Margaret Oliphant - Phoebe, Junior

“Phœbe, you are a very sensible girl – ” said her father at last, faltering.

“I beg your pardon, papa. I don't think you are treating me as if I were sensible,” said Phœbe. “I know well enough that grandpapa is in business – if that is what you are afraid of – ”

“Has been in business,” said Mrs. Beecham. “Your grandpapa has retired for some time. To be sure,” she added, turning to her husband, “it is only Tom that has the business, and as I consider Mrs. Tom objectionable, Phœbe need not be brought in contact – ”

“If Phœbe goes to Carlingford,” said the pastor, “she must not be disagreeable to any one. We must make up our minds to that. They must not call her stuck up and proud.”

“Henery,” said Mrs. Beecham, “I can put up with a great deal; but to think of a child of mine being exposed to the tongues of those Browns and Pigeons and Mrs. Tom, is more than I can bear. What I went through myself, you never knew, nor any one breathing – the looks they gave me, the things they kept saying, the little nods at one another every time I passed! Was it my fault that I was better educated, and more refined like, than they were? In Mr. Vincent's time, before you came, Henery, he was a very gentleman-like young man, and he used to come to the – High Street constantly to supper. It wasn't my doing. I never asked him – no more than I did you!”

“Your father used to ask me,” said Mr. Beecham, doubtfully. “It was very kind. A young pastor expects it in a new place; and a great many things arise, there is no doubt, in that way.”

“Not by my doing,” said the lady; “and when we were married, Henery, the things I did to please them! Thank Heaven, they know the difference now; but if they were to set themselves, as I could quite expect of them, against my child – ”

“Mamma,” said Phœbe, tranquilly, “I think you forget that it is me you are talking of. I hope I know what a pastor's daughter owes to herself. I have had my training. I don't think you need be frightened for me.”

“No; I think Phœbe could manage them if any one could,” said her father, complacently.

She smiled with a gracious response to this approval. She had a book in her hand, which of itself was a proof of Phœbe's pretensions. It was, I think, one of the volumes of Mr. Stuart Mill's “Dissertations.” Phœbe was not above reading novels or other light literature, but this only in the moments dedicated to amusement, and the present hour was morning, a time not for amusement, but for work.

“Phœbe don't know Carlingford, nor the folks there,” said Mrs. Beecham, flushed by the thought, and too much excited to think of the elegancies of diction. She had suffered more than her husband had, and retained a more forcible idea of the perils; and in the pause which ensued, all these perils crowded into her mind. As her own ambition rose, she had felt how dreadful it was to be shut in to one small circle of very small folks. She had felt the injurious line of separation between the shopkeepers and the rest of the world; at least she thought she had felt it. As a matter of fact, I think it very doubtful whether Phœbe Tozer had felt anything of the kind; but she thought so now; and then it was a fact that she was born Phœbe Tozer, and was used to that life, whereas Phœbe Beecham had no such knowledge. She had never been aware of the limitations of a small Dissenting community in a small town, and though she knew how much the Crescent congregation thought of a stray millionnaire like Mr. Copperhead (a thing which seemed too natural to Miss Beecham to leave any room for remark), her mother thought that it might have a bad effect upon Phœbe's principles in every way, should she find out the lowly place held by the connection in such an old-fashioned, self-conceited, Tory town as Carlingford. What would Phœbe think? how would she manage to associate with the Browns and the Pigeons? Fortunately, Mr. and Mrs. Tozer had retired from the shop; but the shop was still there, greasy and buttery as ever, and Mrs. Beecham's own respected papa was still “the butterman.” How would Phœbe bear it? This was the uppermost thought in her mind.

“You know, my darling,” she said afterwards, when they had left the study, and were seated, talking it over, in the drawing-room, “there will be a great deal to put up with. I am silly; I don't like even to hear your papa say anything about dear old grandpapa. He is my own, and I ought to stand up for him; but even with grandpapa, you will have a great deal to put up with. They don't understand our ways. They are used to have things so different. They think differently, and they talk differently. Even with your sense, Phœbe, you will find it hard to get on.”

“I am not at all afraid, I assure you, mamma.”

“You are not afraid, because you don't know. I know, and I am afraid. You know, we are not great people, Phœbe. I have always let you know that – and that it is far finer to elevate yourself than to be born to a good position. But when you see really the place which poor dear grandpapa and grandmamma think so much of, I am sure I don't know what you will say.”

“I shall not say much. I shall not say anything, mamma. I am not prejudiced,” said Phœbe. “So long as an occupation is honest and honourable, and you can do your duty in it, what does it matter? One kind of work is just as good as another. It is the spirit in which it is done.”

“Oh, honest!” said Mrs. Beecham, half relieved, half affronted. “Of course, it was all that. Nothing else would have answered papa. Your uncle Tom has the – business now. You need not go there, my dear, unless you like. I am not fond of Mrs. Tom. We were always, so to speak, above our station; but she is not at all above it. She is just adapted for it; and I don't think she would suit you in the least. So except just for a formal call, I don't think you need go there, and even that only if grandmamma can spare you. You must be civil to everybody, I suppose; but you need not go further; they are not society for you. You will hear people talk of me by my Christian name, as if we were most intimate; but don't believe it, Phœbe. I always felt aspirations towards a very different kind of life.”

“Oh, don't be afraid, mamma,” said Phœbe, calmly; “I shall be able to keep them at a distance. You need not fear.”

“Yes, my dear,” said the anxious mother; “but not too much at a distance either. That is just what is so difficult. If they can find an excuse for saying that my child is stuck up! Oh! nothing would please them more than to be able to find out something against my child. When you have apparently belonged to that low level, and then have risen,” said Mrs. Beecham, with a hot colour on her cheek, “there is nothing these kind of people will not say.”

These conversations raised a great deal of thought in Phœbe's mind; but they did not change her resolution. If it was necessary that some one should go to look after her grandmamma, and keep all those vulgar people at bay, and show to the admiring world what a Dissenting minister's daughter could be, and what a dutiful daughter was, then who so fit as herself to be the example? This gave her even a certain tragical sense of heroism, which was exhilarating, though serious. She thought of what she would have to “put up with,” as of something much more solemn than the reality; more solemn, but alas! not so troublesome. Phœbe felt herself something like a Joan of Arc as she packed her clothes and made her preparations. She was going among barbarians, a set of people who would not understand her, probably, and whom she would have to “put up with.” But what of that? Strong in a sense of duty, and superior to all lesser inducements, she felt herself able to triumph. Mrs. Beecham assisted with very divided feelings at the preparations. It was on her lips to say, “Never mind the evening dresses; you will not want them.” But then the thought occurred to her that to let the Carlingford folks see what her daughter had been used to, even if she had no use for such things, would be sweet.