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

‘The work would suit his mathematical and scientific turn.  Then, since you do not object, I will see whether he would like it, or if it be practicable in case Miss Charlecote should approve.’

Robert seized this opportunity of concluding the interview.  Lucy ran up-stairs for the fierce quarter-deck walking that served her instead of tears, as an ebullition that tired down her feelings by exhaustion.

Some of her misery was for Owen, but would the sting have been so acute had Robert Fulmort been more than the true friend?

Phœbe’s warning, given in that very room, seemed engraven on each panel.  ‘If you go on as you are doing now, he does not think it would be right for a clergyman.’

Could Lucilla have looked through the floor, she would have seen Robert with elbows on the window-sill, and hands locked over his knitted brows; and could she have interpreted his short-drawn sighs, she would have heard, ‘Poor child! poor child!  It is not coquetry.  That was injustice.  She loves me.  She loves me still!  Why do I believe it only too late?  Why is this trial sent me, since I am bound to the scheme that precludes my marriage?  What use is it to see her as undisciplined—as unfit as ever?  I know it!  I always knew it.  But I feel still a traitor to her!  She had warning!  She trusted the power of my attachment in spite of my judgment!  Fickle to her, or a falterer to my higher pledge?  Never!  I must let her see the position—crush any hope—otherwise I cannot trust myself, nor deal fairly by her.  Heaven help us both!’

When they next met, Robert had propounded his Canadian project, and Owen had caught at it.  Idleness had never been his fault, and he wanted severe engrossing labour to stun pain and expel thought.  He was urgent to know what standard of attainments would be needful, and finding Robert ignorant on this head, seized his hat, and dashed out in the gaslight to the nearest bookseller’s for a treatise on surveying.

Robert was taken by surprise, or he might have gone too.  He looked as if he meditated a move, but paused as Lucy said, ‘Poor fellow, how glad he is of an object!’

‘May it not be to his better feelings like sunshine to morning dew?’ said Robert, sighing.  ‘I hear a very high character of Mr. Currie, and a right-minded, practical, scientific man may tell more on a disposition like his—’

‘Than parsons and women,’ said Lucilla, with a gleam of her old archness.

‘Exactly so.  He must see religion in the world, not out of it.’

‘After all, I have not heard who is this Mr. Currie, and how you know him.’

‘I know him through his brother, who is building the church in Cecily Row.’

‘A church in Cecily Row!  St. Cecilia’s?  Who is doing it?  Honor Charlecote?’

‘No; I am.’

‘You!  Tell me all about it,’ said Lucilla, leaning forward to listen with the eager air of interest which, when not half so earnest, had been always bewitching.

Poor Robert looked away, and tried to think himself explaining his scheme to the Archdeacon.  ‘The place is in frightful disorder, filled with indescribable vice and misery, but there is a shadow of hope that a few may be worked on if something like a mission can be organized.  Circumstances seemed to mark me out as the person to be at the cost of setting it on foot, my father’s connection with the parish giving it a claim on me.  So I purchased the first site that was in the market, and the buildings are in progress, chapel, schools, orphanage, and rooms for myself and two other clergy.  When all the rest is provided for, there will remain about two hundred and fifty pounds a year—just enough for three of us, living together.’

He durst not glance towards her, or he would have seen her cheek white as wax, and her eye seeking his in dismayed inquiry.  There was a pause; then she forced herself to falter—‘Yes.  I suppose it is very right—very grand.  It is settled?’

‘The Archdeacon has seen the plans, the Bishop has consented.’

Long and deep was the silence that fell on both.

Lucilla knew her fate as well as if his long coat had been a cowl.  She would not, could not feel it yet.  She must keep up appearances, so she fixed her eyes steadily on the drawing her idle hands were perpetrating on the back of a letter, and appeared absorbed in shading a Turk’s head.

If Robert’s motives had not been unmixed, if his zeal had been alloyed by temper, or his self-devotion by undutifulness; if his haste had been self-willed, or his judgment one-sided, this was an hour of retribution.  Let her have all her faults, she was still the Lucy who had flown home to him for comfort.  He felt as if he had dashed away the little bird that had sought refuge in his bosom.

Fain would he have implored her pardon, but for the stern resolution to abstain from any needless word or look, such as might serve to rivet the affection that ought to be withdrawn; and he was too manly and unselfish to indulge in discussion or regret, too late as it was to change the course to which he had offered himself and his means.  To retract would have been a breach of promise—a hasty one, perhaps, but still an absolute vow publicly made; and in all his wretchedness he had at least the comfort of knowing the present duty.

Afraid of last words, he would not even take leave until Owen came in upon their silence, full of animation and eagerness to see how far his knowledge would serve him with the book that he had brought home.  Robert then rose, and on Owen’s pressing to know when he might see the engineer, promised to go in search of him the next day, but added that they must not expect to see himself till evening, since it would be a busy day.

Lucilla stood up, but speech was impossible.  She was in no mood to affect indifference, yet she could neither be angry nor magnanimous.  She seemed to have passed into a fresh stage of existence where she was not yet at home; and in the same dreamy way she went on drawing Red Indians, till by a sudden impulse she looked up and said, ‘Owen, why should not I come out with you?’

He was intent on a problem, and did not hear.

‘Owen, take me with you; I will make a home for you.’

‘Eh?’

‘Owen, let me come to Canada, and take care of you and your child.’

He burst out laughing.  ‘Well done, Cilly; that beats all!’

‘Am I likely to be in play?’

‘If not, you are crazy.  As if a man could go surveying in the backwoods with a woman and a brat at his heels!’

Lucy’s heart seemed to die within her.  Nothing was left to her: hopes and fears were alike extinct, and life a waste before her.  Still and indifferent, she laid her down at night, and awoke in the morning, wishing still to prolong the oblivion of sleep.  Anger with Robert would have been a solace, but his dejection forbade this; nor could she resent his high-flown notions of duty, and deem herself their victim, since she had slighted fair warning, and repelled his attempts to address her.  She saw no resource save the Holt, now more hopelessly dreary and distasteful than ever, and she shrank both from writing to Honor, or ending her tantalizing intercourse with Robert.  To watch over her brother was her only comfort, and one that must soon end.

He remained immersed in trigonometry, and she was glad he should be too much engrossed for the outbreaks of remorseful sorrow that were so terrible to witness, and carefully guarded him from all that could excite them.

Mrs. Murrell brought several letters that had been addressed to him at her house, and as Lucilla conveyed them to him, she thought their Oxford post-marks looked suspicious, especially as he thrust them aside with the back of his hand, returning without remark to A B and C D.

Presently a person asked to speak with Mr. Sandbrook; and supposing it was on business connected with the funeral, Lucilla went to him, and was surprised at recognizing the valet of one of the gentlemen who had stayed at Castle Blanch.  He was urgent to see Mr. Sandbrook himself; but she, resolved to avert all annoyances, refused to admit him, offering to take a message.  ‘Was it from his master?’

‘Why, no, ma’am.  In fact, I have left his lordship’s service,’ he said, hesitating.  ‘In point of fact I am the principal.  There was a little business to be settled with the young gentleman when he came into his fortune; and understanding that such was the case, since I heard of him as settled in life, I have brought my account.’

‘You mistake the person.  My brother has come into no fortune, and has no expectation of any.’

‘Indeed, ma’am!’ exclaimed the man.  ‘I always understood that Mr. Owen Charteris Sandbrook was heir to a considerable property.’

‘What of that?’

‘Only this, ma’am,—that I hold a bond from that gentleman for the payment of £600 upon the death of Miss Honora Charlecote, of the Holt, Hiltonbury, whose property I understood was entailed on him.’  His tone was still respectful, but his hand shook with suppressed rage, and his eye was full of passion.

‘Miss Charlecote is not dead,’ steadily answered Lucilla.  ‘She is in perfect health, not fifty years old, and her property is entirely at her own disposal.’

Either the man’s wrath was beyond control, or he thought it his interest to terrify the lady, for he broke into angry complaints of being swindled, with menaces of exposure; but Lucilla, never deficient in courage, preserved ready thought and firm demeanour.

‘You had better take care,’ she said.  ‘My brother is under age, and not liable.  If you should recover what you have lent him, it can only be from our sense of honesty.  Leave me your address and a copy of the bond, and I give you my word that you shall receive your due.’

The valet, grown rich in the service of a careless master, and richer by money-lending transactions with his master’s friends, knew Miss Sandbrook, and was aware that a lady’s word might be safer than a spendthrift’s bond.  He tried swaggering, in the hope of alarming her into a promise to fulfil his demand uninvestigated; but she was on her guard; and he, reflecting that she must probably apply to others for the means of paying, gave her the papers, and freed her from his presence.

Freed her from his presence!  Yes, but only to leave her to the consciousness of the burthen of shame he had brought her.  She saw why Owen thought himself past pardon.  Speculation on the death of his benefactress!  Borrowing on an inheritance that he had been forbidden to expect.  Double-dyed deceit and baseness!  Yesterday, she had said they were humbled enough.  This was not humiliation, it was degradation!  It was far too intolerable for standing still and feeling it.  Lucilla’s impetuous impulses always became her obstinate resolutions, and her pride rebounded to its height in the determination that Owen should leave England in debt to no man, were it at the cost of all she possessed.

Re-entering the drawing-room, she had found that Owen had thrust the obnoxious letters into the waste-basket, each unopened envelope, with the contents, rent down the middle.  She sat down on the floor, and took them out, saying, as she met his eye, ‘I shall take these.  I know what they are.  They are my concern.’

‘Folly!’ he muttered.  ‘Don’t you know I have the good luck to be a minor?’

‘That is no excuse for dishonesty.’

‘Look at home before you call names,’ said Owen, growing enraged.  ‘Before you act spy on me, I should like to know who paid for your fine salmon-fly gown, and all the rest of it?’

‘I never contracted debts in the trust that my age would enable me to defraud my creditors.’