Phoebe, Junior by Mrs. Oliphant - HTML preview

CHAPTER XLV.
THE LAST.

This is how Phœbe's difficulties ended. Contrary to her every expectation, Mr. Copperhead made a great brag of her powers wherever he went. “Money is money,” he said, “but brains is brains, all the same—we can't get on without 'em—and when you want to make a figure in the world, sir, buy a few brains if they fall in your way—that's my style. I've done with stupid ones up till now; but when I see there's a want of a clever one, I ain't such a fool as to shut my eyes to it. They cost dear, but I'm thankful to say I can afford that, ay, and a good deal more.” Thus everything was satisfactorily arranged. Tozer and his wife cried together for joy on the wedding-day, but they did not expect to be asked to that ceremony, being well aware that Phœbe, having now completely entered into the regions of the great, could not be expected to have very much to say to them. “Though I know, the darling, as she'd just be the same if she was here, and wouldn't let nobody look down upon you and me,” said the old woman.

“She's a wonderful girl, she is,” said old Tozer. “Wind us all round her little finger, that's what she could do—leastways, except when there was principle in it, and there I stood firm. But I've done things for Phœbe as I wouldn't have done for no other breathing, and she knew it. I wouldn't give in to her tho' about church folks being just as good as them as is more enlightened. That's agin' reason. But I've done things for 'em along of her!—Ah! she's a wonderful girl is Phœbe—Phœbe, Junior, as I always call her. There ain't her match between here and London, and that's what I'll always say.”

But we will not try to describe the glory and joy that filled Mr. Beecham's house in the Terrace, when Mrs. Clarence Copperhead went back there with all their friends to the wedding-breakfast, which was in the very best style, and regardless of expense. Even at that moment it gave Phœbe a little pang to see her mother in the bright colours which she loved, but which made her so much pinker and fatter than was needful. Little Mrs. Copperhead, in dim neutral tints, looked like a little shadow beside the pastor's buxom wife, and was frightened and ill at ease and sad to the heart to lose her boy, who had been all she possessed in the world. Sophy Dorset, specially asked for the purpose with Ursula May, who was a bridesmaid, looked on with much admiration at the curious people, so rich, so fine, and so overwhelming, among whom her father had found it so remarkable to meet not one person whom he knew. “Now, Ursula,” she said, “if you had played your cards properly that beautiful bridegroom and that nice little house in Mayfair, and the privilege, perhaps, of writing M.P. after your name some time or other, might all have been yours instead of Miss Beecham's. Why did you let her carry off the prize?”

“Cousin Sophy!” cried Ursula indignantly. “As if I ever thought of him as a prize! But I know you are only laughing at me. The strange thing is that she likes him, though I am sure she knew very well that Reginald—Oh, when one thinks how many people there are in this world who do not get what they wish most—and how many people there are—” Ursula paused, involved in her own antithesis, and Sophy ended it for her with a sigh.

“Who do—and the one is no happier than the other, most times, little Ursula; but you don't understand that, and as you are going to be one of the blessed ones, you need not take to making reflections; that is my privilege, my dear.”

“Oh, Cousin Sophy, why were not you one of those blessed ones too?” cried Ursula, clasping her arms suddenly round her kind friend. This, be it understood, was after the breakfast was over, and when, in the deep gloom which generally concludes a wedding day, everybody had gone home. The two were in a magnificent large bedchamber in Portland Place, in the vast silent mansion of the Copperheads, where at present there was nothing more cheerful than the bridegroom's soft-eyed mother, taking herself dreadfully to task for not being happy, and trying not to cry, though there was to be a great dinner and entertainment that night.

“Don't you know?” said Sophy, putting her aside with a certain proud coldness, and a momentary laugh, “he I loved proved false; that is to say, in simple language, he turned out so poor a creature that it is very good of me not to despise humanity for his sweet sake. Never mind. If all had gone well, and he had been a real man instead of the sham image of one, I don't suppose I should have ever been among the blessed ones. Anne is, who never thought of such mysteries at all; and so you will be, my little Ursula—very happy. I am sure of it—though how you can manage to be happy, my dear, marrying a man who is not a good Churchman, it is not for me to say.”

“Cousin Sophy, have I been brought up in a way to make me so fond of Churchmen?” said Ursula solemnly. She could not have told how much or how little she knew about her father's behaviour, and the “shock to his mental system;” but vaguely and by instinct there was a great deal that she did know.

“You have been behind the scenes too much perhaps,” said Sophy Dorset, shrugging her shoulders, “but don't think any worse of the world than you ought, if you can't think very much better. No class is good or bad, Ursula. Men are but men all over the world.”

This made Ursula cry, though it is difficult to say why. She thought it cynical, and probably so will the reader. Perhaps Sophy Dorset abandoned the cause of mankind too easily, as most people of her temperament and age are disposed to do. Anyhow the evening entertainment took place and was very fine, and every honour was done to Clarence Copperhead's marriage, especially by his mother, who appeared in the most lovely satin that eyes ever saw, and diamonds—and almost succeeded all the evening in keeping herself from crying, but not entirely. She did break down when the health of bridegroom and bride was drunk as it ought to be; but recovered herself hastily when the mother on the other side gave her a kiss of sympathy. Though it was an honest kiss it filled poor little Mrs. Copperhead's mind with the most unchristian feelings, and gave her strength to keep up for the rest of the evening, and do her duty to the last. Nevertheless Phœbe was the best of daughters-in-law, and ended by making her husband's mother dependent on her for most of the comforts of her life. And Clarence got into Parliament, and the reader, perhaps (if Parliament is sitting), may have had the luck to read a speech in the morning paper of Phœbe's composition, and if he ever got the secret of her style would know it again, and might trace the course of a public character for years to come by that means. But this secret is one which no bribe nor worldly inducement will ever tempt our lips to betray.

Northcote was released from the charge of Salem Chapel directly after these events, by the return of the minister safe and sound from his holiday, to the great delight of the congregation, though they had not been very fond of their old pastor before. Now they could not sufficiently exult over the happy re-instalment. “The other one never crossed our doors from the day he came till now as he's going away,” said one indignant member; “nor took no more notice of us chapel folks nor if we were dirt beneath his feet.” “That time as the Meeting was held, when he spoke up again' the sinecure, was the only time as my mind was satisfied,” cried another. “And a deal came of it after, making friends with the very man he had abused.” “All his friends was Church folks,” said a third; “he was a wolf in sheep's clothing, that's what I calls him; and a poor moralist as a preacher, with never a rousing word in them things as he called his sermons. We're well rid of the likes of him, though he may be clever. I don't give much for that kind of cleverness; and what's the good of you, minister or not minister, if you can't keep consistent and stick to your own side.” The chorus was so strong that the echo of it moved Tozer, who was a kind of arch-deacon and leading member too, in his way, where he sat twiddling his thumbs in his little room. “I'm one as is qualified to give what you may call a casting vote,” said Tozer, “being the oldest deacon in Salem, and one as has seen generations coming and going. And as for Church and Chapel, I've served 'em both, and seen the colour of their money, and there's them as has their obligations to me, though we needn't name no names. But this I will say, as I'm cured of clever men and them as is thought superior. They ain't to be calculated upon. If any more o' them young intellectuals turns up at Carlingford, I'll tell him right out, 'You ain't the man for my money.' I'll say to him as bold as brass, 'I've been young, and now I'm old, and it's my conviction as clever young men ain't the sort for Salem. We want them as is steady-going, and them as is consistent; good strong opinions, and none o' your charity, that's what we wants here.'” Now Tozer had loved clever young men in his day more well than wisely, as everybody knew, and this deliverance carried all the more weight in consequence, and was echoed loudly by one general hum of content and applause.

Northcote took this very quietly, but he retired, after he had married Ursula, from the office of pastor, for which he was not fitted, and from the Liberation Society, and various other societies, coming to see that Disestablishment was not a panacea for national evils any more than other things. He was in the habit of quoting his brother-in-law, Reginald May, as the best man he knew; but this did not make him a Churchman; for naturally he could not say the same of other members of the same class and family. He was shaken out of his strong opinions; but it is doubtful how far this was good for him, for he was a man of warlike disposition, and not to have something which he could go to the stake for—something which he could think the devil's own stronghold to assail, was a drawback to him, and cramped his mental development; but he was happy in his home with his pretty Ursula, which is probably all the reader will care to know. He paid Tozer's hundred and fifty pounds. And he made no inquiries, and tried not to ask himself what all that strange scene had meant—and whatever it did mean it was over for ever, and nobody asked any further questions or made any revelations on the subject. As for Mr. May, his mysterious illness went on for some time, the doctors never venturing to put any name to it. It was “mental shock,” and perhaps aberration, though he was sane enough to calm down after that incomprehensible scene. Mr. Simpson of the Bank had a good guess at the secret of the enigma, but even Tozer got hazy about it after a while, and though he knew that he had done Mr. May a wonderful service, could scarcely have told what it was—and neither, when it was all over, could the culprit have told. He got better and worse for about a year, and then he died, his strength failing him without any distinct reason, no one could tell how. Reginald got the living and stepped into his father's place, making a home for the children, which sharp Janey rules over, not so softly or steadily as Ursula, with a love of theories and experiments not quite consistent with the higher graces of housekeeping, yet with an honest meaning through it all. As the times are so unsettled, and no one can tell what may become within a year of any old foundation, the trustees have requested Reginald to retain his chaplaincy at the old College; so that he is in reality a pluralist, and almost rich, though they say the hardest-worked man in Carlingford. He has his vagaries too, which no man can live without, but he is the kindest guardian to his brothers and sisters, and bears with Janey's freaks with exemplary gentleness. And he has a curate, whom in the course of nature Janey will probably marry—though this has not yet been revealed to either party, who have reached only the first stage of hating each other up to this time. It is not thought in the family that Reginald will ever marry. She was never worthy of him, the sisters say; but he thinks differently, as yet at least. However he is young, and things may mend.

THE END.