Not that all this crossed Phœbe’s mind. There was merely a dreary sense of depression, and of living in the midst of a grievous mistake, from which Robert alone had the power of disentangling himself, and she fell asleep sadly enough; but, fortunately, sins, committed neither by ourselves, nor by those for whom we are responsible, have not a lasting power of paining; and she rose up in due time to her own calm sunshiny spirit of anticipation of the evening’s meeting between Robin and Lucy—to say nothing of her own first dinner-party.
CHAPTER IV
And instead of ‘dearest Miss,’
Jewel, honey, sweetheart, bliss,
And those forms of old admiring,
Call her cockatrice and siren.—C. Lamb
The ladies of the house were going to a ball, and were in full costume: Eloïsa a study for the Arabian Nights, and Lucilla in an azure gossamer-like texture surrounding her like a cloud, turquoises on her arms, and blue and silver ribbons mingled with her blonde tresses.
Very like the clergyman’s wife!
O sage Honor, were you not provoked with yourself for being so old as to regard that bewitching sprite, and marvel whence comes the cost of those robes of the woof of Faerie?
Let Oberon pay Titania’s bills.
That must depend on who Oberon is to be.
Phœbe, to whom a doubt on that score would have appeared high treason, nevertheless hated the presence of Mr. Calthorp as much as she could hate anything, and was in restless anxiety as to Titania’s behaviour. She herself had no cause to complain, for she was at once singled out and led away from Miss Charlecote, to be shown some photographic performances, in which Lucy and her cousin had been dabbling.
‘There, that horrid monster is Owen—he never will come out respectable. Mr. Prendergast, he is better, because you don’t see his face. There’s our school, Edna Murrell and all; I flatter myself that is a work of art; only this little wretch fidgeted, and muddled himself.’
‘Is that the mistress? She does not look like one.’
‘Not like Sally Page? No; she would bewilder the Hiltonbury mind. I mean you to see her; I would not miss the shock to Honor. No, don’t show it to her! I won’t have any preparation.’
‘Do you call that preparation?’ said Owen, coming up, and taking up the photograph indignantly. ‘You should not do such things, Cilly!’
‘’Tisn’t I that do them—it’s Phœbe’s brother—the one in the sky I mean, Dan Phœbus, and if he won’t flatter, I can’t help it. No, no, I’ll not have it broken; it is an exact likeness of all the children’s spotted frocks, and if it be not of Edna, it ought to be.’
‘Look, Robert,’ said Phœbe, as she saw him standing shy, grave, and monumental, with nervous hands clasped over the back of a chair, neither advancing nor retreating, ‘what a beautiful place this is!’
‘Oh! that’s from a print—Glendalough! I mean to bring you plenty of the real place.’
‘Kathleen’s Cave,’ said the unwelcome millionaire.
‘Yes, with a comment on Kathleen’s awkwardness! I should like to see the hermit who could push me down.’
‘You! You’ll never tread in Kathleen’s steps!’
‘Because I shan’t find a hermit in the cave.’
‘Talk of skylarking on “the lake whose gloomy shore!”’ They all laughed except the two Fulmorts.
‘There’s a simpler reason,’ said one of the Guardsmen, ‘namely, that neither party will be there at all.’
‘No, not the saint—’
‘Nor the lady. Miss Charteris tells me all the maiden aunts are come up from the country.’ (How angry Phœbe was!)
‘Happily it is an article I don’t possess.’
‘Well, we will not differ about technicalities, as long as the fact is the same. You’ll remember my words when you are kept on a diet of Hannah More and Miss Edgeworth till you shall have abjured hounds, balls, and salmon-flies.’
‘The woman lives not who has the power!’
‘What bet will you take, Miss Sandbrook?’
‘What bet will you take, Lord William, that, maiden aunts and all, I appear on the 3rd, in a dress of salmon-flies?’
‘A hat trimmed with goose feathers to a pocket-handkerchief, that by that time you are in the family mansion, repenting of your sins.’
Phœbe looked on like one in a dream, while the terms of the wager were arranged with playful precision. She did not know that dinner had been announced, till she found people moving, and in spite of her antipathy to Mr. Calthorp, she rejoiced to find him assigned to herself—dear, good Lucy must have done it to keep Robin to herself, and dear, good Lucy she shall be, in spite of the salmon, since in the progress down-stairs she has cleared the cloud from his brow.
It was done by a confiding caressing clasp on his arm, and the few words, ‘Now for old friends! How charming little Phœbe looks!’
How different were his massive brow and deep-set eyes without their usual load, and how sweet his gratified smile!
‘Where have you been, you Robin? If I had not passed you in the Park, I should never have guessed there was such a bird in London. I began to change my mind, like Christiana—“I thought Robins were harmless and gentle birds, wont to hop about men’s doors, and feed on crumbs, and such-like harmless food.”’
‘And have you seen me eating worms?’
‘I’ve not seen you at all.’
‘I did not think you had leisure—I did not believe I should be welcome.’
‘The cruellest cut of all! positive irony—’
‘No, indeed! I am not so conceited as—’
‘As what?’
‘As to suppose you could want me.’
‘And there was I longing to hear about Phœbe! If you had only come, I could have contrived her going to the Zauberflöte with us last night, but I didn’t know the length of her tether.’
‘I did not know you were so kind.’
‘Be kinder yourself another time. Don’t I know how I have been torn to pieces at Hiltonbury, without a friend to say one word for the poor little morsel!’ she said, piteously.
He was impelled to an eager ‘No, no!’ but recalling facts, he modified his reply into, ‘Friends enough, but very anxious!’
‘There, I knew none of you trusted me,’ she said, pretending to pout.
‘When play is so like earnest—’
‘Slow people are taken in! That’s the fun! I like to show that I can walk alone sometimes, and not be snatched up the moment I pop my head from under my leading-strings.’
Her pretty gay toss of the head prevented Robert from thinking whether woman is meant to be without leading-strings.
‘And it was to avoid countenancing my vagaries that you stayed away?’ she said, with a look of injured innocence.
‘I was very much occupied,’ answered Robert, feeling himself in the wrong.
‘That horrid office! You aren’t thinking of becoming a Clarence, to drown yourself in brandy—that would never do.’
‘No, I have given up all thoughts of that!’
‘You thought, you wretched Redbreast! I thought you knew better.’
‘So I ought,’ said Robert, gravely, ‘but my father wished me to make the experiment, and I must own, that before I looked into the details, there were considerations which—which—’
‘Such considerations as £ s. d.? For shame!’
‘For shame, indeed,’ said the happy Robert. ‘Phœbe judged you truly. I did not know what might be the effect of habit—’ and he became embarrassed, doubtful whether she would accept the assumption on which he spoke; but she went beyond his hopes.
‘The only place I ever cared for is a very small old parsonage,’ she said, with feeling in her tone.
‘Wrapworth? that is near Castle Blanch.’
‘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.’
Nothing but the sweet tone and sad arch smile could have made this speech endurable to Robert, even though he remembered many times when the trembling of the scale in Miss Charlecote’s hands had filled him with indignation. ‘You allow that it was justice,’ he said, smiling.
‘No doubt of that,’ she laughed. ‘Poor Honor! I must have been a grievous visitation, but I am very good now; I shall come and spend Sunday as gravely as a judge, and when you come to Wrapworth, you shall see how I can go to the school when it is not forced down my throat—no merit either, for our mistress is perfectly charming, with such a voice! If I were Phœbe I would look out, for Owen is desperately smitten.’
‘Phœbe!’ repeated Robert, with a startled look.
‘Owen and Phœbe! I considered it une affaire arrangée as much as—’ She had almost said you and me: Robert could supply the omission, but he was only blind of one eye, and gravely said, ‘It is well there is plenty of time before Owen to tame him down.’
‘Oney,’ laughed Lucilla; ‘yes, he has a good deal to do in that line, with his opinions in such a mess that I really don’t know what he does believe.’
Though the information was not new to Robert, her levity dismayed him, and he gravely began, ‘If you have such fears—’ but she cut him off short.
‘Did you ever play at bagatelle?’
He stared in displeased surprise.
‘Did you never see the ball go joggling about before it could settle into its hole, and yet abiding there very steadily at last? Look on quietly, and you will see the poor fellow as sober a parish priest as yourself.’
‘You are a very philosophical spectator of the process,’ Robert said, still displeased.
‘Just consider what a capacious swallow the poor boy had in his tender infancy, and how hard it was crammed with legends, hymns, and allegories, with so many scruples bound down on his poor little conscience, that no wonder, when the time of expansion came, the whole concern should give way with a jerk.’
‘I thought Miss Charlecote’s education had been most anxiously admirable.’
‘Precisely so! Don’t you see? Why, how dull you are for a man who has been to Oxford!’
‘I should seriously be glad to hear your view, for Owen’s course has always been inexplicable to me.’
‘To you, poor Robin, who lived gratefully on the crumbs of our advantages! The point was that to you they were crumbs, while we had a surfeit.’
‘Owen never seemed overdone. I used rather to hate him for his faultlessness, and his familiarity with what awed my ignorance.’
‘The worse for him! He was too apt a scholar, and received all unresisting, unsifting—Anglo-Catholicism, slightly touched with sentiment, enthusiasm for the Crusades, passive obedience—acted faithfully up to it; imagined that to be “not a good Churchman,” as he told Charles, expressed the seven deadly sins, and that reasoning was the deadliest of all!’
‘As far as I understand you, you mean that there was not sufficient distinction between proven and non-proven—important and unimportant.’
‘You begin to perceive. If Faith be overworked, Reason kicks; and, of course, when Owen found the Holt was not the world; that thinking was not the exclusive privilege of demons; that habits he considered as imperative duties were inconvenient, not to say impracticable; that his articles of faith included much of the apocryphal,—why, there was a general downfall!’
‘Poor Miss Charlecote,’ sighed Robert, ‘it is a disheartening effect of so much care.’
‘She should have let him alone, then, for Uncle Kit to make a sailor of. Then he would have had something better to do than to think!’
‘Then you are distressed about him?’ said Robert, wistfully.
‘Thank you,’ said she, laughing; ‘but you see I am too wise ever to think or distress myself. He’ll think himself straight in time, and begin a reconstruction from his scattered materials, I suppose, and meantime he is a very comfortable brother, as such things go; but it is one of the grudges I can’t help owing to Honora, that such a fine fellow as that is not an independent sailor or soldier, able to have some fun, and not looked on as a mere dangler after the Holt.’
‘I thought the reverse was clearly understood?’
‘She ought to have “acted as sich.” How my relatives, and yours too, would laugh if you told them so! Not that I think, like them, that it is Elizabethan dislike to naming a successor, nor to keep him on his good behaviour; she is far above that, but it is plain how it will he. The only other relation she knows in the world is farther off than we are—not a bit more of a Charlecote, and twice her age; and when she has waited twenty or thirty years longer for the auburn-haired lady my father saw in a chapel at Toronto, she will bethink herself that Owen, or Owen’s eldest son, had better have it than the Queen. That’s the sense of it; but I hate the hanger-on position it keeps him in.’
‘It is a misfortune,’ said Robert. ‘People treat him as a man of expectations, and at his age it would not be easy to disown them, even to himself. He has an eldest son air about him, which makes people impose on him the belief that he is one; and yet, who could have guarded against the notion more carefully than Miss Charlecote?’
‘I’m of Uncle Kit’s mind,’ said Lucilla, ‘that children should be left to their natural guardians. What! is Lolly really moving before I have softened down the edge of my ingratitude?’
‘So!’ said Miss Charteris, as she brought up the rear of the procession of ladies on the stairs.
Lucilla faced about on the step above, with a face where interrogation was mingled with merry defiance.
‘So that is why the Calthorp could not get a word all the livelong dinner-time!’
‘Ah! I used you ill; I promised you an opportunity of studying “Cock Robin,” but you see I could not help keeping him myself—I had not seen him for so long.’
‘You were very welcome! It is the very creature that baffles me. I can talk to any animal in the world except an incipient parson.’
‘Owen, for instance?’
‘Oh! if people choose to put a force on nature, there can be no general rules. But, Cilly, you know I’ve always said you should marry whoever you liked; but I require another assurance—on your word and honour—that you are not irrevocably Jenny Wren as yet!’
‘Did you not see the currant wine?’ said Cilly, pulling leaves off a myrtle in a tub on the stairs, and scattering them over her cousin.
‘Seriously, Cilly! Ah, I see now—your exclusive attention to him entirely reassures me. You would never have served him so, if you had meant it.’
‘It was commonplace in me,’ said Lucilla, gravely, ‘but I could not help it; he made me feel so good—or so bad—that I believe I shall—’
‘Not give up the salmon,’ cried Horatia. ‘Cilly, you will drive me to commit matrimony on the spot.’
‘Do,’ said Lucilla, running lightly up, and dancing into the drawing-room, where the ladies were so much at their ease, on low couches and ottomans, that Phœbe stood transfixed by the novelty of a drawing-room treated with such freedom as was seldom permitted in even the schoolroom at Beauchamp, when Miss Fennimore was in presence.
‘Phœbe, bright Phœbe!’ cried Lucilla, pouncing on both her hands, and drawing her towards the other room, ‘it is ten ages since I saw you, and you must bring your taste to aid my choice of the fly costume. Did you hear, Rashe? I’ve a bet with Lord William that I appear at the ball all in flies. Isn’t it fun?’
‘Oh, jolly!’ cried Horatia. ‘Make yourself a pike-fly.’
‘No, no; not a guy for any one. Only wear a trimming of salmon-flies, which will be lovely.’
‘You do not really mean it?’ said Phœbe.
‘Mean it? With all my heart, in spite of the tremendous sacrifice of good flies. Where honour is concerned—’
‘There, I knew you would not shirk.’
‘Did I ever say so?’—in a whisper, not unheard by Phœbe, and affording her so much satisfaction that she only said, in a grave, puzzled voice, ‘The hooks?’
‘Hooks and all,’ was the answer. ‘I do nothing by halves.’
‘What a state of mind the fishermen will be in! proceeded Horatia. ‘You’ll have every one of them at your feet.’
‘I shall tell them that two of a trade never agree. Come, and let us choose.’ And opening a drawer, Lucilla took out her long parchment book, and was soon eloquent on the merits of the doctor, the butcher, the duchess, and all her other radiant fabrications of gold pheasants’ feathers, parrot plumes, jays’ wings, and the like. Phœbe could not help admiring their beauty, though she was perplexed all the while, uncomfortable on Robert’s account, and yet not enough assured of the usages of the London world to be certain whether this were unsuitable. The Charteris family, though not of the most élite circles of all, were in one to which the Fulmorts had barely the entrée, and the ease and dash of the young ladies, Lucilla’s superior age, and caressing patronage, all made Phœbe in her own eyes too young and ignorant to pass an opinion. She would have known more about the properties of a rectangle or the dangers of a paper currency.
Longing to know what Miss Charlecote thought, she stood, answering as little as possible, until Rashe had been summoned to the party in the outer room, and Cilly said, laughing, ‘Well, does she astonish your infant mind?’
‘I do not quite enter into her,’ said Phœbe, doubtfully.
‘The best-natured and most unappreciated girl in the world. Up to anything, and only a victim to prejudice. You, who have a strong-minded governess, ought to be superior to the delusion that it is interesting to be stupid and helpless.’
‘I never thought so,’ said Phœbe, feeling for a moment in the wrong, as Lucilla always managed to make her antagonists do.
‘Yes, you do, or why look at me in that pleading, perplexed fashion, save that you have become possessed with the general prejudice. Weigh it, by the light of Whately’s logic, and own candidly wherefore Rashe and I should be more liable to come to grief, travelling alone, than two men of the same ages.’
‘I have not grounds enough to judge,’ said Phœbe, beginning as though Miss Fennimore were giving an exercise to her reasoning powers; then, continuing with her girlish eagerness of entreaty, ‘I only know that it cannot be right, since it grieves Robin and Miss Charlecote so much.’
‘And all that grieves Robin and Miss Charlecote must be shocking, eh? Oh, Phœbe, what very women all the Miss Fennimores in the world leave us, and how lucky it is!’
‘But I don’t think you are going to grieve them,’ said Phœbe, earnestly.
‘I hate the word!’ said Lucilla. ‘Plaguing is only fun, but grieving, that is serious.’
‘I do believe this is only plaguing!’ cried Phœbe, ‘and that this is your way of disposing of all the flies. I shall tell Robin so!’
‘To spoil all my fun,’ exclaimed Lucilla. ‘No, indeed!’
Phœbe only gave a nod and smile of supreme satisfaction.
‘Ah! but, Phœbe, if I’m to grieve nobody, what’s to become of poor Rashe, you little selfish woman?’
‘Selfish, no!’ sturdily said Phœbe. ‘If it be wrong for you, it must be equally wrong for her; and perhaps’ she added, slowly, ‘you would both be glad of some good reason for giving it up. Lucy, dear, do tell me whether you really like it, for I cannot fancy you so.’
‘Like it? Well, yes! I like the salmons, and I dote on the fun and the fuss. I say, Phœbe, can you bear the burden of a secret? Well—only mind, if you tell Robin or Honor, I shall certainly go; we never would have taken it up in earnest if such a rout had not been made about it, that we were driven to show we did not care, and could be trusted with ourselves.’
‘Then you don’t mean it?’
‘That’s as people behave themselves. Hush! Here comes Honor. Look here, Sweet Honey, I am in a process of selection. I am pledged to come out at the ball in a unique trimming of salmon-flies.’
‘My dear!’ cried poor Honor, in consternation, ‘you can’t be so absurd.’
‘It is so slow not to be absurd.’
‘At fit times, yes; but to make yourself so conspicuous!’
‘They say I can’t help that,’ returned Lucy, in a tone of comical melancholy.
‘Well, my dear, we will talk it over on Sunday, when I hope you may be in a rational mood.’
‘Don’t say so,’ implored Lucilla, ‘or I shan’t have the courage to come. A rational mood! It is enough to frighten one away; and really I do want very much to come. I’ve not heard a word yet about the Holt. How is the old dame, this summer?’
And Lucy went on with unceasing interest about all Hiltonbury matters, great and small, bewitching Honora more than would have seemed possible under the circumstances. She was such a winning fairy that it was hardly possible to treat her seriously, or to recollect causes of displeasure, when under the spell of her caressing vivacity, and unruffled, audacious fun.
So impregnable was her gracious good-humour, so untameable her high spirits, that it was only by remembering the little spitfire of twelve or fourteen years ago that it was credible that she had a temper at all; the temper erst wont to exhale in chamois bounds and dervish pirouettes, had apparently left not a trace behind, and the sullen ungraciousness to those who offended her had become the sunniest sweetness, impossible to disturb. Was it real improvement? Concealment it was not, for Lucilla had always been transparently true. Was it not more probably connected with that strange levity, almost insensibility, that had apparently indurated feelings which in early childhood had seemed sensitive even to the extent of violence? Was she only good-humoured because nothing touched her? Had that agony of parting with her gentle father seared her affections, till she had become like a polished gem, all bright glancing beauty, but utterly unfeeling?
CHAPTER V
Reproof falleth on the saucy as water.—Feejee Proverb
Considerate of the slender purses of her children, Honora had devoted her carriage to fetch them to St. Wulstan’s on the Sunday morning, but her offer had been declined, on the ground that the Charteris conveyances were free to them, and that it was better to make use of an establishment to which Sunday was no object, than to cloud the honest face of the Hiltonbury coachman by depriving his horses of their day of rest. Owen would far rather take a cab than so affront Grey! Pleased with his bright manner, Honora had yet reason to fear that expense was too indifferent to both brother and sister, and that the Charteris household only encouraged recklessness. Wherever she went she heard of the extravagance of the family, and in the shops the most costly wares were recommended as the choice of Mrs. Charteris. Formerly, though Honor had equipped Lucilla handsomely for visits to Castle Blanch, she had always found her wardrobe increased by the gifts of her uncle and aunt. The girl had been of age more than a year, and in the present state of the family, it was impossible that her dress could be still provided at their expense, yet it was manifestly far beyond her means; and what could be the result? She would certainly brook no interference, and would cast advice to the winds. Poor Honor could only hope for a crash that would bring her to reason, and devise schemes for forcing her from the effects of her own imprudence without breaking into her small portion. The great fear was lost false pride, and Charteris influence, should lead her to pay her debts at the cost of a marriage with the millionaire; and Honor could take little comfort in Owen’s assurance that the Calthorp had too much sense to think of Cilly Sandbrook, and only promoted and watched her vagaries for the sake of amusement and curiosity. There was small satisfaction to her well-wishers in hearing that no sensible man could think seriously of her.
Anxiously was that Sunday awaited in Woolstone-lane, the whole party feeling that this was the best chance of seeing Lucilla in a reasonable light, and coming to an understanding with her. Owen was often enough visible in the interim, and always extremely agreeable; but Lucilla never, and he only brought an account of her gaieties, shrugging his shoulders over them.
The day came; the bells began, they chimed, they changed, but still no Sandbrooks appeared. Mr. Parsons set off, and Robert made an excursion to the corner of the street. In vain Miss Charlecote still lingered; Mrs. Parsons, in despair, called Phœbe on with her as the single bell rang, and Honor and Robert presently started with heads turned over their shoulders, and lips laying all blame on Charteris’ delays of breakfast. A last wistful look, and the church porch engulfed them; but even when enclosed in the polished square pew, they could not resign hope at every tread on the matted floor, and finally subsided into a trust that the truants might after service emerge from a seat near the door. There were only too many to choose from.
That hope baffled, Honora still manufactured excuses which Phœbe greedily seized and offered to her brother, but she read his rejection of them in his face, and to her conviction that it was all accident, he answered, as she took his arm, ‘A small accident would suffice for Sandbrook.’
‘You don’t think he is hindering his sister!’
‘I can’t tell. I only know that he is one of the many stumbling-blocks in her way. He can do no good to any one with whom he associates intimately. I hate to see him reading poetry with you.’
‘Why did you never tell me so?’ asked the startled Phœbe.
‘You are so much taken up with him that I can never get at you, when I am not devoured by that office.’
‘I am sure I did not know it,’ humbly answered Phœbe. ‘He is very kind and amusing, and Miss Charlecote is so fond of him that, of course, we must be together; but I never meant to neglect you, Robin, dear.’
‘No, no, nonsense, it is no paltry jealousy; only now I can speak to you, I must,’ said Robert, who had been in vain craving for this opportunity of getting his sister alone, ever since the alarm excited by Lucilla’s words.
‘What is this harm, Robin?’
‘Say not a word of it. Miss Charlecote’s heart must not be broken before its time, and at any rate it shall not come through me.’
‘What, Robert?’
‘The knowledge of what he is. Don’t say it is prejudice. I know I never liked him, but you shall hear why. You ought now—’
Robert’s mind had often of late glanced back to the childish days when, with their present opinions reversed, he thought Owen a muff, and Owen thought him a reprobate. To his own blunt and reserved nature, the expressions, so charming to poor Miss Charlecote, had been painfully distasteful. Sentiment, profession, obtrusive reverence, and fault-finding scruples had revolted him, even when he thought it a proof of his own irreligion to be provoked. Afterwards, when both were schoolboys, Robert had yearly increased in conscientiousness under good discipline and training, but, in their holiday meetings, had found Owen’s standard receding as his own advanced, and heard the once-deficient manly spirit asserted by boasts of exploits and deceptions repugnant to a well-conditioned lad. He saw Miss Charlecote’s perfect confidence abused and trifled with, and the more he grew in a sense of honour, the more he disliked Owen Sandbrook.
At the University, where Robert’s career had been respectable and commonplace, Owen was at once a man of mark. Mental and physical powers alike rendered him foremost among his compeers; he could compete with the fast, and surpass the slow on their own ground; and his talents, ready celerity, good-humoured audacity, and quick resource, had always borne him through with the authorities, though there was scarcely an excess or irregularity in which he was not a partaker; and stories of Sandbrook’s daring were always circulating among the undergraduates. But though Robert could have scared Phœbe with many a history of lawless pranks, yet these were not his chief cause for dreading Owen’s intimacy with her. It was that he was one of the youths on whom the spirit of the day had most influence, one of the most adventurous thinkers and boldest talkers: wild in habits, not merely from ebullition of spirits, but from want of faith in the restraining power.
All this Robert briefly expressed in the words, ‘Phœbe, it is not that his habits are irregular and unsteady; many are so whose hearts are sound. But he is not sound—his opinions are loose, and he only respects and patronizes Divine Truth as what has approved itself to so many good, great, and beloved human creatures. It is not denial—it is patronage. It is the commonsense heresy—’
‘I thought we all ought to learn common sense.’
‘Yes, in things human, but in things Divine it is the subtle English form of rationalism. This is no time to explain, Phœbe; but human sense and intellect are made the test, and what surpasses them is only admired as long as its stringent rules do not fetter the practice.’
‘I am sorry you told me,’ said Phœbe, thoughtfully, ‘for I always liked him; he is so kind to me.’
Had not Robert been full of his own troubles he would have been reassured, but he only gave a contemptuous groan.
‘Does Lucy know this?’ she asked.
‘She told me herself what I well knew before. She does not reflect enough to take it seriously, and contrives to lay the blame upon the narrowness of Miss Charlecote’s training.’
‘Oh, Robin! When all our best knowledge came from the Holt!’
‘She says, perhaps not unjustly, that Miss Charlecote overdid things with him, and that this is reaction. She observes keenly. If she would only think! She would have been perfect had her father lived, to work on her by affection.’
‘The time for that is coming—’
Robert checked her, saying, ‘Stay, Phœbe. The other night I was fooled by her engaging ways, but each day since I have become more convinced that I must learn whether she be only using me like the rest. I want you to be a witness of my resolution, lest I should be tempted to fail. I came to town, hesitating whether to enter the business for her sake. I found that this could not be done without a great sin. I look on myself as dedicated to the ministry, and thus bound to have a household suited to my vocation. All must turn on her willingness to conform to this standard. I shall lay it before her. I can bear the suspense no longer. My temper and resolution are going, and I am good for nothing. Let the touchstone be, whether she will resign her expedition to Ireland, and go quietly home with Miss Charlecote. If she will so do, there is surely that within her that will shine out brighter when removed from irritation on the one side, or folly on the other. If she will not, I have no weight with her; and it is due to the service I am to undertake, to force myself away from a pursuit that could only distract me. I have no right to be a clergyman and choose a hindrance not a help—one whose tastes would lead back to the world, instead of to my work!’
As he spoke, in stern, rigid resolution—only allowing himself one long, deep, heavy sigh at the end—he stood still at the gates of the court, which were opened as the rest of the party came up; and, as they crossed and entered the hall, they beheld, through the open door of the drawing-room, two figures in the window—one, a dark torso, perched outside on the sill; the other, in blue skirt and boy-like bodice, negligently reposing on one side of the window-seat, her dainty little boots on the other; her coarse straw bonnet, crossed with white, upon the floor; the wind playing tricks with the silky glory of her flaxen ringlets; her cheek flushed with lovely carnation, declining on her shoulder; her eyes veiled by their fair fringes.
‘Hallo!’ she cried, springing up, ‘almost caught asleep!’ And Owen, pocketing his pipe, spun his legs over the windowsill, while both began, in rattling, playful vindication and recrimination—
(he wouldn’t.’
‘It wasn’t my fault (
(she wouldn’t.’
‘Indeed, I wasn’t a wilful heathen; Mr. Parsons, it was he—’
‘It was she who chose to take the by-ways, and make us late. Rush into church before a whole congregation, reeking from a six-miles walk! I’ve more respect for the Establishment.’
‘You walked!’ cried five voices.
‘See her Sabbatarianism!’
‘Nonsense! I should have driven Charlie’s cab.’
‘Charlie has some common sense where his horse is concerned.’
‘He wanted it himself, you know.’
‘She grew sulky, and victimized me to a walk.’
‘I’m sure it was excellent fun.’
‘Ay, and because poor Calthorp had proffered his cab for her to drive to Jericho, and welcome, she drags me into all sorts of streets of villainous savours, that he might not catch us up.’
‘Horrid hard mouth that horse of his,’ said Lucilla, by way of dashing the satisfaction on Miss Charlecote’s face.
‘I do not wonder you were late.’
‘Oh! that was all Owen’s doing. He vowed that he had not nerve to face the pew-opener!’
‘The grim female in weeds—no, indeed!’ said Owen. ‘Indeed, I objected to entering in the guise of flaming meteors both on reverential and sanatory grounds.’
‘Insanatory, methinks,’ said Miss Charlecote; ‘how could you let her sleep, so much heated, in this thorough draught!’
‘Don’t flatter yourself,’ said Cilly, quaintly shaking her head; ‘I’m not such a goose as to go and catch cold! Oh! Phœbe, my salmon-flies are loveliness itself; and I hereby give notice, that a fine of three pairs of thick boots has been proclaimed for every pun upon sisters of the angle and sisters of the angels! So beware, Robin!’—and the comical audacity with which she turned on him, won a smile from the grave lips that had lately seemed so remote from all peril of complimenting her whimsies. Even Mr. Parsons said ‘the fun was tempting.’
‘Come and get ready for luncheon,’ said the less fascinated Honora, moving away.
‘Come and catch it!’ cried the elf, skipping up-stairs before her and facing round her ‘Dear old Honeyseed.’ ‘I honour your motives; but wouldn’t it be for the convenience of all parties, if you took Punch’s celebrated advice—“don’t”?’
‘How am I to speak, Lucy,’ said Honora, ‘if you come with the avowed intention of disregarding what I say?’
‘Then hadn’t you better not?’ murmured the girl, in the lowest tone, drooping her head, and peeping under her eyelashes, as she sat with a hand on each elbow of her arm-chair, as though in the stocks.
‘I would not, my child,’ was the mournful answer, ‘if I could help caring for you.’
Lucilla sprang up and kissed her. ‘Don’t, then; I don’t like anybody to be sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m sure I’m not worth it.’
‘How can I help it, when I see you throwing away happiness—welfare—the good opinion of all your friends?’
‘My dear Honora, you taught me yourself not to mind Mrs. Grundy! Come, never mind, the reasonable world has found out that women are less dependent than they used to be.’
‘It is not what the world thinks, but what is really decorous.’
Lucilla laughed—though with some temper—‘I wonder what we are going to do otherwise!’
‘You are going beyond the ordinary restraints of women in your station; and a person who does so, can never tell to what she may expose herself. Liberties are taken when people come out to meet them.’
‘That’s as they choose!’ cried Lucilla, with such a gesture of her hand, such a flash of her blue eyes, that she seemed trebly the woman, and it would have been boldness indeed to presume with her.
‘Yes; but a person who has even had to protect herself from incivility, to which she has wilfully exposed herself, does not remain what she might be behind her screen.’
‘Omne ignotum pro terribili,’ laughed Lucilla, still not to be made serious. ‘Now, I don’t believe that the world is so flagrantly bent on annoying every pretty girl. People call me vain, but I never was so vain as that. I’ve always found them very civil; and Ireland is the land of civility. Now, seriously, my good cousin Honor, do you candidly expect any harm to befall us?’
‘I do not think you likely to meet with absolute injury.’ Lucilla clapped her hands, and cried, ‘An admission, an admission! I told Rashe you were a sincere woman.’ But Miss Charlecote went on, ‘But there is harm to yourself in the affectation of masculine habits; it is a blunting of the delicacy suited to a Christian maiden, and not like the women whom St. Paul and St. Peter describe. You would find that you had forfeited the esteem, not only of ordinary society, but of persons whose opinions you do value; and in both these respects you would suffer harm. You, my poor child, who have no one to control you, or claim your obedience as a right, are doubly bound to be circumspect. I have no power over you; but if you have any regard for her to whom your father confided you—nay, if you consult what you know would have been his wishes—you will give up this project.’
The luncheon-bell had already rung, and consideration for the busy clergyman compelled her to go down with these last words, feeling as if there were a leaden weight at her heart.
Lucilla remained standing before the glass, arranging her wind-tossed hair; and, in her vehemence, tearing out combfuls, as she pulled petulantly against the tangled curls. ‘Her old way—to come over me with my father! Ha!—I love him too well to let him be Miss Charlecote’s engine for managing me!—her dernier ressort to play on my feelings. Nor will I have Robin set at me! Whether I go or not, shall be as I please, not as any one else does; and if I stay at home, Rashe shall own it is not for the sake of the conclave here. I told her she might trust me.’
Down she went, and at luncheon devoted herself to the captivation of Mr. Parsons; afterwards insisting on going to the schools—she, whose aversion to them was Honora’s vexation at home. Strangers to make a sensation were contrary to the views of the Parsonses; but the wife found her husband inconsistent—‘one lady, more or less, could make no difference on this first Sunday;’ and, by and by, Mrs. Parsons found a set of little formal white-capped faces, so beaming with entertainment, at the young lady’s stories, and the young lady herself looking so charming, that she, too, fell under the enchantment.
After church, Miss Charlecote proposed a few turns in the garden; dingy enough, but a marvel for the situation: and here the tacit object of herself and Phœbe was to afford Robert an opportunity for the interview on which so much depended. But it was like trying to catch a butterfly; Lucilla was here, there, everywhere; and an excuse was hardly made for leaving her beside the grave, silent young man, ere her merry tones were heard chattering to some one else. Perhaps Robert, heart-sick and oppressed with the importance of what trembled on his tongue, was not ready in seizing the moment; perhaps she would not let him speak; at any rate, she was aware of some design; since, baffling Phœbe’s last attempt, she danced up to her bedroom after her, and throwing herself into a chair, in a paroxysm of laughter, cried, ‘You abominable little pussycat of a manœuvrer; I thought you were in a better school for the proprieties! No, don’t make your round eyes, and look so dismayed, or you’ll kill me with laughing! Cooking téte-à-tétes, Phœbe—I thought better of you. Oh, fie!’ and holding up her finger, as if in displeasure, she hid her face in ecstasies of mirth at Phœbe’s bewildered simplicity.
‘Robert wanted to speak to you,’ she said, with puzzled gravity.
‘And you would have set us together by the ears! No, no, thank you, I’ve had enough of that sort of thing for one day. And what shallow excuses. Oh! what fun to hear your pretexts. Wanting to see what Mrs. Parsons was doing, when you knew perfectly well she was deep in a sermon, and wished you at the antipodes. And blushing all the time, like a full-blown poppy,’ and off she went on a fresh score—but Phœbe, though disconcerted for a moment, was not to be put out of countenance when she understood her ground, and she continued with earnestness, undesired by her companion—‘Very likely I managed badly, but I know you do not really think it improper to see Robert alone, and it is very important that you should do so. Indeed it is, Lucy,’ she added—the youthful candour and seriousness of her pleading, in strong contrast to the flighty, mocking carelessness of Lucilla’s manners; ‘do pray see him; I know he would make you listen. Will you be so very kind? If you would go into the little cedar room, I could call him at once.’
‘Point blank! Sitting in my cedar parlour! Phœbe, you’ll be the death of me,’ cried Cilly, between peals of merriment. ‘Do you think I have nerves of brass?’
‘You would not laugh, if you knew how much he feels.’
‘A very good thing for people to feel! It saves them from torpor.’
‘Lucy, it is not kind to laugh when I tell you he is miserable.’
‘That’s only proper, my dear,’ said Lucilla, entertained by teasing.
‘Not miserable from doubt,’ answered Phœbe, disconcerting in her turn. ‘We know you too well for that;’ and as an expression, amused, indignant, but far from favourable, came over the fair face she was watching, she added in haste, ‘It is this project, he thought you had said it was given up.’
‘I am much indebted,’ said Lucilla, haughtily, but again relapsing into laughter; ‘but to find myself so easily disposed of . . . Oh! Phœbe, there’s no scolding such a baby as you; but if it were not so absurd—’
‘Lucy, Lucy, I beg your pardon; is it all a mistake, or have I said what was wrong? Poor Robin will be so unhappy.’
Phœbe’s distress touched Lucilla.
‘Nonsense, you little goose; aren’t you woman enough yet to know that one flashes out at finding oneself labelled, and made over before one’s time?’
‘I’m glad if it was all my blundering,’ said Phœbe. ‘Dear Lucy, I was very wrong, but you see I always was so happy in believing it was understood!’
‘How stupid,’ cried Lucilla; ‘one would never have any fun; no, you haven’t tasted the sweets yet, or you would know one has no notion of being made sure of till one chooses! Yes, yes, I saw he was primed and cocked, but I’m not going to let him go off.’
‘Lucy, have you no pity?’
‘Not a bit! Don’t talk commonplaces, my dear.’
‘If you knew how much depends upon it.’
‘My dear, I know that,’ with an arch smile.
‘No, you do not,’ said Phœbe, so stoutly that Lucilla looked at her in some suspense.
‘You think,’ said honest Phœbe, in her extremity, ‘that he only wants to make—to propose to you! Now, it is not only that, Lucilla,’ and her voice sank, as she could hardly keep from crying; ‘he will never do that if you go on as you are doing now; he does not think it would be right for a clergyman.’
‘Oh! I dare say!’ quoth Lucilla, and then a silence. ‘Did Honor tell him so, Phœbe?’
‘Never, never!’ cried Phœbe; ‘no one has said a word against you! only don’t you know how quiet and good any one belonging to a clergyman should be?’
‘Well, I’ve heard a great deal of news to-day, and it is all my own fault, for indulging in sentiment on Wednesday. I shall know better another time.’
‘Then you don’t care!’ cried Phœbe, turning round, with eyes flashing as Lucilla did not know they could lighten. ‘Very well! If you don’t think Robert worth it, I suppose I ought not to grieve, for you can’t be what I used to think you and it will be better for him when he once has settled his mind—than if—if afterwards you disappointed him and were a fine lady—but oh! he will be so unhappy,’ her tears were coming fast; ‘and, Lucy, I did like you so much!’
‘Well, this is the funniest thing of all,’ cried Lucilla, by way of braving her own emotion; ‘little Miss Phœbe gone into the heroics!’ and she caught her two hands, and holding her fast, kissed her on both cheeks; ‘a gone coon, am I, Phœbe, no better than one of the wicked; and Robin, he grew angry, hopped upon a twig, did he! I beg your pardon, my dear, but it makes me laugh to think of his dignified settling of his mind. Oh! how soon it could be unsettled again! Come, I won’t have any more of this; let it alone, Phœbe, and trust me that things will adjust themselves all the better for letting them have their swing. Don’t you look prematurely uneasy, and don’t go and make Robin think that I have immolated him at the altar of the salmon. Say nothing of all this; you will only make a mess in narrating it.’
‘Very likely I may,’ said Phœbe; ‘but if you will not speak to him yourself, I shall tell him how you feel.’
‘If you can,’ laughed Lucilla.
‘I mean, how you receive what I have told you of his views; I do not think it would be fair or kind to keep him in ignorance.’
‘Much good may it do him,’ said Lucy; ‘but I fancy you will tell him, whether I give you leave or not, and it can’t make much difference. I’ll tackle him, as the old women say, when I please, and the madder he may choose to go, the better fun it will be.’
‘I believe you are saying so to tease me’ said Phœbe; ‘but as I know you don’t mean it, I shall wait till after the party; and then, unless you have had it out with him, I shall tell him what you have said.’
‘Thank you,’ said Lucilla, ironically conveying to Phœbe’s mind the conviction that she did not believe that Robert’s attachment could suffer from what had here passed. Either she meant to grant the decisive interview, or else she was too confident in her own power to believe that he could relinquish her; at all events, Phœbe had sagacity enough to infer that she was not indifferent to him, though as the provoking damsel ran down-stairs, Phœbe’s loyal spirit first admitted a doubt whether the tricksy sprite might not prove as great a torment as a delight to Robin. ‘However,’ reflected she, ‘I shall make the less mischief if I set it down while I remember it.’
Not much like romance, but practical sense was both native and cultivated in Miss Fennimore’s pupil. Yet as she recorded the sentences, and read them over bereft of the speaker’s caressing grace, she blamed herself as unkind, and making the worst of gay retorts which had been provoked by her own home thrusts. ‘At least,’ she thought, ‘he will be glad to see that it was partly my fault, and he need never see it at all if Lucy will let him speak to her himself.’
Meantime, Honora had found from Owen that the young ladies had accepted an invitation to a very gay house in Cheshire, so that their movements would for a fortnight remain doubtful. She recurred to her view that the only measure to be taken was for him to follow them, so as to be able to interpose in any emergency, and she anxiously pressed on him the funds required.
‘Shouldn’t I catch it if they found me out!’ said Owen, shrugging his shoulders. ‘No, but indeed, Sweet Honey, I meant to have made up for this naughty girl’s desertion. You and I would have had such rides and readings together: I want you to put me on good terms with myself.’
‘My dear boy! But won’t that best be done by minding your sister? She does want it, Owen; the less she will be prudent for herself, the more we must think for her!’
‘She can do better for herself than you imagine,’ said Owen. ‘Men say, with all her free ways, they could not go the least bit farther with her than she pleases. You wouldn’t suppose it, but she can keep out of scrapes better than Rashe can—never has been in one yet, and Rashe in twenty. Never mind, your Honor, there’s sound stuff in the bonny scapegrace; all the better for being free and unconventional. The world owes a great deal to those who dare to act for themselves; though, I own, it is a trial when one’s own domestic womankind take thereto.’
‘Or one’s mankind to encouraging it,’ said Honor, smiling, but showing that she was hurt.
‘I don’t encourage it; I am only too wise to give it the zest of opposition. Was Lucy ever bent upon a naughty trick without being doubly incited by the pleasure of showing that she cared not for her younger brother?’
‘I believe you are only too lazy! But, will you go? I don’t think it can be a penance. You would see new country, and get plenty of sport.’
‘Come with me, Honey,’ said he with the most insinuating manner, which almost moved her. ‘How jolly it would be!’
‘Nonsense! an elderly spinster,’ she said, really pleased, though knowing it impossible.
‘Stuff!’ he returned in the same tone. ‘Make it as good as a honeymoon. Think of Killarney, Honor!’
‘You silly boy, I can’t. There’s harvest at home; besides, it would only aggravate that mad girl doubly to have me coming after her.’
‘Well, if you will not take care of me on a literal wild-goose chase,’ said Owen, with playful disconsolateness, ‘I’ll not answer for the consequences.’
‘But, you go?’
‘Vacation rambles are too tempting to be resisted; but, mind, I don’t promise to act good genius save at the last extremity, or else shall never get forgiven, and I shall keep some way in the rear.’
So closed the consultation; and after an evening which Lucilla perforce rendered lively, she and her brother took their leave. The next day they were to accompany the Charterises to Castle Blanch to prepare for the festivities; Honor and her two young friends following on the Wednesday afternoon.
CHAPTER VI
He who sits by haunted well
Is subject to the Nixie’s spell;
He who walks on lonely beach
To the mermaid’s charmed speech;
He who walks round ring of green
Offends the peevish Fairy Queen.—Scott
At the station nearest to Castle Blanch stood the tall form of Owen Sandbrook, telling Honor that he and his sister had brought the boat; the river was the longer way, but they would prefer it to the road; and so indeed they did, for Phœbe herself had had enough of the City to appreciate the cool verdure and calm stillness of the meadow pathway, by which they descended to the majestic river, smoothly sleeping in glassy quiet, or stealing along in complacently dimpling ripples.
On the opposite bank, shading off the sun, an oak copse sloped steeply towards the river, painting upon the surface a still shimmering likeness of the summit of the wood, every mass of foliage, every blushing spray receiving a perfect counterpart, and full in the midst of the magic mirror floated what might have been compared to the roseate queen lily of the waters on her leaf.
There, in the flat, shallow boat reclined the maiden, leaning over the gunwale, gazing into the summer wavelets with which one bare pinkly-tinted hand was toying, and her silken ringlets all but dipping in, from beneath the round black hat, archly looped up on one side by a carnation bow, and encircled by a series of the twin jetty curls of the mallard; while the fresh rose colour of the spreading muslin dress was enhanced by the black scarf that hung carelessly over it. There was a moment’s pause, as if no one could break the spell; but Owen, striding on from behind, quickly dissolved the enchantment.
‘You monkey, you’ve cast off. You may float on to Greenwich next!’ he indignantly shouted.
She started, shaking her head saucily. ‘’Twas so slow there, and so broiling,’ she called back, ‘and I knew I should only drift down to meet you, and could put in when I pleased.’
Therewith she took the sculls and began rowing towards the bank, but without force sufficient to prevent herself from being borne farther down than she intended.
‘I can’t help it,’ she exclaimed, fearlessly laughing as she passed them.
Robert was ready to plunge in to stem her progress, lest she should meet with some perilous eddy, but Owen laid hold on him, saying, ‘Don’t be nervous, she’s all right; only giving trouble, after the nature of women. There; are you satisfied?’ he called to her, as she came to a stop against a reed bed, with a tall fence interposed between boat and passengers. ‘A nice ferry-woman you.’
‘Come and get me up again,’ was all her answer.
‘Serve you right if I never picked you up till London-bridge,’ he answered. ‘Stand clear, Fulmort,’ and with a run and a bound, he vaulted over the high hedge, and went crackling through the nodding bulrushes and reed-maces; while Lucy, having accomplished pulling up one of the latter, was pointing it lancewise at him, singing,
‘With a bulrush for his spear, and a thimble for a hat,
Wilt thou fight a traverse with the castle cat.’
‘Come, come; ’tis too squashy here for larking,’ he said authoritatively, stepping into the boat, and bringing it up with such absence of effort that when a few minutes after he had brought it to the landing-place, and the freight was seated, Robert had no sooner taken the other oar than he exclaimed at the force of the stream with which Owen had dealt so easily, and Lucilla so coolly.
‘It really was a fearful risk,’ he said reproachfully to her.
‘Oh!’ she said, ‘I know my Thames, and my Thames knows me!’
‘Now’s the time to improve it,’ said Owen; ‘one or other should preach about young ladies getting loose, and not knowing where they may be brought up.’
‘But you see I did know; besides, Phœbe’s news from Paris will be better worth hearing,’ said Lucilla, tickling her friend’s face with the soft long point of her dark velvety mace.
‘My news from Paris?’
‘For shame, Phœbe! Your face betrays you.’
‘Lucy; how could you know? I had not even told Miss Charlecote!’
‘It’s true! it’s true!’ cried Lucilla. ‘That’s just what I wanted to know!’
‘Lucy, then it was not fair,’ said Phœbe, much discomposed. ‘I was desired to tell no one, and you should not have betrayed me into doing so.’
‘Phœbe, you always were a green oasis in a wicked world!’
‘And now, let me hear,’ said Miss Charlecote. ‘I can’t flatter you, Phœbe; I thought you were labouring under a suppressed secret.’
‘Only since this morning,’ pleaded Phœbe, earnestly; ‘and we were expressly forbidden to mention it; I cannot imagine how Lucy knows.’
‘By telegraph!’
Phœbe’s face assumed an expression of immeasurable wonder.
‘I almost hope to find you at cross purposes, after all,’ said Honora.
‘No such good luck,’ laughed Lucilla. ‘Cinderella’s seniors never could go off two at a time. Ah! there’s the name. I beg your pardon, Phœbe.’
‘But, Lucy, what can you mean? Who can have telegraphed about Augusta?’
‘Ah! you knew not the important interests involved, nor Augusta how much depended on her keeping the worthy admiral in play. It was the nearest thing—had she only consented at the end of the evening instead of the beginning, poor Lord William would have had the five guineas that he wants so much more than Mr. Calthorp!’
‘Lucy!’
‘It was a bet that Sir Nicholas would take six calendar months to supply the place of Lady Bannerman. It was the very last day. If Augusta had only waited till twelve!’
‘You don’t mean that he has been married before. I thought he was such an excellent man!’ said Phœbe, in a voice that set others besides Lucilla off into irresistible mirth.
‘Once, twice, thrice!’ cried Lucilla. ‘Catch her, Honor, before she sinks into the river in disgust with this treacherous world.’
‘Do you know him, Lucy?’ earnestly said Phœbe.
‘Yes, and two of the wives; we used to visit them because he was an old captain of Uncle Kit’s.’
‘I would not believe in number three, Phœbe, if I were you,’ said Owen, consolingly; ‘she wants confirmation.’
‘Two are as bad as three,’ sighed Phœbe; ‘and Augusta did not even call him a widower.’
‘Cupid bandaged! It was a case of love at first sight. Met at the Trois Frères Provençaux, heard each other’s critical remarks, sought an introduction, compared notes; he discovered her foresight with regard to pale ale; each felt that here was a kindred soul!’
‘That could not have been telegraphed!’ said Phœbe, recovering spirit and incredulity.
‘No; the telegram was simply “Bannerman, Fulmort. 8.30 p.m., July 10th.” The other particulars followed by letter this morning.’
‘How old is he?’ asked Phœbe, with resignation.
‘Any age above sixty. What, Phœbe, taking it to heart? I was prepared with congratulations. It is only second best, to be sure; but don’t you see your own emancipation?’
‘I believe that had never occurred to Phœbe,’ said Owen.
‘I beg your pardon, Lucy,’ said Phœbe, thinking that she had appeared out of temper; ‘only it had sounded so nice in Augusta’s letter, and she was so kind, and somehow it jars that there should have been that sort of talk.’
Cilly was checked. In her utter want of thought it had not occurred to her that Augusta Fulmort could be other than a laughing-stock, or that any bright anticipations could have been spent by any reasonable person on her marriage. Perhaps the companionship of Rashe, and the satirical outspoken tone of her associates, had somewhat blunted her perception of what might be offensive to the sensitive delicacy of a young sister; but she instantly perceived her mistake, and the carnation deepened in her cheek, at having distressed Phœbe, and . . . Not that she had deigned any notice of Robert after the first cold shake of the hand, and he sat rowing with vigorous strokes, and a countenance of set gravity, more as if he were a boatman than one of the party; Lucilla could not even meet his eye when she peeped under her eyelashes to recover defiance by the sight of his displeasure.
It was a relief to all when Honora exclaimed, ‘Wrapworth! how pretty it looks.’
It was, indeed, pretty, seen through the archway of the handsome stone bridge. The church tower and picturesque village were set off by the frame that closed them in; and though they lost somewhat of the enchantment when the boat shot from under the arch, they were still a fair and goodly English scene.
Lucilla steered towards the steps leading to a smooth shaven lawn, shaded by a weeping willow, well known to Honor.
‘Here we land you and your bag, Robert,’ said Owen, as he put in. ‘Cilly, have a little sense, do.’
But Lucilla, to the alarm of all, was already on her feet, skipped like a chamois to the steps, and flew dancing up the sward. Ere Owen and Robert had helped the other two ladies to land in a more rational manner, she was shaking her mischievous head at a window, and thrusting in her sceptral reed-mace.
‘Neighbour, oh, neighbour, I’m come to torment you! Yes, here we are in full force, ladies and all, and you must come out and behave pretty. Never mind your slippers; you ought to be proud of the only thing I ever worked. Come out, I say; here’s your guest, and you must be civil to him.’
‘I am very glad to see Mr. Fulmort,’ said Mr. Prendergast, his only answer in words to all this, though while it was going on, as if she were pulling him by wires, as she imperiously waved her bulrush, he had stuck his pen into the inkstand, run his fingers in desperation through his hair, risen from his seat, gazed about in vain for his boots, and felt as fruitlessly on the back of the door for a coat to replace the loose alpaca article that hung on his shoulders.
‘There. You’ve gone through all the motions,’ said Cilly; ‘that’ll do; now, come out and receive them.’
Accordingly, he issued from the door, shy and slouching; rusty where he wore cloth, shiny where he wore alpaca, wild as to his hair, gay as to his feet, but, withal, the scholarly gentleman complete, and not a day older or younger, apparently, than when Honor had last seen him, nine years since, in bondage then to the child playing at coquetry, as now to the coquette playing at childhood. It was curious, Honor thought, to see how, though so much more uncouth and negligent than Robert, the indefinable signs of good blood made themselves visible, while they were wanting in one as truly the Christian gentleman in spirit and in education.
Mr. Prendergast bowed to Miss Charlecote, and shook hands with his guest, welcoming him kindly; but the two shy men grew more bashful by contact, and Honor found herself, Owen, and Lucilla sustaining the chief of the conversation, the curate apparently looking to the young lady to protect him and do the honours, as she did by making him pull down a cluster of his roses for her companions, and conducting them to eat his strawberries, which she treated as her own, flitting, butterfly like, over the beds, selecting the largest and ruddiest specimens, while her slave plodded diligently to fill cabbage leaves, and present them to the party in due gradation.
Owen stood by amused, and silencing the scruples of his companions.
‘He is in Elysium,’ he said; ‘he had rather be plagued by Cilly than receive a mitre! Don’t hinder him, Honey; it is his pride to treat us as if we were at home and he our guest.’
‘Wrapworth has not been seen without Edna Murrell,’ said Lucilla, flinging the stem of her last strawberry at her brother, ‘and Miss Charlecote is a woman of schools. What, aren’t we to go, Mr. Prendergast?’
‘I beg your pardon. I did not know.’