This is a digression from our immediate subject, which was the luncheon prepared for Mr. Copperhead. Ursula sent up an urgent message for Phoebe, who came to her in her prettiest morning dress, very carefully arranged, but with a line of care upon her brow.
“I will come if you wish it, dear,” she said; “but I don’t want to meet Mr. Copperhead. I don’t like him.”
“Neither do I like him,” cried Ursula. “He said something disagreeable the little moment he was here. Oh, I don’t remember what it was, but something. Please stay. What am I to do with them all by myself? If you will help me, I may get through.”
Phoebe kissed her with a tremulous kiss; perhaps she was not unwilling to see with her own eyes what the father of Clarence meant, and what brought him here. She sat down at the window, and was the first to see them coming along the street.
“What a gentleman your father looks beside them,” cried Phoebe; “both of them, father and son; though Clarence, after all, is a great deal better than his father, less like a British snob.”
Ursula came and stood by her, looking out.
“I don’t think he is much better than his father,” she said.
Phoebe took her hand suddenly and wrung it, then dropped it as if it had hurt her. What did it all mean? Ursula, though rays of enlightenment had come to her, was still perplexed, and did not understand.
Mr. Copperhead did not see her till he went to luncheon, when Phoebe appeared with little Amy May looking like a visitor, newly arrived. She had run upstairs after that first sight of him from the window, declaring herself unable to be civil to him except at table. The great man’s face almost grew pale at the sight of her. He looked at Ursula, and then at Clarence, and laughed.
“ ‘Wheresoever the carcase is the eagles are gathered together,’ ” he said. “That’s Scripture, ain’t it, Miss Ursula? I am not good at giving chapter and verse.”
“What does it mean?” asked Ursula.
She was quite indifferent to Mr. Copperhead, and perfectly unconscious of his observation. As for Phoebe, on the contrary, she was slightly agitated, her placid surface ruffled a little, and she looked her best in her agitation. Mr. Copperhead looked straight at her across the table, and laughed in his insolent way.
“So you are here too, Miss Phoebe!” he said. “I might think myself in the Crescent if I didn’t know better. I met young Northcote just now, and now you. What may you be doing here, might one ask? It is what you call a curious coincidence, ain’t it, Clarence and you both here?”
“I said so when Mr. Clarence came,” said Phoebe. “I came to take care of my grandmother, who is ill; and it was a very lucky thing for me that I had met Miss May at your ball, Mr. Copperhead.”
“By Jove, wasn’t it!” said Clarence, roused to some dull sense of what was going on. “We owe all the fun we have had here to that, so we do. Odd, when one thinks of it; and thought so little of it then, didn’t we? It’s a very queer world.”
“So you’ve been having fun here?” said his father. “I thought you came here to work; that’s how we old fellows get taken in. Work! with young ladies dangling about, and putting things into your head! I ought to have known better, don’t you think so, Miss Ursula? You could have taught me a thing or two.”
“I?” said Ursula, startled. “I don’t know what I could teach anyone. I think Mr. Clarence Copperhead has kept to his hours very steadily. Papa is rather severe; he never would take any excuse from any of us when we were working with him.”
“He is not so severe now, I’ll be bound,” said Mr. Copperhead. “Lets you have your fun a little, as Clarence tells me; don’t you, May? Girls will be girls, and boys, boys, whatever we do; and I am sure, Miss Phoebe, you have been very entertaining, as you always were.”
“I have done my best,” said Phoebe, looking him in the face. “I should have had a dull life but for the Parsonage, and I have tried to be grateful. I have accompanied your son on the violin a great many evenings, and I hope our friends have liked it. Mr. Clarence is a promising player, though I should like him to trust less to his ear; but we always pulled through.”
“Thanks to you,” said Clarence, in the middle of his cutlet.
He did not quite see why she should flourish this music in his father’s face; but still he was loyal in a dull fashion, and he was obstinate, and did not mean to be “sat upon,” to use his own words. As for Phoebe, her quick mind caught at once the best line of policy. She determined to deliver Ursula, and she determined at the same time to let her future father-in-law (if he was to be her father-in-law) see what sort of a person he had to deal with. As soon as she made up her mind, her agitation disappeared. It was only the uncertainty that had cowed her; now she saw what to do.
“So!” said Mr. Copperhead, “musical evenings! I hope you have not turned poor Clar’s head among you, young ladies. It’s not a very strong head; and two is more than a match for one. I dare say he has had no chance between you.”
“Make yourself quite easy,” said Phoebe, with her sweetest smile; “he was only one of a party. Mr. Reginald May and Mr. Northcote are both very pleasant companions. Your son is bored sometimes, but the rest of us are never bored. You see, he has been accustomed to more brilliant society; but as for us, we have no particular pretensions. We have been very happy. And if there has
