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Grant Allen - "Biographies of Working Men"

William Ferneley Allen - "The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges"

Gilbert Parker - "Wild Youth, Volume 1."

Louise Muhlbach - "Old Fritz and the New Era"

THE CLEVER WOMAN OF THE FAMILY

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




The feverish misery that succeeded Lovedy's death had been utterly
crushing, the one load of self-accusation had prostrated her, but
with a restlessness of agony, that kept her writhing as it were in
her wretchedness; and then came the gradual increase of physical
suffering, bearing in upon her that she had caught the fatal
disorder. To her sense of justice, and her desire to wreak vengeance
on herself, the notion might be grateful; but the instinct of self-
preservation was far stronger. She could not die. The world here,
the world to come, were all too dark, too confused, to enable her to
bear such a doom. She saw her peril in her mother's face; in the
reiterated visits of the medical man, whom she no longer spurned; in
the calling in of the Avoncester physician; in the introduction of a
professional nurse, and the strong and agonizing measures to which
she had to submit, every time with the sensation that the suffering
could not possibly be greater without exceeding the powers of
endurance.

Then arose the thought that with weakness she should lose all chance
of expressing a wish, and, obtaining pencil and paper, she began to
write a charge to her mother and sister to provide for Mary Morris;
but in the midst there came over her the remembrance of the papers
that she had placed in Mauleverer's hands--the title-deeds of the
Burnaby Bargain; an estate that perhaps ought to be bringing in as
much as half the rental of the property. It must be made good to the
poor. If the title-deeds had been sold to any one who could claim
the property, what would be the consequence? She felt herself in a
mist of ignorance and perplexity; dreading the consequences, yet
feeling as if her own removal might leave her fortune free to make up
for them. She tried to scrawl an explanation; but mind and fingers
were alike unequal to the task, and she desisted just as fresh
torture began at the doctor's hands--torture from which they sent her
mother away, and that left her exhausted, and despairing of holding
out through a repetition.

And then--and then! "Tell me of my Saviour," the dying child had
said; and the drawn face had lightened at the words to which Rachel's
oracles declared that people attached crude or arbitrary meanings;
and now she hardly knew what they conveyed to her, and longed, as for
something far away, for the reality of those simple teachings--once
realities, now all by rote! Saved by faith! What was faith? Could
all depend on a last sensation? And as to her life. Failure,
failure through headstrong blindness and self-will, resulting in the
agony of the innocent. Was this ground of hope? She tried to think
of progress and purification beyond the grave; but this was the most
speculative, insecure fabric of all. There was no habit of trust to
it--no inward conviction, no outward testimony. And even when the
extreme danger subsided, and Francis Temple was known to be better,
Rachel found that her sorrow was not yet ended: for Conrade had been
brought home with the symptoms of the complaint--Conrade, the most
beloved and loving of Fanny's little ones, the only one who really
remembered his father, was in exceeding, almost hopeless peril,
watched day and night by his mother and Miss Williams.

The little Alice, Maria Hatherton's own child, had lingered and
struggled long, but all the care and kindness of the good Sisters at
St. Norbert's had been unavailing, she had sunk at last, and the
mother remained in a dull, silent, tearless misery, quietly doing all
that was required of her, but never speaking nor giving the ladies
any opening to try to make an impression upon her.

Rachel gleaned more intelligence than her mother meant her to obtain,
and brooded over it in her weakness and her silence.

Recovery is often more trying than illness, and Rachel suffered
greatly. Indeed, she was not sure that she ought to have recovered
at all, and perhaps the shock to her nerves and spirits was more
serious than the effect of the sharp passing disorder, which had,
however, so much weakened her that she succumbed entirely to the
blow. "Accountable for all," the words still rang in her ears, and
the all for which she was accountable continually magnified itself.
She had tied a dreadful knot, which Fanny, meek contemned Fanny had
cut, but at the cost of grievous suffering and danger to her boys,
and too late to prevent that death which continually haunted Rachel;
those looks of convulsive agony came before her in all her waking and
sleeping intervals. Nothing put them aside, occupation in her
weakness only bewildered and distracted her, and even though she was
advancing daily towards convalescence, leaving her room, and being
again restored to her sister, she still continued listless, dejected,
cast down, and unable to turn her mind from this one dreary
contemplation. Of Fanny and her sons it was hardly possible to
think, and one of the strange perturbations of the mind in illness
caused her to dwell far less on them than on the minor misery of the
fate of the title-deeds of the Burnaby Bargain, which she had put
into Mauleverer's hand. She fancied their falling into the hands of
some speculator, who, if he did not break the mother's heart by
putting up a gasometer, would certainly wring it by building hideous
cottages, or desirable marine residences. The value would be
enhanced so as to be equal to more than half that of the Homestead,
the poor would have been cheated of it, and what compensation could
be made? Give up all her own share? Nay, she had nothing absolutely
her own while her mother lived, only £5,000 was settled on her if she
married, and she tortured herself with devising plans that she knew
to be impracticable, of stripping herself, and going forth to suffer
the poverty she merited. Yes, but how would she have lived? Not
like the Williamses! She had tried teaching like the one, and
writing like the other, but had failed in both. The Clever Woman had
no marketable or available talent. She knew very well that nothing
would induce her mother and sister to let her despoil herself, but to
have injured them would be even more intolerable; and more than all
was the sickening uncertainty, whether any harm had been done, or
what would be its extent.

Ignorant of such subjects at the best, her brain was devoid of force
even to reason out her own conjectures, or to decide what must be
impossible. She felt compelled to keep all to herself; to alarm her
mother was out of the question, when Mrs. Curtis was distressed and
shaken enough already, and to have told Grace would only have brought
her soothing promises of sharing the burthen--exactly what she did
not want--and would have led to the fact being known to the family
man of business, Mr. Cox, the very last person to whom Rachel wished
to confess the proceeding. It was not so much the humiliation of
owning to him such a fatal act of piracy upon his province, as
because she believed him to have been the cause that the poor had all
this time been cheated of the full value of the estate. He had
complacently consulted the welfare of the Curtis family, by charging
them with the rent of the fields as ordinary grass land, and it had
never dawned on him that it would be only just to increase the rent.
Rachel had found him an antagonist to every scheme she had hatched,
ever since she was fifteen years old, her mother obeyed him with
implicit faith, and it was certain that if the question were once in
his hands, he would regard it as his duty to save the Curtis funds,
and let the charity sink or swim. And he was the only person out of
the house whom Rachel had seen.

As soon as--or rather before--she could bear it, the first day that
her presence was supposed not to be perilous to others, she was
obliged to have an interview with him, to enable him to prepare the
case for the quarter sessions. Nothing could be much worse for her
nerves and spirits, but even the mother was absolutely convinced of
the necessity, and Rachel was forced to tax her enfeebled powers to
enable her to give accurate details of her relations with Mauleverer,
and enable him to judge of the form of the indictment. Once or twice
she almost sunk back from the exceeding distastefulness of the task,
but she found herself urged on, and when she even asked what would
happen if she were not well enough to appear, she was gravely told
that she must be--it would be very serious if she did not make a
great effort, and even her mother shook her head, looked unhappy, but
confirmed the admonition. A little revenge or hatred would have been
a great help to her, but she could not feel them as impulses. If it
had been the woman, she could have gladly aided in visiting such
cruelty upon her, but this had not been directly chargeable upon
Mauleverer; and though Rachel felt acutely that he had bitterly
abused her confidence, she drooped too much to feel the spirit of
retort. The notion of being confronted with him before all the world
at Avoncester, and being made to bring about his punishment, was
simply dreadful to her, but when she murmured some word of this to
her mother, Mrs. Curtis fairly started, and said quite fiercely, "My
dear, don't let me hear you say any such thing. He is a very wicked
man, and you ought to be glad to have him punished!"

She really spoke as if she had been rebuking some infringement of
decorum, and Rachel was quite startled. She asked Grace why the
mother was so bent on making her vindictive, but Grace only answered
that every one must be very much shocked, and turned away the
subject.

Prudent Grace! Her whole soul was in a tumult of wrath and shame at
what she knew to be the county gossip, but she was aware that
Rachel's total ignorance of it was the only chance of her so
comporting herself in court as to silence the rumour, and she and her
mother were resolutely discreet.

Mrs. Curtis, between nursing, anxiety, and worry, looked lamentably
knocked up, and at last Grace and Rachel prevailed on her to take a
drive, leaving Rachel on a sofa in her sitting-room, to what was no
small luxury to her just at present--that of being miserable alone--
without meeting any one's anxious eyes, or knowing that her
listlessness was wounding the mother's heart. Yet the privilege only
resulted in a fresh perturbation about the title-deeds, and longing
to consult some one who could advise and sympathize. Ermine Williams
would have understood and made her Colonel give help, but Ermine
seemed as unattainable as Nova Zembla, and she only heard that the
Colonel was absent. Her head as aching with the weary load of doubt,
and she tried to cheat her woe by a restless movement to the windows.
She saw Captain Keith riding to the door. It suddenly darted into
her mind that here was one who could and would help her. He could
see Mauleverer and ascertain what had become of the deeds; he could
guess at the amount of danger! She could not forget his kindness on
the night of Lovedy's illness, or the gentleness of his manner about
the woodcuts, and with a sudden impulse she rang the bell and desired
that Captain Keith might be shown in. She was still standing leaning
on the table when he entered.

"This is very good in you," he said; "I met your mother and sister on
my way up, and they asked me to leave word of Conrade being better,
but they did not tell me I should see you."

"Conrade is better?" said Rachel, sitting down, unable to stand
longer.

"Yes, his throat is better. Miss Williams's firmness saved him.
They think him quite out of danger."

"Thank Heaven! Oh, I could never have seen his mother again! Oh,
she has been the heroine!"

"In the truest sense of the word," he answered. And Rachel looked
up with one moment's brightening at the old allusion, but her
oppression was too great for cheerfulness, and she answered--

"Dear Fanny, yes, she will be a rebuke to me for ever! But," she
added, before he had time to inquire for her health, "I wanted--I
wanted to beg you to do me a service. You were so kind the other
night."

His reply was to lean earnestly forward, awaiting her words, and she
told him briefly of her grievous perplexity about the title-deeds.

"Then," he said, "you would wish for me to see the man and ascertain
how he has disposed of them."

"I should be most grateful!"

"I will do my utmost. Perhaps I may not succeed immediately, as I
believe visitors are not admitted every day, and he is said to be
busy preparing his defence, but I will try, and let you know."

"Thanks, thanks! The doubt is terrible, for I know worry about it
would distract my mother."

"I do not imagine," he said, "that much worse consequences than worry
could ensue. But there are none more trying."

"Oh not none!"

"Do not let worry about this increase other ills," he said, kindly,
"do not think about this again till you hear from me."

"Is that possible?"

"I should not have thought so, if I had not watched my uncle cast off
troubles about his eye-sight and the keeping his living."

"Ah! but those were not of his own making."

"'There is a sparkle even in the darkest water.' That was a saying
of his," said Alick, looking anxiously at her pale cheek and down-
cast eye.

"Not when they are turbid."

"They will clear," he said, and smiled with a look of encouraging
hope that again cheered her in spite of herself. "Meantime remember
that in any way I can help you, it will be the greatest favour--" he
checked himself as he observed the exceeding languor and lassitude
apparent in her whole person, and only said, "My sister is too much
at the bottom of it for me not to feel it the greatest kindness to me
to let me try to be of the slightest use. I believe I had better go
now," as he rose and looked at her wistfully; "you are too much tired
to talk."

"I believe I am," she said, almost reluctantly, "but thank you, this
has done me good."

"And you are really getting better?"

"Yes, I believe so. Perhaps I may feel it when this terrible day is
over."

What a comfort it would be, she said to herself, when he was gone, if
we had but a near relation like him, who would act for the mother,
instead of our being delivered up, bound hand and foot, to Mr. Cox.
It would have been refreshing to have kept him now, if I could have
done it without talking; it really seemed to keep the horrible
thoughts in abeyance, to hear that wonderfully gentle tone! And how
kind and soft the look was! I do feel stronger for it! Will it
really be better after next week? Alas! that will have undone
nothing.

Yet even this perception of a possibility of hope that there would be
relief after the ordeal, was new to Rachel; and it soon gave way to
that trying feature of illness, the insurmountable dread of the mere
physical fatigue. The Dean of Avoncester, a kind old friend of Mrs.
Curtis, had insisted on the mother and daughters coming to sleep at
the Deanery, on the Tuesday night, and remaining till the day after
the trial; but Rachel's imagination was not even as yet equal to the
endurance of the long drive, far less of the formality of a visit.
Lady Temple was likewise asked to the Deanery, but Conrade was still
too ill for her to think of leaving him for more than the few needful
hours of the trial; nor had Alison been able to do more than pay an
occasional visit at her sister's window to exchange reports, and so
absorbed was she in her boys and their mother, that it was quite an
effort of recollection to keep up to Ermine's accounts of Colonel
Keith's doings.

It was on the Monday afternoon, the first time she had ventured into
the room, taking advantage of Rose having condescended to go out with
the Temple nursery establishment, when she found Ermine's transparent
face all alive with expectation. "He may come any time now," she
said; "his coming to-day or to-morrow was to depend on his getting
his business done on Saturday or not."

And in a few minutes' time the well-known knock was heard, and
Ermine, with a look half arch half gay, surprised her sister by
rising with the aid of the arm of her chair, and adjusting a crutch
that had been leaning against it.

"Why Ermine! you could not bear the jarring of that crutch--"

"Five or six years ago, Ailie, when I was a much poorer creature,"
then as the door opened, "I would make you a curtsey, Colonel Keith,
but I am afraid I can't quite do that," though still she moved nearer
to meet him, but perhaps there was a look of helplessness which made
her exultation piteous, for he responded with an exclamation of
alarm, put out his arm to support her, and did not relax a frown of
anxiety till he had placed her safe in her chair again, while she
laughed perhaps a little less freely, and said, "See what it is to
have had to shift for oneself!"

"You met me with your eyes the first time, Ermine, and I never missed
anything."

"Well, I think it is hard not to have been more congratulated on my
great achievement! I thought I should have had at least as much
credit as Widdrington, my favourite hero and model."

"When you have an arm to support you it may be all very well, and I
shall never stand it without." Then, as Ermine subsided, unprepared
with a reply, "Well, Ailie, how are your boys?"

"Both much better, Francis nearly well."

"You have had a terrible time! And their mother?"

"Dearer and sweeter than ever," said Alison, with her voice
trembling; "no one who has not seen her now can guess half what
she is!"

"I hope she has not missed me. If this matter had not been so
pressing, I could not have stayed away."

"The one message she always gave me was, that you were not to think
of coming home; and, indeed, those dear boys were so good, that we
managed very well without you."

"Yes, I had faith in your discipline, and I think that matters are in
train against Edward comes. Of course there is no letter, or you
would have told me."

"He will be coming himself," said Ermine, resolved against again
expressing a doubt; while Alison added that he hated letter-writing.

"Nothing could be more satisfactory than Beauchamp's letter," added
Colin. "He was so thoroughly convinced, that he immediately began to
believe that he had trusted Edward all along, and had only been
overruled."

"I dare say," said Ermine, laughing; "I can quite fancy honest Harry
completely persuaded that he was Edward's champion, while Maddox was
turning him round his finger."

"And such is his good faith, that I hope he will make Edward believe
the same! I told you of his sending his love to you, and of his
hopes that you would some day come and see the old place. He made
his wife quite cordial."

Alison did not feel herself obliged to accept the message, and Ermine
could freely say, "Poor Harry! I should like to see him again! He
would be exactly the same, I dare say. And how does the old place
look?"

"Just what I do not want you to see. They have found out that the
Rectory is unhealthy, and stuck up a new bald house on the top of the
hill; and the Hall is new furnished in colours that set one's teeth
on edge. Nothing is like itself but Harry, and he only when you get
him off duty--without his wife! I was glad to get away to Belfast."

"And there, judging from Julia's letter, they must have nearly
devoured you."

"They were very hospitable. Your sister is not so very unlike you,
Ermine?"

"Oh, Colin!" exclaimed Alison, with an indignation of which she
became ashamed, and added, by way of making it better, "Perhaps not
so very."

"She was very gracious to me," said Colin, smiling, "and we had much
pleasant talk of you."

"Yes," said Ermine, "it will be a great pleasure to poor Julia to be
allowed to take us up again, and you thought the doctor sufficiently
convinced."

"More satisfactorily so than Harry, for he reasoned out the matter,
and seems to me to have gone more by his impression that a man could
not be so imprudent as Edward in good faith than by Maddox's
representation."

"That is true," said Alison, "he held out till Edward refused to come
home, and then nothing would make him listen to a word on his behalf."

"And it will be so again," thought Ermine, with a throb at her heart.
Then she asked, "Did you see whether there was a letter for you at
home?"

"Yes, I looked in, and found only this, which I have only glanced at,
from Bessie."

"From Paris?"

"Yes, they come home immediately after Easter. 'Your brother is
resolved I should be presented, and submit to the whole season in
style; after which he says I may judge for myself.' What people will
do for pretty young wives! Poor Mary's most brilliant season was a
winter at Edinburgh; and it must be his doing more than hers, for she
goes on: 'Is it not very hard to be precluded all this time from
playing the chieftainess in the halls of my forefathers? I shall
have to run down to your Gowanbrae to refresh myself, and see what
you are all about, for I cannot get the fragment of a letter from
Alick; and I met an Avoncestrian the other day, who told me that the
whole county was in a state of excitement about the F. U. etc.; that
every one believed that the fascinating landscape-painter was on the
high road to winning one of the joint-heiresses; but that Lady
Temple--the most incredible part of the story--had blown up the whole
affair, made her way into the penetralia of the asylum, and rescued
two female 'prentices, so nearly whipped to death that it took an
infinitesimal quantity of Rachel's homoeopathy to demolish one
entirely, and that the virtuous public was highly indignant that
there was no inquest nor trial for manslaughter; but that it was
certain that Rachel had been extremely ill ever since. Poor Rachel,
there must be some grain of truth in all this, but one would like to
be able to contradict it. I wrote to ask Alick the rights of the
story, but he has not vouchsafed me a line of reply; and I should
take it as very kind in you to let me know whether he is in the land
of the living or gone to Edinburgh--as I hear is to be the lot of the
Highlanders--or pining for the uncroquetable lawn, to which I always
told him he had an eye.'"

"She may think herself lucky he has not answered," said Ermine; "he
has always been rather unreasonably angry with her for making the
introduction."

"That is the reason he has not," added Alison, "for he is certainly
not far off. He has been over almost every day to inquire, and
played German tactics all Saturday afternoon with Francis to our
great relief. But I have stayed away long enough."

"I will walk back with you, Ailie. I must see the good little
heroine of the most incredible part of the story."

Lady Temple looked a good deal paler than when he had last seen her,
and her eyelids still showed that they had long arrears of sleep to
make up; but she came down with outstretched hands and a sunny smile.
"They are so much better, and I am so glad you were not at home in
the worst of it."

"And I am sorry to have deserted you."

"Oh, no, no, it was much better that you should be away. We should
all have wanted you, and that would have been dangerous, and dear,
dear Miss Williams did all that could be done. Do you know, it
taught me that you were right when you told me I ought never to rest
till the boys learnt to obey, for obedience' sake, at a word. It
showed what a bad mother I am, for I am sure if dear Conrade had been
like what he was last year, even she could not have saved him," said
Fanny, her eyes full of tears.

Then came her details, to which he listened, as ever, like the
brotherly friend he was, and there was a good deal said about
restoring the little ones, who were still at Gowanbrae, to which he
would by no means as yet consent, though Fanny owned herself to have
time now to pine for her Stephana, and to "hear how dismal it is to
have a silent nursery."

"Yes, it has been a fearful time. We little guessed how much risk
you ran when you went to the rescue."

"Dear Con, when he thought--when we thought he could not get better,
said I was not to mind that, and I don't," said Fanny. "I thought it
was right, and though I did not know this would come of it, yet you
see God has been very merciful, and brought both of my boys out of
this dreadful illness, and I dare say it will do them good all their
lives now it is over. I am sure it will to me, for I shall always be
more thankful."

"Everything does you good," he said.

"And another thing," she added, eagerly, "it has made me know that
dear Miss Williams so much better. She was so good, so wonderfully
good, to come away from her sister to us. I thought she was quite
gone the first day, and that I was alone with my poor Francie, and
presently there she was by my side, giving me strength and hope by
her very look. I want to have her for good, I want to make her my
sister! She would teach the boys still, for nobody else could make
them good, but if ever her sister could spare her, she must never go
away again."

"You had better see what she says," replied the Colonel, with
suppressed emotion.

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