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

‘He is very full of spirit,’ she said.  ‘You must let me tell you a story of him.  They have a young new schoolmistress at Wrapworth, his father’s former living, you know, close to Castle Blanch.  This poor thing was obliged to punish a school-child, the daughter of one of the bargemen on the Thames, a huge ruffianly man.  Well, a day or two after, Owen came upon him in a narrow lane, bullying the poor girl almost out of her life, threatening her, and daring her to lay a finger on his children.  What do you think Owen did?’

‘Fought him, I suppose,’ said Mr. Parsons, judging by the peculiar delight ladies take in such exploits.  ‘Besides, he has sufficiently the air of a hero to make it incumbent on him to “kill some giant.”’

‘We may be content with something short of his killing the giant,’ said Honor, ‘but he really did gain the victory.  That lad, under nineteen, positively beat this great monster of a man, and made him ask the girl’s pardon, knocked him down, and thoroughly mastered him!  I should have known nothing of it, though, if Owen had not got a black eye, which made him unpresentable for the Castle Blanch gaieties, so he came down to the Holt to me, knowing I should not mind wounds gained in a good cause.’

They wished her good night in her triumph.

The receipt of a letter was rare and supreme felicity to Maria; therefore to indite one was Phœbe’s first task on the morrow; after which she took up her book, and was deeply engaged, when the door flew back, and the voice of Owen Sandbrook exclaimed, ‘Goddess of the silver bow! what, alone?’

‘Miss Charlecote is with her lawyer, and Robert at the office.’

‘The parson and parsoness parsonically gone to study parsonages, schools, and dilapidations, I suppose.  What a bore it is having them here; I’d have taken up my quarters here, otherwise, but I can’t stand parish politics.’

‘I like them very much,’ said Phœbe, ‘and Miss Charlecote seems to be happy with them.’

‘Just her cut, dear old thing; the same honest, illogical, practical sincerity,’ said Owen, in a tone of somewhat superior melancholy; but seeing Phœbe about to resent his words as a disrespectful imputation on their friend, he turned the subject, addressing Phœbe in the manner between teasing and flattering, habitual to a big schoolboy towards a younger child, phases of existence which each had not so long outgrown as to have left off the mutual habits thereto belonging.  ‘And what is bright Cynthia doing?  Writing verses, I declare!—worthy sister of Phoebus Apollo.’

‘Only notes,’ said Phœbe, relinquishing her paper, in testimony.

‘When found make a note of—Summoned by writ—temp. Ed. III.—burgesses—knights of shire.  It reads like an act of parliament.  Hallam’s English Constitution.  My eyes!  By way of lighter study.  It is quite appalling.  Pray what may be the occupation of your more serious moments?’

‘You see the worst I have with me.’

‘Holiday recreation, to which you can just condescend.  I say, Phœbe, I have a great curiosity to understand the Zend.  I wish you would explain it to me.’

‘If I ever read it,’ began Phœbe, laughing.

‘What, you pretend to deny?  You won’t put me off that way.  A lady who can only unbend so far as to the English Constitution by way of recreation, must—’

‘But it is not by way of recreation.’

‘Come, I know my respected cousin too well to imagine she would have imposed such a task.  That won’t do, Phœbe.’

‘I never said she had, but Miss Fennimore desired me.’

‘I shall appeal.  There’s no act of tyranny a woman in authority will not commit.  But this is a free country, Phœbe, as maybe you have gathered from your author, and unless her trammels have reached to your soul—’ and he laid his hand on the book to take it away.

‘Perhaps they have,’ said Phœbe, smiling, but holding it fast, ‘for I shall be much more comfortable in doing as I was told.’

‘Indeed!’ said Owen, pretending to scrutinize her as if she were something extraordinary (really as an excuse for a good gaze upon her pure complexion and limpid eyes, so steady, childlike, and unabashed, free from all such consciousness as would make them shrink from the playful look).  ‘Indeed!  Now, in my experience the comfort would be in the not doing as you were told.’

‘Ah! but you know I have no spirit.’

‘I wish to heaven other people had none!’ cried Owen, suddenly changing his tone, and sitting down opposite to Phœbe, his elbow on the table, and speaking earnestly.  ‘I would give the world that my sister were like you.  Did you ever hear of anything so preposterous as this Irish business?’

‘She cannot think of it, when Miss Charlecote has told her of all the objections,’ said Phœbe.

‘She will go the more,’ returned Owen.  ‘I say to you, Phœbe, what I would say to no one else.  Lucilla’s treatment of Honora Charlecote is abominable—vexes me more than I can say.  They say some nations have no words for gratitude.  One would think she had come of them.’

Phœbe looked much shocked, but said, ‘Perhaps Miss Charlecote’s kindness has seemed to her like a matter of course, not as it does to us, who have no claim at all.’

‘We had no claim,’ said Owen; ‘the connection is nothing, absolutely nothing.  I believe, poor dear, the attraction was that she had once been attached to my father, and he was too popular a preacher to keep well as a lover.  Well, there were we, a couple of orphans, a nuisance to all our kith and kin—nobody with a bit of mercy for us but that queer old coon, Kit Charteris, when she takes us home, treats us like her own children, feels for us as much as the best mother living could; undertakes to provide for us.  Now, I put it to you, Phœbe, has she any right to be cast off in this fashion?’

‘I don’t know in what fashion you mean.’

‘Don’t you.  Haven’t you seen how Cilly has run restive from babyhood?  A pretty termagant she was, as even I can remember.  And how my poor father spoilt her!  Any one but Honor would have given her up, rather than have gone through what she did, so firmly and patiently, till she had broken her in fairly well.  But then come in these Charterises, and Cilly runs frantic after them, her own dear relations.  Much they had cared for us when we were troublesome little pests.  But it’s all the force of blood.  Stuff!  The whole truth is that they are gay, and Honora quiet; they encourage her to run riot.  Honora keeps her in order.’

‘Have you spoken to her?’

‘As well speak to the wind.  She thinks it a great favour to run down to Hiltonbury for the Horticultural Show, turn everything topsy-turvy, keep poor dear Sweet Honey in a perpetual ferment, then come away to Castle Blanch, as if she were rid of a troublesome duty.’

‘I thought Miss Charlecote sent Lucy to enjoy herself!  We always said how kind and self-denying she was.’

‘Denied, rather,’ said Owen; ‘only that’s her way of carrying it off.  A month or two in the season might be very well; see the world, and get the tone of it; but to racket about with Ratia, and leave Honor alone for months together, is too strong for me.’

Honora came in, delighted at her boy’s visit, and well pleased at the manner in which he was engrossed.  Two such children needed no chaperon, and if that sweet crescent moon were to be his guiding light, so much the better.

‘Capital girl, that,’ he said, as she left the room.  ‘This is a noble achievement of yours.’

‘In getting my youngest princess out of the castle.  Ay! I do feel in a beneficent enchanter’s position.’

‘She has grown up much prettier than she promised to be.’

‘And far too good for a Fulmort.  But that is Robert’s doing.’

‘Poor Robert! how he shows the old distiller in grain.  So he is taking to the old shop?—best thing for him.’

‘Only by way of experiment.’

‘Pleasant experiment to make as much as old Fulmort!  I wish he’d take me into partnership.’

‘You, Owen?’

‘I am not proud.  These aren’t the days when it matters how a man gets his tin, so he knows what to do with it.  Ay! the world gets beyond the dear old Hiltonbury views, after all, Sweet Honey, and you see what City atmosphere does to me.’

‘You know I never wished to press any choice on you,’ she faltered.

‘What!’ with a good-humoured air of affront, ‘you thought me serious?  Don’t you know I’m the ninth, instead of the nineteenth-century man, under your wing?  I’d promise you to be a bishop, only, you see, I’m afraid I couldn’t be mediocre enough.’

‘For shame, Owen!’ and yet she smiled.  That boy’s presence and caressing sweetness towards herself were the greatest bliss to her, almost beyond that of a mother with a son, because more uncertain, less her right by nature.

Phœbe came down as the carriage was at the door, and they called in Whittington Street for her brother, but he only came out to say he was very busy, and would not intrude on Mrs. Charteris—bashfulness for which he was well abused on the way to Lowndes Square.

Owen, with his air of being at home, put aside the servants as they entered the magnificent house, replete with a display of state and luxury analogous to that of Beauchamp, but with better taste and greater ease.  The Fulmorts were in bondage to ostentation; the Charterises were lavish for their own enjoyment, and heedless alike of cost and of appearance.

The great drawing-room was crowded with furniture, and the splendid marqueterie tables and crimson ottomans were piled with a wild confusion of books, prints, periodicals, papers, and caricatures, heaped over ornaments and bijouterie, and beyond, at the doorway of a second room, even more miscellaneously filled, a small creature sprang to meet them, kissing Honora, and exclaiming, ‘Here you are!  Have you brought the pig’s wool?  Ah! but you’ve brought something else!  No—what’s become of that Redbreast!’ as she embraced Phœbe.

‘He was so busy that he could not come.’