Hopes and Fears Part 36

Meantime, Honora had found from Owen that the young ladies had accepted an invitation to a very gay house in Cheshire, so that their movements would for a fortnight remain doubtful. She recurred to her view that the only measure to be taken was for him to follow them, so as to be able to interpose in any emergency, and she anxiously pressed on him the funds required.

'Shouldn't I catch it if they found me out!' said Owen, shrugging his shoulders. 'No, but indeed, Sweet Honey, I meant to have made up for this naughty girl's desertion. You and I would have had such rides and readings together: I want you to put me on good terms with myself.'

'My dear boy! But won't that best be done by minding your sister? She does want it, Owen; the less she will be prudent for herself, the more we must think for her!'

'She can do better for herself than you imagine,' said Owen. 'Men say, with all her free ways, they could not go the least bit farther with her than she pleases. You wouldn't suppose it, but she can keep out of sc.r.a.pes better than Rashe can--never has been in one yet, and Rashe in twenty. Never mind, your Honor, there's sound stuff in the bonny scapegrace; all the better for being free and unconventional. The world owes a great deal to those who dare to act for themselves; though, I own, it is a trial when one's own domestic womankind take thereto.'

'Or one's mankind to encouraging it,' said Honor, smiling, but showing that she was hurt.

'I don't encourage it; I am only too wise to give it the zest of opposition. Was Lucy ever bent upon a naughty trick without being doubly incited by the pleasure of showing that she cared not for her younger brother?'

'I believe you are only too lazy! But, will you go? I don't think it can be a penance. You would see new country, and get plenty of sport.'

'Come with me, Honey,' said he with the most insinuating manner, which almost moved her. 'How jolly it would be!'

'Nonsense! an elderly spinster,' she said, really pleased, though knowing it impossible.

'Stuff!' he returned in the same tone. 'Make it as good as a honeymoon.

Think of Killarney, Honor!'

'You silly boy, I can't. There's harvest at home; besides, it would only aggravate that mad girl doubly to have me coming after her.'

'Well, if you will not take care of me on a literal wild-goose chase,'

said Owen, with playful disconsolateness, 'I'll not answer for the consequences.'

'But, you go?'

'Vacation rambles are too tempting to be resisted; but, mind, I don't promise to act good genius save at the last extremity, or else shall never get forgiven, and I shall keep some way in the rear.'

So closed the consultation; and after an evening which Lucilla perforce rendered lively, she and her brother took their leave. The next day they were to accompany the Charterises to Castle Blanch to prepare for the festivities; Honor and her two young friends following on the Wednesday afternoon.

CHAPTER VI

He who sits by haunted well Is subject to the Nixie's spell; He who walks on lonely beach To the mermaid's charmed speech; He who walks round ring of green Offends the peevish Fairy Queen.--SCOTT

At the station nearest to Castle Blanch stood the tall form of Owen Sandbrook, telling Honor that he and his sister had brought the boat; the river was the longer way, but they would prefer it to the road; and so indeed they did, for Phoebe herself had had enough of the City to appreciate the cool verdure and calm stillness of the meadow pathway, by which they descended to the majestic river, smoothly sleeping in gla.s.sy quiet, or stealing along in complacently dimpling ripples.

On the opposite bank, shading off the sun, an oak copse sloped steeply towards the river, painting upon the surface a still shimmering likeness of the summit of the wood, every ma.s.s of foliage, every blushing spray receiving a perfect counterpart, and full in the midst of the magic mirror floated what might have been compared to the roseate queen lily of the waters on her leaf.

There, in the flat, shallow boat reclined the maiden, leaning over the gunwale, gazing into the summer wavelets with which one bare pinkly-tinted hand was toying, and her silken ringlets all but dipping in, from beneath the round black hat, archly looped up on one side by a carnation bow, and encircled by a series of the twin jetty curls of the mallard; while the fresh rose colour of the spreading muslin dress was enhanced by the black scarf that hung carelessly over it. There was a moment's pause, as if no one could break the spell; but Owen, striding on from behind, quickly dissolved the enchantment.

'You monkey, you've cast off. You may float on to Greenwich next!' he indignantly shouted.

She started, shaking her head saucily. ''Twas so slow there, and so broiling,' she called back, 'and I knew I should only drift down to meet you, and could put in when I pleased.'

Therewith she took the sculls and began rowing towards the bank, but without force sufficient to prevent herself from being borne farther down than she intended.

'I can't help it,' she exclaimed, fearlessly laughing as she pa.s.sed them.

Robert was ready to plunge in to stem her progress, lest she should meet with some perilous eddy, but Owen laid hold on him, saying, 'Don't be nervous, she's all right; only giving trouble, after the nature of women.

There; are you satisfied?' he called to her, as she came to a stop against a reed bed, with a tall fence interposed between boat and pa.s.sengers. 'A nice ferry-woman you.'

'Come and get me up again,' was all her answer.

'Serve you right if I never picked you up till London-bridge,' he answered. 'Stand clear, Fulmort,' and with a run and a bound, he vaulted over the high hedge, and went crackling through the nodding bulrushes and reed-maces; while Lucy, having accomplished pulling up one of the latter, was pointing it lancewise at him, singing,

'With a bulrush for his spear, and a thimble for a hat, Wilt thou fight a traverse with the castle cat.'

'Come, come; 'tis too squashy here for larking,' he said authoritatively, stepping into the boat, and bringing it up with such absence of effort that when a few minutes after he had brought it to the landing-place, and the freight was seated, Robert had no sooner taken the other oar than he exclaimed at the force of the stream with which Owen had dealt so easily, and Lucilla so coolly.

'It really was a fearful risk,' he said reproachfully to her.

'Oh!' she said, 'I know my Thames, and my Thames knows me!'

'Now's the time to improve it,' said Owen; 'one or other should preach about young ladies getting loose, and not knowing where they may be brought up.'

'But you see I did know; besides, Phoebe's news from Paris will be better worth hearing,' said Lucilla, tickling her friend's face with the soft long point of her dark velvety mace.

'My news from Paris?'

'For shame, Phoebe! Your face betrays you.'

'Lucy; how could you know? I had not even told Miss Charlecote!'

'It's true! it's true!' cried Lucilla. 'That's just what I wanted to know!'

'Lucy, then it was not fair,' said Phoebe, much discomposed. 'I was desired to tell no one, and you should not have betrayed me into doing so.'

'Phoebe, you always were a green oasis in a wicked world!'

'And now, let me hear,' said Miss Charlecote. 'I can't flatter you, Phoebe; I thought you were labouring under a suppressed secret.'

'Only since this morning,' pleaded Phoebe, earnestly; 'and we were expressly forbidden to mention it; I cannot imagine how Lucy knows.'

'By telegraph!'

Phoebe's face a.s.sumed an expression of immeasurable wonder.

'I almost hope to find you at cross purposes, after all,' said Honora.

'No such good luck,' laughed Lucilla. 'Cinderella's seniors never could go off two at a time. Ah! there's the name. I beg your pardon, Phoebe.'

'But, Lucy, what can you mean? Who can have telegraphed about Augusta?'

'Ah! you knew not the important interests involved, nor Augusta how much depended on her keeping the worthy admiral in play. It was the nearest thing--had she only consented at the end of the evening instead of the beginning, poor Lord William would have had the five guineas that he wants so much more than Mr. Calthorp!'