Hopes and Fears Part 44

'Never mind, dear Owen,' she said, with moisture in her eye; 'your real happiness is the only return I want. Come, tell me your difficulty; most likely I can help you.'

'I've nothing to tell,' said Owen, with alarmed impetuosity; 'only that I'm a fool, like every one else, and--and--if you would only double that--'

'Double that! Owen, things cannot be right.'

'I told you they were not right,' was the impatient answer, 'or I should not be vexing you and myself; and,' as though to smooth away his rough commencement, 'what a comfort to have a Honey that will have patience!'

She shook her head, perplexed. 'Owen, I wish you could tell me more. I do not like debts. You know, dear boy, I grudge nothing I can do for you in my lifetime; but for your own sake you must learn not to spend more than you will be able to afford. Indulgence now will be a penance to you by and by.'

Honora dreaded overdoing lectures to Owen. She knew that an old maid's advice to a young man was dangerous work, and her boy's submissive patience always excited her grat.i.tude and forbearance, so she desisted, in hopes of a confession, looking at him with such tenderness that he was moved to exclaim--'Honor dear, you are the best and worst-used woman on earth! Would to heaven that we had requited you better!'

'I have no cause of complaint against you, Owen,' she said, fondly; 'you have always been the joy and comfort of my heart;' and as he turned aside, as though stricken by the words, 'whatever you may have to reproach yourself with, it is not with hurting me; I only wish to remind you of higher and more stringent duties than those to myself. If you have erred, as I cannot but fear, will you not let me try and smooth the way back?'

'Impossible,' murmured Owen; 'there are things that can never be undone.'

'Not undone, but repented,' said Honor, convinced that he had been led astray by his cousin Charles, and felt bound not to expose him; 'so repented as to become stepping-stones in our progress.'

He only shook his head with a groan.

'The more sorrow, the better hope,' she began; but the impatient movement of his foot warned her that she was only torturing him, and she proceeded,--'Well, I trust you implicitly; I can understand that there may be confidences that ought not to pa.s.s between us, and will give you what you require to help you out of your difficulty. I wish you had a father, or any one who could be of more use to you, my poor boy!' and she began to fill up the cheque to the utmost of his demand.

'It is too much--too much,' cried Owen. 'Honor, I must tell you at all costs. What will you think when--'

'I do not wish to purchase a confession, Owen,' she said; 'you know best whether it be a fit one to make to me, or whether for the sake of others you ought to withhold it.'

He was checked, and did not answer.

'I see how it is,' continued Honor; 'my boy, as far as I am concerned, I look on your confession as made. You will be much alone while thus hovering near your sister among the mountains and by the streams. Let it be a time of reflection, and of making your peace with Another. You may do so the more earnestly for not having cast off the burthen on me. You are no child now, to whom your poor Honey's pardon almost seems an absolution. I sometimes think we went on with that too long.'

'No fear of my ever being a boy again,' said Owen, heavily, as he put the draft into his purse, and then bent his tall person to kiss her with the caressing fondness of his childhood, almost compensating for what his sister caused her to undergo.

Then, at the door, he turned to say, 'Remember, you would not hear.' He was gone, having left a thorn with Honor, in the doubt whether she ought not to have accepted his confidence; but her abstinence had been such a mortification both of curiosity and of hostility to the Charterises that she could not but commend herself for it. She had strong faith in the efficacy of trust upon an honourable mind, and though it was evident that Owen had, in his own eyes, greatly transgressed, she reserved the hope that his error was magnified by his own consciousness, and admired the generosity that refused to betray another. She believed his present suffering to be the beginning of that growth in true religion which is often founded on some shock leading to self-distrust.

Alas! how many falls have been counted by mothers as the preludes to rising again, like the clearing showers of a stormy day.

CHAPTER VIII

Fearless she had tracked his feet To this rocky, wild retreat, And when morning met his view, Her mild glances met it too.

Ah! your saints have cruel hearts, Sternly from his bed he starts, And with rude, repulsive shock, Hurls her from the beetling rock.--T. MOORE

The deed was done. Conventionalities were defied, vaunts fulfilled, and Lucilla sat on a camp-stool on the deck of a steamer, watching the Welsh mountains rise, grow dim, and vanish gradually.

Horatia, in common with all the rest of the womankind, was prostrate on the cabin floor, treating Cilly's smiles and roses as aggravations of her misery. Had there been a sharer in her exultation, the gay pitching and dancing of the steamer would have been charming to Lucy, but when she retreated from the scene of wretchedness below, she felt herself lonely, and was conscious of some surprise among the surviving gentlemen at her reappearance.

She took out a book as a protection, and read more continuously than she had done since _Vanity Fair_ had come to the Holt, and she had been pleased to mark Honora's annoyance at every page she turned.

But the July light faded, and only left her the poor amus.e.m.e.nt of looking over the side for the phosph.o.r.escence of the water, and watching the smoke of the funnel lose itself overhead. The silent stars and sparkling waves would have set Phoebe's dutiful science on the alert, or transported Honor's inward ear by the chant of creation, but to her they were of moderate interest, and her imagination fell a prey to the memory of the eyes averted, and hand withdrawn. 'I'll be exemplary when this is over,' said she to herself, and at length her head nodded till she dropped into a giddy doze, whence with a chilly start she awoke, as the monotonous jog and bounce of the steamer were exchanged for a snort of arrival, among mysterious lanes of sparkling lights apparently rising from the waters.

She had slept just long enough to lose the lovely entrance of Dublin Bay, stiffen her limbs, and confuse her brains, and she stood still as the stream of pa.s.sengers began to rush trampling by her, feeling bewildered and forlorn. Her cousin's voice was welcome, though over-loud and somewhat piteous. 'Where are you, stewardess? where's the young lady?

Oh! Cilly, there you are. To leave me alone all this time, and here's the stewardess saying we must go ash.o.r.e at once, or lose the train. Oh!

the luggage, and I've lost my plaid,' and ghastly in the lamplight, limp and tottering, Rashe Charteris clasped her arm for support, and made her feel doubly savage and bewildered. Her first movement was to enjoin silence, then to gaze about for the goods. A gentleman took pity on the two ladies, and told them not to be deluded into trying to catch the train; there would be another in an hour's time, and if they had any one to meet them, they would most easily be found where they were.

'We have no one--we are alone,' said Lucilla; and his chivalry was so far awakened that he handed them to the pier, and undertook to find their boxes. Rashe was absolutely subdued, and hung shivering and helpless on her cousin, who felt as though dreaming in the strange scene of darkness made visible by the bright circles round the lamps, across which rapidly flitted the cloaked forms of travellers presiding over queer, wild, caricature-like shapes, each bending low under the weight of trunk or bag, in a procession like a magic lantern, save for the Babel of shrieks, cries, and expostulations everywhere in light or gloom.

A bell rang, an engine roared and rattled off. 'The train!' sighed Horatia; 'we shall have to stay here all night.'

'Nonsense,' said Lucy, ready to shake her; 'there is another in an hour.

Stay quiet, do, or he will never find us.'

'Porter, ma'am--porrterr--'

'No, no, thank you,' cried Lucilla, darting on her rod-case and carriage-bag to rescue them from a freckled countenance with claws attached.

'We shall lose everything, Cilla; that's your trusting to a stranger!'

'All right; thank you!' as she recognized her possessions, borne on various backs towards the station, whither the traveller escorted them, and where things looked more civilized. Ratia began to resume her senses, though weak and hungry. She was sorely discomfited at having to wait, and could not, like the seasoned voyagers, settle herself to repose on the long leathern couches of the waiting-room, but wandered, woebegone and impatient, scolding her cousin for choosing such an hour for their pa.s.sage, for her desertion and general bad management. The merry, good-natured Rashe had disappeared in the sea-sick, cross, and weary wight, whose sole solace was grumbling, but her dolefulness only made Lucilla more mirthful. Here they were, and happen what would, it should only be 'such fun.' Recovered from the moment's bewilderment, Lucy announced that she felt as if she were at a ball, and whispered a proposal of astonishing the natives by a polka in the great empty boarded s.p.a.ce. 'The suggestion would immortalize us; come!' And she threatened mischievously to seize the waist of the still giddy and aching-headed Horatia, who repulsed her with sufficient roughness and alarm to set her off laughing at having been supposed to be in earnest.

The hurry of the train came at last; they hastened down-stairs and found the train awaiting them, were told their luggage was safe, and after sitting till they were tired, shot onwards watching the beautiful glimpses of the lights in the ships off Kingstown. They would gladly have gone on all night without another disembarkation and scramble, but the Dublin station came only too soon; they were disgorged, and hastened after goods. Forth came trunk and portmanteau. Alas! none of theirs!

Nothing with them but two carriage-bags and two rod-cases!

'It seems to be a common predicament,' said Lucilla; 'here are at least half-a-dozen in the same case.'

'Horrible management. We shall never see it more.'

'Nay, take comfort in the general lot. It will turn up to-morrow; and meantime sleep is not packed up in our boxes. Come, let's be off. What noises! How do these drivers keep from running over one another. Each seems ready to whip every one's beast but his own. Don't you feel yourself in Ireland, Rashe? Arrah! I shall begin to scream too if I stand here much longer.'

'We can't go in that thing--a fly!'

'Don't exist here, Rashe--vermin is unknown. Submit to your fate--' and ere another objection could be uttered, Cilly threw bags and rods into an inside car, and pushed her cousin after them, chattering all the time, to poor Horatia's distraction. 'Oh! delicious! A cross between a baker's cart and a Van Amburgh. A little more and it would overbalance and carry the horse head over heels! Take care, Rashe; you'll pound me into dust if you slip down over me.'

'I can't help it! Oh! the vilest thing in creation.'

'Such fun! To be taken when well shaken. Here we go up, up, up; and here we go down, down, down! Ha! ware fishing-rod! This is what it is to travel. No one ever described the experiences of an inside car!'

'Because no one in their senses would undergo such misery!'

'But you don't regard the beauties, Rashe, beauties of nature and art combined--see the lights reflected in the river--what a width. Oh! why don't they treat the Thames as they do the Liffey?'

'I can't see, I shall soon be dead! and getting to an inn without luggage, it's not respectable.'

'If you depart this life on the way, the want of luggage will concern me the most, my dear. Depend on it, other people have driven up in inside cars, minus luggage, in the memory of man, in this City of Dublin. Are you such a worldling base as to depend for your respectability on a paltry leathern trunk?'

Lucilla's confidence did not appear misplaced, for neither waiters nor chambermaids seemed surprised, but a.s.sured them that people usually missed their luggage by that train, and a.s.severated that it would appear next morning.

Lucilla awoke determined to be full of frolic and enjoyment, and Horatia, refreshed by her night's rest, was more easily able to detect 'such fun'