‘Poor child,’ said Honora, smiling, ‘she is a little witch.’
‘And,’ continued the uncle, ‘if he thinks it so bad for them, he had better take the only way of saving them from it for the future, or they will be there for life. If he gets through this winter, it will only be by the utmost care.’
Honora kept her project back with the less difficulty, because she doubted how it would be received by the rough captain; but it won more and more upon her, as she rattled home through the gas-lights, and though she knew she should learn to love the children only to have the pang of losing them, she gladly cast this foreboding aside as selfish, and applied herself impartially as she hoped to weigh the duty, but trembling were the hands that adjusted the balance. Alone as she stood, without a tie, was not she marked out to take such an office of mere pity and charity? Could she see the friend of her childhood forced either to peril his life by his care of his motherless children, or else to leave them to the influences he so justly dreaded? Did not the case cry out to her to follow the promptings of her heart? Ay, but might not, said caution, her assumption of the charge lead their father to look on her as willing to become their mother? Oh, fie on such selfish prudery imputing such a thought to yonder broken-hearted, sinking widower! He had as little room for such folly as she had inclination to find herself on the old terms. The hero of her imagination he could never be again, but it would be weak consciousness to scruple at offering so obvious an act of compassion. She would not trust herself, she would go by what Miss Wells said. Nevertheless she composed her letter to Owen Sandbrook between waking and sleeping all night, and dreamed of little creatures nestling in her lap, and small hands playing with her hair. How coolly she strove to speak as she described the dilemma to the old lady, and how her heart leapt when Miss Wells, her mind moving in the grooves traced out by sympathy with her pupil, exclaimed, ‘Poor little dears, what a pity they should not be with you, my dear, they would be a nice interest for you!’
Perhaps Miss Wells thought chiefly of the brightening in her child’s manner, and the alert vivacity of eye and voice such as she had not seen in her since she had lost her mother; but be that as it might, her words were the very sanction so much longed for, and ere long Honora had her writing-case before her, cogitating over the opening address, as if her whole meaning were implied in them.
‘My dear Owen’ came so naturally that it was too like an attempt to recur to the old familiarity. ‘My dear Mr. Sandbrook?’ So formal as to be conscious! ‘Dear Owen?’ Yes that was the cousinly medium, and in diffident phrases of restrained eagerness, now seeming too affectionate, now too cold she offered to devote herself to his little ones, to take a house on the coast, and endeavour to follow out his wishes with regard to them, her good old friend supplying her lack of experience.
With a beating heart she awaited the reply. It was but few lines, but all Owen was in them.
‘My dear Nora—You always were an angel of goodness. I feel your kindness more than I can express. If my darlings were to be left at all, it should be with you, but I cannot contemplate it. Bless you for the thought!
She heard no more for a week, during which a dread of pressing herself on him prevented her from calling on old Mrs. Sandbrook. At last, to her surprise, she received a visit from Captain Charteris, the person whom she looked on as least propitious, and most inclined to regard her as an enthusiastic silly young lady. He was very gruff, and gave a bad account of his patient. The little boy had been unwell, and the exertion of nursing him had been very injurious; the captain was very angry with illness, child, and father.
‘However,’ he said, ‘there’s one good thing, L. has forbidden the children’s perpetually hanging on him, sleeping in his room, and so forth. With the constitutions to which they have every right, poor things, he could not find a better way of giving them the seeds of consumption. That settles it. Poor fellow, he has not the heart to hinder their always pawing him, so there’s nothing for it but to separate them from him.’
‘And may I have them?’ asked Honor, too anxious to pick her words.
‘Why, I told him I would come and see whether you were in earnest in your kind offer. You would find them no sinecure.’
‘It would be a great happiness,’ said she, struggling with tears that might prevent the captain from depending on her good sense, and speaking calmly and sadly; ‘I have no other claims, nothing to tie me to any place. I am a good deal older than I look, and my friend, Miss Wells, has been a governess. She is really a very wise, judicious person, to whom he may quite trust. Owen and I were children together, and I know nothing that I should like better than to be useful to him.’
‘Humph!’ said the captain, more touched than he liked to betray; ‘well, it seems the only thing to which he can bear to turn!’
‘Oh!’ she said, breaking off, but emotion and earnestness looked glistening and trembling through every feature.
‘Very well,’ said Captain Charteris, ‘I’m glad, at least, that there is some one to have pity on the poor things! There’s my brother’s wife, she doesn’t say no, but she talks of convenience and spoilt children—Sandbrook was quite right after all; I would not tell him how she answered me! Spoilt children to be sure they are, poor things, but she might recollect they have no mother—such a fuss as she used to make with poor Lucilla too. Poor Lucilla, she would never have believed that “dear Caroline” would have no better welcome for her little ones! Spoilt indeed! A precious deal pleasanter children they are than any of the lot at Castle Blanch, and better brought up too.’
The good captain’s indignation had made away with his consistency, but Honora did not owe him a grudge for revealing that she was his pis aller, she was prone to respect a man who showed that he despised her, and she only cared to arrange the details. He was anxious to carry away his charge at once, since every day of this wear and tear of feeling was doing incalculable harm, and she undertook to receive the children and nurse at any time. She would write at once for a house at some warm watering-place, and take them there as soon as possible, and she offered to call that afternoon to settle all with Owen.
‘Why,’ said Captain Charteris, ‘I hardly know. One reason I came alone was, that I believe that little elf of a Cilly has some notion of what is plotting against her. You can’t speak a word but that child catches up, and she will not let her father out of her sight for a moment.’
‘Then what is to be done? I would propose his coming here; but the poor child would not let him go.’
‘That is the only chance. He has been forbidden the walking with them in his arms to put them to sleep, and we’ve got the boy into the nursery, and he’d better be out of the house than hear them roaring for him. So if you have no objection, and he is tolerable this evening, I would bring him as soon as they are gone to bed.’
Poor Owen was evidently falling under the management of stronger hands than his own, and it could only be hoped that it was not too late. His keeper brought him at a little after eight that evening. There was a look about him as if, after the last stroke that had befallen him, he could feel no more, the bitterness of death was past, his very hands looked woe-begone and astray, without the little fingers pressing them. He could not talk at first; he shook Honor’s hand as if he could not bear to be grateful to her, and only the hardest hearts could have endured to enter on the intended discussion. The captain was very gentle towards him, and talk was made on other topics but gradually something of the influence of the familiar scene where his brightest days had been passed, began to prevail. All was like old times—the quaint old silver kettle and lamp, the pattern of the china cups, the ruddy play of the fire on the polished panels of the room—and he began to revive and join the conversation. They spoke