Читать книгу Hopes and Fears or, scenes from the life of a spinster - Yonge Charlotte Mary - Страница 4

‘This is a stroke of good luck!’ said Mr. Charteris.  ‘We must not, on any account, remove the Sandbrook children from Miss Charlecote; she has no relations, and will certainly make the boy her heir.’

‘She will marry!’ said his wife.  ‘Some fashionable preacher will swallow her red hair.  She is just at the age for it!’

‘Less likely when she has the children to occupy her.’

‘Well, you’ll have them thrown on your hands yet!’

‘The chance is worth trying for, though!  I would not interfere with her on any account.’

‘Oh, no, nor I! but I pity the children.’

* * * * *

‘There, Master Owen, be a good boy, and don’t worry.  Don’t you see, I’m putting up your things to go home.’

‘Home!’ the light glittered in Lucilla’s eyes.  ‘Is it Wrapworth, nursey?’

‘Dear me, miss, not Wrapworth.  That’s given away, you know; but it’s to Hiltonbury you are going—such a grand place, which if Master Owen is only a dear good boy, will all belong to him one of these days.’

‘Will there be a pony to ride on?’ asked Owen.

‘Oh, yes—if you’ll only let those stockings alone—there’ll be ponies, and carriages, and horses, and everything a gentleman can have, and all for my own dear little Master Owen!’

‘I don’t want to go to Hiltonbury,’ said Lucilla; ‘I want to go home to the river and the boat, and see Mr. Prendergast and the black cow.’

‘I’ll give you a black cow, Cilly,’ said Owen, strutting about.  ‘Is Hiltonbury bigger than the castle?’

‘Oh, ever so big, Master Owen; such acres of wood, Mr. Jones says, and all your dear cousin’s, and sure to be your own in time.  What a great gentleman you will be, to be sure, dining thirty gentlefolks twice a week, as they say poor Mr. Charlecote did, and driving four fine horses to your carriage like a gentleman.  And then you won’t forget poor old nursey-pursey.’

‘Oh, no, nurse; I’ll give you a ride in my carriage!’

Honora in her listless state had let Mr. Saville think for her, and passively obeyed him when he sent her back to Sandbeach to wind up her affairs there, while he finished off the valuations and other painful business at the Holt, in which she could be of little use, since all she desired was to keep everything as it was.  She was anxious to return as soon as possible, so as to take up the reins before there had been time for the relaxation to be felt, the only chance she felt of her being able to fulfil his charge.  The removal, the bustle, the talking things over with Miss Wells, and the sight of the children did much to restore her, and her old friend rejoiced to see that necessary occupation was tending to make her time pass more cheerfully than she perhaps knew.

As to the dear old City dwelling, it might have fetched an immense price, but only to become a warehouse, a measure that would have seemed to Honor little short of sacrilege.  To let it, in such a locality, was impossible, so it must remain unavailable capital, and Honora decided on leaving her old housekeeper therein, with a respectable married niece, who would inhabit the lower regions, and keep the other rooms in order, for an occasional stay in London.  She would have been sorry to cut herself off from a month of London in the spring, and the house might farther be useful to friends who did not object to the situation; or could be lent now and then to a curate; and she could well afford to keep it up, so she thought herself justified in following her inclination, and went up for three mournful days of settling matters there, and packing books and ornaments till the rooms looked so dismantled that she could not think how to face them again.

It was the beginning of October when she met Miss Wells, children, and luggage at the station, and fairly was on her way to her home.  She tried to call it so, as a duty to Humfrey, but it gave her a pang every time, and in effect she felt far less at home than when he and Sarah had stood in the doorway to greet the arrivals.  She had purposely fixed an hour when it would be dark, so that she might receive no painful welcome; she wished no one to greet her, she had rather they were mourning for their master.  She had more than once shocked Miss Wells by declaring heiresses to be a mistake; and yet, as she always owned, she could not have borne for any one else to have had the Holt.

Fortunately for her, the children were sleepy, and were rather in a mazy state when lifted out and set on their legs in the wainscoted hall, and she sent them at once with nurse to the cheerful room that Humfrey’s little visitors had saved from becoming disused.  Miss Wells’s fond vigilance was a little oppressive, but she gently freed herself from it, and opened the study door.  She had begged that as little change as possible might be made; and there stood, as she had last seen them, the large leathern chair, the little table, the big Bible, and in it the little faded marker she had herself constructed for his twenty-first birthday, when her powers of making presents had not equalled her will.  Yet what costly gift could have fulfilled its mission like that one?  She opened the heavy book at the place.  It was at the first lesson for the last day of his life, the end of the prophet Hosea, and the first words her eyes fell upon were the glorious prophecy—‘I will redeem them from death, I will ransom them from the power of the grave.’  Her heart beat high, and she stood half musing, half reading: ‘They that dwell under His shadow shall return; they shall revive as the corn, and grow as the vine.’  How gentle and refreshing the cadence!  A longing rose up in her to apply those latter words more closely, by placing them on his tablet; she did not think they would shock his humility, a consideration which had withheld her from choosing other passages of which she always thought in connection with him.  Another verse, and she read: ‘Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols?’

It brought back the postscript.  Kind Humfrey must have seen strong cause before he gave any reproof, least of all to her, and she could take his word that the fault had been there.  She felt certain of it when she thought of her early devotion to Owen Sandbrook, and the utter blank caused by his defection.  Nay, she believed she had begun to idolize Humfrey himself, but now, at her age, chastened, desponding, with nothing before her save the lonely life of an heiress old maid, counting no tie of blood with any being, what had she to engross her affections from the true Object?  Alas! Honora’s heart was not feeling that Object sufficient!  Conscientious, earnest, truly loving goodness, and all connected with it; striving as a faithful, dutiful woman to walk rightly, still the personal love and trust were not yet come.  Spent as they had been upon props of earth, when these were taken away the tendrils hung down drearily, unemployed, not fastening on the true support.

Not that she did not kneel beside that little table, as in a shrine, and entreat earnestly for strength and judgment to do her duty faithfully in her new station, so that Humfrey’s charge might be fulfilled, and his people might not suffer; and this done, and her homage paid to his empty throne, she was better able to satisfy her motherly friend by her deportment for the remainder of the evening, and to reply to the welcome of the weeping Mrs. Stubbs.  By one of Humfrey’s wise acts of foresight, his faithful servant, Reeves, had been provided for as the master of the Union, whither it was certain he would carry the same milk of human kindness as had been so plentiful at Hiltonbury, and the Holt was thus left free for Honora’s Mr. Jones, without fear of clashing, though he was divided between pride in his young lady’s ownership of a ‘landed estate,’ and his own dislike to a country residence.

Honora did not sleep soundly.  The place was too new, and yet too familiar, and the rattling of the windows, the roaring of the wind in the chimney, and the creaking of the vane, without absolutely wakening her, kept her hearing alive continually, weaving the noises into some harassing dream that Humfrey’s voice was calling to her, and hindrances always keeping her from him; and then of Lucilla and Owen in some imminent peril, whence she shrieked to him to save them, and then remembered he would stretch out his hand no more.

Sounder sleep came at last, towards morning, and far later than her usual hour she was wakened by a drumming upon her door, and the boy and girl dashed in, radiant with excitement at the novelty of the place.  ‘Sweet Honey!  Sweet Honey dear, do get up and see.  There’s a rocking-horse at the end of the passage.’  ‘And there’s a real pony out in the field.’  ‘There are cows.’  ‘There’s a goat and a little kid, and I want to play with it, and I may, for it is all mine and yours.’

‘All yours!  Owen, boy,’ repeated Honora, sitting up in surprise.

‘Nursey said it was all to be Owen’s,’ said Lucilla.

‘And she said I should be as grand a gentleman as poor Mr. Charlecote or Uncle Charteris,’ proceeded Owen, ‘and that I should go out hunting in a red coat, on a beautiful horse; but I want to have the kid now, please, Sweet Honey.’

‘Nurse does not know anything about it,’ said Honora, much annoyed that such an idea should have been suggested in such a manner.  ‘I thought my little Owen wished for better things—I thought he was to be like his papa, and try to be a good shepherd, praising God and helping people to do right.’

‘But can’t I wear a red coat too?’ said Owen, wistfully.

‘No, my dear; clergymen don’t go out hunting; or how could they teach the poor little children?’

‘Then I won’t be a clergyman.’

This was an inconvenient and most undesirable turn; but Honor’s first object must be to put the right of heirship out of the little head, and she at once began—‘Nurse must have made a mistake, my dear; this place is your home, and will be always so, I hope, while it is mine, but it must not be your own, and you must not think it will.  My little boy must work for himself and other people, and that’s better than having houses and lands given to him.’

Those words touched the pride in Lucilla’s composition, and she exclaimed—‘I’ll work too;’ but the self-consequence of proprietorship had affected her brother more strongly, and he repeated, meditatively, ‘Jones said, not mine while she was alive.  Jones was cross.’

There might not be much in the words, child as he was, but there was something in his manner of eyeing her which gave her acute unbearable pain—a look as if she stood in his way and crossed his importance.  It was but a baby fit of temper, but she was in no frame to regard it calmly, and with an alteration of countenance that went to his heart, she exclaimed—‘Can that be my little Owen, talking as if he wanted his Cousin Honor dead and out of the way?  We had better never have come here if you are to leave off loving me.’

Quick to be infected by emotion, the child’s arms were at once round her neck, and he was sobbing out that he loved his Sweet Honey better than anything; nurse was naughty; Jones was naughty; he wouldn’t hunt, he wouldn’t wear a red coat, he would teach little children just like lambs, he would be like dear papa; anything the poor little fellow could think of he poured out with kisses and entreaties to know if he were naughty still; while his sister, after her usual fashion on such occasions, began to race up and down the room with paroxysms, sometimes of stamping, sometimes of something like laughter.

Some minutes passed before Honora could compose herself, or soothe the boy, by her assurances that he was not to blame, only those who put things in his head that he could not understand; and it was not till after much tender fondling that she had calmed him enough for his morning devotions.  No sooner were these over than he looked up and said, while the tears still glazed his cheeks, ‘Sweet Honey, I’ll tell nurse and Mr. Jones that I’m on pilgrimage to the Eastern land, and I’ll not turn into by-ways after red coats and little kids to vex you.’

Whether Owen quite separated fact from allegory might have been doubtful to a more prosaic mind than Honora’s, but he had brought this dreamy strain with him from his father, and she thought it one of his great charms.  She had been obliged to leave him to himself much more than usual of late, and she fervently resolved to devote herself with double energy to watching over him, and eradicating any weeds that might have been sown during her temporary inattention.  He clung so fast to her hand, and was so much delighted to have her with him again, so often repeating that she must not go away again, that the genuineness of his affection could not be doubted, and probably he would only retain an impression of having been led to say something very shocking, and the alarm to his sensitive conscience would hinder him from ever even trying to remember what it was.

She spoke, however, to nurse, telling her that the subject must never be mentioned to the children, since it was by no means desirable for them, and besides, she had no intention of the kind.  She wished it to be distinctly understood that Master Owen was not to be looked upon as her heir.

‘Very true, ma’am, it is too soon to be talking of such things yet, and I must say, I was as sorry as possible to find that the child had had it named to him.  People will talk, you see, Miss Charlecote, though I am sure so young a lady as you are . . . ’

‘That has nothing to do with it,’ said Honora; ‘I consider nothing so bad for a child as to be brought up to expectations to which he has no right, when he is sure to have to provide for himself.  I beg that if you hear the subject entered on again, in the children’s presence, you will put a stop to it.’

‘Certainly, ma’am; their poor dear papa never would have wished them to be occupied with earthly things of that sort.  As I often said, there never was such an unworldly gentleman; he never would have known if there were a sixpence in the house, nor a joint in the larder, if there had not been cook and me to care for him.  I often said to cook—“Well for him that he has honest people about him.”’

Honora likewise spoke to Jones, her private retainer.  He smiled scorn of the accusation, and answered her as the child he had known in frocks.  ‘Yes, ma’am, I did tell the young gentleman to hold his tongue, for it never would be his in your lifetime, nor after, in my judgment.’

‘Why, certainly, it does seem early days to speak of such a matter,’ said Honora, sadly.

‘It is unaccountable what people will not put in children’s heads,’ said Jones, sagely; ‘not but what he is a nice quiet young gentleman, and gives very little trouble, but they might let that alone.  Miss Honora, when will it be convenient to you to take my account of the plate?’

She felt pretty well convinced that Jones had only resented the whole on her account, and that it was not he who had put the notion into the boy’s head.  As to nurse, she was far from equally clear.  Doubts of nurse’s sincerity had long been growing upon her, and she was in the uncomfortable position of being able to bear neither to think of the children’s intercourse with any one tainted with falsehood, nor to dismiss a person implicitly trusted by their father.  She could only decide that the first detected act of untruth should be the turning-point.

Meantime, painful as was many an association, Honor did not find her position so dreary or so oppressive as she had anticipated.  She had a great deal to do, and the tracks had been duly made out for her by her cousin.  Mr. Saville, or Humfrey’s old friend, Sir John Raymond, were always ready to help her in great matters, and Brooks was an excellent dictatorial deputy in small ones.  Her real love for country life, for live animals, and, above all, the power of doing good, all found scope.  Humfrey’s charge gave her a sense of a fulfilled duty; and mournful and broken-spirited as she believed herself, if Humfrey could have looked at her as she scrupulously made entries in his book, rode out with the children to try to look knowing at the crops, or sat by the fire in the evening with his dogs at her feet, telling stories to the children, he would not have feared too much for his Honor.  Living or dead, the love of Humfrey could hardly help being a spring of peace and happiness; and the consciousness of it had been too brief, and the tie never close enough, to lead to a state of crushed spirits.  The many little tender observances that she paid to him were a source of mournful sweetness rather than of heart-rending.

It was a quietly but fully occupied life, with a certain severity towards her own comforts, and liberality towards those of other people, which had always been a part of her character, ever since Owen Sandbrook had read sermons with her on self-denial.  If Miss Wells had a fire in her bedroom forced upon her, Miss Charlecote had none, and hurried down in the bleak winter morning in shawl and gloves to Humfrey’s great Bible, and then to his account books and her business letters.  She was fresh with cold when she met the children for their early reading.  And then—but it was not soon that she learnt to bear that, though she had gone through the like before, she had to read the household devotions, where every petition seemed to be lacking the manly tone to give it fulness and force.

Breakfast followed, the silver kettle making it home-like, the children chattering, Miss Wells smiling, letters coming in to perplex or to clear up perplexities, amuse or cheer.  The children were then turned out for an hour’s hoop-driving on the gravel drive, horse-chestnut picking, or whatever might not be mischief, while Honora was conferring with Jones or with Brooks, and receiving her orders for the day.  Next followed letter-writing, then lessons in general, a real enjoyment, unless Lucilla happened to have picked up a fit of perverseness—some reading to them, or rationalizing of play—the early dinner—the subsequent expedition with them, either walking or riding—for Brooks had soon found ponies for them, and they were gallant little riders.  Honor would not give up the old pony, long since trained for her by Humfrey, though, maybe, that was her most undutiful proceeding towards him, as he would certainly have told her that the creature was shaky on the legs.  So at last it tumbled down with her, but without any damage, save a hole in her skirt, and a dreadful crying fit of little Owen, who was frightened out of his wits.  She owned that it must be degraded to light cart work, and mounted an animal which Hiltonbury agreed to be more worthy of her.  Coming in, the children played; she either did her business or found leisure for reading; then came tea-time, then the reading of a story book to the children, and when they were disposed of, of something mildly moral and instructive to suit Miss Wells’s taste.

The neighbourhood all mourned Mr. Charlecote as a personal loss, and could hardly help regarding any successor as their enemy.  Miss Charlecote had been just enough known in her girlish days not to make her popular in a commonplace neighbourhood; the ladies had criticised her hair and her genius, and the gentlemen had been puzzled by her searching questions into their county antiquities, and obliged to own themselves unaware of a Roman milestone propping their bailiff’s pigstye, or of the spur of a champion of one of the Roses being hung over their family pew.  But when Mr. Henderson and the Raymonds reported pleasantly of her, and when once or twice she had been seen cantering down the lanes, or shopping in Elverslope, and had exchanged a bow with a familiar face, the gentlemen took to declaring that the heiress was an uncommonly fine woman after all, and the ladies became possessed with the perception that it was high time to call upon Miss Charlecote—what could she be doing with those two children?

So there were calls, which Honor duly returned, and then came invitations, but to Miss Wells’s great annoyance, Honor decided against these.  It was not self-denial, but she thought it suitable.  She did not love the round of county gaieties, and in her position she did not think them a duty.  Retirement seemed to befit the widowhood, which she felt so entirely that when Miss Wells once drove her into disclaiming all possibility of marrying, she called it ‘marrying again.’  When Miss Wells urged the inexpedience of absolute seclusion, she said she would continue to make morning calls, and she hoped in time to have friends of her own to stay with her; she might ask the Raymonds, or some of the quiet, clerical families (the real élite, be it observed) to spend a day or drink tea, but the dinner and ball life was too utterly incongruous for an elderly heiress.  When it came to the elderly heiress poor Miss Wells was always shut up in utter despair—she who thought her bright-locked darling only grew handsomer each day of her pride of womanhood.

The brass which Honora had chosen for her cousin’s memorial was slow in being executed, and summer days had come in before it was sent to Hiltonbury.  She walked down, a good deal agitated, to ascertain whether it were being rightly managed, but, to her great annoyance, found that the church having been left open, so many idle people were standing about that she could not bear to mingle with them.  Had it been only the Holt vassalage, either their feeling would have been one with her own, or they would have made way for her, but there were some pert nursery maids gaping about with the children from Beauchamp, whence the heads of the family had been absent all the winter and spring, leaving various nurses and governesses in charge.  Honora could not encounter their eyes, and went to the vicarage to send Mr. Henderson, and finding him absent, walked over sundry fields in a vain search for Brooks.  Rain came on so violently as to wet her considerably, and to her exceeding mortification, she was obliged to relinquish her superintendence, either in person or by deputy.

However, when she awoke early and saw the sun laughing through the shining drops, she decided on going down ere the curious world was astir, to see what had been done.  It was not far from six, when she let herself out at the porch, and very like a morning with Humfrey, with the tremulous glistening of every spray, and the steamy fragrance rising wherever the sun touched the grass, that seemed almost to grow visibly.  The woods were ringing with the song of birds, circle beyond circle, and there was something in the exuberant merriment of those blackbirds and thrushes that would not let her be sad, though they had been Humfrey’s special glory.  The thought of such pleasures did not seem out of keeping.  The lane was overhung with bushes; the banks, a whole wealth of ferns, climbing plants, tall grasses, and nettles, had not yet felt the sun and were dank and dreary, so she hurried on, and arriving at the clerk’s door, knocked and opened.  He was gone to his work, and sounds above showed the wife to be engaged on the toilette of the younger branches.  She called out that she had come for the keys of the church, and seeing them on the dresser, abstracted them, bidding the good woman give herself no trouble.

She paused under the porch, and ere fitting the heavy key to the lock, felt that strange pressure and emotion of the heart that even if it be sorrow is also an exquisite sensation.  If it were mournful that the one last office she could render to Humfrey was over, it was precious to her to be the only one who had a right to pay it, the one whom he had loved best upon earth, round whom she liked to believe that he still might be often hovering—whom he might welcome by and by.  Here was the place for communion with him, the spot which had, indeed, been to him none other than the gate of Heaven.

Yet, will it be believed?  Not one look did Honora cast at Humfrey Charlecote’s monument that morning.

With both hands she turned the reluctant bolts of the lock, and pushed open the nail-studded door.  She slowly advanced along the uneven floor of the aisle, and had just reached the chancel arch, when something suddenly stirred, making her start violently.  It was still, and after a pause she again advanced, but her heart gave a sudden throb, and a strange chill of awe rushed over her as she beheld a little white face over the altar rail, the chin resting on a pair of folded hands, the dark eyes fixed in a strange, dreamy, spiritual expression of awe.

The shock was but for a moment, the next the blood rallied to her heart, and she told herself that Humfrey would say, that either the state of her spirits had produced an illusion, or else that some child had been left here by accident.  She advanced, but as she did so the two hands were stretched out and locked together as in an agony, and the childish, feeble voice cried out, ‘Oh! if you’re an angel, please don’t frighten me; I’ll be very good.’

Honora was in a pale, soft, gray dress, that caught the light in a rosy glow from the east window, and her golden hair was hanging in radiant masses beneath her straw bonnet, but she could not appreciate the angelic impression she made on the child, who had been tried so long by such a captivity.  ‘My poor child,’ she said, ‘I am no angel; I am only Miss Charlecote.  I’m afraid you have been shut up here;’ and, coming nearer, she perceived that it was a boy of about seven years old, well dressed, though his garments were disordered.  He stood up as she came near, but he was trembling all over, and as she drew him into her bosom, and put her arms round him, she found him quivering with icy cold.

‘Poor little fellow,’ she said, rocking him, as she sat on the step and folded her shawl round him, ‘have you been here all night?  How cold you are; I must take you home, my dear.  What is your name?’

‘I’m Robert Mervyn Fulmort,’ said the little boy, clinging to her.  ‘We came in to see Mr. Charlecote’s monument put up, and I suppose they forgot me.  I waked up, and everybody was gone, and the door was locked.  Oh! please,’ he gasped, ‘take me out.  I don’t want to cry.’

She thought it best to take him at once into the cheerful sunlight, but it did not yet yield the warmth that he needed; and all her soothing words could not check the nervous tremor, though he held her so tight that it seemed as if he would never let her go.

‘You shall come home with me, my dear little boy; you shall have some breakfast, and then I will take you safe home to Beauchamp.’

‘Oh, if you please!’ said the boy, gratefully.

Exercise was thawing his numbed limbs, and his eyes brightened.

‘Whom were you with?’ she asked.  ‘Who could have forgotten you?’

‘I came with Lieschen and nurse and the babies.  The others went out with Mademoiselle.’

‘And you went to sleep?’

‘Yes; I liked to see the mason go chip, chip, and I wanted to see them fit the thing in.  I got into that great pew, to see better; and I made myself a nest, but at last they were all gone.’

‘And what did you do, then?  Were you afraid?’

‘I didn’t know what to do.  I ran all about to see if I could look out at a window, but I couldn’t.’

‘Did you try to call?’

‘Wouldn’t it have been naughty?’ said the boy; and then with an impulse of honest truthfulness, ‘I did try once; but do you know, there was another voice came back again, and I thought that die Geistern wachten sich auf.’

‘The what?’

‘Die Geistern das Lieschen sagt in die Gewolben wohnen,’ said little Robert, evidently quite unconscious whether he spoke German or English.

‘So you could not call for the echo.  Well, did you not think of the bells?’

‘Yes; but, oh! the door was shut; and then, I’ll tell you—but don’t tell Mervyn—I did cry.’

‘Indeed, I don’t wonder.  It must have been very lonely.’

‘I didn’t like it,’ said Robert, shivering; and getting to his German again, he described ‘das Gewitter’ beating on the panes, with wind and whirling leaves, and the unearthly noises of the creaking vane.  The terror of the lonely, supperless child was dreadful to think of; and she begged to know what he could have done as it grew dark.

‘I got to Mr. Charlecote,’ said Robert—an answer that thrilled her all over.  ‘I said I’d be always very good, if he would take care of me, and not let them frighten me.  And so I did go to sleep.’

‘I’m sure Mr. Charlecote would, my dear little man,’ began Honora, then checked by remembering what he would have said.  ‘But didn’t you think of One more sure to take care of you than Mr. Charlecote?’

‘Lieschen talks of der Lieber Gott,’ said the little boy.  ‘We said our prayers in the nursery, but Mervyn says only babies do.’

‘Mervyn is terribly wrong, then,’ said Honora, shuddering.  ‘Oh! Robert, Mr. Charlecote never got up nor went to bed without asking the good God to take care of him, and make him good.’

‘Was that why he was so good?’ asked Robert.

‘Indeed it was,’ said she, fervently; ‘nobody can be good without it.  I hope my little friend will never miss his prayers again, for they are the only way to be manly and afraid of nothing but doing wrong, as he was.’

‘I won’t miss them,’ said Robert, eagerly; then, with a sudden, puzzled look—‘Did he send you?’

‘Who?’

‘Mr. Charlecote.’

‘Why—how should . . . ?  What made you think so?’

‘I—why, once in the night I woke up; and oh! it was so dark, and there were such noises, such rattlings and roarings; and then it came all white—white light—all the window-bars and all so plain upon the wall; and then came—bending, bending over—a great gray darkness—oh! so horrible!—and went away, and came back.’

‘The shadow of the trees, swaying in the moonlight.’

‘Was it?  I thought it was the Nebel Wittwen neckten mir, and then the Erlkonung-tochter.  Wissen sie—and oh! I did scream once; and then, somehow, it grew quietly darker; and I thought Mr. Charlecote had me folded up so warm on his horse’s back, and that we rode ever so far; and they stretched out their long white arms, and could not get me; but somehow he set me down on a cold stone, and said, “Wait here, Robin, and I’ll send her to lead you.”  And then came a creaking, and there were you.’

‘Well, little Robin, he did not quite send me; but it was to see his tablet that I came down this morning; so he brought me after all.  He was my very dear Cousin Humfrey, and I like you for having been his little friend.  Will you be mine, too, and let me help you, if I can? and if your papa and mamma give leave, come and see me, and play with the little girl and boy who live with me?’

‘Oh, yes!’ cried Robert; ‘I like you.’

The alliance was sealed with a hearty kiss.

‘But,’ said Robert, ‘you must ask Mademoiselle; papa and mamma are away!’

‘And how was it no one ever missed you?’

Robert was far less surprised at this than she was; for, like all children, to be left behind appeared to him a contingency rather probable than otherwise.

He was a fine-looking boy, with dark gray, thoughtful eyes, and a pleasant countenance; but his nerves had been so much shaken that he started, and seemed ready to catch hold of her at every sound.

‘What’s that?’ he cried, as a trampling came along the alley as they entered the garden.

‘Only my two little cousins,’ said Honora, smiling.  ‘I hope you will be good friends, though perhaps Owen is too young a playfellow.  Here, Lucy, Owen—here is a little friend for you—Robert Fulmort.’

The children came eagerly up, and Lucilla, taking her hand, raised her face to kiss the stranger; but Robert did not approve of the proceeding, and held up his head.  Lucilla rose on tiptoe; Robin did the same.  As he had the advantage of a whole year’s height, he fully succeeded in keeping out of her reach; and very comical was the effect.  She gave it up at last, and contented herself with asking, ‘And where do you come from?’

‘Out of the church,’ was Robin’s reply.

‘Then you are very good and holy, indeed,’ said Owen, looking at him earnestly, with clasped hands.

‘No!’ said Robert, gruffly.

‘Poor little man! he was left behind, and shut up in the church all night, without any supper,’ said Honora.

‘Shut up in the church like Goody Two-shoes!’ cried Lucilla dancing about.  ‘Oh, what fun!’

‘Did the angels come and sing to you?’ asked Owen.

‘Don’t ask such stupid questions,’ cried his sister.  ‘Oh, I know what I’d have done!  Didn’t you get up into the pulpit?’

‘No!’

‘And I do so want to know if the lady and gentleman on the monument have their ruffs the same on the inside, towards the wall, as outside; and, oh! I do so want to get all the dust out of the folds of the lady’s ruff: I wish they’d lock me into the church, and I’d soon get out when I was tired.’

Lucilla and Owen decidedly thought Robin had not profited by his opportunities, but he figured better in an examination on his brothers and sisters.  There were seven, of whom he was the fourth—Augusta, Juliana, and Mervyn being his elders; Phœbe, Maria, and Bertha, his juniors.  The three seniors were under the rule of Mademoiselle, the little ones under that of nurse and Lieschen, and Robert stood on neutral ground, doing lessons with Mademoiselle, whom, he said, in unpicked language which astounded little Owen, ‘he morally hated,’ and at the same time free of the nursery, where, it appeared, that ‘Phœbe was the jolliest little fellow in the world,’ and Lieschen was the only ‘good-natured body going,’ and knew no end of Mährchen.  The boy spoke a very odd mixture of Lieschen’s German and of English, pervaded by stable slang, and was altogether a curious study of the effects of absentee parents; nevertheless Honora and Lucilla both took a considerable fancy to him, the latter patronizing him to such a degree that she hardly allowed him to eat the much-needed breakfast, which recalled colour to his cheek and substance to his voice.

After much thought, Owen delivered himself of the sentiment that ‘people’s papas and mammas were very funny,’ doubtless philosophizing on the inconsistency of the class in being, some so willing, some so reluctant, to leave their children behind them.  Honor fully agreed with him, but did not think the discussion profitable for Robin, whom she now proposed to take home in the pony-carriage.  Lucilla, always eager for novelty, and ardent for her new friendship, begged to accompany her.  Owen was afraid of the strangers, and preferred Miss Wells.

Even as they set out, they found that Robert’s disappearance had created some sensation, for the clerk’s wife was hurrying up to ask if Miss Charlecote had the keys, that she might satisfy the man from Beauchamp that Master Fulmort was not in the church.  At the lodge the woman threw up her hands with joy at the sight of the child; and some way off, on the sward, stood a bigger boy, who, with a loud hurrah, scoured away towards the house as the carriage appeared.

‘That’s Mervyn,’ said Robert; ‘he is gone to tell them.’

Beauchamp was many degrees grander since Honor had last visited it.  The approach was entirely new.  Two fresh wings had been added, and the front was all over scaffolds and cement, in all stages of colour, from rich brown to permanent white.  Robert explained that nothing was so nice as to watch the workmen, and showed Lucilla a plasterer on the topmost stage of the scaffolding, who, he said, was the nicest man he knew, and could sing all manner of songs.

Rather nervously Honora drove under the poles to the hall-door, where two girls were seen in the rear of a Frenchwoman; and Honor felt as if Robin might have grounds for his ‘moral hatred’ when her voluble transports of gratitude and affection broke forth, and the desolation in which the loss had left them was described.  Robert edged back from her at once, and flew to another party at the bottom of the stairs—a very stout nurse and an uncapped, flaxen-haired mädchen, who clasped him in her arms, and cried, and sobbed over him.  As soon as he could release himself, he caught hold of a fat little bundle, which had been coaxing one of his legs all through Lieschen’s embrace, and dragging it forwards, cried, ‘Here she is—here’s Phœbe!’  Phœbe, however, was shy, and cried and fought her way back to hide her face in Lieschen’s apron; and meantime a very odd scene took place.  School-room and nursery were evidently at most direful war.  Each wanted to justify itself lest the lady should write to the parents; each tried to be too grand to seem to care, and threw all the blame on the other.  On the whole, Honor gathered that Mademoiselle believed the boy enfantin enough to be in the nursery, the nurses that he was in the school-room, and he had not been really missed till bed-time, when each party recriminated instead of seeking him, and neither would allow itself to be responsible for him.  Lieschen, who alone had her suspicions where he might be, abstained from naming them in sheer terror of Kobolden, Geistern, corpse-candles, and what not, and had lain conjuring up his miseries till morning.  Honora did not much care how they settled it amongst them, but tried to make friends with the young people, who seemed to take their brother’s restoration rather coolly, and to be chiefly occupied by staring at Lucilla.  Augusta and Juliana were self-possessed, and rather maniérées, acquitting themselves evidently to the satisfaction of the French governess, and Honor, perceiving her to be a necessary infliction, invited her and her pupils, especially Robin, to spend a day in the next week at the Holt.

The proposal was graciously accepted, and Lucilla spent the intervening time in a tumult of excitement.

Nor was the day entirely unsuccessful; Mademoiselle behaved herself with French tact, and Miss Wells took her off Honora’s hands a good deal, leaving them free for the children.  Lucilla, always aspiring, began a grand whispering friendship with the two girls, and set her little cap strongly at Mervyn, but that young gentleman was contemptuous and bored when he found no entertainment in Miss Charlecote’s stud, and was only to be kept placable by the bagatelle-board and the strawberry-bed.  Robert followed his lead more than was satisfactory, but with visible predilections for the Holt ladies, old and young.  Honor talked to him about little Phœbe, and he lighted up and began to detail her accomplishments, and to be very communicative about his home vexations and pleasures, and finally, when the children were wishing good night, he bluntly said, ‘It would be better fun to bring Lieschen and Phœbe.’

Honor thought so too, and proposed giving the invitation.

‘Don’t,’ said Robert, ‘she’d be cross; I’ll bring them.’

And so he did.  Two days after, the broad German face and the flaxen head appeared, leading that fat ball, Phœbe, and Robin frisking in triumph beside her.  Henceforth a great friendship arose between the children.  Phœbe soon lost all dread of those who petted her, and favoured them with broad smiles and an incomprehensible patois.  Owen made very much of her, and pursued and imitated Robert with the devotion of a small boy to a larger one.  Lucilla devoted herself to him for want of better game, and moreover he plainly told her that she was the prettiest little girl he ever saw, and laid all manner of remarkable treasures at her feet.  Miss Charlecote believed that he made some curious confidences to her, for once Owen said, ‘I want to know why Robin hasn’t a Sweet Honey to make him good?’

‘Robin has a papa and mamma, and a governess.’

‘Robin was telling Lucy he wanted some one to teach him to be good, and she said she would, but I think she is not old enough.’

‘Any one who is good is teaching others, my Owen,’ said Honor.  ‘We will ask in our prayers that poor little Robin may be helped.’

When Mr. and Mrs. Fulmort came home, there was an interchange of calls, many thanks for her kindness to the children, and sanction of future intercourse.  Mr. Fulmort was a great distiller, who had married a county heiress, and endeavoured to take his place among the country squires, whom he far exceeded in display; and his wife, a meek, sickly person, lived a life of slavery to the supposed exigencies of fashion.  She had always had, in her maiden days, a species of awe of the Charlecotes’ London cousin, and was now disposed to be rather gratified by her notice of her children.  Mervyn had been disposed of at a tutor’s, and Robert was adrift for many hours of the day.  As soon as he had discovered the possibility of getting to the Holt alone, he was frequently there, following Honora about in her gardening and farming, as much at home as the little Sandbrooks, sharing in their sports, and often listening to the little books that she read aloud to them.  He was very far from being such an angelic little mortal as Owen, with whom indeed his sympathies were few.  Once some words were caught from him by both children, which startled Honor exceedingly, and obliged her to tell him that if ever she found him to have repeated the like, she should forbid his coming near them.  He looked excessively sullen, and did not come for a week, during which Lucilla was intolerably naughty, and was twice severely punished for using the identical expressions in defiance.

Then he came again, and behaved as if nothing had happened, but the offence never recurred.  Some time after, when he boasted of having come away with a lesson unlearnt, in flat disobedience to Mademoiselle, Honor sent him straight home, though Lucilla stamped and danced at her in a frenzy.  Another time Owen rushed up to her in great agony at some torture that Robin was inflicting upon a live mouse.  Upon this, Honor, full of the spirit of indignation, fairly struck the offender sharply on the fingers with her riding-whip.  He scowled at her, but it was only for a moment.  She held him tightly by the hand, while she sent the gardener to put his victim out of its misery, and then she talked to him, not sentimentally, her feelings were too strongly stirred, but with all her horror of cruelty.  He muttered that Mervyn and the grooms always did it; but he did not hold out long—Lucilla was holding aloof, too much horrified to come near—and finally he burst into tears, and owned that he had never thought!

Every now and then, such outbreaks made Honor wonder why she let him come, perhaps to tempt her children; but she remembered that he and Humfrey had been fond of one another, and she felt drawn towards him, though in all prudence she resolved to lessen the attractions of the Holt by being very strict with all, and rather ungracious to him.  Yet, strange to say, the more regulations she made, and the more she flashed out at his faults, the more constant was her visitor, the Robin who seemed to thrive upon the veriest crumbs of good-nature.

Positively, Honora was sometimes amazed to find what a dragon she could be upon occasion.  Since she had been brought into subordination at six or eight years old, she had never had occasion to find out that she had a spirit of her own, till she found herself astonishing Jones and Brooks for taking the liberty of having a deadly feud; making Brooks understand that cows were not to be sold, nor promises made to tenants, without reference to her; or showing a determined marauder that Humfrey’s wood was not to be preyed upon any more than in his own time.  They were very feminine explosions to be sure, but they had their effect, and Miss Charlecote’s was a real government.

The uproar with nurse came at last, through a chance discovery that she had taken Owen to a certain forbidden house of gossip, where he had been bribed to secrecy with bread and treacle.

Honora wrote to Mrs. Charteris for permission to dismiss the mischievous woman, and obtained full consent, and the most complete expression of confidence and gratitude.  So there ensued a month, when every visit to the nursery seemed to be spent in tears.  Nurse was really very fond of the children, and cried over them incessantly, only consoling herself by auguring a brilliant future for them, when Master Owen should reign over Hiltonbury, like the gentleman he was.

‘But, nurse, Cousin Honor says I never shall—I’m to be a clergyman, like papa.  She says . . . ‘

Nurse winked knowingly at the housemaid.  ‘Yes, yes, my darling, no one likes to hear who is to come after them.  Don’t you say nothing about it; ain’t becoming; but, by and by, see if it don’t come so, and if my boy ain’t master here.’

‘I wish I was, and then nursey would never go.’

However, nurse did go, and after some tears Owen was consoled by promotion to the habits of an older boy.

Lucilla was very angry, and revenged herself by every variety of opposition in her power, all which were put down by the strong hand.  It was a matter of necessity to keep a tight grasp on this little wilful sprite, the most fiery morsel of engaging caprice and naughtiness that a quiet spinster could well have lit upon.  It really sometimes seemed to Honora as if there were scarcely a fault in the range of possibilities that she had not committed; and indeed a bit of good advice generally seemed to act by contraries, and served to suggest mischief.  Softness and warmth of feeling seemed to have been lost with her father; she did not show any particular affection towards her brother or Honora.  Perhaps she liked Miss Wells, but that might be only opposition; nay, Honor would have been almost thankful if she had melted at the departure of the undesirable nurse, but she appeared only hard and cross.  If she liked any one it was Robert Fulmort, but that was too much in the way of flirtation.

Vanity was an extremely traceable spring of action.  When nurse went, Miss Lucilla gave the household no peace, because no one could rightly curl the long flaxen tresses upon her shoulders, until the worry became so intolerable that Honora, partly as penance, partly because she thought the present mode neither conducive to tidiness nor comfort, took her scissors and trimmed all the ringlets behind, bowl-dish fashion, as her own carrots had figured all the days of her childhood.

Lucilla was held by Mrs. Stubbs during the operation.  She did not cry or scream after she felt herself conquered by main strength, but her blue eyes gleamed with a strange, wild light; she would not speak to Miss Charlecote all the rest of the day, and Honora doubted whether she were ever forgiven.

Another offence was the cutting down her name into Lucy.  Honor had avoided Cilly from the first; Silly Sandbrook would be too dreadful a sobriquet to be allowed to attach to any one, but Lucilla resented the change more deeply than she showed.  Lucy was a housemaid’s name, she said, and Honor reproved her for vanity, and called her so all the more.  She did not love Miss Charlecote well enough to say that Cilly had been her father’s name for her, and that he had loved to wind the flaxen curls round his fingers.

Every new study, every new injunction cost a warfare, disobedience, and passionate defiance and resistance on the one hand, and steady, good-tempered firmness on the other, gradually growing a little stern.  The waves became weary of beating on the rock at last.  The fiery child was growing into a girl, and the calm will had the mastery of her; she succumbed insensibly; and owing all her pleasures to Cousin Honor, she grew to depend upon her, and mind, manners, and opinions were taking their mould from her.