Though she's as like to this one as a crab is like to an apple,
I can tell what I can tell.--_King Lear_
Often a first grief, where sorrow was hitherto been a stranger, is but
the foretaste to many another, like the first hailstorm, after long
sunshine, preluding a succession of showers, the clouds returning after
the rain, and obscuring the sky of life for many a day.
Those who daily saw Mrs. Fulmort scarcely knew whether to attribute her
increasing invalidism to debility or want of spirits; and hopes were
built on summer heat, till, when it came, it prostrated her strength, and
at last, when some casual ailment had confined her to bed, there was no
rally. All took alarm; a physician was called in, and the truth was
disclosed. There was no formed disease; but her husband's death, though
apparently hardly comprehended, had taken away the spring of life, and
she was withering like a branch severed from the stem. Remedies did but
disturb her torpor by feverish symptoms that hastened her decline, and
Dr. Martyn privately told Miss Charlecote that the absent sons and
daughters ought to be warned that the end must be very near.
Honor, as lovingly and gently as possible, spoke to Phoebe. The girl's
eyes filled with tears, but it was in an almost well-pleased tone that
she said, 'Dear mamma, I always knew she felt it.'
'Ah! little did we think how deeply went the stroke that showed no
wound!'
'Yes! She felt that she was going to him. We could never have made her
happy here.'
'You are content, my unselfish one?'
'Don't talk to me about myself, please!' implored Phoebe. 'I have too
much to do for that. What did he say? That the others should be written
to? I will take my case and write in mamma's room.'
Immediate duty was her refuge from anticipation, gentle tendance from the
sense of misery, and, though her mother's restless feebleness needed
constant waiting on, her four notes were completed before post-time.
Augusta was eating red mullet in Guernsey, Juliana was on a round of
visits in Scotland, Mervyn was supposed to be in Paris, Robert alone was
near at hand.
At night Phoebe sent Boodle to bed; but Miss Fennimore insisted on
sharing her pupil's watch. At first there was nothing to do; the patient
had fallen into a heavy slumber, and the daughter sat by the bed, the
governess at the window, unoccupied save by their books. Phoebe was
reading Miss Maurice's invaluable counsels to the nurses of the dying.
Miss Fennimore had the Bible. It was not from a sense of
appropriateness, as in pursuance of her system of re-examination. Always
admiring the Scripture in a patronizing temper, she had gloried in
critical inquiry, and regarded plenary inspiration as a superstition,
covering weak points by pretensions to infallibility. But since her
discussions with Robert, and her readings of Butler with Bertha, she had
begun to weigh for herself the internal, intrinsic evidence of Divine
origin, above all, in the Gospels, which, to her surprise, enchained her
attention and investigation, as she would have thought beyond the power
of such simple words.
Pilate's question, 'What is truth?' was before her. To her it was a link
of evidence. Without even granting that the writer was the fisherman he
professed to be, what, short of Shakesperian intuition, could thus have
depicted the Roman of the early Empire in equal dread of Caesar and of
the populace, at once unscrupulous and timid, contemning Jewish
prejudice, yet, with lingering mythological superstition, trembling at
the hint of a present Deity in human form; and, lost in the bewilderment
of the later Greek philosophy, greeting the word _truth_ with the
startled inquiry, what it might be. What _is_ truth? It had been the
question of Miss Fennimore's life, and she felt a blank and a
disappointment as it stood unanswered. A movement made her look up.
Phoebe was raising her mother, and Miss Fennimore was needed to support
the pillows.
'Phoebe, my dear, are you here?'
'Yes, dear mamma, I always am.'
'Phoebe, my dear, I think I am soon going. You have been a good child,
my dear; I wish I had done more for you all.'
'Dear mamma, you have always been so kind.'
'They didn't teach me like Honora Charlecote,' she faltered on; 'but I
always did as your poor papa told me. Nobody ever told me how to be
religious, and your poor papa would not have liked it. Phoebe, you know
more than I do. You don't think God will be hard with me, do you? I am
such a poor creature; but there is the Blood that takes away sin.'
'Dear mother, that is the blessed trust.'
'The _Truth_,' flashed upon Miss Fennimore, as she watched their faces.
'Will He give me His own goodness?' said Mrs. Fulmort, wistfully. 'I
never did know how to think about Him--I wish I had cared more. What do
you think, Phoebe?'
'I cannot tell how to answer fully, dear mamma,' said Phoebe; 'but indeed
it is safe to think of His great loving-kindness and mercy. Robert will
be here to-morrow. He will tell you better.'
'He will give me the Holy Sacrament,' said Mrs. Fulmort, 'and then I
shall go--'
Presently she moved uneasily. 'Oh, Phoebe, I am so tired. Nothing rests
me.'
'There remaineth a rest,' gently whispered Phoebe--and Miss Fennimore
thought the young face had something of the angel in it--'no more
weariness there.'
'They won't think what a poor dull thing I am there,' added her mother.
'I wish I could take poor Maria with me. They don't like her here, and
she will be teased and put about.'
'No, mother, never while I can take care of her!'
'I know you will, Phoebe, if you say so. Phoebe, love, when I see God, I
shall thank Him for having made you so good and dear, and letting me have
some comfort in one of my children.'
Phoebe tried to make her think of Robert, but she was exhausted, dozed,
and was never able to speak so much again.
Miss Fennimore thought instead of reading. Was it the mere effect on her
sympathies that bore in on her mind that Truth existed, and was grasped
by the mother and daughter? What was there in those faltering accents
that impressed her with reality? Why, of all her many instructors, had
none touched her like poor, ignorant, feeble-minded Mrs. Fulmort?
Robert arrived the next day. His mother knew him and was roused
sufficiently to accept his offices as a clergyman. Then, as if she
thought it was expected of her, she asked for her younger daughters, but
when they came, she looked distressed and perplexed.
'Bless them, mother,' said Robert, bending over her, and she evidently
accepted this as what she wanted; but 'How--what?' she added; and taking
the uncertain hand, he guided it to the head of each of his three
sisters, and prompted the words of blessing from the failing tongue.
Then as Bertha rose, he sank on his knees in her place, 'Bless me, bless
me, too, mother; bless me, and pardon my many acts of self-will.'
'You are good--you--you are a clergyman,' she hesitated, bewildered.
'The more reason, mamma; it will comfort him.' And it was Phoebe who won
for her brother the blessing needed as balm to a bleeding heart.
'The others are away,' said the dying woman; 'maybe, if I had made them
good when they were little, they would not have left me now.'
While striving to join in prayer for them, she slumbered, and in the
course of the night she slept herself tranquilly away from the world
where even prosperity had been but a troubled maze to her.
Augusta arrived, weeping profusely, but with all her wits about her, so
as to assume the command, and to provide for her own, and her Admiral's
comfort. Phoebe was left to the mournful repose of having no one to whom
to attend, since Miss Fennimore provided for the younger ones; and in the
lassitude of bodily fatigue and sorrow, she shrank from Maria's babyish
questions and Bertha's levity and curiosity, spending her time chiefly
alone. Even Robert could not often be with her, since Mervyn's absence
and silence threw much on him and Mr. Crabbe, the executor and guardian;
and the Bannermans were both exacting and self-important. The Actons,
having been pursued by their letters from place to place in the
Highlands, at length arrived, and Mervyn last of all, only just in time
for the funeral.
Phoebe did not see him till the evening after it, when, having spent the
day nearly alone, she descended to the late dinner, and after the
quietness in which she had lately lived, and with all the tenderness from
fresh suffering, it seemed to her that she was entering on a distracting
turmoil of voices. Mervyn, however, came forward at once to meet her,
threw his arm round her, and kissed her rather demonstratively, saying,
'My little Phoebe, I wondered where you were;' then putting her into a
chair, and bending over her, 'We are in for the funeral games. Stand up
for yourself!'
She did not know in the least what he could mean, but she was too sick at
heart to ask; she only thought he looked unwell, jaded, and fagged, and
with a heated complexion.
He handed Lady Acton into the dining-room; Augusta, following with Sir
Bevil, was going to the head of the table, when he called out, 'That's
Phoebe's place!'
'Not before my elders,' Phoebe answered, trying to seat herself at the
side.
'The sister at home is mistress of the house,' he sternly answered.
'Take your proper place, Phoebe.'
In much discomfort she obeyed, and tried to attend civilly to Sir
Nicholas's observations on the viands, hoping to intercept a few, as she
perceived how they chafed her eldest brother.
At last, on Mervyn himself roundly abusing the flavour of the
ice-pudding, Augusta not only defended it, but confessed to having
herself directed Mrs. Brisbane to the concoction that morning.
'Mrs. Brisbane shall take orders from no lady but Miss Fulmort, while she
is in my house,' thundered Mervyn.
Phoebe, in agony, began to say she knew not what to Sir Bevil, and he
seconded her with equal vehemence and incoherency, till by the time they
knew what they were talking of, they were with much interest discussing
his little daughter, scarcely turning their heads from one another, till,
in the midst of dessert, the voice of Juliana was heard,--'Sir Bevil, Sir
Bevil, if you can spare me any attention--What was the name of that
person at Hampstead that your sister told me of?'
'That person! What, where poor Anne Acton was boarded? Dr. Graham, he
called himself, but I don't believe he was a physician. Horrid vulgar
fellow!'
'Excellent for the purpose, though,' continued Lady Acton, addressing
herself as before to Mr. Crabbe; 'advertises for nervous or deficient
ladies, and boards them on very fair terms: would take her quite off our
hands.'
Phoebe turned a wild look of imploring interrogation on Sir Bevil, but a
certain family telegraph had electrified him, and his eyes were on the
grapes that he was eating with nervous haste. Her blood boiling at what
she apprehended, Phoebe could endure her present post no longer, and
starting up, made the signal for leaving the dinner-table so suddenly
that Augusta choked upon her glass of wine, and carried off her last
macaroon in her hand. Before she had recovered breath to rebuke her
sister's precipitation, Phoebe, with boldness and spirit quite new to the
sisters, was confronting Juliana, and demanding what she had been saying
about Hampstead.
'Only,' said Juliana, coolly, 'that I have found a capital place there
for Maria--a Dr. Graham, who boards and lodges such unfortunates. Sir
Bevil had an idiot cousin there who died. I shall write to-morrow.'
'I promised that Maria should not be separated from me,' said Phoebe.
'Nonsense, my dear,' said Augusta; 'we could not receive her; she can
never be made presentable.'
'You?' said Phoebe.
'Yes, my dear; did you not know? You go home with us the day after
to-morrow; and next spring I mean to bring you out, and take you
everywhere. The Admiral is so generous!'
'But the others?' said Phoebe.
'I don't mind undertaking Bertha,' said Lady Acton. 'I know of a good
school for her, and I shall deposit Maria at Dr. Graham's as soon as I
can get an answer.'
'Really,' continued Augusta, 'Phoebe will look very creditable by and by,
when she has more colour and not all this crape. Perhaps I shall get her
married by the end of the season; only you must learn better manners
first, Phoebe--not to rush out of the dining-room in this way. I don't
know what I shall do without my other glass of wine--when I am so low,
too!'
'A fine mistress of the house, indeed,' said Lady Acton. 'It is well
Mervyn's absurd notion is impossible.'
'What was that? To keep us all?' asked Phoebe, catching at the hope.
'Not Maria nor the governess. You need not flatter yourself,' said
Juliana; 'he said he wouldn't have them at any price; and as to keeping
house alone with a man of his character, even you may have sense to see
it couldn't be for a moment.'
'Did Robert consent to Maria's going to Hampstead?' asked Phoebe.
'Robert--what has he to do with it? He has no voice.'
'He said something about getting the three boarded with some clergyman's
widow,' said Augusta; 'buried in some hole, I suppose, to make them like
himself--go to church every day, and eat cold dinners on Sunday.'
'I should like to see Bertha doing that,' said Juliana, laughing.
But the agony of helplessness that had oppressed Phoebe was relieved.
She saw an outlet, and could form a resolution. Home might have to be
given up, but there was a means of fulfilling her mother's charge, and
saving Maria from the private idiot asylum; and for that object Phoebe
was ready to embrace perpetual seclusion with the dullest of widows. She
found her sisters discussing their favourite subject--Mervyn's misconduct
and extravagance--and she was able to sit apart, working, and thinking of
her line of action. Only two days! She must be prompt, and not wait for
privacy or for counsel. So when the gentlemen came in, and Mr. Crabbe
came towards her, she took him into the window, and asked him if any
choice were permitted her as to her residence.
'Certainly; so nearly of age as you are. But I naturally considered that
you would wish to be with Lady Bannerman, with all the advantages of
London society.'
'But she will not receive Maria. I promised that Maria should be my
charge. You have not consented to this Hampstead scheme?'
'Her ladyship is precipitate,' half whispered the lawyer. 'I certainly
would not, till I had seen the establishment, and judged for myself.'
'No, nor then,' said Phoebe. 'Come to-morrow, and see her. She is no
subject for _an establishment_. And I beg you will let me be with her; I
would much prefer being with any lady who would receive us both.'
'Very amiable,' said Mr. Crabbe.
'Ha!' interrupted Mervyn, 'you are not afraid I shall let Augusta carry
you off, Phoebe. She would give the world to get you, but I don't mean
to part with you.'
'It is of no use to talk to her, Mervyn,' cried Augusta's loud voice from
the other end of the room. 'She knows that she cannot remain with you.
Robert himself would tell her so.'
'Robert knows better than to interfere,' said Mervyn, with one of his
scowls. 'Now then, Phoebe, settle it for yourself. Will you stay and
keep house for me at home, or be Augusta's companion? There! the choice
of Hercules. Virtue or vice?' he added, trying to laugh.
'Neither,' said Phoebe, readily. 'My home is fixed by Maria's.'
'Phoebe, are you crazy?' broke out the three voices; while Sir Nicholas
slowly and sententiously explained that he regretted the unfortunate
circumstance, but Maria's peculiarities made it impossible to produce her
in society; and that when her welfare and happiness had been consulted by
retirement, Phoebe would find a home in his house, and be treated as Lady
Bannerman's sister, and a young lady of her expectations, deserved.
'Thank you,' said Phoebe; then turning to her brother, 'Mervyn, do you,
too, cast off poor Maria?'
'I told you what I thought of that long ago,' said Mervyn, carelessly.
'Very well, then,' said Phoebe, sadly; 'perhaps you will let us stay till
some lady can be found of whom Mr. Crabbe may approve, with whom Maria
and I can live.'
'Lady Acton!' Sir Bevil's voice was low and entreating, but all heard it.
'I am not going to encumber myself,' she answered. 'I always disliked
girls, and I shall certainly not make Acton Manor an idiot asylum.'
'And mind,' added Augusta, 'you won't cone to me for the season! I have
no notion of your leaving me all the dull part of the year for some gay
widow at a watering-place, and then expecting me to go out with you in
London.'
'By Heaven!' broke out Mervyn, 'they _shall_ stay here, if only to balk
your spite. My sisters shall not be driven from pillar to post the very
day their mother is put under ground.'
'Some respectable lady,' began Robert.
'Some horrid old harridan of a boarding-house keeper,' shouted Mervyn,
the louder for his interference. 'Ay, you would like it, and spend all
their fortunes on parsons in long coats! I know better! Come here,
Phoebe, and listen. You shall live here as you have always done, Maria
and all, and keep the Fennimore woman to mind the children. Answer me,
will that content you? Don't go looking at Robert, but say yes or no.'
Mervyn's innuendo had deprived his offer of its grace, but in spite of
the pang of indignation, in spite of Robert's eye of disapproval, poor
desolate Phoebe must needs cling to her home, and to the one who alone
would take her and her poor companion. 'Mervyn, thank you; it is right!'
'Right! What does that mean? If any one has a word to say against my
sisters being under my roof, let me hear it openly, not behind my back.
Eh, Juliana, what's that?'
'Only that I wonder how long it will last,' sneered Lady Acton.
'And,' added Robert, 'there should be some guarantee that they should not
be introduced to unsuitable acquaintance.'
'You think me not to be trusted with them.'
'I do not.'
Mervyn ground his teeth, answering, 'Very well, sir, I stand indebted to
you. I should have imagined, whatever your opinion of me, you would have
considered your favourite sky-blue governess an immaculate guardian, or
can you be contented with nothing short of a sisterhood?'
'Robert,' said Phoebe, fearing lest worse should follow, 'Mervyn has
always been good to us; I trust to him.' And her clear eyes were turned
on the eldest brother with a grateful confidence that made him catch her
hand with something between thanks and triumph, as he said--
'Well said, little one! There, sir, are you satisfied?'
'I must be,' replied Robert.
Sir Bevil, able to endure no longer, broke in with some intelligence from
the newspaper, which he had been perusing ever since his unlucky appeal
to his lady. Every one thankfully accepted this means of ending the
discussion.
'Well, Miss,' was Juliana's good night, 'you have attained your object.
I hope you may find it answer.'
'Yes,' added Augusta, 'when Mervyn brings home that Frenchwoman, you will
wish you had been less tenacious.'
'That's all an idea of yours,' said Juliana. 'She'll have punishment
enough in Master Mervyn's own temper. I wouldn't keep house for him, no,
not for a week.'
'Stay till you are asked,' said Augusta.
Phoebe could bear no more, but slipped through the swing-door, reached
her room, and sinking into a chair, passively let Lieschen undress her,
not attempting to raise her drooping head, nor check the tears that
trickled, conscious only of her broken, wounded, oppressed state of
dejection, into the details of which she durst not look. How could she,
when her misery had been inflicted by such hands? The mere fact of the
unseemly broil between the brothers and sisters on such an evening was
shame and pain enough, and she felt like one bruised and crushed all
over, both in herself and Maria, while the one drop of comfort in
Mervyn's kindness was poisoned by the strife between him and Robert, and
the doubt whether Robert thought she ought to have accepted it.
When her maid left her, she only moved to extinguish her light, and then
cowered down again as if to hide in the darkness; but the soft summer
twilight gloom seemed to soothe and restore her, and with a longing for
air to refresh her throbbing brow, she leant out into the cool, still
night, looking into the northern sky, still pearly with the last
reminiscence of the late sunset, and with the pale large stars beaming
calmly down.
'Oh mother, mother! Well might you long to take your poor Maria with
you--there where the weary are at rest--where there is mercy for the weak
and slow! Home! home! we have none but with you!'
Nay, had she not a home with Him whose love was more than mother's love;
whose soft stars were smiling on her now; whose gentle breezes fanned her
burning cheeks, even as a still softer breath of comfort was stilling her
troubled spirit! She leant out till she could compose herself to kneel
in prayer, and from prayer rose up quietly, weary, and able to rest
beneath the Fatherly Wings spread over the orphan.
She was early astir, though with heavy, swollen eyelids; and anxious to
avoid Bertha's inquiries till all should be more fully settled, she
betook herself to the garden, to cool her brow and eyes. She was bathing
them in the dewy fragrant heart of a full-blown rose, that had seemed to
look at her with a tearful smile of sympathy, when a step approached, and
an arm was thrown round her, and Robert stood beside her.
'My Phoebe,' he said tenderly, 'how are you? It was a frightful
evening!'
'Oh! Robert, were you displeased with me?'
'No, indeed. You put us all to shame. I grieved that you had no more
preparation, but some of the guests stayed late, afterwards I was
hindered by business, and then Bevil laid hands on me to advise me
privately against this establishment for poor Maria.'
'I thought it was Juliana who pressed it!'
'Have you not learnt that whatever he dislikes she forwards?'
'Oh! Robert, you can hinder that scheme from ever being thought of
again!'
'Yes,' said Robert; '_there_ she should never have been, even had you not
made resistance.'
'And, Robert, may we stay here?' asked Phoebe, trembling.
'Crabbe sees no objection,' he answered.
'Do you, Robert? If you think we ought not, I will try to change; but
Mervyn is kind, and it _is_ home! I saw you thought me wrong, but I
could not help being glad he relented to Maria.'
'You were right. Your eldest brother is the right person to give you a
home. I cannot. It would have shown an evil, suspicious temper if you
had refused him.'
'Yet you do not like it.'
'Perhaps I am unjust. I own that I had imagined you all happier and
better in such a home as Mrs. Parsons or Miss Charlecote could find for
you; and though Mervyn would scarcely wilfully take advantage of your
innocence, I do not trust to his always knowing what would be hurtful to
you or Bertha. It is a charge that I grudge to him, for I do not think
he perceives what it is.'
'I could make you think better of him. I wonder whether I may.'
'Anything--anything to make me think better of him,' cried Robert
eagerly.
'I do not know it from him alone, so it cannot be a breach of
confidence,' said Phoebe. 'He has been deeply attached, not to a pretty
person, nor a rich nor grand one, but she was very good and religious--so
much so that she would not accept him.'
'How recently?'
'The attachment has been long; the rejection this spring.'
'My poor Phoebe, I could not tell you how his time has been passed since
early spring.'
'I know in part,' she said, looking down; 'but, Robin, _that_ arose from
despair. Oh, how I longed for him to come and let me try to comfort
him!'
'And how is this to change my opinion,' asked Robert, 'except by showing
me that no right-minded woman could trust herself with him?'
'Oh, Robert, no! Sisters need not change, though others ought, perhaps.
I meant you to see that he does love and honour goodness for itself, and
so that he will guard his sisters.'
'I will think so, Phoebe. You deserve to be believed, for you draw out
his best points. For my own part, the miserable habits of our boyhood
have left a habit of acrimony, of which, repent as I will, I cannot free
myself. I gave way to it last night. I can be cool, but I cannot help
being contemptuous. I make him worse, and I aggravated your difficulties
by insulting him.'
'He insulted you,' said Phoebe. 'When I think of those words I don't
know how I can stay with him.'
'They fell short! They were nothing,' said Robert. 'But it was the more
unbefitting in me to frame my warning as I did. Oh, Phoebe, your prayers
and influence have done much for me. Help me now to treat my brother so
as not to disgrace my calling.'
'You--when you freely forgive all the injuries he has done you!'
'If I freely forgave, I suppose I should love;' and he murmured sadly,
'He that hateth his brother is a murderer.'
Phoebe shrank, but could not help thinking that if the spirit of Cain
existed among them, it was not with the younger brother.
When she next spoke, it was to express her fear lest Miss Fennimore
should refuse to remain, since the position would be uncomfortable. Her
talent was thrown away on poor Maria, and Bertha had been very vexing and
provoking of late. Phoebe greatly dreaded a change, both from her love
for her governess, and alarm lest a new duenna might be yet more
unwelcome to Mervyn, and she was disappointed to see that Robert caught
at the hope that the whole scheme might be baffled on this score.
Phoebe thought a repetition of the dinner-table offence would be best
obviated by taking her place as tea-maker at once. Mervyn first came
down, and greeted her like something especially his own. He detected the
red blistered spot on her cheek, and exclaimed, 'Eh! did they make you
cry? Never mind; the house will soon be clear of them, and you my little
queen. You have nothing to say against it. Has any one been putting
things in your head?' and he looked fiercely at his brother.
'No, Mervyn; Robert and I both think you very kind, and that it is the
right thing.'
'Yes,' said Robert, 'no arrangement could be more proper. I am sorry,
Mervyn, if my manner was offensive last night.'
'I never take offence, it is not my way,' said Mervyn, indifferently,
almost annoyed that his brother had not spirit to persevere in the
quarrel.
After the breakfast, where the elder sisters were cold and distant, and
Sir Bevil as friendly as he durst, Mervyn's first move was to go, in
conjunction with Mr. Crabbe, to explain the arrangement to Miss
Fennimore, and request her to continue her services. They came away
surprised and angry: Miss Fennimore would 'consider of it.' Even when
Mervyn, to spare himself from 'some stranger who might prove a greater
nuisance,' had offered a hundred in addition to her present exorbitant
salary, she courteously declined, and repeated that her reply should be
given in the evening.
Mervyn's wrath would have been doubled had he known the cause of her
delay. She sent Maria to beg Robert to spare her half an hour, and on
his entrance, dismissing her pupils, she said, 'Mr. Fulmort, I should be
glad if you would candidly tell me your opinion of the proposed
arrangement. I mean,' seeing his hesitation, 'of that part which relates
to myself.'
'I do not quite understand you,' he said.
'I mean, whether, as the person whose decision has the most worth in this
family, you are satisfied to leave your sisters under my charge? If not,
whatever it may cost me to part with that sweet and admirable Phoebe,'
and her voice showed unwonted emotion, 'I would not think of remaining
with them.'
'You put me in a very strange position, Miss Fennimore; I have no
authority to decide. They could have no friend more sincerely anxious
for their welfare or so welcome to Phoebe's present wishes.'
'Perhaps not; but the question is not of my feelings nor theirs, but
whether you consider my influence pernicious to their religious
principles. If so, I decline their guardian's terms at once.' After a
pause, she added, pleased at his deliberation, 'It may assist you if I
lay before you the state of my own mind.'
She proceeded to explain that her parents had been professed Unitarians,
her mother, loving and devout to the hereditary faith, beyond which she
had never looked--'Mr. Fulmort,' she said, 'nothing will approve itself
to me that condemns my mother!'
He began to say that often where there was no wilful rejection of truth,
saving grace and faith might be vouchsafed.
'You are charitable,' she answered, in a tone like sarcasm, and went on.
Her father, a literary man of high ability, set aside from work by
ill-health, thought himself above creeds. He had given his daughter a
man's education, had read many argumentative books with her, and died,
leaving her liberally and devoutly inclined in the spirit of Pope's
universal prayer--'Jehovah, Jove, or Lord.' It was all aspiration to the
Lord of nature, the forms, adaptations to humanity, kaleidoscope shapes
of half-comprehended fragments, each with its own beauty, and only
becoming worthy of reprobation where they permitted moral vices, among
which she counted intolerance.
What she thought reasonable--Christianity, modified by the world's
progress--was her tenet, and she had no scruple in partaking in any act
of worship; while naturally conscientious, and loving all the virtues,
she viewed the terrors of religion as the scourge of the grovelling and
superstitious; or if suffering existed at all, it could be only as
expiation, conducting to a condition of high intellect and perfect
morality. No other view, least of all that of a vicarious atonement,
seemed to her worthy of the beneficence of the God whom she had set up
for herself.
Thus had she rested for twenty years; but of late she had been
dissatisfied. Living with Phoebe, 'though the child was not naturally
intellectual,' there was no avoiding the impression that what she acted
and rested on was substantial truth. 'The same with others,' said Miss
Fennimore, meaning her auditor himself. 'And, again, I cannot but feel
that devotion to any system of faith is the restraint that Bertha is
deficient in, and that this is probably owing to my own tone. These
examples have led me to go over the former ground in the course of the
present spring; and it has struck me that, if the Divine Being be not the
mere abstraction I once supposed, it is consistent to believe that He has
a character and will--individuality, in short--so that there might be one
single revelation of absolute truth. I have not thoroughly gone through
the subject, but I hope to do so; and when I mark what I can only call a
supernatural influence on an individual character, I view it as an
evidence in favour of the system that produced it. My exposition of my
opinions shocks you; I knew it would. But knowing this, and thinking it
possible that an undoubting believer might have influenced Bertha, are
you willing to trust your sisters to me?'
'Let me ask one question--why was this explanation never offered before
to those who had more right to decide?'
'My tenets have seldom been the subject of inquiry. When they have, I
have concealed nothing; and twice have thus missed a situation. But
these things are usually taken for granted; and I never imagined it my
duty to volunteer my religious sentiments, since I never obtruded them.
I gave no scandal by objecting to any form of worship, and concerned
myself with the moral and intellectual, not the religious being.'
'Could you reach the moral without the religious?'
'I should tell you that I have seldom reared a pupil from childhood.
Mine have been chiefly from fifteen to eighteen, whose parents required
their instruction, not education, from me; and till I came here, I never
fully beheld the growth and development of character. I found that
whereas all I could do for Phoebe was to give her method and information,
leaving alone the higher graces elsewhere derived, with Bertha, my
efforts were inadequate to supply any motive for overcoming her natural
defects; and I believe that association with a person of my sceptical
habit has tended to prevent Phoebe's religion from influencing her
sister.'
'This is the reason you tell me?'
'Partly; and likewise because I esteem you very differently from my
former employers, and know that your views for your sisters are not like
those of the persons with whom I have been accustomed to deal.'
'You know that I have no power. It rests entirely with my brother and
Mr. Crabbe.'
'I am perfectly aware of it; but I could not allow myself to be forced on
your sisters by any family arrangement contrary to the wishes of that
member of it who is most qualified to judge for them.'
'Thank you, Miss Fennimore; I will treat you as openly as you have
treated me. I have often felt indignant that my sisters should be
exposed to any risk of having their faith shaken; and this morning I
almost hoped to hear that you did not consent to Mervyn's scheme. But
what you have said convinces me that, whatever you may have been
previously, you are more likely to strengthen and confirm them in all
that is good than half the people they would meet. I know that it would
be a heavy affliction to Phoebe to lose so kind a friend; it might drive
her from the home to which she clings, and separate Bertha, at least,
from her; and under the circumstances, I cannot wish you to leave the
poor girls at present.' He spoke rather confusedly, but there was more
consent in manner than words.
'Thank you,' she replied, fervently. 'I cannot tell you what it would
cost me to part with Phoebe, my living lesson.'
'Only let the lesson be still unconscious.'
'I would not have it otherwise for worlds. The calm reliance that makes
her a ministering spirit is far too lovely to be ruffled by a hint of the
controversies that weary my brain. If it be effect of credulity, the
effects are more beauteous than those of clear eyesight.'
'You will not always think it credulity.'
'There would be great rest in being able to accept all that you and she
do,' Miss Fennimore answered with a sigh; 'in finding an unchanging
answer to "What is truth?" Yet even your Gospel leaves that question
unanswered.'
'Unanswered to Pilate; but those who are true find the truth; I verily
trust that your eyes will become cleared to find it. Miss Fennimore, you
know that I am unready and weak in argument, and you have often left me
no refuge but my positive conviction; but I can refer you to those who
are strong. If I can help you by carrying your difficulties to others,
or by pointing out books, I should rejoice--'
'You cannot argue--you can only act,' said Miss Fennimore, smiling, as a
message called him away.
The schoolroom had been left undisturbed, for the sisters were otherwise
occupied. By Mr. Fulmort's will, the jewels, excepting certain Mervyn
heirlooms, were to be divided between the daughters, and their two
ladyships thought this the best time for their choice, though as yet they
could not take possession. Phoebe would have given the world that the
sets had been appropriated, so that Mervyn and Mr. Crabbe should not have
had to make her miserable by fighting her battles, insisting on her
choosing, and then overruling her choice as not of sufficiently valuable
articles, while Bertha profited by the lesson in harpy-hood, and regarded
all claimed by the others as so much taken from herself; and poor Maria
clasped on every bracelet one by one, threaded every ring on her fingers,
and caught the same lustre on every diamond, delighting in the grand
exhibition, and in her own share, which by general consent included all
that was clumsy and ill-set. No one had the heart to disturb her, but
Phoebe felt that the poor thing was an eyesore to them all, and was
hardly able to endure Augusta's compliment, 'After all, Phoebe, she is
not so bad; you may make her tolerably presentable for the country.'
Lady Acton patronized Bertha, in opposition to Phoebe; and Sir Bevil was
glad to have one sister to whom he could be good-natured without
molestation. The young lady, heartily weary of the monotony of home, was
much disappointed at the present arrangement; Phoebe had become the
envied elder sister instead of the companion in misfortune, and Juliana
was looked on as the sympathizing friend who would fain have opened the
prison doors that Phoebe closed against her by making all that
disturbance about Maria.
'It is all humbug about Maria,' said Juliana. 'Much Phoebe will let her
stand in her way when she wants to come to London for the season--but
I'll not take her out, I promise her.'
'But you will take me,' cried Bertha. 'You'll not leave me in this
dismal hole always.'
'Never fear, Bertha. This plan won't last six months. Mervyn and Phoebe
will get sick of one another, and Augusta will be ready to take her
in--she is pining for an errand girl.'
'I'll not go there to read cookery books and meet old fogies. You will
have me, Juliana, and we will have such fun together.'
'When you are come out, perhaps--and you must cure that stammer.'
'I shall die of dulness before then! If I could only go to school!'
'I wouldn't be you with Maria for your most lively companion.'
'It is much worse than when we used to go down into the drawing-room.
Now we never see any one but Miss Charlecote, and Phoebe is getting
exactly like her!'
'What, all her sanctimonious ways? I thought so.'
'And to make it more aggravating, Miss Fennimore is going to get
religious too. She made me read all Butler's _Analogy_, and wants to put
me into _Paley_, and she is always running after Robert.'
'Middle-aged governesses always do run after young clergymen--especially
the most _outre's_.'
'And now she snaps me up if I say anything the least comprehensive or
speculative, or if I laugh at the conventionalities Phoebe learns at the
Holt. Yesterday I said that the progress of common sense would soon make
people cease to connect dulness with mortality, or to think a serious
mistiness the sole evidence of respect, and I was caught up as if it were
high treason.'
'You must not get out of bounds in your talk, Bertha, or sound
unfeeling.'
'I can't help being original,' said Bertha. 'I must evolve my ideas out
of my individual consciousness, and assert my independence of thought.'
Juliana laughed, not quite following her sister's metaphysical tone, but
satisfied that it was anti-Phoebe, she answered by observing, 'An
intolerable fuss they do make about that girl!'
'And she is not a bit clever,' continued Bertha. 'I can do a translation
in half the time she takes, and have got far beyond her in all kinds of
natural philosophy!'
'She flatters Mervyn, that's the thing; but she will soon have enough of
that. I hope he won't get her into some dreadful scrape, that's all!'
'What sort of scrape?' asked Bertha, gathering from the smack of the hope
that it was something exciting.
'Oh, you are too much of a chit to know--but I say, Bertha, write to me,
and let me know whom Mervyn brings to the house.'
With somewhat the like injunction, only directed to a different quarter,
Robert likewise left Beauchamp.
As he well knew would be the case, nothing in his own circumstances was
changed by his mother's death, save that he no longer could call her
inheritance his home. She had made no will, and her entire estate passed
to her eldest son, from whom Robert parted on terms of defiance, rather
understood than expressed. He took leave of his birthplace as one never
expecting to return thither, and going for his last hour at Hiltonbury to
Miss Charlecote, poured out to her as many of his troubles as he could
bear to utter. 'And,' said he, 'I have given my approval to the two
schemes that I most disapproved beforehand--to Mervyn's giving my sisters
a home, and to Miss Fennimore's continuing their governess! What will
come of it?'
'Do not repent, Robert,' was the answer. 'Depend upon it, the great
danger is in rashly meddling with existing arrangements, especially by a
strain of influence. It is what the young are slow to learn, but
experience brings it home.'
'With you to watch them, I will fear the less.'
Miss Charlecote wondered whether any disappointment of his own added to
his depression, and if he thought of Lucilla.