Hopes and Fears / or, scenes from the life of a spinster

‘After a fashion,’ he said, smiling.  ‘Spade-husbandry alone is very poor earth-scratching; and I don’t really know whether, between that and my gun, we could have got through this winter.’

‘What a life!’ exclaimed Phœbe.  ‘Realities, indeed!’

‘It is only what many colonists undergo,’ he answered; ‘if they do not prosper, it is a very hard life, and the shifting hopes render it the more trying to those who are not bred to it.’

‘And to those that are?’ she asked.

‘To those that are there are many compensations.  It is a free out-of-doors life, and the glorious sense of extent and magnificence in our woods, the sport one has there, the beauty of our autumns, and our white, grand, silent winters, make it a life well worth living.’

‘And would these have made you content to be a backwoodsman all your life?’

‘I cannot tell,’ he said.  ‘They—and the boys—were my delight when I was one.  And, after all, I used to recollect it was a place where there was a clear duty to do, and so, perhaps, safer than what fancy or choice would point at.’

‘But you are very glad not to be still condemned to it.’

‘Heartily glad not to be left to try to prop up a tumble-down log-hut with my own shoulder,’ he laughed.  ‘This journey to England has been the great desire of my life, and I am very thankful to have had it brought about.’

The conversation was broken off by Robert’s entrance.  Finding that it was nearly nine o’clock, he went up-stairs to remind Miss Charlecote that tea had long been awaiting her, and presently brought her back from the silent watch by Owen’s side that had hitherto seemed to be rest and comfort to all the three.

Owen had begged that his cup might be sent up by his friend, on whom he was very dependent, and it was agreed that Mr. Randolf should sleep in his room, and remain as a guest at Woolstone-lane until Mr. Currie should come to town.  Indeed, Miss Charlecote relied on him for giving the physician an account of the illness which Owen, at his best, could not himself describe; and she cordially thanked him for his evidently devoted attendance, going over every particular with him, but still so completely absorbed in her patient as to regard him in no light but as an appendage necessary to her boy.

‘How did you get on with the backwoodsman, Phœbe?’ asked Lucilla, when she came down to tea.

‘I think he is a sterling character,’ said Phœbe, in a tone of grave, deep thought, not quite as if answering the question, and with an observable deepening of the red of her cheek.

‘You quaint goose!’ said Lucy, with a laugh that jarred upon Honor, who turned round at her with a look of reproachful surprise.

Robert confirmed her cheerful opinion, but their younger and better prognostications fell sadly upon Honora’s ear.  She had been too much grieved and shocked to look for recovery, and all that she dared to expect was to tend her darling’s feebleness, her best desire was that his mind might yet have power to embrace the hope of everlasting Life ere he should pass away from her.  Let this be granted, and she was prepared to be thankful, be his decay never so painful to witness and attend.

She could not let Robert leave her that night without a trembling question whether he had learnt how it was with Owen on this point.  He had not failed to inquire of the engineer, but he could tell her very little.  Owen’s conduct had been unexceptionable, but he had made scarcely any demonstration or profession, and on the few occasions when opinions were discussed, spoke not irreverently, but in a tone of one who regretted and respected the tenets that he no longer held.  Since his accident, he had been too weak and confused to dwell on any subjects but those of the moment; but he had appeared to take pleasure in the unobtrusive, though decided religious habits of young Randolf.

There she must rest for the present, and trust to the influence of home, perhaps to that of the shadow of death.  At least he was the child of many prayers, and had not Lucilla returned to her changed beyond her hopes?  Let it be as it would, she could not but sleep in gratitude that both her children were again beneath her roof.

She was early dressed, and wishing the backwoodsman were anywhere but in Owen’s room.  However, to her joy, the door was open, and Owen called her in, looking so handsome as he lay partly raised by pillows, that she could hardly believe in his condition, except for his weak, subdued voice.

‘Yes, I am much better this morning.  I have slept off the headache, and have been enjoying the old sounds!’

‘Where is your friend?’

‘Rushed off to look at St. Paul’s through the shaking of doormats, and pay his respects to the Thames.  He has none of the colonial nil admirari spirit, but looks at England as a Greek colonist would have looked at Athens.  I only regret that the reality must tame his raptures.  I told him to come back by breakfast-time.’

‘He will lose his way.’

‘I thought you called him Randolf?’

‘That is his surname, but his Christian name is Humfrey Charlecote, from his grandfather.  His mother was the lady my father told you of.  He saved an old Bible out of the fire, with it all in the fly-leaf.  He shall show it to you, and it can be easily confirmed by writing to the places.  I would have gone myself, if I had not been the poor creature I am.’

‘Yes, my dear,’ said Honora, ‘I dare say it is so.  I am very glad you found so attentive a friend.  I am most thankful to him for his care of you.’

‘And you accept him as a relation,’ said Owen, anxiously.

‘Yes, oh, yes,’ said Honor.  ‘Would you like anything before breakfast?’

Owen answered with a little plaintiveness.  Perhaps he was disappointed at this cold acquiescence; but it was not a moment at which Honor could face the thought of a colonial claimant of the Holt.  With Owen helpless upon her hands, she needed both a home and ample means to provide for him and his sister and child; and the American heir, an unwelcome idea twenty years previously, when only a vague possibility, was doubly undesirable when long possession had endeared her inheritance to her, when he proved not even to be a true Charlecote, and when her own adopted children were in sore want of all that she could do for them.  The evident relinquishment of poor Owen’s own selfish views on the Holt made her the less willing to admit a rival, and she was sufficiently on the borders of age to be pained by having the question of heirship brought forward.  And she knew, what Owen did not, that, if this youth’s descent were indeed what it was said to be, he represented the elder line, and that even Humfrey had wondered what would be his duty in the present contingency.

‘Nonsense!’ said she to herself.  ‘There is no need as yet to think of it!  The place is my own by every right!  Humfrey told me so!  I will take time to see what this youth may be, and make sure of his relationship.  Then, if it be right and just, he shall come after me.  But I will not raise expectations, nor notice him more than as Owen’s friend and a distant kinsman.  It would be fatally unsettling to do more.’

Owen urged her no farther.  Either he had not energy to enforce any point for long together, or he felt that the succession might be a delicate subject, for he let her lead to his personal affairs, and he was invalid enough to find them fully engrossing.

The Canadian came in punctually, full of animation and excitement, of which Phœbe had the full benefit, till he was called to help Owen to dress.  While this was going on, Robert came into the drawing-room to breathe, after the hard task of pacifying Mrs. Murrell.

‘Some of it.  Do you mean that you could come out with me?’

‘Yes; you will never get through business otherwise.’

‘Then if you have an afternoon to spare, could not we take Mr. Randolf to the Tower?’

‘Why, Phœbe!’

‘He has only to-day at liberty, and is so full of eagerness about all the grand old historical places, that it seems hard that he should have to find his way about alone, with no one to sympathize with him—half the day cut up, too, with nursing Owen.’

‘He seems to have no difficulty in finding his way.’

‘No; but I really should enjoy showing him the old armour.  He was asking me about it this morning.  I think he knows nearly as much of it as we do.’

‘Very well.  I say, Phœbe, would you object to my taking Brown and Clay—my two head boys?  I owe them a treat, and they would just enter into this.’

Phœbe was perfectly willing to accept the two head boys, and the appointment had just been made when the doctor arrived.  Again he brought good hope.  From his own examination of Owen, and from Mr. Randolf’s report, he was convinced that a considerable amelioration had taken place, and saw every reason to hope that in so young and vigorous a nature the injury to the brain might be completely repaired, and the use of the limbs might in part, at least, return, though full recovery could not be expected.  He wished to observe his patient for a month or six weeks in town, that the course of treatment might be decided, after which he had better be taken to the Holt, to enjoy the pure air, and be out of doors as much as the season would permit.

To Honor this opinion was the cause of the deepest, most thankful gladness; but on coming back to Owen she found him sitting in his easy-chair, with his hand over his eyes, and his look full of inexpressible dejection and despondency.  He did not, however, advert to the subject, only saying, ‘Now then! let us have in the young pauper to see the old one.’

‘My dear Owen, you had better rest.’

‘No, no; let us do the thing.  The grandmother, too!’ he said impatiently.

‘I will fetch little Owen; but you really are not fit for Mrs. Murrell.’

‘Yes, I am; what am I good for but such things?  It will make no difference, and it must be done.’

‘My boy, you do not know to what you expose yourself.’

‘Don’t I,’ said Owen, sadly.

Lucilla, even though Mr. Prendergast had just come to share her anxieties, caught her nephew on his way, and popped her last newly completed pinafore over his harlequinism, persuading him that it was most beautiful and new.

Then he exerted himself to say, ‘I hope to do my best for him and for you, Mrs. Murrell, but I can make no promises; I am entirely dependent at present, and I do not know whether I may not be so for life.’

Whereat, and at the settled mournful look with which it was spoken, Mrs. Murrell burst out crying, and little Owen hung on her, almost crying too.  Honor, who had been lying in wait for Owen’s protection, came hastily in and made a clearance, Owen again reaching out his hand, which he laid on the child’s head, so as to turn up the face towards him for a moment.  Then releasing it almost immediately, he rested his chin on his hand, and Honor heard him mutter under his moustache, ‘Flibbertigibbet!’

‘When we go home, we will take little Owen with us,’ said Honor, kindly.  ‘It is high time he was taken from Little Whittington-street.  Country air will soon make a different-looking child of him.’

‘Thank you,’ he answered, despondingly.  ‘It is very good in you; but have you not troubles enough already?

‘He shall not be a trouble, but a pleasure.’

‘Poor little wretch!  He must grow up to work, and to know that he must work while he can;’ and Owen passed his hand over those useless fingers of his as though the longing to be able to work were strong on him.

Honor had agreed with Lucilla that father and son ought to be together, and that little ‘Hoeing’s’ education ought to commence.  Cilla insisted that all care of him should fall to her.  She was in a vehement, passionate mood of self-devotion, more overset by hearing that her brother would be a cripple for life than by what appeared to her the less melancholy doom of an early death.  She had allowed herself to hope so much from his improvement on the voyage, that what to Honor was unexpected gladness was to her grievous disappointment.  Mr. Prendergast arrived to find her half captious, half desperate.

See Owen!  Oh, no! he must not think of it.  Owen had seen quite people enough to-day; besides, he would be letting all out to him as he had done the other day.

Poor Mr. Prendergast humbly apologized for his betrayal; but had not Owen been told of the engagement?

‘Work!  Why, Cilla, you have not strength for it.’

‘I am quite well.  I have strength for anything now I have some one to work for.  Nothing hurts me but loneliness.’

‘Folly, child!  The same home that receives you will receive them.’

‘Nonsense!  As if I could throw such a dead weight on any one’s hands!’

‘Not on any one’s,’ said Mr. Prendergast.  ‘But I see how it is, Cilla; you have changed your mind.’

‘No,’ said Lucilla, with an outbreak of her old impatience; ‘but you men are so selfish!  Bothering me about proclaiming all this nonsense, just when my brother is come home in this wretched state!  After all, he was my brother before anything else, and I have a right to consider him first!’

‘Then, Cilla, you shall be bothered no more,’ said Mr. Prendergast, rising.  ‘If you want me, well and good—you know where to find your old friend; if not, and you can’t make up your mind to it, why, then we are as we were in old times.  Good-bye, my dear; I won’t fret you any more.’

‘No,’ said he to himself, as he paused in the Court, and was busy wiping from the sleeve of his coat two broad dashes of wet that had certainly not proceeded from the clouds, ‘the dear child’s whole heart is with her brother now she has got him back again.  I’ll not torment her any more.  What a fool I was to think that anything but loneliness could have made her accept me—poor darling!  I think I’ll go out to the Bishop of Sierra Leone!’

‘What can have happened to him?’ thought Phœbe, as he strode past the little party on their walk to the Tower.  ‘Can that wretched little Cilly have been teasing him?  I am glad Robert has escaped from her clutches!’

However, Phœbe had little leisure for such speculations in the entertainment of witnessing her companion’s intelligent interest in all that he saw.  The walk itself—for which she had begged—was full of wonder; and the Tower, which Robert’s slight knowledge of one of the officials enabled them to see in perfection, received the fullest justice, both historically and loyally.  The incumbent of St. Matthew’s was so much occupied with explanations to his boys, that Phœbe had the stranger all to herself, and thus entered to the full into that unfashionable but most heart-stirring of London sights, ‘the Towers of Julius,’ from the Traitors’ Gate, where Elizabeth sat in her lion-like desolation, to her effigy in her glory upon Tilbury Heath—the axe that severed her mother’s ‘slender neck’—the pistol-crowned stick of her father—the dark cage where her favourite Raleigh was mewed—and the whole series of the relics of the disgraces and the glories of England’s royal line—well fitted, indeed, to strike the imagination of one who had grown up in the New World without antiquity.

‘I am sure it was nothing but a pleasure,’ she said.  ‘It happened that Robert had some boys whom he wanted to take.’  Somehow she did not wish Owen to think she had done it on his own account.

‘And you liked him?’ asked Owen.

‘Yes, very much indeed,’ she heartily said.

‘Ah! I knew you would;’ and he lay back as if fatigued.  Then, as Phœbe was about to leave him, he added—‘I can’t get my ladies to heed anything but me.  You and Robert must take pity on him, if you please.  Get him to Westminster Abbey, or the Temple Church, or somewhere worth seeing to-morrow.  Don’t let them be extortionate of his waiting on me.  I must learn to do without him.’

Phœbe promised, and went.

‘Phœbe is grown what one calls a fine young woman instead of a sweet girl,’ said Owen to his sister, when she next came into the room; ‘but she has managed to keep her innocent, half-wondering look, just as she has the freshness of her colour.’

‘Well, why not, when she has not had one real experience?’ said Lucilla, a little bitterly.

‘None?’ he asked, with a marked tone.

‘None,’ she answered, and he let his hand drop with a sigh; but as if repenting of any half betrayal of feeling, added, ‘she has had all her brothers and sisters at sixes and sevens, has not she?’

‘Do you call that a real experience?’ said Lucilla, almost with disdain, and the conversation dropped.

Owen’s designs for his friend’s Sunday fell to the ground.  The backwoodsman fenced off the proposals for his pleasure, by his wish to be useful in the sick-room; and when told of Owen’s desire, was driven to confess that he did not wish for fancy church-going on his first English Sunday.  There was enough novelty without that; the cathedral service was too new for him to wish to hear it for the first time when there was so much that was unsettling.

Honor, and even Robert, were a little disappointed.  They thought eagerness for musical service almost necessarily went with church feeling; and Phœbe was the least in the world out of favour for the confession, that though it was well that choirs should offer the most exquisite and ornate praise, yet that her own country-bred associations with the plain unadorned service at Hiltonbury rendered her more at home where the prayers were read, and the responses congregational, not choral.  To her it was more devotional, though she fully believed that the other way was the best for those who had begun with it.

All the ensuing days Phœbe was going about choosing curtains and carpets, or hiring servants for herself or Mervyn.  She was obliged to act alone, for Miss Charlecote, on whom she had relied for aid, was engrossed in attending on Owen, and endeavouring to wile away the hours that hung heavily on one incapable of employment or even attention for more than a few minutes together.  So constantly were Honor and Lucy engaged with him, that Phœbe hardly saw them morning, noon, or night; and after being out for many hours, it generally fell to her lot to entertain the young Canadian for the chief part of the evening.  Mr. Currie had arrived in town on the Monday, and came at once to see Owen.  His lodgings were in the City, where he would be occupied for some time in more formally mapping out and reporting on the various lines proposed for the G. O. and S. line; and finding how necessary young Randolf still was to the invalid, he willingly agreed to the proposal that while Miss Charlecote continued in London, the young man should continue to sleep and spend his evenings in Woolstone-lane.

CHAPTER XXIX

Have you seen but a bright lily grow,
   Before rude hands have touched it?
Have you marked but the fall of the snow,
   Before the soil hath smutched it?—Ben Jonson

At the end of a week Mervyn made his appearance in a vehement hurry.  Cecily’s next sister, an officer’s wife, was coming home with two little children, for a farewell visit before going to the Cape, and Maria and Bertha must make way for her.  So he wanted to take Phœbe home that afternoon to get the Underwood ready for them.

‘Mervyn, how can I go?  I am not nearly ready.’

‘What can you have been doing then?’ he exclaimed, with something of his old temper.

‘This house has been in such a state.’

‘Well, you were not wanted to nurse the sick man, were you?  I thought you were one that was to be trusted.  What more is there to do?’

Perhaps it was the first time that Mervyn had been justly angry with her; but he was so much less savage than in his injustice that she was very much ashamed and touched; and finally, deeply grateful for the grace of this one day in which to repair her negligence, provided she would be ready to start by seven o’clock next morning.  Hard and diligently she worked, and very late she came home.  As she was on her way up-stairs she met Robert coming out of Owen’s room.

‘Phœbe,’ he said, turning with her into her room, ‘what is the matter with Lucy?’

‘The matter?’

‘Do you mean that you have not observed how ill she is looking?’

‘No; nothing particular.’

‘Phœbe, I cannot imagine what you have been thinking about.  I thought you would have saved her, and helped Miss Charlecote, and you absolutely never noticed her looks!’

‘I am very sorry.  I have been so much engaged.’

‘Absorbed, you should call it!  Who would have thought you would be so heedless of her?’

He was gone.  ‘Still crazy about Lucy,’ was Phœbe’s first thought; her second, ‘Another brother finding me heedless and selfish!  What can be the matter with me?’  And when she looked at Lucilla with observant eyes, she did indeed recognize the justice of Robert’s anxiety and amazement.  The brilliant prettiness had faded away as if under a blight, the eyes were sinking into purple hollows, the attitude was listless, the whole air full of suffering.  Phœbe was dismayed and conscience-stricken, and would fain have offered inquiries and sympathy, but no one had more thoroughly than Lucy the power of repulsion.  ‘No, nothing was amiss—of course she felt the frost.  She would not speak to Honor—there was nothing to speak about;’ and she went up to her brother’s room.

Mr. Randolf was out with Mr. Currie, and Phœbe, still exceedingly busy writing notes and orders, and packing for her journey, did not know that there was an unconscious resolution in her own mind that her business should not be done till he came home, were it at one o’clock at night!  He did come at no unreasonable hour, and found her fastening directions upon the pile of boxes in the hall.

‘What are you doing?  Miss Charlecote is not going away?’

‘No; but I am going to-morrow.’

‘You!’

‘Yes; I must get into our new house, and receive my sisters there the day after to-morrow.’

‘Is it possible that you did not know what I have been doing all this week?’

‘Were you not preparing a house for your brother?’

‘Yes, and another for myself.  Did you not understand that we set up housekeeping separately upon his marriage?’

‘I did not understand,’ said Humfrey Randolf, disconsolately.  ‘You told me you owed everything to Miss Charlecote.’

‘I am afraid your colonial education translated that into £ s. d.’

‘Then you are not poor?’

‘No, not exactly,’ said Phœbe, rather puzzled and amused by his downcast air.

‘But,’ he exclaimed, ‘your brother is in business; and Mr. Fulmort of St. Matthew’s—’

‘Mr. Fulmort of St. Matthew’s is poor because he gave all to St. Matthew’s,’ said Phœbe; ‘but our business is not a small one, and the property in the country is large.’

He pasted on her last direction in disconsolate silence, then reading, ‘Miss Fulmort, The Underwood, Hiltonbury, Elverslope Station,’ resumed with fresh animation, ‘At least you live near Miss Charlecote?’

‘Yes, we are wedged in between her park and our own—my brother’s, I mean.’

‘That is all right then!  She has asked me for Christmas.’

‘I am very glad of it,’ said Phœbe.  ‘There, thank you, good night.’

‘Is there nothing more that I can do for you?’

‘Nothing—no, no, don’t hammer that down, you will wake Owen.  Good night, good-bye; I shall be gone by half-past six.’

Though Phœbe said good-bye, she knew perfectly well that the hours of the morning were as nothing to the backwoodsman, and with spirits greatly exhilarated by the Christmas invitation, she went to bed, much too sleepy to make out why her wealth seemed so severe a shock to Humfrey Randolf.

The six o’clock breakfast was well attended, for Miss Charlecote was there herself, as well as the Canadian, Phœbe, and Mervyn, who was wonderfully amiable considering the hour in the morning.  Phœbe felt in some slight degree less unfeeling when she found that Lucilla’s fading looks had been no more noticed by Miss Charlecote than by herself; but Honor thought Owen’s illness accounted for all, and only promised that the doctor should inspect her.

Had she never been tired before, that her heart should sink in this unaccountable way?  Why could she not be more glad that her sisters were coming home, and dear Miss Fennimore?  What made every one seem so dull and stupid, and the comings and goings so oppressive, as if everything would be hateful till Christmas?  Why had she belied all her previous good character for method and punctuality of late, and felt as if existence only began when—one person was in the room?

Oh! can this be falling in love?

There was a chiffonier with a looking-glass back just opposite to her, and, raising her eyes, poor Phœbe beheld a young lady with brow, cheeks, and neck perfectly glowing with crimson!

‘You shan’t stand there long at any rate,’ said she, almost vindictively, getting up and pushing the table with its deep cover between her and the answering witness.

And she opened her book; but finding that Humfrey Randolf’s remarks would come between her and the sense, she decided that she was too tired to read, and put herself to bed.  But there the sense of wrong towards Maria filled her with remorse that she had accepted her rights of seniority, and let the maids place her in the prettiest room, with the best bay window, and most snug fireplace; nor could she rest till she had pacified her self-reproach, by deciding that all her own goods should move next day into the chamber that did not look at the Holt firs, but only at the wall of the back yard.

‘Yes,’ said Phœbe, stoutly in her honest dealing with herself in her fresh, untried morning senses.  ‘I do love Humfrey Charlecote Randolf, and I think he loves me!  Whether anything more may come of it, will be ordered for me; but whether it do so or not, it is a blessing to have known one like him, and now that I am warned, and can try to get back self-control, I will begin to be the better for it.  Even if I am not quite so happy, this is something more beautiful than I ever knew before.  I will be content!’

And when Bertha and Maria arrived, brimful of importance at having come home with no escort but a man and maid, and voluble with histories of Sutton, and wedding schemes, they did not find an absent nor inattentive listener.  Yet the keen Bertha made the remark, ‘Something has come over you, Phœbe.  You have more countenance than ever you had before.’

Whereat Phœbe’s colour rushed into her cheeks, but she demanded the meaning of countenance, and embarked Bertha in a dissertation.

When Phœbe was gone, Robert found it less difficult to force Lucilla to the extremity of a tête-à-tête.  Young Randolf was less in the house, and, when there, more with Owen than before, and Lucilla was necessarily sometimes to be caught alone in the drawing-room.

‘Lucy,’ said Robert, the first time this occurred, ‘I have a question to ask you.’

‘Well!’—she turned round half defiant.

‘A correspondent of Mervyn, on the Spanish coast, has written to ask him to find a chaplain for the place, guaranteeing a handsome stipend.’

‘I wished to ask whether you thought it would be acceptable to Mr. Prendergast.’

‘I neither know nor care.’

‘I beg your pardon,’ said Robert, after a pause; ‘but though I believe I learnt it sooner than I ought, I was sincerely glad to hear—’

‘Then unhear!’ said Lucilla, pettishly.  ‘You, at least, ought to be glad of that.’

‘By no means,’ returned Robert, gravely.  ‘I have far too great a regard for you not to be most deeply concerned at what I see is making you unhappy.’

‘May not I be unhappy if I like, with my brother in this state?’

‘That is not all, Lucilla.’

‘Then never mind!  You are the only one who never pitied me, and so I like you.  Don’t spoil it now!’

‘You need not be afraid of my pitying you if you have brought on this misunderstanding by your old spirit!’

‘Not a bit of it!  I tell you he pitied me.  I found it out in time, so I set him free.  That’s all.’

‘And that was the offence?’

‘Offence!  What are you talking of?  He didn’t offend—No, but when I said I could not bring so many upon him, and could not have Owen teased about the thing, he said he would bother me no more, that I had Owen, and did not want him.  And then he walked off.’

‘Taking you at your word?’

‘Just as if one might not say what one does not mean when one wants a little comforting,’ said Lucy, pouting; ‘but, after all, it is a very good thing—he is saved a great plague for a very little time, and if it were all pity, so much the better.  I say, Robin, shall you be man enough to read the service over me, just where we stood at poor Edna’s funeral?’

‘I don’t think that concerns you much,’ said Robert.

‘Well, the lady in Madge Wildfire’s song was gratified at the “six brave gentlemen” who “kirkward should carry her.”  Why should you deprive me of that satisfaction?  Really, Robin, it is quite true.  A little happiness might have patched me up, but—’

‘The symptoms are recurring?  Have you seen F---?’

‘Yes.  Let me alone, Robin.  It is the truest mercy to let me wither up with as little trouble as possible to those who don’t want me.  Now that you know it, I am glad I can talk to you, and you will help me to think of what has never been enough before my eyes.’

Robert made no answer but a hasty good-bye, and was gone.

Lucilla gave a heavy sigh, and then exclaimed, half-aloud—

‘Oh, the horrid little monster that I am.  Why can’t I help it?  I verily believe I shall flirt in my shroud, and if I were canonized my first miracle would be like St. Philomena’s, to make my own relics presentable!’

The poor little lonely thing wept again, and after her many sleepless nights, she fairly cried herself to sleep.  She awoke with a start, at some one being admitted into the room.

‘My dear, am I disturbing you?’

It was the well-known voice, and she sprang up.

‘Mr. Pendy, Mr. Pendy, I was very naughty!  I didn’t mean it.  Oh, will you bear with me again, though I don’t deserve it?’

She clung to him like a child wearied with its own naughtiness.

‘I was too hasty,’ he said; ‘I forgot how wrapped up you were in your brother, and how little attention you could spare, and then I thought that in him you had found all you wanted, and that I was only in your way.’

‘How could you?  Didn’t you know better than to think that people put their brothers before their—Mr. Pendys?’

‘You seemed to wish to do so.’

‘Ah! but you should have known it was only for the sake of being coaxed!’ said Lucilla, hanging her head on one side.

‘You should have told me so.’

‘But how was I to know it?’  And she broke out into a very different kind of laughter.  ‘I’m sure I thought it was all magnanimity, but it is of no use to die of one’s own magnanimity, you see.’

‘You are not going to die; you are coming to this Spanish place, which will give you lungs of brass.’

‘Spanish place?  How do you know?  I have not slept into to-morrow, have I?  That Robin has not flown to Wrapworth and back since three o’clock?’

‘No, I was only inquiring at Mrs. Murrell’s.’

‘Oh, you silly, silly person, why couldn’t you come here?’

‘I did not want to bother you.’

‘For shame, for shame; if you say that again I shall know you have not forgiven me.  It is a moral against using words too strong for the occasion!  So Robert carried you the offer of the chaplaincy, and you mean to have it!’

‘I could not help coming, as he desired, to see what you thought of it.’

‘I only know,’ she said, half crying, yet laughing, ‘that you had better marry me out of hand before I get into any more mischief.’

‘Oh! yes, yes, let us go,’ she cried.  ‘It will be a great deal better than anything at home can be.’

‘Then you venture on telling Owen, now!’

‘Oh, yes!  It was a mere delusion of mine that it would cost him anything.  Honor is all that he wants, I am rather in their way than otherwise.  He rests on her down-pillow-ship, and she sees, hears, knows nothing but him!’

‘Is Miss Charlecote aware of—what has been going wrong?’

‘Not she!  I told her before that I should take my own time for the communication, and I verily believe she has forgotten all about it!  Then little demure Phœbe fell over head and ears in love with the backwoodsman on the spot, and walked about in a dream such as ought to have been good fun to watch, if I had had the spirit for it; and if Robert had not been sufficiently disengaged to keep his eyes open, I don’t know whether anything would have roused them short of breaking a blood-vessel or two.’

‘I shall never rest till you are in my keeping!  I will go to Fulmort at once, and tell him that I accept.’

‘And I will go to Owen, and break the news to him.  When are you coming again?’

‘To-morrow, as soon as I have opened school.’

‘Ah! the sooner we are gone the better!  Much good you can be to poor Wrapworth!  Just tell me, please, that I may know how badly I served you, how often you have inquired at Mrs. Murrell’s.’

‘Why—I believe—each day except Saturday and Sunday; but I never met him there till just now.’

Lucilla’s eyes swam with tears; she laid her head on his shoulder, and, in a broken voice of deep emotion, she said, ‘Indeed, I did not deserve it!  But I think I shall be good now, for I can’t tell why I should be so much loved!’

Mr. Prendergast was vainly endeavouring to tell her why, when Humfrey Randolf’s ring was heard, and she rushed out of the room.

Owen’s first hearty laugh since his return was at her tidings.  That over, he spoke with brotherly kindness.

‘Yes, Lucy,’ he said, ‘I do think it is the best and happiest thing for you.  He is the only man whom you could not torment to death, or who would have any patience with your antics.’

‘I don’t think I shall try,’ said Lucy.  ‘What are you shaking your head for, Owen?  Have I not had enough to tame me?’

‘Some day you shall come out and see us perform, that’s all,’ said Lucilla, merrily.  ‘But indeed, Owen, if I know myself at all, unmerited affection and forbearance, with no nonsense about it, is the only way to keep me from flying out.  At any rate, I can’t live without it!’

‘Ah!’ said Owen, gravely, ‘you have suffered too much through me for me to talk to you in this fashion.  Forgive me, Lucy; I am not up to any other, just yet.’

Whatever Lucilla might have said in the first relief of recovering Mr. Prendergast, she could not easily have made up her mind to leave her brother in his present condition, and flattered herself that the ‘at once’ could not possibly be speedy, since Mr. Prendergast must give notice of his intention of leaving Wrapworth.

But when he came the next morning, it proved that things were in a far greater state of forwardness than she had thought possible.  So convinced were both the curate and Robert of the need of her avoiding the winter cold, that the latter had suggested that one of his own curates, who was in need of change and country air, should immediately offer himself as a substitute at Wrapworth, either for a time or permanently, and Lucy was positively required to name a day as early as possible for the marriage, and told, on the authority of the physician, that it might almost be called suicide to linger in the English frosts.

The day which she chose was the 1st of December, the same on which Mervyn was to be married.  There was a purpose in thus rendering it impracticable for any Fulmort to be present; ‘And,’ said Owen, ‘I am glad it should be before I am about.  I could never keep my countenance if I had to give her away to brother Peter!’

The Prendergasts of Southminster were very kind and friendly, sending Lucilla warm greetings, and not appearing at all disconcerted at welcoming their former governess into the family.  The elders professed no surprise, but great gladness; and Sarah, who was surprised, was trebly rejoiced.  Owen accused his sister of selecting her solitary bridesmaid with a view to enhancing her own beauty by force of contrast; but the choice was prompted by real security of the affectionate pleasure it would confer.  Handsome presents were sent both by the Beaumonts and Bostocks, and Lucilla, even while half fretted, half touched by Mrs. Bostock’s patronizing felicitations, could not but be pleased at these evidences that her governess-ship had not been an utter failure.

Her demeanour in the fortnight before her marriage was unlike what her friends had ever seen, and made them augur better for Mr. Prendergast’s venture.  She was happy, but subdued; quiet and womanly, gentle without being sad, grave but not drooping; and though she was cheerful and playful, with an entire absence of those strange effervescences that had once betrayed acidity or fermentation.  She had found the power of being affectionately grateful to Honor, and the sweetness of her tender ways towards her and Owen would have made the parting all the sadder to them if it had not been evident that, as she said, it was happiness that thus enabled her to be good.  The satisfied look of rest that had settled on her fair face made it new.  All her animation and archness had not rendered it half so pleasant to look upon.

Robert brought in his gift on the last day of November, just before setting off for Sutton.  It was an unornamented, but exquisitely-bound Bible and Prayer Book, dark-brown, with red-edged leaves.

‘Good-bye, Lucilla,’ he said; ‘you have been the brightest spot to me in this life.  Thank you for all you have done for me.’

‘And for all I never intended to do?’ said Lucilla, smiling, as she returned his pressure of the hand.

He was gone, not trusting her to speak, nor himself to hear a word more.

‘Yes, Robin,’ proceeded Lucy, half aloud, ‘you are the greater man, I know very well; but it is in human nature to prefer flesh and blood to mediæval saints in cast-iron, even if one knows there is a tender spot in them.’

There was a curious sense of humiliation in her full acquiescence in the fact that he was too high, too grand for her, and in her relief, that the affection, that would have lifted her beyond what she was prepared for, had died away, and left her to the more ordinary excellence and half-paternal fondness of the man of her real choice, with whom she could feel perfect ease and repose.  Possibly the admixture of qualities that in her had been called fast is the most contrary to all real aspiration!

But there was no fault to be found with the heartfelt affection with which she loved and honoured her bridegroom, lavishing on him the more marks of deference and submission just because she knew that her will would be law, and that his love was strong enough to have borne with any amount of caprice or seeming neglect.  The sacrifices she made, without his knowledge, for his convenience and comfort, while he imagined hers to be solely consulted, the concessions she made to his slightest wish, the entire absence of all teasing, would not have been granted to a younger man more prepossessing in the sight of others.

It was in this spirit that she rejected all advice to consult health rather than custom in her wedding dress.  Exactly because Mr. Prendergast would have willingly received her in the plainest garb, she was bent on doing him honour by the most exquisite bridal array; and never had she been so lovely—her colour such exquisite carnation, her eyes so softened, and full of such repose and reliance, her grace so perfect in complete freedom from all endeavour at attracting admiration.

The married pair came back from church to Owen’s sitting-room—not bear and monkey, not genie and fairy, as he had expected to see; but as they stood together, looking so indescribably and happily one, that Owen smiled and said, ‘Ah! Honor, if you had only known twenty years ago that this was Mrs. Peter Prendergast, how much trouble it would have saved.’

‘See how you deserve it now.’

‘That I never shall!’

Brother and sister parted with light words but full hearts, each trying to believe, though neither crediting Mr. Prendergast’s assurance that the two Owens should come and be at home for ever if they liked in Santa Maria de X---.  Neither could bear to face the truth that henceforth their courses lay apart, and that if the sister’s life were spared, it could only be at the sacrifice of expatriation for many years, in lands where, well or ill, the brother had no call.  Nor would Lucilla break down.  It was due to her husband not to let him think she suffered too much in resigning home for him; and true to her innate hatred of agitation, she guarded herself from realizing anything, and though perfectly kind and respectful to Honora, studiously averted all approaches to effusion of feeling.

Only at the last kiss in the hall, she hung round her friend with a vehement embrace, and whispered, ‘Forgive!  You have forgiven!’

‘Forgive me, Lucilla!’

‘Nay, that I have forgiven you for all your pardon and patience is shown by my enduring to leave Owen to you now.’

Therewith surged up such a flood of passionate emotions that, fleeing from them as it were, the bride tore herself out of Honor’s arms, and sprang hastily into the carriage, nervously and hastily moving about its contents while Mr. Prendergast finished his farewells.

After all, there was a certain sense of rest, snugness, and freedom from turmoil, when Honor dried her eyes and went back to her convalescent.  The house seemed peaceful, and they both felt themselves entering into the full enjoyment of being all in all to one another.

There was one guest at the Sutton wedding whose spirit was at St. Wulstan’s.  In those set eyes, and tightly-closed lips, might be traced abstraction in spite of himself.  Were there not thoughts and prayers for another bride, elsewhere kneeling?  Was not the solitary man struggling with the last remnants of fancies at war with his life of self-devotion, and crushing down the few final regrets, that would have looked back to the dreams of his youth.  No marvel that his greatest effort was against being harsh and unsympathizing, even while his whole career was an endeavour to work through charities of deed and word into charities of thought and judgment.

Untouched by love, the maiden’s breast
Is like the snow on Rona’s crest
High seated in the middle sky,
In bright and barren purity;
But by the sunbeam gently kissed,
Scarce by the gazing eye ’tis missed,
Ere down the lonely valley stealing,
Fresh grass and growth its course revealing;
It cheers the flock, revives the flower,
And decks some happy shepherd’s bower.—Scott

Slow to choose, but decided in her choice, Phœbe had always been, and her love formed no exception to this rule.  She was quite aware that her heart had been given away, and never concealed it from herself, though she made it a principle not to indulge in future castle buildings, and kept a resolute guard over her attention.  It was impossible to obviate a perpetual feeling of restlessness and of tedium in whatever she was about; but she conquered oftener than she gave way, and there was an indescribable sense of peace and sweetness in a new and precious possession, and an undefined hope through all.

Miss Fennimore, who came the day after the girls’ return from Sutton, saw only the fuller development of her favourite pupil, and, in truth, Maria and Bertha had so ineffably much to narrate, that her attention would have been sufficiently engrossed to hinder her observation of the symptoms, even had the good lady been as keen and experienced in love as in science.

Poor little Phœbe! equable as she was, she was in a great perturbation when, four days before Christmas, she knew that Miss Charlecote, with Owen Sandbrook and Humfrey Randolf, had arrived at the Holt.  What was so natural as for her to go at once to talk over the two weddings with her dear old friend?  Yes, but did her dear old friend want her, when these two young men had put an end to her solitude?  Was she only making Miss Charlecote an excuse?  She would wait in hopes that one of the others would ask if she were going to the Holt!  If so, it could not but be natural and proper—if not—  This provoking throbbing of her heart showed that it was not only for Honor Charlecote that she wished to go.

That ring at the bell!  What an abominable goose she was to find a flush of expectation in her cheek!  And after all it was only Sir John.  He had found that his son had heard nothing from the Holt that morning, and had come in to ask if she thought a call would be acceptable.  ‘I knew they were come home,’ he said, ‘for I saw them at the station yesterday.  I did not show myself, for I did not know how poor young Sandbrook might like it.  But who have they got with them?’

‘Mr. Randolf, Owen Sandbrook’s Canadian friend.’

‘Did I not hear he was some sort of relation?’

‘Ha! that accounts for it.  Seeing him with her, I could almost have thought it was thirty years ago, and that it was my dear old friend.’

Phœbe could have embraced Sir John.  She could not conceal her glow of delight so completely that Bertha did not laugh and say, ‘Mr. Charlecote is what the Germans would call Phœbe’s Bild.  She always blushes and looks conscious if he is mentioned.’

Sir John laughed, but with some emotion, and Phœbe hastily turned her still more blushing face away.  Certainly, if Phœbe had had any prevision of her present state of mind, she never would have bought that chiffonier.

When Sir John had sufficiently admired the details of the choice little drawing-room, and had been shown by the eager sisters all over the house, he asked if Phœbe would walk up with him to the Holt.  He had hoped his eldest son, who had ridden over with him, would have come in, and gone up with them, but he supposed Charlie had seized on him.  (Poor Sir John, his attempt at match-making did not flourish.)  However, he had secured Phœbe’s most intense gratitude by his proposal, and down she came, a very pretty picture, in her dark brown dress, scarlet cloak, and round, brown felt hat, with the long, curly, brown feather tipped with scarlet, her favourite winter robin colouring.  Her cheeks were brilliant, and her eyes not only brighter, but with a slight drooping that gave them the shadiness they sometimes wanted.  And it was all from a ridiculous trepidation which made it well-nigh impossible to bring out what she was longing to say—‘So you think Mr. Randolf like Mr. Charlecote.’

Fortunately he was beforehand with her, for both the likeness and the path through the pine woods reminded him strongly of his old friend, and he returned to the subject.  ‘So you are a great admirer of dear old Charlecote, Phœbe: you can’t remember him?’

‘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.’

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.’

‘Does the little boy amuse him?’

‘No, not exactly, poor little fellow.  They are terribly afraid of each other, that is the worst of it.  And then we left the boy too long with the old woman.  I hear his lessons for a quarter of an hour a day, and he is a clever child enough; but his pronunciation and habits are an absolute distress, and he is not happy anywhere but in the housekeeper’s room.  I try to civilize him, but as yet I cannot worry poor Owen.  You can’t think how comfortable we are together, Phœbe, when we are alone.  Since his sister went we have got on so much better.  He was shy before her; but I must tell you, my dear, he asked me to read my Psalms and Lessons aloud, as I used to do; and we have had such pleasant evenings, and he desired that the servants might still come in to prayers in the study.  But then he always was different with me.’

‘Yes,’ said Owen, ‘he has taken pity on the boy—he is very good to him—has served an apprenticeship.’

Mr. Randolf looked up, saw Phœbe, gave a start of recognition and pleasure, and sped towards the house.

‘Yes, Phœbe, I do see some likeness,’ said Honor, as though a good deal struck and touched.

All the ridiculous and troublesome confusion was so good as to be driven away in the contentment of Humfrey Randolf’s presence, and the wondrous magnetic conviction that he was equally glad to be with her.  She lost all restlessness, and was quite ready to amuse Owen by a lively discussion and comparison of the two weddings, but she so well knew that she should like to stay too long, that she cut her time rather over short, and would not stay to luncheon.  This was not like the evenings that began with Hiawatha and ended at Lakeville, or on Lake Ontario; but one pleasure was in store for Phœbe.  While she was finding her umbrella, and putting on her clogs, Humfrey Randolf ran down-stairs to her, and said, ‘I wanted to tell you something.  My stepmother is going to be married.’

‘You are glad?’

‘Very glad.  It is to a merchant whom she met at Buffalo, well off, and speaking most kindly of the little boys.’

‘That must be a great load off your mind.’

‘Indeed it is, though the children must still chiefly look to me.  I should like to have little George at a good school.  However, now their immediate maintenance is off my hands, I have more to spend in educating myself.  I can get evening lessons now, when my day’s work is over.’

‘Oh! do not overstrain your head,’ said Phœbe, thinking of Bertha.

‘Heads can bear a good deal when they are full of hope,’ he said, smiling.

‘Still after your out-of-doors life of bodily exercise, do you not find it hard to be always shut up in London?’

‘Perhaps the novelty has not worn off.  It is as if life had only begun since I came into the city.’

‘A new set of faculties called into play?’

‘Faculties—yes, and everything else.’

‘I must go now, or my sisters will be waiting for me, and I see your dinner coming in.  Good-bye.’

‘May I come to see you?’

‘O yes, pray let me show you our cottage.’

‘When may I come?’

She felt, rather than saw him watching her all the way from the garden-gate to the wood.  That little colloquy was the sunshiny point in her day.  Had the tidings been communicated in the full circle, it would have been as nothing compared with their reservation for her private ear, with the marked ‘I wanted to tell you.’  Then she came home, looked at Maria threading holly-berries, and her heart fainted within her.  There were moments when poor Maria would rise before her as a hardship and an infliction, and then she became terrified, prayed against such feelings as a crime, and devoted herself to her sister with even more than her wonted patient tenderness.