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

‘Dying, poor thing!  Why did you not tell us before?’ said Horatia, sobered.

‘I did not know it was to save Charles so much kind trouble,’ said Lucilla.  ‘Let me go, Rashe; you cannot detain me.’

‘I do believe she is delighted,’ said Horatia, releasing her.

In truth, she was inspirited by perceiving any door of escape.  Any vivid sensation was welcome in the irksome vacancy that pursued her in the absence of immediate excitement.  Devoid of the interest of opposition, and of the bracing changes to the Holt, her intercourse with the Charterises had become a weariness and vexation of spirit.  Idle foreign life deteriorated them, and her principle and delicacy suffered frequent offences; but like all living wilfully in temptation, she seemed under a spell, only to be broken by an act of self-humiliation to which she would not bend.  Longing for the wholesome atmosphere of Hiltonbury, she could not brook to purchase her entrance there by permitting herself to be pardoned.  There was one whom she fully intended should come and entreat her return, and the terms of her capitulation had many a time been arranged with herself; but when he came not, though her heart ached after him, pride still forbade one homeward step, lest it should seem to be in quest of him, or in compliance with his wishes.

Here, then, was a summons to England—nay, into his very parish—without compromising her pride or forcing her to show deference to rejected counsel.  Nay, in contrast with her cousins, she felt her sentiments so lofty and generous that she was filled with the gladness of conscious goodness, so like the days of her early childhood, that a happy dew suffused her eyes, and she seemed to hear the voice of old Thames.  Her loathing for the views of her cousins had borne down all resentment at her brother’s folly and Edna’s presumption; and relieved that it was not worse, and full of pity for the girl she had really loved, Honor’s grieved displeasure and Charles’s kind project together made her the ardent partisan of the young wife.  Because Honor intimated that the girl had been artful, and had forced herself on Owen, Lucilla was resolved that her favourite had been the most perfect of heroines; and that circumstance alone should bear such blame as could not be thrown on Honor herself and the Wrapworth gossipry.  Poor circumstances!

The journey gave her no concern.  The way was direct to Ostend, and Spitzwasserfitzung contained a ‘pension,’ which was a great resort of incipient English governesses, so that there were no difficulties such as to give her enterprising spirit the least concern.  She refused the escort that Rashe would have pressed upon her, and made her farewells with quiet resolution.  No further remonstrance was offered; and though each party knew that what had passed would be a barrier for ever, good breeding preferred an indifferent parting.  There were light, cheery words, but under the full consciousness that the friendship begun in perverseness had ended in contempt.

Horatia turned aside with a good-natured ‘Poor child! she will soon wish herself back.’  Lucilla, taking her last glance, sighed as she thought, ‘My father did not like them.  But for Honor, I would never have taken up with them.’

Without misadventure, Lucilla arrived at London Bridge, and took a cab for Woolstone-lane, where she must seek more exact intelligence of the locality of those she sought.  So long had her eye been weary of novelty, while her mind was ill at ease, that even Holborn in the August sun was refreshingly homelike; and begrimed Queen Anne, ‘sitting in the sun’ before St. Paul’s, wore a benignant aspect to glances full of hope and self-approval.  An effort was necessary to recall how melancholy was the occasion of her journey, and all mournful anticipation was lost in the spirit of partisanship and patronage—yes, and in that pervading consciousness that each moment brought her nearer to Whittingtonia.

Great was the amaze of good Mrs. Jones, the housekeeper, at the arrival of Miss Lucy, and equal disappointment that she would neither eat nor rest, nor accept a convoy to No. 8, Little Whittington-street.  She tripped off thither the instant she had ascertained the number of the house, and heard that her brother was there, and his wife still living.

She had formed to herself no image of the scenes before her, and was entirely unprepared by reflection when she rang at the door.  As soon as she mentioned her name, the little maid conducted her down-stairs, and she found herself in the sitting-room, face to face with Robert Fulmort.

Without showing surprise or emotion, or relaxing his grave, listening air, he merely bowed his head, and held out his hand.  There was an atmosphere of awe about the room, as though she had interrupted a religious office; and she stood still in the solemn hush, her lips parted, her bosom heaving.  The opposite door was ajar, and from within came a kind of sobbing moan, and a low, feeble, faltering voice faintly singing—

‘For men must work, and women must weep,
And the sooner ’tis over, the sooner to sleep.’

The choking thrill of unwonted tears rushed over Lucilla, and she shuddered.  Robert looked disappointed as he caught the notes; then placing a seat for Lucilla, said, very low, ‘We hoped she would waken sensible.  Her mother begged me to be at hand.’

‘Has she never been sensible?’

‘They hoped so, at one time, last night.  She seemed to know him.’

‘Is he there?’

Robert only sighed assent, for again the voice was heard—‘I must get up.  Miss Sandbrook wants me.  She says I shan’t be afraid when the time comes; but oh!—so many, many faces—all their eyes looking; and where is he?—why doesn’t he look?  Oh! Miss Sandbrook, don’t bring that young lady here—I know—I know it is why he never comes—keep her away—’

The voice turned to shrieking sobs.  There were sounds of feet and hurried movements, and Owen came out, gasping for breath, and his face flushed.  ‘I can’t bear it,’ he said, with his hands over his face.

‘Can I be of use?’ asked Robert.

‘No; the nurse can hold her;’ and he leant his arms on the mantelpiece, his frame shaken with long-drawn sobs.  He had never even seen his sister, and she was too much appalled to speak or move.

When the sounds ceased, Owen looked up to listen, and Robert said, ‘Still no consciousness?’

‘No, better not.  What would she gain by it?’

‘It must be better not, if so ordained,’ said Robert.

‘Pshaw! what are last feelings and words?  As if a blighted life and such suffering were not sure of compensation.  There’s more justice in Heaven than in your system!’

He was gone; and Robert with a deep sigh said, ‘I am not judging.  I trust there were tokens of repentance and forgiveness; but it is painful, as her mother feels it, to hear how her mind runs on light songs and poetry.’

‘Mechanically!’

‘True; and delirium is no criterion of the state of mind.  But it is very mournful.  In her occupation, one would have thought habit alone would have made her ear catch other chimes.’

Lucilla remembered with a pang that she had sympathized with Edna’s weariness of the monotony of hymn and catechism.  Thinking poetry rather dull and tiresome, she had little guessed at the effect of sentimental songs and volumes of L. E. L. and the like, on an inflammable mind, when once taught to slake her thirsty imagination beyond the S.P.C.K.  She did not marvel at the set look of pain with which Robert heard passionate verses of Shelley and Byron fall from those dying lips.  They must have been conned by heart, and have been the favourite study, or they could hardly thus recur.

‘I must go,’ said Robert, after a time; ‘I am doing no good here.  You will take care of your brother, if it is over before I return.  Where are you?’

‘My things are in Woolstone-lane.’

‘I meant to get him there.  I will come back by seven o’clock; but I must go to the school.’

‘May I go in there?’

‘You had better not.  It is a fearful sight, and you cannot be of use.  I wish you could be out of hearing; but the house is full.’

‘One moment, Robert—the child?’

‘Sent to a nurse, when every sound was agony.’

He stepped into the sick room, and brought out Mrs. Murrell, who began with a curtsey, but eagerly pressed Lucilla’s offered hand.  Subdued by sorrow and watching, she was touchingly meek and resigned, enduring with the patience of real faith, and only speaking to entreat that Mr. Fulmort would pray with her for her poor child.  Never had Lucilla so prayed; and ere she had suppressed her tears, ere rising from her knees, Robert was gone.

She spent the ensuing hours of that summer evening, seated in the arm-chair, barely moving, listening to the ticking of the clock, and the thunder of the streets, and at times hearkening to the sounds in the inner chamber, the wanderings feebler and more rare, but the fearful convulsions more frequent, seeming, as it were, to be tearing away the last remnant of life.  These moments of horror-struck suspense were the only breaks, save when Owen rushed out unable to bear the sight, and stood, with hidden face, in such absorption of distress as to be unconscious of her awe-struck attempts to obtain his attention, or when Mrs. Murrell came to fetch something, order her maid, or relieve herself by a few sad words to her guest.  Gratified by the eager sisterly acknowledgment of poor Edna, she touched Lucilla deeply by speaking of her daughter’s fondness for Miss Sandbrook, grief at having given cause for being thought ungrateful, and assurances that the secret never could have been kept had they met the day after the soirée.  Many had been the poor thing’s speculations how Miss Sandbrook would receive her marriage, but always with confidence in her final mercy and justice: and when Lucilla heard of the prolonged wretchedness, the hope deferred, the evil reports and suspicions of neighbours and lodgers, the failing health, and cruel disappointment, and looked round at the dismal little stifling dungeon where this fair and gifted being had pined and sunk beneath slander and desertion, hot tears of indignation filled her eyes, and with fingers clenching together, she said, ‘Oh that I had known it sooner!  Edna was right.  I will be the person to see justice done to her!’

And when left alone she cast about for the most open mode of proclaiming Edna Murrell her brother’s honoured wife, and her own beloved sister.  The more it mortified the Charterises the better!

By the time Robert came back, the sole change was in the failing strength, and he insisted on conducting Lucilla to Woolstone-lane, Mrs. Murrell enforcing his advice so decidedly that there was no choice.  She would not be denied one look at the sufferer, but what she saw was so miserably unlike the beautiful creature whom she remembered, that she recoiled, feeling the kindness that had forbidden her the spectacle, and passively left the house, still under the chill influence of the shock.  She had tasted nothing since breakfasting on board the steamer, and on coming into the street the comparative coolness seemed to strike her through; she shivered, felt her knees give way, and grasped Robert’s arm for support.  He treated her with watchful, considerate solicitude, though with few words, and did not leave her till he had seen her safe under the charge of the housekeeper; when, in return for his assurance that he would watch over her brother, she promised to take food, and go at once to rest.

Too weary at first to undress, and still thinking that Owen might be brought to her, she lay back on the couch in her own familiar little cedar room, feeling as if she recalled the day through the hazy medium of a dream, and as if she had not been in contact with Edna, nor Owen, nor Robert, but only with pale phantoms called by those names.

Robert especially!  Engrossed and awe-stricken as she had been, still it came on her that something was gone that to her had constituted Robert Fulmort.  Neither the change of dress, nor even the older and more settled expression of countenance, made the difference; but the want of that nameless, hesitating deference which in each word or action formerly seemed to implore her favour, or even when he dared to censure, did so under appeal to her mercy.  Had he avoided her, she could have understood it; but his calm, authoritative self-possession was beyond her, though as yet she was not alarmed, for her mind was too much confused to perceive that her influence was lost; but it was uncomfortable, and part of this strange, unnatural world, as though the wax which she had been used to mould had suddenly lost its yielding nature and become marble.

Tired out, she at last went to bed, and slept soundly, but awoke early, and on coming down, found from the housekeeper that her brother had been brought home at two o’clock by Mr. Fulmort, and had gone to his room at once.  All was over.  Lucilla, longing to hear more, set out to see Mrs. Murrell, before he should come down-stairs.

While the good woman was forced to bestir herself for her lodgers’ breakfasts, Lucilla could steal a solitary moment to gaze on the pallid face to which death had restored much of its beauty.  She pressed her lips on the regal brow, and spoke half aloud, ‘Edna, Edna Sandbrook, sister Edna, you should have trusted me.  You knew I would see justice done to you, and I will.  You shall lie by my mother’s side in our own churchyard, and Wrapworth shall know that she, whom they envied and maligned, was Owen Sandbrook’s wife and my cherished sister.’

Poor Mrs. Murrell, with her swimming eyes and stock phrases, brought far more Christian sentiments to the bed of death.  ‘Poor, dear love, her father and I little thought it would end in this, when we used to be so proud of her.  We should have minded that pride is not made for sinners.  “Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain;” and the Lord saw it well that we should be cast down and slanderous lips opened against us, that so we might feel our trust is in Him alone!  Oh, it is good that even thus she was brought to turn to Him!  But I thank—oh, I thank Him that her father never lived to see this day!’

She wept such tears of true thankfulness and resignation, that Lucilla, almost abashed by the sight of piety beyond her comprehension, stood silent, till, with a change to the practical, Mrs. Murrell recovered herself, saying, ‘If you please, ma’am, when had I best come and speak to the young gentleman?  I ought to know what would be pleasing to him about the funeral.’

‘We will arrange,’ said Lucilla; ‘she shall be buried with my mother and sister in Wrapworth churchyard.’

Though gratified, Mrs. Murrell demurred, lest it might be taken ill by the ‘family’ and by that godly minister whose kindness and sympathy at the time of Edna’s evasion had made a deep impression; but Lucilla boldly undertook that the family must like it, and she would take care of the minister.  Nor was the good woman insensible to the posthumous triumph over calumny, although still with a certain hankering after Kensal Green as a sweet place, with pious monuments, where she should herself be laid, and the Company that did things so reasonable and so handsome.

Lucilla hurried back to fulfil the mission of Nemesis to the Charterises, which she called justice to Edna, and by the nine o’clock post despatched three notes.  One containing the notice for the Times—‘On the 17th instant, at 8, Little Whittington-street, St. Wulstan’s, Edna, the beloved wife of Owen Charteris Sandbrook, Esq.;’ another was to order a complete array of mourning from her dressmaker; and the third was to the Reverend Peter Prendergast, in the most simple manner requesting him to arrange for the burial of her sister-in-law, at 5 P.M. on the ensuing Saturday, indicating the labourers who should act as bearers, and ending with, ‘You will be relieved by hearing that she was no other than our dear Edna, married on the 14th of July, last year.’

She then beguiled the time with designs for gravestones, until she became uneasy at Owen’s non-appearance, and longed to go and see after him; but she fancied he might have spent nights of watching, and thought sleep would be the best means of getting through the interval which appalled her mind, unused to contact with grief.  Still his delay began to wear her spirits and expectation, so long wrought up to the meeting; and she was at least equally restless for the appearance of Robert, wanting to hear more from him, and above all certain that all her dreary cravings and vacancy would be appeased by one dialogue with him, on whatever topic it might be.  She wished that she had obeyed that morning bell at St. Wulstan’s.  It would have disposed of half-an-hour, and she would have met him.  ‘For shame,’ quoth the haughty spirit, ‘now that has come into my head, I can’t go at all.’