At night Phœbe sent Boodle to bed; but Miss Fennimore insisted on sharing her pupil’s watch. At first there was nothing to do; the patient had fallen into a heavy slumber, and the daughter sat by the bed, the governess at the window, unoccupied save by their books. Phœbe was reading Miss Maurice’s invaluable counsels to the nurses of the dying. Miss Fennimore had the Bible. It was not from a sense of appropriateness, as in pursuance of her system of re-examination. Always admiring the Scripture in a patronizing temper, she had gloried in critical inquiry, and regarded plenary inspiration as a superstition, covering weak points by pretensions to infallibility. But since her discussions with Robert, and her readings of Butler with Bertha, she had begun to weigh for herself the internal, intrinsic evidence of Divine origin, above all, in the Gospels, which, to her surprise, enchained her attention and investigation, as she would have thought beyond the power of such simple words.
Pilate’s question, ‘What is truth?’ was before her. To her it was a link of evidence. Without even granting that the writer was the fisherman he professed to be, what, short of Shakesperian intuition, could thus have depicted the Roman of the early Empire in equal dread of Cæsar and of the populace, at once unscrupulous and timid, contemning Jewish prejudice, yet, with lingering mythological superstition, trembling at the hint of a present Deity in human form; and, lost in the bewilderment of the later Greek philosophy, greeting the word truth with the startled inquiry, what it might be. What is truth? It had been the question of Miss Fennimore’s life, and she felt a blank and a disappointment as it stood unanswered. A movement made her look up. Phœbe was raising her mother, and Miss Fennimore was needed to support the pillows.
‘Phœbe, my dear, are you here?’
‘Yes, dear mamma, I always am.’
‘Phœbe, my dear, I think I am soon going. You have been a good child, my dear; I wish I had done more for you all.’
‘Dear mamma, you have always been so kind.’
‘They didn’t teach me like Honora Charlecote,’ she faltered on; ‘but I always did as your poor papa told me. Nobody ever told me how to be religious, and your poor papa would not have liked it. Phœbe, you know more than I do. You don’t think God will be hard with me, do you? I am such a poor creature; but there is the Blood that takes away sin.’
‘Dear mother, that is the blessed trust.’
‘The Truth,’ flashed upon Miss Fennimore, as she watched their faces.
‘Will He give me His own goodness?’ said Mrs. Fulmort, wistfully. ‘I never did know how to think about Him—I wish I had cared more. What do you think, Phœbe?’