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

A Canadian forest on a small scale, an extremely miniature scale indeed, but still Canadian forests are of pine, and the Holt plantation was fir, and firs were pines, and it was a lonely musing place, and so on one of the stillest, clearest days of ‘St. Luke’s little summer,’ the last afternoon of her visit at the Holt, there stood Honora, leaning against a tree stem, deep, very deep in a vision of the primeval woodlands of the West, their red inhabitants, and the white man who should carry the true, glad tidings westward, westward, ever from east to west.  Did she know how completely her whole spirit and soul were surrendered to the worship of that devotion?  Worship?  Yes, the word is advisedly used; Honora had once given her spirit in homage to Schiller’s self-sacrificing Max; the same heart-whole veneration was now rendered to the young missionary, multiplied tenfold by the hero being in a tangible, visible shape, and not by any means inclined to thwart or disdain the allegiance of the golden-haired girl.  Nay, as family connections frequently meeting, they had acted upon each other’s minds more than either knew, even when the hour of parting had come, and words had been spoken which gave Honora something more to cherish in the image of Owen Sandbrook than even the hero and saint.  There then she stood and dreamt, pensive and saddened indeed, but with a melancholy trenching very nearly on happiness in the intensity of its admiration, and the vague ennobling future of devoted usefulness in which her heart already claimed to share, as her person might in some far away period on which she could not dwell.

A sound approached, a firm footstep, falling with strong elasticity and such regular cadences, that it seemed to chime in with the pine-tree music, and did not startle her till it came so near that there was distinctive character to be discerned in the tread, and then with a strange, new shyness, she would have slipped away, but she had been seen, and Humfrey, with his timber race in his hand, appeared on the path, exclaiming, ‘Ah, Honor, is it you come out to meet me, like old times?  You have been so much taken up with your friend Master Owen that I have scarcely seen you of late.’

Honor did not move away, but she blushed deeply as she said, ‘I am afraid I did not come to meet you, Humfrey.’

‘No?  What, you came for the sake of a brown study?  I wish I had known you were not busy, for I have been round all the woods marking timber.’

‘Ah!’ said she, rousing herself with some effort, ‘I wonder how many trees I should have saved from the slaughter.  Did you go and condemn any of my pets?’

‘Not that I know of,’ said Humfrey.  ‘I have touched nothing near the house.’

‘Not even the old beech that was scathed with lightning?  You know papa says that is the touchstone of influence; Sarah and Mr. West both against me,’ laughed Honora, quite restored to her natural manner and confiding ease.

‘The beech is likely to stand as long as you wish it,’ said Humfrey, with an unaccustomed sort of matter-of-fact gravity, which surprised and startled her, so as to make her bethink herself whether she could have behaved ill about it, been saucy to Sarah, or the like.

‘Thank you,’ she said; ‘have I made a fuss—?’

‘No, Honor,’ he said, with deliberate kindness, shutting up his knife, and putting it into his pocket; ‘only I believe it is time we should come to an understanding.’

More than ever did she expect one of his kind remonstrances, and she looked up at him in expectation, and ready for defence, but his broad, sunburnt countenance looked marvellously heated, and he paused ere he spoke.

‘I find I can’t spare you, Honora; you had better stay at the Holt for good.’  Her cheeks flamed, and her heart galloped, but she could not let herself understand.

‘Honor, you are old enough now, and I do not think you need fear.  It is almost your home already, and I believe I can make you happy, with the blessing of God—’  He paused, but as she could not frame an answer in her consternation, continued, ‘Perhaps I should not have spoken so suddenly, but I thought you would not mind me; I should like to have had one word from my little Honor before I go to your father, but don’t if you had rather not.’

‘Oh, don’t go to papa, please don’t,’ she cried, ‘it would only make him sorry.’

Humfrey stood as if under an unexpected shock.

‘Oh! how came you to think of it?’ she said in her distress; ‘I never did, and it can never be—I am so sorry!’

‘Very well, my dear, do not grieve about it,’ said Humfrey, only bent on soothing her; ‘I dare say you are quite right, you are used to people in London much more suitable to you than a stupid homely fellow like me, and it was a foolish fancy to think it might be otherwise.  Don’t cry, Honor dear, I can’t bear that!’

‘Oh, Humfrey, only understand, please!  You are the very dearest person in the world to me after papa and mamma; and as to fine London people, oh no, indeed!  But—’

‘It is Owen Sandbrook; I understand,’ said Humfrey, gravely.

She made no denial.

‘But, Honor,’ he anxiously exclaimed, ‘you are not going out in this wild way among the backwoods, it would break your mother’s heart; and he is not fit to take care of you.  I mean he cannot think of it now.’

‘O no, no, I could not leave papa and mamma; but some time or other—’

‘Is this arranged?  Does your father know it?’

‘Oh, Humfrey, of course!’

‘Then it is an engagement?’

‘No,’ said Honora, sadly; ‘papa said I was too young, and he wished I had heard nothing about it.  We are to go on as if nothing had happened, and I know they think we shall forget all about it!  As if we could!  Not that I wish it to be different.  I know it would be wicked to desert papa and mamma while she is so unwell.  The truth is, Humfrey,’ and her voice sank, ‘that it cannot be while they live.’

‘My poor little Honor!’ he said, in a tone of the most unselfish compassion.

She had entirely forgotten his novel aspect, and only thought of him as the kindest friend to whom she could open her heart.

‘Don’t pity me,’ she said in exultation; ‘think what it is to be his choice.  Would I have him give up his aims, and settle down in the loveliest village in England?  No, indeed, for then it would not be Owen!  I am happier in the thought of him than I could be with everything present to enjoy.’

‘I hope you will continue to find it so,’ he said, repressing a sigh.

‘I should be ashamed of myself if I did not,’ she continued with glistening eyes.  ‘Should not I have patience to wait while he is at his real glorious labour?  And as to home, that’s not altered, only better and brighter for the definite hope and aim that will go through everything, and make me feel all I do a preparation.’

‘Yes, you know him well,’ said Humfrey; ‘you saw him constantly when he was at Westminster.’

‘O yes, and always!  Why, Humfrey, it is my great glory and pleasure to feel that he formed me!  When he went to Oxford, he brought me home all the thoughts that have been my better life.  All my dearest books we read together, and what used to look dry and cold, gained light and life after he touched it.’

‘Yes, I see.’

His tone reminded her of what had passed, and she said, timidly, ‘I forgot!  I ought not!  I have vexed you, Humfrey.’

‘No,’ he said, in his full tender voice; ‘I see that it was vain to think of competing with one of so much higher claims.  If he goes on in the course he has chosen, yours will have been a noble choice, Honor; and I believe,’ he added, with a sweetness of smile that almost made her forgive the if, ‘that you are one to be better pleased so than with more ordinary happiness.  I have no doubt it is all right.’

‘Dear Humfrey, you are so good!’ she said, struck with his kind resignation, and utter absence of acerbity in his disappointment.

‘Forget this, Honora,’ he said, as they were coming to the end of the pine wood; ‘let us be as we were before.’

Honora gladly promised, and excepting for her wonder at such a step on the part of the cousin whose plaything and pet she had hitherto been, she had no temptation to change her manner.  She loved him as much as ever, but only as a kind elder brother, and she was glad that he was wise enough to see his immeasurable inferiority to the young missionary.  It was a wonderful thing, and she was sorry for his disappointment; but after all, he took it so quietly that she did not think it could have hurt him much.  It was only that he wanted to keep his pet in the country.  He was not capable of love like Owen Sandbrook’s.

* * * * *

Years passed on.  Rumour had bestowed Mr. Charlecote of Hiltonbury on every lady within twenty miles, but still in vain.  His mother was dead, his sister married to an old college fellow, who had waited half a lifetime for a living, but still he kept house alone.

And open house it was, with a dinner-table ever expanding for chance guests, strawberry or syllabub feasts half the summer, and Christmas feasts extending wide on either side of the twelve days.  Every one who wanted a holiday was free of the Holt; young sportsmen tried their inexperienced guns under the squire’s patient eye; and mammas disposed of their children for weeks together, to enjoy the run of the house and garden, and rides according to age, on pony, donkey, or Mr. Charlecote.  No festivity in the neighbourhood was complete without his sunshiny presence; he was wanted wherever there was any family event; and was godfather, guardian, friend, and adviser of all.  Every one looked on him as a sort of exclusive property, yet he had room in his heart for all.  As a magistrate, he was equally indispensable in county government, and a charity must be undeserving indeed that had not Humfrey Charlecote, Esq., on the committee.  In his own parish he was a beneficent monarch; on his own estate a mighty farmer, owning that his relaxation and delight were his turnips, his bullocks, and machines; and so content with them, and with his guests, that Honora never recollected that walk in the pine woods without deciding that to have monopolized him would have been an injury to the public, and perhaps less for his happiness than this free, open-hearted bachelor life.  Seldom did she recall that scene to mind, for she had never been by it rendered less able to trust to him as her friend and protector, and she stood in need of his services and his comfort, when her father’s death had left him the nearest relative who could advise or transact business for her and her mother.  Then, indeed, she leant on him as on the kindest and most helpful of brothers.

Mrs. Charlecote was too much acclimatized to the city to be willing to give up her old residence, and Honor not only loved it fondly, but could not bear to withdraw from the local charities where her tasks had hitherto lain; and Woolstone-lane, therefore, continued their home, though the summer and autumn usually took them out of London.

Such was the change in Honora’s outward life.  How was it with that inmost shrine where dwelt her heart and soul?  A copious letter writer, Owen Sandbrook’s correspondence never failed to find its way to her, though they did not stand on such terms as to write to one another; and in those letters she lived, doing her day’s work with cheerful brightness, and seldom seeming preoccupied, but imagination, heart, and soul were with his mission.

Very indignant was she when the authorities, instead of sending him to the interesting children of the forests, thought proper to waste him on mere colonists, some of them Yankee, some Presbyterian Scots.  He was asked insolent, nasal questions, his goods were coolly treated as common property, and it was intimated to him on all hands that as Englishman he was little in their eyes, as clergyman less, as gentleman least of all.  Was this what he had sacrificed everything for?

By dint of strong complaints and entreaties, after he had quarrelled with most of his flock, he accomplished an exchange into a district where red men formed the chief of his charge; and Honora was happy, and watched for histories of noble braves, gallant hunters, and meek-eyed squaws.

Slowly, slowly she gathered that the picturesque deer-skins had become dirty blankets, and that the diseased, filthy, sophisticated savages were among the worst of the pitiable specimens of the effect of contact with the most evil side of civilization.  To them, as Owen wrote, a missionary was only a white man who gave no brandy, and the rest of his parishioners were their obdurate, greedy, trading tempters!  It had been a shame to send him to such a hopeless set, when there were others on whom his toils would not be thrown away.  However, he should do his best.

And Honor went on expecting the wonders his best would work, only the more struck with admiration by hearing that the locality was a swamp of luxuriant vegetation, and equally luxuriant fever and ague; and the letter he wrote thence to her mother on the news of their loss did her more good than all Humfrey’s considerate kindness.

Next, he had had the ague, and had gone to Toronto for change of air.  Report spoke of Mr. Sandbrook as the most popular preacher who had appeared in Toronto for years, attracting numbers to his pulpit, and sending them away enraptured by his power of language.  How beautiful that a man of such talents, always so much stimulated by appreciation, should give up all this most congenial scene, and devote himself to his obscure mission!

Report said more, but Honora gave it no credit till old Mr. Sandbrook called one morning in Woolstone-lane, by his nephew’s desire, to announce to his friends that he had formed an engagement with Miss Charteris, the daughter of a general officer there in command.

Honor sat out all the conversation; and Mrs. Charlecote did not betray herself; though, burning with a mother’s wrath, she did nothing worse than hope they would be happy.

Yet Honor had not dethroned the monarch of her imagination.  She reiterated to herself and to her mother that she had no ground of complaint, that it had been understood that the past was to be forgotten, and that Owen was far more worthily employed than in dwelling on them.  No blame could attach to him, and it was wise to choose one accustomed to the country and able to carry out his plans.  The personal feeling might go, but veneration survived.

Mrs. Charlecote never rested till she had learnt all the particulars.  It was a dashing, fashionable family, and Miss Charteris had been the gayest of the gay, till she had been impressed by Mr. Sandbrook’s ministrations.  From pope to lover, Honor knew how easy was the transition; but she zealously nursed her admiration for the beauty, who was exchanging her gaieties for the forest missions; she made her mother write cordially, and send out a pretty gift, and treated as a personal affront all reports of the Charteris disapprobation, and of the self-will of the young people.  They were married, and the next news that Honora heard was, that the old general had had a fit from passion; thirdly, came tidings that the eldest son, a prosperous M.P., had not only effected a reconciliation, but had obtained a capital living for Mr. Sandbrook, not far from the family seat.

Mrs. Charlecote declared that her daughter should not stay in town to meet the young couple, and Honora’s resistance was not so much dignity, as a feverish spirit of opposition, which succumbed to her sense of duty, but not without such wear and tear of strained cheerfulness and suppressed misery, that when at length her mother had brought her away, the fatigue of the journey completed the work, and she was prostrated for weeks by low fever.  The blow had fallen.  He had put his hand to the plough and looked back.  Faithlessness towards herself had been passed over unrecognized, faithlessness towards his self-consecration was quite otherwise.  That which had absorbed her affections and adoration had proved an unstable, excitable being!  Alas! would that long ago she had opened her eyes to the fact that it was her own lofty spirit, not his steadfastness, which had first kept it out of the question that the mission should be set aside for human love.  The crash of her idolatry was the greater because it had been so highly pitched, so closely intermingled with the true worship.  She was long ill, the past series of disappointments telling when her strength was reduced; and for many a week she would lie still and dreamy, but fretted and wearied, so as to control herself with difficulty when in the slightest degree disturbed, or called upon to move or think.  When her strength returned under her mother’s tender nursing the sense of duty revived.  She thought her youth utterly gone with the thinning of her hair and the wasting of her cheeks, but her mother must be the object of her care and solicitude, and she would exert herself for her sake, to save her grief, and hide the wound left by the rending away of the jewel of her heart.  So she set herself to seem to like whatever her mother proposed, and she acted her interest so well that insensibly it became real.  After all, she was but four-and-twenty, and the fever had served as an expression of the feeling that would have its way: she had had a long rest, which had relieved the sense of pent-up and restrained suffering, and vigour and buoyancy were a part of her character; her tone and manner resumed their cheerfulness, her spirits came back, though still with the dreary feeling that the hope and aim of life were gone, when she was left to her own musings; she was little changed, and went on with daily life, contented and lively over the details, and returning to her interest in reading, in art, poetry, and in all good works, while her looks resumed their brightness, and her mother congratulated herself once more on the rounded cheek and profuse curls.

At the year’s end Humfrey Charlecote renewed his proposal.  It was no small shock to find herself guilty of his having thus long remained single, and she was touched by his kind forbearance, but there was no bringing herself either to love him, or to believe that he loved her, with such love as had been her vision.  The image around which she had bound her heart-strings came between him and her, and again she begged his pardon, and told him she liked him too well as he was to think of him in any other light.  Again he, with the most tender patience and humility, asked her to forgive him for having harassed her, and betrayed so little chagrin that she ascribed his offer to generous compassion at her desertion.

CHAPTER II

He who lets his feelings runIn soft luxurious flow,Shrinks when hard service must be done,And faints at every woe.

Seven years more, and Honora was in mourning for her mother.  She was alone in the world, without any near or precious claim, those clinging tendrils of her heart rent from their oldest, surest earthly stay, and her time left vacant from her dearest, most constant occupation.  Her impulse was to devote herself and her fortune at once to the good work which most engaged her imagination, but Humfrey Charlecote, her sole relation, since heart complaint had carried off his sister Sarah, interfered with the authority he had always exercised over her, and insisted on her waiting one full year before pledging herself to anything.  At one-and-thirty, with her golden hair and light figure, her delicate skin and elastic step, she was still too young to keep house in solitude, and she invited to her home a friendless old governess of her own, sick at heart with standing for the Governess’s Institution, promising her a daughter’s care and attendance on her old age.  Gentle old Miss Wells was but too happy in her new quarters, though she constantly averred that she knew she should not continue there; treated as injuries to herself all Honor’s assertions of the dignity of age and old maidishness, and remained convinced that she should soon see her married.

Honora had not seen Mr. Sandbrook since his return from Canada, though his living was not thirty miles from the City.  There had been exchanges of calls when he had been in London, but these had only resulted in the leaving of cards; and from various causes she had been unable to meet him at dinner.  She heard of him, however, from their mutual connection, old Mrs. Sandbrook, who had made a visit at Wrapworth, and came home stored with anecdotes of the style in which he lived, the charms of Mrs. Sandbrook, and the beauty of the children.  As far as Honora could gather, and very unwillingly she did so, he was leading the life of an easy-going, well-beneficed clergyman, not neglecting the parish, according to the requirements of the day, indeed slightly exceeding them, very popular, good-natured, and charitable, and in great request in a numerous, demi-suburban neighbourhood, for all sorts of not unclerical gaieties.  The Rev. O. Sandbrook was often to be met with in the papers, preaching everywhere and for everything, and whispers went about of his speedy promotion to a situation of greater note.  In the seventh year of his marriage, his wife died, and Honora was told of his overwhelming grief, how he utterly refused all comfort or alleviation, and threw himself with all his soul into his parish and his children.  People spoke of him as going about among the poor from morning to night, with his little ones by his side, shrinking from all other society, teaching them and nursing them himself, and endeavouring to the utmost to be as both parents in one.  The youngest, a delicate infant, soon followed her mother to the grave, and old Mrs. Sandbrook proved herself to have no parent’s heart by being provoked with his agonizing grief for the ‘poor little sickly thing,’ while it was not in Honora’s nature not to feel the more tenderly towards the idol of her girlish days, because he was in trouble.

It was autumn, the period when leaves fall off and grow damp, and London birds of passage fly home to their smoky nests.  Honora, who had gone to Weymouth chiefly because she saw Miss Wells would be disappointed if she did otherwise; when there, had grown happily at home with the waves, and in talking to the old fishermen; but had come back because Miss Wells thought it chilly and dreary, and pined for London warmth and snugness.  The noonday sun had found the way in at the oriel window of the drawing-room, and traced the reflection of the merchant’s mark upon the upper pane in distorted outline on the wainscoted wall; it smiled on the glowing tints of Honora’s hair, but seemed to die away against the blackness of her dress, as she sat by the table, writing letters, while opposite, in the brightness of the fire, sat the pale, placid Miss Wells with her morning nest of sermon books and needlework around her.

Honor yawned; Miss Wells looked up with kind anxiety.  She knew such a yawn was equivalent to a sigh, and that it was dreary work to settle in at home again this first time without the mother.

Then Honor smiled, and played with her pen-wiper.  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘it is comfortable to be at home again!’

‘I hope you will soon be able to feel so, my dear,’ said the kind old governess.

‘I mean it,’ said Honor cheerfully; then sighing, ‘But do you know, Mr. Askew wishes his curates to visit at the asylum instead of ladies.’

Miss Wells burst out into all the indignation that was in her mild nature.  Honor not to visit at the asylum founded chiefly by her own father!

‘It is a parish affair now,’ said Honor; ‘and I believe those Miss Stones and their set have been very troublesome.  Besides I think he means to change its character.’

‘It is very inconsiderate of him,’ said Miss Wells; ‘he ought to have consulted you.’

‘Every one loves his own charity the best,’ said Honora; ‘Humfrey says endowments are generally a mistake, each generation had better do its own work to the utmost.  I wish Mr. Askew had not begun now, it was the work I specially looked to, but I let it alone while—and he cannot be expected—’

‘I should have expected it of him though!’ exclaimed Miss Wells, ‘and he ought to know better!  How have you heard it?’

‘I have a note from him this morning,’ said Honora; ‘he asks me Humfrey Charlecote’s address; you know he and Mr. Sandbrook are trustees,’ and her voice grew the sadder.

‘If I am not much mistaken, Mr. Charlecote will represent to him his want of consideration.’

‘I think not,’ said Honora; ‘I should be sorry to make the clergyman’s hard task here any harder for the sake of my feelings.  Late incumbent’s daughters are proverbially inconvenient.  No, I would not stand in the way, but it makes me feel as if my work in St. Wulstan’s were done,’ and the tears dropped fast.