She was more like an applicant for office kept uncertain whether she was to have a desirable post or not, than a girl on the eve of a lover's declaration. This was her own conception of the circ.u.mstances. She did not dislike Clarence; quite the reverse. She had no sympathy with Ursula's impatience of his heavy vanity. Phoebe had been used to him all her life, and had never thought badly of the heavy boy whom she had been invited to amuse when she was six years old, and whom she had no particular objection to amuse still, let the others wonder at her as they might. Poor Reginald, contemplating bitterly her many little complacencies to his rival, set them down hastily to an appreciation of that rival's worldly advantages, which was not quite a just sentence. It was true, and yet it was not true; other feelings mingled in Phoebe's worldliness. She did, indeed, perceive and esteem highly the advantages which Clarence could give her; but she had not the objections to Clarence himself that the others had. She was willing, quite willing, to undertake the charge of him, to manage, and guide, and make a man of him. And yet, while it was not pure worldliness, much less was it actual love which moved her. It was a kind of habitual affection, as for the "poor thing, but mine own, sir," of the jester. He was but a poor creature, but Phoebe knew she could make something of him, and she had no distaste to the task. When she began to perceive that Reginald, in so many ways Clarence's superior, was at her disposal, a sense of gratification went through Phoebe's mind, and it certainly occurred to her that the feeling he might inspire would be a warmer and a more delightful one than that which would fall to Clarence Copperhead; but she was not tempted thereby to throw Clarence off for the other. No, she was pleased, and not unwilling to expend a little tender regret and grat.i.tude upon poor Reginald. She was ready to be "kind" to him, though every woman knows that is the last thing she ought to be to a rejected lover; and she was full of sympathy for the disappointment which, nevertheless, she fully intended was to be his lot. This seems paradoxical, but it is no more paradoxical than human creatures generally are. On this particular evening her heart beat very high on account of Clarence, to know if he would have strength of mind to hold his own against his father, and if he would come back to her and ask her, as she felt certain he meant to do, that one momentous question.

Her heart would not have been broken had he not done so, but still she would have been disappointed. Notwithstanding when the evening came, the absence of Clarence was a relief to Phoebe as well as to the rest of the party, and she gave herself up to the pleasures of a few hours of half-tender intercourse with Reginald, with a sense of enjoyment such as she seldom felt. This was very wrong, there is no denying it, but still so it was. She was anxious that Clarence should come back to her, and ask her to be his wife; and yet she was pleased to be rid of Clarence, and to give her whole attention and sympathy to Reginald, trying her best to please him. It was very wrong; and yet such things have happened before, and will again; and are as natural, perhaps, as the more absolute and unwavering pa.s.sion which has no doubt of its object, pa.s.sion like Northcote's, who had neither eyes nor ears for anything but Ursula. The four were alone together that evening, and enjoyed it thoroughly. Clarence was away, who, to all but Phoebe, was an interruption of their intercourse; and Mr. May was away in his study, too much absorbed to think of any duties that ought to have devolved upon him as chaperon; and even Janey was out of the way, taking tea with Mrs. Hurst. So the two young pairs sat round the table and talked; the girls, with a mutual panic, which neither breathed to the other, keeping together, avoiding separation into pairs. Ursula out of very shyness and fright alone, lest another chapter of the strange, novel, too moving love-tale might be poured into her ears; but Phoebe with more settled purpose, to prevent any disclosure on the part of Reginald. The evening was mixed up of pleasure and pain to the two young men, each eager to find himself alone with the girl whom he loved; but it is to be feared the girls themselves had a furtive guilty enjoyment of it, which they ought not to have had. Open and outrageous love-making is not half so delicate a pastime as that in which nothing distinct dare be said, but all is implication, conveyed and understood without words. I know it is a dangerous thing to confess, but veracity requires the confession; you may say it was the playing of the cat with the mouse, if you wish to give a disagreeable version of it; but, however you choose to explain it, this was how it was.

It was with fear and trembling at last that Phoebe went to the piano, which was at the other end of the room, after making all the resistance which was possible.

"Thank Heaven, that idiot and his fiddle aren't here to-night to interfere!" cried Reginald.

Phoebe shook her head at him, but ventured on no words; and how she did exert herself on the piano, playing things which were a great deal too cla.s.sical for Reginald, who would have preferred the simplest stock piece, under cover of which he might have talked to her hanging over her chair, and making belief to turn over the music! This was what he wanted, poor fellow. He had no heart nor ears for Beethoven, which Phoebe played to him with a tremor in her heart, and yet, the wicked little witch, with some enjoyment too.

"This is not the sort of thing you play when Copperhead is here," he said at last, driven to resistance.

"Oh, we play Mendelssohn," said Phoebe, with much show of innocence; and then she added, "You ought to feel the compliment if I play Beethoven to you."

"So I ought, I suppose," said Reginald. "The truth is, I don't care for music. Don't take your hands off the keys."

"Why, you have done nothing but worry me to play!"

"Not for the music," said Reginald, quite satisfied to have got his will. "Why will you not talk to me and play to me, as I wish?"

"Perhaps, if I knew what you wish--" Phoebe said, in spite of herself.

"Oh, how I should like to tell you! No, not Beethoven; a little, just a little music. Heavens!" cried Reginald, as she crashed into a fortissimo, "another sonata! Listen, I am not equal to sonatas. Nay, Miss Beecham, play me a little nothing--talk to me."

She shook her head at him with a laugh, and went on playing the hardest piece of music she could think of, complicating herself in difficult chords and sudden accidentals. If there had been anybody there to hear who could have understood, Phoebe's performance would, no doubt, have appeared a masterpiece of brilliant execution, as it was; but the two others were paying not the slightest attention, and as for Reginald, he was in a state of tantalized vexation, which half-amused himself, and filled the performer with an exhilarating sense of successful mischief.

Northcote was trying to say--what was he not trying to say?--to Ursula, under cover of the music, which was the best s.h.i.+eld he could have had; and perhaps in reality, though Reginald was tantalized to the utmost degree of tantalization, even he had a certain enjoyment in the saucy self-defence which was more mischievous than cruel. He stood behind Phoebe's chair, now and then meeting her laughing glance with one of tender appeal and reproach, pleased to feel himself thus isolated with her, and held an arm's-length in so genial a way. He would have his opportunity after a while, when there would be no piano to give her a momentary refuge, and then he would say out all that was in his heart, with no possible shadow of a rival to interfere with him. Angry? no; as he stood behind her, watching her fingers fly over the keys, a delightful calm stole over Reginald. Now and then she would throw a half-mocking glance at him upward over her shoulder, as she swept over the resounding board. When the sonata was concluded, Phoebe sprang up from the piano, and went back to the table. She proposed that they should play a game at cards, to which Ursula agreed. The young men shrugged their shoulders and protested; but, after all, what did it matter, so long as they were together? They fell into their places quite naturally, the very cards a.s.sisting; and so the moments flew by. There was not so much sound as usual in the old faded drawing-room, which had come to look so bright and homelike; not so much sound of voices, perhaps less laughter--yet of all the evenings they had spent there together, that was the one they looked back upon, all four, with most tender recollection. They had been so happy, or, if not happy, so near (apparently) to happiness, which is better sometimes than happiness itself.

"Don't let Reginald come with me," Phoebe whispered, as she kissed her friend, and said good night, "or ask Mr. Northcote to come too."

"Why?" said Ursula, with dreamy eyes; her own young tide of life was rising, invading, for the moment, her perceptions, and dulling her sense of what was going on round her. There was no time, however, for anything more to be said, for Reginald was close behind with his hat in his hand. Phoebe had to resign herself, and she knew what was coming. The only thing was, if possible, to stop the declaration on the way.

"This is the first chance I have had of seeing you home without that perpetual shadow of Copperhead--"

"Ah, poor Clarence!" said Phoebe. "I wonder how he is getting on away from us all to-night."

"Poor Clarence!" echoed Reginald aghast. "You don't mean to say that you--miss him, Miss Beecham? I never heard you speak of him in that tone before."

"Miss him! no, perhaps not exactly," said Phoebe, with a soft little sigh; "but still--I have known him all my life, Mr. May; when we were quite little I used to be sent for to his grand nursery, full of lovely toys and things--a great deal grander than mine."

"And for that reason--" said Reginald, becoming bitter, with a laugh.

"Nothing for that reason," said Phoebe; "but I noticed it at six as I should at twenty. I must have been a horrid little worldly-minded thing, don't you think? So you see there are the a.s.sociations of a great many years to make me say Poor Clarence, when anything is the matter with him."

"He is lucky to rouse your sympathies so warmly," cried Reginald, thoroughly wretched; "but I did not know there was anything the matter."

"I think there will be if he has to leave our little society, where we have all been so happy," said Phoebe, softly. "How little one thought, coming here a stranger, how pleasant it was to be! I especially, to whom coming to Carlingford was rather--perhaps I might say a humiliation. I am very fond of grandpapa and grandmamma now, but the first introduction was something of a shock--I have never denied it; and if it had not been for sweet kind Ursula and you--all."

The little breathless fragmentary pause which Phoebe made between the you and the "all," giving just a ghost of emphasis to the p.r.o.noun, sounded to poor Reginald in his foolishness almost like a caress. How cleverly it was managed, with just so much natural feeling in it as gave it reality! They were approaching No. 6, and Martha, the maid, already was visible at the open door.

"Then you do give me some share--some little share," he cried, with a broken voice. "Ah, if you would only let me tell you what your coming has been to me. It has opened up my life; I feel everything different, the old earth itself; there is a new light upon the whole world--"

"Hush, here is Martha!" cried Phoebe, "she will not understand about new lights. Yes, it has been pleasant, very pleasant; when one begins to sigh and realize how pleasant a thing has been, I always fear it is going to be broken up."

"_Absit omen!_" cried Reginald, fervently, taking the hand she had put out to bid him good night, and holding it fast to detain her; and was there moisture in the eyes which she lifted to him, and which glistened, he thought, though there was only the distant light of a lamp to see them by?

"You must not keep me now," cried Phoebe, "here is grandpapa coming. Good night, Mr. May, good night."

Was Phoebe a mere coquette _pure et simple_? As soon as she had got safe within these walls, she stooped down over the primroses to get rid of Martha, and then in the darkness had a cry, all by herself, on one side of the wall, while the young lover, with his head full of her, checked, but not altogether discouraged, went slowly away on the other. She cried, and her heart contracted with a real pang. He was very tender in his reverential homage, very romantic, a true lover, not the kind of man who wants a wife or wants a clever companion to amuse him, and save him the expense of a coach, and be his to refer to in everything. That was an altogether different kind of thing. Phoebe went in with a sense in her mind that perhaps she had never touched so close upon a higher kind of existence, and perhaps never again might have the opportunity; but before she had crossed the garden, she had begun once more to question whether Clarence would have the fort.i.tude to hold his own against everything that father or mother could do to change his mind. Would he have the fort.i.tude? Would he come back to her, safe and determined, or would he yield to arguments in favour of some richer bride, and come back either estranged or at the least doubtful? This gave her a pang of profound anxiety at the bottom of her heart.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII.

AN EXPEDITION.

Mr. May did not come upstairs that evening. It was not that he was paralysed as he had been on the previous occasion, when he sat as now and heard Phoebe go away after her first visit, and when the wind blowing in from the open door playfully carried to his feet the scribbled note with Tozer's name. He was not stupefied as then, nor was he miserable.

The threatened withdrawal of Clarence Copperhead was more to him than the impending ruin meant by that bill which was so nearly due. He was occupied by that to the exclusion of the other. It would be a most serious change to him in every way. He had calculated on the continuance of this additional income for at least a year, and short of the year it would have done him no good, but had simply plunged him into additional expense. It was this he was thinking of, and which kept him in his study after the young people had a.s.sembled. Cotsdean had come again while Mr.

May was at dinner, which by some curious unconscious aggravation on his part was the time he especially chose as most convenient for him; and he had again sent a dirty note by Bobby, imploring his princ.i.p.al to think of the impending fate, and not to desert him. Mr. May was angry at this perpetual appeal. "Why should I desert him, the idiot?" he said to himself; and moved by the man's persistence, he took out his pocket-book again, and made out beyond all chance of mistake, that it was the 18th.

Why should the fool insist upon its being the 15th with such perpetual iteration? There were the figures as plain as possible, 18th April. Mr.

May wrote a peremptory note announcing this fact to Cotsdean, and then returned to his own thoughts. Sir Robert had asked him to go over that morning and spend the day at the Hall with the Copperheads, not knowing of any breach between them. He thought he had better do this. If Clarence determined to stay, that would be a great thing in his favour, and he had seen that the young man's dull spirit was roused; and if that hope failed, there might still be advantage even in this sudden breaking of the bond. Part of the second quarter was gone, and the father had offered three months additional pay. These two payments would make up the hundred and fifty pounds at once, and settle the business. Thus, in either way, he should be safe, for if Clarence went away the money would be paid; and if he stayed, Mr. May himself had made up his mind to risk the bold step of going to the bank and asking an advance on this inalienable security. All these deliberations made his mind easy about the bill. It must come right one way or another; he might have chosen perhaps not to run it quite so close; but after all the 15th was only to-morrow, and there were still three days. While his mind was full of these things he did not care to go upstairs. He heard the voices of the young people, but he was too much engrossed with his own calculations to care to join them. It was a close thing, he said to himself, a very close thing; but still he felt that he could do it--surely he could do it. If Mr. Copperhead settled with him--and he was the sort of man, a man to whom money was nothing, to do so on the spot if he took it into his head--then all was right. And if Mr. Copperhead did not do so, the bank, though his past transactions with it had not been encouraging, would certainly make all right on account of these Copperhead payments, which were as certain as any payments could be. He went to bed early, being engrossed by these thoughts, not even saying good-night to Ursula, as was his wont; and he made up his mind to take an early breakfast, and start the first thing in the morning for the Hall. There was an early train which would suit admirably. He could not afford to drive, as Sir Robert had done, changing horses half way. He went upstairs to bed, somewhat heavily, but not discontented, seeing his way. After all, the great thing in life is to see your way. It does not matter so much whether that way is great or small, so long as you can see it plain before you. Mr. May breathed a sigh of anxiety as he ended the day. He had a great many things on his mind; but still he was not altogether heavy-hearted or discouraged beyond measure; things, he felt, would shape themselves better than he had hoped. He was not perhaps going to be so much better off than of old, as he thought possible when Clarence Copperhead came. Such delusive prospects do glimmer across a poor man's path when any apparent expansion of means occurs to him; but in the majority of cases he has to consent to see the fine fict.i.tious glow die away. Mr. May was not ignorant of this experience already. A man who is over fifty is generally more or less prepared for anything that can happen to him in this kind; but he thought he could "get on;" and after all that is the sum of life to three parts of mankind.

He was silent at breakfast, but not disagreeable, and Ursula was too much taken up with her own concerns to pay much attention to him.

Ursula's concerns were developing with a rapidity altogether extraordinary. In the mind of a girl of twenty, unforestalled by any previous experience, the process that goes on between the moment when the surprising, overwhelming discovery rushes upon her that some one loves her in the old way of romance, until the corresponding moment when she finds out that her own heart too has been invaded by this wonderful sentiment, which is like nothing that was ever known before, is of a very rapid description. It is like the bursting of a flower, which a day's suns.h.i.+ne brings to the blooming point like a miracle, though it is in reality the simplest result of nature. Already there began to glow a haze of brightness about those three months past in which everything had begun. When or how it began she could not now tell. The glow of it was in her eyes and dazzled her. She heard the voices of the others sounding vaguely through this bright mist in which she herself was isolated; when she was obliged to reply, she called herself back with an effort, and did so--but of her own will she seldom spoke. How Janey chattered, how the children maundered on about their little concerns, which were of consequence to n.o.body! Papa was the person whom Ursula really respected this morning, for he had more sense than to talk. How could people talk, as if there was pleasure in that? But papa had more sense, he had things to think of--too. So the girl approved her father, and thought more highly of him, and never inquired what it might be that occupied his mind, and kept him from noticing even when the children were unruly. And it would be giving the reader an unfair idea of the children, if we attempted to conceal that they did take advantage of their opportunities, and were as unruly as well-conditioned children in the circ.u.mstances were likely to be. Mr. May took no notice; he took his coffee hurriedly and went off to the station.

"If I don't return this evening you need not be alarmed. I shall come back at the latest to-morrow morning," he said.

The children all rushed to the window to see him go away; even Ursula looking out dreamily remarked him too, as she seldom did; and Mrs. Sam Hurst at her window, wondering where her neighbour could be going, heaved a deep sigh of admiration, which though she was not "in love," as the girls thought, with Mr. May, was a pa.s.sing tribute to his good looks and training. He looked a gentleman every inch of him--an English gentleman, spotless in linen, speckless in broadcloth, though his dress was far from new; the freshness of sound health and a clear conscience on his handsome face, though he was no longer young. His abundant hair, steel-grey, slightly crisped under his hat, not curling exactly, but with a becoming twist in it--clerical, yet not too clerical, a man given to no extremes, decorously churchmanlike, yet liberal and tolerant of the world. Though she was too wise to compromise her own comfort by marrying him, Mrs. Hurst felt that there was a great pleasure in making his daughters anxious about her "intentions," and that even to be said to be in love with such a man was no shame, but rather the reverse.

He went away accordingly, taking a short cut to the railway, and thus missing Cotsdean, who came breathless ten minutes after he was gone, and followed him to the train; but too late.

"Well, well," Cotsdean said to himself, wiping his forehead, "Old Tozer has plenty, it ain't nothing to him to pay. They can settle it between 'em."

Cotsdean himself was easier in his mind than he had ever been before on such an occasion. His clergyman, though personally an awful and respect-inspiring personage, was so far as money went a man of straw, as he well knew, and his name on a bill was very little worth; but Tozer was a man who could pay his way. A hundred and fifty pounds, or even ten times that, would not ruin the old shopkeeper. Cotsdean's sense of commercial honour was not so very keen that the dishonouring of his bill in the circ.u.mstances should give him a very serious pang. He would not be sold up, or have an execution put into his shop when the other party to the bill was so substantial a person. Of course Tozer, when he signed it, must have been told all about it, and Cotsdean did not see how with two such allies against ruin, anything very serious could befall him. He was uneasy indeed, but his uneasiness had no such force in it as before.

He went back to his shop and his business prepared to take the matter as calmly as possible. He was but pa.s.sive in it. It could not harm him much in the eyes of his banker, who knew his affairs too well to be much astonished at any such incident, and Tozer and Mr. May must settle it between them. It was their affair.

Meanwhile Mr. May rattled along in the railway towards the Hall. He got a dog-cart at the little inn at the station to take him over, though generally when he went to see the Dorsets it was his custom to walk.

"But what were a few s.h.i.+llings?" he said to himself, the prodigality of desperation having seized upon him. In any case he could pay that, and if he was to be ruined, what did a few s.h.i.+llings more or less matter?

but the discomfort of walking over those muddy roads, and arriving with dirty boots and a worn-out aspect, mattered a great deal. He reached the Hall at a propitious moment, when Mr. Copperhead was in the highest good-humour. He had been taken over the place, from one end to another, over the stables, the farm-buildings, the farm itself from end to end, the preserves, the shrubberies, the greenhouses, everything; all of which details he examined with an unfailing curiosity which would have been highly flattering to the possessors if it had not been neutralized by a strain of comment which was much less satisfactory. When Mr. May went in, he found him in the dining-room, with Sir Robert and his daughters standing by, clapping his wings and crowing loudly over a picture which the Dorsets prized much. It represented a bit of vague Italian scenery, mellow and tranquil, and was a true "Wilson," bought by an uncle of Sir Robert's, who had been a connoisseur, from the Master himself, in the very country where it was painted; and all these details pleased the imagination of the family, who, though probably they would have been but mildly delighted had they possessed the acquaintance of the best of contemporary painters, were proud that Uncle Charles had known Italian Wilson, and had bought a picture out of his studio. A Hobbema or a Poussin would scarcely have pleased them as much, for the worst of an old Master is that your friends look suspiciously upon it as a copy; whereas Wilson is scarcely old enough or precious enough to be copied. They were showing their picture and telling the story to the millionnaire with an agreeable sense that, though they were not so rich, they must, at least, have the advantage of him in this way.

"Ha!" said Mr. Copperhead, "you should see my Turner. Didn't I show you my Turner? I don't venture to tell you, Sir Robert, what that picture cost me. It's a sin, it is, to keep that amount of capital hanging useless upon a bit of wall. The Wilson may be all very well. I ain't a judge of art, and I can't give my opinion on that point, though it's a common sort of a name, and there don't seem to be much in it; but everybody knows what a Turner means. Here's May; he'll be able to tell you as well as another. It means a few cool thousands, take my word for it. It means, I believe, that heaps of people would give you your own price. I don't call it a profitable investment, for it brings in no interest; but they tell me it's a thing that grows in value every year.

And there it is, Sir, hanging up useless on my wall in Portland Place, costing a fortune, and bringing in not a penny. But I like it; I like it, for I can afford it, by George! Here's May; he knows what that sort of thing is; he'll tell you that a Turner is worth its weight in gold."

"Thank you, I don't think I need any information on that subject," said Sir Robert. "Besides, I saw your Turner. It is a pretty picture--if it is authentic; but Wilson, you know--"

"Wasn't a big-enough swell not to be authentic, eh?" said Mr.

Copperhead. "Common name enough, and I don't know that I ever heard of him in the way of painting; but I don't pretend to be a judge. Here's May; now, I dare say he knows all about it. Buying's one thing, knowing's another. Your knowing ones, when they've got any money, they have the advantage over us, Sir Robert; they can pick up a thing that's good, when it happens to come their way, dirt cheap; but fortunately for us, it isn't often they've got any money," he added, with a laugh, slapping Mr. May on the shoulder in a way which made him totter. But the clergyman's good-humour was equal even to this a.s.sault. It is wonderful how patient and tolerant we can all be when the motive is strong enough.

"That is true," he said; "but I fear I have not even the compensation of knowledge. I know enough, however, to feel that the possessor of a Turner is a public personage, and may be a public benefactor if he pleases."