Charlotte M. Yonge

“ Her life may perhaps be happier than that of many of more complete intellect.’
‘I ought not to cry,’ owned Phœbe, the tears quietly flowing all the time. ‘Such people cannot do wrong in the same way as we can.’
‘Ah! Phœbe, till we come to the infinite, how shall the finite pronounce what is wrong?’
Phœbe did not understand, but felt that she was not in Miss Charlecote’s atmosphere, and from the heavenly, ‘from him to whom little is given, little will be required,’ came to the earthly, and said, imploring, ‘And you will never be hard on her again!’
‘I trust I have not been hard on her. ”

“ Poor Robin will be so unhappy.’
Phœbe’s distress touched Lucilla.
‘Nonsense, you little goose; aren’t you woman enough yet to know that one flashes out at finding oneself labelled, and made over before one’s time?’
‘I’m glad if it was all my blundering,’ said Phœbe. ‘Dear Lucy, I was very wrong, but you see I always was so happy in believing it was understood!’
‘How stupid,’ cried Lucilla; ‘one would never have any fun; no, you haven’t tasted the sweets yet, or you would know one has no notion of being made sure of till one chooses! ”

“ You that have a mother can never know what it is to be like me! I’m keeping it all at bay, lest I should break down; but I’m in the horridest bother and trouble.’
Not knowing what might come next, ashamed of having listened to so much, yet with one gleam of renewed hope, Phœbe resolutely disobeyed Ratia’s frowns and gestures, and made her presence known by decided movements and words spoken aloud.
She saw the immediate effect in Edna Murrell’s violent start; but Lucilla, without moving, at once began to sing, straining her thin though sweet voice, as though to surmount a certain tremulousness. ”

“ And I am sure he likes me!’ said another whisper of the heart, which, veiled as was the lady in the mirror, made Phœbe put both hands over her face, in a shamefaced ecstatic consciousness. ‘Nay—I was the first lady he had seen, the only person to speak to. No, no; I know it was not that—I feel it was not! Why, otherwise, did he seem so sorry I was not poor? Oh! how nice it would be if I were! We could work for each other in his glorious new land of hope! I, who love work, was made for work! I don’t care for this mere young lady life! And must my trumpery thousand a year stand in the way? ”

“ Their uncle was right. I spoil every one.’
‘Pray do not say so. You have been our great blessing. If you knew how we wish to comfort you.’
‘You do comfort me. I can watch Robert realizing my visions for others, and you, my twilight moon, my autumn flower. But I must not love you too much, Phœbe. They all suffer for my inordinate affection. But it is too late to talk. Good night, sweet one.’
‘Shall you sleep?’ said Phœbe, wistfully lingering.
‘Yes; I don’t enter into it enough to be haunted. Ah! you have never learnt what it is to feel heavy with trouble. ”

“ Lucy, dear, do tell me whether you really like it, for I cannot fancy you so.’
‘Like it? Well, yes! I like the salmons, and I dote on the fun and the fuss. I say, Phœbe, can you bear the burden of a secret? Well—only mind, if you tell Robin or Honor, I shall certainly go; we never would have taken it up in earnest if such a rout had not been made about it, that we were driven to show we did not care, and could be trusted with ourselves.’
‘Then you don’t mean it?’
‘That’s as people behave themselves. Hush! Here comes Honor. Look here, Sweet Honey, I am in a process of selection. ”

“ Oh, how I longed for him to come and let me try to comfort him!’
‘And how is this to change my opinion,’ asked Robert, ‘except by showing me that no right-minded woman could trust herself with him?’
‘Oh, Robert, no! Sisters need not change, though others ought, perhaps. I meant you to see that he does love and honour goodness for itself, and so that he will guard his sisters.’
‘I will think so, Phœbe. You deserve to be believed, for you draw out his best points. For my own part, the miserable habits of our boyhood have left a habit of acrimony, of which, repent as I will, I cannot free myself. ”

“ The long, dark drives to the county gaieties, shut up with Mervyn and Cecily, were formidable by the mere existence of a topic, never mentioned, but always secretly dwelt on. And in spite of three letters a week, Phœbe was beginning to learn that trust does not fully make up to the heart for absence, by the distance of London to estimate that of Canada, and by the weariness of one month, the tedium of seven years!
‘Yet,’ said Bertha to Cecily, ‘Phœbe is so stupidly like herself now she is engaged, that it is no fun at all. Nobody would guess her to be in love! ”

“ Rashe lounging and yawning, laughing and quizzing, in a way amazing to Phœbe; Lucilla in the very summit of spirits, rattling and laughing away in full swing. Thence the party dispersed to dress, but Honora had no sooner reached her room than she said, ‘I must go and find Lucy. I must do my duty by her, little hope as I have. She has avoided me all day; I must seek her now.’
What a difference time and discipline had made in one formerly so timid and gentle as to be alarmed at the least encounter, and nervous at wandering about a strange house. ”

“ Owen insisted on hearing her meaning, and on her refusal to explain, used his superior strength to put her to sufficient torture to elicit an answer. ‘Don’t, Owen! Let go! There, then! Why, she was in love with our father, and nearly died of it when he married; and Rashe says of course she bullies me for being like my mother.’
‘She never bullies you,’ cried Owen, indignantly; ‘she’s much kinder to you than you deserve, and I hate Ratia for putting it into your head, and teaching you such nasty man’s words about my own Honor.’
‘Ah! you’ll never be a man while you are under her. ”

“ The last gleam of her youthful sunshine had faded with Humfrey; but youth is but a fraction of human existence, and there were further phases to be gone through and lessons to be learnt; although she was feeling as if all were over with her in this world, and neither hope, love, nor protection were left her, nor any interest save cherishing Humfrey Charlecote’s memory, as she sat designing the brass tablet which was to record his name and age in old English illuminated letters, surrounded by a border of ears of corn and grapes. ”

“ People that do everything at once never do anything well. It is quite a rest to turn to any one like you, Phœbe, who are content with one thing at a time! I wish—’
‘Well, then, let us dance,’ said Phœbe, abruptly; ‘I can’t do that well enough to talk too.’
It was not that Owen had not said the like things to her many times before; it was his eagerness and fervour that gave her an uncomfortable feeling. She was not sure that he was not laughing at her by putting on these devoted airs, and she felt herself grown up enough to put an end to being treated as a child. ”

“ What to you was not doubt, but desire for a reason for your hope, became in poor Bertha, not disbelief, but contempt and carelessness of what she did not feel. I shall never have a sense of rest, till you can tell me that she enters into your faith. I am chiefly reconciled to leaving her, because I trust that in her enfeebled, dependent state, she may become influenced by Miss Charlecote and by you.’
‘I cannot argue with her,’ said Phœbe. ‘When she is well, she can always puzzle me; I lose her when she gets to her ego. ”

“ For more than two years past good Miss Wells had been lying under the shade of Hiltonbury Church, taking with her Honora Charlecote’s last semblance of the dependence and deference of her young ladyhood. The kind governess had been fondly mourned, but she had not left her child to loneliness, for the brother and sister sat on either side, each with a particular pet—Lucilla’s, a large pointer, who kept his nose on her knee; Owen’s, a white fan-tailed pigeon, seldom long absent from his shoulder, where it sat quivering and bending backwards its graceful head. ”

“ There was a low murmur of voices, one soothing, the other half sobbing, but nothing reached the outer room distinctly, till, as Phœbe was holding a long wreath, which Ratia was tying up, she heard—‘Oh! but it is so different with me from you young ladies who are used to company and all. I dare say that young lady would not be timid.’
‘What young lady, Edna? Not the one with the auburn hair?’
Ratia made an ecstatic face which disgusted Phœbe.
‘Oh, no!—the young lady whom Mr. Sandbrook was helping. I dare say she would not mind singing—or anything,’ came amid sobs. ”

“ I don’t know what I shall do without my other glass of wine—when I am so low, too!’
‘A fine mistress of the house, indeed,’ said Lady Acton. ‘It is well Mervyn’s absurd notion is impossible.’
‘What was that? To keep us all?’ asked Phœbe, catching at the hope.
‘Not Maria nor the governess. You need not flatter yourself,’ said Juliana; ‘he said he wouldn’t have them at any price; and as to keeping house alone with a man of his character, even you may have sense to see it couldn’t be for a moment.’
‘Did Robert consent to Maria’s going to Hampstead?’ asked Phœbe. ”

“ Sandbrook and Captain Charteris were announced; and there entered a clergyman leading a little child in each hand. How changed from the handsome, hopeful youth from whom she had parted! Thin, slightly bowed, grief-stricken, and worn, she would scarcely have known him, and as if to hide how much she felt, she bent quickly, after shaking hands with him, to kiss the two children, flaxen-curled creatures in white, with black ribbons. They both shrank closer to their father. ‘Cilly, my love, Owen, my man, speak to Miss Charlecote,’ he said; ‘she is a very old friend of mine. ”

“ She had proved the truth of Honora’s warning, that beyond the pale of ordinary convenances, a woman is exposed to insult, and however sufficient she may be for her own protection, the very fact of having to defend herself is well-nigh degradation. It was not owning the error. It was the agony of humiliation, not the meekness of humility, and she was as angry with Miss Charlecote for the prediction as with Mr. Calthorp for having fulfilled it, enraged with Horatia, and desperate at her present imprisoned condition, unable to escape, and liable to be still haunted by her enemy. ”

“ The black silk and the lilac ribbon Owen and I chose for you; I must see you in it.’
‘Dear Miss Sandbrook, you are so kind! What shall I do when you have left?’
‘You are going yourself for the holidays, silly puss!’
‘Ah! but no one else sympathizes or enters into my feelings.’
‘Feelings!’ said Lucilla, lightly, yet sadly. ‘Don’t indulge in them, Edna; they are no end of a torment.’
‘Ah! but if they prey on one, one cannot help it.’
Rashe made a face of great distaste. Phœbe felt as if it were becoming too confidential to permit of listening, all the more as she heard Lucilla’s reply. ”

“ One lesson alone is read, in Charlecote Raymond’s fine, powerful voice, and many an eye is filled with tears at the words, ‘One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of us all,’ as he gazes on the troops on troops of young and old, rich and poor, strangers and homeborn, all held together in that great unity, typified by the overshadowing sky, and evidenced by the burst of the Creed from every voice and every heart. ”

“ You and Robert must take pity on him, if you please. Get him to Westminster Abbey, or the Temple Church, or somewhere worth seeing to-morrow. Don’t let them be extortionate of his waiting on me. I must learn to do without him.’
Phœbe promised, and went.
‘Phœbe is grown what one calls a fine young woman instead of a sweet girl,’ said Owen to his sister, when she next came into the room; ‘but she has managed to keep her innocent, half-wondering look, just as she has the freshness of her colour.’
‘Well, why not, when she has not had one real experience?’ said Lucilla, a little bitterly. ”

“ I have no power over you; but if you have any regard for her to whom your father confided you—nay, if you consult what you know would have been his wishes—you will give up this project.’
The luncheon-bell had already rung, and consideration for the busy clergyman compelled her to go down with these last words, feeling as if there were a leaden weight at her heart.
Lucilla remained standing before the glass, arranging her wind-tossed hair; and, in her vehemence, tearing out combfuls, as she pulled petulantly against the tangled curls. ‘Her old way—to come over me with my father! ”

“ How did he achieve it?’
‘Miss Fennimore is really quite ready to be kind,’ said Phœbe, earnestly, with an air of defence, ‘whenever we have finished all that we have to do.’
‘And when is that?’ asked Honor, smiling.
‘Now for once,’ answered Phœbe, with a bright arch look. ‘Yes, I sometimes can; and so does Bertha when she tries; and, indeed, Miss Charlecote, I do like Miss Fennimore; she never is hard upon poor Maria. No governess we ever had made her cry so seldom.’
Miss Charlecote only said it was a comfort. ”

“ Poor Robert! what an infliction! To hear of such a step, and be unable to interfere; to admire, yet not approve; to dread the consequences, and perceive so much alloy as to dull the glitter of the gold, as well as to believe his own stern precipitation as much the cause as Owen’s errors; yet all the time to be the friend and comforter to the wounded spirit of the brother! It was a severe task; and when Owen left him, he felt spent and wearied as by bodily exertion, as he hid his face in prayer for one for whom he could do no more than pray. ”