“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 tonight.”
“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 associations 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 pronoun, 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 fortitude to hold his own against everything that father or mother could do to change his mind. Would he have the fortitude? 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.
XXXVIII
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 assembled. 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 principal to think
