‘We’ll find work for you,’ cried Robert, highly exhilarated. ‘I should like to make out that we can’t do without you.’
‘Why, Robin, you of all men taking to compliments!’
‘It is out of self-interest. Nothing makes so much difference to me as having this house inhabited.’
‘Indeed,’ she said, highly gratified; ‘I thought you wanted nothing but St. Matthew’s.’
‘Nay,’ said Robert, as a bright colour came over his usually set and impassive countenance. ‘You do not want me to say what you have always been to me, and how better things have been fostered by your presence, ever since the day you let me out of Hiltonbury Church. I have often since thought it was no vain imagination that you were a good spirit sent to my rescue by Mr. Charlecote.’
‘Poor Robin,’ said Honor, her lip quivering; ‘it was less what I gave than what you gathered up. I barely tolerated you.’
‘Which served me right,’ said Robert, ‘and made me respect you. There are so few to blame me now that I need you all the more. I can hardly cede to Owen the privilege of being your only son.’
‘You are my autumn-singing Robin,’ said Honor, too true to let him think that he could stand beside Owen in her affections, but with intense pleasure at such unwonted warmth from one so stern and reserved; it was as if he was investing her with some of the tenderness that the loss of Lucilla had left vacant, and bestowing on her the confidences to which new relations might render Phœbe less open. It was no slight preferment to be Robert Fulmort’s motherly friend; and far beyond her as he had soared, she might still be the softening element in his life, as once she had been the ennobling one. If she had formed Robert, or even given one impulse such as to lead to his becoming what he was, the old maid had not lived in vain.
She was not selfish enough to be grieved at Owen’s ecstasy in emancipation; and trusting to being near enough to watch over him without being in his way, she could enjoy his overflowing spirits, and detect almost a jocund sound in the thump of his crutch across the hall, as he hurried in, elated with hopes of the success of his invention, eager about the Canadian railway, delighted with the society of his congeners, and pouring out on her all sorts of information that she could not understand. The certainty that her decision was for his happiness ought surely to reconcile her to carrying home his rival in his stead.
Going down by an early train, she resolved, by Robert’s advice, to visit Beauchamp at once, and give Mervyn a distinct explanation of her intentions. He was tardy in taking them in, then exclaimed—‘Phœbe’s teetotaller! Well, he is a sharp fellow! The luck that some men have!’