Hopes and Fears Part 30

Honor made a playful face of utter repudiation of the maxim, but meeting him on his own ground emphasized 'FAIR and WELL dressed--that is, appropriately.'

'That is what brings me here, said Owen, turning round, as the changeful silks, already asked for, were laid on the counter before them.

It was an amusing shopping. The gentleman's object was to direct the taste of both ladies, but his success was not the same. Honora's first affections fell upon a handsome black, enlivened by beautiful blue flowers in the flounces; but her tyrant scouted it as a 'dingy dowager,'

and overruled her into choosing a delicate lavender, insisting that if it were less durable, so much the better for her friends, and domineering over the black lace accompaniments with a solemn tenderness that made her warn him in a whisper that people were taking her for his ancient bride, thus making him some degrees more drolly attentive; settling her head-gear with the lady of the shop, without reference to her. After all, it was very charming to be so affectionately made a fool of, and it was better for her children as well as due to the house of Charlecote that she should not be a dowdy country cousin.

Meantime, Phoebe stood by amused, admiring, a.s.sisting, but not at all bewildered. Miss Fennimore had impressed the maxim; 'Always know what you mean to do, and do it.' She had never chosen a dress before, but that did not hinder her from having a mind and knowing it; she had a reply for each silk that Owen suggested, and the moment her turn came, she desired to see a green glace. In vain he exclaimed, and drew his favourites in front of her, in vain appealed to Miss Charlecote and the shopman; she laughed him off, took but a moment to reject each proffered green which did not please her, and in as brief a s.p.a.ce had recognized the true delicate pale tint of ocean. It was one that few complexions could have borne, but their connoisseur, with one glance from it to her fresh cheek, owned her right, though much depended on the garniture, and he again brought forward his beloved lilac, insinuating that he should regard her selection of it as a personal attention. No; she laughed, and said she had made up her mind and would not change; and while he was presiding over Honora's black lace, she was beforehand with him, and her bill was being made out for her white muslin worked mantle, white bonnet with a tuft of lady gra.s.s, white evening dress, and wreath of lilies of the valley.

'Green and white, forsaken quite,' was the best revenge that occurred to him, and Miss Charlecote declared herself ashamed that the old lady's dress had caused so much more fuss than the young lady's.

It was of course too late for the Exhibition, so they applied themselves to further shopping, until Owen had come to the farthest point whence he could conveniently walk back to dine with his cousins, and go with them to the opera, and he expended some vituperation upon Ratia for an invitation which had prevented Phoebe from being asked to join the party.

Phoebe was happy enough without it, and though not morbidly bashful, felt that at present it was more comfortable to be under Miss Charlecote's wing than that of Lucilla, and that the quiet evening was more composing than fresh scenes of novelty.

The Woolstone-lane world was truly very different from that of which she had had a glimpse, and quite as new to her. Mr. Parsons, after his partial survey, was considering of possibilities, or more truly of endeavours at impossibilities, a mission to that dreadful population, means of discovering their sick, of reclaiming their children, of causing the true Light to s.h.i.+ne in that frightful gross darkness that covered the people. She had never heard anything yet discussed save on the principle of self-pleasing or self-aggrandizement; here, self-spending was the axiom on which all the problems were worked.

After dinner, Mr. Parsons retired into the study, and while his wife and Miss Charlecote sat down for a friendly gossip over the marriages of the two daughters, Phoebe welcomed an unrestrained _tete-a-tete_ with her brother. They were one on either seat of the old oriel window, she, with her work on her lap, full of pleasant things to tell him, but pausing as she looked up, and saw his eyes far far away, as he knelt on the cus.h.i.+on, his elbows on the sill of the open lattice, one hand supporting his chin, the other slowly erecting his hair into the likeness of the fretful porcupine. He had heard of, but barely a.s.sented to, the morrow's dinner, or the _fete_ at Castle Blanch; he had not even asked her how Lucilla looked; and after waiting for some time, she said, as a feeler--'You go with us to-morrow?'

'I suppose I must.'

'Lucy said so much in her pretty way about catching the robin, that I am sure she was vexed at your not having called.'

No answer: his eyes had not come home.

Presently he mumbled something so much distorted by the compression of his chin, and by his face being out of window, that his sister could not make it out. In answer to her sound of inquiry, he took down one hand, removed the other from his temple, and emitting a modic.u.m more voice from between his teeth, said, 'It is plain--it can't be--'

'What can't be? Not--Lucy?' gasped Phoebe.

'I can't take shares in the business.'

Her look of relief moved him to explain, and drawing himself in, he sat down on his own window-seat, stretching a leg across, and resting one foot upon that where she was placed, so as to form a sort of barrier, shutting themselves into a sense of privacy.

'I can't do it,' he repeated, 'not if my bread depended on it.'

'What is the matter?'

'I have looked into the books, I have gone over it with Rawlins.'

'You don't mean that we are going to be ruined?'

'Better that we were than to go on as we do! Phoebe, it is wickedness.'

There was a long pause. Robert rested his brow on his hand, Phoebe gazed intently at him, trying to unravel the idea so suddenly presented. She had reasoned it out before he looked up, and she roused him by softly saying, 'You mean that you do not like the manufacture of spirits because they produce so much evil.'

Though he did not raise his head, she understood his affirmation, and went on with her quiet logic, for, poor girl, hers was not the happy maiden's defence--'What my father does cannot be wrong.' Without condemning her father, she instinctively knew that weapon was not in her armoury, and could only betake herself to the merits of the case. 'You know how much rather I would see you a clergyman, dear Robin,' she said; 'but I do not understand why you change your mind. We always knew that spirits were improperly used, but that is no reason why none should be made, and they are often necessary.'

'Yes,' he answered; 'but, Phoebe, I have learnt to-day that our trade is not supported by the lawful use of spirits. It is the ministry of h.e.l.l.'

Phoebe raised her startled eyes in astonished inquiry.

'I would have credited nothing short of the books, but there I find that not above a fifth part of our manufacture goes to respectable houses, where it is applied properly. The profitable traffic, which it is the object to extend, is the supply of the gin palaces of the city. The leases of most of those you see about here belong to the firm, it supplies them, and gains enormously on their receipts. It is to extend the dealings in this way that my legacy is demanded.'

The enormity only gradually beginning to dawn upon Phoebe, all she said was a meditative--'You would not like that.'

'You did not realize it,' he said, nettled at her quiet tone. 'Do not you understand? You and I, and all of us, have eaten and drunk, been taught more than we could learn, lived in a fine house, and been made into ladies and gentlemen, all by battening on the vice and misery of this wretched population. Those unhappy men and women are lured into the gaudy palaces at the corners of the streets to purchase a moment's oblivion of conscience, by stinting their children of bread, that we may wear fine clothes, and call ourselves county people.'

'Do not talk so, Robert,' she exclaimed, trembling; 'it cannot be right to say such things--'

'It is only the bare fact! it is no pleasure to me to accuse my own father, I a.s.sure you, Phoebe, but I cannot blind myself to the simple truth.'

'He cannot see it in that light.'

'He _will_ not.'

'Surely,' faltered Phoebe, 'it cannot be so bad when one does not know it is--'

'So far true. The conscience does not waken quickly to evils with which our lives have been long familiar.'

'And Mervyn was brought up to it--'

'That is not my concern,' said Robert, too much in the tone of 'Am I my brother's keeper?'

'You will at least tell your reasons for refusing.'

'Yes, and much I shall be heeded! However, my own hands shall be pure from the wages of iniquity. I am thankful that all I have comes from the Mervyns.'

'It is a comfort, at least, that you see your way.'

'I suppose it is;' but he sighed heavily, with a sense that it was almost profanation to have set such a profession in the balance against the sacred ministry.

'I know _she_ will like it best.'

Dear Phoebe! in spite of Miss Fennimore, faith must still have been much stronger than reason if she could detect the model parsoness in yonder firefly.

Poor child, she went to bed, pondering over her brother's terrible discoveries, and feeling as though she had suddenly awakened to find herself implicated in a web of iniquity; her delightful parcel of purchases lost their charms, and oppressed her as she thought of them in connection with the rags of the squalid children the rector had described, and she felt as if there were no escape, and she could never be happy again under the knowledge of the price of her luxuries, and the dread of judgment. 'Much good had their wealth done them,' as Robert truly said. The house of Beauchamp had never been nearly so happy as if their means had been moderate. Always paying court to their own station, or they were disunited among themselves, and not yet amalgamated with the society to which they had attained, the younger ones pa.s.sing their elders in cultivation, and every discomfort of change of position felt, though not acknowledged. Even the mother, lady as she was by birth, had only belonged to the second-rate cla.s.s of gentry, and while elevated by wealth, was lowered by connection, and not having either mind or strength enough to stand on her own ground, trod with an ill-a.s.sured foot on that to which she aspired.

Not that all this crossed Phoebe's mind. There was merely a dreary sense of depression, and of living in the midst of a grievous mistake, from which Robert alone had the power of disentangling himself, and she fell asleep sadly enough; but, fortunately, sins, committed neither by ourselves, nor by those for whom we are responsible, have not a lasting power of paining; and she rose up in due time to her own calm suns.h.i.+ny spirit of antic.i.p.ation of the evening's meeting between Robin and Lucy--to say nothing of her own first dinner-party.

CHAPTER IV

And instead of 'dearest Miss,'

Jewel, honey, sweetheart, bliss, And those forms of old admiring, Call her c.o.c.katrice and siren.--C. LAMB

The ladies of the house were going to a ball, and were in full costume: Eloisa a study for the Arabian Nights, and Lucilla in an azure gossamer-like texture surrounding her like a cloud, turquoises on her arms, and blue and silver ribbons mingled with her blonde tresses.

Very like the clergyman's wife!