Phœbe was almost desperate in her refusals, and was so little believed after all, that she charged Robert—when the sheriff had taken leave—to assure Augusta of the impossibility of her accepting the invitation. Sir John smiled, saying, ‘Lady Caroline scarcely deserved her,’ and added, ‘Here is another who wishes to shake hands with you, and this time I promise that you shall not be persecuted—my brother.’
He was a thin, spare man, who might have been taken for the elder brother, with a gentle, dreamy expression and soft, tender voice, such as she could not imagine being able to cope with pupils. He asked after her brother’s health, and she offered to ascertain whether Mervyn felt well enough to see him, but he thanked her, saying it was better not.
‘It could not have been his doing,’ thought Phœbe, as she went up-stairs. ‘How strong-minded Cecily must be! I wonder whether she would have done Bertha good.’
‘Whose voice was that?’ exclaimed Mervyn, at his door above.
‘Sir John Raymond and his brother.’
‘Are they coming in?’
‘No; they thought it might disturb you.’
Phœbe was glad that these answers fell to the share of the unconscious Robert. Mervyn sat down, and did not revert to the Raymonds through all the homeward journey. Indeed, he seemed unequal to speaking at all, went to his room immediately, and did not appear again when the others came home, bringing tidings that the verdict was guilty, and the sentence penal servitude. Lady Bannerman had further made a positive engagement with the sheriff’s lady, and was at first incredulous, then highly displeased, at Phœbe’s refusal to be included in it. She was sure it was only that Phœbe was bent on her own way, and thought she should get it when left at home with her guardian and her brothers.
Poor Phœbe, she did not so much as know what her own way was! She had never so much wished for her wise guardian, but in the meantime the only wisdom she could see was to wait patiently, and embrace whatever proposal would seem best for the others, though with little hope that any would not entail pain and separation from those who could spare her as ill as she could spare them.
Dr. Martyn was to come over in the course of the ensuing day to examine Bertha, and give her guardian his opinion of her state. There was little danger of its being favourable to violent changes, for Augusta made a descent on the school-room after dinner, and the morbid agitation thus occasioned obliged Miss Fennimore to sit up with the patient till one o’clock. In the morning the languor was extreme, and the cough so frequent that the fear for the lungs was in the ascendant.