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

‘Pshaw!  I hadn’t the chance; and gloss it as you will, Lucy, there’s no disguising it, she would have it, and I could not help it, but she was neglected, and it killed her!’  He brought his hand down on the table with a heavy thump, which together with the words made his sister recoil.  ‘Could Honor treat me the same after that?  And she not my mother, either!  Why had not my father the sense to have married her?  Then I could go to her and get rid of this intolerable weight!’ and he groaned aloud.

‘A mother could hardly love you more,’ said Lucy, to her own surprise.  ‘If you will but go to here,—when she sees you so unhappy.’

‘Out of the question,’ broke in Owen; ‘I can’t stay here!  I would have gone this very night, but I can’t be off till that poor thing—’

‘Off!’

‘Ay, to the diggings, somewhere, anywhere, to get away from it all!’

‘Oh, Owen, do nothing mad!’

‘I’m not going to do anything just now, I tell you.  Don’t be in a fright.  I shan’t take French leave of you.  You’ll find me to-morrow morning, worse luck.  Good night.’

Lucilla was doubly glad to have come.  Her pride approved his proposal, though her sisterly love would suffer, and she was anxious about the child; but dawning confidence was at the least a relief.

Next morning, he was better, and talked much too like his ordinary self, but relapsed afterwards for want of employment; and when a letter was brought to him, left by his wife to be read after her death, he broke down, and fell into a paroxysm of grief and despair, which still prevailed when a message came in to ask admission for Mr. Prendergast.  Relieved to be out of sight of depression that her consolations only aggravated, and hoping for sympathy and counsel, Lucy hastened to the study with outstretched hands, and was met with the warmth for which she had longed.

Still there was disappointment.  In participation with Owen’s grief, she had lost sight of his offences, and was not prepared for any commencement.  ‘Well, Cilla, I came up to talk to you.  A terrible business this of Master Owen’s.’

‘It breaks one’s heart to see him so wretched.’

‘I hope he is.  He ought to be.’

‘Now, Mr. Prendergast.’

The curate held up both his hands, deprecating her coaxing piteous look, and used his voice rather loudly to overpower hers, and say what he had prepared as a duty.

‘Yes, yes, he is your brother, and all that.  You may feel for him what you like.  But I must say this: it was a shameful thing, and a betrayal of confidence, such as it grieves me to think of in his father’s son.  I am sorry for her, poor thing! whom I should have looked after better; and I am very sorry indeed for you, Cilla; but I must tell you that to bury the poor girl next to Mrs. Sandbrook, as your brother’s wife, would be a scandal.’

‘Don’t speak so loud; he will hear.’

His mild face was unwontedly impatient as he said, ‘I can see how you gave in to the wish; I don’t blame you, but if you consider the example to the parish.’

‘After what I told you in my letter, I don’t see the evil of the example; unless it be your esprit de corps about the registrar, and they could not well have requested you to officiate.’

‘Cilla, you were always saucy, but this is no time for nonsense.  You can’t defend them.’

‘Perhaps you are of your Squire’s opinion—that the bad example was in the marrying her at all.’

Mr. Prendergast looked so much shocked that Lucilla felt a blush rising, conscious that the tone of the society she had of late lived with had rendered her tongue less guarded, her cheek less shamefaced than erst, but she galloped on to hide her confusion.  ‘You were their great cause.  If you had not gone and frightened her, they might have philandered on all this time, till the whole affair died of its own silliness.’

‘Yes, no one was so much to blame as I.  I will trust no living creature again.  My carelessness opened the way to temptation, and Heaven knows, Lucilla, I have been infinitely more displeased with myself than with them.’

‘Well, so am I with myself, for putting her in his way.  Don’t let us torment ourselves with playing the game backwards again—I hate it.  Let’s see to the next.’

‘That is what I came for.  Now, Cilla, though I would gladly do what I could for poor Owen, just think what work it will make with the girls at Wrapworth, who are nonsensical enough already, to have this poor runaway brought back to be buried as the wife of a fine young gentleman.’

‘Poor Edna’s history is no encouragement to look out for fine young gentlemen.’

‘They will know the fact, and sink the circumstances.’

‘So you are so innocent as to think they don’t know!  Depend upon it, every house in Wrapworth rings with it; and won’t it be more improving to have the poor thing’s grave to point the moral?’

‘Cilla, you are a little witch.  You always have your way, but I don’t like it.  It is not the right one.’

‘Not right for Owen to make full compensation?  Mind, it is not Edna Murrell, the eloped schoolmistress, but Mrs. Sandbrook, whom her husband wishes to bury among his family.’

‘Poor lad, is he much cut up?’

‘So much that I should hardly dare tell him if you had refused.  He could not bear another indignity heaped on her, and a wound from you would cut deeper than from any one else.  You should remember in judging him that he had no parent to disobey, and there was generosity in taking on him the risk rather than leave her to a broken heart and your tender mercy.’

‘I fear his tender mercy has turned out worse than mine; but I am sorry for all he has brought on himself, poor lad!’

‘Shall I try whether he can see you?’

‘No, no; I had rather not.  You say young Fulmort attends to him, and I could not speak to him with patience.  Five o’clock, Saturday?’

‘Yes; but that is not all.  That poor child—Robert Fulmort, you, and I must be sponsors.’

‘Cilla, Cilla, how can I answer how it will be brought up?’

‘Some one must.  Its father talks of leaving England, and it will be my charge.  Will you not help me? you who always have helped me.  My father’s grandson; you cannot refuse him, Mr. Pendy,’ said she, using their old childish name for him.

He yielded to the united influence of his rector’s daughter and the memory of his rector.  Though no weak man, those two appeals always swayed him; and Lucilla’s air, spirited when she defended, soft when she grieved, was quite irresistible; so she gained her point, and felt restored to herself by the exercise of power, and by making her wonted impression.  Since one little dog had wagged his little tail, she no longer doubted ‘If I be I;’ yet this only rendered her more nervously desirous of obtaining the like recognition from the other, and she positively wearied after one of Robert’s old wistful looks.

A téte-à-téte with him was necessary on many accounts, and she lay in wait to obtain a few moments alone with him in the study.  He complied neither eagerly nor reluctantly, bowed his head without remark when she told him about the funeral, and took the sponsorship as a matter of course.  ‘Very well; I suppose there is no one else to be found.  Is it your brother’s thought?’

‘I told him.’

‘So I feared.’

‘Oh! Robert, we must take double care for the poor little thing.’

‘I will do my best,’ he answered.

‘Do you know what Owen intends?’ said Lucilla, in low, alarmed accents.

‘He has told you?  It is a wild purpose; but I doubt whether to dissuade him, except for your sake,’ he added, with his first softening towards her, like balm to the sore spot in her heart.

‘Never mind me, I can take care of myself,’ she said, while the muscles of her throat ached and quivered with emotion.  ‘I would not detain him to be pitied and forgiven.’

‘Do not send him away in pride,’ said Robert, sadly.

‘Am I not humbled enough?’ she said; and her drooping head and eye seemed to thrill him with their wonted power.

One step he made towards her, but checked himself, and said in a matter-of-fact tone, ‘Currie, the architect, has a brother, a civil engineer, just going out to Canada to lay out a railway.  It might be an opening for Owen to go as his assistant—unless you thought it beneath him.’

These last words were caused by an uncontrollable look of disappointment.  But it was not the proposal: no; but the change of manner that struck her.  The quiet indifferent voice was like water quenching a struggling spark, but in a moment she recovered her powers.  ‘Beneath him!  Oh, no.  I told you we were humbled.  I always longed for his independence, and I am glad that he should not go alone.’