gallery.  ‘I never believed you could have been so infamously treated.’

‘Hush!’ said Robert, shocked; ‘I cannot hear this said.  You know it was only want of time.’

‘I am not talking of your father.  He would have done his best if he had been allowed.  It is your brother!—his own confession, mind!  He boasted just now that his father would have done it on the spot, but for his interference, and expected thanks from all the rest of us for his care of our interests.’

‘What is the use of telling such things, Acton?’ said Robert, forcing his voice to calm rebuke, and grasping the baluster with an iron-like grip.

‘The use!  To mark my detestation of such conduct!  I did my best to show him what I thought of it; and I believe even Bannerman was astounded at his coolness.  I’ll take care the thing is made public!  I’ll move heaven and earth but I’ll get you preferment that shall show how such treatment is looked upon.’

‘I beg you will do nothing of the kind!’ exclaimed Robert.  ‘I am heartily obliged to you, Acton.  You gained me the certainty of forgiveness, without which I should have felt a curse on my work.  For the rest, I complain of nothing.  I have had larger means than the others.  I knew I was to look for no more.  I prefer my own cure to any other; and reflection will show you that our family affairs are not to be made public.’

‘At any rate, your mother might do something.  Let me speak to her.  What, not now?  Then I will come down whenever Phœbe will summon me.’

‘Not now, nor ever,’ said Robert.  ‘Even if anything were in her power, she could not understand; and she must not be harassed.’

‘We will talk that over on our way to town,’ said Sir Bevil.  ‘I start at once.  I will not see that fellow again, nor, I should think, would you.’

‘I stay till Saturday week.’

‘You had better not.  You have been abominably treated; but this is no time for collisions.  You agree with me, Phœbe; his absence would be the wisest course.’

‘Phœbe knows that annoyance between Mervyn and me is unhappily no novelty.  We shall not revert to the subject, and I have reasons for staying.’

‘You need not fear,’ said Phœbe; ‘Robert always keeps his temper.’

‘Or rather we have the safeguard of being both sullen, not hot,’ said Robert.  ‘Besides, Mervyn was right.  I have had my share, and have not even the dignity of being injured.’

The need of cooling his partisan was the most effective means of blunting the sharp edge of his own vexation.  Hearing Mervyn cross the hall, he called to offer to take his share in some business which they had to transact together.  ‘Wait a moment,’ was the answer; and as Sir Bevil muttered a vituperation of Mervyn’s assurance, he said, decidedly, ‘Now, once for all, I desire that this matter be never again named between any of us.  Let no one know what has taken place, and let us forget all but that my father was in charity with me.’

It was more than Sir Bevil was with almost any one, and he continued to pace the gallery with Phœbe, devising impossible schemes of compensation until the moment of his departure for London.

Robert had not relied too much on his own forbearance.  Phœbe met her two brothers at dinner—one gloomy, the other melancholy; but neither altering his usual tone towards the other.  Unaware that Robert knew of his father’s designs, nor of their prevention, Mervyn was totally exempt from compunction, thinking, indeed, that he had saved his father from committing an injustice on the rest of the family, for the sake of a fanatical tormentor, who had already had and thrown away more than his share.  Subdued and saddened for the time, Mervyn was kind to Phœbe and fairly civil to Robert, so that there were no disturbances to interfere with the tranquil intercourse of the brother and sister in their walks in the woods, their pacings of the gallery, or low-voiced conferences while their mother dozed.

True to his resolve, Robert permitted no reference to his late hopes, but recurred the more vigorously to his parish interests, as though he had never thought of any wife save St. Matthew’s Church.

Home affairs, too, were matters of anxious concern.  Without much sign of sorrow, or even of comprehension of her loss, it had suddenly rendered the widow an aged invalid.  The stimulus to exertion removed, there was nothing to rouse her from the languid torpor of her nature, mental and physical.  Invalid habits gave her sufficient occupation, and she showed no preference for the company of any one except Phœbe or her maid, to whose control her passive nature succumbed.  At Boodle’s bidding, she rose, dressed, ate, drank, and went to bed; at Phœbe’s she saw her other children, heard Robert read, or signed papers for Mervyn.  But each fresh exertion cost much previous coaxing and subsequent plaintiveness; and when Phœbe, anxious to rouse her, persuaded her to come down-stairs, her tottering steps proved her feebleness; and though her sons showed her every attention, she had not been in the drawing-room ten minutes before a nervous trembling and faintness obliged them to carry her back to her room.

The family apothecary, a kind old man, declared that there was nothing seriously amiss, and that she would soon ‘recover her tone.’  But it was plain that much would fall on Phœbe, and Robert was uneasy at leaving her with so little assistance or comfort at hand.  He even wrote to beg his eldest sister to come for a few weeks till his mother’s health should be improved; but Sir Nicholas did not love the country in the winter, and Augusta only talked of a visit in the spring.

Another vexation to Robert was the schoolroom.  During the last few months Bertha had outgrown her childish distaste to study, and had exerted her mind with as much eagerness as governess could desire; her translations and compositions were wonders of ease and acuteness; she had plunged into science, had no objection to mathematics, and by way of recreation wandered in German metaphysics.  Miss Fennimore rather discouraged this line, knowing how little useful brain exercise she herself had derived from Kant and his compeers, but this check was all that was wanting to give Bertha double zest, and she stunned Robert with demonstrations about her ‘I’ and her ‘not I,’ and despised him for his contempt of her grand discoveries.

He begged for a prohibition of the study, but Miss Fennimore thought this would only lend it additional charms, and added that it was a field which the intellect must explore for itself, and not take on the authority of others.  When this answer was reported through Phœbe, Robert shrugged his shoulders, alarmed at the hot-bed nurture of intellect and these concessions to mental independence, only balanced by such loose and speculative opinions as Miss Fennimore had lately manifested to him.  Decidedly, he said, there ought to be a change of governess and system.

But Phœbe, tears springing into her eyes, implored him not to press it.  She thoroughly loved her kind, clear-headed, conscientious friend, who had assisted her so wisely and considerately through this time of trouble, and knew how to manage Maria.  It was no time for a fresh parting, and her mother was in no state to be harassed by alterations.  This Robert allowed with a sigh, though delay did not suit with his stern, uncompromising youthfulness, and he went on to say, ‘You will bear it in mind, Phœbe.  There and elsewhere great changes are needed.  This great, disorderly household is a heavy charge.  Acting for my mother, as you will have to do, how are you to deal with the servants?’

‘None of them come in my way, except dear old Lieschen, and Boodle, and Mrs. Brisbane, and they are all kind and thoughtful.’

‘Surface work, Phœbe.  Taking my mother’s place, as you do now, you will, or ought to, become aware of the great mischiefs below stairs, and I trust you will be able to achieve a great reformation.’

‘I hope—’ Phœbe looked startled, and hesitated.  ‘Surely, Robert, you do not think I ought to search after such things.  Would it be dutiful, so young as I am?’

‘Perhaps you are right,’ said Robert; ‘only, Phœbe, Phœbe, never let toleration harden you to be indifferent to evil.’

‘I hope not,’ said Phœbe, gravely.

‘My poor child, you are in for a world of perplexities!  I wish I had not to leave you to them.’

‘Every labyrinth has a clue,’ said Phœbe, smiling; ‘as Miss Fennimore says when she gives us problems to work.  Only you know the terms of the problem must be stated before the solution can be made out; so it is of no use to put cases till we know all the terms.’

‘Right, Phœbe.  Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’

‘I cannot see the evil yet,’ said Phœbe; ‘the trouble has brought so much comfort.  That happy Sunday with you, and my own year of being with them both, have been such blessings!  Last year, how much worse it would have been for us all, when I scarcely knew mamma or Mervyn, and could not go about alone nor to church!  And Miss Charlecote will soon come home.  There is so much cause for thankfulness, that I can’t be afraid.’

Robert said no more, but felt that innocent buoyancy a mystery to his lower-pitched spirit.  Never very gay or merry, Phœbe had a fund of happiness and a power of finding and turning outwards the bright side, which made her a most comfortable companion.

CHAPTER XV

Happy are they that learn in Him,Though patient suffering teachThe secret of enduring strength,And praise too deep for speech:Peace that no pressure from without,No strife within can reach.—A. L. Waring

Well was it for Phœbe that she had been trained to monotony, for her life was most uniform after Robert had left home.  Her schoolroom mornings, her afternoons with her mother, her evenings with Mervyn, were all so much alike that one week could hardly be distinguished from another.  Bertha’s vagaries and Mervyn’s periodical journeys to London were the chief varieties, certainly not her mother’s plaintiveness, her brother’s discontent, or the sacrifice of her own inclinations, which were pretty certain to be traversed, but then, as she said, something else happened that did as well as what she had wished.

One day, when Mervyn had been hunting, and had come home tired, he desired her to give him some music in the evening.  She took the opportunity of going over some fine old airs, which the exigencies of drawing-room display had prevented her from practising for some time.  Presently she found him standing by her, his face softer than usual.  ‘Where did you get that, Phœbe?’

‘It is Haydn’s.  I learnt it just after Miss Fennimore came.’

‘Play it again; I have not heard it for years.’

She obeyed, and looked at him.  He was shading his face with his hand, but he hardly spoke again all the rest of the evening.

Phœbe’s curiosity was roused, and she tried the effect of the air on her mother, whose great pleasure was her daughter’s music, since a piano had been moved into her dressing-room.  But it awoke no association there, and ‘Thank you, my dear,’ was the only requital.

While the next evening she was wondering whether to volunteer it, Mervyn begged for it, and as she finished, asked, ‘What does old Gay say of my mother now?’

‘He thinks her decidedly better, and so I am sure she is.  She has more appetite.  She really ate the breast of a partridge to-day!’

‘He says nothing of a change?’

‘She could not bear the journey.’

‘It strikes me that she wants rousing.  Shut up in a great lonely house like this, she has nothing cheerful to look at.  She would be much better off at Brighton, or some of those places where she could see people from the windows, and have plenty of twaddling old dowager society.’

‘I did ask Mr. Gay about the sea, but he thought the fatigue of the journey, and the vexing her by persuading her to take it, would do more harm than the change would do good.’

‘I did not mean only as a change.  I believe she would be much happier living there, with this great place off her hands.  It is enough to depress any one’s spirits to live in a corner like a shrivelled kernel in a nut.’

‘Go away!’ exclaimed Phœbe.  ‘Mervyn! it is her home!  It is her own!’

‘Well, I never said otherwise,’ he answered, rather crossly; ‘but you know very well that it is a farce to talk of her managing the house, or the estate either.  It was bad enough before, but there will be no check on any one now.’

‘I thought you looked after things.’

‘Am I to spend my life as a steward?  No, if the work is to be in my hands, I ought to be in possession at once, so as to take my place in the county as I ought, and cut the City business.  The place is a mere misfortune and encumbrance to her as she is, and she would be ten times happier at a watering-place.’

‘Mervyn, what do you mean?  You have all the power and consequence here, and are fully master of all; but why should not poor mamma live in her own house?’

‘Can’t you conceive that a man may have reasons for wishing to be put in possession of the family place when he can enjoy it, and she can’t?  Don’t look at me with that ridiculous face.  I mean to marry.  Now, can’t you see that I may want the house to myself?’

‘You are engaged!’

‘Not exactly.  I am waiting to see my way through the bother.’

‘Who is it?  Tell me about it, Mervyn.’

‘I don’t mind telling you, but for your life don’t say a word to any one.  I would never forgive you, if you set my Ladies Bannerman and Acton at me.’

Phœbe was alarmed.  She had little hope that their likings would coincide; his manner indicated defiance of opinion, and she could not but be averse to a person for whose sake he wished to turn them out.  ‘Well,’ was all she could say, and he proceeded: ‘I suppose you never heard of Cecily Raymond.’

‘Of Moorcroft?’ she asked, breathing more freely.  ‘Sir John’s daughter?’

‘No, his niece.  It is a spooney thing to take up with one’s tutor’s daughter, but it can’t be helped.  I’ve tried to put her out of my head, and enter on a more profitable speculation, but it won’t work!’

‘Is she very pretty—prettier than Lucilla Sandbrook?’ asked Phœbe, unable to believe that any other inducement could attach him.

‘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.