‘Very curious; I did not know there had been any Charlecotes but ourselves.’
‘And Humfrey Charlecote has never married?’
‘Never.’
What made Owen raise his eyes at that moment, just so that she met them? and why did that dreadful uncontrollable crimson heat come mounting up over cheeks and temples, tingling and spreading into her very neck, just because it was the most hateful thing that could happen? And he saw it. She knew he did so, for he dropped his eyes at once, and there was an absolute silence, which she broke in desperation, by an incoherent attempt to say something, and that ended by blundering into the tender subject—the children; she found she had been talking about the place to which she thought of taking them, a quiet spot on the northern coast of Somersetshire.
He could bear the pang a little better now, and assented, and the ice once broken, there were so many details and injunctions that lay near his heart that the conversation never flagged. He had great reliance on their nurse, and they were healthy children, so that there was not much instruction as regarded the care of their little persons; but he had a great deal to say about the books they were to be taught from, the hymns they were to learn, and the exact management required by Lucilla’s peculiar temper and decided will. The theory was so perfect and so beautifully wise that Honora sat by in reverence, fearing her power of carrying it out; and Captain Charteris listened with a shade of satire on his face, and at last broke out with a very odd grunt, as if he did not think this quite what he had seen at Wrapworth parsonage.
Mr. Sandbrook coloured, and checked himself. Then after a pause, he said in a very different tone, ‘Perhaps so, Kit. It is only too easy to talk. Nora knows that there is a long way between my intentions and my practice.’
The humble dejection of that tone touched her more than she had been touched since he had wrung her hand, long, long ago.
‘Well,’ said the captain, perceiving only that he had given pain, ‘I will say this for your monkeys, they do know what is right at least; they have heard the articles of war, which I don’t fancy the other lot ever did. As to the discipline, humph! It is much of a muchness, and I’m not sure but it is not the best at the castle.’
‘The children are different at home,’ said Owen, quietly; ‘but,’ he added, with the same sad humility, ‘I dare say they will be much the better for the change; I know—’
But he broke off, and put his hand before his eyes.