into the drawing-room, where she had at once detected the piano, and looking up at Honora said eagerly ‘Now then!’ And Honora fulfilled her promise, while the child stood by softened and gratified, until it was time to propose fetching little Owen, ‘your little brother—you will like to have him here.’
‘I want my father,’ said Lucilla in a determined voice, as if nothing else were to satisfy her.
‘Poor child, I know you do; I am so sorry for you, my dear little woman, but you see the doctors think papa is more likely to get better if he has not you to take care of!’
‘I did not want my father to take care of me,’ said the little lady, proudly; ‘I take care of father, I always make his tea and warm his slippers, and bring him his coffee in the morning. And Uncle Kit never will put his gloves for him and warm his handkerchief! Oh! what will he do? I can’t bear it.’
The violent grief so long kept back was coming now, but not freely; the little girl threw herself on the floor, and in a tumult of despair and passion went on, hurrying out her words, ‘It’s very hard! It’s all Uncle Kit’s doing! I hate him! Yes, I do.’ And she rolled over and over in her frenzy of feeling.
‘My dear! my dear!’ cried Honora, kneeling by her, ‘this will never do! Papa would be very much grieved to see his little girl so naughty. Don’t you know how your uncle only wants to do him good, and to make him get well?’
‘Then why didn’t he take me?’ said Lucilla, gathering herself up, and speaking sullenly.
‘Perhaps he thought you gave papa trouble, and tired him.’
‘Yes, that’s it, and it’s not fair,’ cried the poor child again; ‘why couldn’t he tell me? I didn’t know papa was ill! he never told me so, nor Mr. Pendy either; or, how I would have nursed him! I wanted to do so much for him; I wouldn’t have asked him to tell me stories, nor nothing! No! And now they won’t let me take care of him;’ and she cried bitterly.
‘Yes,’ said good, gentle Miss Wells, thinking more of present comfort than of the too possible future; ‘but you will go back to take care of him some day, my dear. When the spring comes papa will come back to his little girl.’
Spring! It was a long way off to a mind of six years old, but it made Lucilla look more amiably at Miss Wells.
‘And suppose,’ proceeded that good lady, ‘you were to learn to be as good and helpful a little girl as can be while he is gone, and then nobody will wish to keep you from him. How surprised he would be!’
‘And then shall we go home?’ said Lucilla.
Miss Wells uttered a somewhat rash assurance to that effect, and the child came near her, pacified and satisfied by the scheme of delightful goodness and progress to be made in order to please her father—as she always called him. Honor looked on, thankful for the management that was subduing and consoling the poor little maid, and yet unable to participate in it, for though the kind old lady spoke in all sincerity, it was impossible to Honora to stifle a lurking fear that the hopes built on the prospect of his return had but a hollow foundation.
However it attracted Lucilla to Miss Wells, so that Honora did not fear leaving her on going to bring home little Owen. The carriage which had conveyed the travellers, had brought back news of his sister’s discovery and capture, and Honora found Mrs. Sandbrook much shocked at the enormity of the proceeding, and inclined to pity Honora for having charge of the most outrageous children she had ever seen. A very long letter had been left for her by their father, rehearsing all he had before given of directions, and dwelling still more on some others, but then apparently repenting of laying down the law, he ended by entreating her to use her own judgment, believe in his perfect confidence, and gratitude beyond expression for most unmerited kindness.
Little Owen, she heard, had made the house resound with cries when his father was nowhere to be found, but his nurse had quieted him, and he came running to Honora with an open, confiding face. ‘Are you the lady? And will you take me to Cilly and the sea? And may I have a whale?’
Though Honora did not venture on promising him a tame whale in the Bristol Channel, she had him clinging to her in a moment, eager to set off, to go to Cilly, and the dove he had seen at her house. ‘It’s a nasty house here—I want to come away,’ he said, running backwards and forwards between her and the window to look at the horses, while nurse’s interminable boxes were being carried down.
The troubles really seemed quite forgotten; the boy sat on her knee and chattered all the way to Woolstone-lane, and there he and Lucilla flew upon each other with very pretty childish joy; the sister doing the honours of the house in right of having been a little longer an inmate. Nurse caught her and dressed and combed her, shoed her and sashed her, so that she came down to dinner less picturesque, but more respectable than at her first appearance that morning, and except for the wonderful daintiness of both children, dinner went off very well.
All did go well till night, and then Owen’s woes began. Oh what a piteous sobbing lamentation was it! ‘Daddy, daddy!’ not to be consoled, not to be soothed, awakening his sister to the same sad cry, stilled only by exhaustion and sleepiness.
Poor little fellow! Night after night it was the same. Morning found him a happy, bright child, full of engaging ways and innocent sayings, and quite satisfied with ‘Cousin Honor,’ but bed-time always brought back the same wailing. Nurse, a tidy, brisk personage, with a sensible, deferential tone to her superiors, and a caressing one to the children, tried in vain assurances of papa’s soon coming back; nay, it might be feared that she held out that going to sleep would bring the morrow when he was to come; but even this delusive promise failed; the present was all; and Cousin Honor herself was only not daddy, though she nursed him, and rocked him in her arms, and fondled him, and told stories or sung his lullaby with nightly tenderness, till the last sobs had quivered into the smooth heavings of sleep.
Might only sea air and exercise act as a soporific! That was a better chance than the new promise which Honora was vexed to find nurse holding out to poor little Owen, that if he would be a good boy, he was going to papa. She was puzzled how to act towards a person not exactly under her authority, but she took courage to speak about these false promises, and found the remonstrance received in good part; indeed nurse used to talk at much length of the children in a manner that implied great affection for them, coupled with a sense that it would be an excellent thing for them to be in such judicious hands. Honor always came away from nurse in good humour with herself.
The locality she had chosen was a sheltered village on the north coast of Somerset, just where Exmoor began to give grandeur to the outline in the rear, and in front the Welsh hills wore different tints of purple or gray, according to the promise of weather, Lundy Isle and the two lesser ones serving as the most prominent objects, as they rose from—Well, well! Honor counted herself as a Somersetshire woman, and could not brook hearing much about the hue of the Bristol Channel. At any rate, just here it had been so kind as to wash up a small strip of pure white sand, fit for any amount of digging for her children; and though Sandbeach was watering-place enough to have the lodging-houses, butchers and bakers, so indispensable to the London mind, it was not so much in vogue as to be overrun by fine ladies, spoiling the children by admiring their beauty. So said Miss Charlecote in her prudence—but was not she just as jealous as nurse that people should turn round a second time to look at those lovely little faces?
That was a very happy charge to her and her good old governess, with some drawbacks, indeed, but not such as to distress her over much. The chief was at first Owen’s nightly sorrows, his daily idleness over lessons, Lucilla’s pride, and the exceeding daintiness of both children, which made their meals a constant vexation and trouble. But what was this compared
