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

‘But,’ said the curate, by way of compensation, ‘at Masters’s I found Miss Charlecote herself, and gave your message.’

‘I gave no message.’

‘No, no, because you would not send me up into the City; but I told her all you would have had me say, and how nearly you had come up with me, only I would not let you, for fear she should have left town.’

Cilla’s face did not conceal her annoyance, but not understanding her in the least, he continued, ‘I’m sure no one could speak more kindly or considerately than she did.  Her eyes filled with tears, and she must be heartily fond of you at the bottom, though maybe rather injudicious and strict; but after what I told her, you need have no fears.’

‘Did you ever know me have any?’

‘Ah well! you don’t like the word; but at any rate she thinks you behaved with great spirit and discretion under the circumstances, and quite overlooks any little imprudence.  She hopes to see you the day after to-morrow, and will write and tell you so.’

Perhaps no intentional slander ever gave the object greater annoyance than Cilly experienced on learning that the good curate had, in the innocence of his heart, represented her as in a state of proper feeling, and interceded for her; and it was all the worse because it was impossible to her to damp his kind satisfaction, otherwise than by a brief ‘Thank you,’ the tone of which he did not comprehend.

‘Was she alone?’ she asked.

‘Didn’t I tell you the young lady was with her, and the brother?’

‘Robert Fulmort!’ and Cilla’s heart sank at finding that it could not have been he who had been with Owen.

‘Ay, the young fellow that slept at my house.  He has taken a curacy at St. Wulstan’s.’

‘Did he tell you so?’ with an ill-concealed start of consternation.

‘Not he; lads have strange manners.  I should have thought after the terms we were upon here, he need not have been quite so much absorbed in his book as never to speak!’

‘He has plenty in him instead of manners,’ said Lucilla; ‘but I’ll take him in hand for it.’

Though Lucilla’s instinct of defence had spoken up for Robert, she felt hurt at his treatment of her old friend, and could only excuse it by a strong fit of conscious moodiness.  His taking the curacy was only explicable, she thought, as a mode of showing his displeasure with herself, since he could not ask her to marry into Whittingtonia; but ‘That must be all nonsense,’ thought she; ‘I will soon have him down off his high horse, and Mr. Parsons will never keep him to his engagement—silly fellow to have made it—or if he does, I shall only have the longer to plague him.  It will do him good.  Let me see! he will come down to-morrow with Honora’s note.  I’ll put on my lilac muslin with the innocent little frill, and do my hair under his favourite net, and look like such a horrid little meek ringdove that he will be perfectly disgusted with himself for having ever taken me for a fishing eagle.  He will be abject, and I’ll be generous, and not give another peck till it has grown intolerably stupid to go on being good, or till he presumes.’

For the first time for many days, Lucilla awoke with the impression that something pleasant was about to befall her, and her wild heart was in a state of glad flutter as she donned the quiet dress, and found that the subdued colouring and graver style rendered her more softly lovely than she had ever seen herself.

The letters were on the breakfast-table when she came down, the earliest as usual, and one was from Honor Charlecote, the first sight striking her with vexation, as discomfiting her hopes that it would come by a welcome bearer.  Yet that might be no reason why he should not yet run down.

She tore it open.

‘My dearest Lucy,—Until I met Mr. Prendergast yesterday, I was not sure that you had actually returned, or I would not have delayed an hour in assuring you, if you could doubt it, that my pardon is ever ready for you.’

(‘Many thanks,’ was the muttered comment.  ‘Oh that poor, dear, stupid man! would that I had stopped his mouth!’)

‘I never doubted that your refinement and sense of propriety would be revolted at the consequences of what I always saw to be mere thoughtlessness—’

(‘Dearly beloved of an old maid is, I told you so!’)

‘—but I am delighted to hear that my dear child showed so much true delicacy and dignity in her trying predicament—’

(‘Delighted to find her dear child not absolutely lost to decorum!  Thanks again.’)

‘—and I console myself for the pain it has given by the trust that experience has proved a better teacher than precept.’

(‘Where did she find that grand sentence?’)

‘So that good may result from past evil and present suffering, and that you may have learnt to distrust those who would lead you to disregard the dictates of your own better sense.’

(‘Meaning her own self!’)

‘I have said all this by letter that we may cast aside all that is painful when we meet, and only to feel that I am welcoming my child, doubly dear, because she comes owning her error.’

(‘I dare say!  We like to be magnanimous, don’t we?  Oh, Mr. Prendergast, I could beat you!’)

‘Our first kiss shall seal your pardon, dearest, and not a word shall pass to remind you of this distressing page in your history.’

(‘Distressing!  Excellent fun it was.  I shall make her hear my diary, if I persuade myself to encounter this intolerable kiss of peace.  It will be a mercy if I don’t serve her as the thief in the fable did his mother when he was going to be hanged.’)

‘I will meet you at the station by any train on Saturday that you like to appoint, and early next week we will go down to what I am sure you have felt is your only true home.’

(‘Have I?  Oh! she has heard of their journey, and thinks this my only alternative.  As if I could not go with them if I chose—I wish they would ask me, though.  They shall!  I’ll not be driven up to the Holt as my last resource, and live there under a system of mild browbeating, because I can’t help it.  No, no! Robin shall find it takes a vast deal of persuasion to bend me to swallow so much pardon in milk and water.  I wonder if there’s time to change the spooney simplicity, and come out in something spicy, with a dash of the Bloomer.  But, maybe, there’s some news of him in the other sheet, now she has delivered her conscience of her rigmarole.  Oh! here it is—’)

‘Phœbe will go home with us, as she is, according to the family system, not summoned to her sister’s wedding.  Robert leaves London on Saturday morning, to fetch his books, &c., from Oxford, Mr. Parsons having consented to give him a title for Holy Orders, and to let him assist in the parish until the next Ember week.  I think, dear girl, that it should not be concealed from you that this step was taken as soon as he heard that you had actually sailed for Ireland, and that he does not intend to return until we are in the country.’

(‘Does he not?  Another act of coercion!  I suppose you put him up to this, madam, as a pleasing course of discipline.  You think you have the whip-hand of me, do you?  Pooh!  See if he’ll stay at Oxford!’)

‘I feel for the grief I’m inflicting—’

(‘Oh, so you complacently think, “now I have made her sorry!”’)

‘—but I believe uncertainty, waiting, and heart sickness would cost you far more.  Trust me, as one who has felt it, that it is far better to feel oneself unworthy than to learn to doubt or distrust the worthiness or constancy of another.’

(‘My father to wit!  A pretty thing to say to his daughter!  What right has she to be pining and complaining after him?  He, the unworthy one?  I’ll never forgive that conceited inference!  Just because he could not stand sentiment!  Master Robert gone!  Won’t I soon have him repenting of his outbreak?’)

‘I have no doubt that his feelings are unchanged, and that he is solely influenced by principle.  He is evidently exceedingly unhappy under all his reserve—’

(‘He shall be more so, till he behaves himself, and comes back humble!  I’ve no notion of his flying out in this way.’)

‘—and though I have not exchanged a word with him on the subject, I am certain that his good opinion will be retrieved, with infinite joy to himself, as soon as you make it possible for his judgment to be satisfied with your conduct and sentiments.  Grieved as I am, it is with a hopeful sorrow, for I am sure that nothing is wanting on your part but that consistency and sobriety of behaviour of which you have newly learnt the necessity on other grounds.  The Parsonses have gone to their own house, so you will not find any one here but two who will feel for you in silence, and we shall soon be in the quiet of the Holt, where you shall have all that can give you peace or comfort from your ever-loving old         H. C.’

‘Feel for me!  Never!  Don’t you wish you may get it?  Teach the catechism and feed caterpillars till such time as it pleases Mrs. Honor to write up and say “the specimen is tame”?  How nice!  No, no.  I’ll not be frightened into their lording it over me!  I know a better way!  Let Mr. Robert find out how little I care, and get himself heartily sick of St. Wulstan’s, till it is “turn again Whittington indeed!”  Poor fellow, I hate it, but he must be cured of his airs, and have a good fright.  Why don’t they ask me to go to Paris with them?  Where can I go, if they don’t.  To Mary Cranford’s?  Stupid place, but I will show that I’m not so hard up as to have no place but the Holt to go to!  If it were only possible to stay with Mr. Prendergast, it would be best of all!  Can’t I tell him to catch a chaperon for me?  Then he would think Honor a regular dragon, which would be a shame, for it was nobody’s fault but his!  I shall tell him I’m like the Christian religion, for which people are always making apologies that it doesn’t want!  Two years!  Patience!  It will be very good for Robin, and four-and-twenty is quite soon enough to bite off one’s wings, and found an ant-hill.  As to being bullied into being kissed, pitied, pardoned, and trained by Honor, I’ll never sink so low!  No, at no price.’

Poor Mr. Prendergast!  Did ever a more innocent mischief-maker exist?

Poor Honora!  Little did she guess that the letter written in such love, such sympathy, such longing hope, would only excite fierce rebellion.

Yet it was at the words of Moses that the king’s heart was hardened; and what was the end?  He was taken at his word.  ‘Thou shalt see my face no more.’

To be asked to join the party on their tour had become Lucilla’s prime desire, if only that she might not feel neglected, or driven back to Hiltonbury by absolute necessity; and when the husband and wife came down, the wish was uppermost in her mind.

Eloïsa remarked on her quiet style of dress, and observed that it would be quite the thing in Paris, where people were so much less outré than here.

‘I have nothing to do with Paris.’