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

Christmas had passed; Mr. Sandbrook had begun to write to his children about seeing them soon; Lucilla’s slow hemming was stimulated by the hope of soon making her present; and Honora was marvelling at her own selfishness in dreading the moment when the little ones would be no longer hers; when a hurried note of preparation came from Captain Charteris.  A slight imprudence had renewed all the mischief, and his patient was lying speechless under a violent attack of inflammation.  Another letter, and all was over.

A shock indeed! but in Honora’s eyes, Owen Sandbrook had become chiefly the children’s father, and their future was what concerned her most.  How should she bear to part with his darlings for ever, and to know them brought up in the way that was not good, and which their father dreaded, and when their orphanhood made her doubly tender over them?

To little Owen it was chiefly that papa was gone ‘up there’ whither all his hymns and allegories pointed, and at his age, all that he did not actually see was much on a par; the hope of meeting had been too distant for the extinction of it to affect him very nearly, and he only understood enough to prompt the prettiest and most touching sayings, wondering about the doings of papa, mamma, and little baby among the angels, with as much reality as he had formerly talked of papa among the French.

Lucilla heard with more comprehension, but her gay temper seemed to revolt against having sorrow forced on her.  She would not listen and would not think; her spirits seemed higher than ever, and Honora almost concluded that either she did not feel at all, or that the moment of separation had exhausted all.  Her character made Honora especially regret her destiny; it was one only too congenial to the weeds that were more likely to be implanted, than plucked up, at Castle Blanch.  Captain Charteris had written to say that he, and probably his brother, should come to Sandbeach to relieve Miss Charlecote from the care of the children, and she prized each day while she still had those dear little voices about the house.

‘Sweet Honey,’ said Lucilla, who had been standing by the window, apparently watching the rain, ‘do Uncle Charteris and Uncle Kit want us to go away from you?’

‘I am very much afraid they do, my dear.’

‘Nurse said, if you would ask them, we might stay,’ said Lucilla, tracing the course of a drop with her finger.

‘If asking would do any good, my dear,’ sighed Honor; ‘but I don’t think nurse knows.  You see, you belong to your uncles now.’

‘I won’t belong to Uncle Charteris!’ cried Lucilla, passionately.  ‘I won’t go to Castle Blanch!  They were all cross to me; Ratia teased me, and father said it was all their fault I was naughty, and he would never take me there again!  Don’t let Uncle Kit go and take me there!’ and she clung to her friend, as if the recollection of Uncle Kit’s victory by main force hung about her still.

‘I won’t, I won’t, my child, if I can help it; but it will all be as your dear father may have fixed it, and whatever he wishes I know that his little girl will do.’

Many a dim hope did Honora revolve, and more than ever did she feel as if a piece of her heart would be taken away, for the orphans fastened themselves upon her, and little Owen stroked her face, and said naughty Uncle Kit should not take them away.  She found from the children and nurse that about a year ago, just after the loss of the baby, there had been a most unsuccessful visit at Castle Blanch; father and little ones had been equally miserable there in the separation of the large establishment, and Lucilla had been domineeringly petted by her youngest cousin, Horatia, who chose to regard her as a baby, and coerced her by bodily force, such as was intolerable to so high-spirited a child, who was a little woman at home.  She had resisted, and fallen into dire disgrace, and it was almost with horror that she regarded the place and the cousinhood.  Nurse appeared to have some private disgust of her own, as well as to have much resented her children’s being convicted of naughtiness, and she spoke strongly in confidence to Honora of the ungodly ways of the whole household, declaring that after the advantages she had enjoyed with her dear master, she could not bear to live there, though she might—yes, she must be with the dear children just at first, and she ventured to express strong wishes for their remaining in their present home, where they had been so much improved.

The captain came alone.  He walked in from the inn just before luncheon, with a wearied, sad look about him, as if he had suffered a good deal; he spoke quietly and slowly, and when the children came in, he took them up in his arms and kissed them very tenderly.  Lucilla submitted more placably than Honor expected, but the moment they were set down they sprang to their friend, and held by her dress.  Then came the meal, which passed off with small efforts at making talk, but with nothing memorable except the captain’s exclamation at the end—‘Well, that’s the first time I ever dined with you children without a fuss about the meat.  Why, Cilly, I hardly know you.’

‘I think the appetites are better for the sea air,’ said Honor, not that she did not think it a great achievement.

‘I’m afraid it has been a troublesome charge,’ said the captain, laying his hand on his niece’s shoulder, which she at once removed, as disavowing his right in her.

‘Oh! it has made me so happy,’ said Honor, hardly trusting her voice; ‘I don’t know how to yield it up.’

Those understanding eyes of Lucilla’s were drinking in each word, but Uncle Kit ruthlessly said—‘There, it’s your walking time, children; you go out now.’

Honora followed up his words with her orders, and Lucille obeyed, only casting another wistful look, as if she knew her fate hung in the scales.  It was showing tact such as could hardly have been expected from the little impetuous termagant, and was the best pleading for her cause, for her uncle’s first observation was—‘A wonder!  Six months back, there would have been an explosion!’

‘I am glad you think them improved.’

‘Civilized beings, not plagues.  You have been very good to them;’ and as she intimated her own pleasure in them, he continued—‘It will be better for them at Castle Blanch to have been a little broken in; the change from his indulgence would have been terrible.’

‘If it were possible to leave them with me, I should be so happy,’ at length gasped Honora, meeting an inquiring dart from the captain’s eyes, as he only made an interrogative sound as though to give himself time to think, and she proceeded it broken sentences—‘If their uncle and aunt did not so very much wish for them—perhaps—I could—’

‘Well,’ said Captain Charteris, apparently so little aided by his thoughts as to see no hope of overcoming his perplexity without expressing it, ‘the truth is that, though I had not meant to say anything of it, for I think relations should come first, I believe poor Sandbrook would have preferred it.’  And while her colour deepened, and she locked her trembling fingers together to keep them still, he went on.  ‘Yes! you can’t think how often I called myself a dozen fools for having parted him from his children!  Never held up his head again!  I could get him to take interest in nothing—every child he saw he was only comparing to one or other of them.  After the year turned, and he talked of coming home, he was more cheerful; but strangely enough, for those last days at Hyères, though he seemed better, his spirits sank unaccountably, and he would talk more of the poor little thing that he lost than of these!  Then he had a letter from you which set him sighing, and wishing they could always have such care!  Altogether, I thought to divert him by taking him on that expedition, but—  Well, I’ve been provoked with him many a time, but there was more of the real thing in him than in the rest of us, and I feel as if the best part of our family were gone.’

‘And this was all?  He was too ill to say much afterwards?’

‘Couldn’t speak when he rang in the morning!  Was gone by that time next day.  Now,’ added the captain, after a silence, ‘I tell you candidly that my feeling is that the ordinary course is right.  I think Charles ought to take the children, and the children ought to be with Charles.’

‘If you think so,’ began Honor, with failing hopes.

‘At the same time,’ continued he, ‘I don’t think they’ll be so happy or so well cared for as by you, and knowing poor Owen’s wishes, I should not feel justified in taking them away, since you are so good as to offer to keep them.’

Honor eagerly declared herself much obliged, then thought it sounded ironical.

‘Unless,’ he proceeded, ‘Charles should strongly feel it his duty to take them home, in which case—’

‘Oh, of course I could say nothing.’

‘Very well, then we’ll leave it to his decision.’

So it remained, and in trembling Honora awaited the answer.

It was in her favour that he was appointed to a ship, since he was thus excluded from exercising any supervision over them at Castle Blanch, and shortly after, letters arrived gratefully acceding to her request.  Family arrangements and an intended journey made her proposal doubly welcome, for the present at least, and Mrs. Charteris was full of polite thanks.

Poor little waifs and strays!  No one else wanted them, but with her at least they had a haven of refuge, and she loved them the more ardently for their forlorn condition.  Her own as they had never before been! and if the tenure were uncertain, she prized it doubly, even though, by a strange fatality, she had never had so much trouble and vexation with them as arose at once on their being made over to her!  When all was settled, doubt over, and the routine life begun, Lucilla evidently felt the blank of her vanished hopes, and became fretful and captious, weary of things in general, and without sufficient motive to control her natural taste for the variety of naughtiness!  Honor had not undertaken the easiest of tasks, but she neither shrank from her enterprise nor ceased to love the fiery little flighty sprite, the pleasing torment of her life—she loved her only less than that model of childish sweetness, her little Owen.

* * * * *

‘Lucy, dear child, don’t take your brother there.  Owen dear, come back, don’t you see the mud? you’ll sink in.’

‘I’m only getting a dear little crab, Sweet Honey,’ and the four little feet went deeper and deeper into the black mud.

‘I can’t have it done! come back, children, I desire, directly.’

The boy would have turned, but his sister had hold of his hand.  ‘Owen, there he is!  I’ll have him,’ and as the crab scuttled sidelong after the retreating tide, on plunged the children.

‘Lucy, come here!’ cried the unfortunate old hen, as her ducklings took to the black amphibious mass, but not a whit did Lucilla heed.  In the ardour of the chase, on she went, unheeding, leaving her brother sticking half way, where having once stopped, he began to find it difficult to withdraw his feet, and fairly screamed to ‘Sweet Honey’ for help.  His progress was not beyond what a few long vigorous steps of hers could come up with, but deeply and blackly did she sink, and when she had lifted her truant out of his two holes, the increased weight made her go ankle deep at the first tread, and just at the same moment a loud shriek proclaimed that Lucilla, in hey final assault on the crab, had fallen flat on a yielding surface, where each effort to rise sank her deeper, and Honora almost was expecting in her distress to see her disappear altogether, ere the treacherous mud would allow her to come to the rescue.  But in that instant of utmost need, ere she could set down the little boy, a gentleman, with long-legged strides, had crossed the intervening space, and was bearing back the young lady from her mud bath.  She raised her eyes to thank him.  ‘Humfrey!’ she exclaimed.

‘Honor! so it was you, was it?  I’d no notion of it!’ as he placed on her feet the little maiden, encrusted with mud from head to foot, while the rest of the party were all apparently cased in dark buskins of the same.

‘Come to see me and my children?’ she said.  ‘I am ashamed you should find us under such circumstances! though I don’t know what would have become of us otherwise.  No, Lucy, you are too disobedient for any one to take notice of you yet—you must go straight home, and be cleaned, and not speak to Mr. Charlecote till you are quite good.  Little Owen, here he is—he was quite led into it.  But how good of you to come, Humfrey: where are you?’

‘At the hotel—I had a mind to come and see how you were getting on, and I’d had rather more than usual to do of late, so I thought I would take a holiday.’

They walked on talking for some seconds, when presently as the squire’s hand hung down, a little soft one stole into it, and made him exclaim with a start, ‘I thought it was Ponto’s nose!’

But though very fond of children, he took up his hand, and did not make the slightest response to the sly overture of the small coquette, the effect as Honor well knew of opposition quite as much as of her strong turn for gentlemen.  She pouted a little, and then marched on with ‘don’t care’ determination, while Humfrey and Honora began to talk over Hiltonbury affairs, but were soon interrupted by Owen, who, accustomed to all her attention, did not understand her being occupied by any one else.  ‘Honey, Honeypots,’ and a pull at her hand when she did not immediately attend, ‘why don’t the little crabs get black legs like mine?’

‘Because they only go where they ought,’ was the extremely moral reply of the squire.  ‘Little boys aren’t meant to walk in black mud.’

‘The shrimp boys do go in the mud,’ shrewdly pleaded Owen, setting Honor off laughing at Humfrey’s discomfited look of diversion.

‘It won’t do to generalize,’ she said, merrily.  ‘Owen must be content to regard crabs and shrimp boys as privileged individuals.’

Owen demanded whether when he was big he might be a shrimp boy, and a good deal of fraternization had taken place between him and Mr. Charlecote before the cottage was reached.

It was a very happy day to Honora; there was a repose and trust to be felt in Humfrey’s company, such as she had not experienced since she had lost her parents, and the home sense of kindred was very precious.  Only women whose chief prop is gone, can tell the value of one who is still near enough to disapprove without ceremony.

The anxiety that Honor felt to prove to her cousin that it was not a bit of romantic folly to have assumed her present charge, was worth more than all the freedom of action in the world.  How much she wanted the children to show off to advantage! how desirous she was that he should not think her injudicious! yes, and how eager to see him pleased with their pretty looks!

Lucilla came down cleaned, curled, and pardoned, and certainly a heart must have been much less tender than Humfrey Charlecote’s not to be touched by the aspect of those two little fair waxen-looking beings in the deepest mourning of orphanhood.  He was not slow in making advances towards them, but the maiden had been affronted, and chose to be slyly shy and retiring, retreating to the other side of Miss Wells, and there becoming intent upon her story-book, though many a gleam through her eyelashes betrayed furtive glances at the stranger whom Owen was monopolizing.  And then she let herself be drawn out, with the drollest mixture of arch demureness and gracious caprice.  Honora had never before seen her with a gentleman, and to be courted was evidently as congenial an element to her as to a reigning beauty.  She was perfectly irresistible to manhood, and there was no doubt, ere the evening was over, that Humfrey thought her one of the prettiest little girls he had ever seen.

He remained a week at Sandbeach, lodging at the inn, but spending most of his time with Honor.  He owned that he had been unwell, and there certainly was a degree of lassitude about him, though Honor suspected that his real motive in coming was brotherly kindness and desire to see whether she were suffering much from the death of Owen Sandbrook.  Having come, he seemed not to know how to go away.  He was too fond of children to become weary of their petty exactions, and they both had a sort of passion for him; he built castles for them on the beach, presided over their rides, took them out boating, and made them fabulously happy.  Lucilla had not been so good for weeks, and the least symptom of an outbreak was at once put down by his good-natured ‘No, no!’  The evenings at the cottage with Honora and Miss Wells, music and bright talk, were evidently very refreshing to him, and he put off his departure from day to day, till an inexorable matter of county business forced him off.

Not till the day was imminent, did the cousins quit the easy surface of holiday leisure talk.  They had been together to the late evening service, and were walking home, when Honora began abruptly, ‘Humfrey, I wish you would not object to the children giving me pet names.’

‘I did not know that I had shown any objection.’

‘As if you did not impressively say Miss Charlecote on every occasion when you mention me to them.’

‘Well, and is not it more respectful?’

‘That’s not what I want.  Where the natural tie is wanting, one should do everything to make up for it.’

‘And you hope to do so by letting yourself be called Honey-pots!’

‘More likely than by sitting up distant and awful to be Miss Charlecoted!’

‘Whatever you might be called must become an endearment,’ said Humfrey, uttering unawares one of the highest compliments she had ever received, ‘and I own I do not like to hear those little chits make so free with your name.’

‘For my sake, or theirs?’

‘For both.  There is an old saying about familiarity, and I think you should recollect that, for the children’s own good, it is quite as needful to strengthen respect as affection.’

‘And you think I can do that by fortifying myself with Miss Charlecote?  Perhaps I had better make it Mrs. Honora Charlecote at once, and get a high cap, a rod, and a pair of spectacles, eh?  No! if they won’t respect me out of a buckram suit, depend upon it they would find out it was a hollow one.’

Humfrey smiled.  From her youth up, Honor could generally come off in apparent triumph from an argument with him, but the victory was not always where the triumph was.

‘Well, Humfrey,’ she said, after some pause, ‘do you think I am fit to be trusted with my two poor children?’

There was a huskiness in his tone as he said, ‘I am sincerely glad you have the pleasure and comfort of them.’

‘I suspect there’s a reservation there.  But really, Humfrey, I don’t think I went out searching for the responsibility in the way that makes it dangerous.  One uncle did not want them, and the other could not have them, and it would have been mere barbarity in me not to offer.  Besides, their father wished—’ and her voice faltered with tears.

‘No, indeed,’ said Humfrey, eagerly, ‘I did not in the least mean that it is not the kindest, most generous requital,’ and there he broke off, embarrassed by the sincere word that he had uttered, but before she had spoken an eager negative—to what she knew not—he went on.  ‘And of course I don’t mean that you are not one to manage them very well, and all that—only I hope there may not be pain in store—I should not like those people to use you for their nursery governess, and then take the children away just as you had set your heart upon them.  Don’t do that, Honor,’ he added, with an almost sad earnestness.

‘Do what?  Set my heart on them?  Do you think I can help loving the creatures?’ she said, with mournful playfulness, ‘or that my uncertain tenure does not make them the greater darlings?’

‘There are ways of loving without setting one’s heart,’ was the somewhat grave reply.

He seemed to be taking these words as equivalent to transgressing the command that requires all our heart, and she began quickly, ‘Oh! but I didn’t mean—’ then a sudden thrill crossed her whether there might not be some truth in the accusation.  Where had erst the image of Owen Sandbrook stood?  First or second?  Where was now the image of the boy?  She turned her words into ‘Do you think I am doing so—in a wrong way?’

‘Honor dear, I could not think of wrong where you are concerned,’ he said.  ‘I was only afraid of your kindness bringing you pain, if you rest your happiness very much upon those children.’

‘I see,’ said Honor, smiling, relieved.  ‘Thank you, Humfrey; but you see I can’t weigh out my affection in that fashion.  They will get it, the rogues!’

‘I’m not afraid, as far as the girl is concerned,’ said Humfrey.  ‘You are strict enough with her.’

‘But how am I to be strict when poor little Owen never does anything wrong?’

‘Yes, he is a particularly sweet child.’

‘And not at all wanting in manliness,’ cried Honor, eagerly.  ‘So full of spirit, and yet so gentle.  Oh! he is a child whom it is a privilege to train, and I don’t think I have spoilt him yet, do you?’

‘No, I don’t think you have.  He is very obedient in general.’

‘Oh! if he could be only brought up as I wish.  And I do think his innocence is too perfect a thing not to be guarded.  What a perfect clergyman he would make!  Just fancy him devoting himself to some parish like poor dear old St. Wulstan’s—carrying his bright sweetness into the midst of all that black Babel, and spreading light round him! he always says he will be a clergyman like his papa, and I am sure he must be marked out for it.  He likes to look at the sheep on the moors, and talk about the shepherd leading them, and I am sure the meaning goes very deep with him.’

She was not going quite the way to show Humfrey that her heart was not set on the boy, and she was checked by hearing him sigh.  Perhaps it was for the disappointment he foresaw, so she said, ‘Whether I bring him up or not, don’t you believe there will be a special care over such a child?’

‘There is a special care over every Christian child, I suppose,’ he said; ‘and I hope it may all turn out so as to make you happy.  Here is your door; good night, and good-bye.’

‘Why, are not you coming in?’

‘I think not; I have my things to put up; I must go early to-morrow.  Thank you for a very happy week.  Good-bye, Honor.’  There was a shade of disappointment about his tone that she could not quite account for.  Dear old Humfrey!  Could he be ageing?  Could he be unwell?  Did he feel himself lonely?  Could she have mortified him, or displeased him?  Honor was not a woman of personal vanity, or a solution would sooner have occurred to her.  She knew, upon reflection, that it must have been for her sake that Humfrey had continued single, but it was so inconvenient to think of him in the light of an admirer, when she so much needed him as a brother, that it had hardly ever occurred to her to do so; but at last it did strike her whether, having patiently waited so long, this might not have been a visit of experiment, and whether he might not be disappointed to find her wrapped up in new interests—slightly jealous, in fact, of little Owen.  How good he had been!  Where was the heart that could fail of being touched by so long a course of forbearance and consideration?  Besides Honor had been a solitary woman long enough to know what it was to stand alone.  And then how well he would stand in a father’s place towards the orphans.  He would never decree her parting with them, and Captain Charteris himself must trust him.  Yet what a shame it would be to give such a devoted heart nothing better than one worn out, with the power of love such as he deserved, exhausted for ever.  And yet—and yet—something very odd bounded up within her, and told her between shame and exultation, that faithful old Humfrey would not be discontented even with what she had to give.  Another time—a little, a very little encouragement, and the pine wood scene would come back again, and then—her heart fainted a little—there should be no concealment—but if she could only have been six months married all at once!

Time went on, and Honora more than once blushed at finding how strong a hold this possibility had taken of her heart, when once she had begun to think of resting upon one so kind, so good, so strong.  Every perplexity, every care, every transaction that made her feel her position as a single woman, brought round the yearning to lay them all down upon him, who would only be grateful to her for them.  Every time she wanted some one to consult, hope showed her his face beaming sweetly on her, and home seemed to be again opening to her, that home which might have been hers at any time these twelve years.  She quite longed to see how glad the dear, kind fellow would be.