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

After much thought, Owen delivered himself of the sentiment that ‘people’s papas and mammas were very funny,’ doubtless philosophizing on the inconsistency of the class in being, some so willing, some so reluctant, to leave their children behind them.  Honor fully agreed with him, but did not think the discussion profitable for Robin, whom she now proposed to take home in the pony-carriage.  Lucilla, always eager for novelty, and ardent for her new friendship, begged to accompany her.  Owen was afraid of the strangers, and preferred Miss Wells.

Even as they set out, they found that Robert’s disappearance had created some sensation, for the clerk’s wife was hurrying up to ask if Miss Charlecote had the keys, that she might satisfy the man from Beauchamp that Master Fulmort was not in the church.  At the lodge the woman threw up her hands with joy at the sight of the child; and some way off, on the sward, stood a bigger boy, who, with a loud hurrah, scoured away towards the house as the carriage appeared.

‘That’s Mervyn,’ said Robert; ‘he is gone to tell them.’

Beauchamp was many degrees grander since Honor had last visited it.  The approach was entirely new.  Two fresh wings had been added, and the front was all over scaffolds and cement, in all stages of colour, from rich brown to permanent white.  Robert explained that nothing was so nice as to watch the workmen, and showed Lucilla a plasterer on the topmost stage of the scaffolding, who, he said, was the nicest man he knew, and could sing all manner of songs.

Rather nervously Honora drove under the poles to the hall-door, where two girls were seen in the rear of a Frenchwoman; and Honor felt as if Robin might have grounds for his ‘moral hatred’ when her voluble transports of gratitude and affection broke forth, and the desolation in which the loss had left them was described.  Robert edged back from her at once, and flew to another party at the bottom of the stairs—a very stout nurse and an uncapped, flaxen-haired mädchen, who clasped him in her arms, and cried, and sobbed over him.  As soon as he could release himself, he caught hold of a fat little bundle, which had been coaxing one of his legs all through Lieschen’s embrace, and dragging it forwards, cried, ‘Here she is—here’s Phœbe!’  Phœbe, however, was shy, and cried and fought her way back to hide her face in Lieschen’s apron; and meantime a very odd scene took place.  School-room and nursery were evidently at most direful war.  Each wanted to justify itself lest the lady should write to the parents; each tried to be too grand to seem to care, and threw all the blame on the other.  On the whole, Honor gathered that Mademoiselle believed the boy enfantin enough to be in the nursery, the nurses that he was in the school-room, and he had not been really missed till bed-time, when each party recriminated instead of seeking him, and neither would allow itself to be responsible for him.  Lieschen, who alone had her suspicions where he might be, abstained from naming them in sheer terror of Kobolden, Geistern, corpse-candles, and what not, and had lain conjuring up his miseries till morning.  Honora did not much care how they settled it amongst them, but tried to make friends with the young people, who seemed to take their brother’s restoration rather coolly, and to be chiefly occupied by staring at Lucilla.  Augusta and Juliana were self-possessed, and rather maniérées, acquitting themselves evidently to the satisfaction of the French governess, and Honor, perceiving her to be a necessary infliction, invited her and her pupils, especially Robin, to spend a day in the next week at the Holt.

The proposal was graciously accepted, and Lucilla spent the intervening time in a tumult of excitement.

Nor was the day entirely unsuccessful; Mademoiselle behaved herself with French tact, and Miss Wells took her off Honora’s hands a good deal, leaving them free for the children.  Lucilla, always aspiring, began a grand whispering friendship with the two girls, and set her little cap strongly at Mervyn, but that young gentleman was contemptuous and bored when he found no entertainment in Miss Charlecote’s stud, and was only to be kept placable by the bagatelle-board and the strawberry-bed.  Robert followed his lead more than was satisfactory, but with visible predilections for the Holt ladies, old and young.  Honor talked to him about little Phœbe, and he lighted up and began to detail her accomplishments, and to be very communicative about his home vexations and pleasures, and finally, when the children were wishing good night, he bluntly said, ‘It would be better fun to bring Lieschen and Phœbe.’

Honor thought so too, and proposed giving the invitation.

‘Don’t,’ said Robert, ‘she’d be cross; I’ll bring them.’

And so he did.  Two days after, the broad German face and the flaxen head appeared, leading that fat ball, Phœbe, and Robin frisking in triumph beside her.  Henceforth a great friendship arose between the children.  Phœbe soon lost all dread of those who petted her, and favoured them with broad smiles and an incomprehensible patois.  Owen made very much of her, and pursued and imitated Robert with the devotion of a small boy to a larger one.  Lucilla devoted herself to him for want of better game, and moreover he plainly told her that she was the prettiest little girl he ever saw, and laid all manner of remarkable treasures at her feet.  Miss Charlecote believed that he made some curious confidences to her, for once Owen said, ‘I want to know why Robin hasn’t a Sweet Honey to make him good?’

‘Robin has a papa and mamma, and a governess.’

‘Robin was telling Lucy he wanted some one to teach him to be good, and she said she would, but I think she is not old enough.’

‘Any one who is good is teaching others, my Owen,’ said Honor.  ‘We will ask in our prayers that poor little Robin may be helped.’

When Mr. and Mrs. Fulmort came home, there was an interchange of calls, many thanks for her kindness to the children, and sanction of future intercourse.  Mr. Fulmort was a great distiller, who had married a county heiress, and endeavoured to take his place among the country squires, whom he far exceeded in display; and his wife, a meek, sickly person, lived a life of slavery to the supposed exigencies of fashion.  She had always had, in her maiden days, a species of awe of the Charlecotes’ London cousin, and was now disposed to be rather gratified by her notice of her children.  Mervyn had been disposed of at a tutor’s, and Robert was adrift for many hours of the day.  As soon as he had discovered the possibility of getting to the Holt alone, he was frequently there, following Honora about in her gardening and farming, as much at home as the little Sandbrooks, sharing in their sports, and often listening to the little books that she read aloud to them.  He was very far from being such an angelic little mortal as Owen, with whom indeed his sympathies were few.  Once some words were caught from him by both children, which startled Honor exceedingly, and obliged her to tell him that if ever she found him to have repeated the like, she should forbid his coming near them.  He looked excessively sullen, and did not come for a week, during which Lucilla was intolerably naughty, and was twice severely punished for using the identical expressions in defiance.

Then he came again, and behaved as if nothing had happened, but the offence never recurred.  Some time after, when he boasted of having come away with a lesson unlearnt, in flat disobedience to Mademoiselle, Honor sent him straight home, though Lucilla stamped and danced at her in a frenzy.  Another time Owen rushed up to her in great agony at some torture that Robin was inflicting upon a live mouse.  Upon this, Honor, full of the spirit of indignation, fairly struck the offender sharply on the fingers with her riding-whip.  He scowled at her, but it was only for a moment.  She held him tightly by the hand, while she sent the gardener to put his victim out of its misery, and then she talked to him, not sentimentally, her feelings were too strongly stirred, but with all her horror of cruelty.  He muttered that Mervyn and the grooms always did it; but he did not hold out long—Lucilla was holding aloof, too much horrified to come near—and finally he burst into tears, and owned that he had never thought!

Every now and then, such outbreaks made Honor wonder why she let him come, perhaps to tempt her children; but she remembered that he and Humfrey had been fond of one another, and she felt drawn towards him, though in all prudence she resolved to lessen the attractions of the Holt by being very strict with all, and rather ungracious to him.  Yet, strange to say, the more regulations she made, and the more she flashed out at his faults, the more constant was her visitor, the Robin who seemed to thrive upon the veriest crumbs of good-nature.

Positively, Honora was sometimes amazed to find what a dragon she could be upon occasion.  Since she had been brought into subordination at six or eight years old, she had never had occasion to find out that she had a spirit of her own, till she found herself astonishing Jones and Brooks for taking the liberty of having a deadly feud; making Brooks understand that cows were not to be sold, nor promises made to tenants, without reference to her; or showing a determined marauder that Humfrey’s wood was not to be preyed upon any more than in his own time.  They were very feminine explosions to be sure, but they had their effect, and Miss Charlecote’s was a real government.

The uproar with nurse came at last, through a chance discovery that she had taken Owen to a certain forbidden house of gossip, where he had been bribed to secrecy with bread and treacle.

Honora wrote to Mrs. Charteris for permission to dismiss the mischievous woman, and obtained full consent, and the most complete expression of confidence and gratitude.  So there ensued a month, when every visit to the nursery seemed to be spent in tears.  Nurse was really very fond of the children, and cried over them incessantly, only consoling herself by auguring a brilliant future for them, when Master Owen should reign over Hiltonbury, like the gentleman he was.

‘But, nurse, Cousin Honor says I never shall—I’m to be a clergyman, like papa.  She says . . . ‘

Nurse winked knowingly at the housemaid.  ‘Yes, yes, my darling, no one likes to hear who is to come after them.  Don’t you say nothing about it; ain’t becoming; but, by and by, see if it don’t come so, and if my boy ain’t master here.’

‘I wish I was, and then nursey would never go.’

However, nurse did go, and after some tears Owen was consoled by promotion to the habits of an older boy.

Lucilla was very angry, and revenged herself by every variety of opposition in her power, all which were put down by the strong hand.  It was a matter of necessity to keep a tight grasp on this little wilful sprite, the most fiery morsel of engaging caprice and naughtiness that a quiet spinster could well have lit upon.  It really sometimes seemed to Honora as if there were scarcely a fault in the range of possibilities that she had not committed; and indeed a bit of good advice generally seemed to act by contraries, and served to suggest mischief.  Softness and warmth of feeling seemed to have been lost with her father; she did not show any particular affection towards her brother or Honora.  Perhaps she liked Miss Wells, but that might be only opposition; nay, Honor would have been almost thankful if she had melted at the departure of the undesirable nurse, but she appeared only hard and cross.  If she liked any one it was Robert Fulmort, but that was too much in the way of flirtation.

Vanity was an extremely traceable spring of action.  When nurse went, Miss Lucilla gave the household no peace, because no one could rightly curl the long flaxen tresses upon her shoulders, until the worry became so intolerable that Honora, partly as penance, partly because she thought the present mode neither conducive to tidiness nor comfort, took her scissors and trimmed all the ringlets behind, bowl-dish fashion, as her own carrots had figured all the days of her childhood.

Lucilla was held by Mrs. Stubbs during the operation.  She did not cry or scream after she felt herself conquered by main strength, but her blue eyes gleamed with a strange, wild light; she would not speak to Miss Charlecote all the rest of the day, and Honora doubted whether she were ever forgiven.

Another offence was the cutting down her name into Lucy.  Honor had avoided Cilly from the first; Silly Sandbrook would be too dreadful a sobriquet to be allowed to attach to any one, but Lucilla resented the change more deeply than she showed.  Lucy was a housemaid’s name, she said, and Honor reproved her for vanity, and called her so all the more.  She did not love Miss Charlecote well enough to say that Cilly had been her father’s name for her, and that he had loved to wind the flaxen curls round his fingers.

Every new study, every new injunction cost a warfare, disobedience, and passionate defiance and resistance on the one hand, and steady, good-tempered firmness on the other, gradually growing a little stern.  The waves became weary of beating on the rock at last.  The fiery child was growing into a girl, and the calm will had the mastery of her; she succumbed insensibly; and owing all her pleasures to Cousin Honor, she grew to depend upon her, and mind, manners, and opinions were taking their mould from her.

CHAPTER V

Too soon the happy childHis nook of heavenward thought must changeFor life’s seducing wild.—Christian Year

The summer sun peeped through the Venetian blinds greenly shading the breakfast-table.

Only three sides were occupied.  For more than two years past good Miss Wells had been lying under the shade of Hiltonbury Church, taking with her Honora Charlecote’s last semblance of the dependence and deference of her young ladyhood.  The kind governess had been fondly mourned, but she had not left her child to loneliness, for the brother and sister sat on either side, each with a particular pet—Lucilla’s, a large pointer, who kept his nose on her knee; Owen’s, a white fan-tailed pigeon, seldom long absent from his shoulder, where it sat quivering and bending backwards its graceful head.

Lucilla, now nearly fourteen, looked younger from the unusual smallness of her stature, and the exceeding delicacy of her features and complexion, and she would never have been imagined to be two years the senior of the handsome-faced, large-limbed young Saxon who had so far outstripped her in height; and yet there was something in those deep blue eyes, that on a second glance proclaimed a keen intelligence as much above her age as her appearance was below it.

‘What’s the matter?’ said she, rather suddenly.

‘Yes, sweetest Honey,’ added the boy, ‘you look bothered.  Is that rascal not paying his rent?’

‘No!’ she said, ‘it is a different matter entirely.  What do you think of an invitation to Castle Blanch?’

‘For us all?’ asked Owen.

‘Yes, all, to meet your Uncle Christopher, the last week in August.’

‘Why can’t he come here?’ asked Lucilla.

‘I believe we must go,’ said Honora.  ‘You ought to know both your uncles, and they should be consulted before Owen goes to school.’

‘I wonder if they will examine me,’ said Owen.  ‘How they will stare to find Sweet Honey’s teaching as good as all their preparatory schools.’

‘Conceited boy.’

‘I’m not conceited—only in my teacher.  Mr. Henderson said I should take as good a place as Robert Fulmort did at Winchester, after four years in that humbugging place at Elverslope.’

‘We can’t go!’ cried Lucilla.  ‘It’s the last week of Robin’s holidays!’

‘Well done, Lucy!’ and both Honor and Owen laughed heartily.

‘It is nothing to me,’ said she, tossing her head, ‘only I thought Cousin Honor thought it good for him.’

‘You may stay at home to do him good,’ laughed Owen; ‘I’m sure I don’t want him.  You are very welcome, such a bore as he is.’

‘Now, Owen.’

‘Honey dear, I do take my solemn affidavit that I have tried my utmost to be friends with him,’ said Owen; ‘but he is such a fellow—never has the least notion beyond Winchester routine—Latin and Greek, cricket and football.’

‘You’ll soon be a schoolboy yourself,’ said Lucilla.

‘Then I shan’t make such an ass of myself,’ returned Owen.

‘Robin is a very good boy, I believe,’ said Honor.

‘That’s the worst of him!’ cried Lucilla, running away and clapping the door after her as she went.

‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Owen, very seriously, ‘he says he does not care about the Saints’ days because he has no one to get him leave out.’

‘I remember,’ said Honor, with a sweet smile of tender memory, ‘when to me the merit of Saints’ days was that they were your father’s holidays.’

‘Yes, you’ll send me to Westminster, and be always coming to Woolstone-lane,’ said Owen.

‘Your uncles must decide,’ she said, half mournfully, half proudly; ‘you are getting to be a big boy—past me, Oney.’

It brought her a roughly playful caress, and he added, ‘You’ve got the best right, I’m sure.’

‘I had thought of Winchester,’ she said.  ‘Robert would be a friend.’

Owen made a face, and caused her to laugh, while scandalizing her by humming, ‘Not there, not there, my child.’

‘Well, be it where it may, you had better look over your Virgil, while I go down to my practical Georgics with Brooks.’

Owen obeyed.  He was like a spirited horse in a leash of silk.  Strong, fearless, and manly, he was still perfectly amenable to her, and had never shown any impatience of her rule.  She had taught him entirely herself, and both working together with a thorough good will, she had rendered him a better classical scholar, as all judges allowed, than most boys of the same age, and far superior to them in general cultivation; and she should be proud to convince Captain Charteris that she had not made him the mollycoddle that was obviously anticipated.  The other relatives, who had seen the children in their yearly visits to London, had always expressed unqualified satisfaction, though not advancing much in the good graces of Lucy and Owen.  But Honor thought the public school ought to be left to the selection of the two uncles, though she wished to be answerable for the expense, both there and at the university.  The provision inherited by her charges was very slender, for, contrary to all expectation, old Mr. Sandbrook’s property had descended in another quarter, and there was barely £5000 between the two.

To preserve this untouched by the expenses of education was Honora’s object, and she hoped to be able to smooth their path in life by occasional assistance, but on principle she was determined to make them independent of her, and she had always made it known that she regarded it as her duty to Humfrey that her Hiltonbury property should be destined—if not to the apocryphal American Charlecote—to a relation of their mutual great-grandmother.

Cold invitations had been given and declined, but this one was evidently in earnest, and the consideration of the captain decided Honora on accepting it, but not without much murmuring from Lucilla.  Caroline and Horatia were detestable grown-up young ladies, her aunt was horrid, Castle Blanch was the slowest place in the world; she should be shut up in some abominable school-room to do fancy-work, and never to get a bit of fun.  Even the being reminded of Wrapworth and its associations only made her more cross.  She was of a nature to fly from thought or feeling—she was keen to perceive, but hated reflection, and from the very violence of her feelings, she unconsciously abhorred any awakening of them, and steeled herself by levity.

Her distaste only gave way in Robert’s presence, when she appeared highly gratified by the change, certain that Castle Blanch would be charming, and her cousin the Life-guardsman especially so.  The more disconsolate she saw Robert, the higher rose her spirits, and his arrival to see the party off sent her away in open triumph, glorifying her whole cousinhood without a civil word to him; but when seated in the carriage she launched at him a drawing, the favourite work of her leisure hours, broke into unrestrained giggling at his grateful surprise, and ere the wood was past, was almost strangled with sobs.

Castle Blanch was just beyond the suburbs of London, in complete country, but with an immense neighbourhood, and not half-an-hour by train from town.  Honora drove all the way, to enjoy the lovely Thames scenery to the full.  They passed through Wrapworth, and as they did so, Lucilla chattered to the utmost, while Honora stole her hand over Owen’s and gently pressed it.  He returned the squeeze with interest, and looked up in her face with a loving smile—mother and home were not wanting to him!

About two miles further on, and not in the same parish, began the Castle Blanch demesne.  The park sloped down to the Thames, and was handsome, and quite full of timber, and the mansion, as the name imported, had been built in the height of pseudo-Gothic, with a formidable keep-looking tower at each corner, but the fortification below consisting of glass; the sham cloister, likewise glass windows, for drawing-room, music-room, and conservatory; and jutting out far in advance, a great embattled gateway, with a sham portcullis, and doors fit to defy an army.

Three men-servants met the guests in the hall, and Mrs. Charteris received them in the drawing-room, with the woman-of-the-world tact that Honora particularly hated; there was always such deference to Miss Charlecote, and such an assumption of affection for the children, and gratitude for her care of them, and Miss Charlecote had not been an heiress early enough in life for such attentions to seem matters of course.

It was explained that there was no school-room at present, and as a girl of Lucilla’s age, who was already a guest, joined the rest of the party at dinner, it was proposed that she and her brother should do the same, provided Miss Charlecote did not object.  Honor was really glad of the gratification for Lucilla, and Mrs. Charteris agreed with her before she had time to express her opinion as to girls being kept back or brought forward.

Honor found herself lodged in great state, in a world of looking-glass that had perfectly scared her poor little Hiltonbury maiden, and with a large dressing-room, where she hoped to have seen a bed for Lucilla, but she found that the little girl was quartered in another story, near the cousins; and unwilling to imply distrust, and hating to incite obsequious compliance, she did not ask for any change, but only begged to see the room.

It was in a long passage whence doors opened every way, and one being left ajar, sounds of laughter and talking were heard in tones as if the young ladies were above good breeding in their private moments.  Mrs. Charteris said something about her daughters’ morning-room, and was leading the way thither, when an unguarded voice exclaimed—‘Rouge dragon and all,’ and a start and suppressed laughter at the entrance of the newcomers gave an air of having been caught.

Four young ladies, in dégagé attitudes, were lounging round their afternoon refection of tea.  Two, Caroline and Horatia Charteris, shook hands with Miss Charlecote, and kissed Lucilla, who still looked at them ungraciously, followed Honora’s example in refusing their offer of tea, and only waiting to learn her own habitation, came down to her room to be dressed for dinner, and to criticize cousins, aunt, house and all.  The cousins were not striking—both were on a small scale, Caroline the best looking in features and complexion, but Horatia the most vivacious and demonstrative, and with an air of dash and fashion that was more effective than beauty.  Lucilla, not sensible to these advantages, broadly declared both young ladies to be frights, and commented so freely on them to the willing ears of Owen, who likewise came in to go down under Sweet Honey’s protection, as to call for a reproof from Honora, one of whose chief labours ever was to destroy the little lady’s faith in beauty, and complacency in her own.

The latter sensation was strong in Honor herself, as she walked into the room between her beautiful pair, and contrasted Lucilla with her contemporary, a formed and finished young lady, all plaits, ribbons, and bracelets—not half so pleasing an object as the little maid in her white frock, blue sash, and short wavy hair, though maybe there was something quaint in such simplicity, to eyes trained by fashion instead of by good taste.