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

‘Canadian farming!  Besides, what nonsense to offer a young man, with all the world before him, to be bailiff of this little place.’

‘It would, were he only to stand in Brooks’s position; but if he were the acknowledged heir, as he ought to be—yes, I know I am saying a dreadful thing—but, my good Queen Elizabeth, your Grace would be far wiser to accept Jamie at once than to keep your subjects fretting over your partialities.  He will be a worthy Humfrey Charlecote if you catch and pin him down young.  He will be worthy any way, but if you let him go levelling and roaming over the world for the best half of his life, this same Holt will lose its charms for him and his heirs for ever.’

‘But—but how can you tell that he would be caught and pinned?’

‘There is a very sufficient pin at the Underwood.’

‘My dear Owen, impossible!’

‘Mind, no one has told me in so many words, but Mervyn Fulmort gave me such an examination on Randolf as men used to do when matrimony is in the wind; and since that, he inferred the engagement, when he came to me in no end of a rage, because my backwoodsman had conscientious scruples against partaking in their concoction of evil spirits.’

‘Do you mean that Mervyn wants to employ him?’

‘To take him into partnership, on the consideration of a certain thirty thousand.  You may judge whence that was to come!  And he, like Robert, declined to live by murdering bodies and souls.  I am afraid Mervyn has been persecuting them ever since.’

‘Ever since when?’

‘This last conversation was some three weeks ago.  I suspect the principal parties settled it on that snowy Twelfth-day—’

‘But which of them, Owen?’

‘Which?’ exclaimed Owen, laughing.  ‘The goggle or the squint?’

‘For shame, Owen.  But I cannot believe that Phœbe would not have told me!’

‘Having a sister like Lady Bannerman may hinder confidences to friends.’

‘Now, Owen, are you sure?’

‘As sure as I was that it was a moonstruck man that slept in my room in Woolstone-lane.  I knew that Cynthia’s darts had been as effective as though he had been a son of Niobe!’

‘I don’t believe it yet,’ cried Honor; ‘an honourable man—a sensible girl!  Such a wild thing!’

‘Ah! Queen Elizabeth!  Queen Elizabeth! shut up an honourable man and a sensible girl in a cedar parlour every evening for ten days, and then talk of wild things!  Have you forgotten what it is to be under twenty-five?’

‘I hate Queen Elizabeth,’ said Honor, somewhat tartly.

He muttered something of an apology, and resumed his book.  She worked on in silence, then looking up said, rather as if rejoicing in a valid objection, ‘How am I to know that this man is first in the succession?  I am not suspecting him of imposition.  I believe that, as you say, his mother was a Charlecote, but how do I know that she had not half-a-dozen brothers.  There is no obligation on me to leave the place to any one, but this youth ought not to come before others.’

‘That is soon answered,’ said Owen.  ‘The runaway, your grandfather’s brother, led a wild, Leather-Stocking life, till he was getting on in years, then married, luckily not a squaw, and died at the end of the first year, leaving one daughter, who married Major Randolf, and had this only son.’

‘The same relation to me as Humfrey!  Impossible!  And pray how do you prove this?’

‘I got Currie to make notes for me which I can get at in my room,’ said Owen.  ‘You can set your lawyer to write to the places, and satisfy yourself without letting him know anything about it.’

‘Has he any expectations?’

‘I imagine not.  I think he has never found out that our relationship is not on the Charlecote side.’

‘Then it is the more—impertinent, I really must say, in him to pay his addresses to Phœbe, if he have done so.’

‘I can’t agree with you.  What was her father but an old distiller, who made his fortune and married an heiress.  You sophisticated old Honey, to expect him to be dazzled with her fortune, and look at her from a respectful distance!  I thought you believed that “a man’s a man for a’ that,” and would esteem the bold spirit of the man of progress.’

‘Progress, indeed!’ said Honor, ironically.

‘Listen, Honor,’ said Owen, ‘you had better accuse me of this fortune-hunting which offends you.  I have only obeyed Fate, and so will you.  From the moment I met him, he seemed as one I had known of old.  It was Charlecotism, of course; and his signature filled me with presentiment.  Nay, though the fire and the swamp have become mere hearsay to me now, I still retain the recollection of the impression throughout my illness that he was to be all that I might have been.  His straightforward good sense and manly innocence brought Phœbe before me, and Currie tells me that I had fits of hatred to him as my supplanter, necessary as his care was to me.’

Honor just stopped herself from exclaiming, ‘Never!’ and changed it into, ‘My own dear, generous boy!’

‘You forget that I thought it was all over with me!  The first sensations I distinctly remember were as I lay on my bed at Montreal, one Sunday evening, and saw him sitting in the window, his profile clearly cut against the light, and retracing all those old silhouettes over the mantelshelf.  Then I remembered that it had been no sick delusion, but truth and verity, that he was the missing Charlecote!  And feeling far more like death than life, I was glad that you should have some one to lean on of your own sort; for, Honor, it was his Bible that he was reading!—one that he had saved out of the fire.  I thought it was a lucid interval allowed me for the sake of giving you a better son and support than I had been, and looked forward to your being happy with him.  As soon as I could get Currie alone, I told him how it stood, and made him take notes of the evidence of his identity, and promise to make you understand it if I were dead or childish.  My best hope was to see him accepted as my expiation; but when I got back, and you wouldn’t have him at any price, and I found myself living and lifelike, and had seen her again—’

‘Her?  Phœbe?  My poor boy, you do not mean—’

‘I do mean that I was a greater fool than you even took me for,’ said Owen, with rising colour.  ‘First and last, that pure child’s face and honest, plain words had an effect on me which nothing else had.  The other affair was a mere fever by comparison, and half against my will.’

‘Owen!’

‘Yes, it was.  When I was with that poor thing, her fervour carried me along; and as to the marriage, it was out of shortsighted dread of the uproar that would have followed if I had not done it.  Either she would have drowned herself, or her mother would have prosecuted me for breach of promise, or she would have proclaimed all to Lucy or Mr. Prendergast.  I hadn’t courage for either; though, Honor, I had nearly told you the day I went to Ireland, when I felt myself done for.’

‘You were married then?’

‘Half-an-hour!’ said Owen, with something of a smile, and a deep sigh.  ‘If I had spoken, it would have saved a life! but I could not bear to lose my place with you, nor to see that sweet face turned from me.’

‘You must have known that it would come out in time, Owen.  I never could understand your concealment.’

‘I hardly can,’ said Owen, ‘except that one shuffles off unpleasant subjects!  I did fancy I could stave it off till Oxford was over, and I was free of the men there; but that notion might have been a mere excuse to myself for putting off the evil day.  I was too much in debt, too, for an open rupture with you; and as to her, I can truly say that my sole shadow of an excuse is that I was too young and selfish to understand what I was inflicting!’  He passed his hand over his face, and groaned, as he added—‘Well, that is over now; and at last I can bear to look at her child!’  Then recurring in haste to the former subject—‘You were asking about Phœbe!  Yes, when I saw the fresh face ennobled but as simple as ever, the dog in the manger seemed to me a reasonable beast!  Randolf’s admiration was a bitter pill.  If I were to be nailed here for ever, I could not well spare the moonbeams from my prison!  But that’s over now—it was a diseased fancy!  I have got my boy now, and can move about; and when I get into harness, and am in the way of seeing people, and maturing my invention, I shall never think of it again.’

‘Ah! I am afraid that is all I can wish for you!’

‘Don’t wish it so pitifully, then,’ said Owen, smiling.  ‘After having had no hope of her for five years, and being the poor object I am, this is no such great blow; and I am come to the mood of benevolence in which I really desire nothing so much as to see them happy.’

‘I will think about it,’ said Honor.

And though she was bewildered and disappointed, the interview had, on the whole, made her happier, by restoring the power of admiring as much as she loved.  Yet it was hard to be required to sacrifice the interests of one whom she adored, her darling, who might need help so much, to do justice to a comparative stranger; and the more noble and worthy Owen showed himself, the less willing was she to decide on committing herself to his unconscious rival.  Still, did the test of idolatry lie here?

She perceived how light-hearted this conversation had rendered Owen, as though he had thrown off a weight that had long been oppressing him.  He was overflowing with fun and drollery throughout the journey; and though still needing a good deal of assistance at all changes of carriage, showed positive boyish glee in every feat he could accomplish for himself; and instead of shyly shrinking from the observation and casual help of fellow-travellers, gave ready smiles and thanks.

Exhilarated instead of wearied by the journey, he was full of enjoyment of the lodgings, the window, and the view; a new spring of youthfulness seemed to have come back to him, and his animation and enterprise carried Honor along with him.  Assuredly she had never known more thorough present pleasure than in his mirthful, affectionate talk, and in the sight of his daily progress towards recovery; and a still greater happiness was in store for her.  On the second day, he begged to accompany her to the week-day service at the neighbouring church, previously sending in a request for the offering of the thanks of Owen Charteris Sandbrook for preservation in great danger, and recovery from severe illness.

‘Dearest,’ she said, ‘were I to recount my causes of thanksgiving, I should not soon have done!  This is best of all.’

‘Not fully best yet, is it?’ said Owen, looking up to her with eyes like those of his childhood.

‘No; but it soon will be.’

‘Not yet,’ said Owen; ‘I must think first; perhaps write or talk to Robert Fulmort.  I feel as if I could now.’

‘You long for it?’