‘No, but Robert does, and I sometimes think I do.’ (Then it came.) ‘You think Mr. Randolf like him?’ Thanks to her hat, she could blush more comfortably now.
‘I did not see him near. It was only something in air and figure. People inherit those things wonderfully. Now, my son Charlie sits on horseback exactly like his grandfather, whom he never saw; and John—’
Oh! was he going to run away on family likenesses? Phœbe would not hear the ‘and John;’ and observed, ‘Mr. Charlecote was his godfather, was he not?’
Which self-evident fact brought him back again to ‘Yes; and I only wish he had seen more of him! These are his plantations, I declare, that he used to make so much of!’
‘Yes, that is the reason Miss Charlecote is so fond of them.’
‘Miss Charlecote! When I think of him, I have no patience with her. I do believe he kept single all his life for her sake:
and why she never would have him I never could guess. You ladies are very unreasonable sometimes, Phœbe.’
Phœbe tried to express a rational amount of wonder at poor Honor’s taste, but grew incoherent in fear lest it should be irrational, and was rather frightened at finding Sir John looking at her with some amusement; but he was only thinking of how willingly the poor little heiress of the Mervyns had once been thrown at Humfrey Charlecote’s head. But he went on to tell her of all that her hero had ever been to him and to the county, and of the blank his death had left, and never since supplied, till she felt more and more what a ‘wise’ man truly was!
No one was in the drawing-room, but Honor came down much more cheerful and lively than she had been for years, and calling Owen materially better—the doctors thought the injury to the head infinitely mitigated, and the first step to recovery fairly taken—there were good accounts of the Prendergasts, and all things seemed to be looking well. Presently Sir John, to Phœbe’s great satisfaction, spoke of her guest, and his resemblance, but Honor answered with half-resentful surprise. Some of the old servants had made the same remark, but she could not understand it, and was evidently hurt by its recurrence. Phœbe sat on, listening to the account of Lucilla’s letters, and the good spirits and health they manifested; forcing herself not too obviously to watch door or window, and when Sir John was gone, she only offered to depart, lest Miss Charlecote should wish to be with Owen.
‘No, my dear, thank you; Mr. Randolf is with him, and he can read a little now. We are getting above the solitaire board, I assure you. I have fitted up the little room beyond the study for his bedroom, and he sits in the study, so there are no stairs, and he is to go out every day in a chair or the carriage.’