The certainty that the visit would take place kept her from all flutterings and self-debate, and in due time Mr. Randolf arrived. Anxiously did Phœbe watch for his look at Maria, for Bertha’s look at him, and she was pleased with both. His manner to Maria was full of gentleness, and Bertha’s quick eyes detected his intellect. He stood an excellent examination from her and Miss Fennimore upon the worn channel of Niagara, which had so often been used as a knockdown argument against Miss Charlecote’s cosmogony; and his bright terse powers of description gave them, as they agreed, a better idea of his woods than any travels which they had read.
It was no less interesting to observe his impression of the English village-life at Hiltonbury. To him, the aspect of the country had an air of exquisite miniature finish, wanting indeed in breadth and freedom, but he had suffered too much from vain struggling single-handed with Nature in her might, not to value the bounds set upon her; and a man who knew by personal experience what it was to seek his whole live stock in an interminable forest, did not complain of the confinement of hedges and banks. Nay, the ‘hedgerow elms and hillocks green’ were to him as classical as Whitehall; he treated Maria’s tame robins with as much respect as if they had been Howards or Percies; holly and mistletoe were handled by him with reverential curiosity; and the church and home of his ancestors filled him with a sweet loyal enthusiasm, more eager than in those to whom these things were familiar.
Miss Charlecote herself came in for some of these feelings. He admired her greatly in her Christmas aspect of Lady Bountiful, in which she well fulfilled old visions of the mistress of an English home, but still more did he dwell upon her gentleness, and on that shadowy resemblance to his mother, which made him long for some of that tenderness which she lavished upon Owen. He looked for no more than her uniformly kind civility and hospitality, but he was always wishing to know her better; and any touch of warmth and affection in her manner towards him was so delightful that he could not help telling Phœbe of it, in their next brief tête-à-tête.
He was able to render a great service to Miss Charlecote. Mr. Brooks’s understanding had not cleared with time, and the accounts that had been tangled in summer were by the end of the year in confusion worse confounded. He was a faithful servant, but his accounts had always been audited every month, and in his old age, his arithmetic would not carry him farther, so that his mistress’s long absence abroad had occasioned such a hopeless chaos, that but for his long services, his honesty might have been in question. Honora put this idea away with angry horror. Not only did she love and trust the old man, but he was a legacy from Humfrey, and she would have torn the page from her receipts rather than rouse the least suspicion against him. Yet she could not bear to leave any flaw in Humfrey’s farm books, and she toiled and perplexed herself in vain; till Owen, finding out what distressed her, and grieving at his own incapacity, begged that Randolf might help her; when behold! the confused accounts arranged themselves in comprehensible columns, and poor old Brooks was proved to have cheated himself so much more than his lady as to be entirely exonerated from all but puzzle-headedness. The young man’s farmer life qualified him to be highly popular at the Holt. He was curious about English husbandry, talked to the labourers, and tried their tools with no unpractised hand, even the flail which Honor’s hatred of steam still kept as the winter’s employment in the barn; he appreciated the bullocks, criticized the sheep, and admired the pigs, till the farming men agreed ‘there had not been such an one about the place since the Squire himself.’
Honora might be excused for not having detected a likeness between the two Humfreys. Scarcely a feature was in the same mould, the complexion was different, and the heavily-built, easy-going Squire, somewhat behind his own century, had apparently had nothing in common with the brisk modern colonial engineer; yet still there was something curiously recalling the expression of open honesty, and the whole cast of countenance, as well as the individuality of voice, air, and gestures, and the perception grew upon her so much in the haunts of her cousin, where she saw his attitudes and habits unconsciously repeated, that she was almost ready to accept Bertha’s explanation that it was owing to the influence of the Christian name that both shared. But as it had likewise been borne by the wicked disinherited son who ran away, the theory was somewhat halting.
Phœbe’s intercourse with Humfrey the younger was much more fragmentary than in town, and therefore, perhaps, the more delicious. She saw him on most of the days of his fortnight’s stay, either in the mutual calls of the two houses, in chance meetings in the village, or in walks to or from the holy-day services at the church, and these afforded many a moment in which she was let into the deeper feelings that his first English Christmas excited. It was not conventional Christmas weather, but warm and moist, thus rendering the contrast still stronger with the sleighing of his prosperous days, the snowshoe walk of his poorer ones. A frost hard enough for skating was the prime desire of Maria and Bertha, who both wanted to see the art practised by one to whom it was familiar. The frost came at last, and became reasonably hard in the first week of the new year, one day when Phœbe, to her regret, was forced to drive to Elverslope to fulfil some commissions for Mervyn and Cecily, who were expected at home on the 8th of January, after a Christmas at Sutton.
However, she had a reward. ‘I do think,’ said Miss Fennimore to her, as she entered the drawing-room, ‘that Mr. Randolf is the most good-natured man in the world! For full three-quarters of an hour this afternoon did he hand Maria up and down a slide on the pond at the Holt!’
‘You went up to see him skate?’
‘Yes; he was to teach Bertha. We found him helping the little Sandbrook to slide, but when we came he sent him in with the little maid, and gave Bertha a lesson, which did not last long, for she grew nervous. Really her nerves will never be what they were! Then Maria begged for a slide, and you know what any sort of monotonous bodily motion is to her; there is no getting her to leave off, and I never saw anything like the spirit and good-nature with which he complied.’
‘He is very kind to Maria,’ said Phœbe.
‘He seems to have that sort of pitying respect which you first put into my mind towards her.’
‘Oh, are you come home, Phœbe?’ said Maria, running into the room. ‘I did not hear you. I have been sliding on the ice all the afternoon with Mr. Randolf. It is so nice, and he says we will do it again to-morrow.’
‘Ha, Phœbe!’ said Bertha, meeting her on the stairs, ‘do you know what you missed?’
‘Three children sliding on the ice,’ quoted Phœbe.
‘Seeing how a man that is called Humfrey can bear with your two sisters making themselves ridiculous. Really I should set the backwoods down as the best school of courtesy, but that I believe some people have that school within themselves. Hollo!’
For Phœbe absolutely kissed Bertha as she went up-stairs.
‘Ha?’ said Bertha, interrogatively; then went into the drawing-room, and looked very grave, almost sad.
Phœbe could not but think it rather hard when, on the last afternoon of Humfrey Randolf’s visit, there came a note from Mervyn ordering her up to Beauchamp to arrange some special contrivances of his for Cecily’s morning-room—her mother’s, which gave it an additional pang. It was a severe, threatening, bitterly cold day, not at all fit for sliding, even had not both the young ladies and Miss Fennimore picked up a suspicion of cold; but Phœbe had no doubt that there would be a farewell visit, and did not like to lose it.
‘Take the pony carriage, and you will get home faster,’ said Bertha, answering what was unspoken.
No; the groom sent in word that the ponies were gone to be rough-shod, and that one of them had a cold.
‘Never mind,’ said Phœbe, cheerfully; ‘I shall be warmer walking.’
And she set off, with a lingering will, but a step brisk under her determination that her personal wishes should never make her neglect duty or kindness. She did not like to think that he would be disappointed, but she had a great trust in his trust in herself, and a confidence, not to be fretted away, that some farewell would come to pass, and that she should know when to look for him again.
Scanty sleety flakes of snow were falling before her half-hour’s walk was over, and she arrived at the house, where anxious maids were putting their last touches of preparation for the mistress. It was strange not to feel more strongly the pang of a lost home; and had not Phœbe been so much preoccupied, perhaps it would have affected her strongly, with all her real joy at Cecily’s installation; but there were new things before her that filled her mind too full for regrets for the rooms where she had grown up. She only did her duty scrupulously by Cecily’s writing-table, piano, and pictures, and then satisfied the housekeeper by a brief inspection of the rooms, more laudatory than particular. She rather pitied Cecily, after her comfortable parsonage, for coming to all those state drawing-rooms. If it had been the west wing, now!
By this time the snow was thicker, and the park beginning to whiten. The housekeeper begged her to wait and order out the carriage, but she disliked giving trouble, and thought that an unexpected summons might be tardy of fulfilment, so she insisted on confronting the elements, confident in her cloak and india-rubber boots, and secretly hoping that the visitor at the cottage might linger on into the twilight.
As she came beyond the pillars of the portico, such a whirl of snow met her that she almost questioned the prudence of her decision, when a voice said, ‘It is only the drift round the corner of the house.’
‘You here?’
‘Your sister gave me leave to come and see you home through the snow-storm.’
‘Oh, thank you! This is the first time you have been here,’ she added, feeling as if her first words had been too eagerly glad.
‘Yes, I have only seen the house from a distance before. I did not know how large it was. Which part did you inhabit?’
‘There—the west wing—shut up now, poor thing!’
‘And where was the window where you saw the horse and cart? Yes, you see I know that story; which was your window?’
‘The nearest to the main body of the house. Ah! it is a dear old window. I have seen many better things from it than that!’
‘What kind of things?’
‘Sunsets and moonsets, and the Holt firs best of all.’
‘Yes, I know better now what you meant by owing all to Miss Charlecote,’ he said, smiling. ‘I owe something to her, too.’
‘Oh, is she going to help you on?’ cried Phœbe.
‘No, I do not need that. What I owe to her is—knowing you.’
It had come, then! The first moment of full assurance of what had gleamed before; and yet the shock, sweet as it was, was almost pain, and Phœbe’s heart beat fast, and her downcast look betrayed that the full force of his words—and still more, of his tone—had reached her.
‘May I go on?’ he said. ‘May I dare to tell you what you are to me? I knew, from the moment we met, that you were what I had dreamt of—different, but better.’
‘I am sure I knew that you were!’ escaped from Phœbe, softly, but making her face burn, as at what she had not meant to say.
‘Then you can bear with me? You do not forbid me to hope.’
‘Oh! I am a great deal too happy!’
There came a great wailing, driving gust of storm at that moment, as if it wanted to sweep them off their feet, but it was a welcome blast, for it was the occasion of a strong arm being flung round Phœbe, to restrain that fluttering cloak. ‘Storms shall only blow us nearer together, dearest,’ he said, with recovered breath, as, with no unwilling hand, she clung to his arm for help.
‘If it be God’s will,’ said Phœbe, earnestly.
‘And indeed,’ he said, fervently, ‘I have thought and debated much whether it were His will; whether it could be right, that I, with my poverty and my burthens, should thrust myself into your wealthy and sheltered life. At first, when I thought you were a poor dependent, I admitted the hope. I saw you spirited, helpful, sensible, and I dared to think that you were of the stuff that would gladly be independent, and would struggle on and up with me, as I have known so many do in my own country.’
‘Oh! would I not?’
‘Then I found how far apart we stand in one kind of social scale, and perhaps that ought to have overthrown all hope; but, Phœbe, it will not do so! I will not ask you to share want and privation, but I will and do ask you to be the point towards which I may work, the best earthly hope set before me.’
‘I am glad,’ said Phœbe, ‘that you knew too well to think there was any real difference. Indeed, the superiority is all yours, except in mere money. And mine, I am sure, need not stand in the way, but there is one thing that does.’
‘What? Your brothers?’
‘I do not know. It is my sister Maria. I promised long ago that nothing should make me desert her;’ and, with a voice faltering a little, but endeavouring to be firm, ‘a promise to fulfil a duty appointed by Providence must not he repented of when the cost is felt.’
‘But why should you think of deserting her?’ he said. ‘Surely I may help to bear your cares; and there is something so good, so gentle and lovable about her, that she need be no grievance. I shall have to bring my little brothers about you, too, so we shall be even,’ he added, smiling.
‘Then,’ she said, looking in his face as beginning to take counsel with him, ‘you think it is right to assume a new tie that must have higher claims than the prior one that Heaven sent me.’
‘Nay, dearest, is not the new one instituted by Heaven? If I promise that I will be as entirely Maria’s brother as you are her sister, and will reverence her affliction, or more truly her innocence, in the same way, will you not trust her, as well as yourself, with me?’
‘Trust, oh! indeed I do, and am thankful. But I am thinking of you! Poor dear Maria might be a drag, where I should not! And I cannot leave her to any of the others. She could not be long without me.’
‘Well, faithless one, we may have to wait the longer; though I feel that you alone would be happiest fighting up the hill with me.’
‘Oh, thank you for knowing that so well.’
‘But as we both have these ties, and as, besides, I should be a shabby adventurer to address you but on equal terms, we must be content to wait till—as with God’s blessing I trust to do—I have made a home smooth enough for Maria as well as for you! Will that do, Phœbe?’
‘Somehow it seems too much,’ murmured Phœbe; ‘and yet I knew it of you.’
‘And as you both have means of your own, it may bring the time nearer,’ he said. ‘There, you see I can calculate on your fortune, though I still wish it were out of the way.’
‘If it were not for Maria, I should.’
‘And now with this hope and promise, I feel as if, even if it were seven years, they would be like so many days,’ said Humfrey. ‘You will not be of those, my Phœbe, who suffer and are worn by a long engagement?’
‘One cannot tell without a trial,’ said Phœbe; ‘but indeed I do not see why security and rest, or even hope deferred, should hurt me. Surely, having a right to think about you cannot do so?’
And her look out of those honest clear gray eyes was one of the most perfect reliance and gladness.
‘May I be worthy of those thoughts!’ he fervently said. ‘And you will write to me—even when I go back to the Ottawa?’
‘I shall be so glad to tell you everything, and have your letters! Oh! no, with them I am not going to pine’—and her strong young nature laughed at the folly.
‘And while God gives me strength, we will not be afraid,’ he answered. ‘Phœbe, I looked at the last chapter of Proverbs last night, and thought you were like that woman of strength and skill on whose “lips is the law of kindness.” And “you are not afraid of the snow,” as if to complete the likeness.’
‘I did not quite know it was snowing. I like it, for it suits your country.’
‘I like it, because you are as clear, firm, and pure as my own clear crystal ice,’ he said; ‘only not quite so cold! And now, what remains? Must your brothers be consulted?’ he added, reluctantly.
‘It will be right that I should tell them,’ said Phœbe. ‘From Robert I could not keep such a thing, and Mervyn has a right to know. I cannot tell how he may take it, but I do not think that I owe him such implicit obedience as if he were my father. And by the time you really ask for me, you know you are to be such a rising engineer that they are all to be almost as proud of you as I am!’
‘God helping me,’ he gravely answered, his eyes raised upwards, and as it were carrying with them the glance that had sought them in almost playful confidence.
And thus they looked forth upon this life. Neither was so young as not to be aware of its trials. She knew the sorrows of suspense, bereavement, and family disunion; and he, before his twenty-fourth year, had made experience of adversity, uncongeniality, disappointment, and severe—almost hopeless—everyday labour. It was not in the spirit of those who had not braced on their armour, but of those who had made proof of it, that they looked bravely and cheerfully upon the battle, feeling their strength doubled as faithful companions-in-arms, and willing in that strength and trust to bear patiently with the severest trial of all—the delay of their hopes. The cold but bracing wind, the snow driving and whirling round them in gusts, could not daunt nor quench their spirits—nay, rather gave them additional vigour and enjoyment, while even the tokens of the tempest that they bore away were of perfect dazzling whiteness.
Never was shelter less willingly attained than when the park wicket of the Underwood was reached, just as the early twilight was becoming darkness. It was like a foretaste for Phœbe of seeing him go his own way in the storm while she waited safely housed; but they parted with grave sweet smiles, and a promise that he would snatch a moment’s farewell on the morrow. Phœbe would rather not have been met by Bertha, at the front door, in some solicitude—‘You are come at last! Are you wet? are you cold?’
‘Oh, no, thank you! Don’t stand in the draught,’ said Phœbe, anxious to shake her off; but it was not to be done. Bertha preceded her up-stairs, talking all the way in something of her old mischievous whisper. ‘Am I in disgrace with you, too, Phœbe? Miss Fennimore says I have committed an awful breach of propriety; but really I could not leave you to the beating of the pitiless storm alone. I am afraid Malta’s sagacity and little paws would hardly have sufficed to dig you out of a snowdrift before life was extinct. Are you greatly displeased with me, Phœbe?’ And being by this time in the bedroom, she faced about, shut the door, and looked full at her sister.
‘No—no—dear Bertha, not displeased in the least; only if you would go—’
‘Now, Phœbe, indeed that is not kind of you,’ said Bertha, pleadingly, but preparing to obey.
‘No, Bertha, it is not,’ said Phœbe, recovering herself in a moment. ‘I am sorry for it; but oh! don’t you know the feeling of wanting to have one’s treasure all to oneself for a little moment before showing it? No, don’t go;’ and the two sisters flung their arms round one another. ‘You shall hear now.’
‘No, no,’ said Bertha, kissing her; ‘my time for obtrusive, childish curiosity is over! I only was so anxious;’ and she looked up with tearful eyes, and almost the air of an elder sister. Phœbe might well requite the look with full-hearted tenderness and caresses, as she said, calmly, ‘Yes, Bertha, I am very happy.’
‘You ought to be,’ said Bertha, seriously.
‘Yes,’ said Phœbe, taking the ought in a different sense from what she meant; ‘he is all, and more, than I ever thought a man wise in true wisdom should be.’
‘And a man of progress, full of the dignity of labour,’ said Bertha. ‘I am glad he is not an old bit of county soil like John Raymond! My dear Phœbe, Sir John will tear his hair!’
‘For shame, Bertha!’
‘Well, I will not tease you with my nonsense; but you know it is the only thing that keeps tears out of one’s eyes. I see you want to be alone. Dear Phœbe!’ and she clung to her neck for a moment.
‘An instant more, Bertha. You see everything, I know; but has Miss Fennimore guessed?’
‘No, my dear, I do not think any such syllogism has ever occurred to her as, Lover’s look conscious; Phœbe looks conscious; therefore Phœbe is in love! It is defective in the major, you see, so it could not enter her brain.’
‘Then, Bertha, do not let any one guess it. I shall speak to Mervyn to-morrow, and write to Robin. It is their due, but no one else must know it—no, not for a long time—years perhaps.’
‘You do not mean to wait for years?’
‘We must.’
‘Then what’s the use of having thirty thousand pounds?’
‘No, Bertha, it would not be like him to be content with owing all to my fortune, and beginning life in idleness. It would be just enough to live on, with none of the duties of property, and that would never do! I could not wish it for him, and he has his brothers to provide for.’
‘Well, let him work for them, and have your money to make capital! Really, Phœbe, I would not lose such a chance of going out and seeing those glorious Lakes!’
‘I have Maria to consider.’
‘Maria! And why are you to be saddled with Maria?’
‘Because I promised my mother—I promised myself—I promised Mervyn, that she should be my care. I have told him of that promise, and he accepts it most kindly.’
‘You cannot leave her to me? Oh! Phœbe, do you still think me as hateful as I used to be?’
‘Dear, dear Bertha, I have full trust in your affection for her; but I undertook the charge, and I cannot thrust it on to another, who might—’
‘Don’t say that, Phœbe,’ cried Bertha, impetuously; ‘I am the one to have her! I who certainly never can, never shall, marry—I who am good for nothing but to look after her. Say you do not think me unworthy of her, Phœbe.’
‘I say no such thing,’ said Phœbe, affectionately, ‘but there is no use in discussing the matter. Dear Bertha, leave me, and compose yourself.’
Truly, during that evening Bertha was the agitated one, her speech much affected, and her gestures restless, while Phœbe sat over her work, her needle going swiftly and evenly, and her eyes beaming with her quiet depth of thankful bliss.
In the morning, again, it was Bertha who betrayed an uneasy restlessness, and irrepressible desire to banish Miss Fennimore and Maria from the drawing-room, till the governess, in perplexity, began to think of consulting Phœbe whether a Jack Hastings affair could be coming over again.
Phœbe simply trusted to the promise, and went about her morning’s avocations with a heart at rest, and when at last Humfrey Randolf did hurry in for a few moments, before he must rush back to the Holt, her greeting was so full of reliance and composure that Miss Fennimore perceived nothing. Bertha, however, rested not. As well as she could, under a fearful access of stammering, she insisted that Mr. Randolf should come into the dining-room to look at a—a—a—a—a—’
‘Ah, well!’ thought Miss Fennimore, ‘Phœbe is gone, too, so she will keep guard.’
If Miss Fennimore could have looked through the door, she would have seen the astonished Maria pounced upon, as if in sport, pulled up-stairs, and desired by Bertha to find her book of dried flowers to show Mr. Randolf. Naughty Bertha, who really did not believe the dried flowers had ever been brought home from Woolstone-lane! It served the manœuvrer right, that Maria, after one look at the shelves, began to cry out for Phœbe to come and find them. But it signified the less since the lovers had not left the hall, and had exchanged all the words that there was time for before Bertha, at the sound of the re-opening door, flew down to put her hand into Humfrey’s and grasp it tightly, looking in his face instead of speaking. ‘Thank you,’ he said, returning the pressure, and was gone. ‘We improve as we go on. Number three is the best of my brothers-in-law, Phœbe,’ said Bertha, lightly. Then leaving Phœbe to pacify Maria about the flowers, she went into her own room, and cried bitterly and overpoweringly.
CHAPTER XXXI
Thekla. I should love thee.
Whate’er thou hadst chosen, thou wouldst still have acted
Nobly and worthy of thee; but repentance
Shall ne’er disturb thy soul’s fair peace.Max. Then I must leave thee; must part from thee!
Thekla. Being faithful
To thine own self, thou art faithful too to me.—Wallenstein
Phœbe and Maria went alone to the Park to receive the bridal pair, for poor Bertha was so nervous and unhinged as not even to wish to leave the fireside. It was plain that she must not be deprived of an elder sister’s care, and that it would be unlikely that she would ever have nerve enough to undertake the charge of Maria, even if Phœbe could think of shifting the responsibility, or if a feeble intellect could be expected to yield the same deference to a younger sister as came naturally to an elder one.
Thus Phœbe’s heart was somewhat heavy as she braced herself for her communication to Mervyn, doubtful as to the extent of his probable displeasure, but for that very cause resolved on dealing openly from the first, while satisfied that, at her age, his right was rather to deference than to surrender of judgment. Maria roamed through the house, exclaiming at the alterations, and Phœbe sat still in the concentrated, resolute stillness that was her form of suspense.
They came! The peals of the Hiltonbury bells rung merrily in the cold air, the snow sparkled bridally, the icicles glittered in the sunset light, the workpeople stood round the house to cheer the arrival, and the sisters hurried out.
It was no more the pale, patient face! The cheeks were rounded, the brown eyes smiled, the haggard air, that even as a bride Cecily had worn, was entirely gone, and Mervyn watched exultingly Phœbe’s surprise at what he had made of the wan, worn girl they had met at Hyères. The only disappointment was Bertha’s absence, and there was much regret that the new-comers had not heard of her cold so as to have seen her at the Underwood on their way. They had spent the previous day in town in going over the distillery, by Cecily’s particular wish, and had afterwards assisted at a grand impromptu entertainment of all the workpeople, at their own expense and Robert’s trouble. Mervyn did certainly seem carried out of his own knowledge of himself, and his wife had transgressed every precedent left by his mother, who had never beheld Whittingtonia in her life!
Phœbe found their eager talk so mazy and indistinct to her perception that she became resolved to speak and clear her mind at the first opportunity; so she tarried behind, when Cecily went up, under Maria’s delighted guidance, to take off her bonnet, and accosted Mervyn with the ominous words, ‘I want to speak to you.’
‘Make haste, then; there is Cecily left to Maria.’
‘I wanted to tell you that I am engaged.’
‘The deuce you are!’
‘To Mr. Randolf, Miss Charlecote’s Canadian cousin.’
Mervyn, who had expected no less than John Raymond, whirled round in indignant surprise, and looked incredulously at her, but was confronted by her two open, unabashed eyes, as she stood firm on both her feet, and continued: ‘I have been thrown a good deal with him, so as to learn his goodness and superiority. I know you will think it a very bad match, for he has nothing but his hands and head; but we mean to wait till he can offer what are considered as equal terms. We thought it right you should know.’
‘Upon my word, that’s a clever fellow!’
Phœbe knew very well that this was ironical, but would not so reply. ‘He has abilities,’ she said, ‘and we are ready to wait till he has made proof of them.’
‘Well, what now?’ he cried in despair. ‘I did think you the sensible one of the lot.’
‘When you know him,’ she said, with her fearless smile, ‘you will own that I was sensible there.’
‘Really, the child looks so complacent that she would outface me that this mad notion was a fine thing! I declare it is worse than Bertha’s business; and you so much older! At least Hastings was a man of family, and this is a Yankee adventurer picked out of the back of a ditch by that young dog, Sandbrook. Only a Yankee could have had the impudence! I declare you are laughing all the time. What have you to say for yourself?’
‘His father was major in the ---th dragoons, and was one of the Randolfs of ---shire. His mother was a Charlecote. His birth is as good as our own, and you saw that he is a gentleman. His character and talents have gained his present situation, and it is a profession that gives every opening for ability; nor does he ask for me till his fortune is made.’
‘But hinders you from doing better! Pray, what would Augusta say to you?’ he added, jocosely, for even while lashing himself up, his tone had been placable.
‘He shall satisfy her.’
‘How long has this been going on?’
‘We only spoke of it yesterday. Bertha found it out; but I wish no one else to know it except Robert.’
‘Somehow she looks so cool, and she is so entirely the last girl I expected to go crazy, that I can’t laugh at the thing as I ought! I say, what’s this about Miss Charlecote; will she do anything for him?’
‘I believe not.’
‘And pray who vouches for his antecedents, such as they are.’
‘Mr. Currie and Owen Sandbrook both know the whole.’
‘Is Sandbrook at the Holt?’
‘Yes,’ answered Phœbe, suppressing her strong distaste against bringing him into the affair.
‘Well, I shall make inquiries, and—and—it is a horrid unlucky business, and the old girl should be scarified for putting you in his way. The end will be that you’ll marry on your own means, and be pinched for life. Now, look here, you are no fool at the bottom; you will give it up if I find that he is no go.’
‘If it be proved that I ought,’ said Phœbe. ‘And if you find him what I have told you, you will make no opposition. Thank you, Mervyn.’
‘Stay,’ said he, laughing, and letting her kiss him, ‘I have made no promises, mind!’
The confidence that Phœbe had earned had stood her in good stead. Mervyn had great trust in her judgment, and was too happy besides for severity on other people’s love. Nor were her perfect openness, and fearless though modest independence, without effect. She was not one who invited tyranny, but truly ‘queen o’er herself,’ she ruled herself too well to leave the reins loose for others to seize.
The result of the interview had surpassed her hopes, and she had nothing to regret but her brother’s implied purpose of consulting Owen Sandbrook. Friend of Humfrey though he were, she could not feel secure of his generosity, and wished the engineer had been the nearer referee; but she did not say so, as much for shame at her own uncharitableness, as for fear of rousing Mervyn’s distrust; and she was afraid that her injunctions to secrecy would be disregarded. Fully aware that all would be in common between the husband and wife, she was still taken by surprise when Cecily, coming early next day to the Underwood to see Bertha, took her aside to say, ‘Dearest, I hope this is all right, and for your happiness.’
‘You will soon know that it is,’ said Phœbe, brightly.
‘Only, my dear, it must not be a long engagement. Ah! you think that nothing now, but I could not bear to think that you were to go through a long attachment.’
Was this forgiving Cecily really fancying that her sorrows had been nothing worse than those incidental to a long attachment?
‘Ah!’ thought Phœbe, ‘if she could ever have felt the full reliance on which I can venture, she need never have drooped! What is time to trust?’
Mervyn kept his word, and waiving ceremony, took his wife at once to the Holt, and leaving her with Miss Charlecote, made a visit to Owen in the study, wishing, in the first place, to satisfy himself of the young man’s competence to reply to his questions. On this he had no doubt; Owen had made steady progress ever since he had been in England, and especially during the quiet time that had succeeded his sister’s marriage. His mental powers had fully regained their keenness and balance, and though still incapable of sustained exertion of his faculties, he could talk as well as ever, and the first ten minutes convinced Mervyn that he was conversing with a shrewd sensible observer, who had seen a good deal of life, and of the world. He then led to the question about young Randolf, endeavouring so to frame it as not to betray the occasion of it.
The reply fully confirmed all that Phœbe had averred. The single efforts of a mere youth, not eighteen at the time of his father’s failure, without capital, and set down in a wild uncleared part of the bush, had of course been inadequate to retrieve the ruined fortunes of the family; but he had shown wonderful spirit, patience, and perseverance, and the duteous temper in which he had borne the sacrifice of his prospects by his father’s foolish speculations and unsuitable marriage, his affectionate treatment of the wife and children when left on his hands, and his cheerful endurance of the severest and most hopeless drudgery for the bare support of life, had all been such as to inspire the utmost confidence in his character. Of his future prospects, Owen spoke with a sigh almost of envy. His talent and industry had already made him a valuable assistant to Mr. Currie, and an able engineer had an almost certain career of prosperity open to him. Lastly Mervyn asked what was the connection with Miss Charlecote, and what possibilities it held out. Owen winced for a moment, then explained the second cousinship, adding, however, that there was no entail, that the disposal of Miss Charlecote’s property was entirely in her own power, and that she had manifested no intention of treating the young man with more than ordinary civility, in fact that she had rather shrunk from acknowledging his likeness to the family. His father’s English relatives had, in like manner, owned him as a kinsman; but had shown no alacrity in making friends with him. The only way to be noticed, as the two gentlemen agreed, when glad to close their conference in a laugh, is to need no notice.
‘Uncommon hard on a fellow,’ soliloquized Owen, when left alone. ‘Is it not enough to have one’s throat cut, but must one do it with one’s own hands? It is a fine thing to be magnanimous when one thinks one is going off the stage, but quite another thing when one is to remain there. I’m no twelfth century saint, only a nineteenth century beggar, with an unlucky child on my hands! Am I to give away girl, land, and all to the fellow I raked out of his swamps? Better have let him grill and saved my limbs! And pray what more am I to do? I’ve introduced him, made no secret of his parentage, puffed him off, and brought him here, and pretty good care he takes of himself! Am I to pester poor Honey if she does prefer the child she bred up to a stranger? No, no, I’ve done my part: let him look out for himself!’
Mervyn allowed to Phœbe that Randolf was no impostor, but warned her against assuming his consent. She suspected that Owen at least guessed the cause of these inquiries, and it kept her aloof from the Holt. When Miss Charlecote spoke of poor Owen’s want of spirits, discretion told her that she was not the person to enliven him; and the consciousness of her secret made her less desirous of confidences with her kind old friend, so that her good offices chiefly consisted in having little Owen to the Underwood to play with Maria, who delighted in his society, and unconsciously did much for his improvement.
Honor herself perceived that Phœbe’s visits only saddened her convalescent, and that in his present state he was happiest with no one but her, who was more than ever a mother to him. They were perfectly at ease together, as she amused him with the familiar books, which did not strain his powers like new ones, the quiet household talk, the little playful exchanges of tender wit, and the fresh arrangement of all her museum on the natural system, he having all the entertainment, and she all the trouble, till her conversion astonished Bertha. The old religious habits of the Holt likewise seemed to soothe and give him pleasure; but whether by force of old association, or from their hold on his heart, was as yet unknown to Honora, and perhaps to himself. It was as if he were deferring all demonstration till he should be able again to examine the subject with concentrated attention. Or it might be that, while he shrank from exerting himself upon Randolf’s behalf, he was not ready for repentance, and therefore distrusted, and hung back from, the impulses that would otherwise have drawn him to renew all that he had once cast aside. He was never left alone without becoming deeply melancholy, yet no companionship save Honor’s seemed to suit him for many minutes together. His brain was fast recovering the injury, but it was a trying convalescence; and with returning health, his perfect helplessness fretted him under all the difficulties of so tall and heavy a man being carried from bed to sofa, from sofa to carriage.
‘Poor Owen!’ said Phœbe to herself, one day when she had not been able to avoid witnessing this pitiable spectacle of infirmity; ‘I can’t think why I am always fancying he is doing Humfrey and me some injustice, and that he knows it. He, who brought Humfrey home, and has praised him to Mervyn! It is very uncharitable of me, but why will he look at me as if he were asking my pardon? Well, we shall see the result of Mervyn’s inspection!’
Mervyn and his wife were going for two nights to the rooms at the office, in the first lull of the bridal invitations, which were infinitely more awful to Cecily than to Phœbe. After twenty-nine years of quiet clerical life, Cecily neither understood nor liked the gaieties even of the county, had very little to say, and, unless her aunt were present, made Phœbe into a protector, and retired behind her, till Phœbe sometimes feared that Mervyn would be quite provoked, and remember his old dread lest Cecily should be too homely and bashful for her position. Poor dear Cecily! She was as good and kind as possible; but in the present close intercourse it sometimes would suggest to Phœbe, ‘was she quite as wise as she was good?’
And Miss Fennimore, with still clearer eyes, inwardly decided that, though religion should above all form the morals, yet the morality of common sense and judgment should be cultivated with an equal growth.
Cecily returned from London radiant with sisterly congratulation, in a flutter of delight with Mr. Randolf, and intimating a glorious project in the background, devised between herself and Mervyn, then guarding against possible disappointment by declaring it might be all her own fancy.
The meaning of these prognostics appeared the next morning. Mervyn had been much impressed by Humfrey Randolf’s keen business-like appearance and sensible conversation, as well as by Mr. Currie’s opinion of him; and, always detesting the trouble of his own distillery, it had occurred to him that to secure an active working partner, and throw his sister’s fortune into the business, would be a most convenient, generous, and brotherly means of smoothing the course of true love; and Cecily had been so enchanted at the happiness he would thus confer, that he came to the Underwood quite elevated with his own kindness.
Phœbe heard his offer with warm thankfulness, but could not answer for Humfrey.
‘He has too much sense not to take a good offer,’ said Mervyn, ‘otherwise, it is all humbug his pretending to care for you. As to Robert’s folly, have not I given up all that any rational being could stick at? I tell you, it is the giving up those houses that makes me in want of capital, so you are bound to make it up to me.’
Mervyn and Phœbe wrote by the same post. ‘I will be satisfied with whatever you decide upon as right,’ were Phœbe’s words; but she refrained from expressing any wish. What was the use of a wise man, if he were not to be let alone to make up his mind? She would trust to him to divine what it would be to her to be thus one with her own family, and to gain him without losing her sisters. The balance must not be weighted by a woman’s hand, when ready enough to incline to her side; and why should she add to his pain, if he must refuse?
How ardently she wished, however, can be imagined. She could not hide from herself pictures of herself and Humfrey, sometimes in London, sometimes at the Underwood, working with Robert, and carrying out the projects which Mervyn but half acted on, and a quarter understood.
The letter came, and the first line was decisive. In spite of earnest wishes and great regrets, Humfrey could not reconcile the trade to his sense of right. He knew that as Mervyn conducted it, it was as unobjectionable as was possible, and that the works were admirably regulated; but it was in going over the distillery as a curiosity he had seen enough to perceive that it was a line in which enterprise and exertion could only find scope by extending the demoralizing sale of spirits, and he trusted to Phœbe’s agreeing with him, that when he already had a profession fairly free from temptation, it was his duty not to put himself into one that might prove more full of danger to him than to one who had been always used to it. He had not consulted Robert, feeling clear in his own mind, and thinking that he had probably rather not interfere.
Kind Humfrey! That bit of consideration filled Phœbe’s heart with grateful relief. It gave her spirits to be comforted by the tender and cheering words with which the edge of the disappointment was softened, and herself thanked for her abstinence from persuasion. ‘Oh, better to wait seven years, with such a Humfrey as this in reserve, than to let him warp aside one inch of his sense of duty! As high-minded as dear Robert, without his ruggedness and harshness,’ she thought as she read the manly, warm-hearted letter to Mervyn, which he had enclosed, and which she could not help showing to Bertha.
It was lost on Bertha. She thought it dull and poor-spirited not to accept, and manage the distillery just as he pleased. Any one could manage Mervyn, she said, not estimating the difference between a petted sister and a junior partner, and it was a new light to her that the trade—involving so much chemistry and mechanic ingenuity—was not good enough for anybody, unless they were peacocks too stupid to appreciate the dignity of labour! For the first time Phœbe wished her secret known to Miss Charlecote, for the sake of her appreciation of his triumph of principle.
‘This is Robert’s doing!’ was Mervyn’s first exclamation, when Phœbe gave him the letter. ‘If there be an intolerable plague in the world, it is the having a fanatical fellow like that in the family. Nice requital for all I have thrown away for the sake of his maggots! I declare I’ll resume every house I’ve let him have for his tomfooleries, and have a gin bottle blown as big as an ox as a sign for each of them.’
Phœbe had a certain lurking satisfaction in observing, when his malediction had run itself down, ‘He never consulted Robert.’
‘Don’t tell me that! As if Robert had not run about with his mouth open, reviling his father’s trade, and pluming himself on keeping out of it.’
‘Mervyn, you know better! Robert had said no word against you! It is the facts that speak for themselves.’
‘The facts? You little simpleton, do you imagine that we distil the juices of little babies?’
Phœbe laughed, and he added kindly, ‘Come, little one, I know this is no doing of yours. You have stuck by this wicked distiller of vile liquids through thick and thin. Don’t let the parson lead you nor Randolf by the nose; he is far too fine a fellow for that; but come up to town with me and Cecily, as soon as Lady Caroline’s bear fight is over, and make him hear reason.’
‘I should be very glad to go and see him, but I cannot persuade him.’
‘Why not?’
‘When a man has made up his mind, it would be wrong to try to over-persuade him, even if I believed that I could.’
‘You know the alternative?’
‘What?’
‘Just breaking with him a little.’
She smiled.
‘We shall see what Crabbe, and Augusta, and Acton will say to your taking up with a dumpy leveller. We shall have another row. And you’ll be broken up again!’
That was by far the most alarming of his threats; but she did not greatly believe that he would bring it to pass, or that an engagement, however imprudent, conducted as hers had been, could be made a plea for accusing Miss Fennimore or depriving her of her sisters. She tried to express her thankfulness for the kindness that had prompted the original proposal, and her sympathy with his natural vexation at finding that a traffic which he had really ameliorated at considerable loss of profit, was still considered objectionable; but he silenced this at once as palaver, and went off to fetch his wife to try her arguments.
This was worse than Phœbe had expected! Cecily was too thorough a wife not to have adopted all her husband’s interests, and had totally forgotten all the objections current in her own family against the manufacture of spirits. She knew that great opportunities of gain had been yielded up, and such improvements made as had converted the distillery into a model of its kind; she was very proud of it, wished every one to be happy, and Mervyn to be saved trouble, and thought the scruples injurious and overstrained. Phœbe would not contest them with her. What the daughter had learnt by degrees, might not be forced on the wife; and Phœbe would only protest against trying to shake a fixed purpose, instead of maintaining its grounds. So Cecily continued affectionately hurt, and unnecessarily compassionate, showing that a woman can hardly marry a person of tone inferior to her own without some deterioration of judgment, beneficial and elevating as her influence may be in the main.
Poor Cecily! she did the very thing that those acquainted with the ins and outs of the family had most deprecated! She dragged Robert into the affair, writing a letter, very pretty in wifely and sisterly goodwill, to entreat him to take Mr. Randolf in hand, and persuade him of the desirableness of the spirit manufacture in general, and that of the Fulmort house in particular.
The letter she received in return was intended to be very kind, but was severely grave, in simply observing that what he had not thought fit to do himself, he could not persuade another to do.
Those words somehow acted upon Mervyn as bitter and ungrateful irony; and working himself up by an account, in his own colouring, of Robert’s behaviour at the time of the foundation of St. Matthew’s, he went thundering off to assure Phœbe that he must take an active partner, at all events; and that if she and Robert did not look out, he should find a moneyed man who knew what he was about, would clear off Robert’s waste, and restore the place to what it had once been.
‘What is your letter, Phœbe?’ he asked, seeing an envelope in Robert’s handwriting on her table.
Phœbe coloured a little. ‘He has not said one word to Humfrey,’ she said.
‘And what has he said to you? The traitor, insulting me to my wife!’
Phœbe thought for one second, then resolved to take the risk of reading all aloud, considering that whatever might be the effect, it could not be worse than that of his surmises.
‘Cecily has written to me, greatly to my surprise, begging for my influence with Randolf to induce him to become partner in the house. I understand by this that he has already refused, and that you are aware of his determination; therefore I have no scruple in writing to tell you that he is perfectly right. It is true that the trade, as Mervyn conducts it, is free from the most flagrant evils that deterred me from taking a share in it; and I am most thankful for the changes he has made.’
‘You show it, don’t you?’ interjected Mervyn.
‘I had rather see it in his hands than those of any other person, and there is nothing blameworthy in his continuance in it. But it is of questionable expedience, and there are still hereditary practices carried on, the harm of which he has not hitherto perceived, but which would assuredly shock a new-comer such as Randolf. You can guess what would be the difficulty of obtaining alteration, and acquiescence would be even more fatal. I do not tell you this as complaining of Mervyn, who has done and is doing infinite good, but to warn you against the least endeavour to influence Randolf. Depend upon it, even the accelerating your marriage would not secure your happiness if you saw your husband and brother at continual variance in the details of the business, and opposition might at any moment lead Mervyn to undo all the good he has effected.’
‘Right enough there;’ and Mervyn, who had looked furious at several sentences, laughed at last. ‘I must get another partner, then, who can and will manage; and when all the gin-palaces are more splendiferous than ever, what will you and the parson say?’
‘That to do a little wrong in hopes of hindering another from doing worse, never yet succeeded!’ said Phœbe, bravely.
She saw that the worst was over when he had come to that laugh, and that the danger of a quarrel between the brothers was averted. She did not know from how much terror and self-reproach poor Cecily was suffering, nor her multitudinous resolutions against kindly interferences upon terra incognita.
That fit of wrath subsided, and Mervyn neither looked out for his moneyed partner, nor fulfilled his threat of bringing the united forces of the family displeasure upon his sister. Still there was a cloud overshadowing the enjoyment, though not lessening the outward harmony of those early bridal days. The long, dark drives to the county gaieties, shut up with Mervyn and Cecily, were formidable by the mere existence of a topic, never mentioned, but always secretly dwelt on. And in spite of three letters a week, Phœbe was beginning to learn that trust does not fully make up to the heart for absence, by the distance of London to estimate that of Canada, and by the weariness of one month, the tedium of seven years!
‘Yet,’ said Bertha to Cecily, ‘Phœbe is so stupidly like herself now she is engaged, that it is no fun at all. Nobody would guess her to be in love! If they cared for each other one rush, would not they have floated to bliss even on streams of gin?’
Cecily would not dispute their mutual love, but she was not one of those who could fully understand the double force of that love which is second to love of principle. Obedience, not judgment, had been her safeguard, and, like most women, she was carried along, not by the abstract idea, but by its upholder.
Intuition, rather than what had actually passed before her, showed Phœbe more than once that Cecily was sorely perplexed by the difference between the standard of Sutton and that of Beauchamp. Strict, scrupulous, and deeply devout, the clergyman’s daughter suffered at every deviation from the practices of the parsonage, made her stand in the wrong places, and while conscientiously and painfully fretting Mervyn about petty details, would be unknowingly carried over far greater stumbling-blocks. In her ignorance she would be distressed at habits which were comparatively innocent, and then fear to put forth her influence at the right moment. There was hearty affection on either side, and Mervyn was exceedingly improved, but more than once Phœbe saw in poor Cecily’s harassed, puzzled, wistful face, and heard in her faltering remonstrances, what it was to have loved and married without perfect esteem and trust.
CHAPTER XXXII
Get thee an ape, and trudge the land
The leader of a juggling band.—Scott
‘Master Howen, Master Howen, you must not go up the best stairs.’
‘But I will go up the best stairs. I don’t like the nasty, dark, back stairs!’
‘Let me take off your boots then, sir; Mrs. Stubbs said she could not have such dirty marks—’
‘I don’t care for Mrs. Stubbs! I won’t take my boots off! Get off—I’ll kick you if you touch them! I shall go where I like! I’m a gentleman. I shall ave hall the Olt for my very hown!’
‘Master Howen! Oh my!’
For Flibbertigibbet’s teeth were in the crack orphan’s neck, and the foot that she had not seized kicking like a vicious colt, when a large hand seized him by the collar, and lifted him in mid-air; and the crack orphan, looking up as though the oft-invoked ‘ugly man’ of her infancy had really come to bear off naughty children, beheld for a moment, propped against the door-post, the tall figure and bearded head hitherto only seen on the sofa.
The next instant the child had been swung into the study, and the apparition, stumbling with one hand and foot to the couch, said breathlessly to the frightened girl, ‘I am sorry for my little boy’s shameful behaviour! Leave him here. Owen, stay.’
The child was indeed standing, as if powerless to move or even to cry, stunned by his flight in the air, and dismayed at the terrific presence in which he was for the first time left alone. Completely roused and excited, the elder Owen sat upright, speaking not loud, but in tones forcible from vehement feeling.
‘Owen, you boast of being a gentleman! Do you know what we are? We are beggars! I can neither work for myself nor for you. We live on charity. That girl earns her bread—we do not! We are beggars! Who told you otherwise?’
Instead of an answer, he only evoked a passion of frightened tears, so piteous, that he spoke more gently, and stretched out his hand; but his son shook his frock at him in terror, and retreated out of reach, backwards into a corner, replying to his calls and assurances with violent sobs, and broken entreaties to go back to ‘granma.’
At last, in despair, Owen lowered himself to the floor, and made the whole length of his person available; but the child, in the extremity of terror at the giant crawling after him, shrieked wildly and made a rush at the door, but was caught and at once drawn within the grasp of the sweeping arm.
All was still. He was gathered up to the broad breast; the hairy cheek was gently pressed against his wet one. It was a great powerful, encircling caress that held him. There was a strange thrill in this contact between the father and son—a new sensation of intense loving pity in the one, a great but soothing awe in the other, as struggling and crying no more, he clung ever closer and closer, and drew the arm tighter round him.
‘My poor little fellow!’ And never had there been such sweetness in those deep full tones.
The boy responded with both arms round his neck, and face laid on his shoulder. Poor child! it was the affection that his little heart had hungered for ever since he had left his grandmother, and which he had inspired in no one.
A few more seconds, and he was sitting on the floor, resting against his father, listening without alarm to his question—‘Now, Owen, what were you saying?’
‘I’ll never do it again, pa—never!’
‘No, never be disobedient, nor fight with girls. But what were you saying about the Holt?’
‘I shall live here—I shall have it for my own.’
‘Who told you so?’
‘Granma.’
‘Grandmamma knows nothing about it.’
‘Shan’t I, then?’
‘Never! Listen, Owen. This is Miss Charlecote’s house as long as she lives—I trust till long after you are a man. It will be Mr. Randolf’s afterwards, and neither you nor I have anything to do with it.’
The two great black eyes looked up in inquiring, disappointed intelligence. Then he said, in a satisfied tone—
‘We ain’t beggars—we don’t carry rabbit-skins and lucifers!’
‘We do nothing so useful or profitable,’ sighed poor Owen, striving to pull himself up by the table, but desisting on finding that it was more likely to overbalance than to be a support. ‘My poor boy, you will have to work for me!’ and he sadly stroked down the light hair.
‘Shall I?’ said the little fellow. ‘May I have some white mice? I’ll bring you all the halfpence, pa!’
‘Bring me a footstool, first of all. There—at this rate I shall be able to hop about on one leg, and be a more taking spectacle,’ said Owen, as, dragging himself up by the force of hand and arm, he resettled himself on his couch, as much pleased as amazed at his first personal act of locomotion after seven months, and at the discovery of recovered strength in the sound limbs. Although, with the reserve of convalescence, he kept his exploit secret, his spirits visibly rose; and whenever he was left alone, or only with his little boy, he repeated his experiments, launching himself from one piece of furniture to another; and in spite of the continued deadness of the left side, feeling life, vigour, and hope returning on him.
His morbid shyness of his child had given way to genuine affection, and Owen soon found that he liked to be left to the society of Flibbertigibbet, or as he called him for short, Giblets, exacting in return the title of father, instead of the terrible ‘pa.’ Little Owen thought this a preparation for the itinerant white-mouse exhibition, which he was permitted to believe was only delayed till the daily gymnastic exertions should have resulted in the use of crutches, and till he could safely pronounce the names of the future mice, Hannibal and Annabella, and other traps for aspirates! Nay, his father was going to set up an exhibition of his own, as it appeared; for after a vast amount of meditation, he begged for pen and paper, ruler and compasses, drew, wrote, and figured, and finally took to cardboard and penknife, begging the aid of Miss Charlecote, greatly to the distress of the little boy, who had thought the whole affair private and confidential, and looked forward to a secret departure early in the morning, with crutches, mice, and model.
Miss Charlecote did her best with needle and gum, but could not understand; and between her fears of trying Owen’s patience and letting him overstrain his brain, was so much distressed that he gave it up; but it preyed on him, till one day Phœbe came in, and he could not help explaining it to her, and claiming her assistance, as he saw her ready comprehension. For two afternoons she came and worked under him; and between card, wire, gum, and watch-spring, such a beauteous little model locomotive engine and train were produced, that Owen archly assured her that ‘she would be a fortune in herself to a rising engineer,’ and Honor was struck by the sudden crimson evoked by the compliment.
Little Owen thought their fortune made, and was rather disappointed at the delay, when his father, confirming his idea that their livelihood might depend on the model, insisted that it should be carried out in brass and wood, and caused his chair to be frequently wheeled down to the blacksmith’s and carpenter’s, whose comprehension so much more resembled their lady’s than that of Miss Fulmort, and who made such intolerable blunders, that he bestowed on them more vituperation than, in their opinion, ‘he had any call to;’ and looked in a passion of despair at the numb, nerveless fingers, once his dexterous servants.
Still his spirits were immensely improved, since resolution, hope, and independence had returned. His mental faculties had recovered their force, and with the removal of the disease, the healthfulness and elasticity of his twenty-five years were beginning to compensate for the lost powers of his limbs. As he accomplished more, he grew more enterprising and less disinclined to show off his recovered powers. He first alarmed, then delighted Honor; begged for crutches, and made such good use of them, that Dr. Martin held out fair hopes of progress, though advising a course of rubbing and sea-air at Brighton.
Perhaps Honor had never been happier than during these weeks of improvement, with her boy so completely her own, and more than she had ever known him; his dejection lessening, his health returning, his playfulness brilliant, his filial fondness most engaging. She did not know the fixed resolution that actuated him, and revived the entire man! She did not know what was kept in reserve till confidence in his efficiency should dispose her to listen favourably. Meantime the present was so delightful to her that she trembled and watched lest she should be relapsing into the old idolatry. The test would be whether she would put Owen above or below a clear duty.
The audit of farm-accounts before going to Brighton was as unsatisfactory as the last. Though not beyond her own powers of unravelling, they made it clear that Brooks was superannuated. It was piteous to see the old man seated in the study, racking his brains to recollect the transaction with Farmer Hodnet about seed-wheat and working oxen; to explain for what the three extra labourers had been put on, and to discover his own meaning in charging twice over for the repairs of Joe Littledale’s cottage; angered and overset by his mistress’s gentle cross-examination, and enraged into absolute disrespect when that old object of dislike, Mr. Sandbrook, looked over the books, and muttered suggestions under his moustache.
‘Poor old man!’ both exclaimed, as he left the room, and Honor sighed deeply over this failure of the last of the supports left her by Humfrey. ‘I must pension him off,’ she said. ‘I hope it will not hurt his feelings much!’ and then she turned away to her old-fashioned bureau, and applied herself to her entries in her farming-books, while Owen sat in his chair, dreamily caressing his beard, and revolving the proposition that had long been in his mind.
At last the tall, red book was shut, the pen wiped, the bureau locked, and Honor came back to her place by the table, and resumed her needlework. Still there was silence, till she began: ‘This settles it! I have been thinking about it ever since you have been so much better. Owen, what should you think of managing the property for me?’
He only answered by a quick interrogative glance.
‘You see,’ she continued, ‘by the help of Brooks, who knew his master’s ways, I have pottered on, to my own wonderment; but Brooks is past work, my downhill-time is coming, high farming has outrun us both, and I know that we are not doing as Humfrey would wish by his inheritance. Now I believe that nothing could be of greater use to me, the people, or the place, than that you should be in charge. We could put some deputy under your control, and contrive for your getting about the fields. I would give you so much a year, so that your boy’s education would be your own doing, and we should be so comfortable.’
Owen leant back, much moved, smiled and said, ‘Thanks, dear Honor; you are much too good to us.’
‘Think about it, and tell me what would be right. Brooks has £100 a year, but you will be worth much more, for you will develop all the resources, you know.’
‘Best Honor, Sweetest Honey,’ said Owen, hastily, the tears rising to his eyes, ‘I cannot bear to frustrate such kind plans, nor seem more ungrateful than I have been already. I will not live on you for nothing longer than I can help; but indeed, this must not be.’
‘Not?’
‘No. There are many reasons against it. In the first place, I know nothing of farming.’
‘You would soon learn.’
‘And vex your dear old spirit with steam-ploughs and haymaking machines.’
She smiled, as if from him she could endure even steam.
‘Next, such an administration would be highly distasteful here. My overweening airs as a boy have not been forgotten, and I have always been looked on as an interloper. Depend on it, poor old Brooks fancies the muddle in his accounts was a suggestion of my malice! Imagine the feelings of Hiltonbury, when I, his supplanter, begin to tighten the reins.’
‘If it be so, it can be got over,’ said Honor, a little aghast.
‘If it ought to be attempted,’ said Owen; ‘but you have not heard my personal grounds for refusing your kindness. All your goodness and kind teaching cannot prevent the undesirableness of letting my child grow up here, in a half-and-half position, engendering domineering airs and unreasonable expectations. You know how, in spite of your care and warnings, it worked on me, though I had more advantages than that poor little man. Dear Honor, it is not you, but myself that I blame. You did your utmost to disabuse me, and it is only the belief that my absurd folly is in human nature that makes me thus ungracious.’
‘But,’ said Honora, murmuring, as if in shame, ‘you know you, and therefore your child, must be my especial charge, and always stand first with me.’
‘First in your affection, dearest Honey,’ he said, fondly; ‘I trust I have been in that place these twenty years; I’ll never give that up; but if I get as well as I hope to do, I mean to be no charge on any one.’
‘You cannot return to your profession?’
‘My riding and surveying days are over, but there’s plenty of work in me still; and I see my way to a connection that will find me in enough of writing, calculating, and drawing, to keep myself and Owen, and I expect to make something of my invention too, when I am settled in London.’
‘In London?’
‘Yes; the poor old woman in Whittington-street is breaking—pining for her grandchild, I believe, and losing her lodgers, from not being able to make them comfortable; and without what she had for the child, she cannot keep an effective servant. I think of going to help her out.’
‘That woman?’
‘Well, I do owe her a duty! I robbed her of her own child, and it is cruel to deprive her of mine when she has had all the trouble of his babyhood. Money would not do the thing, even if I had it. I have brought it on myself, and it is the only atonement in my power; so I mean to occupy two or three of her rooms, work there, and let her have the satisfaction of “doing for me.” When you are in town, I shall hop into Woolstone-lane. You will give me holidays here, won’t you? And whenever you want me, let me be your son? To that you know I reserve my right,’ and he bent towards her affectionately.