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

Lucilla had no reply.  She had not learnt the joy of the week’s Easter-day.  It had an habitual awe for her, not sacred delight; and she could not see that because it was one point where religion taught the world that it had laws of its own, besides those of mere experience and morality, therefore the world complained, and would fain shake off the thraldom.

Owen relieved her by a voluntary proposal to turn down Whittington-street, and see the child.  Perhaps he had an inkling that the chapel in Cat-alley would be in full play, and that the small maid would be in charge; besides, it was gas-light, and the lodgers would be out.  At any rate softening was growing on him.  He looked long and sorrowfully at the babe in its cradle, and at last,—

‘He will never be like her.’

‘No; and I do not think him like you.’

‘In fact, it is an ugly little mortal,’ said Owen, after another investigation.  ‘Yet, it’s very odd, Lucy, I should like him to live.’

‘Very odd, indeed!’ she said, nearly laughing.

‘Well, I own, before ever I saw him, when they said he would die, I did think it was best for himself, and every one else.  So, maybe, it would; but you see I shouldn’t like it.  He will be a horrible expense, and it will be a great bore to know what to do with him: so absurd to have a son only twenty years younger than oneself: but I think I like him, after all.  It is something to work for, to make up to him for what she suffered.  And I say, Lucy,’ his eye brightened, ‘perhaps Honor will take to him!  What a thing it would be if he turned out all she hoped of me, poor thing!  I would be banished for life, if he could be in my place, and make it up to her.  He might yet have the Holt!’

‘You have not proposed sending him to her?’

‘No, I am not so cool,’ he sadly answered; ‘but she is capable of anything in an impulse of forgiveness.’

He spent the evening over his letter; and, in spite of his sitting with his back towards his sister, she saw more than one sheet spoilt by large tears unperceived till they dropped, and felt a jealous pang in recognizing the force of his affection for Honor.  That love and compassion seemed contemptible to her, they were so inconsistent with his deception and disobedience; and she was impatient of seeing that, so far as he felt his errors at all, it was in their aspect towards his benefactress.  His ingratitude towards her touched him in a more tender part than his far greater errors towards his wife.  The last was so shocking and appalling, that he only half realized it, and, boy-like, threw it from him; the other came home to the fondness that had been with him all his life, and which he missed every hour in his grief.  Lucy positively dreaded his making such submission or betraying such sorrow as might bring Honora down on them full of pardon and beneficence.  At least, she had the satisfaction of hearing ‘I’ve said nothing about you, Cilla.’

‘That’s right!’

‘Nor the child,’ he continued, brushing up his hair from his brow.  ‘When I came to go over it, I did hate myself to such a degree that I could not say a word like asking a favour.’

Lucy was greatly relieved.

He looked like himself when he came down to breakfast exhilarated by the restoration to activity, and the opening of a new path, though there was a subdued, grave look on his young brow not unsuited to his deep mourning.

He took up his last evening’s production, looked at it with some satisfaction, and observed, ‘Sweet old honey!  I do hope that letter may be a little comfort to her good old heart!’

Then he told that he had been dreaming of her looking into the cradle, and he could not tell whether it were himself or the boy that he had seen sitting on a haycock at Hiltonbury.

‘Who knows but it may be a good omen,’ said he in his sanguine state.  ‘You said you would go to her, if she took the child.’

‘I did not say I would not.’

‘Well, don’t make difficulties; pray don’t, Lucilla.  I want nothing for myself; but if I could see you and the child at the Holt, and hear her dear voice say one word of kindness, I could go out happy.  Imagine if she should come to town!’

Lucilla had no mind to imagine any such thing.

CHAPTER XIII

An upper and a lower spring
To thee, to all are given:
They mingle not, apart they gleam,
The joys of earth, of heaven on high;
God grant thee grace to choose the spring,
Even before the nether spring is dry.

    —M.

‘One moment, Phœbe, I’ll walk a little way with you;’ and Honor Charlecote, throwing on bonnet and scarf, hurried from the drawing-room where Mrs. Saville was working.

In spite of that youthful run, and girlish escape from ‘company’ to a confidante, the last fortnight had left deep traces.  Every incipient furrow had become visible, the cheeks had fallen, the eyes sunk, the features grown prominent, and the auburn curls were streaked with silver threads never previously perceptible to a casual eye.  While languid, mechanical talk was passing, Phœbe had been mourning over the change; but she found her own Miss Charlecote restored in the freer manner, the long sigh, the tender grasp of the arm, as soon as they were in the open air.

‘Phœbe,’ almost in a whisper, ‘I have a letter from him.’

Phœbe pressed her arm, and looked her sympathy.

‘Such a nice letter,’ added Honor.  ‘Poor fellow! he has suffered so much.  Should you like to see it?’

Owen had not figured to himself what eyes would peruse his letter; but Honor was in too much need of sympathy to withhold the sight from the only person who she could still hope would be touched.

‘You see he asks nothing, nothing,’ she wistfully pleaded.  ‘Only pardon!  Not to come home; nor anything.’

‘Yes; surely, that is real contrition.’

‘Surely, surely it is: yet they are not satisfied—Mr. Saville and Sir John.  They say it is not full confession; but you see he does refer to the rest.  He says he has deeply offended in other ways.’

‘The rest?’

‘You do not know.  I thought your brother had told you.  No?  Ah!  Robert is his friend.  Mr. Saville went and found it out.  It was very right of him, I believe.  Quite right I should know; but—’

‘Dear Miss Charlecote, it has pained you terribly.’

‘It is what young men do; but I did not expect it of him.  Expensive habits, debts, I could have borne, especially with the calls for money his poor wife must have caused; but I don’t know how to believe that he gave himself out as my heir, and obtained credit on that account—a bond to be paid on my death!’

Phœbe was too much shocked to answer.

‘As soon as Mr. Saville heard of these troubles,’ continued Honor, ‘as, indeed, I put all into his hands, he thought it right I should know all.  He went to Oxford, found out all that was against poor Owen, and then proceeded to London, and saw the lawyer in whose hands Captain Charteris had left those children’s affairs.  He was very glad to see Mr. Saville, for he thought Miss Sandbrook’s friends ought to know what she was doing.  So it came out that Lucilla had been to him, insisting on selling out nearly all her fortune, and paying off with part of it this horrible bond.’

‘She is paying his debts, rather than let you hear of them.’

‘And they are very angry with him for permitting it; as if he or anybody else had any power to stop Lucy!  I know as well as possible that it is she who will not let him confess and make it all open with me.  And yet, after this, what right have I to say I know?  How little I ever knew that boy!  Yes, it is right it should be taken out of my hands—my blindness has done harm enough already; but if I had not bound myself to forbear, I could not help it, when I see the Savilles so much set against him.  I do not know that they are more severe in action than—than perhaps they ought to be, but they will not let me pity him.’

‘They ought not to dictate to you,’ said Phœbe, indignantly.

‘Dictate!  Oh, no, my dear.  If you could only hear his compliments to my discretion, you would know he was thinking all the time there is no fool like an old fool.  No, I don’t complain.  I have been wilful, and weak, and blind, and these are the fruits!  It is right that others should judge for him, and I deserve that they should come and guard me; though, when I think of such untruth throughout, I don’t feel as if there were danger of my ever being more than sorry for him.’

‘It is worse than the marriage,’ said Phœbe, thoughtfully.

‘There might have been generous risk in that.  This was—oh, very nearly treachery!  No wonder Lucy tries to hide it!  I hope never to say a word to her to show that I am aware of it.’

‘She is coming home, then?’

‘She must, since she has broken with the Charterises; but she has never written.  Has Robert mentioned her?’

‘Never; he writes very little.’

‘I long to know how it is with him.  Now that he has signed his contract, and made all his arrangements, he cannot retract; but—but we shall see,’ said Honor, with one gleam of playful hope.  ‘If she should come home to me ready to submit and be gentle, there might be a chance yet.  I am sure he is poor Owen’s only real friend.  If I could only tell you half my gratitude to him for it!  And I will tell you what Mr. Saville has actually consented to my doing—I may give Owen enough to cover his premium and outfit; and I hope that may set him at ease in providing for his child for the present from his own means, as he ought to do.’