Hopes and Fears Part 57

When the neighbours remarked on Mrs. Fulmort's improved looks and spirits, and wondered whether they were the effect of the Rhine or of 'getting off' her eldest daughter, they knew not how many fewer dull hours she had to spend. Phoebe visited her in her bedroom, talked at luncheon, amused her drives, coaxed her into the garden, read to her when she rested before dinner, and sang to her afterwards. Phoebe likewise brought her sister's attainments more into notice, though at the expense of Bertha's contempt for mamma's preference for Maria's staring fuchsias and feeble singing, above her own bold chalks from models and scientific music, and indignation at Phoebe's constantly bringing Maria forward rather than her own clever self.

Droning narrative, long drawn out, had as much charm for Mrs. Fulmort as for Maria. If she did not always listen, she liked the voice, and she sometimes awoke into descriptions of the dresses, parties, and acquaintance of her youth, before trifling had sunk into dreary insipidity under the weight of too much wealth, too little health, and 'nothing to do.'

'My dear,' she said, 'I am glad you are not out. Quiet evenings are so good for my nerves; but you are a fine girl, and will soon want society.'

'Not at all, mamma; I like being at home with you.'

'No, my dear! I shall like to take you out and see you dressed. You must have advantages, or how are you to marry?'

'There's no hurry,' said Phoebe, smiling.

'Yes, my dear, girls always get soured if they do not marry!'

'Not Miss Charlecote, mamma.'

'Ah! but Honor Charlecote was an heiress, and could have had plenty of offers. Don't talk of not marrying, Phoebe, I beg.'

'No,' said Phoebe, gravely. 'I should like to marry some one very good and wise, who could help me out of all my difficulties.'

'Bless me, Phoebe! I hope you did not meet any poor curate at that place of Honor Charlecote's. Your papa would never consent.'

'I never met anybody, mamma,' said Phoebe, smiling. 'I was only thinking what he should be like.'

'Well, what?' said Mrs. Fulmort, with girlish curiosity. 'Not that it's any use settling. I always thought I would marry a marquis's younger son, because it is such a pretty t.i.tle, and that he should play on the guitar. But he must not be an officer, Phoebe; we have had trouble enough about that.'

'I don't know what he is to be, mamma,' said Phoebe, earnestly, 'except that he should be as sensible as Miss Fennimore, and as good as Miss Charlecote. Perhaps a man could put both into one, and then he could lead me, and always show me the reason of what is right.'

'Phoebe, Phoebe! you will never get married if you wait for a philosopher. Your papa would never like a very clever genius or an author.'

'I don't want him to be a genius, but he must be wise.'

'Oh, my dear! That comes of the way young ladies are brought up. What would the Miss Berrilees have said, where I was at school at Bath, if one of their young ladies had talked of wanting to marry a wise man?'

Phoebe gave a faint smile, and said, 'What was Mr. Charlecote like, mamma, whose bra.s.s was put up the day Robert was locked into the church?'

'Humfrey Charlecote, my dear? The dearest, most good-hearted man that ever lived. Everybody liked him. There was no one that did not feel as if they had lost a brother when he was taken off in that sudden way.'

'And was not he very wise, mamma?'

'Bless me, Phoebe, what could have put that into your head? Humfrey Charlecote a wise man? He was just a common, old-fashioned, hearty country squire. It was only that he was so friendly and kind-hearted that made every one trust him, and ask his advice.'

'I should like to have known him,' said Phoebe, with a sigh.

'Ah, if you married any one like that! But there's no use waiting!

There's n.o.body left like him, and I won't have you an old maid! You are prettier than either of your sisters--more like me when I came away from Miss Berrilees, and had a gold-sprigged muslin for the a.s.size Ball, and Humfrey Charlecote danced with me.'

Phoebe fell into speculations on the wisdom whose counsel all asked, and which had left such an impression of affectionate honour. She would gladly lean on such an one, but if no one of the like mould remained, she thought she could never bear the responsibilities of marriage.

Meantime she erected Humfrey Charlecote's image into a species of judge, laying before this vision of a wise man all her perplexities between Miss Charlecote's religion and Miss Fennimore's reason, and all her practical doubts between Robert's conflicting duties. Strangely enough, the question, 'What would Mr. Charlecote have thought?' often aided her to cast the balance. Though it was still Phoebe who decided, it was Phoebe drawn out of herself, and strengthened by her mask.

With vivid interest, such as for a living man would have amounted to love, she seized and h.o.a.rded each particle of intelligence that she could gain respecting the object of her admiration. Honora herself, though far more naturally enthusiastic, had, with her dreamy nature and diffused raptures, never been capable of thus reverencing him, nor of the intensity of feeling of one whose restrained imagination and unromantic education gave force to all her sensations. Yet this deep individual regard was a more wholesome tribute than Honor had ever paid to him, or to her other idol, for to Phoebe it was a step, lifting her to things above and beyond, a guide on the road, never a vision obscuring the true object.

Six weeks had quietly pa.s.sed, when, like a domestic thunderbolt, came Juliana's notification of her intention to return home at the end of a week. Mrs. Fulmort, clinging to her single thread of comfort, hoped that Phoebe might still be allowed to come to her boudoir, but the gentlemen more boldly declared that they wanted Phoebe, and would not have her driven back into the schoolroom; to which the mother only replied with fears that Juliana would be in a dreadful temper, whereon Mervyn responded, 'Let her! Never mind her, Phoebe. Stick up for yourself, and we'll put her down.'

Except for knowing that she was useful to her mother, Phoebe would have thankfully retired into the west wing, rather than have given umbrage.

Mervyn's partisanship was particularly alarming, and, endeavour as she might to hope that Juliana would be amiable enough to be disarmed by her own humility and un.o.btrusiveness, she lived under the impression of disagreeables impending.

One morning at breakfast, Mr. Fulmort, after grumbling out his wonder at Juliana's writing to him, suddenly changed his tone into, 'Hollo! what's this? "My engagement--"'

'By Jove!' shouted Mervyn; 'too good to be true. So she's done it. I didn't think he'd been such an a.s.s, having had one escape.'

'Who?' continued Mr. Fulmort, puzzling, as he held the letter far off--'engagement to dear--dear Devil, does she say?'

'The only fit match,' muttered Mervyn, laughing. 'No, no, sir!

Bevil--Sir Bevil Acton.'

'What! not the fellow that gave us so much trouble! He had not a sixpence; but she must please herself now.'

'You don't mean that you didn't know what she went with the Merivales for?--five thousand a year and a baronetcy, eh?'

'The deuce! If I had known that, he might have had her long ago.'

'It's quite recent,' said Mervyn. 'A mere chance; and he has been knocking about in the colonies these ten years--might have cut his wisdom teeth.'

'Ten years--not half-a-dozen!' said Mr. Fulmort.

'Ten!' reiterated Mervyn. 'It was just before I went to old Raymond's.

Acton took me to dine at the mess. He was a nice fellow then, and deserved better luck.'

'Ten years' constancy!' said Phoebe, who had been looking from one to the other in wonder, trying to collect intelligence. 'Do tell me.'

'Whew!' whistled Mervyn. 'Juliana hadn't her sharp nose nor her sharp tongue when first she came out. Acton was quartered at Elverslope, and got smitten. She flirted with him all the winter; but I fancy she didn't give you much trouble when he came to the point, eh, sir?'

'I thought him an impudent young dog for thinking of a girl of her prospects; but if he had this to look to!--I was sorry for him, too! Ten years ago,' mused Mr. Fulmort.

'And she has liked no one since?'

'Or no one has liked her, which comes to the same,' said Mervyn. 'The regiment went to the Cape, and there was an end of it, till we fell in with the Merivales on board the steamer; and they mentioned their neighbour, Sir Bevil Acton, come into his property, and been settled near them a year or two. Fine sport it was, to see Juliana angling for an invitation, brushing up her friendship with Minnie Merivale--amiable to the last degree! My stars! what work she must have had to play good temper all these six weeks, and how we shall have to pay for it!'

'Or Acton will,' said Mr. Fulmort, with a hearty chuckle of triumphant good-humour.

Was it a misfortune to Phoebe to have been so much refined by education as to be grated on by the vulgar tone of those nearest to her? It was well for her that she could still put it aside as their way, even while following her own instinct. Mervyn and Juliana had been on cat and dog terms all their lives; he was certain to sneer at all that concerned her, and Phoebe reserved her belief that an attachment, nipped in the bud, was ready to blossom in sunshine. She ran up with the news to her mother.

'Juliana going to be married! Well, my dear, you may be introduced at once! How comfortable you and I shall be in the little brougham.'

Phoebe begged to be told what the intended was like.

'Let me see--was he the one that won the steeple-chase? No; that was the one that Augusta liked. We knew so many young men, that I could never tell which was which; and your sisters were always talking about them till it quite ran through my poor head, such merry girls as they were!'