Hopes and Fears Part 112

'Seventeen years between us!'

'Nothing at all, as you will see when I put on my cap, and look staid.'

'No, no; I can't spare all that yellow hair.'

'Yellow indeed! if you don't know better what to call it, the sooner it is out of sight the better.'

'Why, what do you call it?'

'Flaxen, to be sure--_blonde cendree_, if you like it better--that is the colour of tow and ashes!'

She was like a playful kitten for the next quarter of a mile, her prettiest sauciness returning in the exuberant, confiding gladness with which she clung to the affection that at length satisfied her spirit; but gravity came back to her as they entered the village.

'Poor Wrapworth!' she said, 'you will soon pa.s.s to strangers! It is strange to know that, yet to feel the old days returning for which I have pined ever since we were carried away from home and Mr. Pendy.'

'Yes, nothing is wanting but that we could remain here.'

'Never mind! We will make a better Wrapworth for one another, free from the stains of my Castle Blanch errors and sorrows! I am even glad of the delay. I want a little time to be good with poor dear Honor, now that I have heart and spirit to be good.'

'And I grudge every week to her! I declare, Cilla, you make me wish evil to my neighbour.'

'Then follow my example, and be content with this present gladness.'

'Ha! ha! I wonder what they'll say at Southminster. Didn't I row them for using you so abominably? I have not been near them since!'

'More shame for you! Sarah is my best correspondent, and no one ever did me so much good as Mrs. Prendergast.'

'I didn't ask her to do you good!'

'You ought to have done so then; for I should not be the happy woman I am now if she had not done me good because she could not help it! I hope they won't take it to heart.'

'I hope they will!'

'What?'

'Turning you out?'

'Oh, I meant your throwing yourself away on a broken-down governess!

There--let us have done with nonsense. Come in this way.'

It was through the churchyard, past the three graves, which were as trim as if Lucilla had daily tended them. 'Thank you,' she said; then gazed in silence, till with a sigh she exclaimed:--

'Poor Edna! Monument of my faults! What perverse determination of mine it was that laid her here!'

'It was your generous feeling.'

'Do not miscall and embellish my perverse tyranny, as much to defy the Charterises as to do her justice. I am more ashamed now that I have the secret of your yielding!' she added, with downcast eyes, yet a sudden smile at the end.

'We will take that child home and bring him up,' said Mr. Prendergast.

'If his father wishes it, it will be right; not as if it were the pleasantest of charges. Thank you,' said Cilla. 'Three o'clock! Poor Honor, she must be starving!'

'What about her?' stammered Mr. Prendergast, hanging back shyly. 'Must she be told?'

'Not now,' said Lucilla, with all her alert readiness. 'I will tell her to-night. You will come in the first day you can!'

'To-morrow! Every possible day.'

Honor had truly been uneasy, fearing that Lucilla was walking, sitting down, or fasting imprudently; but the brilliant colour, the joyous eyes, and lively manner spoke wonderfully for the effects of native air. Mr.

Prendergast had become more absent and awkward than ever, but his extra shyness pa.s.sed unremarked, and Lucilla's tact and grace supplied all deficiencies without obtrusiveness. Always at home in the vicarage, she made none of her former bantering display of familiarity, but only employed it quietly to secure the guests having what they wanted, and to awaken the host to his duties, when he forgot that any one save herself needed attention.

She was carried off before the river fog should arise, and her abstracted silence all the way home was not wondered at; although Phoebe, sitting opposite to her, was at a loss to read the furtive smiles that sometimes unclosed her lips, or the calm, pensive look of perfect satisfaction on her features; and Honor could not comprehend her entire absence of fatigue after so trying a day, and wondered whether it were really the old complaint--want of feeling.

At night, Honor came to her room, and began--'My dear, I want to make a little explanation to you, if you are not tired.'

'Oh! no--I had a little explanation to make to you,' she answered, with a flush and a smile.

'Perhaps it may be on the same subject,' and as Cilla half laughed, and shook her head, she added--'I meant to tell you that long ago--from the time I had the Holt--I resolved that what remained of my income after the duties of my property were fulfilled, should make a fund for you and Owen. It is not much, but I think you would like to have the option of antic.i.p.ating a part, in case it should be possible to rescue that picture.'

'Dear, dear Honor,' exclaimed Cilla; 'how very kindly you are doing it!

Little did I think that Charles's heartlessness would have brought me so much joy and kindness.'

'Then you would like it to be done,' said Honor, delighted to find that she had been able so to administer a benefit as to excite neither offence nor resignation. 'We will take care that the purchaser learns the circ.u.mstances, and he can hardly help letting you have it at a fair valuation.'

'Thanks, thanks, dear Honor,' repeated Lucy; 'and now for _my_ explanation. Mr. Prendergast has asked me to marry him.'

Had it been herself, Honor could not have been more astounded.

'My child! impossible! Why, he might be your father! Is it that you want a home, Lucy? Can you not stay with me?'

'I can and I will for the present, Sweetest Honey,' said Cilly, caressingly drawing her arm round her. 'I want to have been good and happy with you; but indeed, indeed I can't help his being more to me!'

'He is a very excellent man,' began bewildered Honor; 'but I cannot understand--'

'His oddity? That's the very thing which makes him my own, and n.o.body else's, Mr. Pendy! Listen, Honor. Sit down, you don't half know him, nor did I know my own heart till now. He came to us, you know, when my father's health began to break after my mother's death. He was quite young, only a deacon; he lived in our house, and he was, with all his dear clumsiness, a daughter to my father, a nurse to us. I could tell you of such beautiful awkward tendernesses! How he used to help me with my sums--and tie Owen's shoes, and mince his dinner for him--and spare my father all that was possible! I am sure you know how we grieved after him.'

'Yes, but--'

'And now I know that it was _he_ that I cared for at Wrapworth. With him I never was wild and naughty as I was with others, though I did not know--oh! Honor, if I had but known--that he always cared for the horrid little thing I was, I could not have gone on so; but he was too good and wise, even while he _did_ love me, to think of _this_, till I had been tamed and come back to you! I am sure I can't be so naughty now, since he has thought of me!'

'Lucy, dearest, I am glad to see you so happy, but it is very strange to me. It is such a sudden change,' said Honor.

'No change! I never cared for any one half as much!'

'Lucy!' confounded at her apparent oblivion.

'It is true,' said Lucy, sitting down by her. 'Perhaps I thought I did, but if the other had ever been as much to me, I could never have used him as I did! Oh, Honor, when a person is made of the stuff I am, it is very hard to tell which is one's heart, and which is one's flirting-machine!

for the other thing does simulate all the motions, and feel real true pain! But I know now that Mr. Pendy was safe in my rear heart of hearts all the time, though I never guessed it, and thought he was only a sort of father; but you see that was why I was always in awe of getting under Robert's dominion, and why I survived his turning me off, and didn't at all wish him to bring it on again.'