PHEBE'S SECRET.
For the first time in her life those who were about Phebe Marlowe felt
that she was under a cloud. The sweet sunny atmosphere, as of a clear
and peaceful day, which seemed to surround her, had fled. She was absent
and depressed, and avoided society, even that of Hilda, who had been
like her own child to her. Towards Felicita there was a subtle change in
Phebe's manner, which could not fail to impress deeply her sensitive
temperament. She felt that Phebe shrank from her, and that she was no
longer welcome to the studio, which of all places in the world had been
to her a place of repose, and of brief cessation of troubled thought.
Phebe's direct and simple nature, free from all guile and worldliness,
had made her a perfect sympathizer with any true feeling. And Felicita's
feeling with regard to her past most sorrowful life had been absolutely
real; if only Phebe had known all the circumstances of it as she had
always supposed she did.
Phebe was, moreover, fearful of some accident betraying to Felicita the
circumstance of Jean Merle living at Riversborough. There had never
been any direct correspondence between Felicita and Mr. Clifford, except
on purely business matters; and Felix was too much engrossed with his
own affairs to find time to run down to Riversborough, or to keep up an
animated interchange of letters with his old friend there. The
intercourse between them had been chiefly carried on through Phebe
herself, who was the old man's prime favorite. Neither was he a man
likely to let out anything he might wish to conceal. But still she was
nervous and afraid. How far from improbable it was that through some
unthought-of channel Felicita might hear that a stranger, related to
Madame Sefton, had entered the household of Mr. Clifford as his
confidential attendant, and that this stranger's name was Jean Merle.
What would happen then?
She was burdened with a secret, and her nature abhorred a secret. There
was gladness, almost utterly pure, to her in the belief that there was
One being who could read the inmost recesses of her heart, and see, with
the loving-kindness of an Allwise Father, its secret faults, the errors
which she did not herself understand. That she had nothing to tell to
God, which He did not know of her already, was one of the deepest
foundations of her spiritual life. And in some measure, in all possible
measure, she would have had it so with those whom she loved. She did not
shrink from showing to them her thoughts, and motives, and emotions. It
was the limit of expression, so quickly reached, so impassable, that
chafed her; and she was always searching for fresh modes of conveying
her own feeling to other souls. Possibly the enforced speechlessness in
which she had passed her early years had aided in creating this
passionate desire to impart herself to those about her in unfettered
communion, and she ardently delighted in the same unreserved confidence
in those who conversed with her. But now she was doomed to bear the
burden of a secret fraught with strange and painful consequences to
those whom she loved, if time should ever divulge it.
The winter months passed away cheerlessly, though she worked with more
persistent energy than ever before, partly to drive away the thoughts
that troubled her. She heard from Mr. Clifford, but not more frequently
than usual, and Jean Merle did not venture upon sending her a line of
his hand-writing. Mr. Clifford spoke in guarded terms of the comfort he
found in the companionship of his attendant, in spite of his being a sad
and moody man. Now and then he told Phebe that this attendant of his had
gone for a day or two to her solitary little house on the uplands, of
which Mr. Clifford kept the key, and that he stayed there a day or two,
finishing the half-carved blocks of oak her father had left incomplete.
It would have been a happier existence, she knew, for himself, if Jean
Merle had gone to dwell there altogether; but it was along this path of
self-sacrifice and devotion alone lay the road back to a Christian life.
One point troubled Phebe's conscience more than any other. Ought she not
at least to tell Canon Pascal what she knew? She could not help feeling
that this second fraud would seem worse in his estimation than the first
one. And Felicita, the very soul of truth and honor, had connived at it!
It seemed immeasurably more terrible in Phebe's own eyes. To her money
had so small a value, it lay on so low a level in the scale of life,
that a crime in connection with it had far less guilt than one against
the affections. And how unutterable a sin against all who loved him had
Roland and Felicita fallen into! She recalled his mother's mourning for
him through many long years, and her belief in death that she was going
soon to rejoin the beloved son whom she had lost. Her own grief she put
aside, but there was the deep, boyish sorrow of Felix, and even little
Hilda's fatherlessness, as the children had grown up through the various
stages of childhood. It might have been bad for them to bear the stigma
of their father's shame, but still Phebe believed it would have been
better for every one of them to have gone bravely forward to bear the
just consequences of sin.
She went down into Essex to spend a day or two at Christmas, carrying
with her the fitful spirit so foreign to her. The perfect health that
had been hers hitherto was broken; and Mrs. Pascal, a confirmed invalid,
to whom Phebe's physical vigor and evenness of temper had been a
constant source of delight and invigoration, felt the change in her
keenly.
"She has something on her mind," she said to her husband; "you must try
and find it out, or she will be ill."
"I know she has a secret," he answered, "but it is not her own. Phebe
Marlowe is as open as the day; she will never have a secret of her own."
But he made no effort to find out her secret. His searching, kindly eyes
met hers with the trustfulness of a frank and open nature that
recognized a nature akin to its own, and Phebe never shrank from his
gaze, though her lips remained closed. If it was right for her to tell
him anything of the stranger who had been about to make him his
confessor, she would do it. Canon Pascal would not ask any questions.
"Felix and Alice are growing more and more deeply in love with each
other," he said to her; "there is something beautiful and pleasant in
being a spectator of these palmy days of theirs. Felicita even felt
something of their happiness when she was here last, and she will not
withhold her full approbation much longer."
"And you," answered Phebe, with an eager flush on her face, "you do not
repent of giving Alice to the son of a man who might have been a
convict?"
"I believe Alice would marry Felix if his father had been a murderer,"
replied Canon Pascal; "it is too late to alter it now. Besides, I know
Felix through and through, he is himself; he is no longer the son of any
person, but a true man, one of the sons of God."
The strong and emphatic tone of Canon Pascal's words brought great
consolation to Phebe's troubled mind. She might keep silence with a good
conscience, for the duty of disclosing all to Canon Pascal arose simply
from the possibility that his conduct would be altered by this further
knowledge of Roland and Felicita.
"But this easy country life is not good for Felix," she said in a more
cheerful tone; "he needs a difficult parish to develop his energies. It
is not among your people he will become a second Felix Merle."
"Patience! Phebe," he answered, "there is a probability in the future,
a bare probability, and dimly distant, which may change all that. He may
have as much to do as Felix Merle by and by."
Phebe returned to her work in London with a somewhat lighter heart. Yet
the work was painful to her; work which a few months before would have
been a delight. For Felicita, yielding to the urgent entreaties of Felix
and Hilda, had consented to sit for her portrait. She was engaged in no
writing, and had ample leisure. Until now she had resisted all
importunity, and no likeness of her existed. She disliked photographs,
and had only had one taken for Roland alone when they were married, and
she could never bring herself to sit for an artist comparatively a
stranger to her. It was opposed to her reserved and somewhat haughty
temperament that any eye should scan too freely and too curiously the
lineaments of her beautiful face, with its singularly expressive
individuality. But now that Phebe's skill had been so highly cultivated,
and commanded an increasing reputation, she could no longer oppose her
children's reiterated entreaties.
Felicita was groping blindly for the reason of the change in Phebe's
feeling towards her, for she was conscious of some vague, mysterious
barrier that had arisen between her and the tender, simple soul which
had been always full of lowly sympathy for her. But Phebe silently
shrank from her in a terror mingled with profound, unutterable pity. For
here was a secret misery of a solitary human spirit, ice-bound in a
self-chosen isolation, which was an utter mystery to her. All the old
love and reverence, amounting almost to adoration, which she had,
offered up as incense to some being far above her had died away; gone
also was the child-like simplicity with which she could always talk to
Felicita. She could read the pride and sadness of the lovely face before
her with a clear understanding now, but the lines which reproduced it on
her canvas were harder and sterner than they would have been if she had
known less of Felicita's heart. The painting grew into a likeness, but
it was a painful one, full of hidden sadness, bitterness, and
infelicity. Felix and Hilda gazed at it in silence, almost as solemn and
mournful as if they were looking on the face of their dead mother. She
herself turned from it with a feeling of dread.
"How much do you know of me?" she cried; "how deep can you look into my
heart, Phebe?" Phebe glanced from her to the finished portrait, and only
answered by tears.