PHOEBE AND THE ANGELS.
It did not long remain so. In less than a fort-night after Mrs.
Farebrother's death a housekeeper was installed in Parksides. Her name
was Mrs. Pamflett, and her age thirty. Being called "Mrs.," the natural
inference was that she was either wife or widow; but as no questions
were put to her on this point there were none to answer, and it
certainly did not appear to be anybody's business but her own. Miser
Farebrother, being entirely wrapped up in his money-bags, gave the
entire household into the care of Mrs. Pamflett, one of its items being
the motherless child Phoebe. A capable housekeeper, thrifty, careful,
and willing to work, Miser Farebrother was quite satisfied with her
performance of her duties; but she was utterly unfit to rear a child so
young as Phoebe, for whom, it must be confessed, she had no particular
love, and Phoebe would have fared badly in many ways had it not been
for her aunt.
Mrs. Lethbridge lived in London, in the not very aristocratic
neighbourhood of Camden Town. She and Phoebe's mother had been married
on the same day--one to a man whose miserly habits were unknown, and
had, indeed, not at that time grown into a confirmed disease; the other
to a bank clerk, who was expected to keep up the appearance of a
gentleman, and fitly rear and educate a family, upon a salary of a
hundred and eighty pounds a year. Fortunately for him and his wife,
their family was not numerous, consisting of one son and one daughter.
With Miser Farebrother they had nothing in common; he so clearly and
unmistakably discouraged their attempts to cement an affectionate or
even a friendly intimacy that they had gradually and surely dropped
away from each other. This was a great grief to the sisters, but the
edict issued by Miser Farebrother was not to be disputed.
"I will not allow your sister or her husband to come to the house," he
had said to his wife when, in the early days of their married life, she
remonstrated with him; later on she had not the courage or the spirit
to expostulate against his harsh decrees, to which she submitted with a
breaking heart. "They are a couple of busybodies, and you can tell them
so if you please, with my compliments."
Mrs. Farebrother did not tell her sister what her husband called them,
but she wrote and said that for the sake of peace they had better not
come to see her. The Lethbridges mournfully acquiesced; indeed, they
had no alternative: they could not force themselves into the house of a
man who would not receive them.
"But if we can't go to her," said Mrs. Lethbridge, "Laura"--which was
Mrs. Farebrother's Christian name--"can come to us."
This, also, after a little while, Miser Farebrother would not allow.
"I will not," he said, "have my affairs talked about by people who are
not friendly to me."
"That is your fancy," said Mrs. Farebrother; "they would be very happy
if you would allow them to be friendly."
"Of course," he sneered, "so that they could poke their heads into my
business. I tell you I will not have it."
She sighed, and submitted; and thereafter, when she and her sister met,
it was by appointment in a strange place. Even these rare meetings,
upon their being discovered, were prohibited, and thus Miser
Farebrother succeeded in parting two sisters who loved each other
devotedly.
"Whatever Laura saw in that miserly bear," said Mrs. Lethbridge,
indignantly, to her husband, "to marry him is a mystery I shall never
be able to discover."
But this mystery is of a nature common enough in the matrimonial
market, and may be attributed to thousands of ill-assorted couples.
It was plainly Miser Farebrother's intention to discourage Mrs.
Lethbridge's visits to Parksides after the death of his wife; promises
were in no sense sacred to him, even death-bed promises, unless their
performance was necessary to his interests, and in this instance he
very soon decided that it was not.
"You perceive," he said to Mrs. Lethbridge, "that I have a housekeeper
to look after the child. You are giving yourself a deal of unnecessary
trouble trudging down here--for what? To ascertain whether she is
properly dressed? You see she is. Whether she has enough to eat? She
looks well enough, doesn't she? Don't you think you had better devote
yourself to your own domestic affairs instead of prying into mine? Your
husband must be very rich that you can afford to pay railway fares and
cab fares to come to a house where you are not wanted."
This, in effect, was the sum of his efforts to prevent her from
visiting Parksides; and his sneers and slighting allusions, made from
time to time, were successful in curtailing her visits to his house
during the young childhood of little Phoebe. They were not successful,
however, in putting a stop to them altogether, until Phoebe was
fourteen years of age, from which time her intercourse with her
relatives was maintained by the young girl's visits to Camden
Town--happy visits, lasting seldom less than two or three days. Until
Phoebe was fourteen, her aunt came down to Parksides only once in every
three months. Occasionally Mrs. Lethbridge caught a glimpse of Miser
Farebrother, whose welcome, if he gave her one at all, was of the
surliest; and as between her and Mrs. Pamflett a strong and silent
antipathy had been contracted from their first interview, Mrs.
Lethbridge's visits could not be said to be of the pleasantest. But for
the sake of her dead sister, whom she had so fondly loved, and of the
motherless child, whose sweet ways endeared her to the good aunt, she
bore with all the slights that were put upon her; and although she
spoke of them at home to her husband, she never mentioned them to her
children.
From two to fourteen years of age, Phoebe may be said to have grown up
almost in loneliness. Her father rarely noticed her, and Mrs. Pamflett,
a peculiar, strange, and silent woman, evinced no desire for her
society. The child's nature was sweet and susceptible enough to have
given an ample return for proffered affection, and, although she was
not at the time aware of it (such speculations being too profound for
her young mind), she had great cause for gratitude that her life was
not entirely deprived of it. It has unhappily often happened that sweet
waters have been turned bitter by unsympathetic contact, and this might
have been the case with our Phoebe, had it not been for Mrs. Lethbridge
and Tom Barley. Mrs. Lethbridge had made herself so loved by her niece
that her visits came to be eagerly looked forward to by the girl, and
to be all the more enjoyed because they were rare. Her love for the
child was manifested as much, if not more, in her absence than in her
presence. When Phoebe could read or spell through written hand, Mrs.
Lethbridge wrote letters to her, to which the child replied. Phoebe's
letters were slipped unstamped in the post-office by Tom Barley, and
for a long time she was not aware of the unfair expense to which her
aunt was being put, and for which Miser Farebrother alone was
responsible. Mrs. Lethbridge never mentioned it to her niece. Then
there were the books which Mrs. Lethbridge brought or sent--a source of
so much delight and exquisite enjoyment that the remembrance of those
youthful days was with Phoebe a sweet remembrance through all her life.
Living in a certain sense alone in a great mansion, it is not to be
wondered at that a current of romance was formed in the young girl's
nature. Neglected and uncared for as she was by those immediately
about her, there was no restriction upon her movements through the old
house. Certain rooms were prohibited to her, Mrs. Pamflett's room and
her father's bedroom, which served also as an office. To this latter
apartment, when she passed fourteen years of age, Phoebe was sometimes
called--otherwise she was forbidden to enter it. With these exceptions
she was free to wander whither she would, and she would often pass
hours together in a room never occupied by the household, and which
had an irresistible fascination for her. It was of octagonal shape,
and there were faded paintings on the walls and rotting tapestries.
Originally it was most likely used as a library, for it contained
book-cases and large pieces of furniture, a table, two secretaries,
and a huge chair, so heavy that Phoebe could not even move it. The
carvings about the room and upon the furniture were strangely
grotesque--fantastic heads and faces, animals such as were never seen
in nature, and uncouth forms of men which had no existence save in the
feverish imaginations of the designers. These contorted shapes and
grotesque faces might have been supposed to be sufficiently repulsive
to cause a sensitive child to avoid them, but in truth they were in
themselves an attraction to Phoebe, who discovered no terrors in them
to affright her. There was, however, in the room an attraction of a
more congenial kind, in which grace, harmony, proportion, and a most
exquisite beauty were conspicuous. High up in a corner, opposite a
window which faced the west, was a carving of angels' heads, hanging
over, as it were, and looking down upon the spectator. Devoid of
natural colour as they were, so grand and wondrous had been the
skill of the carver that it was as though a multitude of joyous,
rosy-cheeked children were bending down to obtain a view of a scene as
delightful as they themselves presented. The lips smiled, the eyes
sparkled, the faces beamed with life. This marvel, cut out of brown
wood, was, indeed, something more than the perfection of art and
grace--it was an enchantment which made the heart glad to behold. And
in the evening, when the effulgent radiances of a glorious sunset
shone upon the wonder and played about it, touching the dainty faces
with alluring light, it filled even the soul of our young child with a
holy joy.
This was Phoebe's favourite room; and here she would sit and read, and
sometimes stand, with folded hands, looking upward at the enchanting
group, with the sunset's colours upon them; and in her eyes would dwell
a rapture which made her as lovely as the fairest of the faces she
gazed upon. Thus she grew up to a graceful and beautiful womanhood,
encompassed by sweet and grand imaginings which purified her soul.