Enid, my early and my only love,
I thought, but that your father came between,
In former days you saw me favourably,
And if it were so, do not keep it back,
Make me a little happier, let me know it.--TENNYSON
The foreign tour proved a great success. The summer in the Alps was
delightful. The complete change gave Bertha new life, bodily strength
first returning, and then mental activity. The glacier system was a
happy exchange for her _ego_, and she observed and enjoyed with all the
force of her acute intelligence and spirit of inquiry, while Phoebe was
happy in doing her duty by profiting by all opportunities of observation,
in taking care of Maria and listening to Mervyn, and Miss Charlecote
enjoyed scenery, poetry, art, and natural objects with relish keener than
even that of her young friends, who were less impressible to beauty in
every shape.
Mervyn behaved very well to her, knowing himself bound to make the
journey agreeable to her; he was constantly kind to Bertha, and in the
pleasure of her revival submitted to a wonderful amount of history and
science. All his grumbling was reserved for the private ear of Phoebe,
whose privilege it always was to be his murmuring block, and who was only
too thankful to keep to herself his discontents whenever his route was
not chosen (and often when it was), his disgusts with inns, railroads,
and sights and his impatience of all pursuits save Bertha's. Many a time
she was permitted to see and hear nothing but how much he was bored, but
on the whole the growls were so mitigated compared with what she had
known, that it was almost contentment; and that he did not absolutely
dislike their habits was plain from his adherence to the ladies, though
he might have been quite independent of them.
Bertha's distortion of eye and hesitation of speech, though much
modified, always recurred from fatigue, excitement, or meeting with
strangers, or--still worse--with acquaintance. The difficulty of
utterance distressed her far more than if she had been subject thereto
from infancy, and increased her exceeding repugnance to any sort of
society beyond her own party. The question whether she were fit to
return home for the winter was under debate, when at Geneva, early in
September, tidings reached the travellers that produced such a shock as
to settle the point.
Juliana Acton was dead! It had been a very short attack of actual
illness, but disease had long been secretly preying on her--and her
asperity of disposition might be accounted for by constant unavowed
suffering. It was a great blow. Her unpleasant qualities were all
forgiven in the dismay of learning what their excuse had been; for those
who have so lived as to make themselves least missed, are perhaps at the
first moment the more mourned by good hearts for that very cause.
Augusta was so much terrified on her own account, that she might almost
have been made a hydropathist on the spot; and Robert wrote that poor Sir
Bevil was perfectly overwhelmed with grief and self-reproach, giving
himself no credit for his exemplary patience and forbearance, but
bitterly accusing himself of hardness and neglect. These feelings were
shared in some degree by all the others, and Mervyn was especially
affected. There had been much to soften him since his parents' death,
and the sudden loss of the sister with whom he had always been on terms
of scorn and dislike, shocked him excessively, and drew him closer to the
survivors, sobering him, and silencing his murmurs for the time in real
grief and awe. Bertha likewise was thoroughly overcome, not so much by
these feelings, as by the mere effect of the sudden tidings on her
nervous temperament, and the overclouding of the cheerfulness that had
hitherto surrounded her. This, added to a day of over-fatigue and
exposure, brought back such a recurrence of unfavourable symptoms, that a
return to an English winter was not to be thought of. The south of
France was decided upon at once, and as Lucilla had truly divined, Honor
Charlecote's impulse led them to Hyeres, that she might cast at least one
look at the grave in the Stranger's corner of the cypress-grown
burial-ground, where rested the beloved of her early days, the father of
the darlings of her widowed heart--loved and lost.
She endured her absence from home far better than she had expected, so
much easier was it to stay away than to set off, and so completely was
she bound up with her companions, loving Phoebe like a parent, and the
other two like a nurse, and really liking the brother. All took delight
in the winter paradise of Hyeres, that fragment of the East set down upon
the French coast, and periodically peopled with a motley multitude of
visitors from all the lands of Europe, all invalids, or else attendants
on invalids.
Bertha still shrank from all contact with society, and the ladies, for
her sake, lived entirely apart; but Mervyn made acquaintance, and
sometimes went out on short expeditions with other gentlemen, or to visit
his mercantile correspondents at Marseilles, or other places on the
coast.
It was while he was thus absent that the three sisters stood one
afternoon on the paved terrace of the _Hotel des Isles d'Or_, which rose
behind them, in light coloured stone, of a kind of Italian-looking
architecture, commanding a lovely prospect, the mountains on the Toulon
side, though near, melting into vivid blue, and white cloud wreaths
hanging on their slopes. In front lay the plain, covered with the
peculiar gray-tinted olive foliage, overtopped by date palms, and sloping
up into rounded hills covered with dark pines, the nearest to the sea
bearing on its crest the Church _de l'Ermitage_. The sea itself was
visible beyond the olives, bordered by a line of _etangs_ or pools, and
white heaps of salt, and broken by a peninsula and the three Isles d'Or.
It was a view of which Bertha seemed never able to have enough, and she
was always to be found gazing at it when the first ready for a walk.
'What are you going to sketch, Phoebe?' she said, as the sisters joined
her. 'How can you, on such a day as this, with the air, as it were,
loaded with cheiranthus smell? It makes one lazy to think of it!'
'It seems to be a duty to preserve some remembrance of this beautiful
place.'
'It may be a pity to miss it, but as for the duty!'
'What, not to give pleasure at home, and profit by opportunities?'
'It is too hard to carry about an embodiment of Miss Fennimore's rules!
Why, have you no individuality, Phoebe?'
'Must I not sketch, then?' said Phoebe, smiling.
'You are very welcome, if you would do it for your pleasure, not as an
act of bondage.'
'Not as bondage,' said Phoebe; 'it is only because I ought that I care to
do so at all.'
'And that's the reason you only make maps of the landscape.'
It was quite true that Phoebe had no accomplished turn, and what had been
taught her she only practised as a duty to the care and cost expended on
it, and these were things where 'all her might' was no equivalent for a
spark of talent. 'Ought' alone gave her the zest that Bertha would still
have found in 'ought not.'
'It is all I can do,' she said, 'and Miss Fennimore may like to see them;
so, Bertha, I shall continue to carry the sketchbook by which the English
woman is known like the man by his "Murray." Miss Charlecote has letters
to write, so we must go out by ourselves.'
The Provencal natives of Hyeres had little liking for the foreigners who
thronged their town, but did not molest them, and ladies walked about
freely in the lovely neighbourhood, so that Honor had no scruple in
sending out her charges, unaccompanied except by Lieschen, in case the
two others might wish to dispose of Maria, while they engaged in some
pursuit beyond her powers.
Poor Lieschen, a plump Prussian, grown portly on Beauchamp good living,
had little sympathy with the mountain tastes of her frauleins, and would
have wished all Hyeres like the shelf on the side of the hill where stood
their hotel, whence the party set forth for the Place des Palmiers, so
called from six actual palms bearing, but not often ripening, dates. Two
sides were enclosed by houses, on a third an orange garden sloped down
the descent; the fourth, where the old town climbed straight up the hill,
was regarded by poor Lieschen with dread, and she vainly persuaded Maria
at least to content herself with joining the collection of natives
resting on the benches beneath the palms. How willingly would the good
German have produced her knitting, and sought a compatriot among the
nurses who sat gossiping and embroidering, while Maria might have played
among their charges, who were shovelling about, or pelting each other
with the tiny white sea-washed pebbles that thickly strewed the place.
But Maria, with the little Maltese dog in her arms, to guard him from a
hailstorm of the pebbles, was inexorably bent on following her sisters;
and Bertha had hurried nervously across from the strangers, so that
Lieschen must pursue those light steps through the winding staircase
streets, sometimes consisting of broad shallow steps, sometimes of actual
flights of steep stairs hewn out in the rock, leading to a length of
level terrace, where, through garden gates, orange trees looked out,
dividing the vantage ground with houses and rocks--up farther, past the
almost desolate old church of St. Paul--farther again--till, beyond all
the houses, they came forth on the open mountainside, with a crest of
rock far above, surmounted by the ruins of a castle, said to have been
fortified by the Saracens, and taken from them by Charles Martel. It was
to this castle that Phoebe's sketching duty was to be paid, and Maria and
Bertha expressed their determination of climbing up to it, in hopes, as
the latter said, of finding Charles Martel's original hammer. Lieschen,
puffing and panting already, looked horrified, and laughingly they bade
her sit down and knit, whilst they set out on their adventure. Phoebe
smiled as she looked up, and uttered a prognostic that made Bertha the
more defiant, exhilarated as she was by the delicious compound of sea and
mountain breeze, and by the exquisite view, the roofs of the town sloping
rapidly down, and the hills stretching round, clothed in pine woods, into
which the gray olivettes came stealing up, while beyond lay the sea,
intensely blue, and bearing on its bosom the three Isles d'Or flushed
with radiant colour.
The sisters bravely set themselves to scramble among the rocks, each
surface turned to the sea-breeze exquisitely and fantastically tinted by
coloured lichens, and all interspersed with the classical acanthus' noble
leaves, the juniper, and the wormwood. On they went, winding upwards as
Bertha hoped, but also sideways, and their circuit had lasted a weary
while, and made them exhausted and breathless, when looking round for
their bearings, they found themselves in an enchanted maze of gray rocks,
half hidden in myrtle, beset by the bristly battledores of prickly pear,
and shaded by cork trees. Above was the castle, perched up, and
apparently as high above them as when they began their enterprise; below
was a steep descent, clothed with pines and adorned with white heaths.
The place was altogether strange; they had lost themselves; Bertha began
to repent of her adventure, and Maria was much disposed to cry.
'Never mind, Maria,' said Bertha, 'we will not try to go any higher.
See, here is the dry bed of a torrent that will make a famous path down.
There, that's right. What a picture it is! what an exquisite peep of the
sea between the boughs! What now, what frightens you?'
'The old woman, she looks so horrid.'
'The witch for the lost children? No, no, Maria, she is only gathering
fir cones, and completing the picture in her red _basquine_, brown
jacket, and great hat. I would ask her the way, but that we could not
understand her Provencal.'
'Oh, dear! I wish Phoebe was here! I wish we were safe!'
'If I ever come mountain-climbing again with you at my heels! Take care,
there's no danger if you mind your feet, and we must come out somewhere.'
The somewhere, when the slope became less violent, was among vineyards
and olivettes, no vestige of a path through them, only a very small
cottage, picturesquely planted among the rocks, whence proceeded the
sounds of a _cornet-a-piston_. As Bertha stood considering which way to
take, a dog flew out of the house and began barking. This brought out a
man, who rudely shouted to the terrified pair that they were trespassing.
They would have fled at once up the torrent-bed, bad as it was for
ascent, but there was a derisive exclamation and laugh, and half-a-dozen
men, half-tipsy, came pouring out of the cottage, bawling to Colibri, the
rough, shaggy white dog, that seemed disposed to spring at the Maltese in
Bertha's arms.
The foremost, shouting in French for the sisters to stop, pointed to what
he called the way, and Bertha drew Maria in that direction, trusting that
they should escape by submission, but after going a little distance, she
found herself at the edge of a bare, deep, dry ravine, steep on each
side, almost so as to be impassable. The path only ran on the other
side. There was another shout of exultation and laughter at the English
girls' consternation. At this evident trick of the surly peasants, Maria
shook all over, and burst into tears, and Bertha, gathering courage,
turned to expostulate and offer a reward, but her horrible stammer coming
on worse than ever, produced nothing but inarticulate sounds.
'Monsieur, there is surely some mistake,' said a clear voice in good
French from the path on the other side, and looking across, the sisters
were cheered by an unmistakable English brown hat. The peasants drew
back a little, believing that the young ladies were not so unprotected as
they had supposed, and the first speaker, with something like apology,
declared that this was really the path, and descending where the sides
were least steep, held out his hand to help Bertha. The lady, whose bank
was more practicable, came down to meet them, saying in French, with much
emphasis, that she would summon 'those gentlemen' to their assistance if
desired; words that had considerable effect upon the enemy.
Poor Maria was in such terror that she could hardly keep her footing, and
the hands both of Bertha and the unknown friend were needed to keep her
from affording still more diversion to the peasants by falling prostrate.
The lady seemed intuitively to understand what was best for both, and
between them they contrived to hush her sobs, and repress her inclination
to scream for Phoebe, and thus to lead her on, each holding a hand till
they were at a safe distance; and Bertha, whose terror had been far
greater than at the robbery at home, felt that she could let herself
speak, when she quivered out an agony of trembling thanks. 'I am glad
you are safe from these vile men,' said the lady, kindly, 'though they
could hardly have done anything really to hurt you!'
'Frenchmen should not laugh at English girls,' cried Bertha. 'Oh, I wish
my brothers were here,' and she turned round with a fierce gesture.
'Phoebe, Phoebe; I want Phoebe and Lieschen!' was Maria's cry.
'Can I help you find your party?' was the next question; and the voice
had a gentle, winning tone that reassured Maria, who clung tight to her
hand, exclaiming, 'Don't go away;' and though for months past the bare
proposal of encountering a stranger would have made Bertha almost
speechless, she felt a soothing influence that enabled her to reply with
scarcely a hesitation. On comparing notes, it was discovered that the
girls had wandered so far away from their sister that they could only
rejoin her by re-entering the town and mounting again; and their new
friend, seeing how nervous and agitated both still were, offered to
escort them, only giving notice to her own party what had become of her.
She had come up with some sketching acquaintance, and not drawing
herself, had, like the sisters, been exploring among the rocks, when she
had suddenly come on them in the distress which had so much shaken them,
that, reluctant to lose sight of their guardian, they accompanied her
till she saw one of her friends, and then waited while she ran down with
the announcement. 'How ridiculous it is in me,' muttered Bertha to
herself, discontentedly; 'she will think us wild creatures. I wish we
were not both so tall.'
And embarrassment, together with the desire to explain, deprived her so
entirely of utterance, that Maria volunteered, 'Bertha always speaks so
funnily since she was ill.' Rather a perplexing speech for the lady to
hear; but instead of replying, she asked which was their hotel; and
Bertha answering, she turned with a start of surprise and interest, as if
to see their faces better, adding, 'I have not seen you at the _table
d'hote_;' and under the strange influence of her voice and face, Bertha
was able to answer, 'No. As Maria says, I have been very silly since my
illness in the winter, and--and they have given way to me, and let me see
no one.'
'But we shall see _you_; you are in our hotel,' cried Maria. 'Do come
and let me show you all my Swiss costumes.'
'Thank you; if--' and she paused, perhaps a little perplexed by Maria;
and Bertha added, in the most womanly voice that she could muster, 'My
sister and Miss Charlecote will be very glad to see you--very much
obliged to you.'
Then Maria, who was unusually demonstrative, put another question--
'Are you ill? Bertha says everybody here is ill. I hope you are not.'
'No, thank you,' was the reply. 'I am here with my uncle and aunt. It
is my uncle who has been unwell.'
Bertha, afraid that Maria might blunder into a history of her malady,
began to talk fast of the landscape and its beauties. The stranger
seemed to understand her desire to lead away from herself, and readily
responded, with a manner that gave sweetness to all she said. She was
not very young-looking, and Maria's notion might be justified that she
was at Hyeres on her own account, for there was hardly a tint of colour
on her cheek; she was exceedingly spare and slender, and there was a
wasted, worn look about the lower part of her face, and something subdued
in her expression, as if some great, lasting sorrow had passed over her.
Her eyes were large, brown, soft, and full of the same tender, pensive
kindness as her voice and smile; and perhaps it was this air of patient
suffering that above all attracted Bertha, in the soreness of her wounded
spirit, just as the affectionateness gained Maria, with the instinct of a
child.
However it might be, Phoebe, who had become uneasy at their absence, and
only did not go to seek them from the conviction that nothing would set
them so completely astray as not finding her at her post, was exceedingly
amazed to be hailed by them from beneath instead of above, and to see
them so amicably accompanied by a stranger. Maria went on in advance to
greet the newly-recovered sister, and tell their adventure; and Bertha,
as she saw Phoebe's pretty, grateful, self-possessed greeting, rejoiced
that their friend should see that one of the three, at least, knew what
to say, and could say it. As they all crept down together through the
rugged streets, Phoebe felt the same strange attraction as her sisters,
accompanied by a puzzling idea that she had seen the young lady before,
or some one very like her. Phoebe was famous for seeing likenesses; and
never forgetting a face she had once seen, her recognitions were rather a
proverb in the family; and she felt her credit almost at stake in making
out the countenance before her; but it was all in vain, and she was
obliged to resign herself to discuss the Pyrenees, where it appeared that
their new friend had been spending the summer.
At the inn-door they parted, she going along a corridor to her aunt's
rooms, and the three Fulmorts hurrying simultaneously to Miss Charlecote
to narrate their adventure. She was as eager as they to know the name of
their rescuer, and to go to thank her; and ringing for the courier, sent
him to make inquiries. 'Major and Mrs. Holmby, and their niece,' was the
result; and the next measure was Miss Charlecote's setting forth to call
on them in their apartments, and all the three young ladies wishing to
accompany her--even Bertha! What could this encounter have done to her?
Phoebe withdrew her claim at once, and persuaded Maria to remain, with
the promise that her new friend should be invited to enjoy the exhibition
of the book of Swiss costumes; and very soon she was admiring them, after
having received an explanation sufficient to show her how to deal with
Maria's peculiarities. Mrs. Holmby, a commonplace, good-natured woman,
evidently knew who all the other party were, and readily made
acquaintance with Miss Charlecote, who had, on her side, the same strange
impression of knowing the name as Phoebe had of knowing the face.
Bertha, who slept in the same room with Phoebe, awoke her in the morning
with the question, 'What do you think is Miss Holmby's name?'
'I did not hear it mentioned.'
'No, but you ought to guess. Do you not see how names impress their own
individuality? You need not laugh; I know they do. Could you possibly
have been called Augusta, and did not Katherine quite pervade Miss
Fennimore?'
'Well, according to your theory, what is her name?'
'It is either Eleanor or Cecily.'
'Indeed!' cried Phoebe; 'what put that into your head?'
'Her expression--no, her entire _Wesen_. Something homely, simple, a
little old-fashioned, and yet refined.'
'It is odd,' said Phoebe, pausing.
'What is odd?'
'You have explained the likeness I could not make out. I once saw a
photograph of a Cecily, with exactly the character you mention. It was
that of which she reminded me.'
'Cecily? Who could it have been?'
'One of the Raymond cousinhood. What o'clock is it?'
'Oh, don't get up yet, Phoebe; I want to tell you Miss Holmby's history,
as I make it out. She said she was not ill, but I am convinced that her
uncle and aunt took her abroad to give her change, not after illness, but
sorrow.'
'Yes, I am sure she has known trouble.'
'And,' said Bertha, stifling her voice, so that her sister could hardly
hear, 'that sorrow could have been only of one kind. Patient waiting is
stamped on her brow. She is trying to lift up her head after cruel
disappointment. Oh, I hope he is dead!'
And, to Phoebe's surprise and alarm, the poor little fortune-teller burst
into tears, and sobbed violently. There could be no doubt that her own
disappointment, rather than that which she ascribed to a stranger,
prompted this gush of feeling; but it was strange, for in all the past
months the poor child's sorrow and shame had been coldly, hardly,
silently borne. The new scenes had thrust it into abeyance, and spirits
and strength had forced trouble aside, but this was the only allusion to
it since her conversation with Miss Charlecote on her sick bed, and the
first sign of softening. Phoebe durst not enter into the subject, but
soothed and composed her by caresses and cheerfulness; but either the
tears, or perhaps their original cause--the fatigue and terror of the
previous day--had entirely unhinged her, and she was in such a nervous,
trembling state, and had so severe a headache, that she was left lying
down, under Lieschen's charge, when the others went to the English
chapel. Her urgent entreaty was that they would bring Miss Holmby to her
on their return. She had conceived almost a passion for this young lady.
Secluded as she had been, no intercourse beyond her own family had made
known to her the pleasure of a friendship; and her mind, in its revival
from its long exhaustion, was full of ardour, in the enthusiasm of a
girl's adoration of a full-grown woman. The new and softening sensation
was infinite gain, even by merely lessening her horror of society; and
when the three churchgoers joined the Holmby party on their way back from
the chapel, they begged, as a kindness to an invalid, for a visit to
Bertha.
It was granted most readily, as if equally pleasant to the giver of the
kindness and to the receiver, and the two young maidens walked home
together. Phoebe could not but explain their gratitude to any one who
could rouse Bertha, saying that her spirits had received a great shock,
and that the effects of her illness on her speech and her eyes had made
her painfully bashful.
'I am so glad,' was the hurried, rather quivering answer. 'I am glad if
I can be of any use.'
Phoebe was surprised, while gratified, by the eager tenderness of her
meeting with Bertha, who, quite revived, was in the sitting-room to greet
her, and seemed to expand like a plant in the sunshine, under the
influence of those sweet brown eyes. Her liveliness and drollery awoke,
and her sister was proud that her new friend should see her cleverness
and intelligence; but all the time the likeness to that photograph
continued to haunt Phoebe's mind, as she continued to discover more
resemblances, and to decide that if such were impressed by the Christian
name, Bertha was a little witch to detect it.
Afternoon came, and as usual they all walked seawards. As Bertha said,
they had had enough of the heights, and tried going towards the sea, as
their new friend wished, although warned by the Fulmorts that it was a
long walk, the _etangs_, or great salt-pools, spoiling the coast as a
beach. But all were brave walkers, and exercise always did Bertha good.
They had lovely views of the town as they wound about the hills, and
admired its old streets creeping up the hill, and the two long wings
stretching on either side. An iron cross stood up before the old church,
relieved by the exquisite radiance of the sunset sky. 'Ah!' said Honor,
'I always choose to believe that is the cross to which the legend
belongs.' 'Tell it, please, Miss Charlecote,' cried Maria.
And Honor told a veritable legend of Hyeres:--A Moorish princess, who had
been secretly baptized and educated as a Christian by her nurse, a
Christian slave, was beloved by a genie. She regarded him with horror,
pined away, and grew thin and pale. Her father thought to raise her
spirits by marrying her, and bestowed her on the son of a neighbouring
king, sending her off in full procession to his dominions. On the way,
however, lay a desert, where the genie had power to raise a sand-storm,
with which he overwhelmed the suite, and flew away with the princess.
But he could not approach her; she kept him at bay with the sign of the
cross, until, enraged, he drove her about on a whirlwind for three days,
and finally dashed her dead upon this coast. There she lay, fair as an
almond blossom, and royally robed, and the people of Hyeres took her up
and gave her honourable burial. When the king her father heard of it, he
offered to reward them with a cross of gold of the same weight as his
daughter; but, said the townsmen, 'Oh, king, if we have a cross of gold,
the Moors will come and slay us for its sake, therefore give us the gold
in coin, and let the cross be of iron.'
'And there it stands,' said the guest, looking up.
'I hope it does,' said Honor, confronting, as usual, the common-sense led
pupils of Miss Fennimore, with her willing demi-credulity.
'It is a beautiful story!' was the comment; 'and, like other traditions,
full of unconscious meaning.'
A speech this, as if it had been made to delight Honor, whose eyes were
met by a congratulatory glance from Phoebe. At the farther words, 'It is
very striking--the evil spirit's power ending with the slaying the body,
never harming the soul, nor bending the will--'
'Bending the will is harming the soul,' said Phoebe.
'Nay,' was her companion's answer, 'the fatal evil is, when both wills
are bent.'
Phoebe was too single-minded, too single-willed, at once to understand
this, till Miss Charlecote whispered a reference to St. Paul's words of
deep experience, 'To will is present with me.'
'I see,' she said; 'she might even have preferred the genie, but as long
as her principle and better will resisted, she was safe from herself as
well as from him.'
'Liked the nasty genie?' said Maria, who had listened only as to a fairy
tale. 'Why, Phoebe, genies come out of bottles, and go away in smoke,
Lieschen told me.'
'No, indeed,' said Bertha, in a low voice of feeling, piteous in one of
her years, 'if so, it needed no outward whirlwind to fling her dead on
the coast!'
'And there she found peace,' answered the guest, with a suppressed, but
still visible sign of weariness. 'Oh! it was worth the whirlwind!'
Phoebe was forced to attend to Maria, whose imagination had been a good
deal impressed, and who was anxious to make another attempt on a
pilgrimage to castle and cross.
'When Mervyn comes back, Maria, we may try.'
The guest, who was speaking, stopped short in the midst. Had she been
infected by Bertha's hesitation? She began again, and seemed to have
forgotten what she meant to have said. However, she recovered herself;
and there was nothing remarkable through the rest of the walk, but, on
coming indoors, she managed to detain Phoebe behind the others, saying,
lightly, 'Miss Fulmort, you have not seen the view from my window.'
Phoebe followed to her little bed-room, and gazed out at the lovely
isles, bathed in light so as to be almost transparent, and the ship of
war in the bay, all shadowy and phantom-like. She spoke her admiration
warmly, but met with but a half assent. The owner of the room was
leaning her head against the glass, and, with an effort for indifference
said, 'Did I hear that--that you were expecting your brother?'
'You are Cecily!' exclaimed Phoebe, instead of answering.
And Cecily, turning away from the window, leant against the wall for
support, and her pale face crimsoning, said, 'I thought you did not
know.'
'My sisters do not,' said Phoebe; 'but he told me, when--when he hoped--'
'And now you will help me?' said Cecily, hurrying out her words, as if
overpowering one of her wills. 'You will, I know! I have promised my
father and uncle to have nothing to do with him. Do not let me be taken
by surprise. Give me notice, that I may get Aunt Holmby away before he
comes.'
'Oh! must it be so?' cried Phoebe. 'He is not like what he used to be.'
'I have promised,' repeated Cecily; and grasping Phoebe's wrist, she
added, 'you will help me to keep my promise.'
'I will,' said Phoebe, in her grave, reliable voice, and Cecily drew a
long breath.
There were five minutes of silence, while Phoebe stood studying Cecily,
and thinking how much injustice she had done to her, how little she had
expected a being so soft and feeling in her firmness, and grieving the
more at Mervyn's loss. Cecily at last spoke, 'When will he come?'
'We cannot tell; most likely not for a week, perhaps not for a fortnight.
It depends on how he likes Corsica.'
'I think my aunt will be willing to go,' said Cecily. 'My uncle has been
talking of Nice.'
'Then must we lose you,' said Phoebe, 'when you are doing Bertha so much
good?'
'I should like to be with you while I can, if I may,' said Cecily, her
eyes full of tears.
'Did you know us at first?' said Phoebe.
'I knew you were in this hotel; and after your sisters had spoken, and I
saw Bertha's face, I was sure who she was. I thought no one was with you
but Miss Charlecote, and that no one knew, so that I might safely indulge
myself.' The word was out before she could recall it, and trying, as it
were, to hide it, she said, 'But how, if you knew what had passed, did
you not sooner know it was I?'
'Because we thought your name was Holmby.'
'Did you, indeed. You did not know that my aunt Holmby is my mother's
sister? She kindly took me when my uncle was ordered to spend this
winter abroad.'
'You were ill and tried. Bertha read that in your face. Oh! when you
see how much difference--'
'I must not see. Do not talk of it, or we must not be together; and
indeed it is very precious to me.' She rested her head on Phoebe's
shoulder, and put an arm round her waist. 'Only one thing I must ask,'
she said, presently; 'is he well?'
'Quite well,' said Phoebe. 'He has been getting better ever since we
left home. Then you did not know he was with us?'
'No. It is not right for me to dwell on those things, and they never
mention any of you to me.'
'But you will write to us now? You will not desert Bertha? You do not
know how much you are doing for her.'
'Dear child! She is so like what he was when first he came.'
'If you could guess what she has suffered, and how fond he is of her, you
would not turn away from her. You will let her be your friend?'
'If it be right,' said Cecily, with tearful eyes, but her mouth set into
a steadfast expression, as resolute as sweetly sad.
'You know better what is right than I do,' said Phoebe; 'I who feel for
him and Bertha. But if you have not heard from him for so long, I think
there are things you ought to know.'
'At home, at home,' said Cecily; 'there it may be right to listen. Here
I am trusted alone, and I have only to keep my promise. Tell me when I
am at home, and it will make me happy. Though, nonsense! my wizened old
face is enough to cure him,' and she tried to laugh. Phoebe regretted
what she had said of Bertha's impression, and believed that the gentle,
worn face ought to be far more touching than the most radiant charms, but
when she strove to say that it was not beauty that Mervyn loved, she was
hushed at once, and by the same mild authority turned out of the room.
Well for her that she could tell her story to Miss Charlecote without
breach of confidence! Honor's first impulse was displeasure with the
aunt, who she was sure had let her speak _of_, though not _to_, Miss
Holmby without correcting her, and must purposely have kept the whole
Raymond connection out of sight. 'Depend upon it, Phoebe,' she said,
'she will keep her niece here.'
'Poor Cecily, what will she do? I wish they would go, for I feel sure
that she will think it her duty to hold out against him, till she has her
father's sanction; she will seem hard, and he--'
'Do not reckon too much on him, Phoebe. Yes, it is a hard saying, but
men care so much for youth and beauty, that he may find her less
attractive. He may not understand how superior she must have become to
what she was when he first knew her. Take care how you plead his cause
without being sure of his sentiments.'
In fact, Honor thought Cecily Raymond so infinitely above Mervyn Fulmort,
at his very best, that she could not regard the affair as hopeful under
any aspect; and the parties concerned being just at the time of life when
a woman becomes much the elder of a man of the same years, she fully
expected that Cecily's loss of bloom would entirely take away his desire
to pursue his courtship.
The next event was a diplomatic call from Mrs. Holmby, to sound Miss
Charlecote, whose name she knew as a friend both of the Fulmorts and
Moorcroft Raymonds, and who, she had feared, would use her influence
against so unequal a match for the wealthy young squire. When convinced
of her admiration of Cecily, the good aunt proceeded to condemn the
Raymond pride. They called it religion, but she was not so taken in.
What reasonable person heeded what a young man might have done when he
was sowing his wild oats? No, it was only that the Baronet blood
disdained the distillery, whereas the Fulmorts represented that good old
family, the Mervyns, and it was a very fine estate, was not it? She had
no patience with such nonsense, not she! All Sir John's doing; for,
between themselves, poor dear George Raymond had no spirit at all, and
was quite under his brother's thumb. Such a family, and such a thing as
it would be for them to have that girl so well married. _She_ would not
take her away. The place agreed with the Major, and she had told Cecily
she could not think of leaving it.
Phoebe saw how close a guard Cecily must have learnt to keep on herself,
for not a tone nor look betrayed that she was suffering unusual emotion.
She occupied herself quietly, and was most tenderly kind to Bertha and
Maria, exerting herself to converse with Bertha, and to enter into her
pursuits as cheerfully as if her mind was disengaged. Sometimes Phoebe
fancied that the exceeding gentleness of her voice indicated when she was
most tried, but she attempted no more _tete-a-tetes_, and Miss
Charlecote's conjecture that in the recesses of her heart she was
rejoiced to be detained by no fault of her own, remained unverified.
Phoebe resigned Cecily for the present to Bertha's exclusive friendship.
Competition would have been unwise, even if the forbidden subject had not
been a restraint where the secret was known, while to soothe and cherish
Bertha and settle her mind to begin life again was a welcome and fitting
mission for Cecily, and inclination as well as discretion therefore held
Phoebe aloof, preventing Maria from interfering, and trusting that Cecily
was becoming Bertha's Mr. Charlecote.
Mervyn came back sooner than she had expected him, having soon tired of
Corsica. His year of ill-health and of her attendance had made him
dependent on her; he did not enter into novelty or beauty without Bertha;
and his old restless demon of discontent made him impatient to return to
his ladies. So he took Phoebe by surprise, walking in as she was
finishing a letter to Augusta before joining the others in the olivettes.
'Well, Phoebe, how's Bertha? Ready to leave this hot-vapour-bath of a
hole?'
'I don't know what you will say to it now,' she answered looking down,
and a little tremulous. 'Who do you think is here?'
'Not Hastings? If he dares to show his nose here, I'll get him hissed
out of the place.'
'No, no, something very different.'
'Well, make haste,' he said, in the grim voice of a tired man.
'She is here--Cecily Raymond.'
'What of that?' He sat down, folded his arms, and crossed his ankles,
the picture of dogged indifference.
'Mervyn!'
'What does it matter to me who comes or goes? Don't stop to rehearse
arrivals, but ring for something to eat. An atrocious _mistral_! My
throat is like a turnpike road? Call it January? It is a mockery!'
Phoebe obeyed him; but she was in a ferment of wrath and consternation,
and clear of nothing save that Cecily must be prepared for his
appearance. She was leaving the room when he called her to ask what she
was doing.
'I am going to tell the others that you are come.'
'Where are they?'
'In the olive yards behind the hotel.'
'Don't be in such a hurry, and I'll come.'
'Thank you, but I had better go on before. Miss Raymond is with them.'
'It makes no odds to her. Stop a minute, I tell you. What is the matter
with her?' (Said with some uneasiness, hidden by gruffness.)
'She is not here for her own health, but Major Holmby is rheumatic.'
'Oh! that intolerable woman is here, is she? Then you may give Miss
Charlecote notice to pack up her traps, and we'll set off to-morrow!'
If a desire to box a man's ears ever tingled in Phoebe's fingers, it was
at that moment. Not trusting herself to utter a word, she went
up-stairs, put on her hat, and walked forth, feeling as if the earth had
suddenly turned topsy-turvy with her, and as if she could look no one in
the face. Set off to-morrow! He might tell Miss Charlecote himself, she
would not! Yet, after all, he had been rejected. His departure might
not torture Cecily like the sight of his indifference. But what despair
for Bertha, thought Phoebe, as she saw the friends pacing the paths
between the rows of olives, while Miss Charlecote and Maria were
gathering magnificent blue violets. At the first hint, Miss Charlecote
called to Bertha, who came reluctantly, while Phoebe, with almost
sickening pity, murmured her tidings to Cecily--adding, 'I do not think
he is coming out. He is having something to eat,' in hopes that this
tardiness might be a preparation. She was relieved that Bertha rushed
back again to monopolize Miss Raymond, and overwhelm her with schemes for
walks under Mervyn's escort. Cecily let her talk, but made no promises,
and the soft gentleness of those replies thrilled as pangs of pain on
Phoebe's pitying heart.
As they walked homewards, Mervyn himself appeared, slowly sauntering
towards them. The younger sisters sprang to meet him, Cecily fell back
to Miss Charlecote. Phoebe held her breath, and scarcely durst look.
There was a touch of the hand, a greeting, then Bertha pounced on her
brother to tell the adventure of the ravine; and Cecily began to set
Maria off about the flowers in her nosegay. Phoebe could only come close
to Miss Charlecote and squeeze her hand vehemently.
The inn-door was reached, and Mervyn waiting till Cecily came up, said
with grave formality, 'I hear my sisters are indebted to you for your
assistance in a very unpleasant predicament.
She bowed, and he bowed. That was all, and they were in their several
apartments. Phoebe had never felt in such a fever. She could discern
character, but love was but an external experience to her, and she could
not read the riddle of Mervyn's repudiation of intercourse with their
fellow-inmates, and his restlessness through the evening, checking Bertha
for boring about her friend, and then encouraging her to go on with what
she had been saying. At last, however, Bertha voluntarily ceased her
communications and could be drawn out no farther; and when the candle was
put out at night, she electrified Phoebe with the remark, 'It is Mervyn,
and you know it; so you may as well tell me all about it.'
Phoebe had no choice but compliance; advising Bertha not to betray her
knowledge, and anxious to know the conclusions which this acute young
woman would draw from the present conjuncture. But Bertha was too fond
of both parties not to be full of unmitigated hope. 'Oh, Phoebe!' she
said, 'with Cecily there, I shall not mind going home, I shall not mind
anything.'
'If only she will be there.'
'Stuff, Phoebe! The more Mervyn sulks, the more it shows that he cares
for her; and if she cares for him, of course it will come right.'
'Do you remember what she said about the two wills contending?'
'Well, if she ever _did_ think Mervyn the genie, she has crossed him
once, twice, thrice, till she may turn him from Urgan into Ethert Brand.'
'She thinks it her duty not to hear that she has.'
'Oh, oh! from you who know all about it; but didn't I tell her plenty
about Mervyn's kindness to me? Yes, indeed I did. I couldn't help it,
you know. It did not seem true to let anybody begin to be my friend
unless she knew--_all that_. So I told her--and oh! Phoebe, she was so
dear and nice, better than ever after that,' continued Bertha, with what
sounded like sobs; 'and then you know she could not help hearing how good
and patient he was with me--only growing kinder and kinder the more
tiresome I was. She must feel that, Phoebe, must not she? And then she
asked about Robert, and I told her how Mervyn has let him get a chaplain
to look after the distillery people, and the Institute that that old
gin-palace is to be made into.'
'Those were just the things I was longing to tell her.'
'She could not stop _me_, you know, because I knew nothing,' cried
Bertha, triumphantly. 'Are not you satisfied, Phoebe?'
'I ought to be, if I were sure of his feelings. Don't plunge about so,
Bertha,--and I am not sure either that she will believe him yet to be a
religious man.'
'Don't say that, Phoebe. I was just going to begin to like religion, and
think it the only true key to metaphysics and explanation of existence,
but if it sticks between those two, I shall only see it as a weak, rigid
superstition, parting those who were meant for one another.'
Phoebe was strongly tempted to answer, but the little travelling clock
struck, and thus acted as a warning that to let Bertha pursue an exciting
discussion at this time of night would be ruinous to her nerves the next
day. So with a good-night, the elder sister closed her ears, and lay
pondering on the newly disclosed stage in Bertha's mind, which touched
her almost as closely as the fate of her brother's attachment.
The ensuing were days of suppressed excitement, chiefly manifested by the
yawning fits that seized on Bertha whenever no scene in the drama was
passing before her. In fact, the scenes presented little. Cecily was
not allowed to shut herself up, and did nothing remarkable, though
avoiding the walks that she would otherwise have taken with the Fulmort
party; and when she found that Bertha was aware of her position, firmly
making silence on that head the condition of their interviews. Mervyn
let her alone, and might have seemed absolutely indifferent, but for the
cessation of all complaints of Hyeres, and for the noteworthy brightness,
obligingness, and good humour of his manners. Even in her absence,
though often restless and strangely watchful, he was always placable and
good-tempered, never even scolding Phoebe; and in her presence, though he
might not exchange three words, or offer the smallest service, there was
a repose and content on his countenance that gave his whole expression a
new reading. He was looking particularly well, fined down into alertness
by his disciplined life and hill climbing, his complexion cleared and
tanned by mountain air, and the habits and society of the last year
leaving an unconscious impress unlike that which he used to bring from
his former haunts. Phoebe wondered if Cecily remarked it. She was not
aware that Cecily did not know him without that restful look.
Phoebe came to the conclusion that Cecily was persuaded of the cessation
of his attachment, and was endeavouring to be thankful, and to accustom
herself to it. After the first, she did not hide herself to any marked
degree; and, probably to silence her aunt, allowed that lady to take her
on one of the grand Monday expeditions, when all the tolerably sound
visiting population of Hyeres were wont to meet, to the number of thirty
or forty, and explore the scenery. Exquisite as were the views, these
were not romantic excursions, the numbers conducing to gossip and
chatter, but there were some who enjoyed them the more in consequence;
and Mervyn, who had been loudest in vituperation of his first, found the
present perfectly delightful, although the chief of his time was spent in
preventing Mrs. Holmby's cross-grained donkey from lying down to roll,
and administering to the lady the chocolate drops that he carried for
Bertha's sustenance; Cecily, meantime, being far before with his sisters,
where Mrs. Holmby would gladly have sent him if bodily terror would have
permitted her to dismiss her cavalier.
Miss Charlecote and Phoebe, being among the best and briskest of the
female walkers, were the first to enter the town, and there, in the
_Place des Palmiers_, looking about him as if he were greatly amazed at
himself, they beheld no other than the well-known figure of Sir John
Raymond, standing beside the Major, who was sunning himself under the
palm-trees.
'Miss Charlecote, how are you? How d'ye do, Miss Fulmort? Is your
sister quite well again? Where's my little niece?'
'Only a little way behind with Bertha.'
'Well, we never thought to meet in such a place, did we? What a country
of stones I have come over to-day, enough to break the heart of a farmer;
and the very sheep are no better than goats! Vineyards? What they call
vineyards are old black stumps that ought to be grubbed up for firewood!'
'Nay, I was struck by the wonderful cultivation of every available inch
of ground. It speaks well for the Provencals, if we judge by the
proverb, "_Autant vaut l'homme que vaut sa terre_."'
'Ah! there she comes;' and he hastened to join Cecily, while the deserted
Bertha, coming up to her sister, muttered, 'Wretched girl! I hear she
had written to him to fetch her home. That was what made her stay so
quietly, was it?'
No one could accuse Mervyn of indifference who saw the blank look that
overspread his face on hearing of Sir John's arrival, but he said not a
word, only hurried away to dress for the _table d'hote_. The first
notice the anxious ladies had that the tedious dinner was broken up, was
a knock at their door, and Cecily's entrance, looking exceedingly white,
and speaking very low. 'I am come to wish you good-bye,' she said.
'Uncle John has been so kind as to come for me, and I believe we shall
set out to-morrow.'
Maria alone could dare to shriek out, 'Oh! but you promised to show me
how to make a crown of my pink heaths, and I have been out with Lieschen,
and gathered such beauties!'
'If you will come with me to my room I will show you while I pack up,'
said Cecily, reducing Bertha to despair by this most effectual barrier to
confidence; but she entreated leave to follow, since seeing Cecily
playing with Maria was better than not seeing her at all.
After some time, Mervyn came in, flushed and breathless, and Honor kindly
made an excuse for leaving him alone with Phoebe. After diligently
tossing a book from one hand to the other for some minutes, he observed,
_sotto voce_, 'That's a more decent old fellow than I gave him credit
for.'
'Who, Sir John?'
'Aye.'
And that was the whole result of the _tete-a-tete_. He was in no mood
for questions, and marched out of the room for a moonlight cigar. Phoebe
only remained with the conviction that something had happened.
Miss Charlecote was more fortunate. She had met the Baronet in the
passage, and was accosted by him with, 'Do you ever do such a thing as
take a turn on that terrace?'
It was a welcome invitation, and in no more time than it took to fetch a
shawl, the two old friends were pacing the paved terrace together.
'Well, what do you think of him?' began Sir John. 'There must be more
good in him than I thought.'
'Much more than I thought.'
'He has been speaking to me, and I can't say but that I was sorry for
him, though why it should have gone so hard with so sensible and good a
girl as Cecily to give up such a scamp, I never could guess! I told
George that seeing what I saw of him, and knowing what I knew, I could
think it nothing better than a sacrifice to give her to him!'
'Exactly what I thought!'
'After the way he had used her, too--talking nonsense to her, and then
playing fast and loose, trying his luck with half the young ladies in
London, and then fancying she would be thankful to him as soon as he
wanted a wife to keep house! Poor child, that would not have weighed
with her a moment though--it puts me out of patience to know how fond she
is of him--but for his scampishness, which made it a clear duty to refuse
him. Very well she behaved, poor thing, but you see how she pined
away--though her mother tells me that not a fretful word was ever heard
from her, as active and patient and cheerful as ever. Then the Holmbys
took her abroad, the only thing to save her health, but I never trusted
the woman, and when by and by she writes to her father that Fulmort was
coming, and her aunt would not take her away, "George," I said, "never
mind; I'll go at once, and bring her home--she shall not be kept there to
be torn to pieces between her feelings and her duty." And now I am come,
I declare I don't know what to be at--I should think nothing of it if the
lad only talked of reforming--but he looks so downcast, and owns so
honestly that we were quite right, and then that excellent little sister
of his is so fond of him, and you have stood his company this whole
year--that I declare I think he must be good for something! Now you who
have looked on all his life, just say what you think of him--such a way
as he went on in last year, too--the crew that he got about him--'
'Phoebe thinks that was the consequence of his disappointment.'
'A man that could bring such a lot into the same house with that sister
of his, had no business to think of Cecily.'
'He has suffered for it, and pretty severely, and I do think it has done
him good. You must remember that he had great disadvantages.'
'Which didn't hinder his brother from turning out well.'
'Robert went to a public school--' and there she perceived she was saying
something awkward, but Sir John half laughed, and assented.
'Quite right, Miss Charlecote; private pupils are a delusion? George
never had one without a screw loose about him. Parish priests were never
meant for tutors--and I've told my boy, Charlie, that the one thing I'll
never consent to is his marrying on pupils--and doing two good things by
halves. It has well nigh worried his uncle to death, and Cecily into the
bargain.'
'Robert was younger, and the elders were all worse managed. Besides,
Mervyn's position, as it was treated, made him discontented and
uncomfortable; and this attachment, which he was too--too--I can find no
word for it but contemptible--to avow, must have preyed on his temper and
spirits all the time he was trying to shake it off. He was brought up to
selfishness, and nothing but what he underwent last year could have
shaken him out of it.'
'Then you think he is shaken out of it?'
'Where Bertha is concerned I see that he is--therefore I should hope it
with his wife.'
'Well, well, I suppose what must be must be. Not that I have the least
authority to say anything, but I could not help telling the poor fellow
thus much--that if he went on steadily for a year or so, and continued in
the same mind, I did not see why he should not ask my brother and Cecily
to reconsider it. Then it will be for them to decide, you know.'
For them! As if Sir John were not in character as well as name the
guiding head of the family.
'And now,' he added, 'you will let me come to your rooms this evening,
for Mrs. Holmby is in such displeasure with me, that I shall get nothing
but black looks. Besides, I want to see a little more of that nice girl,
his sister.'
'Ah! Sir John, if ever you do consent, it will be more than half for love
of Phoebe!'
'Well, for a girl like that to be so devoted to him--her brother though
he be--shows there must be more in him than meets the eye. That's just
the girl that I would not mind John's marrying.'