Phoebe, Junior · Chapter 29 (2/2)

“You should not laugh at Mr. Copperhead,” Ursula retorted on her friend. “You should be good-humoured, too. You are better than I am, but you are not quite good, after all.”

“Violin!” said Mr. May. “Heaven and earth! is there going to be any fiddling? Miss Beecham, I did not expect you to bring such a horror upon me. I thought I had nothing but good to expect from you.”

“Wait till you hear him, sir,” said Phoebe.

Mr. May retired to the far corner of the room. He called young Northcote to him, who was standing beside Ursula, eager to talk, but not knowing how to begin. It was bad enough to be thus withdrawn from his chance of making himself agreeable; but the reader may imagine what was the Dissenter’s feelings when Mr. May, with a smile, turned upon him. Having given him a (tolerably) good dinner, and lulled him into a belief that his sins against the family were unknown, he looked at him, smiling, and began.

“Mr. Northcote, the first time I saw you, you were discoursing at an Anti-Establishment Meeting in the Town Hall.”

Northcote started. He blushed fiery red. “It is quite true. I wished to have told you; not to come here on false pretences; but Copperhead⁠—and your son has been very kind⁠—”

“Then I suppose your views are modified. Clergymen no longer appear to you the demons in human shape you thought them then; and my son, in particular, has lost his horns and hoofs?”

“Mr. May, you are very severe; but I own there is reason⁠—”

“It was you who were severe. I was not quite sure of you till Copperhead brought you in. Nay,” said the clergyman, rubbing his hands; “do you think that I object to the utterance of a real opinion? Certainly not. As for Reginald, it was the thing that decided him; I leave you to find out how; so that we are positively in your debt. But I hope you don’t fiddle too. If you like to come with me to my study⁠—”

Northcote gave a longing look round the room, which had become all at once so interesting to him. Mr. May was too clear-sighted not to see it. He thought, quite impartially, that perhaps it was an excusable weakness, even though it was his own society that was the counter attraction. They were two nice-looking girls. This was how he put it, being no longer young, and father to one of them; naturally, the two young men would have described the attraction of Phoebe and Ursula more warmly. Clarence Copperhead, who had come in with an armful of music and his fiddle, was not thinking of the girls, nor of anything but the sweet sounds he was about to make⁠—and himself. When he began to tune his violin, Mr. May got up in dismay.

“This is more than mortal can stand,” he said, making as though he would have gone away. Then he changed his mind, for, after all, he was the chaperon of his motherless girl. “Get me the paper, Ursula,” he said. It would be hard to tell with what feelings Northcote contemplated him. He was the father of Ursula, yet he dared to order her about, to bring the tears to her eyes. Northcote darted the same way as she was going, and caught at the paper on a side-table, and brought it hastily. But alas, that was last week’s paper! he did not save her the trouble, but he brought upon himself a gleam of mischief from her father’s eyes. “Mr. Northcote thinks me a tyrant to send you for the paper,” he said, as he took it out of her hands. “Thank him for his consideration. But he was not always so careful of your peace of mind,” he added, with a laugh.

Ursula looked at him with a wondering question in her eyes; but those tears were no longer there which had gone to Northcote’s heart.

“I don’t know what papa means,” she said, softly; and then, “I want to beg your pardon, please. I was very silly. Will you try to forget it, and not tell anyone, Mr. Northcote? The truth was, I thought I had done them nicely, and I was vexed. It was very childish,” she said, shaking her head with something of the same moisture floating back over the lustre in her pretty eyes.

“I will never tell anyone, you may be sure,” said the young man; but Ursula did not notice that he declined to give the other pledge, for Reginald came up just then with wrath in his eyes.

“Is that idiot going to fiddle all night?” he cried (poor Clarence had scarcely begun); “as if anybody wanted to hear him and his tweedle-dees. Miss Beecham plays like St. Cecilia, Ursula; and I want to speak to her about something. Can’t you get that brute beguiled away?”

Clarence was the one who was de trop in the little party; but he fiddled beatifically, with his eyes fixed on the ceiling, without the slightest suspicion of the fact, while Phoebe accompanied him, with little smiles at her friends, and shrugs of her shoulders. Reginald felt very strongly, though for the first time, that she was over doing the Scriptural maxim of being all things to all men.