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

‘Is he quite sensible?’

‘Perfectly.  I see the ladies do not think him so to-night; but he has been himself from the first, except that over-fatigue or extra weakness affect his memory for the time; and he cannot read or exert his mind—scarcely be read to.  And he is sadly depressed in spirits.’

‘And no wonder, poor man,’ said Phœbe.

‘But I cannot think it is as they told us at Montreal.’

‘What?’

‘That the brain would go on weakening, and he become more childish.  Now I am sure, as he has grown stronger, he has recovered intellect and intelligence.  No one could doubt it who heard him three days ago advising me what branch of mathematics to work up!’

‘We shall hear to-morrow what Dr. F– says.  Miss Charlecote wrote to him as soon as we had my brother’s telegram.  I hope you are right!’

‘For you see,’ continued the Canadian, eagerly, ‘injury from an external cause cannot be like original organic disease.  I hope and trust he may recover.  He is the best friend I ever had, except Mr. Henley, our clergyman at Lakeville.  You know how he saved all our lives; and he persuaded Mr. Currie to try me, and give me a chance of providing for my little brothers and their mother better than by our poor old farm.’

‘Where are they?’ asked Phœbe.

‘She is gone to her sister at Buffalo.  The price of the land will help them on for a little while there, and if I can get on in engineering, I shall be able to keep them in some comfort.  I began to think the poor boys were doomed to have no education at all.’

‘Did you always live at Lakeville?’

‘No; I grew up in a much more civilized part of the world.  We had a beautiful farm upon Lake Ontario, and raised the best crops in the neighbourhood.  It was not till we got entangled in the Land Company, five years ago, that we were sold up; and we have been sinking deeper ever since—till the old cow and I had the farm all to ourselves.’

‘How could you bear it?’ asked Phœbe.

‘Well! it was rather dreary to see one thing going after another.  But somehow, after I lost my own black mare, poor Minnehaha, I never cared so much for any of the other things.  Once for all, I got ashamed of my own childish selfishness.  And then, you see, the worse things were, the stronger the call for exertion.  That was the great help.’

‘Oh, yes, I can quite imagine that—I know it,’ said Phœbe, thinking how exertion had helped her through her winter of trial.  ‘You never were without some one to work for.’

‘No; even when my father was gone’—and his voice was less clear—‘there was the less time to feel the change, when the boys and their mother had nothing but me between them and want.’

‘And you worked for them.’

‘After a fashion,’ he said, smiling.  ‘Spade-husbandry alone is very poor earth-scratching; and I don’t really know whether, between that and my gun, we could have got through this winter.’

‘What a life!’ exclaimed Phœbe.  ‘Realities, indeed!’

‘It is only what many colonists undergo,’ he answered; ‘if they do not prosper, it is a very hard life, and the shifting hopes render it the more trying to those who are not bred to it.’

‘And to those that are?’ she asked.

‘To those that are there are many compensations.  It is a free out-of-doors life, and the glorious sense of extent and magnificence in our woods, the sport one has there, the beauty of our autumns, and our white, grand, silent winters, make it a life well worth living.’

‘And would these have made you content to be a backwoodsman all your life?’

‘I cannot tell,’ he said.  ‘They—and the boys—were my delight when I was one.  And, after all, I used to recollect it was a place where there was a clear duty to do, and so, perhaps, safer than what fancy or choice would point at.’

‘But you are very glad not to be still condemned to it.’

‘Heartily glad not to be left to try to prop up a tumble-down log-hut with my own shoulder,’ he laughed.  ‘This journey to England has been the great desire of my life, and I am very thankful to have had it brought about.’

The conversation was broken off by Robert’s entrance.  Finding that it was nearly nine o’clock, he went up-stairs to remind Miss Charlecote that tea had long been awaiting her, and presently brought her back from the silent watch by Owen’s side that had hitherto seemed to be rest and comfort to all the three.

Owen had begged that his cup might be sent up by his friend, on whom he was very dependent, and it was agreed that Mr. Randolf should sleep in his room, and remain as a guest at Woolstone-lane until Mr. Currie should come to town.  Indeed, Miss Charlecote relied on him for giving the physician an account of the illness which Owen, at his best, could not himself describe; and she cordially thanked him for his evidently devoted attendance, going over every particular with him, but still so completely absorbed in her patient as to regard him in no light but as an appendage necessary to her boy.

‘How did you get on with the backwoodsman, Phœbe?’ asked Lucilla, when she came down to tea.

‘I think he is a sterling character,’ said Phœbe, in a tone of grave, deep thought, not quite as if answering the question, and with an observable deepening of the red of her cheek.

‘You quaint goose!’ said Lucy, with a laugh that jarred upon Honor, who turned round at her with a look of reproachful surprise.

‘Indeed, Honor dear,’ she said, in self-vindication, ‘I am not hard-hearted!  I am only very much relieved!  I don’t think half so badly of poor Owen as I expected to do; and if we can keep Mrs. Murrell from driving him distracted, I expect to see him mend fast.’

Robert confirmed her cheerful opinion, but their younger and better prognostications fell sadly upon Honora’s ear.  She had been too much grieved and shocked to look for recovery, and all that she dared to expect was to tend her darling’s feebleness, her best desire was that his mind might yet have power to embrace the hope of everlasting Life ere he should pass away from her.  Let this be granted, and she was prepared to be thankful, be his decay never so painful to witness and attend.

She could not let Robert leave her that night without a trembling question whether he had learnt how it was with Owen on this point.  He had not failed to inquire of the engineer, but he could tell her very little.  Owen’s conduct had been unexceptionable, but he had made scarcely any demonstration or profession, and on the few occasions when opinions were discussed, spoke not irreverently, but in a tone of one who regretted and respected the tenets that he no longer held.  Since his accident, he had been too weak and confused to dwell on any subjects but those of the moment; but he had appeared to take pleasure in the unobtrusive, though decided religious habits of young Randolf.

There she must rest for the present, and trust to the influence of home, perhaps to that of the shadow of death.  At least he was the child of many prayers, and had not Lucilla returned to her changed beyond her hopes?  Let it be as it would, she could not but sleep in gratitude that both her children were again beneath her roof.

She was early dressed, and wishing the backwoodsman were anywhere but in Owen’s room.  However, to her joy, the door was open, and Owen called her in, looking so handsome as he lay partly raised by pillows, that she could hardly believe in his condition, except for his weak, subdued voice.

‘Yes, I am much better this morning.  I have slept off the headache, and have been enjoying the old sounds!’

‘Where is your friend?’

‘Rushed off to look at St. Paul’s through the shaking of doormats, and pay his respects to the Thames.  He has none of the colonial nil admirari spirit, but looks at England as a Greek colonist would have looked at Athens.  I only regret that the reality must tame his raptures.  I told him to come back by breakfast-time.’

‘He will lose his way.’

‘Not he!  You little know the backwood’s power of topography!  Even I could nearly rival some of the Arab stories, and he could guide you anywhere—or after any given beast in the Newcastle district.  Honor, you must know and like him.  He really is the New World Charlecote whom you always held over our heads.’

‘I thought you called him Randolf?’

‘That is his surname, but his Christian name is Humfrey Charlecote, from his grandfather.  His mother was the lady my father told you of.  He saved an old Bible out of the fire, with it all in the fly-leaf.  He shall show it to you, and it can be easily confirmed by writing to the places.  I would have gone myself, if I had not been the poor creature I am.’

‘Yes, my dear,’ said Honora, ‘I dare say it is so.  I am very glad you found so attentive a friend.  I am most thankful to him for his care of you.’

‘And you accept him as a relation,’ said Owen, anxiously.

‘Yes, oh, yes,’ said Honor.  ‘Would you like anything before breakfast?’

Owen answered with a little plaintiveness.  Perhaps he was disappointed at this cold acquiescence; but it was not a moment at which Honor could face the thought of a colonial claimant of the Holt.  With Owen helpless upon her hands, she needed both a home and ample means to provide for him and his sister and child; and the American heir, an unwelcome idea twenty years previously, when only a vague possibility, was doubly undesirable when long possession had endeared her inheritance to her, when he proved not even to be a true Charlecote, and when her own adopted children were in sore want of all that she could do for them.  The evident relinquishment of poor Owen’s own selfish views on the Holt made her the less willing to admit a rival, and she was sufficiently on the borders of age to be pained by having the question of heirship brought forward.  And she knew, what Owen did not, that, if this youth’s descent were indeed what it was said to be, he represented the elder line, and that even Humfrey had wondered what would be his duty in the present contingency.

‘Nonsense!’ said she to herself.  ‘There is no need as yet to think of it!  The place is my own by every right!  Humfrey told me so!  I will take time to see what this youth may be, and make sure of his relationship.  Then, if it be right and just, he shall come after me.  But I will not raise expectations, nor notice him more than as Owen’s friend and a distant kinsman.  It would be fatally unsettling to do more.’

Owen urged her no farther.  Either he had not energy to enforce any point for long together, or he felt that the succession might be a delicate subject, for he let her lead to his personal affairs, and he was invalid enough to find them fully engrossing.

The Canadian came in punctually, full of animation and excitement, of which Phœbe had the full benefit, till he was called to help Owen to dress.  While this was going on, Robert came into the drawing-room to breathe, after the hard task of pacifying Mrs. Murrell.

‘What are you going to do to-day, Phœbe?’ he asked.  ‘Have you got through your shopping?’

‘Some of it.  Do you mean that you could come out with me?’

‘Yes; you will never get through business otherwise.’

‘Then if you have an afternoon to spare, could not we take Mr. Randolf to the Tower?’

‘Why, Phœbe!’

‘He has only to-day at liberty, and is so full of eagerness about all the grand old historical places, that it seems hard that he should have to find his way about alone, with no one to sympathize with him—half the day cut up, too, with nursing Owen.’

‘He seems to have no difficulty in finding his way.’

‘No; but I really should enjoy showing him the old armour.  He was asking me about it this morning.  I think he knows nearly as much of it as we do.’

‘Very well.  I say, Phœbe, would you object to my taking Brown and Clay—my two head boys?  I owe them a treat, and they would just enter into this.’

Phœbe was perfectly willing to accept the two head boys, and the appointment had just been made when the doctor arrived.  Again he brought good hope.  From his own examination of Owen, and from Mr. Randolf’s report, he was convinced that a considerable amelioration had taken place, and saw every reason to hope that in so young and vigorous a nature the injury to the brain might be completely repaired, and the use of the limbs might in part, at least, return, though full recovery could not be expected.  He wished to observe his patient for a month or six weeks in town, that the course of treatment might be decided, after which he had better be taken to the Holt, to enjoy the pure air, and be out of doors as much as the season would permit.

To Honor this opinion was the cause of the deepest, most thankful gladness; but on coming back to Owen she found him sitting in his easy-chair, with his hand over his eyes, and his look full of inexpressible dejection and despondency.  He did not, however, advert to the subject, only saying, ‘Now then! let us have in the young pauper to see the old one.’

‘My dear Owen, you had better rest.’

‘No, no; let us do the thing.  The grandmother, too!’ he said impatiently.

‘I will fetch little Owen; but you really are not fit for Mrs. Murrell.’

‘Yes, I am; what am I good for but such things?  It will make no difference, and it must be done.’

‘My boy, you do not know to what you expose yourself.’

‘Don’t I,’ said Owen, sadly.

Lucilla, even though Mr. Prendergast had just come to share her anxieties, caught her nephew on his way, and popped her last newly completed pinafore over his harlequinism, persuading him that it was most beautiful and new.

The interview passed off better than could have been hoped.  The full-grown, grave-looking man was so different from the mere youth whom Mrs. Murrell had been used to scold and preach at, that her own awe seconded the lectures upon quietness that had been strenuously impressed on her; and she could not complain of his reception of his ‘’opeful son,’ in form at least.  Owen held out his hand to her, and bent to kiss his boy, signed to her to sit down, and patiently answered her inquiries and regrets, asking a few civil questions in his turn.

Then he exerted himself to say, ‘I hope to do my best for him and for you, Mrs. Murrell, but I can make no promises; I am entirely dependent at present, and I do not know whether I may not be so for life.’

Whereat, and at the settled mournful look with which it was spoken, Mrs. Murrell burst out crying, and little Owen hung on her, almost crying too.  Honor, who had been lying in wait for Owen’s protection, came hastily in and made a clearance, Owen again reaching out his hand, which he laid on the child’s head, so as to turn up the face towards him for a moment.  Then releasing it almost immediately, he rested his chin on his hand, and Honor heard him mutter under his moustache, ‘Flibbertigibbet!’

‘When we go home, we will take little Owen with us,’ said Honor, kindly.  ‘It is high time he was taken from Little Whittington-street.  Country air will soon make a different-looking child of him.’

‘Thank you,’ he answered, despondingly.  ‘It is very good in you; but have you not troubles enough already?

‘He shall not be a trouble, but a pleasure.’

‘Poor little wretch!  He must grow up to work, and to know that he must work while he can;’ and Owen passed his hand over those useless fingers of his as though the longing to be able to work were strong on him.

Honor had agreed with Lucilla that father and son ought to be together, and that little ‘Hoeing’s’ education ought to commence.  Cilla insisted that all care of him should fall to her.  She was in a vehement, passionate mood of self-devotion, more overset by hearing that her brother would be a cripple for life than by what appeared to her the less melancholy doom of an early death.  She had allowed herself to hope so much from his improvement on the voyage, that what to Honor was unexpected gladness was to her grievous disappointment.  Mr. Prendergast arrived to find her half captious, half desperate.

See Owen!  Oh, no! he must not think of it.  Owen had seen quite people enough to-day; besides, he would be letting all out to him as he had done the other day.

Poor Mr. Prendergast humbly apologized for his betrayal; but had not Owen been told of the engagement?

Oh, dear, no!  He was in no state for fresh agitations.  Indeed, with him, a miserable, helpless cripple, Lucy did not see how she could go on as before.  She could not desert him—oh, no!—she must work for him and his child.

‘Work!  Why, Cilla, you have not strength for it.’

‘I am quite well.  I have strength for anything now I have some one to work for.  Nothing hurts me but loneliness.’

‘Folly, child!  The same home that receives you will receive them.’

‘Nonsense!  As if I could throw such a dead weight on any one’s hands!’

‘Not on any one’s,’ said Mr. Prendergast.  ‘But I see how it is, Cilla; you have changed your mind.’

‘No,’ said Lucilla, with an outbreak of her old impatience; ‘but you men are so selfish!  Bothering me about proclaiming all this nonsense, just when my brother is come home in this wretched state!  After all, he was my brother before anything else, and I have a right to consider him first!’

‘Then, Cilla, you shall be bothered no more,’ said Mr. Prendergast, rising.  ‘If you want me, well and good—you know where to find your old friend; if not, and you can’t make up your mind to it, why, then we are as we were in old times.  Good-bye, my dear; I won’t fret you any more.’

‘No,’ said he to himself, as he paused in the Court, and was busy wiping from the sleeve of his coat two broad dashes of wet that had certainly not proceeded from the clouds, ‘the dear child’s whole heart is with her brother now she has got him back again.  I’ll not torment her any more.  What a fool I was to think that anything but loneliness could have made her accept me—poor darling!  I think I’ll go out to the Bishop of Sierra Leone!’

‘What can have happened to him?’ thought Phœbe, as he strode past the little party on their walk to the Tower.  ‘Can that wretched little Cilly have been teasing him?  I am glad Robert has escaped from her clutches!’

However, Phœbe had little leisure for such speculations in the entertainment of witnessing her companion’s intelligent interest in all that he saw.  The walk itself—for which she had begged—was full of wonder; and the Tower, which Robert’s slight knowledge of one of the officials enabled them to see in perfection, received the fullest justice, both historically and loyally.  The incumbent of St. Matthew’s was so much occupied with explanations to his boys, that Phœbe had the stranger all to herself, and thus entered to the full into that unfashionable but most heart-stirring of London sights, ‘the Towers of Julius,’ from the Traitors’ Gate, where Elizabeth sat in her lion-like desolation, to her effigy in her glory upon Tilbury Heath—the axe that severed her mother’s ‘slender neck’—the pistol-crowned stick of her father—the dark cage where her favourite Raleigh was mewed—and the whole series of the relics of the disgraces and the glories of England’s royal line—well fitted, indeed, to strike the imagination of one who had grown up in the New World without antiquity.

If it were a satisfaction to be praised and thanked for this expedition, Phœbe had it; for on her return she was called into Owen’s room, where his first words to her were of thanks for her good-nature to his friend.

‘I am sure it was nothing but a pleasure,’ she said.  ‘It happened that Robert had some boys whom he wanted to take.’  Somehow she did not wish Owen to think she had done it on his own account.

‘And you liked him?’ asked Owen.

‘Yes, very much indeed,’ she heartily said.

‘Ah! I knew you would;’ and he lay back as if fatigued.  Then, as Phœbe was about to leave him, he added—‘I can’t get my ladies to heed anything but me.  You and Robert must take pity on him, if you please.  Get him to Westminster Abbey, or the Temple Church, or somewhere worth seeing to-morrow.  Don’t let them be extortionate of his waiting on me.  I must learn to do without him.’

Phœbe promised, and went.

‘Phœbe is grown what one calls a fine young woman instead of a sweet girl,’ said Owen to his sister, when she next came into the room; ‘but she has managed to keep her innocent, half-wondering look, just as she has the freshness of her colour.’

‘Well, why not, when she has not had one real experience?’ said Lucilla, a little bitterly.

‘None?’ he asked, with a marked tone.

‘None,’ she answered, and he let his hand drop with a sigh; but as if repenting of any half betrayal of feeling, added, ‘she has had all her brothers and sisters at sixes and sevens, has not she?’

‘Do you call that a real experience?’ said Lucilla, almost with disdain, and the conversation dropped.

Owen’s designs for his friend’s Sunday fell to the ground.  The backwoodsman fenced off the proposals for his pleasure, by his wish to be useful in the sick-room; and when told of Owen’s desire, was driven to confess that he did not wish for fancy church-going on his first English Sunday.  There was enough novelty without that; the cathedral service was too new for him to wish to hear it for the first time when there was so much that was unsettling.

Honor, and even Robert, were a little disappointed.  They thought eagerness for musical service almost necessarily went with church feeling; and Phœbe was the least in the world out of favour for the confession, that though it was well that choirs should offer the most exquisite and ornate praise, yet that her own country-bred associations with the plain unadorned service at Hiltonbury rendered her more at home where the prayers were read, and the responses congregational, not choral.  To her it was more devotional, though she fully believed that the other way was the best for those who had begun with it.

So they went as usual to the full service of the parish church, where the customs were scrupulously rubrical without being ornate.  The rest and calm of that Sunday were a boon, coming as they did after a bustling week.

All the ensuing days Phœbe was going about choosing curtains and carpets, or hiring servants for herself or Mervyn.  She was obliged to act alone, for Miss Charlecote, on whom she had relied for aid, was engrossed in attending on Owen, and endeavouring to wile away the hours that hung heavily on one incapable of employment or even attention for more than a few minutes together.  So constantly were Honor and Lucy engaged with him, that Phœbe hardly saw them morning, noon, or night; and after being out for many hours, it generally fell to her lot to entertain the young Canadian for the chief part of the evening.  Mr. Currie had arrived in town on the Monday, and came at once to see Owen.  His lodgings were in the City, where he would be occupied for some time in more formally mapping out and reporting on the various lines proposed for the G. O. and S. line; and finding how necessary young Randolf still was to the invalid, he willingly agreed to the proposal that while Miss Charlecote continued in London, the young man should continue to sleep and spend his evenings in Woolstone-lane.

CHAPTER XXIX

Have you seen but a bright lily grow,Before rude hands have touched it?Have you marked but the fall of the snow,Before the soil hath smutched it?—Ben Jonson

At the end of a week Mervyn made his appearance in a vehement hurry.  Cecily’s next sister, an officer’s wife, was coming home with two little children, for a farewell visit before going to the Cape, and Maria and Bertha must make way for her.  So he wanted to take Phœbe home that afternoon to get the Underwood ready for them.

‘Mervyn, how can I go?  I am not nearly ready.’

‘What can you have been doing then?’ he exclaimed, with something of his old temper.

‘This house has been in such a state.’

‘Well, you were not wanted to nurse the sick man, were you?  I thought you were one that was to be trusted.  What more is there to do?’

Phœbe looked at her list of commissions, and found herself convicted.  Those patterns ought to have been sent back two days since.  What had she been about?  Listening to Mr. Randolf’s explanations of the Hiawatha scenery!  Why had she not written a note about that hideous hearth-rug?  Because Mr. Randolf was looking over Stowe’s Survey of London.  Methodical Phœbe felt herself in disgrace, and yet, somehow, she could not be sorry enough; she wanted a reprieve from exile at Hiltonbury, alone and away from all that was going on.  At least she should hear whether Macbeth, at the Princess’s Theatre, fulfilled Mr. Randolf’s conceptions of it; and if Mr. Currie approved his grand map of the Newcastle district, with the little trees that she had taught him to draw.