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

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.

‘Dear, dear Honora!’ began the old lady, eagerly, but her words and Honora’s tears were both checked by the sound of a bell, that bell within the court, to which none but intimates found access.

‘Strange! It is the thought of old times, I suppose,’ said Honor, smiling, ‘but I could have said that was Owen Sandbrook’s ring.’

The words were scarcely spoken, ere Mr. Sandbrook and Captain Charteris were announced; and there entered a clergyman leading a little child in each hand. How changed from the handsome, hopeful youth from whom she had parted! Thin, slightly bowed, grief-stricken, and worn, she would scarcely have known him, and as if to hide how much she felt, she bent quickly, after shaking hands with him, to kiss the two children, flaxen-curled creatures in white, with black ribbons. They both shrank closer to their father. ‘Cilly, my love, Owen, my man, speak to Miss Charlecote,’ he said; ‘she is a very old friend of mine. This is my bonny little housekeeper,’ he added, ‘and here’s a sturdy fellow for four years old, is not he?’

The girl, a delicate fairy of six, barely accepted an embrace, and clung the faster to her father, with a gesture as though to repel all advance. The boy took a good stare out of a pair of resolute gray eyes, with one foot in advance, and offered both hands. Honora would have taken him on her knee, but he retreated, and both leant against their father as he sat, an arm round each, after shaking hands with Miss Wells, whom he recollected at once, and presenting his brother-in-law, whose broad, open, sailor countenance, hardy and weather-stained, was a great contrast to his pale, hollow, furrowed cheeks and heavy eyes.

‘Will you tell me your name, my dear?’ said Honora, feeling the children the easiest to talk to; but the little girl’s pretty lips pouted, and she nestled nearer to her father.

‘Her name is Lucilla,’ he answered with a sigh, recalling that it had been his wife’s name. ‘We are all somewhat of little savages,’ he added, in excuse for the child’s silence. ‘We have seen few strangers at Wrapworth of late.’

‘I did not know you were in London.’

‘It was a sudden measure—all my brother’s doing,’ he said; ‘I am quite taken out of my own guidance.’

‘I went down to Wrapworth and found him very unwell, quite out of order, and neglecting himself,’ said the captain; ‘so I have brought him up for advice, as I could not make him hear reason.’

‘I was afraid you were looking very ill,’ said Honora, hardly daring to glance at his changed face.

‘Can’t help being ill,’ returned Captain Charteris, ‘running about the village in all weathers in a coat like that, and sitting down to play with the children in his wet things. I saw what it would come to, last time.’

Mr. Sandbrook could not repress a cough, which told plainly what it was come to.

Miss Wells asked whom he intended to consult, and there was some talk on physicians, but the subject was turned off by Mr. Sandbrook bending down to point out to little Owen a beautiful carving of a brooding dove on her nest, which formed the central bracket of the fine old mantelpiece.

‘There, my man, that pretty bird has been sitting there ever since I can remember. How like it all looks to old times! I could imagine myself running in from Westminster on a saint’s day.’

‘It is little altered in some things,’ said Honor. The last great change was too fresh!

‘Yes,’ said Mr. Sandbrook, raising his eyes towards her with the look that used to go so deep of old, ‘we have both gone through what makes the unchangeableness of these impassive things the more striking.’

‘I can’t see,’ said the little girl, pulling his hand.

‘Let me lift you up, my dear,’ said Honora; but the child turned her back on her, and said, ‘Father.’

He rose, and was bending, at the little imperious voice, though evidently too weak for the exertion, but the sailor made one step forward, and pouncing on Miss Lucilla, held her up in his arms close to the carving. The two little feet made signs of kicking, and she said in anything but a grateful voice, ‘Put me down, Uncle Kit.’

Uncle Kit complied, and she retreated under her papa’s wing, pouting, but without another word of being lifted, though she had been far too much occupied with struggling to look at the dove. Meantime her brother had followed up her request by saying ‘me,’ and he fairly put out his arms to be lifted by Miss Charlecote, and made most friendly acquaintance with all the curiosities of the carving. The rest of the visit was chiefly occupied by the children, to whom their father was eager to show all that he had admired when little older than they were, thus displaying a perfect and minute recollection and affection for the place, which much gratified Honora. The little girl began to thaw somewhat under the influence of amusement, but there was still a curious ungraciousness towards all attentions. She required those of her father as a right, but shook off all others in a manner which might be either shyness or independence; but as she was a pretty and naturally graceful child, it had a somewhat engaging air of caprice. They took leave, Mr. Sandbrook telling the children to thank Miss Charlecote for being so kind to them, which neither would do, and telling her, as he pressed her hand, that he hoped to see her again. Honora felt as if an old page in her history had been reopened, but it was not the page of her idolatry, it was that of the fall of her idol! She did not see in him the champion of the truth, but his presence palpably showed her the excitable weakness which she had taken for inspiration, while the sweetness and sympathy warmed her heart towards him, and made her feel that she had underrated his attractiveness. His implications that he knew she sympathized with him had touched her greatly, and then he looked so ill!