Hopes and Fears Part 67

'After all, I have not heard who is this Mr. Currie, and how you know him.'

'I know him through his brother, who is building the church in Cecily Row.'

'A church in Cecily Row! St. Cecilia's? Who is doing it? Honor Charlecote?'

'No; I am.'

'You! Tell me all about it,' said Lucilla, leaning forward to listen with the eager air of interest which, when not half so earnest, had been always bewitching.

Poor Robert looked away, and tried to think himself explaining his scheme to the Archdeacon. 'The place is in frightful disorder, filled with indescribable vice and misery, but there is a shadow of hope that a few may be worked on if something like a mission can be organized.

Circ.u.mstances seemed to mark me out as the person to be at the cost of setting it on foot, my father's connection with the parish giving it a claim on me. So I purchased the first site that was in the market, and the buildings are in progress, chapel, schools, orphanage, and rooms for myself and two other clergy. When all the rest is provided for, there will remain about two hundred and fifty pounds a year--just enough for three of us, living together.'

He durst not glance towards her, or he would have seen her cheek white as wax, and her eye seeking his in dismayed inquiry. There was a pause; then she forced herself to falter--'Yes. I suppose it is very right--very grand. It is settled?'

'The Archdeacon has seen the plans, the Bishop has consented.'

Long and deep was the silence that fell on both.

Lucilla knew her fate as well as if his long coat had been a cowl. She would not, could not feel it yet. She must keep up appearances, so she fixed her eyes steadily on the drawing her idle hands were perpetrating on the back of a letter, and appeared absorbed in shading a Turk's head.

If Robert's motives had not been unmixed, if his zeal had been alloyed by temper, or his self-devotion by undutifulness; if his haste had been self-willed, or his judgment one-sided, this was an hour of retribution.

Let her have all her faults, she was still the Lucy who had flown home to him for comfort. He felt as if he had dashed away the little bird that had sought refuge in his bosom.

Fain would he have implored her pardon, but for the stern resolution to abstain from any needless word or look, such as might serve to rivet the affection that ought to be withdrawn; and he was too manly and unselfish to indulge in discussion or regret, too late as it was to change the course to which he had offered himself and his means. To retract would have been a breach of promise--a hasty one, perhaps, but still an absolute vow publicly made; and in all his wretchedness he had at least the comfort of knowing the present duty.

Afraid of last words, he would not even take leave until Owen came in upon their silence, full of animation and eagerness to see how far his knowledge would serve him with the book that he had brought home. Robert then rose, and on Owen's pressing to know when he might see the engineer, promised to go in search of him the next day, but added that they must not expect to see himself till evening, since it would be a busy day.

Lucilla stood up, but speech was impossible. She was in no mood to affect indifference, yet she could neither be angry nor magnanimous. She seemed to have pa.s.sed into a fresh stage of existence where she was not yet at home; and in the same dreamy way she went on drawing Red Indians, till by a sudden impulse she looked up and said, 'Owen, why should not I come out with you?'

He was intent on a problem, and did not hear.

'Owen, take me with you; I will make a home for you.'

'Eh?'

'Owen, let me come to Canada, and take care of you and your child.'

He burst out laughing. 'Well done, Cilly; that beats all!'

'Am I likely to be in play?'

'If not, you are crazy. As if a man could go surveying in the backwoods with a woman and a brat at his heels!'

Lucy's heart seemed to die within her. Nothing was left to her: hopes and fears were alike extinct, and life a waste before her. Still and indifferent, she laid her down at night, and awoke in the morning, wishing still to prolong the oblivion of sleep. Anger with Robert would have been a solace, but his dejection forbade this; nor could she resent his high-flown notions of duty, and deem herself their victim, since she had slighted fair warning, and repelled his attempts to address her. She saw no resource save the Holt, now more hopelessly dreary and distasteful than ever, and she shrank both from writing to Honor, or ending her tantalizing intercourse with Robert. To watch over her brother was her only comfort, and one that must soon end.

He remained immersed in trigonometry, and she was glad he should be too much engrossed for the outbreaks of remorseful sorrow that were so terrible to witness, and carefully guarded him from all that could excite them.

Mrs. Murrell brought several letters that had been addressed to him at her house, and as Lucilla conveyed them to him, she thought their Oxford post-marks looked suspicious, especially as he thrust them aside with the back of his hand, returning without remark to A B and C D.

Presently a person asked to speak with Mr. Sandbrook; and supposing it was on business connected with the funeral, Lucilla went to him, and was surprised at recognizing the valet of one of the gentlemen who had stayed at Castle Blanch. He was urgent to see Mr. Sandbrook himself; but she, resolved to avert all annoyances, refused to admit him, offering to take a message. 'Was it from his master?'

'Why, no, ma'am. In fact, I have left his lordship's service,' he said, hesitating. 'In point of fact I am the princ.i.p.al. There was a little business to be settled with the young gentleman when he came into his fortune; and understanding that such was the case, since I heard of him as settled in life, I have brought my account.'

'You mistake the person. My brother has come into no fortune, and has no expectation of any.'

'Indeed, ma'am!' exclaimed the man. 'I always understood that Mr. Owen Charteris Sandbrook was heir to a considerable property.'

'What of that?'

'Only this, ma'am,--that I hold a bond from that gentleman for the payment of 600 pounds upon the death of Miss Honora Charlecote, of the Holt, Hiltonbury, whose property I understood was entailed on him.' His tone was still respectful, but his hand shook with suppressed rage, and his eye was full of pa.s.sion.

'Miss Charlecote is not dead,' steadily answered Lucilla. 'She is in perfect health, not fifty years old, and her property is entirely at her own disposal.'

Either the man's wrath was beyond control, or he thought it his interest to terrify the lady, for he broke into angry complaints of being swindled, with menaces of exposure; but Lucilla, never deficient in courage, preserved ready thought and firm demeanour.

'You had better take care,' she said. 'My brother is under age, and not liable. If you should recover what you have lent him, it can only be from our sense of honesty. Leave me your address and a copy of the bond, and I give you my word that you shall receive your due.'

The valet, grown rich in the service of a careless master, and richer by money-lending transactions with his master's friends, knew Miss Sandbrook, and was aware that a lady's word might be safer than a spendthrift's bond. He tried swaggering, in the hope of alarming her into a promise to fulfil his demand uninvestigated; but she was on her guard; and he, reflecting that she must probably apply to others for the means of paying, gave her the papers, and freed her from his presence.

Freed her from his presence! Yes, but only to leave her to the consciousness of the burthen of shame he had brought her. She saw why Owen thought himself past pardon. Speculation on the death of his benefactress! Borrowing on an inheritance that he had been forbidden to expect. Double-dyed deceit and baseness! Yesterday, she had said they were humbled enough. This was not humiliation, it was degradation! It was far too intolerable for standing still and feeling it. Lucilla's impetuous impulses always became her obstinate resolutions, and her pride rebounded to its height in the determination that Owen should leave England in debt to no man, were it at the cost of all she possessed.

Re-entering the drawing-room, she had found that Owen had thrust the obnoxious letters into the waste-basket, each unopened envelope, with the contents, rent down the middle. She sat down on the floor, and took them out, saying, as she met his eye, 'I shall take these. I know what they are. They are my concern.'

'Folly!' he muttered. 'Don't you know I have the good luck to be a minor?'

'That is no excuse for dishonesty.'

'Look at home before you call names,' said Owen, growing enraged.

'Before you act spy on me, I should like to know who paid for your fine salmon-fly gown, and all the rest of it?'

'I never contracted debts in the trust that my age would enable me to defraud my creditors.'

'Who told you that I did? I tell you, Lucilla, I'll endure no such conduct from you. No sister has a right to say such things!' and starting up, his furious stamp shook the floor she sat upon, so close to her that it was as if the next would demolish her.

She did not move, except to look up all the length of the tall figure over her into the pa.s.sion-flushed face. 'I should neither have said nor thought so, Owen,' she replied. 'I should have imputed these debts to mere heedless extravagance, like other people's--like my own, if you please--save for your own words, and for finding you capable of such treachery as borrowing on a _post-obit_.'

He walked about furiously, stammering interrogations on the mode of her discovery, and, as she explained, storming at her for having brought this down on him by the folly of putting 'that thing into the _Times_.' Why could she not have stayed away, instead of meddling where she was not wanted?

'I thought myself wanted when my brother was in trouble,' said Lucilla, mournfully, raising her face, which she had bent between her hands at the first swoop of the tempest. 'Heaven knows, I had no thought of spying.

I came to stand by your wife, and comfort you. I only learnt all this in trying to shield you from intrusion. Oh, would that I knew it not!

Would that I could think of you as I did an hour ago! Oh, Owen, though I have never shared your fondness for Honor Charlecote, I thought it genuine; I did not scorn it as fortune-hunting.'

'It was not! It never was!' cried the poor boy. 'Honor! Poor Honor!

Lucy, I doubt if I could have felt for my mother as I do for her. Oh, if you could guess how I long for her dear voice in my ears, her soft hand on my head--' and he sank into his chair, hiding his face and sobbing aloud.

'Am I to believe that, when--' began Lucilla, slowly.

'The last resource of desperation,' cried Owen. 'What could I do with such a drain upon me; the old woman for ever clamouring for money, and threatening exposure? My allowance? Poor Honor meant well, but she gave me just enough to promote expensive habits without supplying them. There was nothing to fall back on--except the ways of the Castle Blanch folk.'