Hopes and Fears Part 96

The guardian, Mr. Crabbe, came as soon as his gout would permit, and hemmed and grunted in reply to the strange narrative into which he had come to inquire. Acting was as yet impossible; Mervyn was forbidden to transact business, and Bertha was far too ill for the removal of the young ladies to be attempted. Miss Fennimore did indeed formally give in her resignation of her situation, but she was too necessary as a nurse for the time of her departure to be fixed, and Mr. Crabbe was unable to settle anything definitively. He found Robert--who previously had spurred him to strong measures--bent on persuading him to lenity, and especially on keeping Phoebe with Mervyn; and after a day and night of perplexity, the old gentleman took his leave, promising to come again on Bertha's recovery, and to pacify the two elder sisters by representing the condition of Beauchamp, and that for the present the Inc.u.mbent of St.

Matthew's and Miss Charlecote might be considered as sufficient guardians for the inmates. 'Or if their Ladyships thought otherwise,' he said, with a twinkle in his eye, 'why did they not come down themselves?'

Mervyn made a gesture of horror, but all knew that there was little danger. Augusta was always 'so low' at the sight of illness, and unless Phoebe had been the patient out of sight, Juliana would not have brought her husband; obvious as would have been the coming of an elder sister when the sickness of the younger dragged on so slowly and wearily.

No one went through so much as Miss Fennimore. Each hour of her attendance on Bertha stamped the sense of her own failure, and of the fallacies to which her life had been dedicated. The sincerity, honour, and modesty that she had inculcated, had been founded on self-esteem alone; and when they had proved inadequate to prevent their breach, their outraged relics had prompted the victim to despair and die. Intellectual development and reasoning powers had not availed one moment against inclination and self-will, and only survived in the involuntary murmurs of a disordered nervous system. All this had utterly overthrown that satisfaction in herself and her own moral qualities in which Miss Fennimore had always lived; she had become sensible of the deep flaws in all that she had admired in her own conduct; and her reason being already prepared by her long and earnest study to accept the faith in its fulness, she had begun to crave after the Atoning Mercy of which she sorely felt the need. But if it be hard for one who has never questioned to take home individually the efficacy of the great Sacrifice, how much harder for one taught to deny the G.o.dhead which rendered the Victim worthy to satisfy Eternal Justice? She accepted the truth, but the gracious words would not reach her spirit; they were to her as a feast in a hungry man's dream. Robert alone was aware of the struggles through which she was pa.s.sing, and he could do little in direct aid of her; the books--even the pa.s.sages of Scripture that he found for her--seemed to fall short; it was as though the sufferer in the wilderness lay in sight of the brazen serpent, but his eyes were holden that he could not see it.

Only the governess's strong and untaxed health could have carried her through her distress and fatigue, for she continued to engross the most trying share of the nursing, anxious to shield Phoebe from even the knowledge of all the miseries of Bertha's nights, when the poor child would start on her pillow with a shriek, gaze wildly round, trembling in every limb, the dew starting on her brow, face well-nigh convulsed, teeth chattering, and strange, incoherent words--

'A dream, only a dream!' she murmured, recovering consciousness.

'What was only a dream?' asked Miss Fennimore, one night.

'Oh, nothing!' but she still shivered; then striving to catch hold of the broken threads of her philosophy, 'How one's imagination is a prey to--to--what is it? To--to old impressions--when one is weak.'

'What kind of impressions?' asked Miss Fennimore, resolved to probe the matter.

Bertha, whose defect of speech was greatly increased by weakness, was long in making her answer comprehensible; but Miss Fennimore gathered it at last, and it made her spirit quake, for it referred to the terrors beyond the grave. Yet she firmly answered--

'Such impressions may not always result from weakness.'

'I thought,' cried Bertha, rising on her elbow, 'I thought that an advanced state of civilization dispenses with sectarian--I mean superst.i.tious--literal threats.'

'No civilization can change those decrees, nor make them unmerited,' said Miss Fennimore, sadly.

'How?' repeated Bertha, frowning. 'You, too? You don't mean that? You are not one of the narrow minds that want to doom their fellow-creatures for ever.' Her eyes had grown large, round, and bright, and she clutched Miss Fennimore's hand, gasping, 'Say, not for ever!'

'My poor child! did I ever teach you it was not?'

'You thought so!' cried Bertha; 'enlightened people think so. O say--only say it does not last!'

'Bertha, I cannot. G.o.d forgive me for the falsehoods to which I led you, the realities I put aside from you.'

Bertha gave a cry of anguish, and sank back exhausted, damps of terror on her brow; but she presently cried out, 'If it would not last! I can't bear the thought! I can't bear to live, but I can't die! Oh! who will save me?'

To Miss Fennimore's lips rose the words of St. Paul to the jailer.

'Believe! believe!' cried Bertha, petulantly, 'believe what?'

'Believe that He gave His Life to purchase your safety and mine through that Eternity.'

And Miss Fennimore sank on her knees, weeping and hiding her face. The words which she had gazed at, and listened to, in vain longing, had--even as she imparted them--touched herself in their fulness. She had seen the face of Truth, when, at Mrs. Fulmort's death-bed, she had heard Phoebe speak of the Blood that cleanseth from all sin. Then it had been a moment's glimpse. She had sought it earnestly ever since, and at length it had come to nestle within her own bosom. It was not sight, it was touch--it was embracing and holding fast.

Alas! the sight was hidden from Bertha. She moodily turned aside in vexation, as though her last trust had failed her. In vain did Miss Fennimore, feeling that she had led her to the brink of an abyss of depth unknown, till she was tottering on the verge, lavish on her the most tender cares. They were requited with resentful gloom, that the governess felt to be so just towards herself that she would hardly have been able to lift up her head but for the new reliance that gave peace to deepening contrition.

That was a bad night, and the day was worse. Bertha had more strength, but more fever; and the much-enduring Phoebe could hardly be persuaded to leave her to Miss Charlecote at dusk, and air herself with her brothers in the garden. The weather was close and misty, and Honora set open the door to admit the air from the open pa.s.sage window. A low, soft, lulling sound came in, so much softened by distance that the tune alone showed that it was an infant school ditty sung by Maria, while rocking herself in her low chair over the school-room fire. Turning to discover whether the invalid were annoyed by it, Honor beheld the hard, keen little eyes intently fixed, until presently they filled with tears; and with a heavy sigh, the words broke forth, 'Oh! to be as silly as she is!'

'As _selig_, you mean,' said Honor, kindly.

'It is the same thing,' she said, with a bitter ring in her poor worn voice.

'No, it is not weakness that makes your sister happy. She was far less happy before she learnt to use her powers lovingly.'

With such earnestness that her stuttering was very painful to hear, she exclaimed, 'Miss Charlecote, I can't recollect things--I get puzzled--I don't say what I want to say. Tell me, is not my brain softening or weakening? You know Maria had water on the head once!' and her accents were pitiably full of hope.

'Indeed, my dear, you are not becoming like Maria.'

'If I were,' said Bertha, certainly showing no such resemblance, 'I suppose I should not know it. I wonder whether Maria be ever conscious of her _Ich_,' said she, with a weary sigh, as if this were a companion whence she could not escape.

'Dear child, your _Ich_ would be set aside by living to others, who only seek to make you happier.'

'I wish they would let me alone. If they had, there would have been an end of it.'

'An end--no indeed, my poor child!'

'There!' cried Bertha; 'that's what it is to live! To be shuddered at!'

'No, Bertha, I did not shudder at the wild delusion and indiscretion, which may be lived down and redeemed, but at the fearful act that would have cut you off from all hope, and chained you to yourself, and such a self, for ever, never to part from the shame whence you sought to escape.

Yes, surely there must have been pleading in Heaven to win for you that instant's relenting. Rescued twice over, there must be some work for you to do, something to cast into shade all that has pa.s.sed.'

'It will not destroy memory!' she said, with hopeless indifference.

'No; but you may be so occupied with it as to rise above your present pain and humiliation, and remember them only to gather new force from your thankfulness.'

'What, that I was made a fool of?' cried Bertha, with sharpness in her thin voice.

'That you were brought back to the new life that is before you.'

Though Bertha made no answer, Honor trusted that a beginning had been made, but only to be disappointed, for the fever was higher the next day, and Bertha was too much oppressed for speech. The only good sign was that in the dusk she desired that the door should be left open, in case Maria should be singing. It was the first preference she had evinced.

The brothers were ready to crown Maria, and she sang with such good-will that Phoebe was forced to take precautions, fearing lest the harmony should lose 'the modest charm of not too much.'

There ensued a decided liking for Maria's company, partly no doubt from her envied deficiency, and her ignorance of the extent of Bertha's misdemeanour, partly because there was less effort of mind in intercourse with her. Her pleasure in waiting on her sister was likewise so warm and grateful, that Bertha felt herself conferring a favour, and took everything from her in a spirit very different from the dull submission towards Miss Fennimore or the peevish tyranny over Phoebe. Towards no one else save Miss Charlecote did she show any favour, for though their conversation was never even alluded to, it had probably left a pleasant impression, and possibly she was entertained by Honor's systematic habit of talking of the world beyond to the other nurses in her presence.

But these likings were far more scantily shown than her dislikes, and it was hard for her attendants to acquiesce in the physician's exhortations to be patient till her spirits and nerves should have recovered the shock. Even the entrance of a new housemaid threw her into a trepidation which she was long in recovering, and any proposal of seeing any person beyond the few who had been with her from the first, occasioned trembling, entreaties, and tears.

Phoebe, after her brief heroineship, had lapsed into quite a secondary position. In the reaction of the brothers' feeling towards each other, they almost left her out. Both were too sure of her to be eager for her; and besides, as Bertha slowly improved, Mervyn's prime attention was lavished on the endeavour to find what would give her pleasure. And in the sick room, Miss Fennimore and Miss Charlecote could better rule; while Maria was preferred as a companion. Honor often admired to see how content Phoebe was to forego the privilege of waiting on her sister, preparing pleasures and comforts for her in the background, and committing them to the hands whence they would be most welcome, without a moment's grudge at her own distastefulness to the patient. She seemed to think it the natural consequence of the superiority of all the rest, and fully acquiesced. Sometimes a tear would rise for a moment at Bertha's rude petulance, but it was dashed off for a resolute smile, as if with the feeling of a child against tears, and she as plainly felt the background her natural position, as if she had never been prominent from circ.u.mstances. Whatever was to be done, she did it, and she was far more grateful to Mervyn for loving Robert and enduring Maria, than for any preference to herself. Always finding cause for thanks, she rejoiced even in the delay caused by Bertha's illness, and in Robert's stay in his brother's home, where she had scarcely dared to hope ever to have seen him again. Week after week he remained, constantly pressed by Mervyn to delay his departure, and not unwillingly yielding, since he felt that there was a long arrear of fraternal kindness to be made up, and that while St. Matthew's was in safe hands, he might justly consider that his paramount duty was to his brother and sisters in their present need. At length, however, the Lent services claimed him in London, and affairs at Beauchamp were so much mended, that Phoebe owned that they ought no longer to detain him from his parish, although Bertha was only able to be lifted to a couch, took little notice of any endeavour to interest her, and when he bade her farewell, hardly raised eye or hand in return.

CHAPTER XXII

When all is done or said, In th' end this shall you find, He most of all doth bathe in bliss That hath a quiet mind.--LORD VAUX

Robert had promised to return in the end of March to be present at the a.s.sizes, when the burglars would be tried, and he did not come alone.

Mr. Crabbe judged it time to inspect Beauchamp and decide for his wards; and Lady Bannerman, between Juliana's instigations, her own pride in being connected with a trial, and her desire to appropriate Phoebe, decided on coming down with the Admiral to see how matters stood, and to give her vote in the family council.

Commissions from Mervyn had pursued Robert since his arrival in town, all for Bertha's amus.e.m.e.nt, and he brought down, by special orders, a musical-box, all Leech's ill.u.s.trations, and a small Maltese dog, like a spun-gla.s.s lion, which Augusta had in vain proposed to him to exchange for her pug, which was getting fat and wheezy, and 'would amuse Bertha just as well.' Lady Bannerman hardly contained her surprise when Maria, as well as Mervyn and Phoebe, met her in the hall, seemingly quite tame and at her ease. Mervyn looked better, and in answer to inquiries for Bertha, answered, 'Oh, getting on, decidedly; we have her in the garden.

She might drive out, only she has such a horror of meeting any one; but her spirits are better, I really thought she would have laughed yesterday when Maria was playing with the kitten. Ha! the dog, have you got him, Robert. Well, if this does not amuse her, I do not know what will.'