Hopes and Fears Part 117

His lodgings were in the City, where he would be occupied for some time in more formally mapping out and reporting on the various lines proposed for the G. O. and S. line; and finding how necessary young Randolf still was to the invalid, he willingly agreed to the proposal that while Miss Charlecote continued in London, the young man should continue to sleep and spend his evenings in Woolstone-lane.

CHAPTER XXIX

Have you seen but a bright lily grow, Before rude hands have touched it?

Have you marked but the fall of the snow, Before the soil hath s.m.u.tched it?--BEN JONSON

At the end of a week Mervyn made his appearance in a vehement hurry.

Cecily's next sister, an officer's wife, was coming home with two little children, for a farewell visit before going to the Cape, and Maria and Bertha must make way for her. So he wanted to take Phoebe home that afternoon to get the Underwood ready for them.

'Mervyn, how can I go? I am not nearly ready.'

'What can you have been doing then?' he exclaimed, with something of his old temper.

'This house has been in such a state.'

'Well, you were not wanted to nurse the sick man, were you? I thought you were one that was to be trusted. What more is there to do?'

Phoebe looked at her list of commissions, and found herself convicted.

Those patterns ought to have been sent back two days since. What had she been about? Listening to Mr. Randolf's explanations of the _Hiawatha_ scenery! Why had she not written a note about that hideous hearth-rug?

Because Mr. Randolf was looking over Stowe's _Survey of London_.

Methodical Phoebe felt herself in disgrace, and yet, somehow, she could not be sorry enough; she wanted a reprieve from exile at Hiltonbury, alone and away from all that was going on. At least she should hear whether _Macbeth_, at the Princess's Theatre, fulfilled Mr. Randolf's conceptions of it; and if Mr. Currie approved his grand map of the Newcastle district, with the little trees that she had taught him to draw.

Perhaps it was the first time that Mervyn had been justly angry with her; but he was so much less savage than in his injustice that she was very much ashamed and touched; and finally, deeply grateful for the grace of this one day in which to repair her negligence, provided she would be ready to start by seven o'clock next morning. Hard and diligently she worked, and very late she came home. As she was on her way up-stairs she met Robert coming out of Owen's room.

'Phoebe,' he said, turning with her into her room, 'what is the matter with Lucy?'

'The matter?'

'Do you mean that you have not observed how ill she is looking?'

'No; nothing particular.'

'Phoebe, I cannot imagine what you have been thinking about. I thought you would have saved her, and helped Miss Charlecote, and you absolutely never noticed her looks!'

'I am very sorry. I have been so much engaged.'

'Absorbed, you should call it! Who would have thought you would be so heedless of her?'

He was gone. 'Still crazy about Lucy,' was Phoebe's first thought; her second, 'Another brother finding me heedless and selfis.h.!.+ What can be the matter with me?' And when she looked at Lucilla with observant eyes, she did indeed recognize the justice of Robert's anxiety and amazement.

The brilliant prettiness had faded away as if under a blight, the eyes were sinking into purple hollows, the att.i.tude was listless, the whole air full of suffering. Phoebe was dismayed and conscience-stricken, and would fain have offered inquiries and sympathy, but no one had more thoroughly than Lucy the power of repulsion. 'No, nothing was amiss--of course she felt the frost. She would not speak to Honor--there was nothing to speak about;' and she went up to her brother's room.

Mr. Randolf was out with Mr. Currie, and Phoebe, still exceedingly busy writing notes and orders, and packing for her journey, did not know that there was an unconscious resolution in her own mind that her business _should_ not be done till he came home, were it at one o'clock at night!

He did come at no unreasonable hour, and found her fastening directions upon the pile of boxes in the hall.

'What are you doing? Miss Charlecote is not going away?'

'No; but I am going to-morrow.'

'You!'

'Yes; I must get into our new house, and receive my sisters there the day after to-morrow.'

'I thought you lived with Miss Charlecote.'

'Is it possible that you did not know what I have been doing all this week?'

'Were you not preparing a house for your brother?'

'Yes, and another for myself. Did you not understand that we set up housekeeping separately upon his marriage?'

'I did not understand,' said Humfrey Randolf, disconsolately. 'You told me you owed everything to Miss Charlecote.'

'I am afraid your colonial education translated that into pounds s. d.'

'Then you are not poor?'

'No, not exactly,' said Phoebe, rather puzzled and amused by his downcast air.

'But,' he exclaimed, 'your brother is in business; and Mr. Fulmort of St.

Matthew's--'

'Mr. Fulmort of St. Matthew's is poor because he gave all to St.

Matthew's,' said Phoebe; 'but our business is not a small one, and the property in the country is large.'

He pasted on her last direction in disconsolate silence, then reading, 'Miss Fulmort, The Underwood, Hiltonbury, Elverslope Station,' resumed with fresh animation, 'At least you live near Miss Charlecote?'

'Yes, we are wedged in between her park and our own--my brother's, I mean.'

'That is all right then! She has asked me for Christmas.'

'I am very glad of it,' said Phoebe. 'There, thank you, good night.'

'Is there nothing more that I can do for you?'

'Nothing--no, no, don't hammer that down, you will wake Owen. Good night, good-bye; I shall be gone by half-past six.'

Though Phoebe said good-bye, she knew perfectly well that the hours of the morning were as nothing to the backwoodsman, and with spirits greatly exhilarated by the Christmas invitation, she went to bed, much too sleepy to make out why her wealth seemed so severe a shock to Humfrey Randolf.

The six o'clock breakfast was well attended, for Miss Charlecote was there herself, as well as the Canadian, Phoebe, and Mervyn, who was wonderfully amiable considering the hour in the morning. Phoebe felt in some slight degree less unfeeling when she found that Lucilla's fading looks had been no more noticed by Miss Charlecote than by herself; but Honor thought Owen's illness accounted for all, and only promised that the doctor should inspect her.

A day of exceeding occupation ensued. Mervyn talked the whole way of Cecily, his plans and his prospects; and Phoebe had to draw her mind out of one world and immerse it into another, straining ears and voice all the time to hear and be heard through the roar of the train. He left her at the cottage: and then began the work of the day, presiding over upholsterers, hanging pictures, arranging books, settling cabinets of collections, disposing of ornaments, s.n.a.t.c.hing meals at odd times, in odder places, and never daring to rest till long after dark, when, with fingers freshly purified from dust, limbs stiff with running up and down stairs, and arms tired with heavy weights, she sat finally down before the drawing-room fire with her solitary cup of coffee, and a book that she was far too weary to open.

Had she never been tired before, that her heart should sink in this unaccountable way? Why could she not be more glad that her sisters were coming home, and dear Miss Fennimore? What made every one seem so dull and stupid, and the comings and goings so oppressive, as if everything would be hateful till Christmas? Why had she belied all her previous good character for method and punctuality of late, and felt as if existence only began when--one person was in the room?

Oh! can this be falling in love?