‘Yes! I must show it you. You shall come with Honor and Phœbe on Monday, and I will show you everything.’
‘I should be delighted—but is it not arranged?’
‘I’ll take care of that. Mr. Prendergast shall take you in, as he would a newly-arrived rhinoceros, if I told him. He was our curate, and used to live in the house even in our time. Don’t say a word, Robin; it is to be. I must have you see my river, and the stile where my father used to sit when he was tired. I’ve never told any one which that is.’
Ordinarily Lucilla never seemed to think of her father, never named him, and her outpouring was doubly prized by Robert, whose listening face drew her on.
‘I was too much of a child to understand how fearfully weak he must have been, for he could not come home from the castle without a rest on that stile, and we used to play round him, and bring him flowers. My best recollections are all of that last summer—it seems like my whole life at home, and much longer than it could really have been. We were all in all to one another. How different it would have been if he had lived! I think no one has believed in me since.’
There was something ineffably soft and sad in the last words, as the beautiful, petted, but still lonely orphan cast down her eyelids with a low long sigh, as though owning her errors, but pleading this extenuation. Robert, much moved, was murmuring something incoherent, but she went on. ‘Rashe does, perhaps. Can’t you see how it is a part of the general disbelief in me to suppose that I come here only for London seasons, and such like? I must live where I have what the dear old soul there has not got to give.’
‘You cannot doubt of her affection. I am sure there is nothing she would not do for you.’
‘“Do!” that is not what I want. It can’t be done, it must be felt, and that it never will be. When there’s a mutual antagonism, gratitude becomes a fetter, intolerable when it is strained.’
‘I cannot bear to hear you talk so; revering Miss Charlecote as I do, and feeling that I owe everything to her notice.’
‘Oh, I find no fault, I reverence her too! It was only the nature of things, not her intentions, nor her kindness, that was to blame. She meant to be justice and mercy combined towards us, but I had all the one, and Owen all the other. Not that I am jealous! Oh, no! Not that she could help it; but no woman can help being hard on her rival’s daughter.’