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

On the whole she had never liked any of her charges since the renowned Anna Webster so well as Phœbe Fulmort; although her abilities did not rise above the ‘very fair,’ and she was apt to be bewildered in metaphysics and political economy; but then she had none of the eccentricities of will and temper of Miss Fennimore’s clever girls, nor was she like most good-humoured ones, recklessly insouciante.  Her only drawback, in the governess’s eyes, was that she never seemed desirous of going beyond what was daily required of her—each study was a duty, and not a subject of zeal.

Presently Miss Fennimore came back, followed by the two sisters, neither of them in the best of tempers.  Maria, a stout, clumsily-made girl of fifteen, had the same complexion and open eyes as Phœbe, but her colouring was muddled, the gaze full-orbed and vacant, and the lips, always pouting, were just now swelled with the vexation that filled her prominent eyelids with tears.  Bertha, two years younger, looked as if nature had designed her for a boy, and the change into a girl was not yet decided.  She, too, was very like Maria; but Maria’s open nostrils were in her a droll retroussé, puggish little nose; her chin had a boyish squareness and decision, her round cheeks had two comical dimples, her eyes were either stretched in defiance or narrowed up with fun, and a slight cast in one gave a peculiar archness and character to her face; her skin, face, hands, and all, were uniformly pinky; her hair in such obstinate yellow curls, that it was to be hoped, for her sake, that the fashion of being crépé might continue.  The brow lowered in petulance; and as she kissed Phœbe, she muttered in her ear a vituperation of the governess in schoolroom patois; then began tossing the lesson-books in the air and catching them again, as a preliminary to finding the places, thus drawing on herself a reproof in German.  French and German were alternately spoken in lesson hours by Phœbe and Bertha, who had lived with foreign servants from infancy; but poor Maria had not the faculty of keeping the tongues distinct, and corrections only terrified her into confusion worse confounded, until Miss Fennimore had in despair decided that English was the best alternative.

Phœbe practised vigorously.  Aware that nothing pleasant was passing, and that, be it what it might, she could do no good, she was glad to stop her ears with her music, until eight o’clock brought a pause in the shape of breakfast.  Formerly the schoolroom party had joined the family meal, but since the two elder girls had been out, and Mervyn’s friends had been often in the house, it had been decided that the home circle was too numerous; and what had once been the play-room was allotted to be the eating-room of the younger ones, without passing the red door, on the other side of which lay the world.

Breakfast was announced by the schoolroom maid, and Miss Fennimore rose.  No sooner was her back turned, than Bertha indulged in a tremendous writhing yawn, wriggling in her chair, and clenching both fat fists, as she threatened with each, at her governess’s retreating figure, so ludicrously, that Phœbe smiled while she shook her head, and an explosive giggle came from Maria, causing the lady to turn and behold Miss Bertha demure as ever, and a look of disconsolate weariness fast settling down on each of the two young faces.  The unbroken routine pressed heavily at those fit moments for family greetings and for relaxation, and even Phœbe would gladly have been spared the German account of the Holt and of Miss Charlecote’s book, for which she was called upon.  Bertha meanwhile, to whom waggishness was existence, was carrying on a silent drama on her plate, her roll being a quarry, and her knife the workmen attacking it.  Now she undermined, now acted an explosion, with uplifted eyebrows and an indicated ‘puff!’ with her lips, with constant dumb-show directed to Maria, who, without half understanding, was in a constant suppressed titter, sometimes concealed by her pocket-handkerchief.

Quick as Miss Fennimore was, and often as she frowned on Maria’s outbreaks, she never could detect their provocative.  Over-restraint and want of sympathy were direct instruction in unscrupulous slyness of amusement.  A sentence of displeasure on Maria’s ill-mannered folly was in the act of again filling her eyes with tears, when there was a knock at the door, and all the faces beamed with glad expectation.

It was Robert.  This was the time of day when he knew Miss Fennimore could best tolerate him, and he seldom failed to make his appearance on his way down-stairs, the only one of the privileged race who was a wonted object on this side the baize door.  Phœbe thought he looked more cheerful, and indeed gravity could hardly have withstood Bertha’s face, as she gave a mischievous tweak to his hair behind, under colour of putting her arm round his neck.

‘Well, Curlylocks, how much mischief did you do yesterday?’

‘I’d no spirits for mischief,’ she answered, with mock pitifulness, twinkling up her eyes, and rubbing them with her knuckles as if she were crying.  ‘You barbarous wretch, taking Phœbe to feast on strawberries and cream with Miss Charlecote, and leaving poor me to poke in that stupid drawing-room, with nothing to do but to count the scollops of mamma’s flounce!’

‘It is your turn.  Will Miss Fennimore kindly let you have a walk with me this evening?’

‘And me,’ said Maria.

‘You, of course.  May I come for them at five o’clock?’

‘I can hardly tell what to say about Maria.  I do not like to disappoint her, but she knows that nothing displeases me so much as that ill-mannered habit of giggling,’ said Miss Fennimore, not without concern.  Merciful as to Maria’s attainments, she was strict as to her manners, and was striving to teach her self-restraint enough to be unobtrusive.

Poor Maria’s eyes were glassy with tears, her chest heaved with sobs, and she broke out, ‘O pray, Miss Fennimore, O pray!’ while all the others interceded for her; and Bertha, well knowing that it was all her fault, avoided the humiliation of a confession, by the apparent generosity of exclaiming, ‘Take us both to-morrow instead, Robin.’

Robert’s journey was, however, fixed for that day, and on this plea, licence was given for the walk.  Phœbe smiled congratulation, but Maria was slow in cheering up; and when, on returning to the schoolroom, the three sisters were left alone together for a few moments, she pressed up to Phœbe’s side, and said, ‘Phœbe, I’ve not said my prayers.  Do you think anything will happen to me?’

Her awfully mysterious tone set Bertha laughing.  ‘Yes, Maria, all the cows in the park will run at you,’ she was beginning, when the grave rebuke of Phœbe’s eyes cut her short.

‘How was it, my dear?’ asked Phœbe, tenderly fondling her sister.

‘I was so sleepy, and Bertha would blow soap-bubbles in her hands while we were washing, and then Miss Fennimore came, and I’ve been naughty now, and I know I shall go on, and then Robin won’t take me.’

‘I will ask Miss Fennimore to let you go to your room, dearest,’ said Phœbe.  ‘You must not play again in dressing time, for there’s nothing so sad as to miss our prayers.  You are a good girl to care so much.  Had you time for yours, Bertha?’

‘Oh, plenty!’ with a toss of her curly head.  ‘I don’t take ages about things, like Maria.’

‘Prayers cannot be hurried,’ said Phœbe, looking distressed, and she was about to remind Bertha to whom she spoke in prayer, when the child cut her short by the exclamation, ‘Nonsense, Maria, about being naughty.  You know I always make you laugh when I please, and that has more to do with it than saying your prayers, I fancy.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Phœbe, very sadly, ‘if you had said yours more in earnest, my poor Bertha, you would either not have made Maria laugh, or would not have left her to bear all the blame.’

‘Why do you call me poor?’ exclaimed Bertha, with a half-offended, half-diverted look.

‘Because I wish so much that you knew better, or that I could help you better,’ said Phœbe, gently.

There Miss Fennimore entered, displeased at the English sounds, and at finding them all, as she thought, loitering.  Phœbe explained Maria’s omission, and Miss Fennimore allowed her five minutes in her own room, saying that this must not become a precedent, though she did not wish to oppress her conscience.

Bertha’s eyes glittered with a certain triumph, as she saw that Miss Fennimore was of her mind, and anticipated no consequences from the neglect, but only made the concession as to a superstition.  Without disbelief, the child trained only to reason, and quick to detect fallacy, was blind to all that was not material.  And how was the spiritual to be brought before her?

Phœbe might well sigh as she sat down to her abstract of Schlegel’s Lectures.  ‘If any one would but teach them,’ she thought; ‘but there is no time at all, and I myself do not know half so much of those things as one of Miss Charlecote’s lowest classes.’

Phœbe was a little mistaken.  An earnest mind taught how to learn, with access to the Bible and Prayer Book, could gain more from these fountain-heads than any external teaching could impart; and she could carry her difficulties to Robert.  Still it was out of her power to assist her sisters.  Surveillance and driving absolutely left no space free from Miss Fennimore’s requirements; and all that there was to train those young ones in faith, was the manner in which it lived and worked in her.  Nor of this effect could she be conscious.

As to dreams or repinings, or even listening to her hopes and fears for her project of pleasure, they were excluded by the concentrated attention that Miss Fennimore’s system enforced.  Time and capacity were so much on the stretch, that the habit of doing what she was doing, and nothing else, had become second nature to the docile and duteous girl; and she had become little sensible to interruptions; so she went on with her German, her Greek, and her algebra, scarcely hearing the repetitions of the lessons, or the counting as Miss Fennimore presided over Maria’s practice, a bit of drudgery detested by the governess, but necessarily persevered in, for Maria loved music, and had just voice and ear sufficient to render this single accomplishment not hopeless, but a certain want of power of sustained effort made her always break down at the moment she seemed to be doing best.  Former governesses had lost patience, but Miss Fennimore had early given up the case, and never scolded her for her failures; she made her attempt less, and she was improving more, and shedding fewer tears than under any former dynasty.  Even a stern dominion is better for the subjects than an uncertain and weak one; regularity gives a sense of reliance; and constant occupation leaves so little time for being naughty, that Bertha herself was getting into training, and on the present day her lessons were exemplary, always with a view to the promised walk with her brother, one of the greatest pleasures ever enjoyed by the denizens of the west wing.

Phœbe’s pleasure was less certain, and less dependent on her merits, yet it invigorated her efforts to do all she had to do with all her might, even into the statement of the pros and cons of customs and free-trade, which she was required to produce as her morning’s exercise.  In the midst, her ear detected the sound of wheels, and her heart throbbed in the conviction that it was Miss Charlecote’s pony carriage; nay, she found her pen had indited ‘Robin would be so glad,’ instead of ‘revenue to the government,’ and while scratching the words out beyond all legibility, she blamed herself for betraying such want of self-command.

No summons came, no tidings, the wheels went away; her heart sank, and her spirit revolted against an unfeeling, unutterably wearisome captivity; but it was only a moment’s fluttering against the bars, the tears were driven back with the thought, ‘After all, the decision is guided from Above.  If I stay at home, it must be best for me.  Let me try to be good!’ and she forced her mind back to her exports and her customs.  It was such discipline as few girls could have exercised, but the conscientious effort was no small assistance in being resigned; and in the precious minutes granted in which to prepare herself for dinner, she found it the less hard task to part with her anticipations of delight and brace herself to quiet, contented duty.

The meal was beginning when, with a very wide expansion of the door, appeared a short, consequential-looking personage, of such plump, rounded proportions, that she seemed ready to burst out of her riding-habit, and of a broad, complacent visage, somewhat overblooming.  It was Miss Fulmort, the eldest of the family, a young lady just past thirty, a very awful distance from the schoolroom party, to whom she nodded with good-natured condescension, saying: ‘Ah! I thought I should find you at dinner; I’m come for something to sustain nature.  The riding party are determined to have me with them, and they won’t wait for luncheon.  Thank you, yes, a piece of mutton, if there were any under side.  How it reminds me of old times.  I used so to look forward to never seeing a loin of mutton again.’

‘As your chief ambition?’ said Miss Fennimore, who, governess as she was, could not help being a little satirical, especially when Bertha’s eyes twinkled responsively.

‘One does get so tired of mutton and rice-pudding,’ answered the less observant Miss Fulmort, who was but dimly conscious of any one’s existence save her own, and could not have credited a governess laughing at her; ‘but really this is not so bad, after all, for a change; and some pale ale.  You don’t mean that you exist without pale ale?’

‘We all drink water by preference,’ said Miss Fennimore.

‘Indeed!  Miss Watson, our finishing governess, never drank anything but claret, and she always had little pâtés, or fish, or something, because she said her appetite was to be consulted, she was so delicate.  She was very thin, I know; and what a figure you have, Phœbe!  I suppose that is water drinking.  Bridger did say it would reduce me to leave off pale ale, but I can’t get on without it, I get so horridly low.  Don’t you think that’s a sign, Miss Fennimore?’

‘I beg your pardon, a sign of what?’

‘That one can’t go on without it.  Miss Charlecote said she thought it was all constitution whether one is stout or not, and that nothing made much difference, when I asked her about German wines.’

‘Oh! Augusta, has Miss Charlecote been here this morning?’ exclaimed Phœbe.

‘Yes; she came at twelve o’clock, and there was I actually pinned down to entertain her, for mamma was not come down.  So I asked her about those light foreign wines, and whether they do really make one thinner; you know one always has them at her house.’

‘Did mamma see her?’ asked poor Phœbe, anxiously.

‘Oh yes, she was bent upon it.  It was something about you.  Oh! she wants to take you to stay with her in that horrible hole of hers in the City—very odd of her.  What do you advise me to do, Miss Fennimore?  Do you think those foreign wines would bring me down a little, or that they would make me low and sinking?’

‘Really, I have no experience on the subject!’ said Miss Fennimore, loftily.

‘What did mamma say?’ was poor Phœbe’s almost breathless question.

‘Oh! it makes no difference to mamma’ (Phœbe’s heart bounded); but Augusta went on: ‘she always has her soda-water, you know; but of course I should take a hamper from Bass.  I hate being unprovided.’

‘But about my going to London?’ humbly murmured Phœbe.

‘What did she say?’ considered the elder sister, aloud.  ‘I don’t know, I’m sure.  I was not attending—the heat does make one so sleepy—but I know we all wondered she should want you at your age.  You know some people take a spoonful of vinegar to fine themselves down, and some of those wines are very acid,’ she continued, pressing on with her great subject of consultation.

‘If it be an object with you, Miss Fulmort, I should recommend the vinegar,’ said Miss Fennimore.  ‘There is nothing like doing a thing outright!’

‘And, oh! how glorious it would be to see her taking it!’ whispered Bertha into Phœbe’s ear, unheard by Augusta, who, in her satisfied stolidity, was declaring, ‘No, I could not undertake that.  I am the worst person in the world for taking anything disagreeable.’

And having completed her meal, which she had contrived to make out of the heart of the joint, leaving the others little but fat, she walked off to her ride, believing that she had done a gracious and condescending action in making conversation with her inferiors of the west wing.

Yet Augusta Fulmort might have been good for something, if her mind and her affections had not lain fallow ever since she escaped from a series of governesses who taught her self-indulgence by example.

‘I wonder what mamma said!’ exclaimed Phœbe, in her strong craving for sympathy in her suspense.

‘I am sorry the subject has been brought forward, if it is to unsettle you, Phœbe,’ said Miss Fennimore, not unkindly; ‘I regret your being twice disappointed; but, if your mother should refer it to me, as I make no doubt she will, I should say that it would be a great pity to break up our course of studies.’

‘It would only be for a little while,’ sighed Phœbe; ‘and Miss Charlecote is to show me all the museums.  I should see more with her than ever I shall when I am come out; and I should be with Robert.’

‘I intended asking permission to take you through a systematic course of lectures and specimens when the family are next in town,’ said Miss Fennimore.  ‘Ordinary, desultory sight-seeing leaves few impressions; and though Miss Charlecote is a superior person, her mind is not of a sufficiently scientific turn to make her fully able to direct you.  I shall trust to your good sense, Phœbe, for again submitting to defer the pleasure till it can be enhanced.’

Good sense had a task imposed on it for which it was quite inadequate; but there was something else in Phœbe which could do the work better than her unconvinced reason.  Even had she been sure of the expediency of being condemned to the schoolroom, no good sense would have brought that resolute smile, or driven back the dew in her eyes, or enabled her voice to say, with such sweet meekness, ‘Very well, Miss Fennimore; I dare say it may be right.’

Miss Fennimore was far more concerned than if the submission had been grudging.  She debated with herself whether she should consider her resolution irrevocable.

Ten minutes were allowed after dinner in the parterre, and these could only be spent under the laurel hedge; the sun was far too hot everywhere else.  Phœbe had here no lack of sympathy, but had to restrain Bertha, who, with angry gestures, was pronouncing the governess a horrid cross-patch, and declaring that no girls ever were used as they were; while Maria observed, that if Phœbe went to London, she must go too.

‘We shall all go some day,’ said Phœbe, cheerfully, ‘and we shall enjoy it all the more if we are good now.  Never mind, Bertha, we shall have some nice walks.’

‘Yes, all bothered with botany,’ muttered Bertha.

‘I thought, at least, you would be glad of me,’ said Phœbe, smiling; ‘you who stay at home.’

‘To be sure, I am,’ said Bertha; ‘but it is such a shame!  I shall tell Robin, and he’ll say so too.  I shall tell him you nearly cried!’

‘Don’t vex Robin,’ said Phœbe.  ‘When you go out, you should set yourself to tell him pleasant things.’

‘So I’m to tell him you wouldn’t go on any account.  You like your political economy much too well!’

‘Suppose you say nothing about it,’ said Phœbe.  ‘Make yourself merry with him.  That’s what you’ve got to do.  He takes you out to entertain you, not to worry about grievances.’

‘Do you never talk about grievances?’ asked Bertha, twinkling up her eyes.

Phœbe hesitated.  ‘Not my own,’ she said, ‘because I have not got any.’

‘Has Robert, then?’ asked Bertha.

‘Nobody has grievances who is out of the schoolroom,’ opined Maria; and as she uttered this profound sentiment, the tinkle of Miss Fennimore’s little bell warned the sisters to return to the studies, which in the heat of summer were pursued in the afternoon, that the walk might be taken in the cool of the evening.  Reading aloud, drawing, and sensible plain needlework were the avocations till it was time to learn the morrow’s lessons.  Phœbe being beyond this latter work, drew on, and in the intervals of helping Maria with her geography, had time to prepare such a bright face as might make Robert think lightly of her disappointment, and not reckon it as another act of tyranny.

When he opened the door, however, there was that in his looks which made her spirits leap up like an elastic spring; and his ‘Well, Phœbe!’ was almost triumphant.

‘Is it—am I—’ was all she could say.

‘Has no one thought it worth while to tell you?’

‘Don’t you know,’ interposed Bertha, ‘you on the other side the red baize door might be all married, or dead and buried, for aught we should hear.  But is Phœbe to go?’

‘I believe so.’

‘Are you sure?’ asked Phœbe, afraid yet to hope.

‘Yes.  My father heard the invitation, and said that you were a good girl, and deserved a holiday.’

Commendation from that quarter was so rare, that excess of gladness made Phœbe cast down her eyes and colour intensely, a little oppressed by the victory over her governess.  But Miss Fennimore spoke warmly.  ‘He cannot think her more deserving than I do.  I am rejoiced not to have been consulted, for I could hardly have borne to inflict such a mortification on her, though these interruptions are contrary to my views.  As it is, Phœbe, my dear, I wish you joy.’

‘Thank you,’ Phœbe managed to say, while the happy tears fairly started.  In that chilly land, the least approach to tenderness was like the gleam in which the hardy woodbine leaflets unfold to sun themselves.

Thankful for small mercies, thought Robert, looking at her with fond pity; but at least the dear child will have one fortnight of a more genial atmosphere, and soon, maybe, I shall transplant her to be Lucilla’s darling as well as mine, free from task-work, and doing the labours of love for which she is made!

He was quite in spirits, and able to reply in kind to the freaks and jokes of his little sister, as she started, spinning round him like a humming-top, and singing—

Will you go to the wood, Robin a Bobbin?

giving safe vent to an ebullition of spirits that must last her a good while, poor little maiden!

Phœbe took a sober walk with Miss Fennimore, receiving advice on methodically journalizing what she might see, and on the scheme of employments which might prevent her visit from being waste of time.  The others would have resented the interference with the holiday; but Phœbe, though a little sorry to find that tasks were not to be off her mind, was too grateful for Miss Fennimore’s cordial consent to entertain any thought except of obedience to the best of her power.

Miss Fennimore was politely summoned to Mrs. Fulmort’s dressing-room for the official communication; but this day was no exception to the general custom, that the red baize door was not passed by the young ladies until their evening appearance in the drawing-room.  Then the trio descended, all alike in white muslin, made high, and green sashes—a dress carefully distinguishing Phœbe as not introduced, but very becoming to her, with the simple folds and the little net ruche, suiting admirably the tall, rounded slenderness of her shape, her long neck, and short, childish contour of face, where there smiled a joy of anticipation almost inappreciable to those who know not what it is to spend day after day with nothing particular to look forward to.

Very grand was the drawing-room, all amber-coloured with satin-wood, satin and gold, and with everything useless and costly encumbering tables that looked as if nothing could ever be done upon them.  Such a room inspired a sense of being in company, and it was no wonder that Mrs. Fulmort and her two elder daughters swept in in as decidedly procession style as if they had formed part of a train of twenty.

The star that bestowed three female sovereigns to Europe seemed to have had the like influence on Hiltonbury parish, since both its squires were heiresses.  Miss Mervyn would have been a happier woman had she married a plain country gentleman, like those of her own stock, instead of giving a county position to a man of lower origin and enormous monied wealth.  To live up to the claims of that wealth had been her business ever since, and health and enjoyment had been so completely sacrificed to it, that for many years past the greater part of her time had been spent in resting and making herself up for her appearance in the evening, when she conducted her elder daughters to their gaieties.  Faded and tallowy in complexion, so as to be almost ghastly in her blue brocade and heavy gold ornaments, she reclined languidly on a large easy-chair, saying with half-closed eyes—