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

‘It is a common room, like one at a college,’ explained Phœbe.  ‘Robert has his own rooms besides.’

‘Such a hole!’ continued Bertha.  ‘It is the worst of all the curates’ sitting-rooms, looking out into the nastiest little alley.  It was a shame he did not have the first choice, when it is all his own.’

‘Perhaps that is the reason he took the worst,’ said Phœbe.

‘A study in extremes,’ said Bertha.  ‘Their dinner was our luncheon—the very plainest boiled beef, the liquor given away and at dinner, at the Bannermans’, there were more fine things than Bevil said he could appreciate, and Augusta looking like a full-blown dahlia.  I was always wanting to stick pins into her arms, to see how far in the bones are.  I am sure I could bury the heads.’

Here, seeing her mother look exhausted, Phœbe thought it wise to clear the room; and after waiting a few minutes to soothe her, left her to her maid.  Bertha had waited for her sister, and clinging round her, said, ‘Well, Phœbe, aren’t you glad of us?  Have you seen a living creature?’

‘Miss Charlecote twice, Mr. Henderson once, besides all the congregation on Sunday.’

‘Matter-of-fact Phœbe!  Perhaps you can bear it, but does not your mind ache, as if it had been held down all this time?’

‘So that it can’t expand to your grand intellect?’ said Phœbe.

‘It is no great self-conceit to hope one is better company than Maria!  But come, before we fall under the dominion of the Queen of the West Wing, I have a secret for you.’  Then, after a longer stammer than usual, ‘How should you like a French sister-in-law?’

‘Nonsense, Bertha!’

‘Ah! you’ve not had my opportunities.  I’ve seen her—both of them.  Juliana says the mother is his object; Augusta, the daughter.  The mother is much the most brilliant; but then she has a husband—a mere matter of faith, for no one ever sees him.  Mervyn is going to follow them to Paris, that’s certain, as soon as the Epsom day is over.’

‘You saw them!’

‘Only in the Park—oh, no! not in a room!  Their ladyships would never call on Madame la Marquise; she is not received, you know.  I heard the sisters talk it all over when they fancied me reading, and wonder what they should do if it should turn out to be the daughter.  But then Juliana thinks Mervyn might never bring her home, for he is going on at such a tremendous rate, that it is the luckiest thing our fortunes do not depend on the business.’

Phœbe looked quite appalled as she entered the schoolroom, not only at Mervyn’s fulfilment of his threat, but at Bertha’s flippancy and shrewdness.  Hitherto she had been kept ignorant of evil, save what history and her own heart could tell her.  But these ten days had been spent in so eagerly studying the world, that her girlish chatter was fearfully precocious.

‘A little edged tool,’ said Miss Fennimore, when she talked her over afterwards with Phœbe.  ‘I wish I could have been with her at Lady Bannerman’s.  It is an unsafe age for a glimpse of the world.’

‘I hope it may soon be forgotten.’

‘It will never be forgotten’ said Miss Fennimore.  ‘With so strong a relish for society, such keen satire, and reasoning power so much developed, I believe nothing but the devotional principle could subdue her enough to make her a well-balanced woman.  How is that to be infused?—that is the question.’

‘It is, indeed.’

‘I believe,’ pursued the governess, ‘that devotional temper is in most cases dependent upon uncomprising, exclusive faith.  I have sometimes wondered whether Bertha, coming into my hands so young as she did, can have imbibed my distaste to dogma; though, as you know, I have made a point of non-interference.’

‘I should shudder to think of any doubts in poor little Bertha’s mind,’ said Phœbe.  ‘I believe it is rather that she does not think about the matter.’

‘I will read Butler’s Analogy with her,’ exclaimed Miss Fennimore.  ‘I read it long ago, and shall be glad to satisfy my own mind by going over it again.  It is full time to endeavour to form and deepen Bertha’s convictions.’

‘I suppose,’ said Phœbe, almost to herself, ‘that all naughtiness is the want of living faith—’

But Miss Fennimore, instead of answering, had gone to another subject.

‘I have seen St. Matthew’s, Phœbe.’

‘And Robert?’ cried Phœbe.  ‘Bertha did not say you were with her.’

‘I went alone.  No doubt your brother found me a great infliction; but he was most kind, and showed me everything.  I consider that establishment a great fact.’

Phœbe showed her gratification.

‘I heard him preach,’ continued Miss Fennimore.  ‘His was a careful and able composition, but it was his sermon in brick and stone that most impressed me.  Such actions only arise out of strong conviction.  Now, the work of a conviction may be only a proof of the force of the will that held it; and thus the effect should not establish the cause.  But when I see a young man, brought up as your brother has been, throwing himself with such energy, self-denial, and courage into a task so laborious and obscure, I must own that, such is the construction of the human mind, I am led to reconsider the train of reasoning that has led to such results.’

And Miss Fennimore’s sincere admiration of Robert was Phœbe’s one item of comfort.

Gladly she shared it with Miss Charlecote, who, on her side, knew more than she told Phœbe of the persecution that Robert was undergoing from a vestry notoriously under the influence of the Fulmort firm, whose interest it was to promote the vice that he came to withstand.  Even the lads employed in the distillery knew that they gratified their employer by outrages on the clergy and their adherents, and there had been moments when Robert had been exposed to absolute personal danger, by mobs stimulated in the gin-shops; their violence against his attacks on their vicious practices being veiled by a furious party outcry against his religious opinions.  He meanwhile set his face like a rock, and strong, resolute, and brave, went his own way, so unmoved as apparently almost to prefer his own antagonistic attitude, and bidding fair to weary out his enemies by his coolness, or to disarm them by the charities of which St. Matthew’s was the centre.

As Phœbe never read the papers, and was secluded from the world’s gossip, it was needless to distress her with the knowledge of the malignity of the one brother, or the trials of the other; so Honor obeyed Robert by absolute silence on this head.  She herself gave her influence, her counsel, her encouragement, and, above all, her prayers, to uphold the youth who was realizing the dreams of her girlhood.

It might be that the impress of those very dreams had formed the character she was admiring.  Many a weak and fragile substance, moulded in its softness to a noble shape, has given a clear and lasting impress to a firm and durable material, either in the heat of the furnace, or the ductility of growth.  So Robert and Phœbe, children of the heart that had lost those of her adoption, cheered these lonely days by their need of her advice and sympathy.

Nor was she without tasks at home.  Mr. Henderson, the vicar, was a very old man, and was constantly growing more feeble and unequal to exertion.  He had been appointed by the squire before last, and had the indolent conservative orthodoxy of the old school, regarding activity as a perilous innovation, and resisting all Miss Charlecote’s endeavours at progress in the parish.  She had had long patience, till, when his strength failed, she ventured to entreat him to allow her to undertake the stipend of a curate, but this was rejected with displeasure, and she was forced to redouble her own exertions; but neither reading to the sick, visiting the cottages, teaching at school, nor even setting up a night-school in her own hall, availed to supply the want of an active pastor and of a resident magistrate.

Hiltonbury was in danger of losing its reputation as a pattern parish, which it had retained long after the death of him who had made it so.  The younger race who had since grown up were not such as their fathers had been, and the disorderly household at Beauchamp had done mischief.  The primitive manners, the simplicity, and feudal feeling were wearing off, and poor Honor found the whole charge laid to her few modern steps in education!  If Hiltonbury were better than many of the neighbouring places, yet it was not what it had been when she first had known it, and she vexed herself in the attempt to understand whether the times or herself were the cause.

Even her old bailiff, Brooks, did not second her.  He had more than come to the term of service at which the servant becomes a master, and had no idea of obeying her, when he thought he knew best.  Backward as were her notions of modern farming, they were too advanced for him, and either he would not act on them at all, or was resolved against their success when coerced.  There was no dismissing him, and without Mr. Saville to come and enforce her authority, Honor found the old man so stubborn that she had nearly given up the contest, except where the welfare of men, not of crops, was concerned.

A maiden’s reign is a dreary thing, when she tends towards age.  And Honor often felt what it would have been to have had Owen to back her up, and infuse new spirit and vigour.

The surly ploughboy, who omitted to touch his cap to the lady, little imagined the train of painful reflections roused by this small indication of the altering spirit of the place!

CHAPTER XVI

Even in our ashes glow the wonted fires.

—Gray

‘My dear, I did not like the voice that I heard just now.’

‘I am sure I was not out of temper.’

‘Indeed?’

‘Well, I am sure any one would be vexed.’

‘Cannot you tell me what was the matter without being sure so often?’

‘I am sure—there, mamma, I beg your pardon—I am sure I did not mean to complain.’

‘Only, Sarah, neither your voice has such a ring, nor are you so sure, when nothing has gone wrong.  What was it?’

‘It is that photography, mamma.  Miss Sandbrook is so busy with it!  I could not copy in my translation that I did yesterday, because she had not looked over it, and when she said she was coming presently, I am afraid I said it was always presently and never present.  I believe I did say it crossly, and I am sorry I denied it,’ and poor Sarah’s voice was low and meek enough.

‘Coming?  Where is she?’

‘In the dark chamber, doing a positive of the Cathedral.’

Mrs. Prendergast entered the schoolroom, outside which she had been holding this colloquy.  The powerful sun of high summer was filling the room with barred light through the Venetian blinds, and revealing a rather confused mass of the appliances of study, interspersed with saucers of water in which were bathing paper photographs, and every shelf of books had a fringe of others on glass set up to dry.  On the table lay a paper of hooks, a three-tailed artificial minnow, and another partly clothed with silver twist, a fly-book, and a quantity of feathers and silks.

‘I must tell Francis that the schoolroom is no place for his fishing-tackle!’ exclaimed Mrs. Prendergast.

‘O, mamma, it is Miss Sandbrook’s.  She is teaching him to dress flies, because she says he can’t be a real fisherman without, and the trout always rise at hers.  It is quite beautiful to see her throw.  That delicate little hand is so strong and ready.’

A door was opened, and out of the housemaid’s closet, defended from light by a yellow blind at every crevice, came eager exclamations of ‘Famous,’ ‘Capital,’ ‘The tower comes out to perfection;’ and in another moment Lucilla Sandbrook, in all her bloom and animation, was in the room, followed by a youth of some eighteen years, Francis Beaumont, an Indian nephew of Mrs. Prendergast.

‘Hit off at last, isn’t it, aunt?  Those dog-tooth mouldings will satisfy even the uncle.’

‘Really it is very good,’ said Mrs. Prendergast, as it was held up to the light for her inspection.

‘Miss Sandbrook has bewitched the camera,’ continued he.  ‘Do you remember the hideous muddles of last summer?  But, oh! Miss Sandbrook, we must have one more; the sun will be off by and by.’

‘Only ten minutes,’ said Lucilla, in a deprecating tone.  ‘You must not keep me a second more, let the sun be in ever such good humour.  Come, Sarah, come and show us the place you said would be so good.’

‘It is too hot,’ said Sarah, bluntly, ‘and I can’t waste the morning.’

‘Well, you pattern-pupil, I’ll come presently.  Indeed I will, Mrs. Prendergast.’

‘Let me see this translation, Sarah,’ said Mrs. Prendergast, as the photographers ran down-stairs.

She looked over it carefully, and as the ten minutes had passed without sign of the governess’s return, asked what naturally followed in the morning’s employment.

‘Italian reading, mamma; but never mind.’

‘Find the place, my dear.’

‘It is only while Francis is at home.  Oh, I wish I had not been cross.’  And though Sarah usually loved to read to her mother, she was uneasy all the time, watching the door, and pausing to listen at the most moving passages.  It was full half an hour before the voices were heard returning, and then there was a call, ‘Directly, Sarah!’ the dark chamber was shut up, and all subsided.

Mrs. Prendergast stayed on, in spite of an imploring glance from her daughter, and after an interval of the mysterious manipulations in the closet, the photograph was borne forth in triumph.

Lucilla looked a little abashed at finding Mrs. Prendergast in presence, and began immediately, ‘There, Mr. Beaumont, you see!  I hope Mrs. Prendergast is going to banish you forthwith; you make us shamefully idle.’

‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Prendergast, gravely, ‘I am going to carry him off at once, and make a law against future invasions.’

Francis attempted loud appeals, but his aunt quashed them with demeanour that showed that she was in earnest, and drove him away before her.

‘Indeed, Miss Sandbrook,’ said Sarah, with affectionate compunction, ‘I did not mean to speak so loud and so crossly.’

‘My dear,’ said Lucilla, leaning back and fanning herself with her hat, ‘we all know that we reverse the laws of teacher and pupil!  Small blame to you if you were put out, and now I hope your mamma will keep him to herself, and that I shall have time to get cool.  There! read me some French, it is a refreshing process—or practise a little.  I declare that boy has dragged me in and out so often, that I haven’t energy to tell a noun from a verb.’

Mrs. Prendergast had hardly descended to the drawing-room before her husband’s voice called her to the study, where he stood, his broad mouth distended by a broader smile, his eyes twinkling with merriment.

‘Old woman’ (his favourite name for her), ‘do you know what a spectacle I have been witnessing?’ and as she signed inquiry, ‘Mrs. Sprydone, with numerous waggings of the head, and winkings of the eyes, inveigled me into her den, to see—guess.’

‘Francis and Miss Sandbrook in the cloister photographing.’

‘Old woman, you are a witch.’

‘I knew what they were about, as well as Mrs. Sprydone’s agony to open my eyes.’

‘So your obstinate blindness drove her to me!  She thought it right that I should be aware The Close, it seems, is in a fever about that poor girl.  What do you know?  Is it all gossip?’

‘I know there is gossip, as a law of nature, but I have not chosen to hear it.’

‘Then you think it all nonsense?’

‘Not all.’

‘Well, what then?  The good ladies seem terribly scandalized by her dress.  Is there any harm in that?  I always thought it very becoming.’

‘Exactly so,’ said his wife, smiling.

‘If it is too smart, can’t you give her a hint?’

‘When she left off her mourning, she spoke to me, saying that she could not afford not to wear out what she already had.  I quite agreed; and though I could wish there were less stylishness about her, it is pleasant to one’s own eye, and I see nothing to object to.’

‘I’m sure it is no concern of the ladies, then!  And how about this lad?  One of their wild notions, is not it?  I have heard her tell him half-a-dozen times that she was six years his elder.’

‘Four-and-twenty is just the age that young-looking girls like to boast of.  I am not afraid on her account; she has plenty of sense and principle, and I believe, too, there is a very sore spot in her heart, poor girl.  She plays with him as a mere boy; but he is just at the time of life for a passion for a woman older than himself, and his devotion certainly excites her more than I could wish.’

‘I’ll tell you what, Peter didn’t like it at all.’

‘Peter was certainly not in a gracious mood when he was here last week.  I could not make out whether seeing her a governess were too much for him, or whether he suspected me of ill-using her.’

‘No, no; it was rivalry between him and Master Francis!’ said the Doctor, laughing.  ‘How he launched out against young men’s conceit when Francis was singing with her.  Sheer jealousy!  He could see nothing but dilapidation, dissent, and dirt at Laneham, and now has gone and refused it.’

‘Refused Laneham!—that capital college living!—with no better dependence than his fellowship, and such a curacy as Wrapworth?’

‘Indeed he has.  Here’s his letter.  You may read it and give it to Miss Sandbrook if you like—he seems quite dispirited.’

‘“Too old to enter on a new field of duties,”’ read Mrs. Prendergast, indignantly.  ‘Why, he is but forty-four!  What did he think of us for coming here?’

‘Despised me for it,’ said the Doctor, smiling.  ‘Never mind; he will think himself younger as he grows older—and one can’t blame him for keeping to Wrapworth as long as the old Dean of – lives, especially as those absentee Charterises do so much harm.’

‘He does not expect them to give him the living?  They ought, I am sure, after his twenty years’ labour there already.’

‘Not they!  Mr. Charteris gratuitously wrote to tell him that, on hearing of his burying that poor young Mrs. Sandbrook there, all scruples had been removed, and the next presentation was offered for sale.  You need not tell Miss Sandbrook so.’

‘Certainly not; but pray how does Peter mean to avoid the new field of duty, if he be sure of turning out on the Dean’s death?  Oh! I see—“finish his days at his College, if the changes at the University have not rendered it insupportable to one who remembers elder and better days.”  Poor Peter!  Well; these are direful consequences of Miss Sandbrook’s fit of flightiness!  Yes, I’ll show her the letter, it might tame her a little; and, poor thing, I own I liked her better when she was soft and subdued.’

‘Ha!  Then you are not satisfied?  Don’t go.  Let me know how it is.  I am sure Sarah is distracted about her—more than even Francis.  I would not part with her for a great deal, not only on Peter’s account, but on her own and Sarah’s; but these ladies have raked up all manner of Charteris scandal, and we are quite in disgrace for bringing her here.’

‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Prendergast, ‘while we lived at our dear old country home, I never quite believed what I heard of jealous ill-nature, but I have seen how it was ever since those Christmas parties, when certainly people paid her a great deal of attention.’

‘Who would not?—the prettiest, most agreeable young woman there.’

‘It may be vexatious to be eclipsed not only in beauty, but in style, by a strange governess,’ said Mrs. Prendergast.  ‘That set all the mothers and daughters against her, and there have been some spiteful little attempts at mortifying her, which have made Sarah and me angry beyond description!  All that they say only impels me towards her.  She is a rare creature, most engaging, but I do sometimes fear that I may have spoilt her a little, for she has certainly not done quite so well of late.  At first she worked hard to keep in advance of Sarah, saying how she felt the disadvantage of superficial learning and desultory habits; she kept in the background, and avoided amusements; but I suppose reaction is natural with recovered spirits, and this summer she has taken less pains, and has let Francis occupy her too much, and—what I like least of all—her inattention brings back the old rubs with Sarah’s temper.’

‘You must take her in hand.’

‘If she were but my daughter or niece!’

‘I thought you had made her feel as such.’

‘This sort of reproof is the difficulty, and brings back the sense of our relative positions.  However, the thing is to be done as much for her sake as for our own.’

Lucilla knew that a lecture was impending, but she really loved and esteemed Mrs. Prendergast too much to prepare to champ the bit.  That lady’s warmth and simplicity, and, above all, the largeness of mind that prevented her from offending or being offended by trifles, had endeared her extremely to the young governess.  Not only had these eight months passed without the squabble that Owen had predicted would send her to Hiltonbury in a week, but Cilla had decidedly, though insensibly, laid aside many of the sentiments and habits in which poor Honor’s opposition had merely confirmed her.  The effect of the sufferings of the past summer had subdued her for a long time, the novelty of her position had awed her, and what Mrs. Prendergast truly called the reaction had been so tardy in coming on that it was a surprise even to herself.  Sensible that she had given cause for displeasure, she courted the téte-à-téte, and herself began thus—‘I beg your pardon for my idleness.  It is a fatal thing to be recalled to the two passions of my youth—fishing and photography.’

‘My husband will give Francis employment in the morning,’ said Mrs. Prendergast.  ‘It will not do to give Sarah’s natural irritability too many excuses for outbreaks.’

‘She never accepts excuses,’ said Lucilla, ‘though I am sure she might.  I have been a sore trial to her diligence and methodicalness; and her soul is too much bent on her work for us to drag her out to be foolish, as would be best for her.’

‘So it might be for her; but, my dear, pardon me, I am not speaking only for Sarah’s sake.’

With an odd jerk of head and hand, Cilly exclaimed, ‘Oh! the old story—the other f—flirting, is it?’

‘I never said that!  I never thought that,’ cried Mrs. Prendergast, shocked at the word and idea that had never crossed her mind.

‘If not,’ said Cilla, ‘it is because you are too innocent to know flirting when you see it!  Dear Mrs. Prendergast, I didn’t think you would have looked so grave.’

‘I did not think you would have spoken so lightly; but it is plain that we do not mean the same thing.’

‘In fact, you in your quietness, think awfully of that which for years was to me like breathing!  I thought the taste was gone for ever, but, you see’—and her sad sweet expression pleaded for her—‘you have made me so happy that the old self is come back.’  There was a silence, broken by this strange girl saying, ‘Well, what are you going to do to me?’

‘Only,’ said the lady, in her sweet, full, impressive voice, ‘to beg you will indeed be happy in giving yourself no cause for self-reproach.’

‘I’m past that,’ said Lucilla, with a smile on her lip and a tear in her eye.  ‘I’ve not known that sensation since my father died.  My chief happiness since that has lain in being provoking, but you have taken away that pleasure.  I couldn’t purposely vex you, even if I were your adopted child!’

Without precisely knowing the full amount of these words, Mrs. Prendergast understood past bitterness and present warmth, and, gratified to find that at least there was no galling at their mutual relations, responded with a smile and a caress that led Lucilla to continue—‘As for the word that dismayed you, I only meant to acknowledge an unlucky propensity to be excited about any nonsense, in which any man kind is mixed up.  If Sarah would take to it, I could more easily abstain, but you see her coquetries are with nobody more recent than Horace and Dante.’

‘I cannot wish it to be otherwise with her,’ said Mrs. Prendergast gravely.

‘No!  It is a bad speculation,’ said Lucilla, sadly.  ‘She will never wish half her life could be pulled out like defective crochet; nor wear out good people’s forbearance with her antics.  I did think they were outgrown, and beat out of me, and that your nephew was too young; but I suppose it is ingrain, and that I should be flattered by the attentions of a he-baby of six months old!  But I’ll do my best, Mrs. Prendergast; I promise you I’ll not be the schoolmistress abroad in the morning, and you shall see what terms I will keep with Mr. Beaumont.’