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

‘We will sit close to you, my dear; only you cannot talk—you must rest.’

‘Yes.  My head is very bad—my eyes ache,’ he said, turning his head from the light, with closed eyes, and hand over them; but then he added—‘One thing first—where is he?’

‘Your little boy?’ said Lucilla.  ‘Do you wish to see him?  I will call him.’

‘No, no, I could not;’ and his brow contracted with pain.  ‘No! but did not I tell you all about him—your cousin, Honor?  Do pull the curtain round, the light hurts me!’

Convinced that his mind was astray, there was no attempt at answering him; and all were so entirely occupied with his comforts, that Phœbe saw and heard no one until Robert came down, telling her that Owen had, in fact, improved much on the voyage, but that the long day’s journey by train had brought on such severe and exhausting pain in the head, that he could scarcely speak or look up, and fatigue seemed to have confused the faculties that in the morning had been quite clear.  Robert was obliged to go to his seven o’clock service, and Phœbe would fain have come with him, but he thought she might be useful at home.

‘Miss Charlecote is so much absorbed in Owen,’ he said, ‘that I do not think she heard a word about that young Randolf.  Mr. Currie is gone to spend to-morrow and Sunday with his father at Birmingham, but he let me have this young man to help to bring Owen home.  Make Miss Charlecote understand that he is to sleep at my place.  I will come back for him, and he is not to be in her way.  He is such a nice fellow!  And, Phœbe, I have no time, but there is Mrs. Murrell with the child in the study.  Can you make her understand that Owen is far too ill to see them to-night?  Keep them off poor Lucy, that’s all.’

‘Lucy, that’s all!’ thought Phœbe, as she moved to obey.  ‘In spite of all he says, Lucy will always be his first thought next to St. Matthew’s; nor do I know why I should mind it, considering what a vast space there is between!’

‘Now my pa is come, shan’t I be a gentleman, and ride in a carriage?’ were the sounds that greeted Phœbe’s ears as she opened the door of the study, and beheld the small, lean child dressed in all his best; not one of the gray linen frocks that Lucilla was constantly making for him, but in a radiant tartan, of such huge pattern that his little tunic barely contained a sample of one of each portentous check, made up crosswise, so as to give a most comical, harlequin effect to his spare limbs and weird, black eyes.  The disappointment that Phœbe had to inflict was severe, and unwittingly she was the messenger whom Mrs. Murrell was likely to regard with the most suspicion and dislike.  ‘Come home along with me, Hoing, my dear,’ she said; ‘you’ll always find poor granny your friend, even if your pa’s ‘art is like the nether millstone, as it was to your poor ma, and as others may find it yet.’

‘I have no doubt Mr. Sandbrook will see him when he is a little recovered after his journey,’ said Phœbe.

‘No doubt, ma’am.  I don’t make a doubt, so long as there is no one to put between them.  I have ‘eard how the sight of an ‘opeful son was as balm to the eyes of his father; but if I could see Mr. Fulmort—’

‘My brother is gone to church.  It was he who sent me to you.’

Mrs. Murrell had real confidence in Robert, whose friendliness had long been proved, and it was less impossible to persuade her to leave the house when she learnt that it was by his wish; but Phœbe did not wonder at the dread with which an interview with her was universally regarded.

In returning from this mission, Phœbe encountered the stranger in the lamp-light of the hall, intently examining the balustrade of the stairs.

‘This is the drawing-room,’ she courteously said, seeing that he seemed not to know where to go.

‘Thank you,’ he said, following her.  ‘I was looking at the wood.  What is it?  We have none like it.’

‘It is Irish bog oak, and much admired.’

‘I suppose all English houses can scarcely be like this?’ said he, looking round at the carved wainscot.

‘Oh, no, this house is a curiosity.  Part was built before 1500.’

‘In the time of the Indians?’  Then smiling, ‘I had forgotten.  It is hard to realize that I am where I have so long wished to be.  Am I actually in a room 360 years old?’

‘No; this room is less ancient.  Here is the date, 1605, on the panel.’

‘Then this is such a house as Milton might have grown up in.  It looks on the Thames?’

‘How could you tell that?’

‘My father had a map of London that I knew by heart, and after we came under Temple Bar, I marked the bearings of the streets.  Before that I was not clear.  Perhaps there have been changes since 1830, the date of his map.’

Phœbe opened a map, and he eagerly traced his route, pronouncing the names of the historical localities with a relish that made her almost sorry for their present associations.  She liked his looks.  He seemed to be about two or three and twenty, tall and well-made, with somewhat of the bearing of his soldier-father, but broad-shouldered and athletic, as though his strength had been exercised in actual bodily labour.  His clear, light hazel eye was candid and well opened, with that peculiar prompt vigilance acquired by living in a wild country, both steady to observe and keen to keep watch.  The dark chestnut hair covered a rather square brow, very fair, though the rest of the face was browned by sun and weather; the nose was straight and sensible, the chin short and firm; the lips, though somewhat compressed when shut, had a look of good-humour and cheerful intelligence peculiarly pleasant to behold.  Altogether, it was a face that inspired trust.

Presently the entrance of the tea-things obliged the map to be cleared away; and Phœbe, while measuring out the tea, said that she supposed Miss Charlecote would soon come down.

‘Then are not you a Charlecote?’ he asked, with a tone of disappointment.

‘Oh, no!  I am Phœbe Fulmort.  There is no Charlecote left but herself.’

‘It was my mother’s name; and mine, Humfrey Charlecote Randolf.  Sandbrook thought there was some connection between the families.’

Phœbe absolutely started, hurt for a moment that a stranger should presume to claim a name of such associations; yet as she met the bright, honest eyes, feeling glad that it should still be a living name, worthily borne.  ‘It is an old family name at Hiltonbury, and one very much honoured,’ she said.

‘That is well,’ he said.  ‘It is good to have a name that calls one to live up to it!  And what is more strange, I am sure Miss Charlecote once had my mother’s hair.’

‘Beautiful ruddy gold?’

‘Yes, yes; like no one else.  I was wanting to do like poor Sandbrook.’  He looked up in her face, and stroked her hair as she was leaning over him, and said, ‘I don’t like to miss my own curls.’

‘Ah!’ said Phœbe, half indignantly, ‘he should know when those curls were hidden away and grew silvery.’

‘He told me those things in part,’ said the young man.  ‘He has felt the return very deeply, and I think it accounts for his being so much worse to-night—worse than I have seen him since we were at Montreal.’

‘Is he quite sensible?’

‘Perfectly.  I see the ladies do not think him so to-night; but he has been himself from the first, except that over-fatigue or extra weakness affect his memory for the time; and he cannot read or exert his mind—scarcely be read to.  And he is sadly depressed in spirits.’

‘And no wonder, poor man,’ said Phœbe.

‘But I cannot think it is as they told us at Montreal.’

‘What?’

‘That the brain would go on weakening, and he become more childish.  Now I am sure, as he has grown stronger, he has recovered intellect and intelligence.  No one could doubt it who heard him three days ago advising me what branch of mathematics to work up!’

‘We shall hear to-morrow what Dr. F– says.  Miss Charlecote wrote to him as soon as we had my brother’s telegram.  I hope you are right!’

‘For you see,’ continued the Canadian, eagerly, ‘injury from an external cause cannot be like original organic disease.  I hope and trust he may recover.  He is the best friend I ever had, except Mr. Henley, our clergyman at Lakeville.  You know how he saved all our lives; and he persuaded Mr. Currie to try me, and give me a chance of providing for my little brothers and their mother better than by our poor old farm.’

‘Where are they?’ asked Phœbe.

‘She is gone to her sister at Buffalo.  The price of the land will help them on for a little while there, and if I can get on in engineering, I shall be able to keep them in some comfort.  I began to think the poor boys were doomed to have no education at all.’

‘Did you always live at Lakeville?’

‘No; I grew up in a much more civilized part of the world.  We had a beautiful farm upon Lake Ontario, and raised the best crops in the neighbourhood.  It was not till we got entangled in the Land Company, five years ago, that we were sold up; and we have been sinking deeper ever since—till the old cow and I had the farm all to ourselves.’

‘How could you bear it?’ asked Phœbe.

‘Well! it was rather dreary to see one thing going after another.  But somehow, after I lost my own black mare, poor Minnehaha, I never cared so much for any of the other things.  Once for all, I got ashamed of my own childish selfishness.  And then, you see, the worse things were, the stronger the call for exertion.  That was the great help.’

‘Oh, yes, I can quite imagine that—I know it,’ said Phœbe, thinking how exertion had helped her through her winter of trial.  ‘You never were without some one to work for.’

‘No; even when my father was gone’—and his voice was less clear—‘there was the less time to feel the change, when the boys and their mother had nothing but me between them and want.’