CHAPTER XXVI
Then Robin Hood took them both by the hands,
And danced about the oak tree,
For three merry men, and three merry men,
And three merry men we be.—Old Ballad
The case of the three sisters remained a difficulty. The Bannermans professed to have ‘washed their hands of them,’ their advice not being taken, and Mr. Crabbe could not think
himself justified in letting them return to the protection that had so egregiously failed. Bertha was fretted by the uncertainty, and became nervous, and annoyed with Phœbe for not showing more distress—but going on from day to day in the confidence that matters would arrange themselves.
Phœbe, who had come of age during her foreign tour, had a long conference with her guardian when he put her property into her hands. The result was that she obtained his permission to inhabit with her sisters the Underwood, a sort of dowager-house belonging to Beauchamp, provided some elderly lady could be found to chaperon them—Miss Fennimore, if they preferred her.
Miss Fennimore was greatly touched with the earnestness of the united entreaties of her pupils, and though regretting the field of usefulness in which she had begun to work, could not resist the pleasure of keeping house with Phœbe, and resuming her studies with Bertha on safer ground. She could not, however, quit her employment without a half-year’s notice, and when Mervyn went down for a day to Beauchamp, he found the Underwood in such a woful state of disrepair, that turn in as many masons, carpenters, and paperers as he would, there was no hope of its being habitable before Martinmas. Therefore the intermediate time must be spent in visiting, and though the head-quarters were at the Holt, the Raymonds of Moorcroft claimed the first month, and the promise of Cecily’s presence allured Bertha thither, though the Fulmort mind had always imagined the house highly religious and dull. Little had she expected to find it ringing with the wild noise and nonsense of a joyous home party of all ages, full of freaks and frolics, laughter and merriment. Her ready wit would have made her shine brilliantly if her speech had been constantly at command, but she often broke down in the midst of a repartee, and was always in danger of suffering from over-excitement. Maria, too, needed much watching and tenderness. Every one was very kind to her, but not exactly knowing the boundary of her powers, the young people would sometimes have brought her into situations to which she was unequal, if Phœbe had not been constantly watching over her.
Between the two sisters, Phœbe’s visit was no sinecure. She was always keeping a motherly eye and hand over one or the other, sometimes over both, and not unseldom incurring Bertha’s resistance under the petulance of overwrought spirits, or anger at troublesome precautions. After Cecily’s arrival, however, the task became easier. Cecily took Bertha off her hands, soothing and repressing those variable spirits, and making a wise and gentle use of the adoration that Bertha lavished on her, keeping her cousins in order, and obviating the fast and furious fun that was too great a change for girls brought up like the Fulmorts. Maria was safe whenever Cecily was in the room, and Phœbe was able to relax her care and enjoy herself doubly for feeling all the value of the future sister.
She thought Miss Charlecote and Lucilla both looked worn and dispirited, when one day she rode with Sir John to see them and inspect the Underwood, as well as to make arrangements for the Forest Show. Poor Honora was seriously discomposed at having nothing to show there. It was the first time that the Holt had failed to shine in its produce, but old Brooks had allowed the whole country round to excel so palpably in all farm crops, and the gardener had taken things so easily in her absence, that everything was mediocre, and she was displeased and ashamed. Moreover, Brooks had controverted her strictest instructions against harbouring tenants of bad character; he had mismanaged the cattle, and his accounts were in confusion. He was a thoroughly faithful servant, but like Ponto and the pony, he had grown masterful with age. Honor found that her presiding eye had certainly done some good, since going away had made things so much worse, and she took Sir John with her to the study to consult him on her difficulties. Phœbe and Lucilla were left together.
‘I am afraid you are not much better,’ said Phœbe, looking at the languid fragile little being, and her depressed air.
‘Yes, I am,’ she answered, ‘in essentials—but, oh! Phœbe, if you could only teach me to get on with Honor.’
‘Oh,’ said Phœbe, with a tone of disappointment, ‘I hoped all was comfortable now.’
‘So it ought to be! I am a wretch that it is not; but somehow I get tired to death. I should like it to be my own fault, but with her I always have a sense of fluffiness. There is so much figurativeness and dreamy sentiment that one never gets to the firm, clear surface.’
‘I thought that her great charm,’ said Phœbe. ‘It is a pity to be so dull and unimaginative as I am.’
‘I like you best as you are! I know what to be at.’
‘Besides, her sensibility and poetry are a fund of happy youthfulness. Abroad, her enjoyment was multiplied, because every place was full of associations, lighted up by her fancy.
‘Made unsubstantial by her fluff! No, I cannot like mutton with the wool on! It is a shame, though, good creature as she is! I only wanted to make out the philosophy of the wearied, worried condition that her conversation is so apt to bring on in me. I can’t think it pure wickedness on my own part, for I esteem, and love, and venerate the good soul with all my heart. I say, Phœbe, were you never in an inward rage when she would say she would not let some fact be true, for the sake of some mythical, romantic figment? You smile. Own that you have felt it.’
‘I have thought of Miss Fennimore’s theory, that legends are more veritable exponents of human nature than bare facts.’
‘Say it again, Phœbe. It sounds very grand. Whipped cream is a truer exponent of milk than cheese, especially when it tastes of soap-suds. Is that it?’
‘It is a much prettier thing, and not near so hard and dry,’ said Phœbe; ‘but, you see, you are talking in figures after all.’
‘The effect of example. Look here, my dear, the last generation was that of mediævalism, ecclesiology, chivalry, symbolism, whatever you may call it. Married women have worked out of it. It is the middle-aged maids that monopolize it. Ours is that of common sense.’
‘I don’t know that it is better or prettier,’ said Phœbe.
‘And it may be worse! But how are the two to live together when there is no natural conformity—only undeserved benefits on one side and gratitude on the other?’
‘You will be more at ease when you are stronger and better,’ said Phœbe. ‘Your brother will make you feel more natural with her.’
‘Don’t talk of it, Phœbe. Think of the scene those two will get up! And the showing him that terrible little Cockney, Hoeing, as the old woman calls him. If I could only break the neck of his h’s before poor Owen hears them.’
‘Miss Charlecote did say something of having him here, but she thought you were not strong enough.’
‘Justly judged! I shall have enough of him by and by, if I take him out to Canada. Once I used to think that would be deliverance; now it has become nothing but a gigantic trouble!’
‘If you are really equal to it, you will not feel it so, when the time comes. Bertha was miserable at the thought of moving, till just when she had come to the right point, and then she grew eager for it.’
It was wonderful how much freshened Lucy was by this brief contact with Phœbe’s clear, practical mind; but only for the time. Ever since her arrival at the Holt she had sadly flagged, though making every effort against her depression. There was something almost piteous in her obedience and submission. All the employments once pressed upon her and then spurned, were solicitously resumed; or if Honor remonstrated against them as over-fatiguing, were relinquished in the same spirit of resigned meekness. Her too visible desire to make an onerous atonement pressed with equal weight on both, and the essential want of sympathy rendered the confidences of the one mysteries to the other.
Honora was grieved that her child had only returned to pine and droop, charging much of her melancholy lassitude upon Robert, and waiting on her with solicitude and tenderness that were unhappily only an additional oppression; and all Lucilla’s aversion to solitude did not prevent her friend’s absence from being a relief. It was all that she could at present desire to be released from the effort of being companionable, and be able to indulge her languor without remark, her wayward appetite without causing distress, and her dejection without caresses, commiseration, or secret imputations on Robert.
Tidings came from Vancouver’s Land of her uncle’s death by
an accident. Long as it was since she had seen him, the loss was deeply felt. She better appreciated what his care of her father had been, and knew better what gratitude he deserved, and it was a sore disappointment that he should not live to see her prove her repentance for all her flightiness and self-will. Moreover, his death, without a son, would enable his nephew to alienate the family estate; and Lucy looked on this as direful shame and humiliation. Still there was something soothing in having a sorrow that could be shared with Miss Charlecote; and the tangible cause for depression and retirement was a positive comfort.
‘Trouble’ was the chief dread of her wearied spirit; and though she had exerted herself to devise and work the banners, she could not attempt being present at the grand Forest show, and marvelled to see Honor set off, with twice her years and more than twice her sorrows, yet full of the fresh eagerness of youthful anticipation, and youthful regrets at leaving her behind, and at having nothing to figure at the show!
But vegetables were not the order of that day, the most memorable the Forest had perhaps ever known, since six bold Lancastrian outlaws had there been hung, on the very knoll where the flag of England was always hoisted, superior to the flags of all the villages.
The country population and the exhibitors were all early in the field, and on the watch for the great feature of the day—the Londoners. What cheering rent the air as the first vehicle from the little Forest station appeared, an old stage-coach, clustered within and without by white bibs, tippets, and caps, blue frocks, and grave, demure faces, uncertain whether to be charmed or frightened at their elevation and reception, and almost dazzled by the bright sunshine and pure air, to their perception absolutely thin, though heavy laden with the scents of new-mown hay and trodden ferns.
The horses are stopped, down springs Mr. Parsons from the box, releases the staid mistress from within, lifts or jumps down the twenty girls, and watches them form in well-accustomed file, their banner at their head, just pausing to be joined by the freight of a rattling omnibus, the very roof laden with the like little Puritan damsels. The conveyances turn back for another load, the procession is conducted slowly away, through the road lined by troops of country children, regarding the costume as the latest London fashion, and holding out many an eager gift of nosegays of foxgloves, marigolds, southernwood, and white pinks. Meanwhile break, cart, fly, van, barouche, gig, cart, and wagon continue in turn to discharge successive loads, twenty children to each responsible keeper. White caps are over! Behold the parish school of St. Wulstan’s. Here is fashion! Here are hats, polkas, and full short skirts, but pale faces and small limbs. The country mothers cry ‘Oh!’ and ‘Poor little dears, they look very tuly,’ and complacently regard their own
sturdy, sunburnt offspring, at whose staring eyes and ponderous boots the city mice glance with disdain.
Endless stream! Here waves a proud blue banner, wrought with a noble tortoiseshell cat; and behind it, each class led by a cat-flag, marches the Whittingtonian line, for once no ragged regiment, but arrayed by their incumbent’s three sisters in lilac cotton and straw bonnets, not concealing, however, the pinched and squalid looks of the denizens of the over-crowded lanes and alleys.
That complaint cannot be made of these sixteen wearers of gray frocks and checked jackets. Stunted indeed they are, several with the expressionless, almost featureless, visages of hereditary misery, others with fearfully refined loveliness, but all are plump, well-fed, and at ease. They come from the orphanage of St. Matthew’s, under the charge of the two ladies who walk with them, leading two lesser younglings, all but too small to be brought to the festival. Yes, these are the waifs and strays, of home and parents absolutely unknown, whom Robert Fulmort has gathered from the streets—his most hopeful conquest from the realm of darkness.
Here, all neatly, some stylishly dressed, are the St. Wulstan’s Young Women’s Association, girls from fifteen upwards, who earn their own livelihood in service or by their handiwork, but meet on Sunday afternoons to read, sing, and go to church together, have books lent out for the week, or questions set for those who like them. It is Miss Fennimore who is the nucleus of the band; she sits with them in church, she keeps the books, writes the questions, and leads the singing; and she is walking between her two chief friends, answering their eager and intelligent questions about trees and flowers, and directing their observation.
Boys! boys! boys! Objects in flat caps and little round buttons atop, knee-breeches, and short-tailed coats, funnier to look at than their white-capped sisters, gentlemanly choristers, tidy sons of artisans and warehousemen, ragged half-tamed little street vagabonds, all file past, under curate, schoolmaster or pupil teacher, till the whole multitude is safely deposited in a large mead running into the heart of the Forest, and belonging to the ranger, Sir John Raymond, who has been busy there, with all his family, for the last three days.
Policemen guard the gates from intruders, but all can look over the low hedge at the tents at either end, the cord dividing boy from girl, and the scattered hay, on which the strangers move about, mostly mazed by the strange sights, sounds, and smells, and only the petted orphans venturing to tumble about that curious article upon the ground. Two little sisters, however, evidently transplanted country children, sit up in a corner where they have found some flowers, fondling them and hugging them with ecstasy.
The band strikes up, and, at the appointed signal, grace is
said by the archdeacon from the centre, the children are seated on the grass, and ‘the nobility, clergy, and gentry’ rush to the tents, and emerge with baskets of sandwiches of the largest dimensions, or cans full of Sir John’s beer. The Whittingtonians devour as those that have eaten nothing this morning, the Wulstonites as though country air gave great keenness of appetite; the subdued silence of awe passes off, and voices, laughing, and play begin to betray some real enjoyment and familiarity.
Such as are not too perfectly happy in the revelry of tumbling on the grass are then paraded through the show, to gaze at peas, currants, and potatoes, pyramids of geraniums, and roses peeping through white paper. Thence the younger ones return to play in the field; such of the elder ones as prefer walking are conducted through forest paths to gather flowers, and to obtain a closer view of that oft-described sight, a corn-field. Some of the elder Wulstonians get up a dance, tall girls dancing together with the utmost enjoyment; but at four o’clock the band plays Dulce Domum, the captains of twenties count heads and hunt up stragglers, all gather together in their places, plum buns and tea are administered till even these thirsty souls can drink no more. Again the files are marshalled, the banners displayed, and the procession moves towards the little Forest church, a small, low-walled, high-roofed building, enclosed by stately beeches, making a sort of outer cathedral around the little elevation where it stood in its railed-in churchyard.
Two thousand children besides spectators in a building meant for three hundred! How came it to be devised? There is a consultation among the clergy. They go from one portion to another of the well-generalled army, and each division takes up a position on the ground strewn with dry beech leaves; hassocks and mats are brought to the ladies, a desk set at the gate, and a chair for the archdeacon; the choristers are brought near, and the short out-door service is begun.
How glorious and full the responses, ‘as the voice of many waters,’ and the chanted Psalms, the beautiful songs of degrees of the 27th of the month, rise with new fulness and vividness of meaning among the tall trees and sunlit foliage. One lesson alone is read, in Charlecote Raymond’s fine, powerful voice, and many an eye is filled with tears at the words, ‘One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of us all,’ as he gazes on the troops on troops of young and old, rich and poor, strangers and homeborn, all held together in that great unity, typified by the overshadowing sky, and evidenced by the burst of the Creed from every voice and every heart.
Then follow the Versicles, the Collects, the Thanksgiving, and the Blessing, and in a few warm, kind words the archdeacon calls on all to keep the bond of peace and brotherly love, and bade the strangers bear home with them the thought of the wonderful works of God. Then—
All people that on earth do dwell,
Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice,
arises from the congregation in all its simple exultant majesty, forcing, as it were, every voice to break forth into singing unless it be choked by heart-swelling.
The last note has died away, but there is a sweet hush, as though lingering still, ere breaking the sense that this is none other than the gate of heaven.
Rattle and rumble, the vehicles are coming! The children rise, and somewhere begins the indispensable cheer. The gentlemen take the lead. ‘Three times three for Mr. Fulmort!’ ‘Three cheers for Sir John Raymond!’ ‘Three for the Forest show!’ Shouting and waving of hats will never cease, the gentlemen are as crazy as the boys, and what will become of the train?
Tumble them in—hoist up the girls while mankind is still vociferous. What’s all this, coming in at the omnibus windows? Stand back, child, you don’t want to be set down in London! Your nosegay, is it? Here are the prize nosegays, prize potatoes, prize currants, prize everything showering in on the Londoners to display or feast on at home. Many a family will have a first taste of fresh country green meat to-morrow, of such freshness, that is, as it may retain after eight hours of show and five of train. But all is compared! How the little girls hug their flowers. If any nosegays reach London alive, they will be cherished to their last hour, and maybe the leaves will live in prayer-books for many a year.
Poor little things! It has been to them apparently a rather weary and oppressive pleasure, too strange for the most part to be thoroughly enjoyed; but it will live in their memories for many a day, and as time goes on, will clear itself from the bewilderment, till it become one of the precious days that make gems on the thread of life.
Mervyn! Where has he been all this time? True, he once said he would see nothing of it, and seems to have kept his word. He did not even acknowledge the cheers for Mr. Fulmort.
Is not something visible behind the broad smooth bole of yonder beech tree? Have Mervyn and Cecily been there all the time of the evening service?
It is a remarkable fact, that though nobody has told anybody, every person who is curious, and many who are not, know who is to be Mrs. Fulmort of Beauchamp.
CHAPTER XXVII
When will you marry?
Say the bells of St. Mary.
When I get rich,
Say the bells of Shoreditch.
When will that be?
Say the bells of Stepney.
I do not know,
Says the great bell of Bow.—Nursery Rhyme
There was some truth in Lucilla’s view of herself and Honor as belonging to two distinct classes of development. Honor had grown up among those who fed on Scott, Wordsworth, and Fouqué, took their theology from the British Critic, and their taste from Pugin; and moulded their opinions and practice on the past. Lucilla and Phœbe were essentially of the new generation, that of Kingsley, Tennyson, Ruskin, and the Saturday Review. Chivalry had given way to common sense, romance to realism, respect for antiquity to pitying patronage, the past to the future. Perhaps the present has lost in reverence and refinement as much as it has gained in clearness and confidence! Lucilla represented reaction, therefore her attitude was antagonistic; Phœbe was the child of the newer system, therefore she loved the elder one, and sought out the likenesses to, rather than the differences from, her own tone of thought. And well was it that she had never let slip her hold on that broad, unchanging thread of truth, the same through all changes, making faith and principle one, though the developments in practice and shades of thought shake off the essential wisdom on which it grew, only to adopt some more fatal aberration of their own!
Thus standing between the two, Phœbe was a great help to both in understanding each other, and they were far more at ease when she was with them. In October, all three went to Woolstone-lane for a brief stay. Honor wished that the physician should see Lucilla before the winter, and Phœbe was glad to avail herself of the opportunity of choosing furniture and hiring servants for her new establishment, free from the interference of Lady Bannerman, who was of course at Brighton.
She had been obliged to let her sisters go to Sutton without her, as the little parsonage had not room for three guests besides Lieschen, who was more indispensable to Maria than even herself, and both the others were earnestly set upon accepting the invitation. Cecily silenced her scruples by begging, as a proof of acceptance as a sister, that she might be intrusted with them, and promising that in her own quiet home, whence most of the family had been launched into life, they should meet with none of the excitements of merry Moorcroft; and Phœbe was obliged to resign her charge for these few weeks, and trust from Bertha’s lively letters that all was well.
Another cause which made Honor and Lucy anxious to be in London was the possibility of Owen’s arrival. He had last been heard of on the shores of Lake Superior, when he spoke of returning as soon as the survey for a new line of railway should have been completed, and it was not unlikely that he might come even before his letter. News would await him that he would regret as much as did his sister. Uncle Kit’s death had enabled Charles Charteris, or rather his creditors, to advertise Castle Blanch for sale, and Lucilla, who had a more genuine affection for the place than had any of the natives, grieved extremely over the family disgrace that was causing it to pass into other hands.
She had an earnest desire to take advantage of the display of the house and grounds to pay the scenes of her youth one last visit. The vehemence of this wish was her first recurrence to her old strength of will, and Honora beheld it as a symptom of recovery, though dreading the long and fatiguing day of emotion. Yet it might be taken as another token of improvement that she had ceased from that instinctive caution of feebleness which had made her shrink from all exertion or agitation.
Her chest was pronounced to be in a satisfactory state, her health greatly improved; and as there was no longer need for extra precaution, the three ladies set forth together on the first fine day.
The Indian summer was in full glory, every wood arrayed in brightness; and as they drove from the Wrapworth Station, the banks of the river were surpassingly lovely, brown, red, and olive, illuminated by sprays of yellow, like fireworks, and contrasting with the vivid green of the meadows and dark blue water. Honor recollected the fairy boat that once had floated there, and glancing at the pale girl beside her, could not but own the truth of the similitude of the crushed fire-fly; yet the fire of those days had scorched, not lighted; and it had been the mirth that tendeth to heaviness.
Cilla was gazing, with all her soul in her eyes, in silence. She was trying to revive the sense of home that once had made her heart bound at the first glimpse of Wrapworth; but her spirit leapt up no more. The familiar scene only impressed the sense of homelessness, and of the severance of the last tie to her father’s parish, her mother’s native place. Honor asked if she would stop in the village. ‘Not yet,’ she said; ‘let us have the Castle first.’
At the next turn they overtook Mr. Prendergast, and he was instantly at the carriage-door, exacting a willing promise of taking luncheon with him on the way back, a rest for which Honor was thankful, sure as she was that this visit was costing Lucy more than she had anticipated.
Without a word, she beheld the green space of park, scattered with groups of glowing trees, the elms spangled with gold, the maples blushing themselves away, the parterre a gorgeous patchwork of scarlet, lilac, and orange, the Virginian creeper
hanging a crimson mantle on the cloister. There was something inexpressibly painful in the sight of all this beauty, unheeded and cast away by the owners, and displayed as a matter of bargain and sale. Phœbe thought of the strange, uncomfortable dream that it had been to her when she had before looked and wondered at the scene before her. She retraced Robert’s restless form in every window, and thought how little she had then augured the fruit of what he had suffered.
The rooms were opened, and set out for inspection. Honor and Phœbe made it their duty to occupy the chattering maid, a stranger to Lucilla, and leave her free to move through the apartments, silent and very white, as if it were a sacred duty to stand wherever she had stood, to gaze at whatever her eyes had once met.
Presently she stood still, in the dining-room, her hand grasping the back of a chair, as she looked up to a large picture of three children, two boys and a girl, fancifully dressed, and playing with flowers. The waxen complexion, fair hair, and blue eyes of the girl were almost her own.
‘This to be sold?’ she said, turning round, and speaking for the first time.
‘O yes, ma’am!—everything, unreservedly. That picture has been much admired—by the late Sir Thomas Lawrence, ma’am—the children of the late General Sir Christopher Charteris.’
Lucilla, whiter than before, walked quickly away. In a few seconds Phœbe followed, and found her leaning on the balustrade of the terrace, her breathing heavily oppressed; but she smiled coldly and sternly, and tightened a stiff, cold grasp on Phœbe’s arm as she said—
‘Honor has her revenge, Phœbe! These are the kindred for whom I broke from her! Well, if Charles sells his birthright and his own father, I don’t know how I can complain of his selling my mother!’
‘But, Lucy, listen. Miss Charlecote was asking about the agent. I am sure she means to try to get it for you.’
‘I dare say. It is right that I should bear it!’
‘And the maid said that there had been a gentleman speaking about it, and trying to secure it. She thought he had written to Mr. Charteris about it.’
‘What gentleman?’ and Lucy was ready to spring back to inquire.
‘Miss Charlecote asked, and I believe it was Mr. Prendergast!’
There was a bright, though strange flickering of pleasure and pain over Cilla’s face, and her eyelids quivered as she said, ‘Yes—yes—of course; but he must not—he must not do it! He cannot afford it! I cannot let him!’
‘Perhaps your cousin only needed to be reminded.’
‘I have no hope of him. Besides, he cannot help himself; but at least—I say, Phœbe, tell Honor that it is kindness itself in her; but I can’t talk about it to her—’
And Lucilla’s steps sprang up-stairs, as desirous to escape the sight and speech of all.
After the melancholy round of deserted bedrooms, full of bitter recollections, Lucilla again descended first, and at the door met the curate. After a few words, she turned, and said, ‘Mr. Prendergast would row us down to the vicarage, if you liked.’
‘Indeed, my dear,’ said Honor, unwillingly, ‘I am afraid of the cold on the water for you.’
‘Then pray let me walk across the park!’ she said imploringly; and Miss Charlecote yielded rather than try her submission too severely, though dreading her over-fatigue, and set off with Phœbe in the fly.
‘You are sure it is not too far for you?’ asked the curate.
‘Quite. You know I always used to fly upon Wrapworth turf.’ After some silence—‘I know what you have been doing,’ she said, with a choking voice.
‘About the picture? I am sorry you do.’
‘It is of no use for you to know that your cousin has no more heart than a lettuce run to seed.’
‘When I knew that before, why may I not know that there are others not in the same case?’ she said, with full heart and eyes.
‘Because the sale must take place, and the purchaser may be a brute, so it may end in disappointment.’
‘It can’t end in disappointment.’
‘It may be far beyond my means,’ continued the curate, as if he had been answering her importunities for a new doll.
‘That I know it is,’ she said. ‘If it can be done at all, the doing of it may be left to Miss Charlecote—it is an expiation I owe to her generous spirit.’
‘You would rather she did it than I?’ he asked, mortified.
‘Nay—didn’t I tell you that I let her do it as an expiation. Does not that prove what it costs me?’
‘Then why not—’ he began.
‘Because,’ she interrupted, ‘in the first place, you have no idea of the price of Lawrence’s portraits; and, in the second, it is so natural that you should be kind to me that it costs even my proud spirit—just nothing at all’—and again she looked up to him with beamy, tearful eyes, and quivering, smiling lip.
‘What, it is still a bore to live with Miss Charlecote,’ cried he, in his rough eagerness.
‘Don’t use such words,’ she answered, smiling. ‘She is all kindness and forgiveness, and what can it be but my old vixen spirit that makes this hard to bear?’
‘Cilla!’ he said.
‘Well?’
‘Cilla!’
‘I have a great mind to tell you why I came to Southminster.’
‘To look at a living?’
‘To look at you. If I had found you pining and oppressed, I had thought of asking if you could put up with your father’s old friend.’
She looked with eyes of wonder, drew her arm away, and stood still, partly bewildered. ‘You didn’t?’ she said, half in interrogation.
‘I saw my mistake; you were too young and gay. But, Cilla,’ he added, more tremulously, ‘if you do wish for a home—’
‘Don’t, don’t!’ she cried; ‘I can’t have you talk as if I only wanted a home!’
‘And indeed I have none as yet,’ he said. ‘But do you indeed mean that you could think of it?’—and he came nearer.
‘It! Nonsense! Of you!’ she vehemently exclaimed. ‘How could you think of anything else?’
‘Cilla,’ he said, in great agitation, ‘let me know what you are saying. Don’t drive me crazy when it is not in the nature of things you should mean it!’
‘Why not?’ asked Lucilla. ‘It is only too good for me.’
‘Is it true, then?’ he said, as he took both her hands in his. ‘Is it true that you understand me, and are willing to be—to be my own—darling charge?’
‘Oh, it would be such rest!’
It was as if the storm-tossed bird was folding its weary wing in perfect calm and confidence. Nor could he contain his sudden joy, but spoke incoherent words, and well-nigh wept over her.
‘How did you come to think of it?’ exclaimed she, as, the first gush of feeling over, they walked on arm-in-arm.
‘I thought of it from the moment when I hoped I might be a resource, a comforter at least.’
‘Not before?’ was the rather odd question.
‘No. The place was forlorn enough without you; but I was not such a fool as to think of a young beauty, and all that.’
‘All that meaning my wickedness,’ said Lucilla. ‘Tell me again. You always did like the sprite even when it was wicked, only you were too good and right-minded.’
‘Too old and too poor.’
‘She is old and poor now,’ said Cilla; ‘worn out and washed out into a mere rag. And you like her the better?’
‘Not washed out!’ he said, as her countenance flushed into more than its wonted loveliness. ‘I used to wish you hadn’t such a face when those insolent fellows talked of you—but you will get up your looks again when I have the care of you. The first college living—there are some that can’t choose but drop before long! The worst is, I am growing no younger!’
‘Ah! but I am growing older!’ she cried, triumphantly.
‘All women from twenty-five to forty are of the same age as all men from thirty to fifty. We are of just the same standing, you see!’
‘Seventeen years between us!’
‘Nothing at all, as you will see when I put on my cap, and look staid.’
‘No, no; I can’t spare all that yellow hair.’
‘Yellow indeed! if you don’t know better what to call it, the sooner it is out of sight the better.’
‘Why, what do you call it?’
‘Flaxen, to be sure—blonde cendrée, if you like it better—that is the colour of tow and ashes!’
She was like a playful kitten for the next quarter of a mile, her prettiest sauciness returning in the exuberant, confiding gladness with which she clung to the affection that at length satisfied her spirit; but gravity came back to her as they entered the village.
‘Poor Wrapworth!’ she said, ‘you will soon pass to strangers! It is strange to know that, yet to feel the old days returning for which I have pined ever since we were carried away from home and Mr. Pendy.’
‘Yes, nothing is wanting but that we could remain here.’
‘Never mind! We will make a better Wrapworth for one another, free from the stains of my Castle Blanch errors and sorrows! I am even glad of the delay. I want a little time to be good with poor dear Honor, now that I have heart and spirit to be good.’
‘And I grudge every week to her! I declare, Cilla, you make me wish evil to my neighbour.’
‘Then follow my example, and be content with this present gladness.’
‘Ha! ha! I wonder what they’ll say at Southminster. Didn’t I row them for using you so abominably? I have not been near them since!’
‘More shame for you! Sarah is my best correspondent, and no one ever did me so much good as Mrs. Prendergast.’
‘I didn’t ask her to do you good!’
‘You ought to have done so then; for I should not be the happy woman I am now if she had not done me good because she could not help it! I hope they won’t take it to heart.’
‘I hope they will!’
‘What?’
‘Turning you out?’
‘Oh, I meant your throwing yourself away on a broken-down governess! There—let us have done with nonsense. Come in this way.’
It was through the churchyard, past the three graves, which were as trim as if Lucilla had daily tended them. ‘Thank you,’ she said; then gazed in silence, till with a sigh she exclaimed:—
‘Poor Edna! Monument of my faults! What perverse determination of mine it was that laid her here!’
‘It was your generous feeling.’
‘Do not miscall and embellish my perverse tyranny, as much to defy the Charterises as to do her justice. I am more ashamed now that I have the secret of your yielding!’ she added, with downcast eyes, yet a sudden smile at the end.
‘We will take that child home and bring him up,’ said Mr. Prendergast.
‘If his father wishes it, it will be right; not as if it were the pleasantest of charges. Thank you,’ said Cilla. ‘Three o’clock! Poor Honor, she must be starving!’
‘What about her?’ stammered Mr. Prendergast, hanging back shyly. ‘Must she be told?’
‘Not now,’ said Lucilla, with all her alert readiness. ‘I will tell her to-night. You will come in the first day you can!’
‘To-morrow! Every possible day.’
Honor had truly been uneasy, fearing that Lucilla was walking, sitting down, or fasting imprudently; but the brilliant colour, the joyous eyes, and lively manner spoke wonderfully for the effects of native air. Mr. Prendergast had become more absent and awkward than ever, but his extra shyness passed unremarked, and Lucilla’s tact and grace supplied all deficiencies without obtrusiveness. Always at home in the vicarage, she made none of her former bantering display of familiarity, but only employed it quietly to secure the guests having what they wanted, and to awaken the host to his duties, when he forgot that any one save herself needed attention.
She was carried off before the river fog should arise, and her abstracted silence all the way home was not wondered at; although Phœbe, sitting opposite to her, was at a loss to read the furtive smiles that sometimes unclosed her lips, or the calm, pensive look of perfect satisfaction on her features; and Honor could not comprehend her entire absence of fatigue after so trying a day, and wondered whether it were really the old complaint—want of feeling.
At night, Honor came to her room, and began—‘My dear, I want to make a little explanation to you, if you are not tired.’
‘Oh! no—I had a little explanation to make to you,’ she answered, with a flush and a smile.
‘Perhaps it may be on the same subject,’ and as Cilla half laughed, and shook her head, she added—‘I meant to tell you that long ago—from the time I had the Holt—I resolved that what remained of my income after the duties of my property were fulfilled, should make a fund for you and Owen. It is not much, but I think you would like to have the option of anticipating a part, in case it should be possible to rescue that picture.’
‘Dear, dear Honor,’ exclaimed Cilla; ‘how very kindly you
are doing it! Little did I think that Charles’s heartlessness would have brought me so much joy and kindness.’
‘Then you would like it to be done,’ said Honor, delighted to find that she had been able so to administer a benefit as to excite neither offence nor resignation. ‘We will take care that the purchaser learns the circumstances, and he can hardly help letting you have it at a fair valuation.’
‘Thanks, thanks, dear Honor,’ repeated Lucy; ‘and now for my explanation. Mr. Prendergast has asked me to marry him.’
Had it been herself, Honor could not have been more astounded.
‘My child! impossible! Why, he might be your father! Is it that you want a home, Lucy? Can you not stay with me?’
‘I can and I will for the present, Sweetest Honey,’ said Cilly, caressingly drawing her arm round her. ‘I want to have been good and happy with you; but indeed, indeed I can’t help his being more to me!’
‘He is a very excellent man,’ began bewildered Honor; ‘but I cannot understand—’
‘His oddity? That’s the very thing which makes him my own, and nobody else’s, Mr. Pendy! Listen, Honor. Sit down, you don’t half know him, nor did I know my own heart till now. He came to us, you know, when my father’s health began to break after my mother’s death. He was quite young, only a deacon; he lived in our house, and he was, with all his dear clumsiness, a daughter to my father, a nurse to us. I could tell you of such beautiful awkward tendernesses! How he used to help me with my sums—and tie Owen’s shoes, and mince his dinner for him—and spare my father all that was possible! I am sure you know how we grieved after him.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘And now I know that it was he that I cared for at Wrapworth. With him I never was wild and naughty as I was with others, though I did not know—oh! Honor, if I had but known—that he always cared for the horrid little thing I was, I could not have gone on so; but he was too good and wise, even while he did love me, to think of this, till I had been tamed and come back to you! I am sure I can’t be so naughty now, since he has thought of me!’
‘Lucy, dearest, I am glad to see you so happy, but it is very strange to me. It is such a sudden change,’ said Honor.
‘No change! I never cared for any one half as much!’
‘Lucy!’ confounded at her apparent oblivion.
‘It is true,’ said Lucy, sitting down by her. ‘Perhaps I thought I did, but if the other had ever been as much to me, I could never have used him as I did! Oh, Honor, when a person is made of the stuff I am, it is very hard to tell which is one’s heart, and which is one’s flirting-machine! for the other thing does simulate all the motions, and feel real true pain! But I know now that Mr. Pendy was safe in my rear heart of hearts
all the time, though I never guessed it, and thought he was only a sort of father; but you see that was why I was always in awe of getting under Robert’s dominion, and why I survived his turning me off, and didn’t at all wish him to bring it on again.’
‘No, that you did not,’ said Honor, in a cheered voice, as if acquitting her.
‘And I am sure if Mr. Prendergast only looked like using me after my deserts, as he did, it would not be only a demi-decline that I should get into,’ said Lucilla, her eyes full of tears. ‘Oh! Honor, think of his care of my father! Kiss me and wish me joy in my father’s name, and like him; for when you know him, you will see he is the only person in the wide world to whom you could safely trust your little torment!’
Honor could not but be carried along to give the hearty kiss and motherly congratulation as they were sought, and she saw that she must believe what Lucy said of her own feelings, incomprehensible though they were. But she regretted to hear of the waiting for a college living, and at the first impulse wished she had heard of this attachment before Hiltonbury’s fate had been fixed.
‘For shame, Honor, as if you ought not to respect Hiltonbury too much to tack it to my petticoat! But at least thank you, for if you could once think of committing Hiltonbury to him, you must like it for me.’
‘I must like what is so evidently well for you, my child! Will you tell Phœbe?’
‘Not till we go home, I think,’ said Cilla, with a blush; and, as if to avoid farther discussion, she bade Honora good night. Decidedly, she wished Robert to feel more than she would like to see, or should he betray no feeling, she had rather not be aware of it.
But such news was already in town as to put to flight, for a time at least, the last remnants of coquetry.
Robert was in the house early in the morning, and called Miss Charlecote to speak to him in the study. He had a packet of letters in his hand, of which he gave one to herself, a long one in Owen’s writing, but unfinished and undirected.
‘Lakeville, Newcastle District, August 14th.
‘My dear Honor,
‘There is no saying how much I rejoice that I can write to you and Lucy again under the same roof. I hope soon to see you together again, and revive old times, but we are delayed by the discovery that the swamp lying full in the Grand Ottawa and Superior Line is impracticable, and would not only be the death of all the navvies employed thereon, but would swallow bodily the funds of the G. O. and S. Company. So we are carrying our survey in other directions, before making out our report, after which I hope to be permanently engaged on the construction. This will give me three months to spend at home, in knitting up old links, and considering how to dispose of my poor little encumbrance till I can set him to make his way here. You or Lucy would perhaps look out for some lady who takes Indian children, or the like. I am my own man now, and can provide the wherewithal, for my personal expenses are small, and engineering is well paid. Lucy must not think of bringing him out, for even at her fastest the Far West would be no place for her. Let her think of Glendalough, and realize that if she were here she would look back on it as a temple of comfort, civilization, and civility, and this place is the last attempt at social habitation for 200 and odd miles. It stands on a lake of its own, with an Indian name, “which no man can speak and no man can spell.” It is colonial to the highest degree, and inhabited by all denominations, chiefly agreed in worshipping us as priests of the G. O. and S. Line, which is to make their fortune; and for their manners, least said soonest mended, though there are some happy exceptions, French Canadian, Lowland Scots, etc. and a wiry hard-working parson, whose parish extends nearly to Lake Superior, and whose remaining aroma of University is refreshing. There is also a very nice young lad, whose tale may be a moving example of what it is to come out here expecting to find in the backwoods Robinson Crusoe’s life and that of the Last of the Mohicans combined. That is, it was not he, but his father, Major Randolf, an English officer, who, knowing nothing of farming, less of Canada, and least of all of speculation, got a grant of land, where he speculated only to lose, and got transferred to this forlorn tract, only to shiver with ague and die of swamp fever. During the twenty-five years of this long agony, he had contrived to have two wives, the first of whom left this son, whom he educated as a scholar, intending to finish him in England when the tide should turn, but whereas it never did, he must needs get a fresh partner into the whirlpool, a Yankee damsel out of a boarding-house. By the time she had had a couple of children, he died, and the whole weight remains bound about young Randolf’s neck, tying him down to work for dear life in this doleful spot, without a farthing of capital, no stock, no anything. I came upon the clearing one day in the course of my surveying, and never did I see Gone to the Dogs more clearly written on any spot; the half-burnt or overthrown trees lying about overgrown with wild vines and raspberries, the snake fence broken down, the log-house looking as if a touch would upset it, and nothing hopeful but a couple of patches of maize and potatoes, and a great pumpkin climbing up a stump. My horse and myself were done up, so I halted, and was amazed at the greeting I received from the youth, who was hard at work on his hay, single-handed, except for the two children tumbling in it. The lady in her rocking-chair was contrast enough to make me heartily glad to find that she was his stepmother, not his wife. Since that, I have seen a good deal of him; he comes to Lakeville, five miles across the bush and seven across the lake, to church on Sunday, and spends the day with the parson, and Mr. Currie has given him work in our press of business, and finds him so effective, that he wants to take him on for good; but this can’t be while he has got these three stones about his neck, for whom he works harder and lives worse than any day-labourer at Hiltonbury; regular hand to mouth, no chance of making a start, unless the Company will fortunately decide on the line I am drawing through the heart of his house, which will force them to buy him out of it. I go out to-morrow to mark the said line for Mr. Currie to report upon, and will finish my letter to travel with said report.
‘Aug. 21st.—Thanks to the Fire-King, he has done for the ancient log-house, though next time he mounts his “hot-copper filly,” I do not desire a second neck-and-neck race with him. A sprain of the leg, and contusion (or confusion) of the head, are the extent of the damage received, and you will say that it is cheap, considering all things. I had done my 203 miles of marking, and was coming back on my last day’s journey, debating whether to push on to Lakeville that night, camp out, or get a shake-down at Randolf’s, bringing my own provender, for they live on hominy and milk, except for what he can shoot or catch. It was so dark that I had nearly fixed on sleeping in the bush, when it struck me that there must be an uncommonly fine aurora, but getting up a little rising ground where the trees were thinner, I observed it was to the south-west, not the north. That way there lies prairie land, at this season one ocean of dry bents, fit to burn like tinder, so that one spark would set fifty square miles alight at once. All the sky in that quarter was the colour of glowing copper, but the distance was so enormous that danger never occurred to me till I saw the deer scampering headlong, the birds awake and flying, and my horse trembling and wild to be off. Then I remembered that the wind was full from that direction, and not a bit of water between, nor all the way to the Lakeville lake. I never knew my beast’s pace on the Kingston road what it was through that track, all the rustling and scuttling of the beasts and birds sounding round us, the glare gaining on us, and the scent of smoke beginning to taint the wind. There was Randolf’s clearing at last, lonesome and still as ever, and a light in the window. Never was it so hard to pull in a horse; however, I did so. He was still up, reading by a pine torch, and in five minutes more the woman and her children were upon the horse, making for the lake. Randolf took his axe, and pocketed a book or two, and we dashed off together for a long arm of swamp that he knew of, running out from the lake. When we got to the other end of the clearing, I thought it was all up with us. The wall of red roaring flame had reached the other side, and the flame was leaping from the top of one pine to another, making them one shape of quivering red, like Christmas evergreens in the fire, a huge tree perhaps standing up all black against the lurid light, another crashing down like thunder, the ribbon of flame darting up like a demon, the whole at once standing forth a sheet of blazing light. I verily believe I should have stood on, fascinated with the horror and majesty of the sight, and feeling it vain to try to escape, when the burning wings were spreading to enclose the clearing and us with it, but Randolf urged me on, and we plunged through the bush at the best speed we could make, the smoke rolling after us, and the heat glowing like a furnace, so as to consume all power out of us. It was hell itself pursuing after us, and roaring for his prey, the trees coming crashing down, and shaking the earth under our feet, the flame absolutely running on before us upon the dry grass and scrub, and the scorching withering every drop of moisture from us, though not ten minutes before, we had been streaming at every pore.
‘I saw green reeds before us, heard Randolf cry out, “Thank God,” and thought I was plunging after him, when I found myself on the ground, and the branches of a hemlock covering me. Happily they were but the lesser boughs, and not yet alight; and at his own desperate peril, Randolf came back with his axe, and cut them off, then dragged me after him into the mud. Never bath more welcome! We had to dispute it with buffaloes, deer, all the beasts of the wood, tame and cowed with terror, and through them we floundered on, the cold of the water to our bodies making the burning atmosphere the more intolerable round our heads. At last we came to an island, where we fell upon the reeds so much spent that it was long before we found that our refuge was shared by a bear and by Randolf’s old cow, to the infinite amaze of the bull-frogs. The Fire King was a hundred yards off; and a fierce shower, brought from other parts by his unwarrantable doings, began to descend, and finally quenched him in such smoke that we had to lie on our faces to avoid stifling. When the sun arose, there was Lakeville in its woods on one side, on the other the blackest desolation conceivable. The population were all astir. Mrs. Randolf had arrived safely, and Mr. Currie was about to set forth in search of my roasted remains, when they perceived the signals of distress that we were making, after Randolf had done gallant battle with the bear in defence of the old cow. He is a first-rate hunter, and despatched the fellow with such little aid as I could give, with a leg not fit to stand upon; and when the canoes came off to fetch us, he would not leave the place till he had skinned the beast. My leg is unserviceable at present, and all my bones feel the effect of the night in the swamp, so I am to lay by, make the drawings, and draw up the report, while Mr. Currie and Randolf do my work over again, all my marks having been effaced by his majesty the Fire King, and the clearing done to our hand. If I could only get rid of the intolerable parching and thirst, and the burning of my brains! I should not wonder if I were in for a touch of swamp fever.’
Here Owen’s letter broke off; and Honor begged in alarm for what Robert evidently had in reserve. He had received this letter to her enclosed in one from Mr. Currie, desiring him to inform poor young Sandbrook’s friends of his state. By his account, Owen’s delay and surrender of his horse had been an act of gallant self-devotion, placing him in frightfully imminent danger, whence only the cool readiness of young Randolf had brought him off, apparently with but slight hurts from the fall of the tree, and exposure to the night air of the heated swamp. He had been left at Lakeville in full confidence of restoration after a week’s rest, but on returning from Lake Superior, Mr. Currie found him insensible, under what was at first taken for an aggravated access of the local fever, until, as consciousness returned, it became evident that the limbs on the left side were powerless. Between a litter and water transport, the sufferer was conveyed to Montreal, where the evil was traced to concussion of the brain from the blow from the tree, the more dangerous because unfelt at first, and increased by application to business. The injury of the head had deprived the limbs of motion and sensation, and the medical men thought the case hopeless, though likely to linger through many stages of feebleness of mind and body. Under these circumstances, Mr. Currie, being obliged to return home himself, and unable to leave the poor young man in such a condition among strangers, had decided on bringing him to England, according to his own most eager desire, as the doctors declared that the voyage could do no harm, and might be beneficial. Mr. Currie wrote from Quebec, where he had taken his passage by a steamer that would follow his letter in four days’ time, and he begged Robert to write to him at Liverpool stating what should be done with the patient, should he be then alive. His mind, he said, was clear, but weak, and his memory, from the moment of his fall till nearly the present time, a blank. He had begged Mr. Currie to write to his sister or to Miss Charlecote, but the engineer had preferred to devolve the communication upon Mr. Fulmort. Of poor Owen he spoke with much feeling, in high terms of commendation, saying that he was a valuable friend and companion as well as a very right hand in his business, and that his friends might be assured that he (Mr. Currie) would watch over him as if he were his own son, and that his temporary assistant, Mr. Randolf, was devoted to him, and had nursed him most tenderly from the first.
‘Four days’ time,’ said Honor, when she had taken in the sense of these appalling tidings. ‘We can be at Liverpool to meet him. Do not object, Robert. Nothing else will be bearable to either his sister or me.’
‘It was of his sister that I was thinking,’ said Robert. ‘Do you think her strong enough for the risks of a hurried journey,
with perhaps a worse shock awaiting her when the steamer comes in? Will you let me go alone? I have sent orders to be telegraphed for as soon as the Asia is signalled, and if I go at once, I can either send for you if needful, or bring him to you. Will you not let me?’
He spoke with persuasive authority, and Honora half yielded. ‘It may be better,’ she said, ‘it may. A man may do more for him there than we could, but I do not know whether poor Lucy will let you, or—’ (as a sudden recollection recurred to her) ‘whether she ought.’
‘Poor Owen is my friend, my charge,’ said Robert.
‘I believe you are right, you kind Robin,’ said Honor. ‘The journey might be a great danger for Lucy, and if I went, I know she would not stay behind. But I still think she will insist on seeing him.’
‘I believe not,’ said Robert; ‘at least, if she regard submission as a duty.’
‘Oh, Robin, you do not know. Poor child, how am I to tell her?’
‘Would you like for me to do so?’ said Robert, in the quiet matter-of-course way of one to whom painful offices had become well-nigh natural.
‘You? O Robin, if you—’ she said, in some confusion, but at the moment the sound of the visitor’s bell startled her, and she was about to take measures for their exclusion, when looking from the window, she saw that the curate of Wrapworth had already been admitted into the court. The next moment she had met him in the hall, and seizing his hand, exclaimed in a hurried whisper, ‘I know! I know! But there is a terrible stroke hanging over my poor child. Come in and help us to tell her!’
She drew him into the study, and shut the door. The poor man’s sallowness had become almost livid, and in half-sobbing words he exclaimed—‘Is it so? Then give her to me at once. I will nurse her to the last, or save her! I knew it was only her being driven out to that miserable governess life that has been destroying her!’ and he quite glared upon poor innocent Honor as a murderess.
‘Mr. Prendergast, I do not know what you mean. Lucilla is nearly well again. It is only that we fear to give her some bad news of her brother.’
‘Her brother! Is that all?’ said the curate, in a tone of absolute satisfaction. ‘I beg your pardon, Miss Charlecote; I thought I saw a doctor here, and you were going to sentence my darling.’
‘You do see Robert Fulmort, whom I thought you knew.’
‘So I do,’ said Mr. Prendergast, holding out his hand. ‘I beg your pardon for having made such a fool of myself; but you see, since I came to an understanding with that dear child, I have not thought of anything else, nor known what I was about.’
Robert could not but look inquiringly at Miss Charlecote.
‘Yes,’ she faltered, ‘Mr. Prendergast has told you—what I could not—what I had not leave to say.’
‘Yes,’ put in Mr. Prendergast, in his overflowing felicity, ‘I see you think it a shocking match for such a little gem of beauty as that; but you young men should have been sharper. There’s no accounting for tastes;’ and he laughed awkwardly.
‘I am heartily glad,’ said Robert—and voice, look, and grasp of the hand conveyed the fullest earnestness—‘I am exceedingly rejoiced that the dear little friend of all my life should be in such keeping! I congratulate you most sincerely, Mr. Prendergast. I never saw any one so well able to appreciate her.’
That is over, thought Honor; how well he has stood it! And now she ventured to recall them to the subject in hand, which might well hang more heavily on her heart than the sister’s fate! It was agreed that Lucilla would bear the intelligence best from Mr. Prendergast, and that he could most easily restrain her desire for going to Liverpool. He offered himself to go to meet Owen, but Honor could not quite forgive the ‘Is that all?’ and Robert remained constant to his former view, that he, as friend both of Owen and Mr. Currie, would be the most effective. So therefore it stood, and Lucilla was called out of the drawing-room to Mr. Prendergast, as Honor and Robert entered it. It was almost in one burst that Phœbe learnt the brother’s accident and the sister’s engagement, and it took her several moments to disentangle two such extraordinary events.
‘I am very glad,’ repeated Robert, as he felt rather than saw that both ladies were regarding him with concealed anxiety; ‘it is by far the happiest and safest thing for her! It is an infinite relief to my mind.’
‘I can’t but be glad,’ said Honor; ‘but I don’t know how to forgive her!’
‘That I can do very easily,’ said Robert, with a smile on his thin lips that was very reassuring, ‘not only as a Christian, but as I believe nothing ever did me so much good. My fancy for her was an incentive which drew me on to get under better influences, and when we threw each other overboard, I could do without it. She has been my best friend, not even excepting you, Miss Charlecote; and as such I hope always to be allowed to regard her. There, Phœbe, you have had an exposition of my sentiments once for all, and I hope I may henceforth receive credit for sincerity.’
Miss Charlecote felt that, under the name of Phœbe, this last reproof was chiefly addressed to her; and perhaps Phœbe understood the same, for there was the slightest of all arch smiles about her full lip and downcast eye; and though she said nothing, her complete faith in her brother’s explanation, and her Christian forgiveness of Lucilla, did not quench a strong reserve of wondering indignation at the mixed preferences that had thus strangely settled down upon the old curate.
She followed her brother from the room, to ask whether she had better not leave Woolstone-lane in the present juncture. But there was nowhere for her to go; Beauchamp was shut up, the cottage being painted, Sutton barely held the three present guests, and her elder sister from home. ‘You cannot go without making a disturbance,’ said Robert; ‘besides, I think you ought to stay with Miss Charlecote. Lucilla is of no use to her; and this unlucky Owen is more to her than all the world besides. You may comfort her.’
Phœbe had no more to urge. She could not tell her brother that looks and words of Owen Sandbrook, and in especial his last farewell, which she was at that time too young and simple to understand, had, with her greater experience, risen upon her in an aspect that made her desirous of avoiding him. But, besides the awkwardness of such recollections at all, they seemed cruel and selfish when the poor young man was coming home crippled and shattered, only to die, so she dismissed them entirely, and set herself to listen and sympathize.