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Lightheart - "The Gospel of Matthew for Readers"

Saki [H. H. Munro] - "The Chronicles of Clovis"

A. A. Milne - "Belinda"

Miss Brightwell - "Georgie's Present"

THE CLEVER WOMAN OF THE FAMILY

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




The summer life had been very different from the winter one. There
was much less intercourse with the Homestead, partly from Rachel
being much engrossed with the F. U. E. E., driving over whenever the
coachman would let her, to inspect progress, and spending much of her
time in sending out circulars, answering letters, and writing a tale
on the distresses of Woman, and how to help them, entitled "Am I not
a Sister?" Tales were not much in Bachel's line; she despised
reading them, and did not love writing them, but she knew that she
must sugar the cup for the world, and so she diligently applied
herself to the piece de resistance for the destined magazine, heavily
weighting her slender thread of story with disquisitions on economy
and charity, and meaning to land her heroines upon various industrial
asylums where their lot should be far more beatific than marriage,
which was reserved for the naughty one to live unhappy in ever after.
In fact, Rachel, in her stern consistency, had made up her mind to
avoid and discourage the Colonel, and to prevent her own heart from
relenting in his favour, or him from having any opportunity of asking
an explanation, and with this determination she absented herself both
from Ermine's parlour and Lady Temple's croquet ground; and if they
met on the esplanade or in a morning call, took care never to give
the chance of a tete-a-tete, which he was evidently seeking.

The croquet practice still survived. In truth, Fanny was afraid to
ride lest Lord Keith should join her, and was glad to surround
herself with companions. She could not see the enemy without a
nervous trepidation, and was eager to engross herself with anybody or
thing that came to hand so as to avoid the necessity of attending to
him. More than once did she linger among her boys "to speak to Mr.
Touchett," that she might avoid a ten minutes' walk with his
lordship; and for nothing was she more grateful than for the quiet
and ever ready tact with which Bessie Keith threw herself into the
breach. That bright damsel was claimed by Lord Keith as a kinswoman,
and, accepting the relationship, treated him with the pretty
playfulness and coquetry that elderly men enjoy from lively young
girls, and thus often effected a diversion in her friend's favour, to
the admiration both of the Colonel and of Lady Temple herself; all,
however, by intuition, for not a word had been hinted to her of what
had passed during that game at croquet. She certainly was a most
winning creature; the Colonel was charmed with her conversation in
its shades between archness and good sense, and there was no one who
did not look forward with dread to the end of her visit, when after a
short stay with one of her married cousins, she must begin her
residence with the blind uncle to whose establishment she, in her
humility, declared she should be such a nuisance. It was the
stranger that she should think so, as she had evidently served her
apprenticeship to parish work at Bishopsworthy; she knew exactly how
to talk to poor people, and was not only at home in clerical details
herself, but infused them into Lady Temple; so that, to the extreme
satisfaction of Mr. Touchett, the latter organized a treat for the
school-children, offered prizes for needlework, and once or twice
even came to listen to the singing practice when anything memorable
was going forward. She was much pleased at being helped to do what
she felt to be right and kind, though hitherto she had hardly known
how to set about it, and had been puzzled and perplexed by Rachel's
disapproval, and semi-contempt of "scratching the surface" by the
commonplace Sunday-school system.




CHAPTER XII



A CHANGE AT THE PARSONAGE.



"What could presumptuous hope inspire."--Rokeby.


There had been the usual foretaste of winter, rather sharp for
Avonmouth, and though a trifle to what it was in less sheltered
places, quite enough to make the heliotropes sorrowful, strip the
fig-trees, and shut Colonel Keith up in the library. Then came the
rain, and the result was that the lawn of Myrtlewood became too
sloppy for the most ardent devotees of croquet; indeed, as Bessie
said, the great charm of the sport was that one could not play it
above eight months in the year.

The sun came back again, and re-asserted the claim of Avonmouth to be
a sort of English Mentone; but drying the lawn was past its power,
and Conrade and Francis were obliged to console themselves by the
glory of taking Bessie Keith for a long ride. They could not
persuade their mother to go with them, perhaps because she had from
her nursery-window sympathized with Cyril's admiration of the great
white horse that was being led round to the door of Gowanbrae.

She said she must stay at home, and make the morning calls that the
charms of croquet had led her to neglect, and in about half an hour
from that time she was announced in Miss Williams' little parlour,
and entered with a hurried, panting, almost pursued look, a
frightened glance in her eyes, and a flush on her cheek, such as to
startle both Ermine and the Colonel.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, as if still too much perturbed to know quite
what she was saying, "I--I did not mean to interrupt you."

"I'm only helping Rose to change the water of her hyacinths," said
Colonel Keith, withdrawing his eyes and attention to the
accommodation of the forest of white roots within the purple glass.

"I did not know you were out to-day," said Lady Temple, recovering
herself a little.

"Yes, I came to claim my walking companion. Where's your hat,
Rosie?"

And as the child, who was already equipped all but the little brown
hat, stood by her aunt for the few last touches to the throat of her
jacket, he leant down and murmured, "I thought he was safe out
riding."

"Oh no, no, it is not that," hastily answered Lady Temple, a fresh
suffusion of crimson colour rustling over her face, and inspiring an
amount of curiosity that rendered a considerable effort of attention
necessary to be as supremely charming a companion as Rose generally
found him in the walks that he made it his business to take with her.

He turned about long before Rose thought they had gone far enough,
and when he re-entered the parlour there was such an expectant look
on his face that Ermine's bright eyes glittered with merry mischief,
when she sent Rose to take off her walking dress. "Well!" he said.

"Well? Colin, have you so low an opinion of the dignity of your
charge as to expect her to pour out her secrets to the first ear in
her way?"

"Oh, if she has told you in confidence."

"No, she has not told me in confidence; she knew better."

"She has told you nothing?"

"Nothing!" and Ermine indulged in a fit of laughter at his
discomfiture, so comical that he could not but laugh himself, as he
said, "Ah! the pleasure of disappointing me quite consoles you."

"No; the proof of the discretion of womanhood does that! You
thought, because she tells all her troubles to you, that she must
needs do so to the rest of the world."

"There is little difference between telling you and me."

"That's the fault of your discretion, not of hers."

"I should like to know who has been annoying her. I suspect--"

"So do I. And when you get the confidence at first hand, you will
receive it with a better grace than if you had had a contraband
foretaste."

He smiled. "I thought yours a more confidence-winning face, Ermine."

"That depends on my respect for the individual. Now I thought Lady
Temple would much prefer my looking another way, and talking about
Conrade's Latin grammar, to my holding out my arms and inviting her
to pour into my tender breast what another time she had rather not
know that I knew."

"That is being an honourable woman," he said, and Rose's return ended
the exchange of speculations; but it must be confessed that at their
next meeting Ermine's look of suppressed inquiry quite compensated
for her previous banter, more especially as neither had he any
confidence to reveal or conceal, only the tidings that the riders,
whose coalition had justified Lady Temple's prudence, had met Mr.
Touchett wandering in the lanes in the twilight, apparently without a
clear idea of what he was doing there. And on the next evening there
was quite an excitement, the curate looked so ill, and had broken
quite down when he was practising with the choir boys before church;
he had, indeed, gone safely through the services, but at school he
had been entirely at a loss as to what Sunday it was, and had still
more unfortunately forgotten that to be extra civil to Miss Villars
was the only hope of retaining her services, for he had walked by her
with less attention than if she had been the meanest scholar. Nay,
when his most faithful curatolatress had offered to submit to him a
design for an illumination for Christmas, he had escaped from her
with a desperate and mysterious answer that he had nothing to do with
illumination, he hoped it would be as sombre as possible.

No wonder Avonmouth was astonished, and that guesses were not
confined to Mackarel Lane.

"Well, Colin," said Ermine, on the Tuesday, "I have had a first-hand
confidence, though from a different quarter. Poor Mr. Touchett came
to announce his going away."

"Going!"

"Yes. In the very nick of time, it seems, Alick Keith has had a
letter from his uncle's curate, asking him to see if he could meet
with a southern clergyman to exchange duties for the winter with a
London incumbent who has a delicate wife, and of course. Mr. Touchett
jumped at it."

"A very good thing--a great relief."

"Yes. He said he was very anxious for work, but he had lost ground
in this place within the last few months, and he thought that he
should do better in a fresh place, and that a fresh person would
answer better here, at least for a time. I am very sorry for him,
I have a great regard for him."

"Yes; but he is quite right to make a fresh beginning. Poor man! he
has been quite lifted off his feet, and entranced all this time, and
his recovery will be much easier elsewhere. It was all that unlucky
croquet."

"I believe it was. I think there was at first a reverential sort of
distant admiration, too hopeless to do any one any harm, and that
really might have refined him, and given him a little of the
gentleman-like tone he has always wanted. But then came the croquet,
and when it grew to be a passion it was an excuse for intimacy that
it would have taken a stronger head than his to resist."

"Under the infection of croquet fever."

"It is what my father used to say of amusements--the instant they
become passions they grow unclerical and do mischief. Now he used,
though not getting on with the Curtises, to be most successful with
the second-rate people; but he has managed to offend half of them
during this unhappy mania, which, of course, they all resent as
mercenary, and how he is ever to win them back I don't know. After
all, curatocult is a shallow motive--Rachel Curtis might triumph!"

"The higher style of clergyman does not govern by curatocult. I hope
this one may be of that description, as he comes through Mr. Clare.
I wonder if this poor man will return?"

"Perhaps," said Ermine, with a shade of mimicry in her voice, "when
Lady Temple is married to the Colonel. There now, I have gone and
told you! I did try to resolve I would not."

"And what did you say?"

"I thought it due to Lady Temple to tell him exactly how she regarded
you."

"Yes, Ermine, and it is due to tell others also. I cannot go on on
these terms, either here or at Myrtlewood, unless the true state of
the case is known. If you will not let me be a married man, I must
be an engaged one, either to you or to the little Banksia."

This periphrasis was needful, because Rose was curled up in a corner
with a book, and her accessibility to outward impressions was
dubious. It might be partly for that reason, partly from the tone of
fixed resolve in his voice, that Ermine made answer, "As you please."

It was calmly said, with the sweet, grave, confiding smile that told
how she trusted to his judgment, and accepted his will. The look and
tone brought his hand at once to press hers in eager gratitude, but
still she would not pursue this branch of the subject; she looked up
to him and said gently, but firmly, "Yes, it may be better that the
true state of the case should be known," and he felt that she thus
conveyed that he must not press her further, so he let her continue,
"At first I thought it would do him good, he began pitying us so
vehemently; but when he found I did not pity myself, he was as ready
to forget our troubles as--you are to forget his," she added,
catching Colin's fixed eye, more intent on herself than on her
narrative.

"I beg his pardon, but there are things that come more home."

"So thought he," said Ermine.

"Did you find out," said Colin, now quite recalled, "what made him
take courage?"

"When he had once come to the subject, it seemed to be a relief to
tell it all out, but he was so faltering and agitated that I did not
always follow what he said. I gather, though, that Lady Temple has
used him a little as a defence from other perils."

"Yes, I have seen that."

"And Miss Keith's fun has been more encouragement than she knew;
constantly summoning him to the croquet-ground, and giving him to
understand that Lady Temple liked to have him there. Then came that
unlucky day, it seems, when he found Bessie mounting her horse at the
door, and she called out that it was too wet for croquet, but Lady
Temple was in the garden, and would be glad to see him. She was
going to make visits, and he walked down with her, and somehow, in
regretting the end of the croquet season, he was surprised into
saying how much it had been to him. He says she was exceedingly
kind, and regretted extremely that anything should have inspired the
hope, said she should never marry again, and entreated him to forget
it, then I imagine she fled in here to put an end to it."

"She must have been much more gentle this time than she was with
Keith. I had never conceived her capable of being so furious as she
was then. I am very sorry, I wish we could spare her these things."

"I am afraid that can only be done in one way, which you are not
likely at present to take," said Ermine with a serious mouth, but
with light dancing in her eyes.

"I know no one less likely to marry again," he continued, "yet no one
of whom the world is so unlikely to believe it. Her very gentle
simplicity and tenderness tell against her! Well, the only hope now
is that the poor man has not made his disappointment conspicuous
enough for her to know that it is attributed to her. It is the
beginning of the fulfilment of Keith's prediction that offers and
reports will harass her into the deed!"

"There is nothing so fallacious as prophecies against second
marriages, but I don't believe they will. She is too quietly
dignified for the full brunt of reports to reach her, and too much
concentrated on her children to care about them."

"Well, I have to see her to-morrow to make her sign some papers about
her pension, so I shall perhaps find out how she takes it."

He found Fanny quite her gentle composed self, as usual
uncomprehending and helpless about her business affairs, and throwing
the whole burthen on him of deciding on her investments; but in such
a gracious, dependent, grateful way that he could not but take
pleasure in the office, and had no heart for the lesson he had been
meditating on the need of learning to act for herself, if she wished
to do without a protector. It was not till she had obediently
written her "Frances Grace Temple" wherever her prime minister
directed, that she said with a crimson blush, "Is it true that poor
Mr. Touchett is going away for the winter?"

"I believe he is even going before Sunday."

"I am very glad--I mean I am very sorry. Do you think any one knows
why it is?"

"Very few are intimate enough to guess, and those who are, know you
too well to think it was otherwise than very foolish on his part."

"I don't know," said Fanny, "I think I must have been foolish too, or
he never could have thought of it. And I was so sorry for him, he
seemed so much distressed."

"I do not wonder at that, when he had once allowed himself to admit
the thought."

"Yes, that is the thing. I am afraid I can't be what I ought to be,
or people would never think of such nonsense," said Fanny, with large
tears welling into her eyes. "I can't be guarding that dear memory
as I ought, to have two such things happening so soon."

"Perhaps they have made you cherish it all the more."

"As if I wanted that! Please will you tell me how I could have been
more guarded. I don't mind your knowing about this; indeed you
ought, for Sir Stephen trusted me to you, but I can't ask my aunt or
any one else. I can't talk about it, and I would not have them know
that Sir Stephen's wife can't get his memory more respected."

She did not speak with anger as the first time, but with most
touching sadness.

"I don't think any one could answer," he said.

"I did take my aunt's advice about the officers being here. I have
not had them nearly as much as Bessie would have liked, not even
Alick. I have been sorry it was so dull for her, but I thought it
could not be wrong to be intimate with one's clergyman, and Rachel
was always so hard upon him."

"You did nothing but what was kind and right. The only possible
thing that could have been wished otherwise was the making a regular
habit of his playing croquet here."

"Ah! but the boys and Bessie liked it so much. However, I dare say
it was wrong. Alick never did like it."

"Not wrong, only a little overdone. You ladies want sometimes to be
put in mind that, because a clergyman has to manage his own time, he
is not a whit more really at liberty than a soldier or a lawyer,
whose hours are fixed for him. You do not do him or his parish any
kindness by engrossing him constantly in pastimes that are all very
well once in a way, but which he cannot make habitual without
detriment to his higher duties."

"But I thought he would have known when he had time."

"I am afraid curates are but bits of human nature after all."

"And what ought I to have done?"

"If you had been an exceedingly prudent woman who knew the world, you
would have done just as you did about the officers, been friendly,
and fairly intimate, but instead of ratifying the daily appointments
for croquet, have given a special invitation now and then, and so
shown that you did not expect him without one."

"I see. Oh, if I had only thought in time, I need not have driven
him away from his parish! I hope he won't go on being unhappy long!
Oh, I wish there may be some very nice young lady where he is going.
If he only would come back married!"

"We would give him a vote of thanks."

"What a wedding present I would make her," proceeded Fanny,
brightening perceptibly; "I would give her my best Indian table, only
I always meant that for Ermine. I think she must have the emu's egg
set in Australian gold."

"If she were to be induced by the bribe," said Colonel Keith,
laughing, "I think Ermine would be sufficiently provided for by the
emu's egg. Do you know," he added, after a pause, "I think I have
made a great step in that direction."

She clasped her hands with delighted sympathy. "She has given me
leave to mention the matter," he continued, "and I take that as a
sign that her resistance will give way."

"Oh, I am very glad," said Fanny, "I have so wished them to know at
the Homestead," and her deepened colour revealed, against her will,
that she had not been insensible to the awkwardness of the secrecy.

"I should rather like to tell your cousin Rachel myself," said the
Colonel; "she has always been very kind to Ermine, and appreciated
her more than I should have expected. But she is not easily to be
seen now."

"Her whole heart is in her orphan asylum," said Fanny. "I hope you
will soon go with us and see it; the little girls look so nice."

The brightening of his prospects seemed to have quite consoled her
for her own perplexities.

That Avonmouth should have no suspicion of the cause of the sudden
change of pastor could hardly be hoped; but at least Lady Temple did
not know how much talk was expended upon her, how quietly Lord Keith
hugged himself, how many comical stories Bessie detailed in her
letters to her Clare cousins, nor how Mrs. Curtis resented the
presumption; and while she shrank from a lecture, more especially as
she did not see how dear Fanny was to blame, flattered herself and
Grace that, for the future, Colonel Keith and Rachel would take
better care of her.

Rachel did not dwell much on the subject, it was only the climax of
conceit, croquet, and mere womanhood; and she was chiefly anxious to
know whether Mr. Mitchell, the temporary clergyman, would support the
F. U. E. E., and be liberal enough to tolerate Mr. Mauleverer. She
had great hopes from a London incumbent, and, besides, Bessie Keith
knew him, and spoke of him as a very sensible, agreeable, earnest
man.

"Earnest enough for you, Rachel," she said, laughing.

"Is he a party man?"

"Oh, parties are getting obsolete! He works too hard for fighting
battles outside."

The Sunday showed a spare, vigorous face, and a voice and
pronunciation far more refined than poor Mr. Touchett's; also the
sermons were far more interesting, and even Rachel granted that there
were ideas in it. The change was effected with unusual celerity, for
it was as needful to Mrs. Mitchell to be speedily established in a
warm climate, as it was desirable to Mr. Touchett to throw himself
into other scenes; and the little parsonage soon had the unusual
ornaments of tiny children with small spades and wheelbarrows.

The father and mother were evidently very shy people, with a great
deal beneath their timidity, and were much delighted to have an old
acquaintance like Miss Keith to help them through their
introductions, an office which she managed with all her usual bright
tact. The discovery that Stephana Temple and Lucy Mitchell had been
born within two days of one another, was the first link of a warm
friendship between the two mammas; and Mr. Mitchell fell at once into
friendly intercourse with Ermine Williams, to whom Bessie herself
conducted him for his first visit, when they at once discovered all
manner of mutual acquaintance among his college friends; and his next
step was to make the very arrangement for Ermine's church-going, for
which she had long been wishing in secret, but which never having
occurred to poor Mr. Touchett, she had not dared to propose, lest
there should be some great inconvenience in the way.

Colonel Keith was the person, however, with whom the new comers
chiefly fraternized, and he was amused with their sense of the space
for breathing compared with the lanes and alleys of their own
district. The schools and cottages seemed to them so wonderfully
large, the children so clean, even their fishiness a form of poetical
purity, the people ridiculously well off, and even Mrs. Kelland's
lace-school a palace of the free maids that weave their thread with
bones. Mr. Mitchell seemed almost to grudge the elbow room, as he
talked of the number of cubic feet that held a dozen of his own
parishioners; and needful as the change had been for the health of
both husband and wife, they almost reproached themselves for having
fled and left so many pining for want of pure air, dwelling upon
impossible castles for the importation of favourite patients to enjoy
the balmy breezes of Avonmouth.

Rachel talked to them about the F. U. E. E., and was delighted by the
flush of eager interest on Mrs. Mitchell's thin face. "Objects"
swarmed in their parish, but where were the seven shillings per week
to come from? At any rate Mr. Mitchell would, the first leisure day,
come over to St. Herbert's with her, and inspect. He did not fly off
at the first hint of Mr. Mauleverer's "opinions," but said he would
talk to him, and thereby rose steps untold in Rachel's estimation.
The fact of change is dangerously pleasant to the human mind; Mr.
Mitchell walked at once into popularity, and Lady Temple had almost
conferred a public benefit by what she so little liked to remember.
At any rate she had secured an unexceptionable companion, and many a
time resorted to his wing, leaving Bessie to amuse Lord Keith, who
seemed to be reduced to carry on his courtship to the widow by
attentions to her guest.




CHAPTER XIII.



THE FOX AND THE CROW.



"She just gave one squall,
When the cheese she let fall,
And the fox ran away with his prize."
JANE TAYLOR.


"My dear," said Mrs. Curtis, one Monday morning, "I offered Colonel
Keith a seat in the carriage to go to the annual book-club meeting
with us. Mr. Spicer is going to propose him as a member of the club,
you know, and I thought the close carriage would be better for him.
I suppose you will be ready by eleven; we ought to set out by that
time, not to hurry the horses."

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