Hopes and Fears Part 81

Mrs. Prendergast was less pleased after than before this promise. It was again that freedom of expression that the girl had learnt among the Charterises, and the ideas that she accepted as mere matters of course, that jarred upon the matron, whose secluded life had preserved her in far truer refinement. She did not know how to reply, and, as a means of ending the discussion, gave her Mr. Prendergast's letter, but was amazed at her reception of it.

'Pa.s.sed the living! Famous! He will stick to Wrapworth to the last gasp! That is fidelity! Pray tell him so from me.'

'You had better send your message through Dr. Prendergast. We cannot but be disappointed, though I understand your feeling for Wrapworth, and we are sorry for the dispirited tone about the letter.'

'Well he may be, all alone there, and seeing poor Castle Blanch going to rack and ruin. I could cry about it whenever I think of it; but how much worse would it have been if he had deserted too! As long as he is in the old vicarage there is a home spot to me in the world! Oh, I thank him, I do thank him for standing by the old place to the last.'

'It is preposterous,' thought Mrs. Prendergast. 'I won't tell the Doctor. He would think it so foolish in him, and improper in her; I verily believe it is her influence that keeps him at Wrapworth! He cannot bear to cross her wishes nor give her pain. Well, I am thankful that Sarah is neither beautiful nor attractive.'

Sincere was Lucilla's intention to resume her regular habits, and put a stop to Francis Beaumont's attentions, but the attraction had already gone so far that repression rendered him the more a.s.siduous, and often bore the aspect (if it were not absolutely the coyness) of coquetry.

While deprecating from her heart any attachment on his part, her vanity was fanned at finding herself in her present position as irresistible as ever, and his eagerness to obtain a smile or word from her was such an agreeable t.i.tillation, that everything else became flat, and her hours in the schoolroom an imprisonment. Sarah's methodical earnestness in study bored her, and she was sick of restraint and application. Nor was this likely to be merely a pa.s.sing evil, for Francis's parents were in India, and Southminster was his only English home. Nay, even when he had returned to his tutor, Lucilla was not restored to her better self. Her craving for excitement had been awakened, and her repugnance to mental exertion had been yielded to. The routine of lessons had become bondage, and she sought every occasion of variety, seeking to outshine and dazzle the ladies of Southminster, playing off Castle Blanch fascinations on curates and minor canons, and sometimes flying at higher game, even beguiling the Dean himself into turning over her music when she sang.

She had at first, by the use of all her full-grown faculties, been just able to keep sufficiently ahead of her pupil; but her growing indolence soon caused her to slip back, and not only did she let Sarah shoot ahead of her, but she became impatient of the girl's habits of accuracy and research; she would give careless and vexatious answers, insist petulantly on correcting by the ear, make light of Sarah and her grammar, and hastily reject or hurry from the maps, dictionaries, and cyclopaedias with which Sarah's training had taught her to read and learn. But her dislike of trouble in supporting an opinion did not make her the less pertinacious in upholding it, and there were times when she was wrathful and petulant at Sarah's presumption in maintaining the contrary, even with all the authorities in the bookshelves to back her.

Sarah's temper was not her prime quality, and altercations began to run high. Each dispute that took place only prepared the way for another, and Mrs. Prendergast, having taken a governess chiefly to save her daughter from being fretted by interruptions, found that her annoyances were tenfold increased, and irritations were almost habitual. They were the more disappointing because the girl preserved through them all such a pa.s.sionate admiration for her beautiful and charming little governess, that, except in the very height of a squabble, she still believed her perfection, and was her most vehement partisan, even when the wrong had been chiefly on the side of the teacher.

On the whole, in spite of this return to old faults, Lucilla was improved by her residence at Southminster. Defiance had fallen into disuse, and the habit of respect and affection had softened her and lessened her pride; there was more devotional temper, and a greater desire after a religious way of life. It might be that her fretfulness was the effect of an uneasiness of mind, which was more hopeful than her previous fierce self-satisfaction, and that her aberrations were the last efforts of old evil habits to re-establish their grasp by custom, when her heart was becoming detached from them.

Be that as it might, Mrs. Prendergast's first duty was to her child, her second to the nephew intrusted to her, and love and pity as she might, she felt that to retain Lucilla was leading all into temptation. Her husband was slow to see the verification of her reluctant opinion, but he trusted to her, and it only remained to part as little harshly or injuriously as might be.

An opening was afforded when, in October, Mrs. Prendergast was entreated by the widow of one of her brothers to find her a governess for two girls of twelve and ten, and two boys younger. It was at a country-house, so much secluded that such temptations as at Southminster were out of reach, and the younger pupils were not likely to try her temper in the same way as Sarah had done.

So Mrs. Prendergast tenderly explained that Sarah, being old enough to pursue her studies alone, and her sister, Mrs. Willis Beaumont, being in distress for a governess, it would be best to transfer Miss Sandbrook to her. Lucilla turned a little pale, but gave no other sign, only answering, 'Thank you,' and 'Yes,' at fit moments, and acceding to everything, even to her speedy departure at the end of a week.

She left the room in silence, more stunned than even by Robert's announcement, and with less fict.i.tious strength to brave the blow that she had brought on herself. She repaired to the schoolroom, and leaning her brow against the window-pane, tried to gather her thoughts, but scarcely five minutes had pa.s.sed before the door was thrown back, and in rushed Sarah, pa.s.sionately exclaiming--

'It's my fault! It's all my fault! Oh, Miss Sandbrook, dearest Miss Sandbrook, forgive me! Oh! my temper! my temper! I never thought--I'll go to papa! I'll tell him it is my doing! He will never--never be so unjust and cruel!'

'Sarah, stand up; let me go, please,' said Lucy, unclasping the hands from her waist. 'This is not right. Your father and mother both think the same, and so do I. It is just that I should go--'

'You shan't say so! It is my crossness! I won't let you go. I'll write to Peter! He won't let you go!' Sarah was really beside herself with despair, and as her mother advanced, and would have spoken, turned round sharply, 'Don't, don't, mamma; I won't come away unless you promise not to punish her for my temper. You have minded those horrid, wicked, gossiping ladies. I didn't think you would.'

'Sarah,' said Lucilla, resolutely, 'going mad in this way just shows that I am doing you no good. You are not behaving properly to your mother.'

'She never acted unjustly before.'

'That is not for you to judge, in the first place; and in the next, she acts justly. I feel it. Yes, Sarah, I do; I have not done my duty by you, and have quarrelled with you when your industry shamed me. All my old bad habits are come back, and your mother is right to part with me.'

'There! there, mamma; do you hear that?' sobbed Sarah, imploringly.

'When she speaks in that way, can you still--? Oh! I know I was disrespectful, but you can't--you can't think that was her fault!'

'It was,' said Lucilla, looking at Mrs. Prendergast. 'I know she has lost the self-control she once had. Sarah, this is of no use. I would go now, if your mother begged me to stay--and that,' she added, with her firm smile, 'she is too wise to do. If you do not wish to pain me, and put me to shame, do not let me have any more such exhibitions.'

Pale, ashamed, discomfited, Sarah turned away, and not yet able to govern herself, rushed into her room.

'Poor Sarah!' said her mother. 'You have rare powers of making your pupils love you, Miss Sandbrook.'

'If it were for their good,' sighed Lucilla.

'It has been much for her good; she is far less uncouth, and less exclusive. And it will be more so, I hope. You will still be her friend, and we shall often see you here.'

Lucilla's tears were dropping fast; and looking up, she said with difficulty--'Don't mind this; I know it is right; I have not deserved the happy home you have given me here. Where I am less happy, I hope I may keep a better guard on myself. I thought the old ways had been destroyed, but they are too strong still, and I ought to suffer for them.'

Never in all her days had Lucilla spoken so humbly!

CHAPTER XVII

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. .h.i.therto 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 antic.i.p.ation, 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 superst.i.tion, 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 superst.i.tion, 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. n.o.body 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 G.o.d 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.