Читать книгу Hopes and Fears or, scenes from the life of a spinster - Yonge Charlotte Mary - Страница 2

Seven years more, and Honora was in mourning for her mother.  She was alone in the world, without any near or precious claim, those clinging tendrils of her heart rent from their oldest, surest earthly stay, and her time left vacant from her dearest, most constant occupation.  Her impulse was to devote herself and her fortune at once to the good work which most engaged her imagination, but Humfrey Charlecote, her sole relation, since heart complaint had carried off his sister Sarah, interfered with the authority he had always exercised over her, and insisted on her waiting one full year before pledging herself to anything.  At one-and-thirty, with her golden hair and light figure, her delicate skin and elastic step, she was still too young to keep house in solitude, and she invited to her home a friendless old governess of her own, sick at heart with standing for the Governess’s Institution, promising her a daughter’s care and attendance on her old age.  Gentle old Miss Wells was but too happy in her new quarters, though she constantly averred that she knew she should not continue there; treated as injuries to herself all Honor’s assertions of the dignity of age and old maidishness, and remained convinced that she should soon see her married.

Honora had not seen Mr. Sandbrook since his return from Canada, though his living was not thirty miles from the City.  There had been exchanges of calls when he had been in London, but these had only resulted in the leaving of cards; and from various causes she had been unable to meet him at dinner.  She heard of him, however, from their mutual connection, old Mrs. Sandbrook, who had made a visit at Wrapworth, and came home stored with anecdotes of the style in which he lived, the charms of Mrs. Sandbrook, and the beauty of the children.  As far as Honora could gather, and very unwillingly she did so, he was leading the life of an easy-going, well-beneficed clergyman, not neglecting the parish, according to the requirements of the day, indeed slightly exceeding them, very popular, good-natured, and charitable, and in great request in a numerous, demi-suburban neighbourhood, for all sorts of not unclerical gaieties.  The Rev. O. Sandbrook was often to be met with in the papers, preaching everywhere and for everything, and whispers went about of his speedy promotion to a situation of greater note.  In the seventh year of his marriage, his wife died, and Honora was told of his overwhelming grief, how he utterly refused all comfort or alleviation, and threw himself with all his soul into his parish and his children.  People spoke of him as going about among the poor from morning to night, with his little ones by his side, shrinking from all other society, teaching them and nursing them himself, and endeavouring to the utmost to be as both parents in one.  The youngest, a delicate infant, soon followed her mother to the grave, and old Mrs. Sandbrook proved herself to have no parent’s heart by being provoked with his agonizing grief for the ‘poor little sickly thing,’ while it was not in Honora’s nature not to feel the more tenderly towards the idol of her girlish days, because he was in trouble.

It was autumn, the period when leaves fall off and grow damp, and London birds of passage fly home to their smoky nests.  Honora, who had gone to Weymouth chiefly because she saw Miss Wells would be disappointed if she did otherwise; when there, had grown happily at home with the waves, and in talking to the old fishermen; but had come back because Miss Wells thought it chilly and dreary, and pined for London warmth and snugness.  The noonday sun had found the way in at the oriel window of the drawing-room, and traced the reflection of the merchant’s mark upon the upper pane in distorted outline on the wainscoted wall; it smiled on the glowing tints of Honora’s hair, but seemed to die away against the blackness of her dress, as she sat by the table, writing letters, while opposite, in the brightness of the fire, sat the pale, placid Miss Wells with her morning nest of sermon books and needlework around her.

Honor yawned; Miss Wells looked up with kind anxiety.  She knew such a yawn was equivalent to a sigh, and that it was dreary work to settle in at home again this first time without the mother.

Then Honor smiled, and played with her pen-wiper.  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘it is comfortable to be at home again!’

‘I hope you will soon be able to feel so, my dear,’ said the kind old governess.

‘I mean it,’ said Honor cheerfully; then sighing, ‘But do you know, Mr. Askew wishes his curates to visit at the asylum instead of ladies.’

Miss Wells burst out into all the indignation that was in her mild nature.  Honor not to visit at the asylum founded chiefly by her own father!

‘It is a parish affair now,’ said Honor; ‘and I believe those Miss Stones and their set have been very troublesome.  Besides I think he means to change its character.’

‘It is very inconsiderate of him,’ said Miss Wells; ‘he ought to have consulted you.’

‘Every one loves his own charity the best,’ said Honora; ‘Humfrey says endowments are generally a mistake, each generation had better do its own work to the utmost.  I wish Mr. Askew had not begun now, it was the work I specially looked to, but I let it alone while—and he cannot be expected—’

‘I should have expected it of him though!’ exclaimed Miss Wells, ‘and he ought to know better!  How have you heard it?’

‘I have a note from him this morning,’ said Honora; ‘he asks me Humfrey Charlecote’s address; you know he and Mr. Sandbrook are trustees,’ and her voice grew the sadder.

‘If I am not much mistaken, Mr. Charlecote will represent to him his want of consideration.’

‘I think not,’ said Honora; ‘I should be sorry to make the clergyman’s hard task here any harder for the sake of my feelings.  Late incumbent’s daughters are proverbially inconvenient.  No, I would not stand in the way, but it makes me feel as if my work in St. Wulstan’s were done,’ and the tears dropped fast.

‘Dear, dear Honora!’ began the old lady, eagerly, but her words and Honora’s tears were both checked by the sound of a bell, that bell within the court, to which none but intimates found access.

‘Strange!  It is the thought of old times, I suppose,’ said Honor, smiling, ‘but I could have said that was Owen Sandbrook’s ring.’

The words were scarcely spoken, ere Mr. Sandbrook and Captain Charteris were announced; and there entered a clergyman leading a little child in each hand.  How changed from the handsome, hopeful youth from whom she had parted!  Thin, slightly bowed, grief-stricken, and worn, she would scarcely have known him, and as if to hide how much she felt, she bent quickly, after shaking hands with him, to kiss the two children, flaxen-curled creatures in white, with black ribbons.  They both shrank closer to their father.  ‘Cilly, my love, Owen, my man, speak to Miss Charlecote,’ he said; ‘she is a very old friend of mine.  This is my bonny little housekeeper,’ he added, ‘and here’s a sturdy fellow for four years old, is not he?’

The girl, a delicate fairy of six, barely accepted an embrace, and clung the faster to her father, with a gesture as though to repel all advance.  The boy took a good stare out of a pair of resolute gray eyes, with one foot in advance, and offered both hands.  Honora would have taken him on her knee, but he retreated, and both leant against their father as he sat, an arm round each, after shaking hands with Miss Wells, whom he recollected at once, and presenting his brother-in-law, whose broad, open, sailor countenance, hardy and weather-stained, was a great contrast to his pale, hollow, furrowed cheeks and heavy eyes.

‘Will you tell me your name, my dear?’ said Honora, feeling the children the easiest to talk to; but the little girl’s pretty lips pouted, and she nestled nearer to her father.

‘Her name is Lucilla,’ he answered with a sigh, recalling that it had been his wife’s name.  ‘We are all somewhat of little savages,’ he added, in excuse for the child’s silence.  ‘We have seen few strangers at Wrapworth of late.’

‘I did not know you were in London.’

‘It was a sudden measure—all my brother’s doing,’ he said; ‘I am quite taken out of my own guidance.’

‘I went down to Wrapworth and found him very unwell, quite out of order, and neglecting himself,’ said the captain; ‘so I have brought him up for advice, as I could not make him hear reason.’

‘I was afraid you were looking very ill,’ said Honora, hardly daring to glance at his changed face.

‘Can’t help being ill,’ returned Captain Charteris, ‘running about the village in all weathers in a coat like that, and sitting down to play with the children in his wet things.  I saw what it would come to, last time.’

Mr. Sandbrook could not repress a cough, which told plainly what it was come to.

Miss Wells asked whom he intended to consult, and there was some talk on physicians, but the subject was turned off by Mr. Sandbrook bending down to point out to little Owen a beautiful carving of a brooding dove on her nest, which formed the central bracket of the fine old mantelpiece.

‘There, my man, that pretty bird has been sitting there ever since I can remember.  How like it all looks to old times!  I could imagine myself running in from Westminster on a saint’s day.’

‘It is little altered in some things,’ said Honor.  The last great change was too fresh!

‘Yes,’ said Mr. Sandbrook, raising his eyes towards her with the look that used to go so deep of old, ‘we have both gone through what makes the unchangeableness of these impassive things the more striking.’

‘I can’t see,’ said the little girl, pulling his hand.

‘Let me lift you up, my dear,’ said Honora; but the child turned her back on her, and said, ‘Father.’

He rose, and was bending, at the little imperious voice, though evidently too weak for the exertion, but the sailor made one step forward, and pouncing on Miss Lucilla, held her up in his arms close to the carving.  The two little feet made signs of kicking, and she said in anything but a grateful voice, ‘Put me down, Uncle Kit.’

Uncle Kit complied, and she retreated under her papa’s wing, pouting, but without another word of being lifted, though she had been far too much occupied with struggling to look at the dove.  Meantime her brother had followed up her request by saying ‘me,’ and he fairly put out his arms to be lifted by Miss Charlecote, and made most friendly acquaintance with all the curiosities of the carving.  The rest of the visit was chiefly occupied by the children, to whom their father was eager to show all that he had admired when little older than they were, thus displaying a perfect and minute recollection and affection for the place, which much gratified Honora.  The little girl began to thaw somewhat under the influence of amusement, but there was still a curious ungraciousness towards all attentions.  She required those of her father as a right, but shook off all others in a manner which might be either shyness or independence; but as she was a pretty and naturally graceful child, it had a somewhat engaging air of caprice.  They took leave, Mr. Sandbrook telling the children to thank Miss Charlecote for being so kind to them, which neither would do, and telling her, as he pressed her hand, that he hoped to see her again.  Honora felt as if an old page in her history had been reopened, but it was not the page of her idolatry, it was that of the fall of her idol!  She did not see in him the champion of the truth, but his presence palpably showed her the excitable weakness which she had taken for inspiration, while the sweetness and sympathy warmed her heart towards him, and made her feel that she had underrated his attractiveness.  His implications that he knew she sympathized with him had touched her greatly, and then he looked so ill!

A note from old Mrs. Sandbrook begged her to meet him at dinner the next day, and she was glad of the opportunity of learning the doctor’s verdict upon him, though all the time she knew the meeting would be but pain, bringing before her the disappointment not of him, but in him.

No one was in the drawing-room but Captain Charteris, who came and shook hands with her as if they were old friends; but she was somewhat amazed at missing Mrs. Sandbrook, whose formality would be shocked by leaving her guests in the lurch.

‘Some disturbance in the nursery department, I fancy,’ said the captain; ‘those children have never been from home, and they are rather exacting, poor things.’

‘Poor little things!’ echoed Honora; then, anxious to profit by the tête-a-tête, ‘has Mr. Sandbrook seen Dr. L.?’

‘Yes, it is just as I apprehended.  Lungs very much affected, right one nearly gone.  Nothing for it but the Mediterranean.’

‘Indeed!’

‘It is no wonder.  Since my poor sister died he has never taken the most moderate care of his health, perfectly revelled in dreariness and desolateness, I believe!  He has had this cough about him ever since the winter, when he walked up and down whole nights with that poor child, and never would hear of any advice till I brought him up here almost by force.’

‘I am sure it was time.’

‘May it be in time, that’s all.’

‘Italy does so much!  But what will become of the children?’

‘They must go to my brother’s of course.  I have told him I will see him there, but I will not have the children!  There’s not the least chance of his mending, if they are to be always lugging him about—’

The captain was interrupted by the entrance of Mrs. Sandbrook, who looked a good deal worried, though she tried to put it aside, but on the captain saying, ‘I’m afraid that you have troublesome guests, ma’am,’ out it all came, how it had been discovered late in the day that Master Owen must sleep in his papa’s room, in a crib to himself, and how she had been obliged to send out to hire the necessary articles, subject to his nurse’s approval; and the captain’s sympathy having opened her heart, she further informed them of the inconvenient rout the said nurse had made about getting new milk for them, for which Honor could have found it in her heart to justify her; ‘and poor Owen is just as bad,’ quoth the old lady; ‘I declare those children are wearing his very life out, and yet he will not hear of leaving them behind.’

She was interrupted by his appearance at that moment, as usual, with a child in either hand, and a very sad picture it was, so mournful and spiritless was his countenance, with the hectic tint of decay evident on each thin cheek, and those two fair healthful creatures clinging to him, thoughtless of their past loss, unconscious of that which impended.  Little Owen, after one good stare, evidently recognized a friend in Miss Charlecote, and let her seat him upon her knee, listening to her very complacently, but gazing very hard all the time at her, till at last, with an experimental air, he stretched one hand and stroked the broad golden ringlet that hung near him, evidently to satisfy himself whether it really was hair.  Then he found his way to her watch, a pretty little one from Geneva, with enamelled flowers at the back, which so struck his fancy that he called out, ‘Cilly, look!’  The temptation drew the little girl nearer, but with her hands behind her back, as if bent on making no advance to the stranger.

Honora thought her the prettiest child she had ever seen.  Small and lightly formed, there was more symmetry in her little fairy figure than usual at her age, and the skin was exquisitely fine and white, tinted with a soft eglantine pink, deepening into roses on the cheeks; the hair was in long flaxen curls, and the eyelashes, so long and fair that at times they caught a glossy light, shaded eyes of that deep blue upon that limpid white, which is like nothing but the clear tints of old porcelain.  The features were as yet unformed, but small and delicate, and the upright Napoleon gesture had something peculiarly quaint and pretty in such a soft-looking little creature.  The boy was a handsome fellow, with more solidity and sturdiness, and Honora could scarcely continue to amuse him, as she thought of the father’s pain in parting with two such beings—his sole objects of affection.  A moment’s wish flashed across her, but was dismissed the next moment as a mere childish romance.

Old Mr. Sandbrook came in, and various other guests arrived, old acquaintance to whom Owen must be re-introduced, and he looked fagged and worn by the time all the greetings had been exchanged and all the remarks made on his children.  When dinner was announced, he remained to the last with them, and did not appear in the dining-room till his uncle had had time to look round for him, and mutter something discontentedly about ‘those brats.’  The vacant chair was beside Honora, and he was soon seated in it, but at first he did not seem inclined to talk, and leant back, so white and exhausted, that she thought it kinder to leave him to himself.

When, somewhat recruited, he said in a low voice something of his hopes that his little Cilly, as he called her, would be less shy another time, and Honora responding heartily, he quickly fell into the parental strain of anecdotes of the children’s sayings and doings, whence Honora collected that in his estimation Lucilla’s forte was decision and Owen’s was sweetness, and that he was completely devoted to them, nursing and teaching them himself, and finding his whole solace in them.  Tender pity moved her strongly towards him, as she listened to the evidences of the desolateness of his home and his heavy sorrow; and yet it was pity alone, admiration would not revive, and indeed, in spite of herself, her judgment would now and then respond ‘unwise,’ or ‘weak,’ or ‘why permit this?’ at details of Lucilla’s mutinerie.  Presently she found that his intentions were quite at variance with those of his brother.  His purpose was fixed to take the children with him.

‘They are very young,’ said Honora.

‘Yes; but their nurse is a most valuable person, and can arrange perfectly for them, and they will always be under my eye.’

‘That was just what Captain Charteris seemed to dread.’

‘He little knows,’ began Mr. Sandbrook, with a sigh.  ‘Yes, I know he is most averse to it, and he is one who always carries his point, but he will not do so here; he imagines that they may go to their aunt’s nursery, but,’ with an added air of confidence, ‘that will never do!’

Honora’s eyes asked more.

‘In fact,’ he said, as the flush of pain rose on his cheeks, ‘the Charteris children are not brought up as I should wish to see mine.  There are influences at work there not suited for those whose home must be a country parsonage, if—  Little Cilly has come in for more admiration there already than is good for her.’

‘It cannot be easy for her not to meet with that.’

‘Why, no,’ said the gratified father, smiling sadly; ‘but Castle Blanch training might make the mischief more serious.  It is a gay household, and I cannot believe with Kit Charteris that the children are too young to feel the blight of worldly influence.  Do not you think with me, Nora?’ he concluded in so exactly the old words and manner as to stir the very depths of her heart, but woe worth the change from the hopes of youth to this premature fading into despondency, and the implied farewell!  She did think with him completely, and felt the more for him, as she believed that these Charterises had led him and his wife into the gaieties, which since her death he had forsworn and abhorred as temptations.  She thought it hard that he should not have his children with him, and talked of all the various facilities for taking them that she could think of, till his face brightened under the grateful sense of sympathy.

She did not hold the same opinion all the evening.  The two children made their appearance at dessert, and there began by insisting on both sitting on his knees; Owen consented to come to her, but Lucilla would not stir, though she put on some pretty little coquettish airs, and made herself extremely amiable to the gentleman who sat on her father’s other hand, making smart replies, that were repeated round the table with much amusement.

But the ordinance of departure with the ladies was one of which the sprite had no idea; Honor held out her hand for her; Aunt Sandbrook called her; her father put her down; she shook her curls, and said she should not leave father; it was stupid up in the drawing-room, and she hated ladies, which confession set every one laughing, so as quite to annihilate the effect of Mr. Sandbrook’s ‘Yes, go, my dear.’

Finally, he took the two up-stairs himself—the stairs which, as he had told Honora that evening, were his greatest enemies, and he remained a long time in their nursery, not coming down till tea was in progress.  Mrs. Sandbrook always made it herself at the great silver urn, which had been a testimonial to her husband, and it was not at first that she had a cup ready for him.  He looked even worse than at dinner, and Honora was anxious to see him resting comfortably; but he had hardly sat down on the sofa, and taken the cup in his hand, before a dismal childish wail was heard from above, and at once he started up, so hastily as to cough violently.  Captain Charteris, breaking off a conversation, came rapidly across the room just as he was moving to the door.  ‘You’re not going to those imps—’

Owen moved his head, and stepped forward.

‘I’ll settle them.’

Renewed cries met his ears.  ‘No—a strange place—’ he said.  ‘I must—’

He put his brother-in-law back with his hand, and was gone.  The captain could not contain his vexation, ‘That’s the way those brats serve him every night!’ he exclaimed; ‘they will not attempt to go to sleep without him!  Why, I’ve found him writing his sermon with the boy wrapped up in blankets in his lap; there’s no sense in it.’

After about ten minutes, during which Mr. Sandbrook did not reappear, Captain Charteris muttered something about going to see about him, and stayed away a good while.  When he came down, he came and sat down by Honora, and said, ‘He is going to bed, quite done for.’

‘That must be better for him than talking here.’

‘Why, what do you think I found?  Those intolerable brats would not stop crying unless he told them a story, and there was he with his voice quite gone, coughing every two minutes, and romancing on with some allegory about children marching on their little paths, and playing on their little fiddles.  So I told Miss Cilly that if she cared a farthing for her father, she would hold her tongue, and I packed her up, and put her into her nursery.  She’ll mind me when she sees I will be minded; and as for little Owen, nothing would satisfy him but his promising not to go away.  I saw that chap asleep before I came down, so there’s no fear of the yarn beginning again; but you see what chance there is of his mending while those children are at him day and night.’

‘Poor things! they little know.’

‘One does not expect them to know, but one does expect them to show a little rationality.  It puts one out of all patience to see him so weak.  If he is encouraged to take them abroad, he may do so, but I wash my hands of him.  I won’t be responsible for him—let them go alone!’

Honora saw this was a reproach to her for the favour with which she had regarded the project.  She saw that the father’s weakness quite altered the case, and her former vision flashed across her again, but she resolutely put it aside for consideration, and only made the unmeaning answer, ‘It is very sad and perplexing.’

‘A perplexity of his own making.  As for their not going to Castle Blanch, they were always there in my poor sister’s time a great deal more than was good for any of them, or his parish either, as I told him then; and now, if he finds out that it is a worldly household, as he calls it, why, what harm is that to do to a couple of babies like those?  If Mrs. Charteris does not trouble herself much about the children, there are governesses and nurses enough for a score!’

‘I must own,’ said Honora, ‘that I think he is right.  Children are never too young for impressions.’

‘I’ll tell you what, Miss Charlecote, the way he is going on is enough to ruin the best children in the world.  That little Cilly is the most arrant little flirt I ever came across; it is like a comedy to see the absurd little puss going on with the curate, ay, and with every parson that comes to Wrapworth; and she sees nothing else.  Impressions!  All she wants is to be safe shut up with a good governess, and other children.  It would do her a dozen times more good than all his stories of good children and their rocky paths, and boats that never sailed on any reasonable principle.’

‘Poor child,’ said Honora, smiling, ‘she is a little witch.’

‘And,’ continued the uncle, ‘if he thinks it so bad for them, he had better take the only way of saving them from it for the future, or they will be there for life.  If he gets through this winter, it will only be by the utmost care.’

Honora kept her project back with the less difficulty, because she doubted how it would be received by the rough captain; but it won more and more upon her, as she rattled home through the gas-lights, and though she knew she should learn to love the children only to have the pang of losing them, she gladly cast this foreboding aside as selfish, and applied herself impartially as she hoped to weigh the duty, but trembling were the hands that adjusted the balance.  Alone as she stood, without a tie, was not she marked out to take such an office of mere pity and charity?  Could she see the friend of her childhood forced either to peril his life by his care of his motherless children, or else to leave them to the influences he so justly dreaded?  Did not the case cry out to her to follow the promptings of her heart?  Ay, but might not, said caution, her assumption of the charge lead their father to look on her as willing to become their mother?  Oh, fie on such selfish prudery imputing such a thought to yonder broken-hearted, sinking widower!  He had as little room for such folly as she had inclination to find herself on the old terms.  The hero of her imagination he could never be again, but it would be weak consciousness to scruple at offering so obvious an act of compassion.  She would not trust herself, she would go by what Miss Wells said.  Nevertheless she composed her letter to Owen Sandbrook between waking and sleeping all night, and dreamed of little creatures nestling in her lap, and small hands playing with her hair.  How coolly she strove to speak as she described the dilemma to the old lady, and how her heart leapt when Miss Wells, her mind moving in the grooves traced out by sympathy with her pupil, exclaimed, ‘Poor little dears, what a pity they should not be with you, my dear, they would be a nice interest for you!’

Perhaps Miss Wells thought chiefly of the brightening in her child’s manner, and the alert vivacity of eye and voice such as she had not seen in her since she had lost her mother; but be that as it might, her words were the very sanction so much longed for, and ere long Honora had her writing-case before her, cogitating over the opening address, as if her whole meaning were implied in them.

‘My dear Owen’ came so naturally that it was too like an attempt to recur to the old familiarity.  ‘My dear Mr. Sandbrook?’  So formal as to be conscious!  ‘Dear Owen?’  Yes that was the cousinly medium, and in diffident phrases of restrained eagerness, now seeming too affectionate, now too cold she offered to devote herself to his little ones, to take a house on the coast, and endeavour to follow out his wishes with regard to them, her good old friend supplying her lack of experience.

With a beating heart she awaited the reply.  It was but few lines, but all Owen was in them.

‘My dear Nora—You always were an angel of goodness.  I feel your kindness more than I can express.  If my darlings were to be left at all, it should be with you, but I cannot contemplate it.  Bless you for the thought!

‘Yours ever, O. Sandbrook.’

She heard no more for a week, during which a dread of pressing herself on him prevented her from calling on old Mrs. Sandbrook.  At last, to her surprise, she received a visit from Captain Charteris, the person whom she looked on as least propitious, and most inclined to regard her as an enthusiastic silly young lady.  He was very gruff, and gave a bad account of his patient.  The little boy had been unwell, and the exertion of nursing him had been very injurious; the captain was very angry with illness, child, and father.

‘However,’ he said, ‘there’s one good thing, L. has forbidden the children’s perpetually hanging on him, sleeping in his room, and so forth.  With the constitutions to which they have every right, poor things, he could not find a better way of giving them the seeds of consumption.  That settles it.  Poor fellow, he has not the heart to hinder their always pawing him, so there’s nothing for it but to separate them from him.’

‘And may I have them?’ asked Honor, too anxious to pick her words.

‘Why, I told him I would come and see whether you were in earnest in your kind offer.  You would find them no sinecure.’

‘It would be a great happiness,’ said she, struggling with tears that might prevent the captain from depending on her good sense, and speaking calmly and sadly; ‘I have no other claims, nothing to tie me to any place.  I am a good deal older than I look, and my friend, Miss Wells, has been a governess.  She is really a very wise, judicious person, to whom he may quite trust.  Owen and I were children together, and I know nothing that I should like better than to be useful to him.’

‘Humph!’ said the captain, more touched than he liked to betray; ‘well, it seems the only thing to which he can bear to turn!’

‘Oh!’ she said, breaking off, but emotion and earnestness looked glistening and trembling through every feature.

‘Very well,’ said Captain Charteris, ‘I’m glad, at least, that there is some one to have pity on the poor things!  There’s my brother’s wife, she doesn’t say no, but she talks of convenience and spoilt children—Sandbrook was quite right after all; I would not tell him how she answered me!  Spoilt children to be sure they are, poor things, but she might recollect they have no mother—such a fuss as she used to make with poor Lucilla too.  Poor Lucilla, she would never have believed that “dear Caroline” would have no better welcome for her little ones!  Spoilt indeed!  A precious deal pleasanter children they are than any of the lot at Castle Blanch, and better brought up too.’

The good captain’s indignation had made away with his consistency, but Honora did not owe him a grudge for revealing that she was his pis aller, she was prone to respect a man who showed that he despised her, and she only cared to arrange the details.  He was anxious to carry away his charge at once, since every day of this wear and tear of feeling was doing incalculable harm, and she undertook to receive the children and nurse at any time.  She would write at once for a house at some warm watering-place, and take them there as soon as possible, and she offered to call that afternoon to settle all with Owen.

‘Why,’ said Captain Charteris, ‘I hardly know.  One reason I came alone was, that I believe that little elf of a Cilly has some notion of what is plotting against her.  You can’t speak a word but that child catches up, and she will not let her father out of her sight for a moment.’

‘Then what is to be done?  I would propose his coming here; but the poor child would not let him go.’

‘That is the only chance.  He has been forbidden the walking with them in his arms to put them to sleep, and we’ve got the boy into the nursery, and he’d better be out of the house than hear them roaring for him.  So if you have no objection, and he is tolerable this evening, I would bring him as soon as they are gone to bed.’

Poor Owen was evidently falling under the management of stronger hands than his own, and it could only be hoped that it was not too late.  His keeper brought him at a little after eight that evening.  There was a look about him as if, after the last stroke that had befallen him, he could feel no more, the bitterness of death was past, his very hands looked woe-begone and astray, without the little fingers pressing them.  He could not talk at first; he shook Honor’s hand as if he could not bear to be grateful to her, and only the hardest hearts could have endured to enter on the intended discussion.  The captain was very gentle towards him, and talk was made on other topics but gradually something of the influence of the familiar scene where his brightest days had been passed, began to prevail.  All was like old times—the quaint old silver kettle and lamp, the pattern of the china cups, the ruddy play of the fire on the polished panels of the room—and he began to revive and join the conversation.  They spoke of Delaroche’s beautiful Madonnas, one of which was at the time to be seen at a print-shop—‘Yes,’ said Mr. Sandbrook, ‘and little Owen cried out as soon as he saw it, “That lady, the lady with the flowery watch.”’

Honora smiled.  It was an allusion to the old jests upon her auburn locks, ‘a greater compliment to her than to Delaroche,’ she said; ‘I saw that he was extremely curious to ascertain what my carrots were made of.’

‘Do you know, Nora, I never saw more than one person with such hair as yours,’ said Owen, with more animation, ‘and oddly enough her name turned out to be Charlecote.’

‘Impossible!  Humfrey and I are the only Charlecotes left that I know of!  Where could it have been?’

‘It was at Toronto.  I must confess that I was struck by the brilliant hair in chapel.  Afterwards I met her once or twice.  She was a Canadian born, and had just married a settler, whose name I can’t remember, but her maiden name had certainly been Charlecote; I remembered it because of the coincidence.’

‘Very curious; I did not know there had been any Charlecotes but ourselves.’

‘And Humfrey Charlecote has never married?’

‘Never.’

What made Owen raise his eyes at that moment, just so that she met them? and why did that dreadful uncontrollable crimson heat come mounting up over cheeks and temples, tingling and spreading into her very neck, just because it was the most hateful thing that could happen?  And he saw it.  She knew he did so, for he dropped his eyes at once, and there was an absolute silence, which she broke in desperation, by an incoherent attempt to say something, and that ended by blundering into the tender subject—the children; she found she had been talking about the place to which she thought of taking them, a quiet spot on the northern coast of Somersetshire.

He could bear the pang a little better now, and assented, and the ice once broken, there were so many details and injunctions that lay near his heart that the conversation never flagged.  He had great reliance on their nurse, and they were healthy children, so that there was not much instruction as regarded the care of their little persons; but he had a great deal to say about the books they were to be taught from, the hymns they were to learn, and the exact management required by Lucilla’s peculiar temper and decided will.  The theory was so perfect and so beautifully wise that Honora sat by in reverence, fearing her power of carrying it out; and Captain Charteris listened with a shade of satire on his face, and at last broke out with a very odd grunt, as if he did not think this quite what he had seen at Wrapworth parsonage.

Mr. Sandbrook coloured, and checked himself.  Then after a pause, he said in a very different tone, ‘Perhaps so, Kit.  It is only too easy to talk.  Nora knows that there is a long way between my intentions and my practice.’

The humble dejection of that tone touched her more than she had been touched since he had wrung her hand, long, long ago.

‘Well,’ said the captain, perceiving only that he had given pain, ‘I will say this for your monkeys, they do know what is right at least; they have heard the articles of war, which I don’t fancy the other lot ever did.  As to the discipline, humph!  It is much of a muchness, and I’m not sure but it is not the best at the castle.’

‘The children are different at home,’ said Owen, quietly; ‘but,’ he added, with the same sad humility, ‘I dare say they will be much the better for the change; I know—’

But he broke off, and put his hand before his eyes.

Honora hoped she should not be left alone with him, but somehow it did happen.  The captain went to bring the carriage into the court, and get all imaginable wraps before trusting him out in the air, and Miss Wells disappeared, probably intending kindness.  Of course neither spoke, till the captain was almost come back.  Then Owen rose from where he had been sitting listlessly, leaning back, and slowly said, ‘Nora, we did not think it would end thus when I put my hand to the plough.  I am glad to have been here again.  I had not remembered what I used to be.  I do not ask you to forgive me.  You are doing so, returning me good for—shall I say evil?’

Honor could not speak or look, she drooped her head, and her hair veiled her; she held out her hand as the captain came in, and felt it pressed with a feverish, eager grasp, and a murmured blessing.

Honora did not see Mr. Sandbrook again, but Captain Charteris made an incursion on her the next day to ask if she could receive the children on the ensuing morning.  He had arranged to set off before daybreak, embarking for Ostend before the children were up, so as to spare the actual parting, and Honora undertook to fetch them home in the course of the day.  He had hoped to avoid their knowing of the impending separation but he could only prevail so far as to extract a promise that they should not know when it was to take place.  Their father had told them of their destination and his own as they sat on his bed in the morning before he rose, and apparently it had gone off better than could have been expected; little Owen did not seem to understand, and his sister was a child who never shed tears.

The day came, and Honora awoke to some awe at the responsibility, but with a yearning supplied, a vacancy filled up.  For at least six months she should be as a mother, and a parent’s prayers could hardly have been more earnest.

She had not long been dressed, when a hasty peal was heard at the bell, and no sooner was the door opened than in hurried Captain Charteris, breathless, and bearing a large plaid bundle with tangled flaxen locks drooping at one end, and at the other rigid white legs, socks trodden down, one shoe wanting.

He deposited it, and there stood the eldest child, her chin buried in her neck, her fingers digging fast into their own palms, her eyes gleaming fiercely at him under the pent-house she had made of her brows.

‘There’s an introduction!’ he said, panting for breath.  ‘Found her in time—the Strand—laid flat on back seat, under all the plaids and bags—her father put up his feet and found her—we drove to the lane—I ran down with her—not a moment—can’t stay, good-bye, little Cilly goose, to think she could go that figure!’

He advanced to kiss her, but she lifted up her shoulder between him and her face, much as a pugnacious pigeon flap its wings, and he retreated.

‘Wiser not, maybe!  Look here,’ as Honora hurried after him into the hall to ask after the patient; ‘if you have a bit of sticking-plaster, he had better not see this.’

Lucilla had made her little pearls of teeth meet in the fleshy part of his palm.

Honora recoiled, shocked, producing the plaster from her pocket in an instant.

‘Little vixen,’ he said, half laughing; ‘but I was thankful to her for neither kicking nor struggling!’

‘Poor child!’ said Honora, ‘perhaps it was as much agony as passion!’

He shrugged his shoulders as he held out his hand for her operations, then hastily thanking her and wishing her good-bye, rushed off again, as the astonished Miss Wells appeared on the stairs.  Honor shrank from telling her what wounds had been received, she thought the gentle lady would never get over such a proceeding, and, in fact, she herself felt somewhat as if she had undertaken the charge of a little wild cat, and quite uncertain what the young lady might do next.  On entering the breakfast-room, they found her sunk down all in a heap, where her uncle had set her down, her elbows on a low footstool, and her head leaning on them, the eyes still gazing askance from under the brows, but all the energy and life gone from the little dejected figure.

‘Poor child!  Dear little thing—won’t you come to me?’  She stirred not.

Miss Wells advanced, but the child’s only motion was to shake her frock at her, as if to keep her off; Honora, really afraid of the consequences of touching her, whispered that they would leave her to herself a little.  The silver kettle came in, and tea was made.

‘Lucilla, my dear, the servants are coming in to prayers.’

She did not offer to move, and still Honora let her alone, and she remained in the same attitude while the psalm was read, but afterwards there was a little approximation to kneeling in her position.

‘Lucilla, dear child, you had better come to breakfast—’  Only another defying glance.

Miss Wells, with what Honor thought defective judgment, made pointed commendations of the tea, the butter and honey, but they had no effect; Honora, though her heart ached for the wrench the poor child had undergone, thought it best to affect indifference, gave a hint of the kind, and scrupulously avoided looking round at her, till breakfast was finished.  When she did so, she no longer met the wary defiant gleam of the blue eyes, they were fast shut, the head had sunk on the arms, and the long breathings of sleep heaved the little frame.  ‘Poor little dear!’ as Miss Wells might well exclaim, she had kept herself wakeful the whole night that her father might not go without her knowledge.  And how pretty she looked in that little black frock, so ill and hastily put on, one round white shoulder quite out of it, and the long flaxen locks showing their silky fineness as they hung dispersed and tangled, the pinky flush of sleep upon the little face pillowed on the rosy pair of arms, and with a white unstockinged leg doubled under her.  Poor child, there was more of the angel than the tiger-cat in her aspect now, and they had tears in their eyes, and moved softly lest they should startle her from her rest.

But wakened she must be.  Honora was afraid of displeasing her domestic vizier, and rendering him for ever unpropitious to her little guests if she deferred his removal of the breakfast things beyond a reasonable hour.  How was the awaking to be managed?  Fright, tears, passion, what change would come when the poor little maid must awake to her grief!  Honora would never have expected so poetical a flight from her good old governess as the suggestion, ‘Play to her;’ but she took it eagerly, and going to the disused piano which stood in the room began a low, soft air.  The little sleeper stirred, presently raised her head, shook her hair off her ears, and after a moment, to their surprise, her first word was ‘Mamma!’  Honora was pausing, but the child said, ‘Go on,’ and sat for a few moments as though recovering herself, then rose and came forward slowly standing at last close to Honora.  There was a pause, and she said, ‘Mamma did that.’

Never was a sound more welcome!  Honora dared to do what she had longed for so much, put an arm round the little creature and draw her nearer, nor did Lucilla resist, she only said, ‘Won’t you go on?’

‘I can make prettier music in the other room, my dear; we will go there, only you’ve had no breakfast.  You must be very hungry.’

Lucilla turned round, saw a nice little roll cut into slices, and remembered that she was hungry; and presently she was consuming it so prosperously under Miss Wells’s superintendence that Honor ventured out to endeavour to retard Jones’s desire to ‘take away,’ by giving him orders about the carriage, and then to attend to her other household affairs.  By the time they were ended she found that Miss Wells had brought the child into the drawing-room, where she had at once detected the piano, and looking up at Honora said eagerly ‘Now then!’  And Honora fulfilled her promise, while the child stood by softened and gratified, until it was time to propose fetching little Owen, ‘your little brother—you will like to have him here.’

‘I want my father,’ said Lucilla in a determined voice, as if nothing else were to satisfy her.

‘Poor child, I know you do; I am so sorry for you, my dear little woman, but you see the doctors think papa is more likely to get better if he has not you to take care of!’

‘I did not want my father to take care of me,’ said the little lady, proudly; ‘I take care of father, I always make his tea and warm his slippers, and bring him his coffee in the morning.  And Uncle Kit never will put his gloves for him and warm his handkerchief!  Oh! what will he do?  I can’t bear it.’

The violent grief so long kept back was coming now, but not freely; the little girl threw herself on the floor, and in a tumult of despair and passion went on, hurrying out her words, ‘It’s very hard!  It’s all Uncle Kit’s doing!  I hate him!  Yes, I do.’  And she rolled over and over in her frenzy of feeling.

‘My dear! my dear!’ cried Honora, kneeling by her, ‘this will never do!  Papa would be very much grieved to see his little girl so naughty.  Don’t you know how your uncle only wants to do him good, and to make him get well?’

‘Then why didn’t he take me?’ said Lucilla, gathering herself up, and speaking sullenly.

‘Perhaps he thought you gave papa trouble, and tired him.’

‘Yes, that’s it, and it’s not fair,’ cried the poor child again; ‘why couldn’t he tell me?  I didn’t know papa was ill! he never told me so, nor Mr. Pendy either; or, how I would have nursed him!  I wanted to do so much for him; I wouldn’t have asked him to tell me stories, nor nothing!  No!  And now they won’t let me take care of him;’ and she cried bitterly.

‘Yes,’ said good, gentle Miss Wells, thinking more of present comfort than of the too possible future; ‘but you will go back to take care of him some day, my dear.  When the spring comes papa will come back to his little girl.’

Spring!  It was a long way off to a mind of six years old, but it made Lucilla look more amiably at Miss Wells.

‘And suppose,’ proceeded that good lady, ‘you were to learn to be as good and helpful a little girl as can be while he is gone, and then nobody will wish to keep you from him.  How surprised he would be!’

‘And then shall we go home?’ said Lucilla.

Miss Wells uttered a somewhat rash assurance to that effect, and the child came near her, pacified and satisfied by the scheme of delightful goodness and progress to be made in order to please her father—as she always called him.  Honor looked on, thankful for the management that was subduing and consoling the poor little maid, and yet unable to participate in it, for though the kind old lady spoke in all sincerity, it was impossible to Honora to stifle a lurking fear that the hopes built on the prospect of his return had but a hollow foundation.

However it attracted Lucilla to Miss Wells, so that Honora did not fear leaving her on going to bring home little Owen.  The carriage which had conveyed the travellers, had brought back news of his sister’s discovery and capture, and Honora found Mrs. Sandbrook much shocked at the enormity of the proceeding, and inclined to pity Honora for having charge of the most outrageous children she had ever seen.  A very long letter had been left for her by their father, rehearsing all he had before given of directions, and dwelling still more on some others, but then apparently repenting of laying down the law, he ended by entreating her to use her own judgment, believe in his perfect confidence, and gratitude beyond expression for most unmerited kindness.

Little Owen, she heard, had made the house resound with cries when his father was nowhere to be found, but his nurse had quieted him, and he came running to Honora with an open, confiding face.  ‘Are you the lady?  And will you take me to Cilly and the sea?  And may I have a whale?’

Though Honora did not venture on promising him a tame whale in the Bristol Channel, she had him clinging to her in a moment, eager to set off, to go to Cilly, and the dove he had seen at her house.  ‘It’s a nasty house here—I want to come away,’ he said, running backwards and forwards between her and the window to look at the horses, while nurse’s interminable boxes were being carried down.

The troubles really seemed quite forgotten; the boy sat on her knee and chattered all the way to Woolstone-lane, and there he and Lucilla flew upon each other with very pretty childish joy; the sister doing the honours of the house in right of having been a little longer an inmate.  Nurse caught her and dressed and combed her, shoed her and sashed her, so that she came down to dinner less picturesque, but more respectable than at her first appearance that morning, and except for the wonderful daintiness of both children, dinner went off very well.

All did go well till night, and then Owen’s woes began.  Oh what a piteous sobbing lamentation was it!  ‘Daddy, daddy!’ not to be consoled, not to be soothed, awakening his sister to the same sad cry, stilled only by exhaustion and sleepiness.

Poor little fellow!  Night after night it was the same.  Morning found him a happy, bright child, full of engaging ways and innocent sayings, and quite satisfied with ‘Cousin Honor,’ but bed-time always brought back the same wailing.  Nurse, a tidy, brisk personage, with a sensible, deferential tone to her superiors, and a caressing one to the children, tried in vain assurances of papa’s soon coming back; nay, it might be feared that she held out that going to sleep would bring the morrow when he was to come; but even this delusive promise failed; the present was all; and Cousin Honor herself was only not daddy, though she nursed him, and rocked him in her arms, and fondled him, and told stories or sung his lullaby with nightly tenderness, till the last sobs had quivered into the smooth heavings of sleep.

Might only sea air and exercise act as a soporific!  That was a better chance than the new promise which Honora was vexed to find nurse holding out to poor little Owen, that if he would be a good boy, he was going to papa.  She was puzzled how to act towards a person not exactly under her authority, but she took courage to speak about these false promises, and found the remonstrance received in good part; indeed nurse used to talk at much length of the children in a manner that implied great affection for them, coupled with a sense that it would be an excellent thing for them to be in such judicious hands.  Honor always came away from nurse in good humour with herself.

The locality she had chosen was a sheltered village on the north coast of Somerset, just where Exmoor began to give grandeur to the outline in the rear, and in front the Welsh hills wore different tints of purple or gray, according to the promise of weather, Lundy Isle and the two lesser ones serving as the most prominent objects, as they rose from—Well, well! Honor counted herself as a Somersetshire woman, and could not brook hearing much about the hue of the Bristol Channel.  At any rate, just here it had been so kind as to wash up a small strip of pure white sand, fit for any amount of digging for her children; and though Sandbeach was watering-place enough to have the lodging-houses, butchers and bakers, so indispensable to the London mind, it was not so much in vogue as to be overrun by fine ladies, spoiling the children by admiring their beauty.  So said Miss Charlecote in her prudence—but was not she just as jealous as nurse that people should turn round a second time to look at those lovely little faces?

That was a very happy charge to her and her good old governess, with some drawbacks, indeed, but not such as to distress her over much.  The chief was at first Owen’s nightly sorrows, his daily idleness over lessons, Lucilla’s pride, and the exceeding daintiness of both children, which made their meals a constant vexation and trouble.  But what was this compared with the charm of their dependence on her, and of hearing that newly-invented pet name, ‘Sweet Honey,’ invoked in every little concern that touched them?

It was little Owen’s name for her.  He was her special favourite—there was no concealing it.  Lucilla did not need her as much, and was of a vigorous, independent nature, that would stand alone to the utmost.  Owen gave his affection spontaneously; if Lucilla’s was won, it must be at unawares.  She was living in and for her absent father now, and had nothing to spare for any one else, or if she had, Miss Wells, who had the less claim on her was preferred to Cousin Honor.  ‘Father’ was almost her religion; though well taught, and unusually forward in religious knowledge, as far as Honora dared to augur, no motive save her love for him had a substantive existence, as touching her feelings or ruling her actions.  For him she said her prayers and learnt her hymns; for him she consented to learn to hem handkerchiefs; for him were those crooked letters for ever being written; nay, at the thought of his displeasure alone could her tears be made to flow when she was naughty; and for him she endeavoured to be less fanciful at dinner, as soon as her mind had grasped the perception that her not eating what was set before her might really hinder him from always having her with him.  She was fairly manageable, with very high spirits, and not at all a silly or helpless child; but though she obeyed Miss Charlecote, it was only as obeying her father through her, and his constant letters kept up the strong influence.  In her most gracious moods, she was always telling her little brother histories of what they should do when they got home to father and Mr. Prendergast; but to Owen, absence made a much greater difference.  Though he still cried at night, his ‘Sweet Honey’ was what he wanted, and with her caressing him, he only dreaded her leaving him.  He lavished his pretty endearments upon her, and missed no one when he held her hand or sat in her lap, stroking her curls, and exchanging a good deal of fondling.  He liked his hymns, and enjoyed Scripture stories, making remarks that caused her to reverence him; and though backward, idle, and sometimes very passionate, his was exactly the legitimate character for a child, such as she could deal with and love.  She was as complete a slave to the two little ones as their father could have been; all her habits were made to conform to their welfare and pleasure, and very happy she was, but the discipline was more decided than they had been used to; there were habits to be formed, and others to be broken, and she was not weak enough not to act up to her duty in this respect, even though her heart was winding round that sunny-faced boy as fast as it had ever clung to his father.  The new Owen Sandbrook, with his innocent earnestness, and the spiritual light in his eyes, should fulfil all her dreams!

Christmas had passed; Mr. Sandbrook had begun to write to his children about seeing them soon; Lucilla’s slow hemming was stimulated by the hope of soon making her present; and Honora was marvelling at her own selfishness in dreading the moment when the little ones would be no longer hers; when a hurried note of preparation came from Captain Charteris.  A slight imprudence had renewed all the mischief, and his patient was lying speechless under a violent attack of inflammation.  Another letter, and all was over.

A shock indeed! but in Honora’s eyes, Owen Sandbrook had become chiefly the children’s father, and their future was what concerned her most.  How should she bear to part with his darlings for ever, and to know them brought up in the way that was not good, and which their father dreaded, and when their orphanhood made her doubly tender over them?

To little Owen it was chiefly that papa was gone ‘up there’ whither all his hymns and allegories pointed, and at his age, all that he did not actually see was much on a par; the hope of meeting had been too distant for the extinction of it to affect him very nearly, and he only understood enough to prompt the prettiest and most touching sayings, wondering about the doings of papa, mamma, and little baby among the angels, with as much reality as he had formerly talked of papa among the French.

Lucilla heard with more comprehension, but her gay temper seemed to revolt against having sorrow forced on her.  She would not listen and would not think; her spirits seemed higher than ever, and Honora almost concluded that either she did not feel at all, or that the moment of separation had exhausted all.  Her character made Honora especially regret her destiny; it was one only too congenial to the weeds that were more likely to be implanted, than plucked up, at Castle Blanch.  Captain Charteris had written to say that he, and probably his brother, should come to Sandbeach to relieve Miss Charlecote from the care of the children, and she prized each day while she still had those dear little voices about the house.

‘Sweet Honey,’ said Lucilla, who had been standing by the window, apparently watching the rain, ‘do Uncle Charteris and Uncle Kit want us to go away from you?’

‘I am very much afraid they do, my dear.’

‘Nurse said, if you would ask them, we might stay,’ said Lucilla, tracing the course of a drop with her finger.

‘If asking would do any good, my dear,’ sighed Honor; ‘but I don’t think nurse knows.  You see, you belong to your uncles now.’

‘I won’t belong to Uncle Charteris!’ cried Lucilla, passionately.  ‘I won’t go to Castle Blanch!  They were all cross to me; Ratia teased me, and father said it was all their fault I was naughty, and he would never take me there again!  Don’t let Uncle Kit go and take me there!’ and she clung to her friend, as if the recollection of Uncle Kit’s victory by main force hung about her still.

‘I won’t, I won’t, my child, if I can help it; but it will all be as your dear father may have fixed it, and whatever he wishes I know that his little girl will do.’

Many a dim hope did Honora revolve, and more than ever did she feel as if a piece of her heart would be taken away, for the orphans fastened themselves upon her, and little Owen stroked her face, and said naughty Uncle Kit should not take them away.  She found from the children and nurse that about a year ago, just after the loss of the baby, there had been a most unsuccessful visit at Castle Blanch; father and little ones had been equally miserable there in the separation of the large establishment, and Lucilla had been domineeringly petted by her youngest cousin, Horatia, who chose to regard her as a baby, and coerced her by bodily force, such as was intolerable to so high-spirited a child, who was a little woman at home.  She had resisted, and fallen into dire disgrace, and it was almost with horror that she regarded the place and the cousinhood.  Nurse appeared to have some private disgust of her own, as well as to have much resented her children’s being convicted of naughtiness, and she spoke strongly in confidence to Honora of the ungodly ways of the whole household, declaring that after the advantages she had enjoyed with her dear master, she could not bear to live there, though she might—yes, she must be with the dear children just at first, and she ventured to express strong wishes for their remaining in their present home, where they had been so much improved.

The captain came alone.  He walked in from the inn just before luncheon, with a wearied, sad look about him, as if he had suffered a good deal; he spoke quietly and slowly, and when the children came in, he took them up in his arms and kissed them very tenderly.  Lucilla submitted more placably than Honor expected, but the moment they were set down they sprang to their friend, and held by her dress.  Then came the meal, which passed off with small efforts at making talk, but with nothing memorable except the captain’s exclamation at the end—‘Well, that’s the first time I ever dined with you children without a fuss about the meat.  Why, Cilly, I hardly know you.’

‘I think the appetites are better for the sea air,’ said Honor, not that she did not think it a great achievement.

‘I’m afraid it has been a troublesome charge,’ said the captain, laying his hand on his niece’s shoulder, which she at once removed, as disavowing his right in her.

‘Oh! it has made me so happy,’ said Honor, hardly trusting her voice; ‘I don’t know how to yield it up.’

Those understanding eyes of Lucilla’s were drinking in each word, but Uncle Kit ruthlessly said—‘There, it’s your walking time, children; you go out now.’

Honora followed up his words with her orders, and Lucille obeyed, only casting another wistful look, as if she knew her fate hung in the scales.  It was showing tact such as could hardly have been expected from the little impetuous termagant, and was the best pleading for her cause, for her uncle’s first observation was—‘A wonder!  Six months back, there would have been an explosion!’

‘I am glad you think them improved.’

‘Civilized beings, not plagues.  You have been very good to them;’ and as she intimated her own pleasure in them, he continued—‘It will be better for them at Castle Blanch to have been a little broken in; the change from his indulgence would have been terrible.’

‘If it were possible to leave them with me, I should be so happy,’ at length gasped Honora, meeting an inquiring dart from the captain’s eyes, as he only made an interrogative sound as though to give himself time to think, and she proceeded it broken sentences—‘If their uncle and aunt did not so very much wish for them—perhaps—I could—’

‘Well,’ said Captain Charteris, apparently so little aided by his thoughts as to see no hope of overcoming his perplexity without expressing it, ‘the truth is that, though I had not meant to say anything of it, for I think relations should come first, I believe poor Sandbrook would have preferred it.’  And while her colour deepened, and she locked her trembling fingers together to keep them still, he went on.  ‘Yes! you can’t think how often I called myself a dozen fools for having parted him from his children!  Never held up his head again!  I could get him to take interest in nothing—every child he saw he was only comparing to one or other of them.  After the year turned, and he talked of coming home, he was more cheerful; but strangely enough, for those last days at Hyères, though he seemed better, his spirits sank unaccountably, and he would talk more of the poor little thing that he lost than of these!  Then he had a letter from you which set him sighing, and wishing they could always have such care!  Altogether, I thought to divert him by taking him on that expedition, but—  Well, I’ve been provoked with him many a time, but there was more of the real thing in him than in the rest of us, and I feel as if the best part of our family were gone.’

‘And this was all?  He was too ill to say much afterwards?’

‘Couldn’t speak when he rang in the morning!  Was gone by that time next day.  Now,’ added the captain, after a silence, ‘I tell you candidly that my feeling is that the ordinary course is right.  I think Charles ought to take the children, and the children ought to be with Charles.’

‘If you think so,’ began Honor, with failing hopes.

‘At the same time,’ continued he, ‘I don’t think they’ll be so happy or so well cared for as by you, and knowing poor Owen’s wishes, I should not feel justified in taking them away, since you are so good as to offer to keep them.’

Honor eagerly declared herself much obliged, then thought it sounded ironical.

‘Unless,’ he proceeded, ‘Charles should strongly feel it his duty to take them home, in which case—’

‘Oh, of course I could say nothing.’

‘Very well, then we’ll leave it to his decision.’

So it remained, and in trembling Honora awaited the answer.

It was in her favour that he was appointed to a ship, since he was thus excluded from exercising any supervision over them at Castle Blanch, and shortly after, letters arrived gratefully acceding to her request.  Family arrangements and an intended journey made her proposal doubly welcome, for the present at least, and Mrs. Charteris was full of polite thanks.

Poor little waifs and strays!  No one else wanted them, but with her at least they had a haven of refuge, and she loved them the more ardently for their forlorn condition.  Her own as they had never before been! and if the tenure were uncertain, she prized it doubly, even though, by a strange fatality, she had never had so much trouble and vexation with them as arose at once on their being made over to her!  When all was settled, doubt over, and the routine life begun, Lucilla evidently felt the blank of her vanished hopes, and became fretful and captious, weary of things in general, and without sufficient motive to control her natural taste for the variety of naughtiness!  Honor had not undertaken the easiest of tasks, but she neither shrank from her enterprise nor ceased to love the fiery little flighty sprite, the pleasing torment of her life—she loved her only less than that model of childish sweetness, her little Owen.

* * * * *

‘Lucy, dear child, don’t take your brother there.  Owen dear, come back, don’t you see the mud? you’ll sink in.’

‘I’m only getting a dear little crab, Sweet Honey,’ and the four little feet went deeper and deeper into the black mud.

‘I can’t have it done! come back, children, I desire, directly.’

The boy would have turned, but his sister had hold of his hand.  ‘Owen, there he is!  I’ll have him,’ and as the crab scuttled sidelong after the retreating tide, on plunged the children.

‘Lucy, come here!’ cried the unfortunate old hen, as her ducklings took to the black amphibious mass, but not a whit did Lucilla heed.  In the ardour of the chase, on she went, unheeding, leaving her brother sticking half way, where having once stopped, he began to find it difficult to withdraw his feet, and fairly screamed to ‘Sweet Honey’ for help.  His progress was not beyond what a few long vigorous steps of hers could come up with, but deeply and blackly did she sink, and when she had lifted her truant out of his two holes, the increased weight made her go ankle deep at the first tread, and just at the same moment a loud shriek proclaimed that Lucilla, in hey final assault on the crab, had fallen flat on a yielding surface, where each effort to rise sank her deeper, and Honora almost was expecting in her distress to see her disappear altogether, ere the treacherous mud would allow her to come to the rescue.  But in that instant of utmost need, ere she could set down the little boy, a gentleman, with long-legged strides, had crossed the intervening space, and was bearing back the young lady from her mud bath.  She raised her eyes to thank him.  ‘Humfrey!’ she exclaimed.

‘Honor! so it was you, was it?  I’d no notion of it!’ as he placed on her feet the little maiden, encrusted with mud from head to foot, while the rest of the party were all apparently cased in dark buskins of the same.

‘Come to see me and my children?’ she said.  ‘I am ashamed you should find us under such circumstances! though I don’t know what would have become of us otherwise.  No, Lucy, you are too disobedient for any one to take notice of you yet—you must go straight home, and be cleaned, and not speak to Mr. Charlecote till you are quite good.  Little Owen, here he is—he was quite led into it.  But how good of you to come, Humfrey: where are you?’

‘At the hotel—I had a mind to come and see how you were getting on, and I’d had rather more than usual to do of late, so I thought I would take a holiday.’

They walked on talking for some seconds, when presently as the squire’s hand hung down, a little soft one stole into it, and made him exclaim with a start, ‘I thought it was Ponto’s nose!’

But though very fond of children, he took up his hand, and did not make the slightest response to the sly overture of the small coquette, the effect as Honor well knew of opposition quite as much as of her strong turn for gentlemen.  She pouted a little, and then marched on with ‘don’t care’ determination, while Humfrey and Honora began to talk over Hiltonbury affairs, but were soon interrupted by Owen, who, accustomed to all her attention, did not understand her being occupied by any one else.  ‘Honey, Honeypots,’ and a pull at her hand when she did not immediately attend, ‘why don’t the little crabs get black legs like mine?’

‘Because they only go where they ought,’ was the extremely moral reply of the squire.  ‘Little boys aren’t meant to walk in black mud.’

‘The shrimp boys do go in the mud,’ shrewdly pleaded Owen, setting Honor off laughing at Humfrey’s discomfited look of diversion.

‘It won’t do to generalize,’ she said, merrily.  ‘Owen must be content to regard crabs and shrimp boys as privileged individuals.’

Owen demanded whether when he was big he might be a shrimp boy, and a good deal of fraternization had taken place between him and Mr. Charlecote before the cottage was reached.

It was a very happy day to Honora; there was a repose and trust to be felt in Humfrey’s company, such as she had not experienced since she had lost her parents, and the home sense of kindred was very precious.  Only women whose chief prop is gone, can tell the value of one who is still near enough to disapprove without ceremony.

The anxiety that Honor felt to prove to her cousin that it was not a bit of romantic folly to have assumed her present charge, was worth more than all the freedom of action in the world.  How much she wanted the children to show off to advantage! how desirous she was that he should not think her injudicious! yes, and how eager to see him pleased with their pretty looks!

Lucilla came down cleaned, curled, and pardoned, and certainly a heart must have been much less tender than Humfrey Charlecote’s not to be touched by the aspect of those two little fair waxen-looking beings in the deepest mourning of orphanhood.  He was not slow in making advances towards them, but the maiden had been affronted, and chose to be slyly shy and retiring, retreating to the other side of Miss Wells, and there becoming intent upon her story-book, though many a gleam through her eyelashes betrayed furtive glances at the stranger whom Owen was monopolizing.  And then she let herself be drawn out, with the drollest mixture of arch demureness and gracious caprice.  Honora had never before seen her with a gentleman, and to be courted was evidently as congenial an element to her as to a reigning beauty.  She was perfectly irresistible to manhood, and there was no doubt, ere the evening was over, that Humfrey thought her one of the prettiest little girls he had ever seen.

He remained a week at Sandbeach, lodging at the inn, but spending most of his time with Honor.  He owned that he had been unwell, and there certainly was a degree of lassitude about him, though Honor suspected that his real motive in coming was brotherly kindness and desire to see whether she were suffering much from the death of Owen Sandbrook.  Having come, he seemed not to know how to go away.  He was too fond of children to become weary of their petty exactions, and they both had a sort of passion for him; he built castles for them on the beach, presided over their rides, took them out boating, and made them fabulously happy.  Lucilla had not been so good for weeks, and the least symptom of an outbreak was at once put down by his good-natured ‘No, no!’  The evenings at the cottage with Honora and Miss Wells, music and bright talk, were evidently very refreshing to him, and he put off his departure from day to day, till an inexorable matter of county business forced him off.

Not till the day was imminent, did the cousins quit the easy surface of holiday leisure talk.  They had been together to the late evening service, and were walking home, when Honora began abruptly, ‘Humfrey, I wish you would not object to the children giving me pet names.’

‘I did not know that I had shown any objection.’

‘As if you did not impressively say Miss Charlecote on every occasion when you mention me to them.’

‘Well, and is not it more respectful?’

‘That’s not what I want.  Where the natural tie is wanting, one should do everything to make up for it.’

‘And you hope to do so by letting yourself be called Honey-pots!’

‘More likely than by sitting up distant and awful to be Miss Charlecoted!’

‘Whatever you might be called must become an endearment,’ said Humfrey, uttering unawares one of the highest compliments she had ever received, ‘and I own I do not like to hear those little chits make so free with your name.’

‘For my sake, or theirs?’

‘For both.  There is an old saying about familiarity, and I think you should recollect that, for the children’s own good, it is quite as needful to strengthen respect as affection.’

‘And you think I can do that by fortifying myself with Miss Charlecote?  Perhaps I had better make it Mrs. Honora Charlecote at once, and get a high cap, a rod, and a pair of spectacles, eh?  No! if they won’t respect me out of a buckram suit, depend upon it they would find out it was a hollow one.’

Humfrey smiled.  From her youth up, Honor could generally come off in apparent triumph from an argument with him, but the victory was not always where the triumph was.

‘Well, Humfrey,’ she said, after some pause, ‘do you think I am fit to be trusted with my two poor children?’

There was a huskiness in his tone as he said, ‘I am sincerely glad you have the pleasure and comfort of them.’

‘I suspect there’s a reservation there.  But really, Humfrey, I don’t think I went out searching for the responsibility in the way that makes it dangerous.  One uncle did not want them, and the other could not have them, and it would have been mere barbarity in me not to offer.  Besides, their father wished—’ and her voice faltered with tears.

‘No, indeed,’ said Humfrey, eagerly, ‘I did not in the least mean that it is not the kindest, most generous requital,’ and there he broke off, embarrassed by the sincere word that he had uttered, but before she had spoken an eager negative—to what she knew not—he went on.  ‘And of course I don’t mean that you are not one to manage them very well, and all that—only I hope there may not be pain in store—I should not like those people to use you for their nursery governess, and then take the children away just as you had set your heart upon them.  Don’t do that, Honor,’ he added, with an almost sad earnestness.

‘Do what?  Set my heart on them?  Do you think I can help loving the creatures?’ she said, with mournful playfulness, ‘or that my uncertain tenure does not make them the greater darlings?’

‘There are ways of loving without setting one’s heart,’ was the somewhat grave reply.

He seemed to be taking these words as equivalent to transgressing the command that requires all our heart, and she began quickly, ‘Oh! but I didn’t mean—’ then a sudden thrill crossed her whether there might not be some truth in the accusation.  Where had erst the image of Owen Sandbrook stood?  First or second?  Where was now the image of the boy?  She turned her words into ‘Do you think I am doing so—in a wrong way?’

‘Honor dear, I could not think of wrong where you are concerned,’ he said.  ‘I was only afraid of your kindness bringing you pain, if you rest your happiness very much upon those children.’

‘I see,’ said Honor, smiling, relieved.  ‘Thank you, Humfrey; but you see I can’t weigh out my affection in that fashion.  They will get it, the rogues!’

‘I’m not afraid, as far as the girl is concerned,’ said Humfrey.  ‘You are strict enough with her.’

‘But how am I to be strict when poor little Owen never does anything wrong?’

‘Yes, he is a particularly sweet child.’

‘And not at all wanting in manliness,’ cried Honor, eagerly.  ‘So full of spirit, and yet so gentle.  Oh! he is a child whom it is a privilege to train, and I don’t think I have spoilt him yet, do you?’

‘No, I don’t think you have.  He is very obedient in general.’

‘Oh! if he could be only brought up as I wish.  And I do think his innocence is too perfect a thing not to be guarded.  What a perfect clergyman he would make!  Just fancy him devoting himself to some parish like poor dear old St. Wulstan’s—carrying his bright sweetness into the midst of all that black Babel, and spreading light round him! he always says he will be a clergyman like his papa, and I am sure he must be marked out for it.  He likes to look at the sheep on the moors, and talk about the shepherd leading them, and I am sure the meaning goes very deep with him.’

She was not going quite the way to show Humfrey that her heart was not set on the boy, and she was checked by hearing him sigh.  Perhaps it was for the disappointment he foresaw, so she said, ‘Whether I bring him up or not, don’t you believe there will be a special care over such a child?’

‘There is a special care over every Christian child, I suppose,’ he said; ‘and I hope it may all turn out so as to make you happy.  Here is your door; good night, and good-bye.’

‘Why, are not you coming in?’

‘I think not; I have my things to put up; I must go early to-morrow.  Thank you for a very happy week.  Good-bye, Honor.’  There was a shade of disappointment about his tone that she could not quite account for.  Dear old Humfrey!  Could he be ageing?  Could he be unwell?  Did he feel himself lonely?  Could she have mortified him, or displeased him?  Honor was not a woman of personal vanity, or a solution would sooner have occurred to her.  She knew, upon reflection, that it must have been for her sake that Humfrey had continued single, but it was so inconvenient to think of him in the light of an admirer, when she so much needed him as a brother, that it had hardly ever occurred to her to do so; but at last it did strike her whether, having patiently waited so long, this might not have been a visit of experiment, and whether he might not be disappointed to find her wrapped up in new interests—slightly jealous, in fact, of little Owen.  How good he had been!  Where was the heart that could fail of being touched by so long a course of forbearance and consideration?  Besides Honor had been a solitary woman long enough to know what it was to stand alone.  And then how well he would stand in a father’s place towards the orphans.  He would never decree her parting with them, and Captain Charteris himself must trust him.  Yet what a shame it would be to give such a devoted heart nothing better than one worn out, with the power of love such as he deserved, exhausted for ever.  And yet—and yet—something very odd bounded up within her, and told her between shame and exultation, that faithful old Humfrey would not be discontented even with what she had to give.  Another time—a little, a very little encouragement, and the pine wood scene would come back again, and then—her heart fainted a little—there should be no concealment—but if she could only have been six months married all at once!

Time went on, and Honora more than once blushed at finding how strong a hold this possibility had taken of her heart, when once she had begun to think of resting upon one so kind, so good, so strong.  Every perplexity, every care, every transaction that made her feel her position as a single woman, brought round the yearning to lay them all down upon him, who would only be grateful to her for them.  Every time she wanted some one to consult, hope showed her his face beaming sweetly on her, and home seemed to be again opening to her, that home which might have been hers at any time these twelve years.  She quite longed to see how glad the dear, kind fellow would be.

Perhaps maidenly shame would have belied her feelings in his actual presence, perhaps she would not have shrunk from him, and been more cold than in her unconsciousness, but he came not; and his absence fanned the spark so tardily kindled.  What if she had delayed till too late?  He was a man whose duty it was to marry! he had waited till he was some years past forty—perhaps this had been his last attempt, and he was carrying his addresses elsewhere.

Well! Honora believed she had tried to act rightly, and that must be her comfort—and extremely ashamed of herself she was, to find herself applying such a word to her own sensations in such a case—and very much disliking the notion of any possible lady at Hiltonbury Holt.