Hopes and Fears Part 127

'Ah! Queen Elizabeth! Queen Elizabeth! shut up an honourable man and a sensible girl in a cedar parlour every evening for ten days, and then talk of wild things! Have you forgotten what it is to be under twenty-five?'

'I hate Queen Elizabeth,' said Honor, somewhat tartly.

He muttered something of an apology, and resumed his book. She worked on in silence, then looking up said, rather as if rejoicing in a valid objection, 'How am I to know that this man is first in the succession? I am not suspecting him of imposition. I believe that, as you say, his mother was a Charlecote, but how do I know that she had not half-a-dozen brothers. There is no obligation on me to leave the place to any one, but this youth ought not to come before others.'

'That is soon answered,' said Owen. 'The runaway, your grandfather's brother, led a wild, Leather-Stocking life, till he was getting on in years, then married, luckily not a squaw, and died at the end of the first year, leaving one daughter, who married Major Randolf, and had this only son.'

'The same relation to me as Humfrey! Impossible! And pray how do you prove this?'

'I got Currie to make notes for me which I can get at in my room,' said Owen. 'You can set your lawyer to write to the places, and satisfy yourself without letting him know anything about it.'

'Has he any expectations?'

'I imagine not. I think he has never found out that our relationship is not on the Charlecote side.'

'Then it is the more--impertinent, I really must say, in him to pay his addresses to Phoebe, if he have done so.'

'I can't agree with you. What was her father but an old distiller, who made his fortune and married an heiress. You sophisticated old Honey, to expect him to be dazzled with her fortune, and look at her from a respectful distance! I thought you believed that "a man's a man for a'

that," and would esteem the bold spirit of the man of progress.'

'Progress, indeed!' said Honor, ironically.

'Listen, Honor,' said Owen, 'you had better accuse me of this fortune-hunting which offends you. I have only obeyed Fate, and so will you. From the moment I met him, he seemed as one I had known of old. It was Charlecotism, of course; and his signature filled me with presentiment. Nay, though the fire and the swamp have become mere hearsay to me now, I still retain the recollection of the impression throughout my illness that he was to be all that I might have been. His straightforward good sense and manly innocence brought Phoebe before me, and Currie tells me that I had fits of hatred to him as my supplanter, necessary as his care was to me.'

Honor just stopped herself from exclaiming, 'Never!' and changed it into, 'My own dear, generous boy!'

'You forget that I thought it was all over with me! The first sensations I distinctly remember were as I lay on my bed at Montreal, one Sunday evening, and saw him sitting in the window, his profile clearly cut against the light, and retracing all those old silhouettes over the mantelshelf. Then I remembered that it had been no sick delusion, but truth and verity, that he was the missing Charlecote! And feeling far more like death than life, I was glad that you should have some one to lean on of your own sort; for, Honor, it was his Bible that he was reading!--one that he had saved out of the fire. I thought it was a lucid interval allowed me for the sake of giving you a better son and support than I had been, and looked forward to your being happy with him.

As soon as I could get Currie alone, I told him how it stood, and made him take notes of the evidence of his ident.i.ty, and promise to make you understand it if I were dead or childish. My best hope was to see him accepted as my expiation; but when I got back, and you wouldn't have him at any price, and I found myself living and lifelike, and had seen her again--'

'Her? Phoebe? My poor boy, you do not mean--'

'I do mean that I was a greater fool than you even took me for,' said Owen, with rising colour. 'First and last, that pure child's face and honest, plain words had an effect on me which nothing else had. The other affair was a mere fever by comparison, and half against my will.'

'Owen!'

'Yes, it was. When I was with that poor thing, her fervour carried me along; and as to the marriage, it was out of shortsighted dread of the uproar that would have followed if I had not done it. Either she would have drowned herself, or her mother would have prosecuted me for breach of promise, or she would have proclaimed all to Lucy or Mr. Prendergast.

I hadn't courage for either; though, Honor, I had nearly told you the day I went to Ireland, when I felt myself done for.'

'You were married then?'

'Half-an-hour!' said Owen, with something of a smile, and a deep sigh.

'If I had spoken, it would have saved a life! but I could not bear to lose my place with you, nor to see that sweet face turned from me.'

'You must have known that it would come out in time, Owen. I never could understand your concealment.'

'I hardly can,' said Owen, 'except that one shuffles off unpleasant subjects! I did fancy I could stave it off till Oxford was over, and I was free of the men there; but that notion might have been a mere excuse to myself for putting off the evil day. I was too much in debt, too, for an open rupture with you; and as to her, I can truly say that my sole shadow of an excuse is that I was too young and selfish to understand what I was inflicting!' He pa.s.sed his hand over his face, and groaned, as he added--'Well, that is over now; and at last I can bear to look at her child!' Then recurring in haste to the former subject--'You were asking about Phoebe! Yes, when I saw the fresh face enn.o.bled but as simple as ever, the dog in the manger seemed to me a reasonable beast!

Randolf's admiration was a bitter pill. If I were to be nailed here for ever, I could not well spare the moonbeams from my prison! But that's over now--it was a diseased fancy! I have got my boy now, and can move about; and when I get into harness, and am in the way of seeing people, and maturing my invention, I shall never think of it again.'

'Ah! I am afraid that is all I can wish for you!'

'Don't wish it so pitifully, then,' said Owen, smiling. 'After having had no hope of her for five years, and being the poor object I am, this is no such great blow; and I am come to the mood of benevolence in which I really desire nothing so much as to see them happy.'

'I will think about it,' said Honor.

And though she was bewildered and disappointed, the interview had, on the whole, made her happier, by restoring the power of admiring as much as she loved. Yet it was hard to be required to sacrifice the interests of one whom she adored, her darling, who might need help so much, to do justice to a comparative stranger; and the more n.o.ble and worthy Owen showed himself, the less willing was she to decide on committing herself to his unconscious rival. Still, did the test of idolatry lie here?

She perceived how light-hearted this conversation had rendered Owen, as though he had thrown off a weight that had long been oppressing him. He was overflowing with fun and drollery throughout the journey; and though still needing a good deal of a.s.sistance at all changes of carriage, showed positive boyish glee in every feat he could accomplish for himself; and instead of shyly shrinking from the observation and casual help of fellow-travellers, gave ready smiles and thanks.

Exhilarated instead of wearied by the journey, he was full of enjoyment of the lodgings, the window, and the view; a new spring of youthfulness seemed to have come back to him, and his animation and enterprise carried Honor along with him. a.s.suredly she had never known more thorough present pleasure than in his mirthful, affectionate talk, and in the sight of his daily progress towards recovery; and a still greater happiness was in store for her. On the second day, he begged to accompany her to the week-day service at the neighbouring church, previously sending in a request for the offering of the thanks of Owen Charteris Sandbrook for preservation in great danger, and recovery from severe illness.

'Dearest,' she said, 'were I to recount my causes of thanksgiving, I should not soon have done! This is best of all.'

'Not fully _best_ yet, is it?' said Owen, looking up to her with eyes like those of his childhood.

'No; but it soon will be.'

'Not yet,' said Owen; 'I must think first; perhaps write or talk to Robert Fulmort. I feel as if I _could_ now.'

'You long for it?'

'Yes, as I never even _thought_ I did,' said Owen, with much emotion.

'It was strange, Honor, as soon as I came home to the old places, how the old feelings, that had been set aside so long, came back again. I would have given the world to recover them in Canada, but could only envy Randolf, till they woke up again of themselves at the sight of the study, and the big Bible we used to read with you.'

'Yet you never spoke.'

'No; I _could_ not till I had proved to myself that there was no time-serving in them, if you must know the truth!' said Owen, colouring a little. 'Besides, having been told my wits would go, how did I know but that they were a symptom of my second childhood?'

'How could any one have been so cruel as to utter such a horrible presage?'

'One overhears and understands more than people imagine, when one has nothing to do but to lie on the broad of one's back and count the flies,'

said Owen. 'So, when I was convinced that my machine was as good as ever, but only would not stand application, I put off the profession, just to be sure what I should think of it when I could _think_.'

'Well!' was all Honor could say, gazing through glad tears.

'And now, Honor dear,' said he, with a smile, 'I don't know how it is.

I've tried experiments on my brains. I have gone through half-a-dozen tough calculations. I have read over a Greek play, and made out a problem or two in mechanics, without being the worse for it; but, somehow, I can't for the life of me hark back to the opinions that had such power over me at Oxford. I can't even recollect the half of them.

It is as if that hemlock spruce had battered them out of my head.'

'Even like as a dream when one awaketh.'

'Something like it! Why, even _unknownst_ to you, Sweet Honey, I got at one or two of the books I used to swear by, and somehow I could not see the force of what they advanced. There's a futility about it all, compared with the substance.'

'Before, you did not believe with your heart, so your understanding failed to be convinced.'

'Partly so,' said Owen, thoughtfully. 'The fact is, that religion is so much proved to the individual by personal experience and actual sensation, that those who reason from without are on different ground, and the _avocato del diavolo_ has often apparently the advantage, because the other party's security is that witness in his own breast which cannot be brought to light.'

'Only apparently.'