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W. H. Leathem - "The Comrade In White"

Deng Xi - "Deng Xi Zi (Thought Of Deng Xi Zi)"

B. M. Bower - "Chip, of the Flying U"

Anthony Trollope - "The Golden Lion of Granpere"

THE CLEVER WOMAN OF THE FAMILY

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> THE CLEVER WOMAN OF THE FAMILY




"Of course," cried Bessie, "we know by what witchery!" But Alison
Williams, her listener, turned on her such great eyes of wilful want
of comprehension, that she held her peace.

Rachel and Grace united in sending Mary Morris, the other child; they
really could do nothing more, so heavily had their means been drawn
upon for the first expenses; but Rachel trusted to do more for the
future, and resolved that her dress should henceforth cost no more
than Alison Williams's; indeed, she went through a series of
assertions by way of examining Alison on the expenses of her
wardrobe.

The house was taken from Michaelmas, and a few days after, the two
little victims, as Bessie laughingly called them, were taken over to
St. Norbert's in the Homestead carriage, Lady Temple chaperoning the
three young ladies to see the inauguration, and the height of
Rachel's glory.

They were received by Mr. Mauleverer at the door, and slightly in the
rear saw the matron, Mrs. Rawlins, a handsome pale woman, younger
than they expected, but whose weeds made Fanny warm to her directly;
but she was shy and retiring, and could not be drawn into
conversation; and her little Alice was only three years old, much
younger than Rachel had expected as a pupil, but a very pretty
creature with great black eyes.

Tea and cake were provided by way of an inauguration feast, and the
three little girls sat up in an atmosphere of good cheer, strongly
suggestive of school feasts, and were left in the midst, with many
promises of being good, a matter that Lovedy seemed to think would be
very easy in this happy place, with no lace to make.

Mrs. Rawlins, whose husband had been a trained schoolmaster, was to
take the children to church, and attend to their religious
instruction; indeed, Mr. Mauleverer was most anxious on this head,
and as Rachel already knew the scruples that withheld him from
ordination were only upon the absolute binding himself to positive
belief in minor technical points, that would never come in the way of
young children.

Altogether, the neat freshness of the room, the urbanity of Mr.
Mauleverer, the shy grief of the matron, all left a most pleasant
impression. Rachel was full of delight and triumph, and Grace and
Fanny quite enthusiastic; the latter even to the being sure that the
Colonel would be delighted, for the Colonel was already beginning to
dawn on the horizon, and not alone. He had written, in the name of
his brother, to secure a cottage of gentility of about the same
calibre as Myrtlewood, newly completed by a speculator on one of the
few bits of ground available for building purposes. A name was yet
wanting to it; but the day after the negotiation was concluded, the
landlord paid the delicate compliment to his first tenant by painting
"Gowanbrae" upon the gate-posts in letters of green. "Go and bray,"
read Bessie Keith as she passed by; "for the sake of the chief of my
name, I hope that it is not an omen of his occupations here."

The two elder boys were with her; and while Francis, slowly
apprehending her meaning in part, began to bristle up with the
assurance that "Colonel Keith never brayed in his life," Conrade
caught the point with dangerous relish, and dwelt with colonial
disrespect, that alarmed his mother, on the opinion expressed by some
unguarded person in his hearing, that Lord Keith was little better
than an old donkey. "He is worse than Aunt Rachel," said Conrade,
meditatively, "now she has saved Don, and keeps away from the
croquet."

Meantime Rachel studied her own feelings. A few weeks ago her heart
would have leapt at the announcement; but now her mission had found
her out, and she did not want to be drawn aside from it. Colonel
Keith might have many perfections, but alike as Scotsman, soldier,
and High-Churchman, he was likely to be critical of the head of the
F. U. E. E., and matters had gone too far now for her to afford to
doubt, or to receive a doubting master. Moreover, it would be
despicable to be diverted from a great purpose by a courtship like
any ordinary woman; nor must marriage settlements come to interfere
with her building and endowment of the asylum, and ultimate devotion
of her property thereunto. No, she would school herself into a
system of quiet discouragement, and reserve herself and her means as
the nucleus of the great future establishment for maintaining female
rights of labour.




CHAPTER XI



LADY TEMPLE'S TROUBLES.



"The pheasant in the falcon's claw,
He scarce will yield, to please a daw."--SCOTT.


Early in the afternoon of a warm October day, the brothers arrived at
Avomnouth, and ten minutes after both were upon the lawn at
Myrtlewood, where croquet was still in progress. Shouts of delight
greeted the Colonel, and very gracefully did Bessie Keith come to
meet him, with the frank confiding sweetness befitting his recent
ward, the daughter of his friend. A reassuring smile and
monosyllable had scarcely time to pass between him and the governess
before a flood of tidings was poured on him by the four elder boys,
while their mother was obliged to be mannerly, and to pace leisurely
along with the elder guest, and poor Mr. Touchett waited a little
aloof, hammering his own boot with his mallet, as if he found the
enchanted ground failing him. But the boys had no notion of losing
their game, and vociferated an inquiry whether the Colonel knew
croquet. Yes, he had several times played with his cousins in
Scotland. "Then," insisted Conrade, "he must take mamma's place,
whilst she was being devoured, and how surprised she would be at
being so helped on!"

"Not now, not to-day," he answered. "I may go to your sister, Ailie?
Yes, boys, you must close up your ranks without me."

"Then please," entreated Hubert, "take him away," pointing to the
engrosser of their mother.

"Do you find elder brothers so easily disposed of, Hubert?" said the
Colonel. "Do you take Conrade away when you please?"

"I should punch him," returned Francis.

"He knows better," quoth Conrade in the same breath, both with
infinite contempt for Hubert.

"And I know better," returned Colonel Keith; "never mind, boys, I'll
come back in--in reasonable time to carry him off," and he waved a
gay farewell.

"Surely you wish to go too," said Bessie to Alison, "if only to
relieve them of the little girl! I'll take care of the boys. Pray
go."

"Thank you," said Alison, surprised at her knowledge of the state of
things, "but they are quite hardened to Rose's presence, and I think
would rather miss her."

And in fact Alison did not feel at all sure that, when stimulated by
Bessie's appreciation of their mischief, her flock might not in her
absence do something that might put their mother in despair, and make
their character for naughtiness irretrievable; so Leoline and Hubert
were summoned, the one from speculations whether Lord Keith would
have punched his brother, the other from amaze that there was
anything our military secretary could not do, and Conrade and Francis
were arrested in the midst of a significant contraction of the
nostrils and opening of the mouth, which would have exploded in an
"eehaw" but for Bessie's valiant undertaking to be herself and Lady
Temple both at once.

Soon Colonel Keith was knocking at Ermine's door, and Rose was
clinging to him, glowing and sparkling with shy ecstasy; while,
without sitting down again after her greeting, Rachel resolutely took
leave, and walked away with firm steps, ruminating on her
determination not to encourage meetings in Mackarel Lane.

"Better than I expected!" exclaimed Colonel Keith, after having
ushered her to the door in the fulness of his gratitude. "I knew it
was inevitable that she should be here, but that she should depart so
fast was beyond hope!"

"Yes," said Ermine, laughing, "I woke with such a certainty that she
would be here and spend the first half hour in the F. U. E, E. that I
wasted a great deal of resignation. But how are you, Colin? You are
much thinner! I am sure by Mrs. Tibbie's account you were much more
ill than you told me."

"Only ill enough to convince me that the need of avoiding a northern
winter was not a fallacy, and likewise to make Tibbie insist on
coming here for fear Maister Colin should not be looked after. It is
rather a responsibility to have let her come, for she has never been
farther south than Edinburgh, but she would not be denied. So she
has been to see you! I told her you would help her to find her
underlings. I thought it might be an opening for that nice little
girl who was so oppressed with lace-making."

"Ah! she has gone to learn wood-cutting at the F. U. E. E.; but I
hope we have comfortably provided Tibbie with a damsel. She made us
a long visit, and told us all about Master Colin's nursery days.
Only I am afraid we did not understand half."

"Good old body," said the Colonel, in tones almost as national as
Tibbie's own. "She was nursery girl when I was the spoilt child of
the house, and hers was the most homelike face that met me. I wish
she may be happy here. And you are well, Ermine?"

"Very well, those drives are so pleasant, and Lady Temple so kind!
It is wonderful to think how many unlooked-for delights have come to
us; how good every one is;" and her eyes shone with happy tears as
she looked up at him, and felt that he was as much her own as ever.
"And you have brought your brother," she said; "you have been too
useful to him to be spared. Is he come to look after you or to be
looked after!"

"A little of both I fancy," said the Colonel, "but I suspect he is
giving me up as a bad job. Ermine, there are ominous revivifications
going on at home, and he has got himself rigged out in London, and
had his hair cut, so that he looks ten years younger."

"Do you think he has any special views!"

"He took such pains to show me the charms of the Benorchie property
that I should have thought it would have been Jessie Douglas, the
heiress thereof, only coming here does not seem the way to set about
it, unless be regards this place as a bath of youth and fashion.
I fancy he has learnt enough about my health to make him think me a
precarious kind of heir, and that his views are general. I hope he
may not be made a fool of, otherwise it is the best thing that could
happen to us."

"It has been a dreary uncomfortable visit, I much fear," said Ermine.

"Less so than you think. I am glad to have been able to be of use to
him, and to have lived on something like brotherly terms. We know
and like each other much better than we had a chance of doing before,
and we made some pleasant visits together, but at home there are many
things on which we can never be of one mind, and I never was well
enough at Gowanbrae to think of living there permanently."

"I was sure you had been very unwell! You are better though?"

"Well, since I came into Avonmouth air," said he, "I fear nothing but
cold. I am glad to have brought him with me, since he could not stay
there, for it is very lonely for him."

"Yet you said his daughter was settled close by."

"Yes; but that makes it the worse. In fact, Ermine, I did not know
before what a wretched affair he had made of his daughters'
marriages. Isabel he married when she was almost a child to this
Comyn Menteith, very young too at the time, and who has turned out a
good-natured, reckless, dissipated fellow, who is making away with
his property as fast as he can, and to whom Keith's advice is like
water on a duck's back. It is all rack and ruin and extravagance, a
set of ill-regulated children, and Isabel smiling and looking pretty
in the midst of them, and perfectly impervious to remonstrance. He
is better out of sight of them, for it is only pain and vexation, an
example of the sort of match he likes to make. Mary, the other
daughter, was the favourite, and used to her own way, and she took
it. Keith was obliged to consent so as to prevent an absolute
runaway wedding, but he has by no means forgiven her husband, and
they are living on very small means on a Government appointment in
Trinidad. I believe it would be the bitterest pill to him that
either son-in-law should come in for any part of the estate."

"I thought it was entailed."

"Gowanbrae is, but as things stand at present that ends with me, and
the other estates are at his disposal."

"Then it would be very hard on the daughters not to have them."

"So hard that the death of young Alexander may have been one of the
greatest disasters of my life, as well as of poor Keith's. However,
this is riding out to meet perplexities. He is most likely to
outlive me; and, moreover, may marry and put an end to the
difficulty. Meantime, till my charge is relieved, I must go and see
after him, and try if I can fulfil Hubert's polite request that I
would take him away. Rosie, my woman, I have hardly spoken to you.
I have some hyacinth roots to bring you to-morrow."

In spite of these suspicions, Colonel Keith was not prepared for what
met him on his return to Myrtlewood. On opening the drawing-room
door, he found Lady Temple in a low arm-chair in an agony of crying,
so that she did not hear his approach till he stood before her in
consternation. Often had he comforted her before, and now, convinced
that something dreadful must have befallen one of the children, he
hastily, though tenderly, entreated her to tell him which, and what
he could do.

"Oh, no, no!" she exclaimed, starting up, and removing her
handkerchief, so that he saw her usually pale cheeks were crimson--
"Oh, no," she cried, with panting breath and heaving chest. "It is
all well with them as yet. But--but--it's your brother."

He was at no loss now as to what his brother could have done, but he
stood confounded, with a sense of personal share in the offence, and
his first words were-- "I am very sorry. I never thought of this."

"No, indeed," she exclaimed, "who could? It was too preposterous to
be dreamt of by any one. At his age, too, one would have thought he
might have known better."

A secret sense of amusement crossed the Colonel, as he recollected
that the disparity between Fanny Curtis and Sir Stephen Temple had
been far greater than that between Lady Temple and Lord Keith, but
the little gentle lady was just at present more like a fury than he
had thought possible, evidently regarding what had just passed as an
insult to her husband and an attack on the freedom of all her sons.
In answer to a few sympathising words on the haste of his brother's
proceeding, she burst out again with indignation almost amusing in
one so soft-- "Haste! Yes! I did think that people would have had
some respect for dear, dear Sir Stephen," and her gush of tears came
with more of grief and less of violence, as if she for the first time
felt herself unprotected by her husband's name.

"I am very much concerned," he repeated, feeling sympathy safer than
reasoning. "If I could have guessed his intentions, I would have
tried to spare you this; at least the suddenness of it. I could not
have guessed at such presumptuous expectations on so short an
acquaintance."

"He did not expect me to answer at once," said Fanny. "He said he
only meant to let me know his hopes in coming here. And, oh, that's
the worst of it! He won't believe me, though I said more to him than
I thought I could have said to anybody! I told him," said Fanny,
with her hands clasped over her knee to still her trembling, "that I
cared for my dear, dear husband, and always shall--always--and then
he talked about waiting, just as if anybody could leave off loving
one's husband! And then when he wanted me to consider about my
children, why then I told him"--and her voice grew passionate again--
"the more I considered, the worse it would be for him, as if I would
have my boys know me without their father's name; and, besides, he
had not been so kind to you that I should wish to let him have
anything to do with them! I am afraid I ought not to have said
that," she added, returning to something of her meek softness; "but
indeed I was so angry, I did not know what I was about. I hope it
will not make him angry with you."

"Never mind me," said Colonel Keith, kindly. "Indeed, Lady Temple,
it is a wonderful compliment to you that he should have been ready to
undertake such a family."

"I don't want such compliments! And, oh!" and here her eyes widened
with fright, "what shall I do? He only said my feelings did me
honour, and he would be patient and convince me. Oh, Colonel Keith,
what shall I do?" and she looked almost afraid that fate and
perseverance would master her after all, and that she should be
married against her will.

"You need do nothing but go on your own way, and persist in your
refusal," he said in the calm voice that always reassured her.

"Oh, but pray, pray never let him speak to me about it again!"

"Not if I can help it, and I will do my best. You are quite right,
Lady Temple. I do not think it would be at all advisable for
yourself or the children, and hardly for himself," he added, smiling.
"I think the mischief must all have been done by that game at whist."

"Then I'll never play again in my life! I only thought he was an old
man that wanted amusing--." Then as one of the children peeped in at
the window, and was called back--"O dear! how shall I ever look at
Conrade again, now any one has thought I could forget his father?"

"If Conrade knew it, which I trust he never will, he ought to esteem
it a testimony to his mother."

"Oh, no, for it must have been my fault! I always was so childish,
and when I've got my boys with me, I can't help being happy," and the
tears swelled again in her eyes. "I know I have not been as sad and
serious as my aunt thought I ought to be, and now this comes of it."

"You have been true, have acted nothing," said Colonel Keith, "and
that is best of all. No one who really knew you could mistake your
feelings. No doubt that your conduct agrees better with what would
please our dear Sir Stephen than if you drooped and depressed the
children."

"Oh, I am glad you say that," she said, looking up, flushed with
pleasure now, and her sweet eyes brimming over. "I have tried to
think what he would like in all I have done, and you know I can't
help being proud and glad of belonging to him still; and he always
told me not to be shy and creeping into the nursery out of every
one's way."

The tears were so happy now that he felt that the wound was healed,
and that he might venture to leave her, only asking first, "And now
what would you like me to do? Shall I try to persuade my brother to
come away from this place?"

"Oh, but then every one would find out why, and that would be
dreadful! Besides, you are only just come. And Miss Williams--"

"Do not let that stand in your way."

"No, no. You will be here to take care of me. And his going now
would make people guess; and that would be worse than anything."

"It would. The less disturbance the better; and if you upset his
plans now, he might plead a sort of right to renew the attempt later.
Quiet indifference will be more dignified and discouraging. Indeed,
I little thought to what I was exposing you. Now I hope you are
going to rest, I am sure your head is aching terribly."

She faintly smiled, and let him give her his arm to the foot of the
stairs.

At first he was too indignant for any relief save walking up and down
the esplanade, endeavouring to digest the unfairness towards himself
of his brother's silence upon views that would have put their joint
residence at Avonmouth on so different a footing; above all, when the
Temple family were his own peculiar charge, and when he remembered
how unsuspiciously he had answered all questions on the money
matters, and told how all was left in the widow's own power. It was
the more irritating, as he knew that his displeasure would be
ascribed to interested motives, and regarded somewhat as he had seen
Hubert's resentment treated when Francis teased his favourite rabbit.
Yet not only on principle, but to avoid a quarrel, and to reserve to
himself such influence as might best shield Lady Temple from further
annoyance, he must school himself to meet his brother with coolness
and patience. It was not, however, without strong effort that he was
able to perceive that, from the outer point of view, one who, when a
mere child, had become the wife of an aged general, might, in her
early widowhood, be supposed open to the addresses of a man of higher
rank and fewer years, and the more as it was not in her nature to
look crushed and pathetic. He, who had known her intimately
throughout her married life and in her sorrow, was aware of the quiet
force of the love that had grown up with her, so entirely a thread in
her being as to crave little expression, and too reverent to be
violent even in her grief. The nature, always gentle, had recovered
its balance, and the difference in years had no doubt told in the
readiness with which her spirits had recovered their cheerfulness,
though her heart remained unchanged. Still, retired as her habits
were, and becoming as was her whole conduct, Colin began to see that
there had been enough of liveliness about her to lead to Lord Keith's
mistake, though not to justify his want of delicacy in the
precipitation of his suit.

These reflections enabled him at length to encounter his brother with
temper, and to find that, after all, it had been more like the
declaration of an intended siege than an actual summons to surrender.
Lord Keith was a less foolish and more courteous man than might have
been gathered from poor Fanny's terrified account; and all he had
done was to intimate his intention of recommending himself to her,
and the view with which he had placed himself at Avonmouth; nor was
he in the slightest degree disconcerted by her vehemence, but rather
entertained by it, accepting her faithfulness to her first husband's
memory as the best augury of her affection for a second. He did not
even own that he had been precipitate.

"Let her get accustomed to the idea," he said with a shrewd smile.
"The very outcry she makes against it will be all in my favour when
the turn comes."

"I doubt whether you will find it so."

"All the world does not live on romance like you, man. Look on, and
you will see that a pretty young widow like her cannot fail to get
into scrapes; have offers made to her, or at least the credit of
them. I'd lay you ten pounds that you are said to be engaged to her
yourself by this time, and it is no one's fault but your own that you
are not. It is in the very nature of things that she will be driven
to shelter herself from the persecution, with whoever has bided his
time."

"Oh, if you prefer being accepted on such terms--"

He smiled, as if the romance of the exclamation were beneath
contempt, and proceeded--"A pretty, gracious, ladylike woman, who has
seen enough of the world to know how to take her place, and yet will
be content with a quiet home. It is an introduction I thank you for,
Colin."

"And pray," said Colin, the more inwardly nettled because he knew
that his elder brother enjoyed his annoyance, "what do you think of
those seven slight encumbrances?"

"Oh, they are your charge," returned Lord Keith, with a twinkle in
his eye. "Besides, most of them are lads, and what with school, sea,
and India, they will be easily disposed of."

"Certainly it has been so in our family," said Colin, rather
hoarsely, as he thought of the four goodly brothers who had once
risen in steps between him and the Master.

"And," added Lord Keith, still without direct answer, "she is so
handsomely provided for, that you see, Colin, I could afford to give
you up the Auchinvar property, that should have been poor Archie's,
and what with the farms and the moor, it would bring you in towards
three hundred a year for your housekeeping."

Colin restrained himself with difficulty, but made quiet answer.
"I had rather see it settled as a provision on Mary and her
children."

Lord Keith growled something about minding his own concerns.

"That is all I desire," responded the Colonel, and therewith the
conference ended. Nor was the subject recurred to. It was
observable, however, that Lord Keith was polite and even attentive to
Ermine. He called on her, sent her grouse, and though saying
nothing, seemed to wish to make it evident that his opposition was
withdrawn, perhaps as no longer considering his brother's affairs as
his own, or else wishing to conciliate him. Lady Temple was not
molested by any alarming attentions from him. But for the
proclamation, the state of siege might have been unsuspected. He
settled himself at the southern Gowanbrae as if he had no conquest to
achieve but that of the rheumatism, and fell rapidly into sea-side
habits--his morning stroll to see the fishing-boats come in, his
afternoon ride, and evening's dinner party, or whist-club, which
latter institution disposed of him, greatly to Colin's relief. The
brothers lived together very amicably, and the younger often made
himself helpful and useful to the elder, but evidently did not feel
bound to be exclusively devoted to his service and companionship.
All the winter residents and most of the neighbouring gentry quickly
called at Gowanbrae, and Lord Keith, in the leisure of his present
life, liked society where he was the man of most consequence, and
readily accepted and gave invitations. Colin, whose chest would not
permit him to venture out after sunset, was a most courteous
assistant host, but necessarily made fewer acquaintances, and often
went his own way, sometimes riding with his brother, but more
frequently scarcely seeing him between breakfast and twilight, and
then often spending a solitary evening, which he much preferred
either to ecarte or to making talk.

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