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

‘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.’