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

‘Then must we lose you,’ said Phœbe, ‘when you are doing Bertha so much good?’

‘I should like to be with you while I can, if I may,’ said Cecily, her eyes full of tears.

‘Did you know us at first?’ said Phœbe.

‘I knew you were in this hotel; and after your sisters had spoken, and I saw Bertha’s face, I was sure who she was.  I thought no one was with you but Miss Charlecote, and that no one knew, so that I might safely indulge myself.’  The word was out before she could recall it, and trying, as it were, to hide it, she said, ‘But how, if you knew what had passed, did you not sooner know it was I?’

‘Because we thought your name was Holmby.’

‘Did you, indeed.  You did not know that my aunt Holmby is my mother’s sister?  She kindly took me when my uncle was ordered to spend this winter abroad.’

‘You were ill and tried.  Bertha read that in your face.  Oh! when you see how much difference—’

‘I must not see.  Do not talk of it, or we must not be together; and indeed it is very precious to me.’  She rested her head on Phœbe’s shoulder, and put an arm round her waist.  ‘Only one thing I must ask,’ she said, presently; ‘is he well?’

‘Quite well,’ said Phœbe.  ‘He has been getting better ever since we left home.  Then you did not know he was with us?’

‘No.  It is not right for me to dwell on those things, and they never mention any of you to me.’

‘But you will write to us now?  You will not desert Bertha?  You do not know how much you are doing for her.’

‘Dear child!  She is so like what he was when first he came.’

‘If you could guess what she has suffered, and how fond he is of her, you would not turn away from her.  You will let her be your friend?’

‘If it be right,’ said Cecily, with tearful eyes, but her mouth set into a steadfast expression, as resolute as sweetly sad.

‘You know better what is right than I do,’ said Phœbe; ‘I who feel for him and Bertha.  But if you have not heard from him for so long, I think there are things you ought to know.’

‘At home, at home,’ said Cecily; ‘there it may be right to listen.  Here I am trusted alone, and I have only to keep my promise.  Tell me when I am at home, and it will make me happy.  Though, nonsense! my wizened old face is enough to cure him,’ and she tried to laugh.  Phœbe regretted what she had said of Bertha’s impression, and believed that the gentle, worn face ought to be far more touching than the most radiant charms, but when she strove to say that it was not beauty that Mervyn loved, she was hushed at once, and by the same mild authority turned out of the room.

Well for her that she could tell her story to Miss Charlecote without breach of confidence!  Honor’s first impulse was displeasure with the aunt, who she was sure had let her speak of, though not to, Miss Holmby without correcting her, and must purposely have kept the whole Raymond connection out of sight.  ‘Depend upon it, Phœbe,’ she said, ‘she will keep her niece here.’

‘Poor Cecily, what will she do?  I wish they would go, for I feel sure that she will think it her duty to hold out against him, till she has her father’s sanction; she will seem hard, and he—’

‘Do not reckon too much on him, Phœbe.  Yes, it is a hard saying, but men care so much for youth and beauty, that he may find her less attractive.  He may not understand how superior she must have become to what she was when he first knew her.  Take care how you plead his cause without being sure of his sentiments.’

In fact, Honor thought Cecily Raymond so infinitely above Mervyn Fulmort, at his very best, that she could not regard the affair as hopeful under any aspect; and the parties concerned being just at the time of life when a woman becomes much the elder of a man of the same years, she fully expected that Cecily’s loss of bloom would entirely take away his desire to pursue his courtship.

The next event was a diplomatic call from Mrs. Holmby, to sound Miss Charlecote, whose name she knew as a friend both of the Fulmorts and Moorcroft Raymonds, and who, she had feared, would use her influence against so unequal a match for the wealthy young squire.  When convinced of her admiration of Cecily, the good aunt proceeded to condemn the Raymond pride.  They called it religion, but she was not so taken in.  What reasonable person heeded what a young man might have done when he was sowing his wild oats?  No, it was only that the Baronet blood disdained the distillery, whereas the Fulmorts represented that good old family, the Mervyns, and it was a very fine estate, was not it?  She had no patience with such nonsense, not she!  All Sir John’s doing; for, between themselves, poor dear George Raymond had no spirit at all, and was quite under his brother’s thumb.  Such a family, and such a thing as it would be for them to have that girl so well married.  She would not take her away.  The place agreed with the Major, and she had told Cecily she could not think of leaving it.

Phœbe saw how close a guard Cecily must have learnt to keep on herself, for not a tone nor look betrayed that she was suffering unusual emotion.  She occupied herself quietly, and was most tenderly kind to Bertha and Maria, exerting herself to converse with Bertha, and to enter into her pursuits as cheerfully as if her mind was disengaged.  Sometimes Phœbe fancied that the exceeding gentleness of her voice indicated when she was most tried, but she attempted no more tête-à-têtes, and Miss Charlecote’s conjecture that in the recesses of her heart she was rejoiced to be detained by no fault of her own, remained unverified.  Phœbe resigned Cecily for the present to Bertha’s exclusive friendship.  Competition would have been unwise, even if the forbidden subject had not been a restraint where the secret was known, while to soothe and cherish Bertha and settle her mind to begin life again was a welcome and fitting mission for Cecily, and inclination as well as discretion therefore held Phœbe aloof, preventing Maria from interfering, and trusting that Cecily was becoming Bertha’s Mr. Charlecote.

Mervyn came back sooner than she had expected him, having soon tired of Corsica.  His year of ill-health and of her attendance had made him dependent on her; he did not enter into novelty or beauty without Bertha; and his old restless demon of discontent made him impatient to return to his ladies.  So he took Phœbe by surprise, walking in as she was finishing a letter to Augusta before joining the others in the olivettes.

‘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?’

It was a welcome invitation, and in no more time than it took to fetch a shawl, the two old friends were pacing the paved terrace together.

‘Well, what do you think of him?’ began Sir John.  ‘There must be more good in him than I thought.’

‘Much more than I thought.’

‘He has been speaking to me, and I can’t say but that I was sorry for him, though why it should have gone so hard with so sensible and good a girl as Cecily to give up such a scamp, I never could guess!  I told George that seeing what I saw of him, and knowing what I knew, I could think it nothing better than a sacrifice to give her to him!’

‘Exactly what I thought!’

‘After the way he had used her, too—talking nonsense to her, and then playing fast and loose, trying his luck with half the young ladies in London, and then fancying she would be thankful to him as soon as he wanted a wife to keep house!  Poor child, that would not have weighed with her a moment though—it puts me out of patience to know how fond she is of him—but for his scampishness, which made it a clear duty to refuse him.  Very well she behaved, poor thing, but you see how she pined away—though her mother tells me that not a fretful word was ever heard from her, as active and patient and cheerful as ever.  Then the Holmbys took her abroad, the only thing to save her health, but I never trusted the woman, and when by and by she writes to her father that Fulmort was coming, and her aunt would not take her away, “George,” I said, “never mind; I’ll go at once, and bring her home—she shall not be kept there to be torn to pieces between her feelings and her duty.”  And now I am come, I declare I don’t know what to be at—I should think nothing of it if the lad only talked of reforming—but he looks so downcast, and owns so honestly that we were quite right, and then that excellent little sister of his is so fond of him, and you have stood his company this whole year—that I declare I think he must be good for something!  Now you who have looked on all his life, just say what you think of him—such a way as he went on in last year, too—the crew that he got about him—’

‘Phœbe thinks that was the consequence of his disappointment.’

‘A man that could bring such a lot into the same house with that sister of his, had no business to think of Cecily.’

‘He has suffered for it, and pretty severely, and I do think it has done him good.  You must remember that he had great disadvantages.’

‘Which didn’t hinder his brother from turning out well.’

‘Robert went to a public school—’ and there she perceived she was saying something awkward, but Sir John half laughed, and assented.

‘Quite right, Miss Charlecote; private pupils are a delusion?  George never had one without a screw loose about him.  Parish priests were never meant for tutors—and I’ve told my boy, Charlie, that the one thing I’ll never consent to is his marrying on pupils—and doing two good things by halves.  It has well nigh worried his uncle to death, and Cecily into the bargain.’

‘Robert was younger, and the elders were all worse managed.  Besides, Mervyn’s position, as it was treated, made him discontented and uncomfortable; and this attachment, which he was too—too—I can find no word for it but contemptible—to avow, must have preyed on his temper and spirits all the time he was trying to shake it off.  He was brought up to selfishness, and nothing but what he underwent last year could have shaken him out of it.’

‘Then you think he is shaken out of it?’

‘Where Bertha is concerned I see that he is—therefore I should hope it with his wife.’

‘Well, well, I suppose what must be must be.  Not that I have the least authority to say anything, but I could not help telling the poor fellow thus much—that if he went on steadily for a year or so, and continued in the same mind, I did not see why he should not ask my brother and Cecily to reconsider it.  Then it will be for them to decide, you know.’

For them!  As if Sir John were not in character as well as name the guiding head of the family.

‘And now,’ he added, ‘you will let me come to your rooms this evening, for Mrs. Holmby is in such displeasure with me, that I shall get nothing but black looks.  Besides, I want to see a little more of that nice girl, his sister.’

‘Ah! Sir John, if ever you do consent, it will be more than half for love of Phœbe!’

‘Well, for a girl like that to be so devoted to him—her brother though he be—shows there must be more in him than meets the eye.  That’s just the girl that I would not mind John’s marrying.’

CHAPTER XXV

Turn again, Whittington!

—Bow Bells

May had come round again before Robert Fulmort stood waiting at the Waterloo Station to welcome the travellers, who had been prohibited from putting Bertha’s restored health to the test of east winds.  It was a vista of happy faces that he encountered as he looked into the carriage window, yet the first questions and answers were grave and mournful.

‘Is Mr. Henderson still alive?’ asked Honora.

‘No, he sank rapidly, and died on Sunday week.  I was at the funeral on Saturday.’

‘Right; I am glad you went.  I am sorry I was away.’

‘It was deeply felt.  Nearly all the clergy in the archdeaconry, and the entire parish, were present.’

‘Who is taking care of the parish?’

‘Charlecote Raymond has been coming over for the Sundays, and giving great satisfaction.’

‘I say, Robert, where’s the Bannerman carriage?  Phœbe is to be victimized there—more’s the pity,’ interposed Mervyn.

‘There is their brougham.  I meant to drive to Albury-street with her,’ said Robert, gazing at his brother as if he scarcely knew him without the characteristic knitting of the brow under a grievance, the scowl, or the half-sneering smile; and with the cleared and lightened air that he had worn ever since that little spark of hope had been left to burn and shine undamped by dissipation or worldly policy.  Bertha also was changed.  She had grown tall and womanly, her looks beyond her age, and if her childish vivacity were gone, the softened gravity became her much better.  It was Phœbe’s report, however, for which he chiefly longed, and he was soon seated beside her on the way to Albury-street, while the others betook themselves Citywards.