‘It can’t be helped,’ said Phœbe. ‘I shall go with him. You stay to take care of Maria. There will be Robert to help us;’ and as the governess would have spoken farther, she held up her hands in entreaty—‘O pray don’t say anything! I can’t go on if I do anything but act.’
Yet in the endeavour to keep her brother quiet, and to husband his powers, Phœbe’s movements and words had rather an additional gentleness and deliberation; and so free from bustle was her whole demeanour, that he never comprehended her intention of accompanying him till she stepped into the carriage beside him.
‘What’s this? You coming?’
‘I will give you no trouble.’
‘Well, you may help to manage the girl;’ and he lay back, relieved to be off, but already spent by the hurry of the last two hours. Phœbe could sit and—no—not think, except that Robert was at the other end of the line.
The drive seemed to have lasted half the night ere the lamps of Elverslope made constellations in the valley, and the green and red lights of the station loomed out on the hill. They drove into the circle of gaslights, among the vaporous steeds of omnibuses and flies, and entered the station, Phœbe’s veil down, and Mervyn shading his dazzled eyes from the glare. They were half an hour too soon; and while waiting, it occurred to Phœbe to inquire whether a telegram for Beauchamp had been received. Even so, and they must have crossed the express; but a duplicate was brought to them.
‘Safe. We shall be at Elverslope at 10.20, P.M.’
Assuredly Phœbe did not faint, for she stood on her feet; and Mervyn never perceived the suspension of senses, which lasted till she found him for the second time asking whether she would go home or await the travellers at Elverslope.
‘Home,’ she said, instinctively, in her relief forgetting all the distress of what had taken place, so that her sensations were little short of felicity; and as she heard the 8.30 train roaring up, she shed tears of joy at having no concern therewith. The darkness and Mervyn’s silence were comfortable, for she
could wipe unseen her showers of tears at each gust of thankfulness that passed over her; and it was long before she could command her voice even to ask her companion whether he were tired. ‘No,’ he said; but the tone was more than half-sullen; and at the thought of the meeting between the brothers, poor Phœbe’s heart seemed to die within her. Against their dark looks and curt sayings to one another she had no courage.