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

‘Ah! but you know I have no spirit.’

‘I wish to heaven other people had none!’ cried Owen, suddenly changing his tone, and sitting down opposite to Phœbe, his elbow on the table, and speaking earnestly. ‘I would give the world that my sister were like you. Did you ever hear of anything so preposterous as this Irish business?’

‘She cannot think of it, when Miss Charlecote has told her of all the objections,’ said Phœbe.

‘She will go the more,’ returned Owen. ‘I say to you, Phœbe, what I would say to no one else. Lucilla’s treatment of Honora Charlecote is abominable—vexes me more than I can say. They say some nations have no words for gratitude. One would think she had come of them.’

Phœbe looked much shocked, but said, ‘Perhaps Miss Charlecote’s kindness has seemed to her like a matter of course, not as it does to us, who have no claim at all.’

‘We had no claim,’ said Owen; ‘the connection is nothing, absolutely nothing. I believe, poor dear, the attraction was that she had once been attached to my father, and he was too popular a preacher to keep well as a lover. Well, there were we, a couple of orphans, a nuisance to all our kith and kin—nobody with a bit of mercy for us but that queer old coon, Kit Charteris, when she takes us home, treats us like her own children, feels for us as much as the best mother living could; undertakes to provide for us. Now, I put it to you, Phœbe, has she any right to be cast off in this fashion?’

‘I don’t know in what fashion you mean.’

‘Don’t you. Haven’t you seen how Cilly has run restive from babyhood? A pretty termagant she was, as even I can remember. And how my poor father spoilt her! Any one but Honor would have given her up, rather than have gone through what she did, so firmly and patiently, till she had broken her in fairly well. But then come in these Charterises, and Cilly runs frantic after them, her own dear relations. Much they had cared for us when we were troublesome little pests. But it’s all the force of blood. Stuff! The whole truth is that they are gay, and Honora quiet; they encourage her to run riot. Honora keeps her in order.’

‘Have you spoken to her?’

‘As well speak to the wind. She thinks it a great favour to run down to Hiltonbury for the Horticultural Show, turn everything topsy-turvy, keep poor dear Sweet Honey in a perpetual ferment, then come away to Castle Blanch, as if she were rid of a troublesome duty.’

‘I thought Miss Charlecote sent Lucy to enjoy herself! We always said how kind and self-denying she was.’

‘Denied, rather,’ said Owen; ‘only that’s her way of carrying it off. A month or two in the season might be very well; see the world, and get the tone of it; but to racket about with Ratia, and leave Honor alone for months together, is too strong for me.’

Honora came in, delighted at her boy’s visit, and well pleased at the manner in which he was engrossed. Two such children needed no chaperon, and if that sweet crescent moon were to be his guiding light, so much the better.

‘Capital girl, that,’ he said, as she left the room. ‘This is a noble achievement of yours.’

‘In getting my youngest princess out of the castle. Ay! I do feel in a beneficent enchanter’s position.’

‘She has grown up much prettier than she promised to be.’

‘And far too good for a Fulmort. But that is Robert’s doing.’

‘Poor Robert! how he shows the old distiller in grain. So he is taking to the old shop?—best thing for him.’

‘Only by way of experiment.’

‘Pleasant experiment to make as much as old Fulmort! I wish he’d take me into partnership.’

‘You, Owen?’

‘I am not proud. These aren’t the days when it matters how a man gets his tin, so he knows what to do with it. Ay! the world gets beyond the dear old Hiltonbury views, after all, Sweet Honey, and you see what City atmosphere does to me.’

‘You know I never wished to press any choice on you,’ she faltered.

‘What!’ with a good-humoured air of affront, ‘you thought me serious? Don’t you know I’m the ninth, instead of the nineteenth-century man, under your wing? I’d promise you to be a bishop, only, you see, I’m afraid I couldn’t be mediocre enough.’

‘For shame, Owen!’ and yet she smiled. That boy’s presence and caressing sweetness towards herself were the greatest bliss to her, almost beyond that of a mother with a son, because more uncertain, less her right by nature.

Phœbe came down as the carriage was at the door, and they called in Whittington Street for her brother, but he only came out to say he was very busy, and would not intrude on Mrs. Charteris—bashfulness for which he was well abused on the way to Lowndes Square.

Owen, with his air of being at home, put aside the servants as they entered the magnificent house, replete with a display of state and luxury analogous to that of Beauchamp, but with better taste and greater ease. The Fulmorts were in bondage to ostentation; the Charterises were lavish for their own enjoyment, and heedless alike of cost and of appearance.

The great drawing-room was crowded with furniture, and the splendid marqueterie tables and crimson ottomans were piled with a wild confusion of books, prints, periodicals, papers, and caricatures, heaped over ornaments and bijouterie, and beyond, at the doorway of a second room, even more miscellaneously filled, a small creature sprang to meet them, kissing Honora, and exclaiming, ‘Here you are! Have you brought the pig’s wool? Ah! but you’ve brought something else! No—what’s become of that Redbreast!’ as she embraced Phœbe.

‘He was so busy that he could not come.’

‘Ill-behaved bird; a whole month without coming near me.’

‘Only a week,’ said Phœbe, speaking less freely, as she perceived two strangers in the room, a gentleman in moustaches, who shook hands with Owen, and a lady, whom from her greeting to Miss Charlecote (for introductions were not the way of the house) she concluded to be the formidable Rashe, and therefore regarded with some curiosity.

Phœbe had expected her to be a large masculine woman, and was surprised at her dapper proportions and not ungraceful manner. Her face, neither handsome nor the reverse, was one that neither in features nor complexion revealed her age, and her voice was pitched to the tones of good society, so that but for a certain ‘don’t care’ sound in her words, and a defiant freedom of address, Phœbe would have set down all she had heard as a mistake, in spite of the table covered with the brilliant appliances of fly-making, over which both she and Lucilla were engaged. It was at the period when ladies affected coats and waistcoats, and both cousins followed the fashion to the utmost; wearing tightly-fitting black coats, plain linen collars, and shirt-like under-sleeves, with black ties round the neck. Horatia was still in mourning for her mother, and wore a black skirt, but Lucilla’s was of rich deep gentianella-coloured silk, and the buttons of her white vest were of beautiful coral. The want of drapery gave a harshness to Miss Charteris’s appearance, but the little masculine affectations only rendered Lucy’s miniature style of feminine beauty still more piquant. Less tall than many girls of fourteen, she was exquisitely formed; the close-fitting dress became her taper waist, the ivory fairness of the throat and hands shone out in their boyish setting, and the soft delicacy of feature and complexion were enhanced by the vivid sparkling of those porcelain blue eyes, under the long lashes, still so fair and glossy as to glisten in the light, like her profuse flaxen tresses, arranged in a cunning wilderness of plaits and natural ringlets. The great charm was the minuteness and refinement of the mould containing the energetic spirit that glanced in her eyes, quivered on her lips, and pervaded every movement of the elastic feet and hands, childlike in size, statue-like in symmetry, elfin in quickness and dexterity. ‘Lucile la Fée,’ she might well have been called, as she sat manipulating the gorgeous silk and feathers with an essential strength and firmness of hands such as could hardly have been expected from such small members, and producing such lovely specimens that nothing seemed wanting but a touch of her wand to endow them with life. It was fit fairy work, and be it farther known, that few women are capable of it; they seldom have sufficient accuracy of sustained attention and firmness of finger combined, to produce anything artistic or durable, and the accomplishment was therefore Lucilla’s pride. Her cousin could prepare materials, but could not finish. ‘Have you brought the pig’s wool?’ repeated Lucy, as they sat down. ‘No? That is a cruel way of testifying. I can’t find a scrap of that shade, though I’ve nearly broke my heart in the tackle shops. Here’s my last fragment, and this butcher will be a wreck for want of it.’