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

‘Serve you right if I never picked you up till London-bridge,’ he answered.  ‘Stand clear, Fulmort,’ and with a run and a bound, he vaulted over the high hedge, and went crackling through the nodding bulrushes and reed-maces; while Lucy, having accomplished pulling up one of the latter, was pointing it lancewise at him, singing,

‘With a bulrush for his spear, and a thimble for a hat,
Wilt thou fight a traverse with the castle cat.’

‘Come, come; ’tis too squashy here for larking,’ he said authoritatively, stepping into the boat, and bringing it up with such absence of effort that when a few minutes after he had brought it to the landing-place, and the freight was seated, Robert had no sooner taken the other oar than he exclaimed at the force of the stream with which Owen had dealt so easily, and Lucilla so coolly.

‘It really was a fearful risk,’ he said reproachfully to her.

‘Oh!’ she said, ‘I know my Thames, and my Thames knows me!’

‘Now’s the time to improve it,’ said Owen; ‘one or other should preach about young ladies getting loose, and not knowing where they may be brought up.’

‘But you see I did know; besides, Phœbe’s news from Paris will be better worth hearing,’ said Lucilla, tickling her friend’s face with the soft long point of her dark velvety mace.

‘My news from Paris?’

‘For shame, Phœbe!  Your face betrays you.’

‘Lucy; how could you know?  I had not even told Miss Charlecote!’

‘It’s true! it’s true!’ cried Lucilla.  ‘That’s just what I wanted to know!’

‘Lucy, then it was not fair,’ said Phœbe, much discomposed.  ‘I was desired to tell no one, and you should not have betrayed me into doing so.’

‘Phœbe, you always were a green oasis in a wicked world!’

‘And now, let me hear,’ said Miss Charlecote.  ‘I can’t flatter you, Phœbe; I thought you were labouring under a suppressed secret.’

‘Only since this morning,’ pleaded Phœbe, earnestly; ‘and we were expressly forbidden to mention it; I cannot imagine how Lucy knows.’

‘By telegraph!’

Phœbe’s face assumed an expression of immeasurable wonder.

‘I almost hope to find you at cross purposes, after all,’ said Honora.

‘No such good luck,’ laughed Lucilla.  ‘Cinderella’s seniors never could go off two at a time.  Ah! there’s the name.  I beg your pardon, Phœbe.’

‘But, Lucy, what can you mean?  Who can have telegraphed about Augusta?’

‘Ah! you knew not the important interests involved, nor Augusta how much depended on her keeping the worthy admiral in play.  It was the nearest thing—had she only consented at the end of the evening instead of the beginning, poor Lord William would have had the five guineas that he wants so much more than Mr. Calthorp!’

‘Lucy!’

‘It was a bet that Sir Nicholas would take six calendar months to supply the place of Lady Bannerman.  It was the very last day.  If Augusta had only waited till twelve!’

‘You don’t mean that he has been married before.  I thought he was such an excellent man!’ said Phœbe, in a voice that set others besides Lucilla off into irresistible mirth.

‘Once, twice, thrice!’ cried Lucilla.  ‘Catch her, Honor, before she sinks into the river in disgust with this treacherous world.’

‘Do you know him, Lucy?’ earnestly said Phœbe.

‘Yes, and two of the wives; we used to visit them because he was an old captain of Uncle Kit’s.’

‘I would not believe in number three, Phœbe, if I were you,’ said Owen, consolingly; ‘she wants confirmation.’

‘Two are as bad as three,’ sighed Phœbe; ‘and Augusta did not even call him a widower.’

‘Cupid bandaged!  It was a case of love at first sight.  Met at the Trois Frères Provençaux, heard each other’s critical remarks, sought an introduction, compared notes; he discovered her foresight with regard to pale ale; each felt that here was a kindred soul!’

‘That could not have been telegraphed!’ said Phœbe, recovering spirit and incredulity.

‘No; the telegram was simply “Bannerman, Fulmort.  8.30 p.m., July 10th.”  The other particulars followed by letter this morning.’

‘How old is he?’ asked Phœbe, with resignation.

‘Any age above sixty.  What, Phœbe, taking it to heart?  I was prepared with congratulations.  It is only second best, to be sure; but don’t you see your own emancipation?’

‘I believe that had never occurred to Phœbe,’ said Owen.

‘I beg your pardon, Lucy,’ said Phœbe, thinking that she had appeared out of temper; ‘only it had sounded so nice in Augusta’s letter, and she was so kind, and somehow it jars that there should have been that sort of talk.’

Cilly was checked.  In her utter want of thought it had not occurred to her that Augusta Fulmort could be other than a laughing-stock, or that any bright anticipations could have been spent by any reasonable person on her marriage.  Perhaps the companionship of Rashe, and the satirical outspoken tone of her associates, had somewhat blunted her perception of what might be offensive to the sensitive delicacy of a young sister; but she instantly perceived her mistake, and the carnation deepened in her cheek, at having distressed Phœbe, and . . .  Not that she had deigned any notice of Robert after the first cold shake of the hand, and he sat rowing with vigorous strokes, and a countenance of set gravity, more as if he were a boatman than one of the party; Lucilla could not even meet his eye when she peeped under her eyelashes to recover defiance by the sight of his displeasure.

It was a relief to all when Honora exclaimed, ‘Wrapworth! how pretty it looks.’

It was, indeed, pretty, seen through the archway of the handsome stone bridge.  The church tower and picturesque village were set off by the frame that closed them in; and though they lost somewhat of the enchantment when the boat shot from under the arch, they were still a fair and goodly English scene.

Lucilla steered towards the steps leading to a smooth shaven lawn, shaded by a weeping willow, well known to Honor.

‘Here we land you and your bag, Robert,’ said Owen, as he put in.  ‘Cilly, have a little sense, do.’

But Lucilla, to the alarm of all, was already on her feet, skipped like a chamois to the steps, and flew dancing up the sward.  Ere Owen and Robert had helped the other two ladies to land in a more rational manner, she was shaking her mischievous head at a window, and thrusting in her sceptral reed-mace.

‘Neighbour, oh, neighbour, I’m come to torment you!  Yes, here we are in full force, ladies and all, and you must come out and behave pretty.  Never mind your slippers; you ought to be proud of the only thing I ever worked.  Come out, I say; here’s your guest, and you must be civil to him.’

‘I am very glad to see Mr. Fulmort,’ said Mr. Prendergast, his only answer in words to all this, though while it was going on, as if she were pulling him by wires, as she imperiously waved her bulrush, he had stuck his pen into the inkstand, run his fingers in desperation through his hair, risen from his seat, gazed about in vain for his boots, and felt as fruitlessly on the back of the door for a coat to replace the loose alpaca article that hung on his shoulders.

‘There.  You’ve gone through all the motions,’ said Cilly; ‘that’ll do; now, come out and receive them.’

Accordingly, he issued from the door, shy and slouching; rusty where he wore cloth, shiny where he wore alpaca, wild as to his hair, gay as to his feet, but, withal, the scholarly gentleman complete, and not a day older or younger, apparently, than when Honor had last seen him, nine years since, in bondage then to the child playing at coquetry, as now to the coquette playing at childhood.  It was curious, Honor thought, to see how, though so much more uncouth and negligent than Robert, the indefinable signs of good blood made themselves visible, while they were wanting in one as truly the Christian gentleman in spirit and in education.

Mr. Prendergast bowed to Miss Charlecote, and shook hands with his guest, welcoming him kindly; but the two shy men grew more bashful by contact, and Honor found herself, Owen, and Lucilla sustaining the chief of the conversation, the curate apparently looking to the young lady to protect him and do the honours, as she did by making him pull down a cluster of his roses for her companions, and conducting them to eat his strawberries, which she treated as her own, flitting, butterfly like, over the beds, selecting the largest and ruddiest specimens, while her slave plodded diligently to fill cabbage leaves, and present them to the party in due gradation.

Owen stood by amused, and silencing the scruples of his companions.

‘He is in Elysium,’ he said; ‘he had rather be plagued by Cilly than receive a mitre!  Don’t hinder him, Honey; it is his pride to treat us as if we were at home and he our guest.’

‘Wrapworth has not been seen without Edna Murrell,’ said Lucilla, flinging the stem of her last strawberry at her brother, ‘and Miss Charlecote is a woman of schools.  What, aren’t we to go, Mr. Prendergast?’