gently.
There Miss Fennimore entered, displeased at the English sounds, and at finding them all, as she thought, loitering. Phœbe explained Maria’s omission, and Miss Fennimore allowed her five minutes in her own room, saying that this must not become a precedent, though she did not wish to oppress her conscience.
Bertha’s eyes glittered with a certain triumph, as she saw that Miss Fennimore was of her mind, and anticipated no consequences from the neglect, but only made the concession as to a superstition. Without disbelief, the child trained only to reason, and quick to detect fallacy, was blind to all that was not material. And how was the spiritual to be brought before her?
Phœbe might well sigh as she sat down to her abstract of Schlegel’s Lectures. ‘If any one would but teach them,’ she thought; ‘but there is no time at all, and I myself do not know half so much of those things as one of Miss Charlecote’s lowest classes.’
Phœbe was a little mistaken. An earnest mind taught how to learn, with access to the Bible and Prayer Book, could gain more from these fountain-heads than any external teaching could impart; and she could carry her difficulties to Robert. Still it was out of her power to assist her sisters. Surveillance and driving absolutely left no space free from Miss Fennimore’s requirements; and all that there was to train those young ones in faith, was the manner in which it lived and worked in her. Nor of this effect could she be conscious.
As to dreams or repinings, or even listening to her hopes and fears for her project of pleasure, they were excluded by the concentrated attention that Miss Fennimore’s system enforced. Time and capacity were so much on the stretch, that the habit of doing what she was doing, and nothing else, had become second nature to the docile and duteous girl; and she had become little sensible to interruptions; so she went on with her German, her Greek, and her algebra, scarcely hearing the repetitions of the lessons, or the counting as Miss Fennimore presided over Maria’s practice, a bit of drudgery detested by the governess, but necessarily persevered in, for Maria loved music, and had just voice and ear sufficient to render this single accomplishment not hopeless, but a certain want of power of sustained effort made her always break down at the moment she seemed to be doing best. Former governesses had lost patience, but Miss Fennimore had early given up the case, and never scolded her for her failures; she made her attempt less, and she was improving more, and shedding fewer tears than under any former dynasty. Even a stern dominion is better for the subjects than an uncertain and weak one; regularity gives a sense of reliance; and constant occupation leaves so little time for being naughty, that Bertha herself was getting into training, and on the present day her lessons were exemplary, always with a view to the promised walk with her brother, one of the greatest pleasures ever enjoyed by the denizens of the west wing.
Phœbe’s pleasure was less certain, and less dependent on her merits, yet it invigorated her efforts to do all she had to do with all her might, even into the statement of the pros and cons of customs and free-trade, which she was required to produce as her morning’s exercise. In the midst, her ear detected the sound of wheels, and her heart throbbed in the conviction that it was Miss Charlecote’s pony carriage; nay, she found her pen had indited ‘Robin would be so glad,’ instead of ‘revenue to the government,’ and while scratching the words out beyond all legibility, she blamed herself for betraying such want of self-command.
No summons came, no tidings, the wheels went away; her heart sank, and her spirit revolted against an unfeeling, unutterably wearisome captivity; but it was only a moment’s fluttering against the bars, the tears were driven back with the thought, ‘After all, the decision is guided from Above. If I stay at home, it must be best for me. Let me try to be good!’ and she forced her mind back to her exports and her customs. It was such discipline as few girls could have exercised, but the conscientious effort was no small assistance in being resigned; and in the precious minutes granted in which to prepare herself for dinner, she found it the less hard task to part with her anticipations of delight and brace herself to quiet, contented duty.
The meal was beginning when, with a very wide expansion of the door, appeared a short, consequential-looking personage, of such plump, rounded proportions, that she seemed ready to burst out of her riding-habit, and of a broad, complacent visage, somewhat overblooming. It was Miss Fulmort, the eldest of the family, a young lady just past thirty, a very awful distance from the schoolroom party, to whom she nodded with good-natured condescension, saying: ‘Ah! I thought I should find you at dinner; I’m come for something to sustain nature. The riding party are determined to have me with them, and they won’t wait for luncheon. Thank you, yes, a piece of mutton, if there were any under side. How it reminds me of old times. I used so to look forward to never seeing a loin of mutton again.’
‘As your chief ambition?’ said Miss Fennimore, who, governess as she was, could not help being a little satirical, especially when Bertha’s eyes twinkled responsively.
‘One does get so tired of mutton and rice-pudding,’ answered the less observant Miss Fulmort, who was but dimly conscious of any one’s existence save her own, and could not have credited a governess laughing at her; ‘but really this is not so bad, after all, for a change; and some pale ale. You don’t mean that you exist without pale ale?’
‘We all drink water by preference,’ said Miss Fennimore.
‘Indeed! Miss Watson, our finishing governess, never drank anything but claret, and she always had little pâtés, or fish, or something, because she said her appetite was to be consulted, she was so delicate. She was very thin, I know; and what a figure you have, Phœbe! I suppose that is water drinking. Bridger did say it would reduce me to leave off pale ale, but I can’t get on without it, I get so horridly low. Don’t you think that’s a sign, Miss Fennimore?’
‘I beg your pardon, a sign of what?’
‘That one can’t go on without it. Miss Charlecote said she thought it was all constitution whether one is stout or not, and that nothing made much difference, when I asked her about German wines.’
‘Oh! Augusta, has Miss Charlecote been here this morning?’ exclaimed Phœbe.
‘Yes; she came at twelve o’clock, and there was I actually pinned down to entertain her, for mamma was not come down. So I asked her about those light foreign wines, and whether they do really make one thinner; you know one always has them at her house.’
‘Did mamma see her?’ asked poor Phœbe, anxiously.
‘Oh yes, she was bent upon it. It was something about you. Oh! she wants to take you to stay with her in that horrible hole of hers in the City—very odd of her. What do you advise me to do, Miss Fennimore? Do you think those foreign wines would bring me down a little, or that they would make me low and sinking?’
‘Really, I have no experience on the subject!’ said Miss Fennimore, loftily.
‘What did mamma say?’ was poor Phœbe’s almost breathless question.
‘Oh! it makes no difference to mamma’ (Phœbe’s heart bounded); but Augusta went on: ‘she always has her soda-water, you know; but of course I should take a hamper from Bass. I hate being unprovided.’
‘But about my going to London?’ humbly murmured Phœbe.
‘What did she say?’ considered the elder sister, aloud. ‘I don’t know, I’m sure. I was not attending—the heat does make one so sleepy—but I know we all wondered she should want you at your age. You know some people take a spoonful of vinegar to fine themselves down, and some of those wines are very acid,’ she continued, pressing on with her great subject of consultation.
‘If it be an object with you, Miss Fulmort, I should recommend the vinegar,’ said Miss Fennimore. ‘There is nothing like doing a thing outright!’
‘And, oh! how glorious it would be to see her taking it!’ whispered Bertha into Phœbe’s ear, unheard by Augusta, who, in her satisfied stolidity, was declaring, ‘No, I could not undertake that. I am the worst person in the world for taking anything disagreeable.’
And having