Nothing satisfactory! What could that imply? Phœbe expected soon to hear something positive, for Bertha’s teeth required a visit to London, and Miss Fennimore was to take her to Lady Bannerman’s for a week, during which the governess would be with some relations of her own.
Phœbe talked of the snugness of being alone with her mother and Maria, and she succeeded in keeping both pleased with one another. The sisters walked in the park, and brought home primroses and periwinkles, which their mother tenderly handled, naming the copses they came from, well known to her in childhood, though since her marriage she had been too grand to be allowed the sight of a wild periwinkle. In the evening Phœbe gave them music, sang infant-school hymns with Maria, tried to teach her piquet; and perceived the difference that the absence of Bertha’s teasing made in the poor girl’s temper. All was very quiet, but when good night was said, Phœbe felt wearied out, and chid herself for her accesses of yawning, nay, she was shocked at her feeling of disappointment and tedium when the return of the travellers was delayed for a couple of days.
When at length they came, the variety brightened even Mrs. Fulmort, and she was almost loquacious about some mourning pocket-handkerchiefs with chess-board borders, that they were to bring. The girls all drank tea with her, Bertha
pouring out a whole flood of chatter in unrestraint, for she regarded her mother as nobody, and loved to astonish her sisters, so on she went, a slight hitch in her speech giving a sort of piquancy to her manner.
She had dined late every day, she had ridden with Sir Bevil in the Park, her curly hair had been thought to be crépé, she had drunk champagne, she would have gone to the Opera, but the Actons were particular, and said it was too soon—so tiresome, one couldn’t do anything for this mourning. Phœbe, in an admonitory tone, suggested that she had seen the British Museum.
‘Oh yes, I have it all in my note-book. Only imagine, Phœbe, Sir Nicholas had been at Athens, and knew nothing about the Parthenon! And, gourmet as he is, and so long in the Mediterranean, he had no idea whether the Spartan black broth was made with sepia.’
‘My dear,’ began her mother, ‘young ladies do not talk learning in society.’
‘Such a simple thing as this, mamma, every one must know. But they are all so unintellectual! Not a book about the Bannermans’ house except Soyer and the London Directory, and even Bevil had never read the Old Red Sandstone nor Sir Charles Lyell. I have no opinion of the science of soldiers or sailors.’
‘You have told us nothing of Juliana’s baby,’ interposed Phœbe.
‘She’s exactly like the Goddess Pasht, in the Sydenham Palace! Juliana does not like her a bit, because she is only a girl, and Bevil quite worships her. Everything one of them likes, the other hates. They are a study of the science of antipathies.’