Phoebe, Junior

“I suppose one is not required to stay at exactly the same point of opinion all one's life,” said Northcote, with a half-smile.

“By George! but you are though, when you're a public man; especially when you're on a crusade. Haven't I heard you call it a crusade? I can tell you that changing your opinion is just the very last thing the public will permit you to do. But I shan't tell for my part – make yourself easy. Clarence, don't you let it out; your mother, fortunately, is out of the way. The world shall never know through me that young Northcote, the anti-state Churchman, was discovered hob-nobbing with a snug chaplain in a sinecure appointment. Ha, ha! had you there.”

“To do Northcote justice,” said Mr. May; “he began life in Carlingford by pointing out this fact to the neighbourhood; that it was a sinecure, and that my son and I – ”

“Would it not be more to the point to inspect the chapel?” said Reginald, who had been standing by impatiently playing with a big key; upon which Mr. Copperhead laughed more loudly than before.

“We'll not trouble the chapel,” he said, “railway stations are more in my way; you are all a great deal finer than I am, and know a deal more, I suppose; but my roughness has served its purpose on the whole, better perhaps for some things – yes, for some things, Clar, and you may thank your stars, old boy. If you had been a parson's son, by George! there would have been no fat appointment waiting for you.”

“After all, my son's appointment is not so very fat,” said Mr. May, forcing a laugh. “It is not so much as many a boy at school gets from his father.”

“Ah, you mean my boy at school! he's an extravagant dog. His mother and he, sir, are made of different clay from me; they are porcelain and I am delft. They want fine velvet cupboards to stand themselves in, while I'm for the kitchen dresser. That's the difference. But I can afford it, thank Heaven. I tell Clarence that he may thank his stars that I can afford it, and that he isn't born a poor man's son. He has been plucked at Oxford, you know,” he said, with a big laugh, thrusting forth his chest as Clarence thrust forth his shirt-front, with an apparent complacency over the very plucking. My son can afford to be plucked, he seemed to say. He got up as he spoke, and approaching the fireplace turned his back to it, and gathered up his coat-tails under his arm. He was no taller than Mr. May, and very little taller than Reginald; but they both shrank into insignificance beside the big self-assertive figure. He looked about the room as if he was thinking of “buying up” the whole contents of it, and thought very little of them. A glance of contempt, a shrug more implied than actual, testified his low opinion of everything around. When he withdrew his eyes from the furniture he shook out his leg, as Clarence had done his, and gave a pull to his trousers that they might sit properly. He had the word “Rich” painted in big letters all over him, and he seemed to feel it his vocation to show this sense of superiority. Clarence by his side, the living copy of the great man's appearance and manners, strutted and put himself forward like his father, as a big calf might place itself beside the parent cow. Mr. Copperhead did not look upon his offspring, however, with the cow's motherly complacency. He laughed at him openly, with cynical amusement. He was clever in his way, and Clarence was stupid; and besides he was the proprietor, and Clarence, for all he was porcelain, was his goods and chattels. When he looked at him, a wicked leer of derision awoke in his eye.

“Yes, my boy,” he said, “thank your stars; you would not make much of it if you were a poor man. You're an ornament that costs dear; but I can afford you. So, Northcote, you're changing your opinions – going over to the Church, eh? Extremes meet, they say; I shouldn't have thought it – ”

“I am doing nothing of the kind,” said Northcote stoutly. He was not in a mood to be taken to task by this Mammon of unrighteousness, and indeed had at all times been a great deal too independent and unwilling to submit to leading members of the connection. Mr. Copperhead, however, showed no resentment. Northcote too, like Clarence, had a father before him, and stood on quite a different footing from the ordinary young pastor, whose business it was to be humble and accept all that his betters might portion out.

“Well,” he said, “you can afford to please yourself, and that's always something. By the way, isn't it time to have something to eat? If there is a good hotel near – ”

“Luncheon will be waiting at my house,” said Mr. May, who was still doing his best to please the man upon whom he had built such wild hopes, “and Ursula will be waiting.”

“Ah, ah, the young lady! so she will. I wouldn't miss that for something; but I don't like putting you to so much expense. My son here has an excellent appetite, as you must have found out by this time, and for my part so have I. I think it a thousand pities to put you to this trouble – and expense.”

“Pray don't think of that,” said Mr. May with courtesy, which belied his feelings, for he would have liked nothing so well as to have knocked down his complacent patron. He led the way out, almost with eagerness, feeling Mr. Copperhead to be less offensive out of doors than within four walls. Was this the sort of man to be appealed to for help as he had thought? Probably his very arrogance would make him more disposed towards liberality. Probably it would flatter his sense of consequence, to have such a request made to him. Mr. May was very much at sea, letting I dare not wait upon I would; afraid to speak lest he should shut this door of help by so doing, and afraid to lose the chance of any succour by not speaking. He tried hard, in spite of all his difficulties, to be smooth and agreeable to a man who had so much in his power; but it was harder work than he could have thought.

CHAPTER XXXVI

FATHER AND SON

Ursula had prepared a very careful luncheon for the stranger. She thought him disagreeable, but she had not looked at him much, for, indeed, Ursula's mind was much unsettled. Horace Northcote had spoken to her that morning, after Mrs. Hurst's visit and her retaliation upon him, as no man yet had ever spoken to her before. He had told her a long story, though it was briefly done, and could have been expressed in three words. He was not of her species of humanity; his ways of thinking, his prejudices, his traditions, were all different from hers, and yet that had happened to him which happens all over the world in every kind of circumstances – without knowing how it was, he had got to love her. Yes, he knew very well how it was, or rather, he knew when it was, which is all that is to be expected from a lover. It was on the evening of the entrées, the first dinner-party, and he had gone on ever since, deeper and deeper, hearing her say many things which he did not agree in, and tracing her life through a score of little habits which were not congenial to his, yet loving her more and more for all that was new to him, and even for the things which were uncongenial. He had told her all this, and Ursula had listened with a kind of awe, wondering at the ardour in the young man's eyes, and the warmth with which he spoke; wondering and trembling a little. She had guessed what he meant the night before, as has been said, and this had touched her with a little thrill of awakened feeling; but the innocent girl knew no more about passion than a child, and when she saw it, glowing and ardent, appealing to her, she was half-alarmed, half-overawed by the strange sight. What answer could she make to him? She did not know what to say. To reject him altogether was not in Ursula's heart; but she could not respond to that strange, new, overwhelming sentiment, which put a light in his eyes which she dared not meet; which dazzled her when she ventured a glance at him. “Was he to go away?” he asked, his voice, too, sounding musical and full of touching chords. Ursula could not tell him to go away either. What she did say to him, she never quite knew; but at least, whatever it was, it left him hopeful, if unsatisfied.

And since that time her mind had been in a strange confusion, a confusion strange but sweet. Gratified vanity is not a pretty title to give to any feeling, and yet that mixture of gratification and gratitude, and penetrating pleasure in the fact of being elevated from an often-scolded and imperfect child to an admired and worshipped woman is, perhaps, of all the sensations that feminine youth is conscious of, the most poignant in its sweetness. It went through her whole life; sometimes it made her laugh when she was all alone, and there was nothing of a laughter-producing nature in her way; and sometimes it made her cry, both the crying and the laughter being one. It was strange, very strange, and yet sweet. Under the influence of this, and of the secret homage which Northcote paid her whenever they met; and which she now understood as she had never understood it before, the girl's whole nature expanded, though she did not know. She was becoming sweet to the children, to puzzled Janey, to every one around her. Her little petulances were all subdued. She was more sympathetic than she had ever been before. And yet she was not in love with her lover. It was only that the sunshine of young life had caught her, that the highest gratification of youth had fallen to her share unawares. All this might have been, and yet some one else come in to secure Ursula's real love; but in the mean time she was all the happier, all the better for the love which she did not return.

This is a digression from our immediate subject, which was the luncheon prepared for Mr. Copperhead. Ursula sent up an urgent message for Phœbe, who came to her in her prettiest morning dress, very carefully arranged, but with a line of care upon her brow.

“I will come if you wish it, dear,” she said; “but I don't want to meet Mr. Copperhead. I don't like him.”

“Neither do I like him,” cried Ursula. “He said something disagreeable the little moment he was here. Oh, I don't remember what it was, but something. Please stay. What am I to do with them all by myself? If you will help me, I may get through.”

Phœbe kissed her with a tremulous kiss; perhaps she was not unwilling to see with her own eyes what the father of Clarence meant, and what brought him here. She sat down at the window, and was the first to see them coming along the street.

“What a gentleman your father looks beside them,” cried Phœbe; “both of them, father and son; though Clarence, after all, is a great deal better than his father, less like a British snob.”

Ursula came and stood by her, looking out.

“I don't think he is much better than his father,” she said.

Phœbe took her hand suddenly and wrung it, then dropped it as if it had hurt her. What did it all mean? Ursula, though rays of enlightenment had come to her, was still perplexed, and did not understand.

Mr. Copperhead did not see her till he went to luncheon, when Phœbe appeared with little Amy May looking like a visitor, newly arrived. She had run upstairs after that first sight of him from the window, declaring herself unable to be civil to him except at table. The great man's face almost grew pale at the sight of her. He looked at Ursula, and then at Clarence, and laughed.

“'Wheresoever the carcase is the eagles are gathered together,'” he said. “That's Scripture, ain't it, Miss Ursula? I am not good at giving chapter and verse.”

“What does it mean?” asked Ursula.

She was quite indifferent to Mr. Copperhead, and perfectly unconscious of his observation. As for Phœbe, on the contrary, she was slightly agitated, her placid surface ruffled a little, and she looked her best in her agitation. Mr. Copperhead looked straight at her across the table, and laughed in his insolent way.

“So you are here too, Miss Phœbe!” he said. “I might think myself in the Crescent if I didn't know better. I met young Northcote just now, and now you. What may you be doing here, might one ask? It is what you call a curious coincidence, ain't it, Clarence and you both here?”

“I said so when Mr. Clarence came,” said Phœbe. “I came to take care of my grandmother, who is ill; and it was a very lucky thing for me that I had met Miss May at your ball, Mr. Copperhead.”

“By Jove, wasn't it!” said Clarence, roused to some dull sense of what was going on. “We owe all the fun we have had here to that, so we do. Odd, when one thinks of it; and thought so little of it then, didn't we? It's a very queer world.”

“So you've been having fun here?” said his father. “I thought you came here to work; that's how we old fellows get taken in. Work! with young ladies dangling about, and putting things into your head! I ought to have known better, don't you think so, Miss Ursula? You could have taught me a thing or two.”

“I?” said Ursula, startled. “I don't know what I could teach any one. I think Mr. Clarence Copperhead has kept to his hours very steadily. Papa is rather severe; he never would take any excuse from any of us when we were working with him.”

“He is not so severe now, I'll be bound,” said Mr. Copperhead. “Lets you have your fun a little, as Clarence tells me; don't you, May? Girls will be girls, and boys, boys, whatever we do; and I am sure, Miss Phœbe, you have been very entertaining, as you always were.”

“I have done my best,” said Phœbe, looking him in the face. “I should have had a dull life but for the Parsonage, and I have tried to be grateful. I have accompanied your son on the violin a great many evenings, and I hope our friends have liked it. Mr. Clarence is a promising player, though I should like him to trust less to his ear; but we always pulled through.”

“Thanks to you,” said Clarence, in the middle of his cutlet

He did not quite see why she should flourish this music in his father's face; but still he was loyal in a dull fashion, and he was obstinate, and did not mean to be “sat upon,” to use his own words. As for Phœbe, her quick mind caught at once the best line of policy. She determined to deliver Ursula, and she determined at the same time to let her future father-in-law (if he was to be her father-in-law) see what sort of a person he had to deal with. As soon as she made up her mind, her agitation disappeared. It was only the uncertainty that had cowed her; now she saw what to do.

“So!” said Mr. Copperhead, “musical evenings! I hope you have not turned poor Clar's head among you, young ladies. It's not a very strong head; and two is more than a match for one. I dare say he has had no chance between you.”

“Make yourself quite easy,” said Phœbe, with her sweetest smile; “he was only one of a party. Mr. Reginald May and Mr. Northcote are both very pleasant companions. Your son is bored sometimes, but the rest of us are never bored. You see, he has been accustomed to more brilliant society; but as for us, we have no particular pretensions. We have been very happy. And if there has been two to one, it has been the other way.”

“I think I must let your people know of your gaieties, Miss Phœbe. If your mother sent you here, I don't doubt it was for a purpose, eh? She knows what she's about, and she won't like it if she knows you are fritting away your chances and your attentions. She has an eye for business, has Mrs. Beecham,” said the leading member, with a laugh.

“You cannot tell mamma more about me than she knows already,” said Phœbe, with rising colour.

And by this time every one else at table was uncomfortable. Even Clarence, who had a dull appreciation of his father's jokes when they were not levelled at himself, and who was by no means indisposed to believe that “girls,” generally, were “after him,” and that even in this particular case Phœbe herself might have come to Carlingford on purpose to complete his conquest, even Clarence was moved.

“I don't know what you mean by brilliant society,” he said. “I know I'm the dull one among you clever people. I don't say much, but I know it all the same; and it's awfully good of you to pull me through all that music. I don't begrudge you your laugh after. Is my mother coming over, sir, to see the place?”

“To see what? There is not much in the place,” said Mr. Copperhead. “You're coming back with me, my boy. I hope it won't inconvenience you, May. I've other views for him. Circumstances alter cases, you know. I've been turning it over in my head, and I think I can see my way to another arrangement.”

“That, of course, is entirely in your own hands,” said Mr. May, with a cheerfulness he did not feel. His heart sank, but every rule of good society made it incumbent upon him to show no failure at such a moment. “Copperhead, see that your father has some wine. Well, I suppose our poor little Carlingford is not much of a place; no trade, no movement, no manufactures – ”

“The sort of place that should be cleared off the face of the earth,” said the millionnaire; “meaning no offence, of course. That's my opinion in respect to country towns. What's the good of them? Nests of gossip, places where people waste their time, and don't even amuse themselves. Give me green fields and London, that is my sort. I don't care if there was not another blessed brick in the country. There is always something that will grow in a field, corn or fat beasts – not that we couldn't get all that cheaper from over the water if it was managed as it ought to be. But a place like this, what's the good of it? Almshouses and chaplains, and that kind of rubbish, and old women; there's old women by the score.”

“They must be somewhere, I suppose,” said Mr. May. “We cannot kill them off, if they are inoffensive, and keep the laws. So that, after all, a country town is of use.”

“Kill 'em off – no; it's against what you benevolent humbugs call the spirit of the time, and Christianity, and all that; but there's such a thing as carrying Christianity too far; that's my opinion. There's your almshouses now. What's the principle of them? I call it encouraging those old beggars to live,” said Mr. Copperhead; “giving them permission to burden the community as long as they can manage it; a dead mistake, depend upon it, the greatest mistake in the world.”

“I think there is a great deal to be said in favour of Euthanasia,” said Phœbe, quietly stepping into the conversation; “but then it would have to be with the consent of the victims. When any one found himself useless, unnecessary to the world, or unhappy in it – ”

“Humbug and nonsense,” said Mr. Copperhead. “A likely thing for anybody to do. No, it is not a question for law-making. Let 'em die out naturally, that's my opinion. Don't do anything to hurry 'em – that is, I don't see my way to it; but let 'em go quiet, and don't bring 'em cordials and feather-beds, and all that middyeval nonsense, to keep 'em going as long as possible. It's wicked, that's what it is.”

“At all events,” said Mr. May, who, poor man, was bent on pleasing, “it is refreshing to hear opinions so bold and original. Something new is always a blessing. I cannot say I agree with you – ”

“No parson would be bold enough for that. Christianity's been a capital thing for the world,” said Mr. Copperhead, “I don't say a word against it; but in these go-ahead days, sir, we've had enough of it, that's to say when it's carried too far. All this fuss about the poor, all the row about dragging up a lot of poor little beggars to live that had far better die, and your almshouses to keep the old ones going, past all nature! Shovel the mould over them, that's the thing for the world; let 'em die when they ought to die; and let them live who can live – that's my way of thinking – and what's more, I'm right.”

“What a fine thing for you, Mr. Clarence,” cried Phœbe, “who are going into Parliament! to take up your father's idea and work it out. What a speech you could make on the subject! I saw a hospital once in Paris that would make such a wonderful illustration. I'll tell you about it if you like. Poor old wretched people whose life was nothing but wretchedness kept going, kept living for years and years – why, no one could tell; for I am sure it would have been better, far better for them to die and be done with it. What a speech you might make when you bring a bill into Parliament to abolish almshouses and all sorts of charities!” she added with a laugh, turning from Clarence, at whom she had been looking, to his father, who was puzzled, and did not know how to understand the young woman's eyes.

“I'll never make much of a speech in Parliament,” said Clarence; “unless you make it for me,” he added in an undertone. But no one else was speaking, and the undertone was quite audible. Meanwhile Phœbe had not ceased to look at his father, and held him with a pair of eyes not like the Ancient Mariner's. Mr. Copperhead was confused, his power even of insolence was cowed for the moment. He obeyed quite docilely the movement made to leave the table. Was it possible that she defied him, this Minister's daughter, and measured her strength against his? Mr. Copperhead felt as if he could have shaken the impertinent girl, but dared not, being where he was.

And lunch being over, Mr. May led his pupil's father into his study. “I want to show you what your boy has been doing,” he said, pointing to a line of books which made the millionnaire's soul shrink within him. “I have not bothered him with classics; what was the use as he is not going back to Oxford? but I have done my best for him in a practical way. He has read history, largely as you see, and as much as I could give him of political and constitutional – ”

“Yes, yes,” said Mr. Copperhead, reading the titles of some of the books under his breath. They impressed him deeply, and took away for a moment his self-confidence. It was his habit to boast that he knew nothing about books; but in their presence he shrank, feeling that they were greater than he, which was, there is little doubt, a sign of grace.

“If you wish to remove Clarence,” said Mr. May, “perhaps I had better make out a scheme of reading for him.”

“Look here,” cried the rich man, “I didn't want to remove him; but there he is, the first I see of him, cheek for jowl with a good-looking girl. I don't mean to say a word against Miss May, I've no doubt she's charming; but anyhow there she is side by side with Clar, who is no more able to resist that sort of thing – ”

Mr. May laughed, and this time with unmitigated amusement. “Do you mean Ursula? I think I can answer for it that she made no attempts upon him for which resistance would be necessary.”

“That's all very well to say; but bless you they do it, every one,” said Mr. Copperhead, “without exception, when a young fellow's well off and well-looking; and as if one wasn't bad enough, you've got Phœbe Beecham. You won't tell me she doesn't mean anything? – up to any mischief, a real minister's daughter. I don't mean anything uncivil to you or yours. I suppose a parson's different; but we know what a minister's daughter is in our connection. Like the men themselves, in short, who are always pouncing on some girl with a fortune if her relations don't take care. And Clarence is as weak as a baby; he takes after his mother – a poor bit of a feeble creature, though he's like me in exterior. That's how it is, you perceive; I don't quite see my way to letting him go on.”

“That is of course precisely as you please,” said Mr. May, somewhat sharply. He would preserve his dignity even though his heart was sinking; but he could not keep that tone of sharpness out of his voice.

“Of course it is as I please. I'll pay up of course for the second three months, if you choose, fair and square. I meant him to stay, and I'll pay. But that's all. You've no further claim upon me that I know of; and I must say that for a tutor, a regular coach, to keep girls in his house, daughters, or whatever you choose to call them, is something monstrous. It's a thing no fellow's friends would put up with. It's what I call dishonourable.”

“Perhaps,” said Mr. May, with all the self-possession he was master of, “you will let your son know at once that he must pack and go. I dare say, Sir Robert can take him, and we will send the portmanteaux. In such a case, it is better there should not be a moment's delay.”

“Clarence!” cried Mr. Copperhead, walking to the door and opening it. “Come along, look sharp, you're to go. I'll take you with me, do you hear? And May will see to sending you your boxes. Quick, come along, there's no time to lose.”