Kitabı oku: «Hopes and Fears or, scenes from the life of a spinster», sayfa 49
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.
Perhaps it was the first time that Mervyn had been justly angry with her; but he was so much less savage than in his injustice that she was very much ashamed and touched; and finally, deeply grateful for the grace of this one day in which to repair her negligence, provided she would be ready to start by seven o’clock next morning. Hard and diligently she worked, and very late she came home. As she was on her way up-stairs she met Robert coming out of Owen’s room.
‘Phœbe,’ he said, turning with her into her room, ‘what is the matter with Lucy?’
‘The matter?’
‘Do you mean that you have not observed how ill she is looking?’
‘No; nothing particular.’
‘Phœbe, I cannot imagine what you have been thinking about. I thought you would have saved her, and helped Miss Charlecote, and you absolutely never noticed her looks!’
‘I am very sorry. I have been so much engaged.’
‘Absorbed, you should call it! Who would have thought you would be so heedless of her?’
He was gone. ‘Still crazy about Lucy,’ was Phœbe’s first thought; her second, ‘Another brother finding me heedless and selfish! What can be the matter with me?’ And when she looked at Lucilla with observant eyes, she did indeed recognize the justice of Robert’s anxiety and amazement. The brilliant prettiness had faded away as if under a blight, the eyes were sinking into purple hollows, the attitude was listless, the whole air full of suffering. Phœbe was dismayed and conscience-stricken, and would fain have offered inquiries and sympathy, but no one had more thoroughly than Lucy the power of repulsion. ‘No, nothing was amiss—of course she felt the frost. She would not speak to Honor—there was nothing to speak about;’ and she went up to her brother’s room.
Mr. Randolf was out with Mr. Currie, and Phœbe, still exceedingly busy writing notes and orders, and packing for her journey, did not know that there was an unconscious resolution in her own mind that her business should not be done till he came home, were it at one o’clock at night! He did come at no unreasonable hour, and found her fastening directions upon the pile of boxes in the hall.
‘What are you doing? Miss Charlecote is not going away?’
‘No; but I am going to-morrow.’
‘You!’
‘Yes; I must get into our new house, and receive my sisters there the day after to-morrow.’
‘I thought you lived with Miss Charlecote.’
‘Is it possible that you did not know what I have been doing all this week?’
‘Were you not preparing a house for your brother?’
‘Yes, and another for myself. Did you not understand that we set up housekeeping separately upon his marriage?’
‘I did not understand,’ said Humfrey Randolf, disconsolately. ‘You told me you owed everything to Miss Charlecote.’
‘I am afraid your colonial education translated that into £ s. d.’
‘Then you are not poor?’
‘No, not exactly,’ said Phœbe, rather puzzled and amused by his downcast air.
‘But,’ he exclaimed, ‘your brother is in business; and Mr. Fulmort of St. Matthew’s—’
‘Mr. Fulmort of St. Matthew’s is poor because he gave all to St. Matthew’s,’ said Phœbe; ‘but our business is not a small one, and the property in the country is large.’
He pasted on her last direction in disconsolate silence, then reading, ‘Miss Fulmort, The Underwood, Hiltonbury, Elverslope Station,’ resumed with fresh animation, ‘At least you live near Miss Charlecote?’
‘Yes, we are wedged in between her park and our own—my brother’s, I mean.’
‘That is all right then! She has asked me for Christmas.’
‘I am very glad of it,’ said Phœbe. ‘There, thank you, good night.’
‘Is there nothing more that I can do for you?’
‘Nothing—no, no, don’t hammer that down, you will wake Owen. Good night, good-bye; I shall be gone by half-past six.’
Though Phœbe said good-bye, she knew perfectly well that the hours of the morning were as nothing to the backwoodsman, and with spirits greatly exhilarated by the Christmas invitation, she went to bed, much too sleepy to make out why her wealth seemed so severe a shock to Humfrey Randolf.
The six o’clock breakfast was well attended, for Miss Charlecote was there herself, as well as the Canadian, Phœbe, and Mervyn, who was wonderfully amiable considering the hour in the morning. Phœbe felt in some slight degree less unfeeling when she found that Lucilla’s fading looks had been no more noticed by Miss Charlecote than by herself; but Honor thought Owen’s illness accounted for all, and only promised that the doctor should inspect her.
A day of exceeding occupation ensued. Mervyn talked the whole way of Cecily, his plans and his prospects; and Phœbe had to draw her mind out of one world and immerse it into another, straining ears and voice all the time to hear and be heard through the roar of the train. He left her at the cottage: and then began the work of the day, presiding over upholsterers, hanging pictures, arranging books, settling cabinets of collections, disposing of ornaments, snatching meals at odd times, in odder places, and never daring to rest till long after dark, when, with fingers freshly purified from dust, limbs stiff with running up and down stairs, and arms tired with heavy weights, she sat finally down before the drawing-room fire with her solitary cup of coffee, and a book that she was far too weary to open.
Had she never been tired before, that her heart should sink in this unaccountable way? Why could she not be more glad that her sisters were coming home, and dear Miss Fennimore? What made every one seem so dull and stupid, and the comings and goings so oppressive, as if everything would be hateful till Christmas? Why had she belied all her previous good character for method and punctuality of late, and felt as if existence only began when—one person was in the room?
Oh! can this be falling in love?
There was a chiffonier with a looking-glass back just opposite to her, and, raising her eyes, poor Phœbe beheld a young lady with brow, cheeks, and neck perfectly glowing with crimson!
‘You shan’t stand there long at any rate,’ said she, almost vindictively, getting up and pushing the table with its deep cover between her and the answering witness.
‘Love! Nonsense! Yet I don’t see why I should be ashamed! Yes! He is my wise man, he is the real Humfrey Charlecote! His is the very nature I always thought some one must still have—the exact judgment I longed to meet with. Not stern like Robin’s, not sharp like Mervyn’s, nor high-flying like dear Miss Charlecote’s, nor soft like Bevil’s, nor light like Lucy’s, nor clear and clever like Miss Fennimore’s—no, but considerate and solid, tender and true—such as one can lean upon! I know why he has the steadfast eyes that I liked so much the first evening. And there is so much more in him than I can measure or understand. Yes, though I have known him but ten days, I have seen much more of him than of most men in a year. And he has been so much tried, and has had such a life, that he may well be called a real hero in a quiet way. Yes, I well may like him! And I am sure he likes me!’ said another whisper of the heart, which, veiled as was the lady in the mirror, made Phœbe put both hands over her face, in a shamefaced ecstatic consciousness. ‘Nay—I was the first lady he had seen, the only person to speak to. No, no; I know it was not that—I feel it was not! Why, otherwise, did he seem so sorry I was not poor? Oh! how nice it would be if I were! We could work for each other in his glorious new land of hope! I, who love work, was made for work! I don’t care for this mere young lady life! And must my trumpery thousand a year stand in the way? As to birth, I suppose he is as well or better born than I—and, oh! so far superior in tone and breeding to what ours used to be! He ought to know better than to think me a fine young lady, and himself only an engineer’s assistant! But he won’t! Of course he will be honourable about it—and—and perhaps never dare to say another word till he has made his fortune—and when will that ever be? It will be right—’ ‘But’ (and a very different but it was this time) ‘what am I thinking about? How can I be wishing such things when I have promised to devote myself to Maria? If I could rough it gladly, she could not; and what a shameful thing it is of me to have run into all this long day dream and leave her out. No, I know my lot! I am to live on here, and take care of Maria, and grow to be an old maid! I shall hear about him, when he comes to be a great man, and know that the Humfrey Charlecote I dreamt about is still alive! There, I won’t have any more nonsense!’
And she opened her book; but finding that Humfrey Randolf’s remarks would come between her and the sense, she decided that she was too tired to read, and put herself to bed. But there the sense of wrong towards Maria filled her with remorse that she had accepted her rights of seniority, and let the maids place her in the prettiest room, with the best bay window, and most snug fireplace; nor could she rest till she had pacified her self-reproach, by deciding that all her own goods should move next day into the chamber that did not look at the Holt firs, but only at the wall of the back yard.
‘Yes,’ said Phœbe, stoutly in her honest dealing with herself in her fresh, untried morning senses. ‘I do love Humfrey Charlecote Randolf, and I think he loves me! Whether anything more may come of it, will be ordered for me; but whether it do so or not, it is a blessing to have known one like him, and now that I am warned, and can try to get back self-control, I will begin to be the better for it. Even if I am not quite so happy, this is something more beautiful than I ever knew before. I will be content!’
And when Bertha and Maria arrived, brimful of importance at having come home with no escort but a man and maid, and voluble with histories of Sutton, and wedding schemes, they did not find an absent nor inattentive listener. Yet the keen Bertha made the remark, ‘Something has come over you, Phœbe. You have more countenance than ever you had before.’
Whereat Phœbe’s colour rushed into her cheeks, but she demanded the meaning of countenance, and embarked Bertha in a dissertation.
When Phœbe was gone, Robert found it less difficult to force Lucilla to the extremity of a tête-à-tête. Young Randolf was less in the house, and, when there, more with Owen than before, and Lucilla was necessarily sometimes to be caught alone in the drawing-room.
‘Lucy,’ said Robert, the first time this occurred, ‘I have a question to ask you.’
‘Well!’—she turned round half defiant.
‘A correspondent of Mervyn, on the Spanish coast, has written to ask him to find a chaplain for the place, guaranteeing a handsome stipend.’
‘Well,’ said Lucilla, in a cold voice this time.
‘I wished to ask whether you thought it would be acceptable to Mr. Prendergast.’
‘I neither know nor care.’
‘I beg your pardon,’ said Robert, after a pause; ‘but though I believe I learnt it sooner than I ought, I was sincerely glad to hear—’
‘Then unhear!’ said Lucilla, pettishly. ‘You, at least, ought to be glad of that.’
‘By no means,’ returned Robert, gravely. ‘I have far too great a regard for you not to be most deeply concerned at what I see is making you unhappy.’
‘May not I be unhappy if I like, with my brother in this state?’
‘That is not all, Lucilla.’
‘Then never mind! You are the only one who never pitied me, and so I like you. Don’t spoil it now!’
‘You need not be afraid of my pitying you if you have brought on this misunderstanding by your old spirit!’
‘Not a bit of it! I tell you he pitied me. I found it out in time, so I set him free. That’s all.’
‘And that was the offence?’
‘Offence! What are you talking of? He didn’t offend—No, but when I said I could not bring so many upon him, and could not have Owen teased about the thing, he said he would bother me no more, that I had Owen, and did not want him. And then he walked off.’
‘Taking you at your word?’
‘Just as if one might not say what one does not mean when one wants a little comforting,’ said Lucy, pouting; ‘but, after all, it is a very good thing—he is saved a great plague for a very little time, and if it were all pity, so much the better. I say, Robin, shall you be man enough to read the service over me, just where we stood at poor Edna’s funeral?’
‘I don’t think that concerns you much,’ said Robert.
‘Well, the lady in Madge Wildfire’s song was gratified at the “six brave gentlemen” who “kirkward should carry her.” Why should you deprive me of that satisfaction? Really, Robin, it is quite true. A little happiness might have patched me up, but—’
‘The symptoms are recurring? Have you seen F–?’
‘Yes. Let me alone, Robin. It is the truest mercy to let me wither up with as little trouble as possible to those who don’t want me. Now that you know it, I am glad I can talk to you, and you will help me to think of what has never been enough before my eyes.’
Robert made no answer but a hasty good-bye, and was gone.
Lucilla gave a heavy sigh, and then exclaimed, half-aloud—
‘Oh, the horrid little monster that I am. Why can’t I help it? I verily believe I shall flirt in my shroud, and if I were canonized my first miracle would be like St. Philomena’s, to make my own relics presentable!’
Wherewith she fell a laughing, with a laughter that soon turned to tears, and the exclamation, ‘Why can I make nobody care for me but those I can’t care for? I can’t help disgusting all that is good, and it will be well when I am dead and gone. There’s only one that will shed tears good for anything, and he is well quit of me!’
The poor little lonely thing wept again, and after her many sleepless nights, she fairly cried herself to sleep. She awoke with a start, at some one being admitted into the room.
‘My dear, am I disturbing you?’
It was the well-known voice, and she sprang up.
‘Mr. Pendy, Mr. Pendy, I was very naughty! I didn’t mean it. Oh, will you bear with me again, though I don’t deserve it?’
She clung to him like a child wearied with its own naughtiness.
‘I was too hasty,’ he said; ‘I forgot how wrapped up you were in your brother, and how little attention you could spare, and then I thought that in him you had found all you wanted, and that I was only in your way.’
‘How could you? Didn’t you know better than to think that people put their brothers before their—Mr. Pendys?’
‘You seemed to wish to do so.’
‘Ah! but you should have known it was only for the sake of being coaxed!’ said Lucilla, hanging her head on one side.
‘You should have told me so.’
‘But how was I to know it?’ And she broke out into a very different kind of laughter. ‘I’m sure I thought it was all magnanimity, but it is of no use to die of one’s own magnanimity, you see.’
‘You are not going to die; you are coming to this Spanish place, which will give you lungs of brass.’
‘Spanish place? How do you know? I have not slept into to-morrow, have I? That Robin has not flown to Wrapworth and back since three o’clock?’
‘No, I was only inquiring at Mrs. Murrell’s.’
‘Oh, you silly, silly person, why couldn’t you come here?’
‘I did not want to bother you.’
‘For shame, for shame; if you say that again I shall know you have not forgiven me. It is a moral against using words too strong for the occasion! So Robert carried you the offer of the chaplaincy, and you mean to have it!’
‘I could not help coming, as he desired, to see what you thought of it.’
‘I only know,’ she said, half crying, yet laughing, ‘that you had better marry me out of hand before I get into any more mischief.’
The chaplaincy was promising. The place was on the lovely coast of Andalusia. There was a small colony of English engaged in trade, and the place was getting into favour with invalids. Mervyn’s correspondent was anxious to secure the services of a good man, and the society of a lady-like wife, and offered to guarantee a handsome salary, such as justified the curate in giving up his chance of a college living; and though it was improbable that he would ever learn a word of Spanish, or even get so far as the pronunciation of the name of the place, the advantages that the appointment offered were too great to be rejected, when Lucilla’s health needed a southern climate.
‘Oh! yes, yes, let us go,’ she cried. ‘It will be a great deal better than anything at home can be.’
‘Then you venture on telling Owen, now!’
‘Oh, yes! It was a mere delusion of mine that it would cost him anything. Honor is all that he wants, I am rather in their way than otherwise. He rests on her down-pillow-ship, and she sees, hears, knows nothing but him!’
‘Is Miss Charlecote aware of—what has been going wrong?’
‘Not she! I told her before that I should take my own time for the communication, and I verily believe she has forgotten all about it! Then little demure Phœbe fell over head and ears in love with the backwoodsman on the spot, and walked about in a dream such as ought to have been good fun to watch, if I had had the spirit for it; and if Robert had not been sufficiently disengaged to keep his eyes open, I don’t know whether anything would have roused them short of breaking a blood-vessel or two.’
‘I shall never rest till you are in my keeping! I will go to Fulmort at once, and tell him that I accept.’
‘And I will go to Owen, and break the news to him. When are you coming again?’
‘To-morrow, as soon as I have opened school.’
‘Ah! the sooner we are gone the better! Much good you can be to poor Wrapworth! Just tell me, please, that I may know how badly I served you, how often you have inquired at Mrs. Murrell’s.’
‘Why—I believe—each day except Saturday and Sunday; but I never met him there till just now.’
Lucilla’s eyes swam with tears; she laid her head on his shoulder, and, in a broken voice of deep emotion, she said, ‘Indeed, I did not deserve it! But I think I shall be good now, for I can’t tell why I should be so much loved!’
Mr. Prendergast was vainly endeavouring to tell her why, when Humfrey Randolf’s ring was heard, and she rushed out of the room.
Owen’s first hearty laugh since his return was at her tidings. That over, he spoke with brotherly kindness.
‘Yes, Lucy,’ he said, ‘I do think it is the best and happiest thing for you. He is the only man whom you could not torment to death, or who would have any patience with your antics.’
‘I don’t think I shall try,’ said Lucy. ‘What are you shaking your head for, Owen? Have I not had enough to tame me?’
‘I beg your pardon, Cilly. I was only thinking of the natural companionship of bears and monkeys. Don’t beat me!’
‘Some day you shall come out and see us perform, that’s all,’ said Lucilla, merrily. ‘But indeed, Owen, if I know myself at all, unmerited affection and forbearance, with no nonsense about it, is the only way to keep me from flying out. At any rate, I can’t live without it!’
