Phoebe, Junior · Chapter 41 (2/2)

Once more Cotsdean’s knees knocked against each other in the shadow of the counter. His very lips trembled as he stood regarding his strange visitor with scared and wondering eyes.

“Now listen, please,” said Phoebe, earnestly; “if anyone comes to you about the bill today, don’t say anything about him. Say you got it⁠—in the way of business⁠—say anything you please, but don’t mention him. If you will promise me this, I will see that you don’t come to any harm. Yes, I will; you may say I am not the sort of person to know about business, and it is quite true. But whoever comes to you remember this⁠—if you don’t mention Mr. May, I will see you safely through it; do you understand?”

Phoebe leant across the counter in her earnestness. She was not the kind of person to talk about bills, or to be a satisfactory security for a man in business; but Cotsdean was a poor man, and he was ready to catch at a straw in the turbid ocean of debt and poverty which seemed closing round him. He gave the required promise with his heart in his mouth.

Then Phoebe returned down the street. Her fatigue began to tell upon her, but she knew that she dared not give in, or allow that she was fatigued. However heavy with sleep her eyes might be, she must keep awake and watchful. Nothing, if she could help it, must so much as turn the attention of the world in Mr. May’s direction. By this time she was much too deeply interested to ask herself why she should do so much for Mr. May. He was her charge, her burden, as helpless in her hands as a child; and nobody but herself knew anything about it. It was characteristic of Phoebe’s nature that she had no doubt as to being perfectly right in the matter, no qualm lest she should be making a mistake. She felt the weight upon her of the great thing she had undertaken to do, with a certain half-pleasing sense of the solemnity of the position and of its difficulties; but she was not afraid that she was going wrong or suffering her fancy to stray further than the facts justified; neither was she troubled by any idea of going beyond her sphere by interfering thus energetically in her friend’s affairs. Phoebe did not easily take any such idea into her head. It seemed natural to her to do whatever might be wanted, and to act upon her own responsibility. Her self-confidence reached the heroic point. She knew that she was right, and she knew moreover that in this whole matter she alone was right. Therefore the necessity of keeping up, of keeping alert and vigilant, of holding in her hand the threads of all these varied complications was not disagreeable to her, though she fully felt its importance⁠—nay, almost exaggerated it in her own mind if that could be. She felt the dangerous character of the circumstances around her, and her heart was sore with pity for the culprit, or as she called him to herself the chief sufferer; and yet all the same Phoebe felt a certain sense of satisfaction in the great role she herself was playing. She felt equal to it, though she scarcely knew what was the nest step she ought to take. She was walking slowly, full of thought, to Tozer’s door, pondering upon this, when the sound of rapid wheels behind roused her attention, and looking up, surprised, she suddenly saw leaping out of a dogcart the imposing figure of Clarence Copperhead, of whom she had not been thinking at all. He came down with a heavy leap, leaving the light carriage swinging and quivering behind him with the shock of his withdrawal.

“Miss Phoebe!” he said, breathless; “here’s luck! I came over to see you, and you are the first person I set eyes on⁠—”

He was rather heavy to make such a jump, and it took away his breath.

“To see me?” she said, laughing, though her heart began to stir. “That is very odd. I thought you must have come to see poor Mr. May, who is so ill. You know⁠—”

“May be hanged!” said the young man; “I mean⁠—never mind⁠—I don’t mean him any harm, though, by Jove, if you make such a pet of him, I don’t know what I shall think. Miss Phoebe, I’ve come over posthaste, as you may see; chiefly to see you; and to try a horse as well,” he added, “which the governor has just bought. He’s a very good ’un to go; and pleased the governor would be if he knew the use I had put him to,” he concluded, with a half-laugh.

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.”