Tak down, tak down the mast of gowd,
Set up the mast of tree,
It sets not a forsaken lady
To sail so gallantly.--_Annie of Lochroyan_
'Quaint little white-capped objects! The St. Wulstan's girls marching to
St. Paul's! Ah! the banner I helped to work! How well I remember the
contriving that crozier upon it! How well it has worn! Sweet Honey must
be in London; it was the sight she most grudged missing!'
So thought Lucilla Sandbrook as a cab conveyed her through the
Whittingtonian intricacies.
Her residence with Mrs. Willis Beaumont was not a passage in her life on
which she loved to dwell. Neither party had been well content with the
other, though deference to Mrs. Prendergast had held them together. The
lady herself was worthy and kind-hearted, but dull and tedious; and
Lucilla, used to animation and intellect, had wearied excessively of the
platitudes which were meant as friendly conversation, while her keen
remarks and power of drollery and repartee were just sufficiently
perceived to be dreaded and disliked. The children were like their
mother, and were frightened and distressed by her quickness and
unreasonable expectations. Their meek, demure heaviness and complacency,
even at their sports, made her positively dislike them, all but one
scapegrace boy, in favour with no one, and whom she liked more from
perverseness and compassion than from any merits of his own. Lady
Acton's good offices gave the widow a tangible cause, such as was an
absolute satisfaction, for her antipathy, and shook the implicit trust in
Mrs. Prendergast's recommendation that had hitherto overridden her
private sentiments; yet still, habitual awe of her sister-in-law, and her
own easiness and dread of change, left things in the same state until a
crisis caused by a grand disturbance among the children. In the nice
matter of meting out blame, mamma's partiality and the children's
ungenerosity left an undue share upon the scapegrace; his indignant
partisan fought his battles 'not wisely but too well,' lost temper, and
uttered sarcastic home truths which startled and stung the lady into the
request for which she could hardly have nerved herself in cooler moments,
namely, that they might part.
This settled, each secretly felt that there was something to be
regretted, and both equally wished that a new engagement should be made
before the termination of the present should be made known at
Southminster. For this purpose, every facility had been given for Miss
Sandbrook's coming to town personally to answer two ladies to whom she
had been mentioned. A family in the neighbourhood had already been
tried, but had declined her, and Mrs. Beaumont had shown her the note;
'so stylish, such strange stories afloat.' Lucilla felt it best to break
upon new ground, and wounded and depressed, had yet resentment enough to
bear her through boldly. She wished to inspect Owen's child, and wrote
to ask Mrs. Murrell to give her a bed for a couple of nights, venturing
on this measure because, in the old woman's monthly report, she had
mentioned that Mr. Fulmort had gone abroad for a fortnight.
It had not been an exhilarating evening. Small children were not much to
Lucilla's taste, and her nephew was not a flattering specimen. He had
the whitened drawn-up appearance of a child who had spent most of his
life in a London cellar, with a pinched little visage and
preternatural-looking black eyes, a squeaky little fretful voice, and all
the language he had yet acquired decidedly cockney. Moreover, he had the
habits of a spoilt child, and that a vulgar one, and his grandmother
expected his aunt to think him a prodigy. There was a vacant room where
Lucilla passed as much of her time as she could without an assumption of
superiority, but she was obliged to spend the evening in the small
furniture-encumbered parlour, and hear by turns of her nephew's traits of
genius, of the merits of the preachers in Cat-alley, and the histories of
the lodgers. The motherly Mrs. Murrell had invited any of the young men
whose 'hearts might be touched' to attend her 'simple family worship;'
and to Lucilla's discomfiture and her triumph, a youth appeared in the
evening, and the young lady had her doubts whether the expounding were
the attraction.
It was a relief to quit the close, underground atmosphere even for a cab;
and 'an inspecting lady must be better than that old woman,' thought poor
Lucy, as, heartily weary of Mrs. Murrell's tongue and her own
graciousness, she rattled through the streets. Those long ranks of
charity children renewed many an association of old. The festival which
had been the annual event of Honor Charlecote's youth, she had made the
same to her children, and Cilla had not despised it till recently.
Thoughts of better days, of home-feelings, of tenderness, began to soften
her. She had spent nearly two years without the touch of a kindred hand,
and for many months past had been learning what it was to be looked at by
no loving eye. She was on her way to still greater strangers! No wonder
her heart yearned to the gentle voice that she had once spurned, and
well-nigh in spite of herself, she muttered,
'Really I do think a kiss of poor Honor's would do me good! I have a
great mind to go to her when I come back from Kensington. If I have
taken a situation she cannot suppose that I want anything from her. It
would be very comfortable; I should hear of Owen! I will go! Even if
she be not in town, I could talk to Mrs. Jones, and sit a quarter of an
hour in the cedar room! It would be like meeting Owen; it would be rest
and home!'
She felt quite happy and pleased with herself under this resolution, but
it was late before she could put it in practice. The lady at Kensington
rather started on entering the room where she had been waiting nearly an
hour. 'I thought--' she said, apologetically, 'Did my servant say Miss
Sandbrook?'
Lucilla assented, and the lady, a little discomposed, asked a few
questions, furtively surveying her all the time, seemed confused, then
begged her to take some luncheon. It was so long since Mrs. Murrell's
not very tempting breakfast, that the invitation was welcome, even though
the presence of a gentleman and an elderly lady showed that it was a
pretext for a family inspection, and again she detected the same start of
surprise, and a glance passing round the circle, such as made her glad
when afterwards an excuse was made for leaving her alone, that she might
apply to the glass to see whether anything were amiss in her dress.
Then first she remarked that hers was not the governess air. She had
long felt very virtuous for having spent almost nothing on her clothes,
eking out her former wardrobe to the utmost; and the loose, dove-coloured
jacket over her black silk skirt betrayed Parisian make, as did the
exquisite rose, once worn in her hair, and now enlivening the white
ribbon and black lace of the cheap straw bonnet, far back upon the
rippling hair turned back from her temples, and falling in profuse
ringlets. It was her ordinary unpremeditated appearance, but she
perceived that to these good people it was startlingly stylish, and she
was prepared for the confused intimation that there was no need for
entering upon the discussion of terms.
She had been detained too late to make her other call, and the
processions of tired children showed her that the service at St. Paul's
was over. The depression of disappointment inclined her the more to the
loving old face; and she caused herself to be set down at the end of
Woolstone-lane, feeling as if drawn by a magnet as she passed the well
known warehouse walls, and as if it were home indeed when she reached the
court door.
It would not yield to her intimate manipulation of the old latch--a bad
sign, and the bell re-echoed in vacancy. Again and again she rang, each
moment of exclusion awakening a fresh yearning towards the cedar
fragrance, every stare of passer-by making her long for the safe shelter
of the bay-windowed parlour. At last a step approached, and a greeting
for the friendly old servant was on her tongue's end. Alas! a strange
face met her eye, elderly, respectable, but guarded. Miss Charlecote was
not at home, not in town, not at Hiltonbury--gone abroad, whither was not
known. Mrs. Jones? Dead more than a year ago. Every reply was followed
by an attempt to close the door, and it needed all Lucy's native
hardihood, all her ardent craving for her former home, to venture on an
entreaty to be admitted for a few minutes. She was answered, that the
house might be shown to no one without orders from Mr. Parsons.
Her heart absolutely fainted within her, as the heavy door was closed on
her, making her thoroughly realize her voluntary renunciation of home and
protection, and the dreariness of the world on which she had cast
herself. Anxiety on Honor's behalf began to awaken. Nothing but illness
could have induced her to leave her beloved Holt, and in the thought of
her sick, lonely, and untended by the children she had fostered, Cilla
forgave her adoption, forgave her forgiveness, forgave everything, in the
impulse to hasten to her to requite the obligation by the tenderest care.
She had actually set off to the parsonage in quest of intelligence, when
she recollected that she might appear there as a discarded governess in
quest of her offended patroness; and her pride impelled her to turn back,
but she despatched Mrs. Murrell's little maid with a note, saying that,
being in town for a day, and hearing of Miss Charlecote's absence on the
continent, she could not help begging to be certified that illness was
not the cause. The reply was brief and formal, and it only altered
Lucilla's uneasiness, for Mrs. Parsons merely assured her of Miss
Charlecote's perfect health, and said she was gone abroad with the
Fulmort family, where there had been a good deal of illness.
In her displeasure and desire to guard Honora from becoming a prey to the
unworthy Sandbrooks, Mrs. Parsons never guessed at the cruelty of her own
words, and at the conclusion drawn from them. Robert Fulmort likewise
absent! No doubt his health had broken down, and Honor was taking Phoebe
to be with him! She examined Mrs. Murrell, and heard of his activity,
indeed, but of his recent absences from his parish, and by and by the
good woman bethought her of a report that Mr. Fulmort was from home on
account of his health. Oh, the misery of not daring to make direct
inquiry!
But the hard practical world was before her, and the new situation was no
longer a matter of wilful choice, but of dire necessity. She would not
be hastily thrust from her present post, and would be lovingly received
at Southminster in case of need, but she had no dependence save on her
own exertions, and perverse romance had died away into desolateness.
With strange, desperate vehemence, and determination not again to fail,
she bought the plainest of cap-fronts, reduced her bonnet to the severest
dowdiness, hid, straightened, tightened the waving pale gold of her hair,
folded her travelling-shawl old-womanishly, cast aside all the merely
ornamental, and glancing at herself, muttered, 'I did not know I could be
so insignificant!' Little Owen stared as if his beautiful aunt had lost
her identity, and Mrs. Murrell was ready to embrace her as a convert to
last night's exposition.
Perhaps the trouble was wasted, for the lady, Mrs. Bostock, did not seem
to be particular. She was quite young, easily satisfied, and only eager
to be rid of an embarrassing interview of a kind new to her; the terms
were fixed, and before many weeks had passed Lucilla was settled at a
cottage of gentility, in sight of her Thames, but on the Essex side,
where he was not the same river to her, and she found herself as often
thinking that those tainted waters had passed the garden in
Woolstone-lane as that they had sparkled under Wrapworth Bridge.
It was the greatest change she had yet undergone. She was entirely the
governess, never the companion of the elders. Her employers were
mercantile, wrapped up in each other, busy, and gay. The husband was all
day in London, and, when the evenings were not given to society,
preferred spending them alone with his wife and children. In his
absence, the nursery absorbed nearly all the time the mother could spare
from her company and her household. The children, who were too old for
playthings, were consigned to the first-rate governess, and only appeared
in the evening. Lucilla never left her schoolroom but for a walk, or on
a formal request to appear in the drawing-room at a party; a solitude
which she at first thought preferable to Mrs. Willis Beaumont's continued
small chatter, especially as the children were pleasant, brisk, and
lovable, having been well broken in by their Swiss _bonne_.
Necessity had trained Cilly in self-restraint, and the want of
surveillance made her generous nature the more scrupulous in her
treatment of her pupils; she taught them diligently, kept good order, won
their affection and gave them some of her own, but nothing could obviate
her growing weariness of holding intercourse with no mind above eleven
years old. Trouble and anxiety she had known before, and even the
terrible heartache that she carried about with her might have failed to
wear down a being constituted as she was, without the long solitary
evenings, and the total want of companionship. The first shock had been
borne by the help of bustle and change, and it was only as weeks passed
on, that care and depression grew upon her. Lessons, walks, children's
games were oppressive in turn, and though the last good-night was a
welcome sound, yet the solitude that ensued was unspeakably forlorn.
Reading she had never loved, even had this been a house of books; the
children were too young to need exertion on her part to keep in advance
of them, and their routine lessons wore out her energies too much for her
to turn to her own resources. She did little but repair her wardrobe,
work for the boy in Whittington-street, and let thoughts drift through
her mind. That death-bed scene at Hyeres, which had so often risen
unbidden to her mind as she lay on her crib, was revived again, but it
was not her father whose ebbing life she watched. It was one for whom
she durst not ask, save by an inquiry from her brother, who had never
dropped his correspondence with Honora; but Owen was actively employed,
and his locality and habits were so uncertain that his letters were often
astray for long together. His third year of apprenticeship had begun,
and Lucilla's sole hope of a change from her present dreary captivity was
in his either returning with Mr. Currie, or finding employment and
sending for her and his child to Canada. 'By that time,' she thought,
'Europe will contain nothing to me. Nay, what does it contain that I
have a right to care for now? I don't delude myself. I know his look
and manner. His last thought will be for his flock at St. Matthew's, not
for her who drove him to the work that has been killing him. Oh, no, he
won't even forgive me, for he will think it the greatest service I could
have done him.' Her eyes were hot and dry; what a relief would tears
have been!