Читать книгу Hopes and Fears or, scenes from the life of a spinster - Yonge Charlotte Mary - Страница 5

The summer sun peeped through the Venetian blinds greenly shading the breakfast-table.

Only three sides were occupied.  For more than two years past good Miss Wells had been lying under the shade of Hiltonbury Church, taking with her Honora Charlecote’s last semblance of the dependence and deference of her young ladyhood.  The kind governess had been fondly mourned, but she had not left her child to loneliness, for the brother and sister sat on either side, each with a particular pet—Lucilla’s, a large pointer, who kept his nose on her knee; Owen’s, a white fan-tailed pigeon, seldom long absent from his shoulder, where it sat quivering and bending backwards its graceful head.

Lucilla, now nearly fourteen, looked younger from the unusual smallness of her stature, and the exceeding delicacy of her features and complexion, and she would never have been imagined to be two years the senior of the handsome-faced, large-limbed young Saxon who had so far outstripped her in height; and yet there was something in those deep blue eyes, that on a second glance proclaimed a keen intelligence as much above her age as her appearance was below it.

‘What’s the matter?’ said she, rather suddenly.

‘Yes, sweetest Honey,’ added the boy, ‘you look bothered.  Is that rascal not paying his rent?’

‘No!’ she said, ‘it is a different matter entirely.  What do you think of an invitation to Castle Blanch?’

‘For us all?’ asked Owen.

‘Yes, all, to meet your Uncle Christopher, the last week in August.’

‘Why can’t he come here?’ asked Lucilla.

‘I believe we must go,’ said Honora.  ‘You ought to know both your uncles, and they should be consulted before Owen goes to school.’

‘I wonder if they will examine me,’ said Owen.  ‘How they will stare to find Sweet Honey’s teaching as good as all their preparatory schools.’

‘Conceited boy.’

‘I’m not conceited—only in my teacher.  Mr. Henderson said I should take as good a place as Robert Fulmort did at Winchester, after four years in that humbugging place at Elverslope.’

‘We can’t go!’ cried Lucilla.  ‘It’s the last week of Robin’s holidays!’

‘Well done, Lucy!’ and both Honor and Owen laughed heartily.

‘It is nothing to me,’ said she, tossing her head, ‘only I thought Cousin Honor thought it good for him.’

‘You may stay at home to do him good,’ laughed Owen; ‘I’m sure I don’t want him.  You are very welcome, such a bore as he is.’

‘Now, Owen.’

‘Honey dear, I do take my solemn affidavit that I have tried my utmost to be friends with him,’ said Owen; ‘but he is such a fellow—never has the least notion beyond Winchester routine—Latin and Greek, cricket and football.’

‘You’ll soon be a schoolboy yourself,’ said Lucilla.

‘Then I shan’t make such an ass of myself,’ returned Owen.

‘Robin is a very good boy, I believe,’ said Honor.

‘That’s the worst of him!’ cried Lucilla, running away and clapping the door after her as she went.

‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Owen, very seriously, ‘he says he does not care about the Saints’ days because he has no one to get him leave out.’

‘I remember,’ said Honor, with a sweet smile of tender memory, ‘when to me the merit of Saints’ days was that they were your father’s holidays.’

‘Yes, you’ll send me to Westminster, and be always coming to Woolstone-lane,’ said Owen.

‘Your uncles must decide,’ she said, half mournfully, half proudly; ‘you are getting to be a big boy—past me, Oney.’

It brought her a roughly playful caress, and he added, ‘You’ve got the best right, I’m sure.’

‘I had thought of Winchester,’ she said.  ‘Robert would be a friend.’

Owen made a face, and caused her to laugh, while scandalizing her by humming, ‘Not there, not there, my child.’

‘Well, be it where it may, you had better look over your Virgil, while I go down to my practical Georgics with Brooks.’

Owen obeyed.  He was like a spirited horse in a leash of silk.  Strong, fearless, and manly, he was still perfectly amenable to her, and had never shown any impatience of her rule.  She had taught him entirely herself, and both working together with a thorough good will, she had rendered him a better classical scholar, as all judges allowed, than most boys of the same age, and far superior to them in general cultivation; and she should be proud to convince Captain Charteris that she had not made him the mollycoddle that was obviously anticipated.  The other relatives, who had seen the children in their yearly visits to London, had always expressed unqualified satisfaction, though not advancing much in the good graces of Lucy and Owen.  But Honor thought the public school ought to be left to the selection of the two uncles, though she wished to be answerable for the expense, both there and at the university.  The provision inherited by her charges was very slender, for, contrary to all expectation, old Mr. Sandbrook’s property had descended in another quarter, and there was barely £5000 between the two.

To preserve this untouched by the expenses of education was Honora’s object, and she hoped to be able to smooth their path in life by occasional assistance, but on principle she was determined to make them independent of her, and she had always made it known that she regarded it as her duty to Humfrey that her Hiltonbury property should be destined—if not to the apocryphal American Charlecote—to a relation of their mutual great-grandmother.

Cold invitations had been given and declined, but this one was evidently in earnest, and the consideration of the captain decided Honora on accepting it, but not without much murmuring from Lucilla.  Caroline and Horatia were detestable grown-up young ladies, her aunt was horrid, Castle Blanch was the slowest place in the world; she should be shut up in some abominable school-room to do fancy-work, and never to get a bit of fun.  Even the being reminded of Wrapworth and its associations only made her more cross.  She was of a nature to fly from thought or feeling—she was keen to perceive, but hated reflection, and from the very violence of her feelings, she unconsciously abhorred any awakening of them, and steeled herself by levity.

Her distaste only gave way in Robert’s presence, when she appeared highly gratified by the change, certain that Castle Blanch would be charming, and her cousin the Life-guardsman especially so.  The more disconsolate she saw Robert, the higher rose her spirits, and his arrival to see the party off sent her away in open triumph, glorifying her whole cousinhood without a civil word to him; but when seated in the carriage she launched at him a drawing, the favourite work of her leisure hours, broke into unrestrained giggling at his grateful surprise, and ere the wood was past, was almost strangled with sobs.

Castle Blanch was just beyond the suburbs of London, in complete country, but with an immense neighbourhood, and not half-an-hour by train from town.  Honora drove all the way, to enjoy the lovely Thames scenery to the full.  They passed through Wrapworth, and as they did so, Lucilla chattered to the utmost, while Honora stole her hand over Owen’s and gently pressed it.  He returned the squeeze with interest, and looked up in her face with a loving smile—mother and home were not wanting to him!

About two miles further on, and not in the same parish, began the Castle Blanch demesne.  The park sloped down to the Thames, and was handsome, and quite full of timber, and the mansion, as the name imported, had been built in the height of pseudo-Gothic, with a formidable keep-looking tower at each corner, but the fortification below consisting of glass; the sham cloister, likewise glass windows, for drawing-room, music-room, and conservatory; and jutting out far in advance, a great embattled gateway, with a sham portcullis, and doors fit to defy an army.

Three men-servants met the guests in the hall, and Mrs. Charteris received them in the drawing-room, with the woman-of-the-world tact that Honora particularly hated; there was always such deference to Miss Charlecote, and such an assumption of affection for the children, and gratitude for her care of them, and Miss Charlecote had not been an heiress early enough in life for such attentions to seem matters of course.

It was explained that there was no school-room at present, and as a girl of Lucilla’s age, who was already a guest, joined the rest of the party at dinner, it was proposed that she and her brother should do the same, provided Miss Charlecote did not object.  Honor was really glad of the gratification for Lucilla, and Mrs. Charteris agreed with her before she had time to express her opinion as to girls being kept back or brought forward.

Honor found herself lodged in great state, in a world of looking-glass that had perfectly scared her poor little Hiltonbury maiden, and with a large dressing-room, where she hoped to have seen a bed for Lucilla, but she found that the little girl was quartered in another story, near the cousins; and unwilling to imply distrust, and hating to incite obsequious compliance, she did not ask for any change, but only begged to see the room.

It was in a long passage whence doors opened every way, and one being left ajar, sounds of laughter and talking were heard in tones as if the young ladies were above good breeding in their private moments.  Mrs. Charteris said something about her daughters’ morning-room, and was leading the way thither, when an unguarded voice exclaimed—‘Rouge dragon and all,’ and a start and suppressed laughter at the entrance of the newcomers gave an air of having been caught.

Four young ladies, in dégagé attitudes, were lounging round their afternoon refection of tea.  Two, Caroline and Horatia Charteris, shook hands with Miss Charlecote, and kissed Lucilla, who still looked at them ungraciously, followed Honora’s example in refusing their offer of tea, and only waiting to learn her own habitation, came down to her room to be dressed for dinner, and to criticize cousins, aunt, house and all.  The cousins were not striking—both were on a small scale, Caroline the best looking in features and complexion, but Horatia the most vivacious and demonstrative, and with an air of dash and fashion that was more effective than beauty.  Lucilla, not sensible to these advantages, broadly declared both young ladies to be frights, and commented so freely on them to the willing ears of Owen, who likewise came in to go down under Sweet Honey’s protection, as to call for a reproof from Honora, one of whose chief labours ever was to destroy the little lady’s faith in beauty, and complacency in her own.

The latter sensation was strong in Honor herself, as she walked into the room between her beautiful pair, and contrasted Lucilla with her contemporary, a formed and finished young lady, all plaits, ribbons, and bracelets—not half so pleasing an object as the little maid in her white frock, blue sash, and short wavy hair, though maybe there was something quaint in such simplicity, to eyes trained by fashion instead of by good taste.

Here was Captain Charteris, just what he had been when he went away.  How different from his stately, dull, wife-ridden elder brother.  So brisk, and blunt, and eager, quite lifting his niece off her feet, and almost crushing her in his embrace, telling her she was still but a hop-o’-my-thumb, and shaking hands with his nephew with a look of scrutiny that brought the blood to the boy’s cheek.

His eyes were never off the children while he was listening to Honora, and she perceived that what she said went for nothing; he would form his judgment solely by what he observed for himself.

At dinner, he was seated between Miss Charlecote and his niece, and Honora was pleased with him for his neglect of her and attention to his smaller neighbour, whose face soon sparkled with merriment, while his increasing animation proved that the saucy little woman was as usual enchanting him.  Much that was very entertaining was passing about tiger-hunting, when at dessert, as he stretched out his arm to reach some water for her, she exclaimed, ‘Why, Uncle Kit, you have brought away the marks! no use to deny it, the tigers did bite you.’

The palm of his hand certainly bore in purple, marks resembling those of a set of teeth; and he looked meaningly at Honora, as he quietly replied, ‘Something rather like a tigress.’

‘Then it was a bite, Uncle Kit?’

Yes,’ in a put-an-end-to-it tone, which silenced Lucilla, her tact being much more ready when concerned with the nobler sex.

In the drawing-room, Mrs. Charteris’s civilities kept Honora occupied, while she saw Owen bursting with some request, and when at length he succeeded in claiming her attention, it was to tell her of his cousin’s offer to take him out shooting, and his elder uncle’s proviso that it must be with her permission.  He had gone out with the careful gamekeeper at Hiltonbury, but this was a different matter, more trying to the nerves of those who stayed at home.  However, Honora suspected that the uncle’s opinion of her competence to be trusted with Owen would be much diminished by any betrayal of womanly terrors, and she made her only conditions that he should mind Uncle Kit, and not go in front of the guns, otherwise he would never be taken out again, a menace which she judiciously thought more telling than that he would be shot.

By and by Mr. Charteris came to discuss subjects so interesting to her as a farmer, that it was past nine o’clock before she looked round for her children.  Healthy as Lucilla was, her frame was so slight and unsubstantial, and her spirits so excitable, that over-fatigue or irregularity always told upon her strength and temper; for which reason Honor had issued a decree that she should go to bed at nine, and spend two hours of every morning in quiet employment, as a counterbalance to the excitement of the visit.

Looking about to give the summons, Honor found that Owen had disappeared.  Unnoticed, and wearied by the agricultural dialogue, he had hailed nine o’clock as the moment of release, and crept off with unobtrusive obedience, which Honor doubly prized when she beheld his sister full of eagerness, among cousins and gentlemen, at the racing game.  Strongly impelled to end it at once, Honor waited, however, till the little white horseman had reached the goal, and just as challenges to a fresh race were beginning, she came forward with her needful summons.

‘Oh, Miss Charlecote, how cruel!’ was the universal cry.

‘We can’t spare all the life of our game!’ said Charles Charteris.

‘I solemnly declare we weren’t betting,’ cried Horatia.  ‘Come, the first evening—’

‘No,’ said Honor, smiling.  ‘I can’t have her lying awake to be good for nothing to-morrow, as she will do if you entertain her too much.’

‘Another night, then, you promise,’ said Charles.

‘I promise nothing but to do my best to keep her fit to enjoy herself.  Come, Lucy.’

The habit of obedience was fixed, but not the habit of conquering annoyance, and Lucilla went off doggedly.  Honora would have accompanied her to soothe away her troubles, but her cousin Ratia ran after her, and Captain Charteris stood in the way, disposed to talk.  ‘Discipline,’ he said, approvingly.

‘Harsh discipline, I fear, it seemed to her, poor child,’ said Honor; ‘but she is so excitable that I must try to keep her as quiet as possible.’

‘Right,’ said the captain; ‘I like to see a child a child still.  You must have had some tussles with that little spirit.’

‘A few,’ she said, smiling.  ‘She is a very good girl now, but it has been rather a contrast with her brother.’

‘Ha!’ quoth the captain; and mindful of the milk-sop charge, Honora eagerly continued, ‘You will soon see what a spirit he has!  He rides very well, and is quite fearless.  I have always wished him to be with other boys, and there are some very nice ones near us—they think him a capital cricketer, and you should see him run and vault.’

‘He is an active-looking chap,’ his uncle granted.

‘Every one tells me he is quite able to make his way at school; I am only anxious to know which public school you and your brother would prefer.’

‘How old is he?’

‘Only twelve last month, though you would take him for fifteen.’

‘Twelve; then there would be just time to send him to Portsmouth, get him prepared for a naval cadetship, then, when I go out with Sir David Horfield, I could take him under my own eye, and make a man of him at once.’

‘Oh! Captain Charteris,’ cried Honora, aghast, ‘his whole bent is towards his father’s profession.’

The captain had very nearly whistled, unable to conceive any lad of spirit preferring study.

‘Whatever Miss Charlecote’s wishes may be, Kit,’ interposed the diplomatic elder brother, ‘we only desire to be guided by them.’

‘Oh no, indeed,’ cried Honor; ‘I would not think of such a responsibility, it can belong only to his nearer connections;’ then, feeling as if this were casting him off to be pressed by the sailor the next instant, she added, in haste—‘Only I hoped it was understood—if you will let me—the expenses of his education need not be considered.  And if he might be with me in the holidays,’ she proceeded imploringly.  ‘When Captain Charteris has seen more of him, I am sure he will think it a pity that his talents . . .’ and there she stopped, shocked at finding herself insulting the navy.

‘If a boy have no turn that way, it cannot be forced on him,’ said the captain, moodily.

Honora pitied his disappointment, wondering whether he ascribed it to her influence, and Mr. Charteris blandly expressed great obligation and more complete resignation of the boy than she desired; disclaimers ran into mere civilities, and she was thankful to the captain for saying, shortly, ‘We’ll leave it till we have seen more of the boy.’

Breakfast was very late at Castle Blanch; and Honora expected a tranquil hour in her dressing-room with her children, but Owen alone appeared, anxious for the shooting, but already wearying to be at home with his own pleasures, and indignant with everything, especially the absence of family prayers.

The breakfast was long and desultory, and in the midst Lucilla made her appearance with Horatia, who was laughing and saying, ‘I found this child wandering about the park, and the little pussycat won’t tell where she has been.’

‘Poaching, of course,’ responded Charles; ‘it is what pussycats always do till they get shot by the keepers.’

Et cætera, et cætera, et cætera.  Lucilla was among all the young people, in the full tide of fun, nonsense, banter, and repartee of a style new to her, but in which she was formed to excel, and there was such a black look when Honor summoned her after the meal, as impressed the awkwardness of enforcing authority among nearer relations; but it was in vain, she was carried off to the dressing-room, and reminded of the bargain for two hours’ occupation.  She murmured something about Owen going out as he liked.

‘He came to me before breakfast; besides, he is a boy.  What made you go out in that strange manner?’

There was no answer, but Honor had learnt by experience that to insist was apt to end in obtaining nothing but a collision of wills, and she merely put out the Prayer Books for the morning’s reading of the Psalms.  By the time it was over, Lucilla’s fit of temper had past, and she leant back in her chair.  ‘What are you listening to, Lucy?’ said Honor, seeing her fixed eye.

‘The river,’ said Lucilla, pausing with a satisfied look to attend to the deep regular rush.  ‘I couldn’t think before what it was that always seemed to be wanting, and now I know.  It came to me when I went to bed; it was so nice!’

‘The river voice!  Yes; it must be one of your oldest friends,’ said Honora, gratified at the softening.  ‘So that carried you out.’

‘I couldn’t help it!  I went home,’ said Lucilla.

‘Home?  To Wrapworth?  All alone?’ cried Honor, kindly, but aghast.

‘I couldn’t help it,’ again said the girl.  ‘The river noise was so like everything—and I knew the way—and I felt as if I must go before any one was up.’

‘So you really went.  And what did you do?’

‘I got over the palings our own old way, and there’s my throne still in the back of the laurels, and I popped in on old Madge, and oh! she was so surprised!  And then I came on Mr. Prendergast, and he walked all the way back with me, till he saw Ratia coming, and then he would not go on any farther.’

‘Well, my dear, I can’t blame you this time.  I am hoping myself to go to Wrapworth with you and Owen.’

‘Ratia is going to take me out riding and in the boat,’ said Lucy, without a direct answer.

‘You like your cousins better than you expected?’

‘Rashe is famous,’ was the answer, ‘and so is Uncle Kit.’

‘My dear, you noticed the mark on his hand,’ said Honora; ‘you do not know the cause?’

‘No!  Was it a shark or a mad dog?’ eagerly asked the child, slightly alarmed by her manner.

‘Neither.  But do not you remember his carrying you into Woolstone-lane?  I always believed you did not know what your little teeth were doing.’

It was not received as Honora expected.  Probably the scenes of the girl’s infancy had brought back associations more strongly than she was prepared for—she turned white, gasped, and vindictively said, ‘I’m glad of it.’

Honora, shocked, had not discovered a reply, when Lucilla, somewhat confused at the sound of her own words, said, ‘I know—not quite that—he meant the best—but, Cousin Honor, it was cruel, it was wicked, to part my father and me!  Father—oh, the river is going on still, but not my father!’

The excitable girl burst into a flood of passionate tears, as though the death of her father were more present to her than ever before; and she had never truly missed him till she was brought in contact with her old home.  The fatigue and change, the talking evening and restless night, had produced their effect; her very thoughtlessness and ordinary insouciance rendered the rush more overwhelming when it did come, and the weeping was almost hysterical.

It was not a propitious circumstance that Caroline knocked at the door with some message as to the afternoon’s arrangements.  Honor answered at haphazard, standing so as to intercept the view, but aware that the long-drawn sobs would be set down to the account of her own tyranny, and nevertheless resolving the more on enforcing the quiescence, the need of which was so evident; but the creature was volatile as well as sensitive, and by the time the door was shut, stood with heaving breast and undried tears, eagerly demanding whether her cousins wanted her.

‘Not at all,’ said Honora, somewhat annoyed at the sudden transition; ‘it was only to ask if I would ride.’

‘Charles was to bring the pony for me; I must go,’ cried Lucy, with an eye like that of a greyhound in the leash.

‘Not yet,’ said Honor.  ‘My dear, you promised.’

‘I’ll never promise anything again,’ was the pettish murmur.

Poor child, these two morning hours were to her a terrible penance, day after day.  Practically, she might have found them heavy had they been left to her own disposal, but it was expecting overmuch from human nature to hope that she would believe so without experience, and her lessons were a daily irritation, an apparent act of tyranny, hardening her feelings against the exactor, at the same time that the influence of kindred blood drew her closer to her own family, with a revulsion the stronger from her own former exaggerated dislike.

The nursery at Castle Blanch, and the cousins who domineered over her as a plaything, had been intolerable to the little important companion of a grown man, but it was far otherwise to emerge from the calm seclusion and sober restraints of the Holt into the gaieties of a large party, to be promoted to young ladyhood, and treated on equal terms, save for extra petting and attention.  Instead of Robert Fulmort alone, all the gentlemen in the house gave her flattering notice—eye, ear, and helping hand at her disposal, and blunt Uncle Kit himself was ten times more civil to her than to either of her cousins.  What was the use of trying to disguise from her the witchery of her piquant prettiness?

Her cousin Horatia had always had a great passion for her as a beautiful little toy, and her affection, once so trying to its object, had taken the far more agreeable form of promoting her pleasures and sympathizing with her vexations.  Patronage from two-and-twenty to fourteen, from a daughter of the house to a guest, was too natural to offend, and Lucilla requited it with vehement attachment, running after her at every moment, confiding all her grievances, and being made sensible of many more.  Ratia, always devising delights for her, took her on the river, rode with her, set her dancing, opened the world to her, and enjoyed her pleasures, amused by her precocious vivacity, fostering her sauciness, extolling the wit of her audacious speeches, and extremely resenting all poor Honora’s attempts to counteract this terrible spoiling, or to put a check upon undesirable diversions and absolute pertness.  Every conscientious interference on her part was regarded as duenna-like harshness, and her restrictions as a grievous yoke, and Lucilla made no secret that it was so, treating her to almost unvaried ill-humour and murmurs.

Little did Lucilla know, nor even Horatia, how much of the charms that produced so much effect were due to these very restraints, nor how the droll sauciness and womanly airs were enhanced by the simplicity of appearance, which embellished her far more than the most fashionable air set off her companions.  Once Lucilla had overheard her aunt thus excusing her short locks and simple dress—‘It is Miss Charlecote’s doing.  Of course, when so much depends on her, we must give way.  Excellent person, rather peculiar, but we are under great obligations to her.  Very good property.’

No wonder that sojourn at Castle Blanch was one of the most irksome periods of Honora’s life, disappointing, fretting, and tedious.  There was a grievous dearth of books and of reasonable conversation, and both she and Owen were exceedingly at a loss for occupation, and used to sit in the boat on the river, and heartily wish themselves at home.  He had no companion of his own age, and was just too young and too enterprising to be welcome to gentlemen bent more on amusing themselves than pleasing him.  He was roughly admonished when he spoilt sport or ran into danger; his cousin Charles was fitfully good-natured, but generally showed that he was in the way; his uncle Kit was more brief and stern with him than ‘Sweet Honey’s’ pupil could endure; and Honor was his only refuge.  His dreariness was only complete when the sedulous civilities of his aunt carried her beyond his reach.

She could not attain a visit to Wrapworth till the Sunday.  The carriage went in state to the parish church in the morning, and the music and preaching furnished subjects for persiflage at luncheon, to her great discomfort, and the horror of Owen; and she thought she might venture to Wrapworth in the afternoon.  She had a longing for Owen’s church, ‘for auld lang syne’—no more.  Even his bark church in the backwoods could not have rivalled Hiltonbury and the brass.

Owen, true to his allegiance, joined her in good time, but reported that his sister was gone on with Ratia.  Whereas Ratia would probably otherwise not have gone to church at all, Honor was deprived of all satisfaction in her annoyance, and the compensation of a tête-à-tête with Owen over his father’s memory was lost by the unwelcome addition of Captain Charteris.  The loss signified the less as Owen’s reminiscences were never allowed to languish for want of being dug up and revived, but she could not quite pardon the sailor for the commonplace air his presence cast over the walk.

The days were gone by when Mr. Sandbrook’s pulpit eloquence had rendered Wrapworth Church a Sunday show to Castle Blanch.  His successor was a cathedral dignitary, so constantly absent that the former curate, who had been continued on at Wrapworth, was, in the eyes of every one, the veritable master.  Poor Mr. Prendergast—whatever were his qualifications as a preacher—had always been regarded as a disappointment; people had felt themselves defrauded when the sermon fell to his share instead of that of Mr. Sandbrook, and odious comparison had so much established the opinion of his deficiencies, that Honora was not surprised to see a large-limbed and rather quaint-looking man appear in the desk, but the service was gone through with striking reverence, and the sermon was excellent, though homely and very plain-spoken.  The church had been cruelly mauled by churchwardens of the last century, and a few Gothic decorations, intended for the beginning of restoration, only made it the more incongruous.  The east window, of stained glass, of a quality left far behind by the advances of the last twenty years, bore an inscription showing that it was a memorial, and there was a really handsome font.  Honor could trace the late rector’s predilections in a manner that carried her back twenty years, and showed her, almost to her amusement, how her own notions and sympathies had been carried onwards with the current of the world around her.

On coming out, she found that there might have been more kindness in Captain Charteris than she had suspected, for he kept Horatia near him, and waited for the curate, so as to leave her at liberty and unobserved.  Her first object was that Owen should see his mother’s grave.  It was beside the parsonage path, a flat stone, fenced by a low iron border, enclosing likewise a small flower-bed, weedy, ruinous, and forlorn.  A floriated cross, filled up with green lichen, was engraven above the name.

Lucilla Horatia

beloved wife of the Reverend Owen Sandbrook

Rector of this parish

and only daughter

of Lieutenant-General Sir Christopher Charteris

She died November the 18th 1837

Aged 29 years

_____

Mary Caroline

her daughter

Born November 11th 1837

Died April 14th 1838

I shall go to them, but they shall not return to me

How like it was to poor Owen! that necessity of expression, and the visible presage of weakening health so surely fulfilled!  And his Lucilla!  It was a melancholy work to have brought home a missionary, and secularized a parish priest!  ‘Not a generous reflection,’ thought Honora, ‘at a rival’s grave,’ and she turned to the boy, who had stooped to pull at some of the bits of groundsel.

‘Shall we come here in the early morning, and set it to rights?’

‘I forgot it was Sunday,’ said Owen, hastily throwing down the weed he had plucked up.

‘You were doing no harm, my dear; but we will not leave it in this state.  Will you come with us, Lucy?’

Lucilla had escaped, and was standing aloof at the end of the path, and when her brother went towards her, she turned away.

‘Come, Lucy,’ he entreated, ‘come into the garden with us.  We want you to tell us the old places.’

‘I’m not coming,’ was all her answer, and she ran back to the party who stood by the church door, and began to chatter to Mr. Prendergast, over whom she had domineered even before she could speak plain.  A silent, shy man, wrapped up in his duties, he was mortally afraid of the Castle Blanch young ladies, and stood ill at ease, talked down by Miss Horatia Charteris, but his eye lighted into a smile as the fairy plaything of past years danced up to him, and began her merry chatter, asking after every one in the parish, and showing a perfect memory of names and faces such as amazed him, in a child so young as she had been at the time when she had left the parish.  Honora and Owen meantime were retracing recollections in the rectory garden, eking out the boy’s four years old memories with imaginations and moralizings, pondering over the border whence Owen declared he had gathered snowdrops for his mother’s coffin; and the noble plane tree by the water-side, sacred to the memory of Bible stories told by his father in the summer evenings—

‘That tree!’ laughed Lucilla, when he told her that night as they walked up-stairs to bed.  ‘Nobody could sit there because of the mosquitoes.  And I should like to see the snowdrops you found in November!’

‘I know there were some white flowers.  Were they lilies of the valley for little Mary?’

‘It will do just as well,’ said Lucilla.  She knew that she could bring either scene before her mind with vivid distinctness, but shrinking from the pain almost with horror, she only said, ‘It’s a pity you aren’t a Roman Catholic, Owen; you would soon find a hole in a rock, and say it was where a saint, with his head under his arm, had made a footmark.’

‘You are very irreverent, Lucy, and very cross besides.  If you would not come and tell us, what could we do?’

‘Let it alone.’

‘If you don’t care for dear papa and mamma, I do,’ said Owen, the tears coming into his eyes.

‘I’m not going to rake it up to please Honora,’ returned his sister.  ‘If you like to go and poke with her over places where things never happened, you may, but she shan’t meddle with my real things.’

‘You are very unkind,’ was the next accusation from Owen, much grieved and distressed, ‘when she is so good and dear, and was so fond of our dear father.’

‘I know,’ said Lucilla, in a tone he did not understand; then, with an air of eldership, ill assorting with their respective sizes, ‘You are a mere child.  It is all very well for you, and you are very welcome to your Sweet Honey.’

Owen insisted on hearing her meaning, and on her refusal to explain, used his superior strength to put her to sufficient torture to elicit an answer.  ‘Don’t, Owen!  Let go!  There, then!  Why, she was in love with our father, and nearly died of it when he married; and Rashe says of course she bullies me for being like my mother.’

‘She never bullies you,’ cried Owen, indignantly; ‘she’s much kinder to you than you deserve, and I hate Ratia for putting it into your head, and teaching you such nasty man’s words about my own Honor.’

‘Ah! you’ll never be a man while you are under her.  She only wants to keep us a couple of babies for ever—sending us to bed, and making such a figure of me;’ and Lucy relieved her feelings by five perpendicular leaps into the air, like an India-rubber ball, her hair flying out, and her eyes flashing.

Owen was not much astonished, for Lucy’s furies often worked off in this fashion; but he was very angry on Honor’s account, loving her thoroughly, and perceiving no offence in her affection for his father; and the conversation assumed a highly quarrelsome character.  It was much to the credit of masculine discretion that he refrained from reporting it when he joined Honora in the morning’s walk to Wrapworth churchyard.  Behold! some one was beforehand with them—even Lucilla and the curate!

The wearisome visit was drawing to a close when Captain Charteris began—‘Well, Miss Charlecote, have you thought over my proposal?’

‘To take Owen to sea?  Indeed, I hoped you were convinced that it would never answer.’

‘So far from being so, that I see it is his best chance.  He will do no good till the priggishness is knocked out of him.’

Honor would not trust herself to answer.  Any accusation but this might have been borne.

‘Well, well,’ said the captain, in a tone still more provoking, it was so like hushing a petulant child, ‘we know how kind you were, and that you meant everything good; but it is not in the nature of things that a lad alone with women should not be cock of the walk, and nothing cures that like a month on board.’

‘He will go to school,’ said Honor, convinced all this was prejudice.

‘Ay, and come home in the holidays, lording it as if he were master and more, like the son and heir.’

‘Indeed, Captain Charteris, you are quite mistaken; I have never allowed Owen to think himself in that position.  He knows perfectly well that there are nearer claims upon me, and that Hiltonbury can never belong to him.  I have always rejoiced that it should be so.  I should not like to have the least suspicion that there could be self-interest in his affection for me in the time to come; and I think it presumptuous to interfere with the course of Providence in the matter of inheritances.’

‘My good Miss Charlecote,’ said the captain, who had looked at her with somewhat of a pitying smile, instead of attending to her last words, ‘do you imagine that you know that boy?’

‘I do not know who else should,’ she answered, quivering between a disposition to tears at the harshness, and to laughter at the assumption of the stranger uncle to see farther than herself into her darling.

‘Ha!’ quoth the sailor, ‘slippery—slippery fellows.’

‘I do not understand you.  You do not mean to imply that I have not his perfect confidence, or do you think I have managed him wrongly?  If you do, pray tell me at once.  I dare say I have.’

‘I couldn’t say so,’ said Captain Charteris.  ‘You are an excellent good woman, Miss Charlecote, and the best friend the poor things have had in the world; and you have taught them more good than I could, I’m sure; but I never yet saw a woman who could be up to a boy, any more than she could sail a ship.’

‘Very likely not,’ said Honor, with a lame attempt at a good-humoured laugh; ‘but I should be very glad to know whether you are speaking from general experience of woman and boy, or from individual observation of the case in point.’

The captain made a very odd, incomprehensible little bow; and after a moment’s thought, said, ‘Plainly speaking, then, I don’t think you do get to the bottom of that lad; but there’s no telling, and I never had any turn for those smooth chaps.  If a fellow begins by being over-precise in what is of no consequence, ten to one but he ends by being reckless in all the rest.’

This last speech entirely reassured Honor, by proving to her that the captain was entirely actuated by prejudice against his nephew’s gentle and courteous manners and her own religious views.  He did not believe in the possibility of the success of such an education, and therefore was of course insensible to Owen’s manifold excellences.

Thenceforth she indignantly avoided the subject, and made no attempt to discover whether the captain’s eye, practised in midshipmen, had made any positive observations on which to found his dissatisfaction.  Wounded by his want of gratitude, and still more hurt by his unkind judgment of her beloved pupil, she transferred her consultations to the more deferential uncle, who was entirely contented with his nephew, transported with admiration of her management, and ready to make her a present of him with all his heart.  So readily did he accede to all that she said of schools, that the choice was virtually left to her.  Eton was rejected as a fitter preparation for the squirearchy than the ministry; Winchester on account of the distaste between Owen and young Fulmort; and her decision was fixed in favour of Westminster, partly for his father’s sake, partly on account of the proximity of St. Wulstan’s—such an infinite advantage, as Mr. Charteris observed.

The sailor declared that he knew nothing of schools, and would take no part in the discussion.  There had, in truth, been high words between the brothers, each accusing the other of going the way to ruin their nephew, ending by the captain’s’ exclaiming, ‘Well, I wash my hands of it!  I can’t flatter a foolish woman into spoiling poor Lucilla’s son.  If I am not to do what I think right by him, I shall get out of sight of it all.’

‘His prospects, Kit; how often I have told you it is our duty to consider his prospects.’

‘Hang his prospects!  A handsome heiress under forty!  How can you be such an ass, Charles?  He ought to be able to make an independent fortune before he could stand in her shoes, if he were ever to do so, which she declares he never will.  Yes, you may look knowing if you will, but she is no such fool in some things; and depend upon it she will make a principle of leaving her property in the right channel; and be that as it may, I warn you that you can’t do this lad a worse mischief than by putting any such notion into his head, if it be not there already.  There’s not a more deplorable condition in the world than to be always dangling after an estate, never knowing if it is to be your own or not, and most likely to be disappointed at last; and, to do Miss Charlecote justice, she is perfectly aware of that; and it will not be her fault if he have any false expectations!  So, if you feed him with them, it will all be your fault; and that’s the last I mean to say about him.’

Captain Charteris was not aware of a colloquy in which Owen had a share.

‘This lucky fellow,’ said the young Life-guardsman, ‘he is as good as an eldest son—famous shooting county—capital, well-timbered estate.’

‘No, Charles,’ said Owen, ‘my cousin Honor always says I am nothing like an eldest son, for there are nearer relations.’

‘Oh ha!’ said Charles, with a wink of superior wisdom, ‘we understand that.  She knows how to keep you on your good behaviour.  Why, but for cutting you out, I would even make up to her myself—fine-looking, comely woman, and well-preserved—and only the women quarrel with that splendid hair.  Never mind, my boy, I don’t mean it.  I wouldn’t stand in your light.’

‘As if Honor would have you!’ cried Owen, in fierce scorn.  Charles Charteris and his companions, with loud laughter, insisted on the reasons.

‘Because,’ cried the boy, with flashing looks, ‘she would not be ridiculous; and you are—’  He paused, but they held him fast, and insisted on hearing what Charles was.

‘Not a good Churchman,’ he finally pronounced.  ‘Yes, you may laugh at me, but Honor shan’t be laughed at.’

Possibly Owen’s views at present were that ‘not to be a good Churchman’ was synonymous with all imaginable evil, and that he had put it in a delicate manner.  Whether he heard the last of it for the rest of his visit may be imagined.  And, poor boy, though he was strong and spirited enough with his own contemporaries, there was no dealing with the full-fledged soldier.  Nor, when conversation turned to what ‘we’ did at Hiltonbury, was it possible always to disclaim standing in the same relation to the Holt as did Charles to Castle Blanch; nay, a certain importance seemed to attach to such an assumption of dignity, of which Owen was not loth to avail himself in his disregarded condition.