smoothly; the beautiful little Miss Sandbrook was an advertisement to her milliners, and living among wealthy people, and reported to be on the verge of marriage with a millionaire, there had been no hesitation in allowing her unlimited credit.
Probably the dressmaker had been alarmed by the long absence of the family, and might have learnt from the servants how Lucilla had quitted them, therefore thinking it expedient to remind her of her liabilities. And not only did the present spectacle make her giddy, but she knew there was worse beyond. The Frenchwoman who supplied all extra adornments, among them the ball-dress whose far bitterer price she was paying, could make more appalling demands; and there must be other debts elsewhere, such that she doubted whether her entire fortune would clear both her brother and herself. What was the use of thinking? It must be done, and the sooner she knew the worst the better. She felt very ill-used, certain that her difficulties were caused by Horatia's inattention, and yet glad to be quit of an obligation that would have galled her as soon as she had become sensible of it. It was more than ever clear that she must work for herself, instead of returning to the Holt, as a dependent instead of a guest. Was she humbled enough?
The funeral day began by her writing notes to claim her bills, and to take steps to get her capital into her own hands. Owen drowned reflection in geometry, till it was time to go by the train to Wrapworth.
There Mr. Prendergast fancied he had secured secrecy by eluding questions and giving orders at the latest possible moment. The concourse in the church and churchyard was no welcome sight to him, since he could not hope that the tall figure of the chief mourner could remain unrecognized. Worthy man, did he think that Wrapworth needed that sight to assure them of what each tongue had wagged about for many a day?
Owen behaved very properly and with much feeling. When not driving it out by other things, the fact was palpable to him that he had brought this fair young creature to her grave; and in the very scenes where her beauty and enthusiastic affection had captivated him, association revived his earlier admiration, and swept away his futile apology that she had brought the whole upon herself. A gust of pity, love, and remorse convulsed his frame, and though too proud to give way, his restrained anguish touched every heart, and almost earned him Mr. Prendergast's forgiveness.
Before going away, Lucilla privately begged Mr. Prendergast to come to town on Monday, to help her in some business. It happened to suit him particularly well, as he was to be in London for the greater part of the week, to meet some country cousins, and the appointment was made without her committing herself by saying for what she wanted him, lest reflection should convert him into an obstacle instead of an assistant.
The intervening Sunday, with Owen on her hands, was formidable to her imagination, but it turned out better than she expected. He asked her to walk to Westminster Abbey with him, the time and distance being an object to both, and he treated her with such gentle kindness, that she began to feel that something more sweet and precious than she had yet known from him might spring up, if they were not forced to separate. Once, on rising from kneeling, she saw him stealthily brushing off his tears, and his eyes were heavy and swollen, but, softened as she felt, his tone of feelings was a riddle beyond her power, between their keenness and their petulance, their manly depth and boyish levity, their remorse and their recklessness; and when he tried to throw them off, she could not but follow his lead.
'I suppose,' he said, late in the day, 'we shall mortify Fulmort if we don't go once to his shop. Otherwise, I like the article in style.'
'I am glad you should like it at all,' said Lucy, anxiously.
'I envy those who, like poor dear Honor, or that little Phoebe, can find life in the driest form,' said Owen.
'They would say it is our fault that we cannot find it.'
'Honor would think it her duty to say so. Phoebe has a wider range, and would be more logical. Is it our fault or misfortune that our ailments can't be cured by a paring of St. Bridget's thumb-nail, or by any nostrum, sacred or profane, that really cures their votaries? I regard it as a misfortune. Those are happiest who believe the most, and are eternally in a state in which their faith is working out its effects upon them mentally and physically. Happy people!'
'Really I think, unless you were one of those happy people, it is no more consistent in you to go to church than it would be in me to set up Rashe's globules.'
'No, don't tell me so, Lucy. There lie all my best associations. I venerate what the great, the good, the beloved receive as their blessing and inspiration. Sometimes I can assimilate myself, and catch an echo of what was happiness when I was a child at Honor's knee.'
The tears had welled into his eyes again, and he hurried away. Lucilla had faith (or rather acquiescence) without feeling. Feeling without faith was a mystery to her. How much Owen believed or disbelieved she knew not, probably he could not himself have told. It was more uncertainty than denial, rather dislike to technical dogma than positive unbelief; and yet, with his predilections all on the side of faith, she could not, womanlike, understand why they did not bring his reason with them. After all, she decided, in her off-hand fashion, that there was quite enough that was distressing and perplexing without concerning herself about them!
Style, as Owen called it, was more attended to than formerly at St. Wulstan's, but was not in perfection. Robert, whose ear was not his strong point, did not shine in intoning, and the other curate preached. The impression seemed only to have weakened that of the morning, for Owen's remarks on coming out were on the English habit of having overmuch of everything, and on the superior sense of foreigners in holiday-making, instead of making a conscience of stultifying themselves with double and triple church-going.
Cilla agreed in part, but owned that she was glad to have done with Continental Sundays that had left her feeling good for nothing all the week, just as she had felt when once, as a child, to spite Honor, she had come down without saying her prayers.
'The burthen bound on her conscience by English prejudice,' said her brother, adding 'that this was the one oppressive edict of popular theology. It was mere self-defence to say that the dulness was Puritanical, since the best Anglican had a cut-and-dried pattern for all others.'
'But surely as a fact, Sunday observance is the great safeguard. All goes to the winds when that is given up.'
'The greater error to have rendered it grievous.'
Lucilla had no reply. She had not learnt the joy of the week's Easter-day. It had an habitual awe for her, not sacred delight; and she could not see that because it was one point where religion taught the world that it had laws of its own, besides those of mere experience and morality, therefore the world complained, and would fain shake off the thraldom.
Owen relieved her by a voluntary proposal to turn down Whittington-street, and see the child. Perhaps he had an inkling that the chapel in Cat-alley would be in full play, and that the small maid would be in charge; besides, it was gas-light, and the lodgers would be out. At any rate softening was growing on him. He looked long and sorrowfully at the babe in its cradle, and at last,-
'He will never be like her.'
'No; and I do not think him like you.'
'In fact, it is an ugly little mortal,' said Owen, after another investigation. 'Yet, it's very odd, Lucy, I should like him to live.'
'Very odd, indeed!' she said, nearly laughing.
'Well, I own, before ever I saw him, when they said he would die, I did think it was best for himself, and every one else. So, maybe, it would; but you see I shouldn't like it. He will be a horrible expense, and it will be a great bore to know what to do with him: so absurd to have a son only twenty years younger than oneself: but I think I like him, after all. It is something to work for, to make up to him for what
'You have not proposed sending him to her?'
'No, I am not so cool,' he sadly answered; 'but she is capable of anything in an impulse of forgiveness.'
He spent the evening over his letter; and, in spite of his sitting with his back towards his sister, she saw more than one sheet spoilt by large tears unperceived till they dropped, and felt a jealous pang in recognizing the force of his affection for Honor. That love and compassion seemed contemptible to her, they were so inconsistent with his deception and disobedience; and she was impatient of seeing that, so far as he felt his errors at all, it was in their aspect towards his benefactress. His ingratitude towards her touched him in a more tender part than his far greater
