CHAPTER V
Too soon the happy child
His nook of heavenward thought must change
For life's seducing wild.-
The summer sun peeped through the Venetian blinds greenly shading the breakfast-table.
Only three sides were occupied. For more than two years past good Miss Wells had been lying under the shade of Hiltonbury Church, taking with her Honora Charlecote's last semblance of the dependence and deference of her young ladyhood. The kind governess had been fondly mourned, but she had not left her child to loneliness, for the brother and sister sat on either side, each with a particular pet-Lucilla's, a large pointer, who kept his nose on her knee; Owen's, a white fan-tailed pigeon, seldom long absent from his shoulder, where it sat quivering and bending backwards its graceful head.
Lucilla, now nearly fourteen, looked younger from the unusual smallness of her stature, and the exceeding delicacy of her features and complexion, and she would never have been imagined to be two years the senior of the handsome-faced, large-limbed young Saxon who had so far outstripped her in height; and yet there was something in those deep blue eyes, that on a second glance proclaimed a keen intelligence as much above her age as her appearance was below it.
'What's the matter?' said she, rather suddenly.
'Yes, sweetest Honey,' added the boy, 'you look bothered. Is that rascal not paying his rent?'
'No!' she said, 'it is a different matter entirely. What do you think of an invitation to Castle Blanch?'
'For us all?' asked Owen.
'Yes, all, to meet your Uncle Christopher, the last week in August.'
'Why can't he come here?' asked Lucilla.
'I believe we must go,' said Honora. 'You ought to know both your uncles, and they should be consulted before Owen goes to school.'
'I wonder if they will examine me,' said Owen. 'How they will stare to find Sweet Honey's teaching as good as all their preparatory schools.'
'Conceited boy.'
'I'm not conceited-only in my teacher. Mr. Henderson said I should take as good a place as Robert Fulmort did at Winchester, after four years in that humbugging place at Elverslope.'
'We can't go!' cried Lucilla. 'It's the last week of Robin's holidays!'
'Well done, Lucy!' and both Honor and Owen laughed heartily.
'It is nothing to me,' said she, tossing her head, 'only I thought Cousin Honor thought it good for him.'
'You may stay at home to do him good,' laughed Owen; 'I'm sure I don't want him. You are very welcome, such a bore as he is.'
'Now, Owen.'
'Honey dear, I do take my solemn affidavit that I have tried my utmost to be friends with him,' said Owen; 'but he is such a fellow-never has the least notion beyond Winchester routine-Latin and Greek, cricket and football.'
'You'll soon be a schoolboy yourself,' said Lucilla.
'Then I shan't make such an ass of myself,' returned Owen.
'Robin is a very good boy, I believe,' said Honor.
'That's the worst of him!' cried Lucilla, running away and clapping the door after her as she went.
'Well, I don't know,' said Owen, very seriously, 'he says he does not care about the Saints' days because he has no one to get him leave out.'
'I remember,' said Honor, with a sweet smile of tender memory, 'when to me the merit of Saints' days was that they were your father's holidays.'
'Yes, you'll send me to Westminster, and be always coming to Woolstone-lane,' said Owen.
'Your uncles must decide,' she said, half mournfully, half proudly; 'you are getting to be a big boy-past me, Oney.'
It brought her a roughly playful caress, and he added, 'You've got the best right, I'm sure.'
'I had thought of Winchester,' she said. 'Robert would be a friend.'
Owen made a face, and caused her to laugh, while scandalizing her by humming, 'Not there, not there, my child.'
'Well, be it where it may, you had better look over your Virgil, while I go down to my practical Georgics with Brooks.'
Owen obeyed. He was like a spirited horse in a leash of silk. Strong, fearless, and manly, he was still perfectly amenable to her, and had never shown any impatience of her rule. She had taught him entirely herself, and both working together with a thorough good will, she had rendered him a better classical scholar, as all judges allowed, than most boys of the same age, and far superior to them in general cultivation; and she should be proud to convince Captain Charteris that she had not made him the mollycoddle that was obviously anticipated. The other relatives, who had seen the children in their yearly visits to London, had always expressed unqualified satisfaction, though not advancing much in the good graces of Lucy and Owen. But Honor thought the public school ought to be left to the selection of the two uncles, though she wished to be answerable for the expense, both there and at the university. The provision inherited by her charges was very slender, for, contrary to all expectation, old Mr. Sandbrook's property had descended in another quarter, and there was barely 5000 pounds between the two.
To preserve this untouched by the expenses of education was Honora's object, and she hoped to be able to smooth their path in life by occasional assistance, but on principle she was determined to make them independent of her, and she had always made it known that she regarded it as her duty to Humfrey that her Hiltonbury property should be destined-if not to the apocryphal American Charlecote-to a relation of their mutual great- grandmother.
Cold invitations had been given and declined, but this one was evidently in earnest, and the consideration of the captain decided Honora on accepting it, but not without much murmuring from Lucilla. Caroline and Horatia were detestable grown-up young ladies, her aunt was horrid, Castle Blanch was the slowest place in the world; she should be shut up in some abominable school-room to do fancy-work, and never to get a bit of fun. Even the being reminded of Wrapworth and its associations only made her more cross. She was of a nature to fly from thought or feeling-she was keen to perceive, but hated reflection, and from the very violence of her feelings, she unconsciously abhorred any awakening of them, and steeled herself by levity.
Her distaste only gave way in Robert's presence, when she appeared highly gratified by the change, certain that Castle Blanch would be charming, and her cousin the Life-guardsman especially so. The more disconsolate she saw Robert, the higher rose her spirits, and his arrival to see the party off sent her away in open triumph, glorifying her whole cousinhood without a civil word to him; but when seated in the carriage she launched at him a drawing, the favourite work of her leisure hours, broke into unrestrained giggling at his grateful surprise, and ere the wood was past, was almost strangled with sobs.
Castle Blanch was just beyond the suburbs of London, in complete country, but with an immense neighbourhood, and not half-an-hour by train from town. Honora drove all the way, to enjoy the lovely Thames scenery to the full. They passed through Wrapworth, and as they did so, Lucilla chattered to the utmost, while Honora stole her hand over Owen's and gently pressed it. He returned the squeeze with interest, and looked up in her face with a loving smile-mother and home were not wanting to him!
About two miles further on, and not in the same parish, began the Castle Blanch demesne. The park sloped down to the Thames, and was handsome, and quite full of timber, and the mansion, as the name imported, had been built in the height of pseudo-Gothic, with a formidable keep-looking tower at each corner, but the fortification below consisting of glass; the sham cloister, likewise glass windows, for drawing-room, music-room, and conservatory; and jutting out far in advance, a great embattled gateway, with a sham portcullis, and doors fit to defy an army.
Three men-servants met the guests in the hall, and Mrs. Charteris received them in the drawing-room, with the woman-of-the-world tact that Honora particularly hated; there was always such deference to Miss Charlecote, and such an assumption of affection for the children, and gratitude for her care of them, and Miss Charlecote had not
