THE CLEVER WOMAN OF THE FAMILY

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

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40

Eagerly she desired that he should be admitted, tremulously she
awaited his sentence upon her mother's peace, and, as she thought of
all he must have heard, all he must believe, she felt as if she must
flee; or, if that were impossible, cower in shrinking dread of the
glance of his satirical eye!

Here he was, and she could not look or speak, nor did he; she only
felt that his clasp of greeting was kind, was anxious, and he put
forward the easy-chair, into which she sank, unable to stand. He
said, "I saw your mother and sister going into the town. I thought
you would like to hear of this business at once."

"Oh yes, thank you."

"I could not see the man till the day before yesterday," he said,
"and I could get nothing satisfactory from him. He said he had taken
the papers to a legal friend, but was not authorized to give his
name. Perhaps his views may be changed by his present condition.
I will try him again if you like."

"Thank you, thank you! Do you think this is true!"

"He is too cunning a scoundrel to tell unnecessary lies, and very
likely he may have disposed of them to some Jew attorney; but I think
nothing is to be feared but some annoyance."

"And annoyance to my mother is the one thing I most fear," sighed
Rachel, helplessly.

"There might be a mode of much lessening it to her," he said.

"Oh, what? Tell me, and I would do it at any cost."

"Will you?" and he came nearer. "At the cost of yourself?"

She thrilled all over, and convulsively grasped the arm of her chair.

"Would not a son be the best person to shield her from annoyance," he
added, trying for his usual tone, but failing, he exclaimed, "Rachel,
Rachel, let me!"

She put her hands over her face, and cried, "Oh! oh! I never thought
of this."

"No," he said, "and I know what you do think of it, but indeed you
need not be wasted. Our women and children want so much done for
them, and none of our ladies are able or willing. Will you not come
and help me?"

"Don't talk to me of helping! I do nothing but spoil and ruin."

"Not now! That is all gone and past. Come and begin afresh."

"No, no, I am too disagreeable."

"May not I judge for myself?" he said, drawing nearer, and his voice
falling into tremulous tenderness.

"Headstrong--overbearing."

"Try," and his smile overbore her.

"Oh no, no, nobody can bear me! This is more than you--you ought to
do--than any one should," she faltered, not knowing what she said.

"Than any one to whom you were not most dear!" was the answer, and he
was now standing over her, with the dew upon his eyelashes.

"Oh, that can't be. Bessie said you always took up whatever other
people hated, and I know it is only that--"

"Don't let Bessie's sayings come between us now, Rachel. This goes
too deep," and he had almost taken her hand, when with a start she
drew it back, saying, "But you know what they say!"

"Have they been stupid enough to tell you?" he exclaimed. "Confute
them then, Rachel--dolts that can't believe in self-devotion! Laugh
at their beards. This is the way to put an end to it!"

"Oh no, they would only detest you for my sake. I can't," she said
again, bowed down again with shame and dejection.

"I'll take care of that!" he said with the dry tone that perhaps was
above all reassurance, and conquered her far enough to enable him to
take possession of the thin and still listless hand.

"Then," he said, "you will let me take this whole matter in hand; and
if the worst comes to the worst, we will make up to the charity out
of the Indian money, without vexing the mother."

"I can't let you suffer for my miserable folly."

"Too late to say that!" he answered; and as her eyes were raised to
him in startled inquiry, he said gravely, "These last weeks have
shown me that your troubles must be mine."

A hand was on the door, and Rachel fled, in time to screen her flight
from Miss Wellwood, whom Alick met with his usual undisturbed front,
and inquiries for Mrs. Curtis.

That good lady was in the town more worried than flattered by the
numerous inquiries after Rachel's health, and conscious of having
gone rather near the wind in making the best of it. She had begun to
dread being accosted by any acquaintance, and Captain Keith,
sauntering near the archway of the close, was no welcome spectacle.
She would have passed him with a curt salutation, but he grasped her
hand, saying, "May I have a few words with you?"

"Not Fanny--not the children!" cried Mrs. Curtis in dismay.

"No indeed. Only myself," and a gleam of intelligence under his
eyelashes and judicious pressure of his hand conveyed volumes to
Grace, who had seen him often during Rachel's illness, and was not
unprepared. She merely said that she would see how her sister was,
substituted Captain Keith's arm for her own as her mother's support,
and hurried away, to encounter Miss Wellwood's regrets that, in spite
of all her precautions, dear Rachel had been disturbed by "a young
officer, I believe. We see him often at the cathedral, and somebody
said it was his sister whom Lord Keith married."

"Yes, we know him well, and he is a Victoria Cross man," said Grace,
beginning to assume his reflected glory.

"So some one said, but the Dean never calls on the officers unless
there is some introduction, or there would be no end to it. It was a
mistake letting him in to disturb Rachel. Is your mother gone up to
her, my dear?"

"No, I think she is in the cathedral yard. I just came in to see
about Rachel," said Grace, escaping.

Miss Wellwood intended going out to join her old friend; but, on
going to put on her bonnet, she saw from the window Mrs. Curtis,
leaning on the intruder's arm, conversing so confidentially that the
Dean's sister flushed with amazement, and only hoped she had
mentioned him with due respect. And under that southern cathedral
wall good Mrs. Curtis took the longest walk she had indulged in for
the last twenty years, so that Grace, and even Rachel, beholding from
the window, began to fear that the mother would be walked to death.

But then she had that supporting arm, and the moral support, that was
infinitely more! That daughter, the spoilt pet of her husband, the
subject of her pride, even when an enigma and an anxiety, whom she
had lately been forced to think of as

"A maid whom there were few to praise
And very few to love,"

she now found loved by one at least, and praised in terms that
thrilled through and through the mother's heart in their truth and
simplicity, for that sincerity, generosity, and unselfishness. It
was her own daughter, her real Rachel, no illusion, that she heard
described in those grave earnest words, only while the whole world
saw the errors and exaggerated them, here was one who sank them all
in the sterling worth that so few would recognise. The dear old lady
forgot all her prudence, and would hardly let him speak of his means;
but she soon saw that Rachel's present portion would be more than met
on his side, and that no one could find fault with her on the score
of inequality of fortune. He would have been quite able to retire,
and live at ease, but this he said at once and with decision he did
not intend. His regiment was his hereditary home, and his father had
expressed such strong wishes that he should not lightly desert his
profession, that he felt bound to it by filial duty as well as by
other motives. Moreover, he thought the change of life and
occupation would be the best thing for Rachel, and Mrs. Curtis could
not but acquiesce, little as she had even dreamt that a daughter of
hers would marry into a marching regiment! Her surrender of judgment
was curiously complete. "Dear Alexinder," as thenceforth she called
him had assumed the mastery over her from the first turn they took
under the cathedral, and when at length he reminded her that the
clock was on the stroke of one, she accepted it on his infallible
judgment, for her own sensations would have made her believe it not
a quarter of an hour since the interview had begun.

Not a word had been granted on either side to the conventional vows
of secrecy, always made to be broken, and perhaps each tacitly felt
that the less secrecy the better for Rachel. Certain it is that Mrs.
Curtis went into the Deanery with her head considerably higher,
kissed Rachel vehemently, and, assuring her she knew all about it,
and was happier than she had ever thought to be again, excused her
from appearing at luncheon, and hurried down thereto, without giving
any attention to a feeble entreaty that she would not go so fast.
And when at three o'clock Rachel crept downstairs to get into the
carriage for her return home, the good old Dean lay in wait for her,
told her she must allow him an old friend's privilege, kissed her,
congratulated her, and said he would beg to perform the ceremony.

"Oh, Mr. Dean, it is nothing like that."

He laughed, and handed her in.

"Mother, mother, how could you?" sighed Rachel, as they drove on.

"My dear, they were so kind; they could not help knowing!"

"But it can't be."

"Rachel, my child, you like him!"

"He does not know half about me yet. Mother, don't tell Fanny or any
one till I have seen him again."

And the voice was so imperious with the wayward vehemence of illness
that Mrs. Curtis durst not gainsay it. She did not know how Alick
Keith was already silencing those who asked if he had heard of the
great event at the Dean's party. Still less did she guess at the
letter at that moment in writing:--

"My Dear Bessie,--Wish me joy. I have gone in for the uncroquetable
lawn, and won it.--Your affectionate brother',

"A. C. Keith."

CHAPTER XXIII.

DEAR ALEXANDER.

"I pray thee now tell me, for which of my bad parts didst thou first
fall in love with me?"--Much Ado about Nothing.

"Alick, is this all chivalry?" inquired Colonel Keith, sitting by his
fire, suffering considerably from his late drive, and hearing reports
that troubled him.

"Very chivalrous, indeed! when there's an old county property to the
fore."

"For that matter, you have all been canny enough to have means enough
to balance all that barren moorland. You are a richer man than I
shall ever be."

"Without heiress-hunting?" said Alick, as though weighing his words.

"Come, Alick, you need not put on a mask that does not fit you! If
it is not too late, take the risk into consideration, for I own I
think the price of your championship somewhat severe."

"Ask Miss Williams."

"Ermine is grateful for much kindness, and is--yes--really fond of
her."

"Then, Colonel, you ought to know that a sensible woman's favourable
estimate of one of her own sex outweighs the opinion men can form of
her."

"I grant that there are fine qualities; but, Alick, regarding you, as
I must necessarily do, from our former relations, you must let me
speak if there is still time to warn you, lest your pity and sense of
injustice should be entangling you in a connexion that would hardly
conduce to make you happy or popular."

"Popularity is not my line," said Alick, looking composedly into the
fire.

"Tell me first," said the puzzled Colonel, "are you committed?"

"No one can be more so."

"Engaged!!!"

"I thought you would have known it from themselves; but I find she
has forbidden her mother to mention it till she has seen me again.
And they talk of quiet, and shut me out!" gloomily added Alick.

The Colonel conceived a hope that the lady would abjure matrimony,
and release this devoted knight, but in a few moments Alick burst
out--

"Absurd! She cannot mend with anything on her mind! If I could have
seen Mrs. Curtis or Grace alone, they might have heard reason, but
that old woman of a doctor was prosing about quiet and strain on the
nerves. I know that sort of quiet, the best receipt for
distraction!"

"Well, Alick," said his friend, smiling, "you have at least convinced
me that your heart is in the matter."

"How should it not be?" returned Alick.

"I was afraid it was only with the object of unjust vituperation."

"No such thing. Let me tell you, Colonel, my heart has been in it
ever since I felt the relief of meeting real truth and unselfishness!
I liked her that first evening, when she was manfully chasing us off
for frivolous danglers round her cousin! I liked her for having no
conventionalities, fast or slow, and especially for hating heroes!
And when my sister had helped to let her get into this intolerable
web, how could I look on without feeling the nobleness that has never
shifted blame from herself, but bowed, owned all, suffered--suffered
--oh, how grievously!"

The Colonel was moved. "With such genuine affection you should
surely lead her and work upon her! I trust you will be able."

"It is less that," said Alick, rather resentfully, "than sympathy
that she wants. Nobody ever gave her that except your Ermine!
By-the-bye, is there any news of the brother?"

Colonel Keith shook his head. "I believe I shall have to go to
Russia," he said with some dejection.

"After that, reproach one with chivalry," said Alick, lightly. "Nay,
I beg your pardon. Shall I take any message down to Mackarel Lane?"

"Are you going?"

"Well, yes, though I hardly ought to venture there till this embargo
is taken off; for she is the one person there will be some pleasure
in talking to. Perhaps I may reckon you as the same in effect."

The Colonel responded with a less cheerful look than usual, adding,
"I don't know whether to congratulate you, Alick, on having to ask no
one's consent but your own at your age."

"Especially not my guardian's!" said Alick, with the desired effect
of making him laugh.

"No, if you were my son, I would not interfere," he added gravely.
"I only feared your not knowing what you were about. I see you do
know it, and it merely becomes a question of every man to his taste--
except for one point, Alick. I am afraid there may have been much
disturbance of her opinions."

"Surface work," said Alick, "some of the effects of the literature
that paints contradiction as truth. It is only skin deep, and makes
me wish all the more to have her with my uncle for a time. I wonder
whether Grace would let me in if I went back again!"

No, Grace was obdurate. Mr. Frampton had spoken of a nervous fever,
and commanded perfect quiescence; and Grace was the less tempted to
transgress the order, because she really thought her mother was more
in love with "dear Alexander" than Rachel was. Rachel was
exceedingly depressed, restless, and feverish, and shrank from her
mother's rejoicing, declaring that she was mistaken, and that nothing
more must be said. She had never consented, and he must not make
such a sacrifice; he would not when he knew better. Nay, in some
moods, Rachel seemed to think even the undefined result of the
interview an additional humiliation, and to feel herself falling, if
not fallen, from her supreme contempt of love and marriage. The
hurry, and the consent taken for granted, had certainly been no small
elements in her present disturbed and overwhelmed state; and Grace,
though understanding the motive, was disposed to resent the over-
haste. Calm and time to think were promised to Rachel, but the more
she had of both the more they hurt her. She tossed restlessly all
night, and was depressed to the lowest ebb by day; but on the second
day, ill as she evidently was, she insisted on seeing Captain Keith,
declaring that she should never be better till she had made him
understand her. Her nurses saw that she was right; and, besides,
Mrs. Curtis's pity was greatly touched by dear Alexander's
entreaties. So, as a desperate experiment, he was at last allowed to
go into the dressing-room, where she was lying on the sofa. He begged
to enter alone, only announced by a soft knock, to which she replied
with a listless "Come in," and did not look up till she suddenly
became conscious of a footfall firmer though softer than those she
was used to. She turned, and saw who it was who stood at a window
opposite to her feet, drawing up the Venetian blind, from whose
teasing divisions of glare and shade she had been hiding her eyes
from the time she had come in, fretted by the low continuous tap of
its laths upon the shutters. Her first involuntary exclamation was a
sigh of relief.

"Oh, thank you. I did not know what it was that was such a
nuisance."

"This is too much glare. Let me turn your sofa a little way round
from it."

And as he did so, and she raised herself, he shook out her cushions,
and substituted a cool chintz covered one for the hot crimson damask
on which her head had been resting. "Thank you! How do you know so
well?" she said with a long breath of satisfaction.

"By long trial," he said, very quietly seating himself beside her
couch, with a stillness of manner that strangely hushed all her
throbbings; and the very pleasure of lying really still was such that
she did not at once break it. The lull of these few moments was
inexpressibly sweet, but the pang that had crossed her so many times
in the last two days and nights could not but return. She moved
restlessly, and he leant towards her with a soft-toned inquiry what
it was she wanted.

"Don't," she said, raising herself. "No, don't! I have thought more
over what you said," she continued, as if repeating the sentence she
had conned over to herself. "You have been most generous, most
noble; but--but," with an effort of memory, "it would be wrong in me
to accept such--oh! such a sacrifice; and when I tell you all, you
will think it a duty to turn from me," she added, pressing her hands
to her temples. "And mind, you are not committed--you are free."

"Tell me," he said, bending towards her.

"I know you cannot overlook it! My faith--it is all confusion," she
said in a low awe-struck voice. "I do believe--I do wish to believe;
but my grasp seems gone. I cannot rest or trust for thinking of the
questions that have been raised! There," she added in a strange
interrogative tone.

"It is a cruel thing to represent doubt as the sign of intellect,"
Alick said sadly; "but you will shake off the tormentors when the
power of thinking and reasoning is come back."

"Oh, if I could think so! The misery of darkness here--there--
everywhere--the old implicit reliance gone, and all observance
seeming like hypocrisy and unreality. There is no thinking, no
enduring the intolerable maze."

"Do not try to think now. You cannot bear it. We will try to face
what difficulties remain when you are stronger."

She turned her eyes full on him. "You do not turn away! You know
you are free."

"Turn from the sincerity that I prize?"

"You don't? I thought your views were exactly what would make you
hate and loathe such bewilderment, and call it wilful;" there was
something piteous in the way her eye sought his face.

"It was not wilful," he said; "it came of honest truth-seeking. And,
Rachel, I think the one thing is now gone that kept that honesty from
finding its way."

"Self-sufficiency!" she said with a groan; but with a sudden turn she
exclaimed, "You don't trust to my surrendering my judgment. I don't
think I am that kind of woman."

"Nor I that kind of man," he answered in his natural tone; then
affectionately, "No, indeed I want you to aid mine."

She lay back, wearied with the effort, and disinclined to break the
stillness. There was a move at the door; Mrs. Curtis, in an agony of
restless anxiety, could not help coming to see that the interview was
doing no harm.

"Don't go!" exclaimed Rachel, holding out her hand as he turned at
the opening of the door. "Oh, mother!" and there was an evident
sound of disappointment.

Mrs. Curtis was infinitely rejoiced to find her entrance thus
inopportune. "I only wished just to be sure it was not too much,"
she said.

"Oh, mother, it is the first peace I have known for weeks! Can't you
stay?" looking up to him, as her mother retreated to tell Grace that
it was indeed all right.

This brought him to a footstool close beside her. "Thank you," he
murmured. "I was wondering just then if it would hurt you or agitate
you to give me some little satisfaction in going on with this. I
know you are too true not to have told me at once if your objections
were more personal than those you have made; but, Rachel, it is true,
as you say, that you have never consented!"

The tone of these words made Rachel raise herself, turn towards him,
and hold out both her hands. "Oh," she said, as he took them into his
own, "it was--it could be only that I cannot bear so much more than I
deserve."

"What! such an infliction?" in his own dry way.

"Such rest, such kindness, such generosity!"

"No, Rachel, there is something that makes it neither kindness nor
generosity. You know what I mean."

"And that is what overpowers me more than all," she sighed, in the
full surrender of herself. "I ought not to be so very happy."

"That is all I want to hear," he said, as he replaced her on her
cushions, and sat by her, holding her hand, but not speaking till the
next interruption, by one of the numerous convalescent meals, brought
in by Grace, who looked doubtful whether she would be allowed to come
in, and then was edified by the little arrangements he made, quietly
taking all into his own hands, and wonderfully lessening a sort of
fidget that Mrs. Curtis's anxiety had attached to all that was done
for Rachel. It was not for nothing that he had spent a year upon the
sofa in the irritably sensitive state of nerves that Bessie had
described; and when he could speak to Grace alone, he gave her a
lecture on those little refinements of unobtrusive care, that more
demonstrative ailments had not availed to inculcate, and which Mrs.
Curtis's present restless anxiety rendered almost impossible. To
hinder her from constantly aggravating the fever on the nerves by her
fidgeting solicitude was beyond all power save his own, and that when
he was actually in the house.

Morning after morning he rode to the Homestead to hear that Rachel
had had a very bad night, and was very low, then was admitted to find
Mrs. Curtis's fluttering, flurried attentions exasperating every
wearied fibre with the very effort to force down fretfulness and
impatience, till, when she was left to him, a long space of the lull
impressed on her by his presence was needful before he could attempt
any of the quiet talk, or brief readings of poetry, by which he tried
further to soothe and rest her spirits. He would leave her so calm
and full of repose as to make him augur well for the next day; but
the moment his back was turned, something would always happen that
set all the pulses in agitation again, and consigned her to a fresh
night of feverish phantoms of the past. He even grew distracted
enough to scold Grace fraternally as the only person he could scold.

"You seem to nurse her on the principle of old Morris, the biggest
officer among us, who kindly insisted on sitting up with me, and
began by taking his seat upon my hand as it was lying spread out upon
a pillow."

"Indeed, Alick," said Grace, with tears in her eyes, "I hardly know
what to do. When you are not in the house the mother is almost as
much in a nervous fever as Rachel, and it is hardly in her power to
keep from fretting her. It is all well when you are here."

"Then, Grace, there is only one thing to be done. The sooner I take
Rachel away the better for both her and the mother."

"Oh, Alick, you will drive them both wild if you hurry it on."

"Look here. I believe I can get leave from Saturday till Tuesday.
If I can get a hearing in those two days, I shall try; and depend
upon it, Grace, this place is the worst that Rachel can be in."

"Can you come out here for three whole days? Oh, what a comfort!"

And 'what a comfort' was re-echoed by Mrs. Curtis, who had erected
dear Alexander to a pedestal of infallibility, and was always treated
by him with a considerate kindness that made her pity Fanny for the
number of years that must pass before Stephana could give her the
supreme blessing of a son-in-law. Fanny, on her side, had sufficient
present blessing in collecting her brood around her, after the long
famine she had suffered, and regretted only that this month had
rendered Stephana's babyhood more perceptibly a matter of the past;
and that, in the distance, school days were advancing towards
Conrade, though it was at least a comfort that his diphtheria had
secured him at home for another half year, and the Colonel had so
much to think about that he had not begun his promised researches
into schools.

The long-looked-for letters came after a weary interval of
expectation, the more trying to Ermine because the weather had been
so bitter that Colin could not shake off his cold, nor venture beyond
his own fireside, where Rose daily visited him, and brought home
accounts that did not cheer her aunt.

Edward wrote shortly to his sister, as if almost annoyed at the
shower of letters that had by every post begun to recall his
attention from some new invention on the means of assaying metals:--

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40