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

On the whole, in spite of this return to old faults, Lucilla was improved by her residence at Southminster.  Defiance had fallen into disuse, and the habit of respect and affection had softened her and lessened her pride; there was more devotional temper, and a greater desire after a religious way of life.  It might be that her fretfulness was the effect of an uneasiness of mind, which was more hopeful than her previous fierce self-satisfaction, and that her aberrations were the last efforts of old evil habits to re-establish their grasp by custom, when her heart was becoming detached from them.

Be that as it might, Mrs. Prendergast’s first duty was to her child, her second to the nephew intrusted to her, and love and pity as she might, she felt that to retain Lucilla was leading all into temptation.  Her husband was slow to see the verification of her reluctant opinion, but he trusted to her, and it only remained to part as little harshly or injuriously as might be.

An opening was afforded when, in October, Mrs. Prendergast was entreated by the widow of one of her brothers to find her a governess for two girls of twelve and ten, and two boys younger.  It was at a country-house, so much secluded that such temptations as at Southminster were out of reach, and the younger pupils were not likely to try her temper in the same way as Sarah had done.

So Mrs. Prendergast tenderly explained that Sarah, being old enough to pursue her studies alone, and her sister, Mrs. Willis Beaumont, being in distress for a governess, it would be best to transfer Miss Sandbrook to her.  Lucilla turned a little pale, but gave no other sign, only answering, ‘Thank you,’ and ‘Yes,’ at fit moments, and acceding to everything, even to her speedy departure at the end of a week.

She left the room in silence, more stunned than even by Robert’s announcement, and with less fictitious strength to brave the blow that she had brought on herself.  She repaired to the schoolroom, and leaning her brow against the window-pane, tried to gather her thoughts, but scarcely five minutes had passed before the door was thrown back, and in rushed Sarah, passionately exclaiming—

‘It’s my fault!  It’s all my fault!  Oh, Miss Sandbrook, dearest Miss Sandbrook, forgive me!  Oh! my temper! my temper!  I never thought—I’ll go to papa!  I’ll tell him it is my doing!  He will never—never be so unjust and cruel!’

‘Sarah, stand up; let me go, please,’ said Lucy, unclasping the hands from her waist.  ‘This is not right.  Your father and mother both think the same, and so do I.  It is just that I should go—’

‘You shan’t say so!  It is my crossness!  I won’t let you go.  I’ll write to Peter!  He won’t let you go!’  Sarah was really beside herself with despair, and as her mother advanced, and would have spoken, turned round sharply, ‘Don’t, don’t, mamma; I won’t come away unless you promise not to punish her for my temper.  You have minded those horrid, wicked, gossiping ladies.  I didn’t think you would.’

‘Sarah,’ said Lucilla, resolutely, ‘going mad in this way just shows that I am doing you no good.  You are not behaving properly to your mother.’

‘She never acted unjustly before.’

‘That is not for you to judge, in the first place; and in the next, she acts justly.  I feel it.  Yes, Sarah, I do; I have not done my duty by you, and have quarrelled with you when your industry shamed me.  All my old bad habits are come back, and your mother is right to part with me.’

‘There! there, mamma; do you hear that?’ sobbed Sarah, imploringly.  ‘When she speaks in that way, can you still—?  Oh! I know I was disrespectful, but you can’t—you can’t think that was her fault!’

‘It was,’ said Lucilla, looking at Mrs. Prendergast.  ‘I know she has lost the self-control she once had.  Sarah, this is of no use.  I would go now, if your mother begged me to stay—and that,’ she added, with her firm smile, ‘she is too wise to do.  If you do not wish to pain me, and put me to shame, do not let me have any more such exhibitions.’

Pale, ashamed, discomfited, Sarah turned away, and not yet able to govern herself, rushed into her room.

‘Poor Sarah!’ said her mother.  ‘You have rare powers of making your pupils love you, Miss Sandbrook.’

‘If it were for their good,’ sighed Lucilla.

‘It has been much for her good; she is far less uncouth, and less exclusive.  And it will be more so, I hope.  You will still be her friend, and we shall often see you here.’

Lucilla’s tears were dropping fast; and looking up, she said with difficulty—‘Don’t mind this; I know it is right; I have not deserved the happy home you have given me here.  Where I am less happy, I hope I may keep a better guard on myself.  I thought the old ways had been destroyed, but they are too strong still, and I ought to suffer for them.’

Never in all her days had Lucilla spoken so humbly!

CHAPTER XVII

Though she’s as like to this one as a crab is like to an apple,I can tell what I can tell.—King Lear

Often a first grief, where sorrow was hitherto been a stranger, is but the foretaste to many another, like the first hailstorm, after long sunshine, preluding a succession of showers, the clouds returning after the rain, and obscuring the sky of life for many a day.

Those who daily saw Mrs. Fulmort scarcely knew whether to attribute her increasing invalidism to debility or want of spirits; and hopes were built on summer heat, till, when it came, it prostrated her strength, and at last, when some casual ailment had confined her to bed, there was no rally.  All took alarm; a physician was called in, and the truth was disclosed.  There was no formed disease; but her husband’s death, though apparently hardly comprehended, had taken away the spring of life, and she was withering like a branch severed from the stem.  Remedies did but disturb her torpor by feverish symptoms that hastened her decline, and Dr. Martyn privately told Miss Charlecote that the absent sons and daughters ought to be warned that the end must be very near.

Honor, as lovingly and gently as possible, spoke to Phœbe.  The girl’s eyes filled with tears, but it was in an almost well-pleased tone that she said, ‘Dear mamma, I always knew she felt it.’

‘Ah! little did we think how deeply went the stroke that showed no wound!’

‘Yes!  She felt that she was going to him.  We could never have made her happy here.’

‘You are content, my unselfish one?’

‘Don’t talk to me about myself, please!’ implored Phœbe.  ‘I have too much to do for that.  What did he say?  That the others should be written to?  I will take my case and write in mamma’s room.’

Immediate duty was her refuge from anticipation, gentle tendance from the sense of misery, and, though her mother’s restless feebleness needed constant waiting on, her four notes were completed before post-time.  Augusta was eating red mullet in Guernsey, Juliana was on a round of visits in Scotland, Mervyn was supposed to be in Paris, Robert alone was near at hand.

At night Phœbe sent Boodle to bed; but Miss Fennimore insisted on sharing her pupil’s watch.  At first there was nothing to do; the patient had fallen into a heavy slumber, and the daughter sat by the bed, the governess at the window, unoccupied save by their books.  Phœbe was reading Miss Maurice’s invaluable counsels to the nurses of the dying.  Miss Fennimore had the Bible.  It was not from a sense of appropriateness, as in pursuance of her system of re-examination.  Always admiring the Scripture in a patronizing temper, she had gloried in critical inquiry, and regarded plenary inspiration as a superstition, covering weak points by pretensions to infallibility.  But since her discussions with Robert, and her readings of Butler with Bertha, she had begun to weigh for herself the internal, intrinsic evidence of Divine origin, above all, in the Gospels, which, to her surprise, enchained her attention and investigation, as she would have thought beyond the power of such simple words.

Pilate’s question, ‘What is truth?’ was before her.  To her it was a link of evidence.  Without even granting that the writer was the fisherman he professed to be, what, short of Shakesperian intuition, could thus have depicted the Roman of the early Empire in equal dread of Cæsar and of the populace, at once unscrupulous and timid, contemning Jewish prejudice, yet, with lingering mythological superstition, trembling at the hint of a present Deity in human form; and, lost in the bewilderment of the later Greek philosophy, greeting the word truth with the startled inquiry, what it might be.  What is truth?  It had been the question of Miss Fennimore’s life, and she felt a blank and a disappointment as it stood unanswered.  A movement made her look up.  Phœbe was raising her mother, and Miss Fennimore was needed to support the pillows.

‘Phœbe, my dear, are you here?’

‘Yes, dear mamma, I always am.’

‘Phœbe, my dear, I think I am soon going.  You have been a good child, my dear; I wish I had done more for you all.’

‘Dear mamma, you have always been so kind.’

‘They didn’t teach me like Honora Charlecote,’ she faltered on; ‘but I always did as your poor papa told me.  Nobody ever told me how to be religious, and your poor papa would not have liked it.  Phœbe, you know more than I do.  You don’t think God will be hard with me, do you?  I am such a poor creature; but there is the Blood that takes away sin.’

‘Dear mother, that is the blessed trust.’

‘The Truth,’ flashed upon Miss Fennimore, as she watched their faces.

‘Will He give me His own goodness?’ said Mrs. Fulmort, wistfully.  ‘I never did know how to think about Him—I wish I had cared more.  What do you think, Phœbe?’

‘I cannot tell how to answer fully, dear mamma,’ said Phœbe; ‘but indeed it is safe to think of His great loving-kindness and mercy.  Robert will be here to-morrow.  He will tell you better.’

‘He will give me the Holy Sacrament,’ said Mrs. Fulmort, ‘and then I shall go—’

Presently she moved uneasily.  ‘Oh, Phœbe, I am so tired.  Nothing rests me.’

‘There remaineth a rest,’ gently whispered Phœbe—and Miss Fennimore thought the young face had something of the angel in it—‘no more weariness there.’

‘They won’t think what a poor dull thing I am there,’ added her mother.  ‘I wish I could take poor Maria with me.  They don’t like her here, and she will be teased and put about.’

‘No, mother, never while I can take care of her!’

‘I know you will, Phœbe, if you say so.  Phœbe, love, when I see God, I shall thank Him for having made you so good and dear, and letting me have some comfort in one of my children.’

Phœbe tried to make her think of Robert, but she was exhausted, dozed, and was never able to speak so much again.

Miss Fennimore thought instead of reading.  Was it the mere effect on her sympathies that bore in on her mind that Truth existed, and was grasped by the mother and daughter?  What was there in those faltering accents that impressed her with reality?  Why, of all her many instructors, had none touched her like poor, ignorant, feeble-minded Mrs. Fulmort?

Robert arrived the next day.  His mother knew him and was roused sufficiently to accept his offices as a clergyman.  Then, as if she thought it was expected of her, she asked for her younger daughters, but when they came, she looked distressed and perplexed.

‘Bless them, mother,’ said Robert, bending over her, and she evidently accepted this as what she wanted; but ‘How—what?’ she added; and taking the uncertain hand, he guided it to the head of each of his three sisters, and prompted the words of blessing from the failing tongue.  Then as Bertha rose, he sank on his knees in her place, ‘Bless me, bless me, too, mother; bless me, and pardon my many acts of self-will.’

‘You are good—you—you are a clergyman,’ she hesitated, bewildered.

‘The more reason, mamma; it will comfort him.’  And it was Phœbe who won for her brother the blessing needed as balm to a bleeding heart.

‘The others are away,’ said the dying woman; ‘maybe, if I had made them good when they were little, they would not have left me now.’

While striving to join in prayer for them, she slumbered, and in the course of the night she slept herself tranquilly away from the world where even prosperity had been but a troubled maze to her.

Augusta arrived, weeping profusely, but with all her wits about her, so as to assume the command, and to provide for her own, and her Admiral’s comfort.  Phœbe was left to the mournful repose of having no one to whom to attend, since Miss Fennimore provided for the younger ones; and in the lassitude of bodily fatigue and sorrow, she shrank from Maria’s babyish questions and Bertha’s levity and curiosity, spending her time chiefly alone.  Even Robert could not often be with her, since Mervyn’s absence and silence threw much on him and Mr. Crabbe, the executor and guardian; and the Bannermans were both exacting and self-important.  The Actons, having been pursued by their letters from place to place in the Highlands, at length arrived, and Mervyn last of all, only just in time for the funeral.

Phœbe did not see him till the evening after it, when, having spent the day nearly alone, she descended to the late dinner, and after the quietness in which she had lately lived, and with all the tenderness from fresh suffering, it seemed to her that she was entering on a distracting turmoil of voices.  Mervyn, however, came forward at once to meet her, threw his arm round her, and kissed her rather demonstratively, saying, ‘My little Phœbe, I wondered where you were;’ then putting her into a chair, and bending over her, ‘We are in for the funeral games.  Stand up for yourself!’

She did not know in the least what he could mean, but she was too sick at heart to ask; she only thought he looked unwell, jaded, and fagged, and with a heated complexion.

He handed Lady Acton into the dining-room; Augusta, following with Sir Bevil, was going to the head of the table, when he called out, ‘That’s Phœbe’s place!’

‘Not before my elders,’ Phœbe answered, trying to seat herself at the side.

‘The sister at home is mistress of the house,’ he sternly answered.  ‘Take your proper place, Phœbe.’

In much discomfort she obeyed, and tried to attend civilly to Sir Nicholas’s observations on the viands, hoping to intercept a few, as she perceived how they chafed her eldest brother.

At last, on Mervyn himself roundly abusing the flavour of the ice-pudding, Augusta not only defended it, but confessed to having herself directed Mrs. Brisbane to the concoction that morning.

‘Mrs. Brisbane shall take orders from no lady but Miss Fulmort, while she is in my house,’ thundered Mervyn.

Phœbe, in agony, began to say she knew not what to Sir Bevil, and he seconded her with equal vehemence and incoherency, till by the time they knew what they were talking of, they were with much interest discussing his little daughter, scarcely turning their heads from one another, till, in the midst of dessert, the voice of Juliana was heard,—‘Sir Bevil, Sir Bevil, if you can spare me any attention—What was the name of that person at Hampstead that your sister told me of?’

‘That person!  What, where poor Anne Acton was boarded?  Dr. Graham, he called himself, but I don’t believe he was a physician.  Horrid vulgar fellow!’

‘Excellent for the purpose, though,’ continued Lady Acton, addressing herself as before to Mr. Crabbe; ‘advertises for nervous or deficient ladies, and boards them on very fair terms: would take her quite off our hands.’

Phœbe turned a wild look of imploring interrogation on Sir Bevil, but a certain family telegraph had electrified him, and his eyes were on the grapes that he was eating with nervous haste.  Her blood boiling at what she apprehended, Phœbe could endure her present post no longer, and starting up, made the signal for leaving the dinner-table so suddenly that Augusta choked upon her glass of wine, and carried off her last macaroon in her hand.  Before she had recovered breath to rebuke her sister’s precipitation, Phœbe, with boldness and spirit quite new to the sisters, was confronting Juliana, and demanding what she had been saying about Hampstead.

‘Only,’ said Juliana, coolly, ‘that I have found a capital place there for Maria—a Dr. Graham, who boards and lodges such unfortunates.  Sir Bevil had an idiot cousin there who died.  I shall write to-morrow.’

‘I promised that Maria should not be separated from me,’ said Phœbe.

‘Nonsense, my dear,’ said Augusta; ‘we could not receive her; she can never be made presentable.’

‘You?’ said Phœbe.

‘Yes, my dear; did you not know?  You go home with us the day after to-morrow; and next spring I mean to bring you out, and take you everywhere.  The Admiral is so generous!’

‘But the others?’ said Phœbe.

‘I don’t mind undertaking Bertha,’ said Lady Acton.  ‘I know of a good school for her, and I shall deposit Maria at Dr. Graham’s as soon as I can get an answer.’

‘Really,’ continued Augusta, ‘Phœbe will look very creditable by and by, when she has more colour and not all this crape.  Perhaps I shall get her married by the end of the season; only you must learn better manners first, Phœbe—not to rush out of the dining-room in this way.  I don’t know what I shall do without my other glass of wine—when I am so low, too!’

‘A fine mistress of the house, indeed,’ said Lady Acton.  ‘It is well Mervyn’s absurd notion is impossible.’

‘What was that?  To keep us all?’ asked Phœbe, catching at the hope.

‘Not Maria nor the governess.  You need not flatter yourself,’ said Juliana; ‘he said he wouldn’t have them at any price; and as to keeping house alone with a man of his character, even you may have sense to see it couldn’t be for a moment.’

‘Did Robert consent to Maria’s going to Hampstead?’ asked Phœbe.

‘Robert—what has he to do with it?  He has no voice.’

‘He said something about getting the three boarded with some clergyman’s widow,’ said Augusta; ‘buried in some hole, I suppose, to make them like himself—go to church every day, and eat cold dinners on Sunday.’

‘I should like to see Bertha doing that,’ said Juliana, laughing.

But the agony of helplessness that had oppressed Phœbe was relieved.  She saw an outlet, and could form a resolution.  Home might have to be given up, but there was a means of fulfilling her mother’s charge, and saving Maria from the private idiot asylum; and for that object Phœbe was ready to embrace perpetual seclusion with the dullest of widows.  She found her sisters discussing their favourite subject—Mervyn’s misconduct and extravagance—and she was able to sit apart, working, and thinking of her line of action.  Only two days!  She must be prompt, and not wait for privacy or for counsel.  So when the gentlemen came in, and Mr. Crabbe came towards her, she took him into the window, and asked him if any choice were permitted her as to her residence.

‘Certainly; so nearly of age as you are.  But I naturally considered that you would wish to be with Lady Bannerman, with all the advantages of London society.’

‘But she will not receive Maria.  I promised that Maria should be my charge.  You have not consented to this Hampstead scheme?’

‘Her ladyship is precipitate,’ half whispered the lawyer.  ‘I certainly would not, till I had seen the establishment, and judged for myself.’

‘No, nor then,’ said Phœbe.  ‘Come to-morrow, and see her.  She is no subject for an establishment.  And I beg you will let me be with her; I would much prefer being with any lady who would receive us both.’

‘Very amiable,’ said Mr. Crabbe.

‘Ha!’ interrupted Mervyn, ‘you are not afraid I shall let Augusta carry you off, Phœbe.  She would give the world to get you, but I don’t mean to part with you.’

‘It is of no use to talk to her, Mervyn,’ cried Augusta’s loud voice from the other end of the room.  ‘She knows that she cannot remain with you.  Robert himself would tell her so.’

‘Robert knows better than to interfere,’ said Mervyn, with one of his scowls.  ‘Now then, Phœbe, settle it for yourself.  Will you stay and keep house for me at home, or be Augusta’s companion?  There! the choice of Hercules.  Virtue or vice?’ he added, trying to laugh.

‘Neither,’ said Phœbe, readily.  ‘My home is fixed by Maria’s.’

‘Phœbe, are you crazy?’ broke out the three voices; while Sir Nicholas slowly and sententiously explained that he regretted the unfortunate circumstance, but Maria’s peculiarities made it impossible to produce her in society; and that when her welfare and happiness had been consulted by retirement, Phœbe would find a home in his house, and be treated as Lady Bannerman’s sister, and a young lady of her expectations, deserved.

‘Thank you,’ said Phœbe; then turning to her brother, ‘Mervyn, do you, too, cast off poor Maria?’

‘I told you what I thought of that long ago,’ said Mervyn, carelessly.

‘Very well, then,’ said Phœbe, sadly; ‘perhaps you will let us stay till some lady can be found of whom Mr. Crabbe may approve, with whom Maria and I can live.’

‘Lady Acton!’ Sir Bevil’s voice was low and entreating, but all heard it.

‘I am not going to encumber myself,’ she answered.  ‘I always disliked girls, and I shall certainly not make Acton Manor an idiot asylum.’

‘And mind,’ added Augusta, ‘you won’t cone to me for the season!  I have no notion of your leaving me all the dull part of the year for some gay widow at a watering-place, and then expecting me to go out with you in London.’

‘By Heaven!’ broke out Mervyn, ‘they shall stay here, if only to balk your spite.  My sisters shall not be driven from pillar to post the very day their mother is put under ground.’

‘Some respectable lady,’ began Robert.

‘Some horrid old harridan of a boarding-house keeper,’ shouted Mervyn, the louder for his interference.  ‘Ay, you would like it, and spend all their fortunes on parsons in long coats!  I know better!  Come here, Phœbe, and listen.  You shall live here as you have always done, Maria and all, and keep the Fennimore woman to mind the children.  Answer me, will that content you?  Don’t go looking at Robert, but say yes or no.’

Mervyn’s innuendo had deprived his offer of its grace, but in spite of the pang of indignation, in spite of Robert’s eye of disapproval, poor desolate Phœbe must needs cling to her home, and to the one who alone would take her and her poor companion.  ‘Mervyn, thank you; it is right!’

‘Right!  What does that mean?  If any one has a word to say against my sisters being under my roof, let me hear it openly, not behind my back.  Eh, Juliana, what’s that?’

‘Only that I wonder how long it will last,’ sneered Lady Acton.

‘And,’ added Robert, ‘there should be some guarantee that they should not be introduced to unsuitable acquaintance.’

‘You think me not to be trusted with them.’

‘I do not.’

Mervyn ground his teeth, answering, ‘Very well, sir, I stand indebted to you.  I should have imagined, whatever your opinion of me, you would have considered your favourite sky-blue governess an immaculate guardian, or can you be contented with nothing short of a sisterhood?’

‘Robert,’ said Phœbe, fearing lest worse should follow, ‘Mervyn has always been good to us; I trust to him.’  And her clear eyes were turned on the eldest brother with a grateful confidence that made him catch her hand with something between thanks and triumph, as he said—

‘Well said, little one!  There, sir, are you satisfied?’

‘I must be,’ replied Robert.

Sir Bevil, able to endure no longer, broke in with some intelligence from the newspaper, which he had been perusing ever since his unlucky appeal to his lady.  Every one thankfully accepted this means of ending the discussion.

‘Well, Miss,’ was Juliana’s good night, ‘you have attained your object.  I hope you may find it answer.’

‘Yes,’ added Augusta, ‘when Mervyn brings home that Frenchwoman, you will wish you had been less tenacious.’

‘That’s all an idea of yours,’ said Juliana.  ‘She’ll have punishment enough in Master Mervyn’s own temper.  I wouldn’t keep house for him, no, not for a week.’

‘Stay till you are asked,’ said Augusta.

Phœbe could bear no more, but slipped through the swing-door, reached her room, and sinking into a chair, passively let Lieschen undress her, not attempting to raise her drooping head, nor check the tears that trickled, conscious only of her broken, wounded, oppressed state of dejection, into the details of which she durst not look.  How could she, when her misery had been inflicted by such hands?  The mere fact of the unseemly broil between the brothers and sisters on such an evening was shame and pain enough, and she felt like one bruised and crushed all over, both in herself and Maria, while the one drop of comfort in Mervyn’s kindness was poisoned by the strife between him and Robert, and the doubt whether Robert thought she ought to have accepted it.