Phoebe knew as well as he did what that use was. He had brought his father’s horse out for the first time, to carry him here to propose to her, in spite of his father. This was the delicate meaning which it amused him to think of. She understood it all, and it brought a glow of colour to her face; but it did not steel her heart against him. She knew her Clarence, and that his standard of fine feeling and mental elevation was not high.
“Look here,” he said, “I wish I could speak to you, Miss Phoebe, somewhere better than in the street. Yes, in the garden—that will do. It ain’t much of a place either to make a proposal in, for that’s what I’ve come to do; but you don’t want me to go down on my knees, or make a fuss, eh? I got up in the middle of the night to be here first thing and see you. I never had a great deal to say for myself,” said Clarence, “you won’t expect me to make you fine speeches; but I am fond of you—awfully fond of you, Phoebe, that’s the truth. You suit me down to the ground, music and everything. There’s no girl I ever met that has taken such a hold upon me as you.”
Phoebe heard him very quietly, but her heart beat loud. She stood on the gravel between the flower-borders, where the primroses were beginning to wither, and glanced over her life of the past and that of the future, which were divided by this moment like the two beds of flowers; one homely, not very distinguished, simple enough—the other exalted by wealth to something quite above mediocrity. Her heart swelled, full as it was with so many emotions of a totally different kind. She had gained a great prize, though it might not be very much to look at; more or less, she was conscious this golden apple had been hanging before her eyes for years, and now it had dropped into her hand. A gentle glow of contentment diffused itself all over her, not transport, indeed, but satisfaction, which was better.
“Mr. Copperhead—” she said, softly.
“No, hang it all, call me Clarence, Phoebe, if you’re going to have me!” he cried, putting out his big hands.
“Grandmamma is looking at us from the window,” she said, hurriedly, withdrawing a little from him.
“Well, and what does that matter? The old lady won’t say a word, depend upon it, when she knows. Look here, Phoebe, I’ll have an answer. Yes or no?”
“Have you got your father’s consent—Clarence?”
“Ah, it is yes then! I thought it would be yes,” he cried, seizing her in his arms. “As for the governor,” added Clarence, after an interval, snapping his fingers, “I don’t care that for the governor. When I’ve set my mind on a thing, it ain’t the governor, or twenty governors, that will stop me.”
XLII
A Great Mental Shock
“Have you any notion what was the cause?”
“None,” said Reginald. “Oh, no, none at all,” said Ursula. They were all three standing at the door of the sickroom, in which already a great transformation had taken place. The doctor had sent a nurse to attend upon the patient. He had told them that their father was attacked by some mysterious affection of the brain, and that none of them were equal to the responsibility of nursing him. His children thus banished had set the door ajar, and were congregated round it watching what went on within. They did not know what to do. It was Northcote who was asking these questions; it was he who was most active among them. The others stood half-stunned, wholly ignorant, not knowing what to do.
“I don’t think papa is ill at all,” said Janey. “Look how he glares about him, just as I’ve seen him do when he was writing a sermon, ready to pounce upon anyone that made a noise. He is watching that woman. Why should he lie in bed like that, and be taken care of when he is just as well as I am? You have made a mistake all the rest of you. I would go and speak to him, and tell him to get up and not make all this fuss, if it was me.”
“Oh, Janey! hold your tongue,” said Ursula; but she, too, looked half-scared at the bed, and then turned wistful inquiring eyes to Northcote. As for Reginald, he stood uncertain, bewildered, all the colour gone out of his face, and all the energy out of his heart. He knew nothing of his father’s affairs, or of anything that might disturb his mind. His mind; all that his son knew of this was, that whatsoever things disturbed other minds his father had always contemptuously scouted all such nonsense. “Take some medicine,” Mr. May had been in the habit of saying. “Mind! you mean digestion,” was it nothing more than some complicated indigestion that affected him now?
“Is it anything about—money?” said Northcote.
They all turned and looked at him. The idea entered their minds for the first time. Yes, very likely it was money.
“We have always been poor,” said Ursula, wistfully. Northcote took her hand into his; none of them except Ursula herself paid any attention to this involuntary, almost unconscious caress, and even to her it seemed a thing of course, and quite natural that he should be one of them, taking his share in all that was going on.
“I—am not poor,” he said, faltering. “You must not think me presumptuous, May. But the first thing to be done is to get him out of his difficulties, if he is in difficulties—and you must let me help to do it. I think you and I should go out and see about it at once.”
“Go—where?” Reginald, like most young people, had taken little notice of
