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Louise Muhlbach - "Old Fritz and the New Era"

OLIVER T. OSBORNE, A.M., M.D. - "DISTURBANCES OF THE HEART"

Sir Walter Scott - "Guy Mannering, Vol. II"

William Morris - "Hopes and Fears for Art"

THE CLEVER WOMAN OF THE FAMILY

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




She did not easily give way at the moment, but the shock always took
revenge in subsequent suffering, which all Alick's care could not
prevent, though the exceeding charm of his tenderness rendered even
the indisposition almost precious to her.

"What a lovely sunset!" he said, coming to lean over the back of her
chair. "Have you been watching it?"

"I don't know."

"Are you very much tired?"

"No, it is very quiet here."

"Very; but I must take you in before that curling mist mounts into
your throat."

"This is a very nice place, Alick, the only really quiet one we have
found."

"I am afraid that it will be so no longer. The landlord tells me he
has letters from three parties to order rooms."

"Oh, then, pray let us go on," said Rachel, looking alarmed.

"To-morrow afternoon then, for I find there's another waterfall."

"Very well," said Rachel, resignedly.

"Or shall we cut the waterfall, and get on to Llan-- something?"

"If you don't think we ought to see it."

"Ought?" he said, smiling. "What is the ought in the case? Why are
we going through all this? Is it a duty to society or to ourselves?"

"A little of both, I suppose," said Rachel.

"And, Rachel, from the bottom of your heart, is it not a trying
duty?"

"I want to like what you are showing me," said Rachel.

"And you are more worried than delighted, eh?"

"I--I don't know! I see it is grand and beautiful! I did love my
own moors, and the Spinsters' Needles, but-- Don't think me very
ungrateful, but I can't enter into all this! All I really do care
for is your kindness, and helping me about," and she was really
crying like a child unable to learn a lesson.

"Well," he said, with his own languor of acquiescence, "we are
perfectly agreed. Waterfalls are an uncommon bore, if one is not in
a concatenation accordingly."

Rachel was beguiled into a smile.

"Come," he said, "let us be strong minded! If life should ever
become painful to us because of our neglect of the waterfalls, we
will set out and fulfil our tale of them. Meantime, let me take you
where you shall be really quiet, home to Bishopsworthy."

"But your uncle does not expect you so soon."

"My uncle is always ready for me, and a week or two of real rest
there would make you ready for the further journey."

Rachel made no opposition. She was glad to have her mind relieved
from the waterfalls, but she had rather have been quite alone with
her husband. She knew that Lord and Lady Keith had taken a house at
Littleworthy, while Gowanbrae was under repair, and she dreaded the
return to the bewildering world, before even the first month was
over; but Alick made the proposal so eagerly that she could not help
assenting with all the cordiality she could muster, thinking that it
must be a wretched, disappointing wedding tour for him, and she would
at least not prevent his being happy with his uncle; as happy as he
could be with a person tied to him, of whom all his kindred must
disapprove, and especially that paragon of an uncle, whom she heard
of like an intensification of all that class of clergy who had of
late been most alien to her.

Alick did not press for her real wishes, but wrote his letter, and
followed it as fast as she could bear to travel. So when the train,
a succession of ovens for living bodies disguised in dust, drew up at
the Littleworthy Station, there was a ready response to the smart
footman's inquiry, "Captain and Mrs. Keith?" This personage by no
means accorded with Rachel's preconceived notions of the Rectory
establishment, but she next heard the peculiar clatter by which a
grand equipage announces its importance, and saw the coronetted
blinkers tossing on the other side of the railing. A kind little
note of welcome was put into Rachel's hand as she was seated in the
luxurious open carriage, and Alick had never felt better pleased with
his sister than when he found his wife thus spared the closeness of
the cramping fly, or the dusty old rectory phaeton. Hospitality is
never more welcome than at the station, and Bessie's letter was
complacently accepted. Rachel would, she knew, be too much tired to
see her on that day, and on the next she much regretted having an
engagement in London, but on the Sunday they would not fail to meet,
and she begged that Rachel would send word by the servant what time
Meg should be sent to the Rectory for her to ride; it would be a
kindness to exercise her, for it was long since she had been used.

Rachel could not help colouring with pleasure at the notion of riding
her own Meg again, and Alick freely owned that it was well thought
of. He already had a horse at his uncle's, and was delighted to see
Rachel at last looking forward to something. But as she lay back in
the carriage, revelling in the fresh wind, she became dismayed at the
succession of cottages of gentility, with lawns and hedges of various
pretensions.

"There must be a terrible number of people here!"

"This is only Littleworthy."

"Not very little."

"No; I told you it was villafied and cockneyfied. There," as the
horses tried to stop at a lodge leading to a prettily built house,
"that's Timber End, the crack place here, where Bessie has always
said it was her ambition to live."

"How far is it from the Parsonage?"

"Four miles."

Which was a comfort to Rachel, not that she wished to be distant from
Bessie, but the population appalled her imagination.

"Bishopsworthy is happily defended by a Dukery," explained Alick, as
coming to the end of the villas they passed woods and fields, a bit
of heathy common, and a scattering of cottages. Labourers going home
from work looked up, and as their eyes met Alick's there was a mutual
smile and touch of the hat. He evidently felt himself coming home.
The trees of a park were beginning to rise in front, when the
carriage turned suddenly down a sharp steep hill; the right side of
the road bounded by a park paling; the left, by cottages, reached by
picturesque flights of brick stairs, then came a garden wall, and a
halt. Alick called out, "Thanks," and "we will get out here,"
adding, "They will take in the goods the back way. I don't like
careering into the churchyard."

Rachel, alighting, saw that the lane proceeded downwards to a river
crossed by a wooden bridge, with an expanse of meadows beyond. To
her left was a stable-yard, and below it a white gate and white
railings enclosing a graveyard, with a very beautiful church standing
behind a mushroom yew-tree. The upper boundary of the churchyard was
the clipped yew hedge of the rectory garden, whose front entrance was
through the churchyard. There was a lovely cool tranquillity of
aspect as the shadows lay sleeping on the grass; and Rachel could
have stood and gazed, but Alick opened the gate, and there was a
movement at the seat that enclosed the gnarled trunk of the yew tree.
A couple of village lads touched their caps and departed the opposite
way, a white setter dog bounded forward, and, closely attended by a
still snowier cat, a gentleman came to meet them, so fearlessly
treading the pathway between the graves, and so youthful in figure,
that it was only the "Well, uncle, here she is," and, "Alick, my dear
boy," that convinced her that this was indeed Mr. Clare. The next
moment he had taken her hand, kissed her brow, and spoken a few words
of fatherly blessing, then, while Alick exchanged greetings with the
cat and dog, he led her to the arched yew-tree entrance to his
garden, up two stone steps, along a flagged path across the narrow
grass-plat in front of the old two-storied house, with a tiled
verandah like an eyebrow to the lower front windows.

Instead of entering by the door in the centre, he turned the corner
of the house, where the eastern gable disclosed a window opening on a
sloping lawn full of bright flower-beds. The room within was lined
with books and stored with signs of parish work, but with a refined
orderliness reigning over the various little ornaments, and almost
betokening feminine habitation; and Alick exclaimed with admiration
of a large bowl of fresh roses, beautifully arranged.

"Traces of Bessie," said Mr. Clare; "she brought them this morning,
and spent nearly an hour in arranging them and entertaining me with
her bright talk. I have hardly been able to keep out of the room
since, they make it so delicious."

"Do you often see her?" asked Alick.

"Yes, dear child, she is most good-natured and attentive, and I take
it most kindly of her, so courted as she is."

"How do you get on with his lordship?"

"I don't come much in his way, he has been a good deal laid up with
sciatica, but he seems very fond of her; and it was all her doing
that they have been all this time at Littleworthy, instead of being
in town for the season. She thought it better for him."

"And where is Mr. Lifford?" asked Alick.

"Gone to M-- till Saturday."

"Unable to face the bride."

"I fear Ranger is not equally shy," said Mr. Clare, understanding a
certain rustle and snort to import that the dog was pressing his chin
hard upon Rachel's knee, while she declared her content with the
handsome creature's black depth of eye; and the cat executed a
promenade of tenderness upon Alick.

"How are the peacocks, Alick?" added Mr. Clare; "they, at least, are
inoffensive pets. I dreaded the shears without your superintendence,
but Joe insisted that they were getting lop-sided."

Alick put his head out at the window. "All right, sir; Joe has been
a little hard on the crest of the left-hand one, but it is
recovering."

Whereupon, Rachel discovered that the peacocks were creatures of yew-
tree, perched at either end of the garden fence. Mr. Clare had found
them there, and preserved them with solicitous fidelity.

Nothing could be less like than he was to the grave, thin, stooping
ascetic in a long coat, that she had expected. He was a tall, well-
made man, of the same youthful cast of figure as his nephew, and a
far lighter and more springy step, with features and colouring
recalling those of his niece, as did the bright sunny playful
sweetness of his manner; his dark handsome eyes only betraying their
want of sight by a certain glassy immobility that contrasted with the
play of the expressive mouth. It was hard to guess why Bessie should
have shunned such an uncle. Alick took Rachel to the bedroom above
the library, and, like it, with two windows--one overlooking
churchyard, river, and hay-fields, the other commanding, over the
peacock hedge, a view of the playground, where Mr. Clare was seen
surrounded by boys, appealing to him on some disputed matter of
cricket. There was a wonderful sense of serenity, freshness, and
fragrance, inexpressibly grateful to Rachel's wearied feelings, and
far more comfortable than the fine scenery through which she had been
carried, because no effort to look and admire was incumbent on her--
nay, not even an effort to talk all the evening. Mr. Clare seemed to
have perfectly imbibed the idea that rest was what she wanted, and
did not try to make small talk with her, though she sat listening
with pleased interest to the conversation between him and his nephew
--so home like, so full of perfect understanding of one another.

"Is there anything to be read aloud?" presently asked Alick.

"You have not by chance got 'Framley Parsonage?'"

"I wish I had. I did pick up 'Silas Marner,' at a station, thinking
you might like it," and he glanced at Rachel, who had, he suspected,
thought his purchase an act of weakness. "Have you met with it?"

"I have met with nothing of the sort since you were here last;" then
turning to Rachel, "Alick indulges me with novels, for my good curate
had rather read the catalogue of a sale any day than meddle with one,
and I can't set on my pupil teacher in a book where I don't know what
is coming."

"We will get 'Framley,'" said Alick.

"Bessie has it. She read me a very clever scene about a weak young
parson bent on pleasing himself; and offered to lend me the book, but
I thought it would not edify Will Walker. But, no doubt, you have
read it long ago."

"No," said Rachel; and something withheld her from disclaiming such
empty employments. Indeed, she was presently much interested in the
admirable portraiture of "Silas Marner," and still more by the keen,
vivid enjoyment, critical, droll, and moralizing, displayed by a man
who heard works of fiction so rarely that they were always fresh to
him, and who looked on them as studies of life. His hands were busy
all the time carving a boss for the roof of one of the side aisles of
his church--the last step in its gradual restoration.

That night there was no excitement of nerve, no morbid fancy to
trouble Rachel's slumbers; she only awoke as the eight o'clock bell
sounded through the open window, and for the first time for months
rose less weary than she had gone to rest. Week-day though it were,
the description "sweet day, so calm, so cool, so bright," constantly
recurred to her mind as she watched the quiet course of occupation.
Alick, after escorting his uncle to a cottage, found her searching
among the stores in the music stand.

"You unmusical female," he said, "what is that for?"

"Your uncle spoke of music last night, and I thought he would like
it."

"I thought you had no such propensity."

"I learnt like other people, but it was the only thing I could not do
as well as Grace, and I thought it wasted time, and was a young
ladyism; but if can recover music enough to please him, I should be
glad."

"Thank you," said Alick, earnestly. "He is very much pleased with
your voice in speaking. Indeed, I believe I first heard it with his
ears."

"This is a thorough lady's collection of music," said Rachel, looking
through it to hide her blush of pleasure. "Altogether the house has
not a bachelor look."

"Did you not know that he had been married? It was when he first had
the living twelve years ago. She was a very lovely young thing, half
Irish, and this was the happiest place in the world for two years,
till her little brother was sent home here from school without proper
warning of a fever that had begun there. We all had it, but she and
her baby were the only ones that did not recover! There they lie,
under the yew-tree, where my uncle likes to teach the children. He
was terribly struck down for years, though he went manfully to his
work, and it has been remarkable how his spirits and sociability have
returned since he lost his sight; indeed, he is more consistently
bright than ever he was."

"I never saw any one like him," said Rachel. "I have fallen in with
clergy that some call holy, and with some that others call pious, but
he is not a bit like either. He is not even grave, yet there is a
calming, refreshing sense of reverence towards him that would be awe,
only it is so happy."

Alick's response was to bend over her, and kiss her brow. She had
never seen him so much gratified.

"What a comfort your long stay with him must have been," she said
presently, "in the beginning of his blindness!"

"I hope so. It was an ineffable comfort to me to come here out of
Littleworthy croquet, and I think cheering me did him good. Rachel,
you may do and say what you please," he added, earnestly, "since you
have taken to him."

"I could not help it," said Rachel, though a slight embarrassment
came over her at the recollection of Bessie, and at the thought of
the narrow views on which she expected to differ. Then, as Alick
continued to search among the music, she asked, "Will he like the
piano to be used?"

"Of all things. Bessie's singing is his delight. Look, could we get
this up?"

"You don't sing, Alick! I mean, do you?"

"We need not betray our talents to worldlings base."

Rachel found her accompaniment the least satisfactory part of the
affair, and resolved on an hour's practice every day in Mr. Clare's
absence, a wholesome purpose even as regarded her health and spirits.
She had just sat down to write letters, feeling for the first time as
if they would not be a toil, when Mr. Clare looked in to ask Alick to
refer to a verse in the Psalms, quoting it in Greek as well as
English, and after the research had been carried to the Hebrew, he
told Rachel that he was going to write his sermon, and repaired to
the peacock path, where he paced along with Ranger and the cat, in
faithful, unobtrusive attendance.

"What, you can read Hebrew, Alick?"

"So can you."

"Enough to appreciate the disputed passages. When did you study it?"

"I learnt enough, when I was laid up, to look out my uncle's texts
for him."

She felt a little abashed by the tone, but a message called him away,
and before his return Mr. Clare came back to ask for a reference to
St. Augustine. On her offer of her services, she was thanked, and
directed with great precision to the right volume of the Library of
the Fathers, but spying a real St. Augustine, she could not be
satisfied without a flight at the original. It was not, however,
easy to find the place; she was forced to account for her delay by
confessing her attempt, and then to profit by Mr. Clare's directions,
and, after all, her false quantities, though most tenderly and
apologetically corrected, must have been dreadful to the scholarly
ear, for she was obliged to get Alick to read the passage over to him
before he arrived at the sense, and Rachel felt her flight of clever
womanhood had fallen short. It was quite new to her to be living
with people who knew more of, and went deeper into, everything than
she did, and her husband's powers especially amazed her.

The afternoon was chiefly spent in the hay-field under a willow-tree;
Mr. Clare tried to leave the young people to themselves, but they
would not consent; and, after a good deal of desultory talk and
description of the minnows and water-spiders, in whom Mr. Clare
seemed to take a deep interest, they went on with their book till the
horses came, and Alick took Rachel for a ride in Earlsworthy Park, a
private gate of which, just opposite to the Rectory, was free to its
inhabitants. The Duke was an old college friend of Mr. Clare, and
though much out of health, and hardly ever able to reside at the
Park, all its advantages were at the Rector's service, and they were
much appreciated when, on this sultry summer's day, Rachel found
shade and coolness in the deep arcades of the beech woods, and
freshness on the upland lawns, as she rode happily on the dear old
mare, by whom she really thought herself fondly recognised. There
was something in the stillness of the whole, even in the absence of
the roll and plash of the sea waves beside which she had grown up,
that seemed to give her repose from the hurry and throb of sensations
and thoughts that had so long preyed upon her; and when the ride was
over she was refreshed, not tired, and the evening bell drew her to
the conclusion most befitting a day spent in that atmosphere of
quietude. She felt grateful to her husband for making no remark,
though the only time she had been within a church since her illness
had been at their wedding, he only gave her his arm, and said she
should sit in the nook that used to be his in the time of his
lameness; and a most sheltered nook it was, between a pillar and the
open chancel screen, where no eyes could haunt her, even if the
congregation had been more than a Saturday summer evening one.

She only saw the pure, clear, delicately-toned hues of the east
window, and the reverent richness of the chancel, and she heard the
blind pastor's deep musical voice, full of that expressive power
always enhanced by the absence of a book. He led the Psalms with
perfect security and a calm fervour that rendered the whole familiar
service like something new and touching; the Lessons were read by
Alick, and Rachel, though under any other circumstances she would
have been startled to see him standing behind the Eagle, could not
but feel all appropriate, and went along with each word as he read it
in a tone well worthy of his uncle's scholar. Whether few or many
were present, Rachel knew not, thought not; she was only sensible of
the fulness of calm joy that made the Thanksgiving touch her heart
and fill her eyes with unbidden tears, that came far more readily
than of old.

"Yet this can't be all," she said to herself, as she wandered among
the tall white lilies in the twilight; "is it a trance, or am I
myself? I have not unthought or unfelt, yet I seem falling into a
very sweet hypocrisy! Alick says thought will come back with
strength. I don't think I wish it!"

The curate did not return till after she had gone to bed, and in the
morning he proved to be indeed a very dry and serious middle-aged
man, extremely silent, and so grave that there was no knowing how
much to allow for shyness. He looked much worn and had a wearied
voice, and Mr. Clare and Alick were contriving all they could to give
him the rest which he refused, Mr. Clare insisting on taking all the
service that could be performed without eyes, and Alick volunteering
school-work. This Rachel was not yet able to undertake, nor would
Alick even let her go to church in the morning; but the shady garden,
and the echoes of the Amens, and sweet, clear tones of singing,
seemed to lull her on in this same gentle, unthinking state of dreamy
rest; and thence, too, in the after part of the day, she could watch
the rector, with his Sunday class, on his favourite seat under the
yew-tree, close to the cross that marked the resting-place of his
wife and child.

She went to church in the evening, sheltered from curious eyes in her
nook, and there for a moment she heard the peculiar brush and sweep
of rich silk upon pavement, and wondered at so sophisticated a sound
in the little homely congregation, but forgot it again in the
exulting, joyous beauty of the chants and hymns, led by the rector
himself, and, oh, how different from poor Mr. Touchett's best
efforts! and forgot it still more in the unfettered eloquence of the
preaching of a man of great natural power, and entirely accustomed to
trust to his own inward stores. Like Ermine Williams, she could have
said that this preaching was the first that won her attention.
It certainly was the first that swept away all her spirit of
criticising, and left her touched and impressed, not judging. On
what north country folk call the loosing of the kirk, she, moving
outwards after the throng, found herself close behind a gauzy white
cloak over a lilac silk, that filled the whole breadth of the central
aisle, and by the dark curl descending beneath the tiny white bonnet,
as well as by the turn of the graceful head, she knew her sister-in-
law, Lady Keith, of Gowanbrae. In the porch she was met with
outstretched hands and eager greetings--

"At last! Where did you hide yourself? I had begun to imagine dire
mischances."

"Only in the corner by the chancel."

"Alick's old nook! Keeping up honeymoon privileges! I have kept
your secret faithfully. No one knows you are not on the top of
Snowdon, or you would have had all the world to call on you."

"There are always the Earlsworthy woods," said Alick.

"Or better still, come to Timber End. No one penetrates to my
morning room," laughed Bessie.

"Now, Uncle George," she said, as the rector appeared, "you have had
a full allowance of them for three days, you must spare them to me
to-morrow morning."

"So it is you, my lady," he answered, with a pleased smile; "I heard
a sort of hail-storm of dignity sailing in! How is Lord Keith?"

"Very stiff. I want him to have advice, but he hates doctors. What
is the last Avonmouth news? Is Ermine in good heart, and the boys
well again?"

She was the same Bessie as ever--full of exulting animation, joined
to a caressing manner that her uncle evidently delighted in; and to
Rachel she was most kind and sisterly, welcoming her so as amply to
please and gratify Alick. An arrangement was made that Rachel should
be sent for early to spend the day at Timber End, and that Mr. Clare
and Alick should walk over later. Then the two pretty ponies came
with her little low carriage to the yew-tree gate, were felt and
admired by Mr. Clare, and approved by Alick, and she drove off gaily,
leaving all pleased and amused, but still there was a sense that the
perfect serenity had been ruffled.

"Rachel," said Alick, as they wandered in the twilight garden, "I
wonder if you would be greatly disappointed if our travels ended
here."

"I am only too glad of the quiet."

"Because Lifford is in great need of thorough rest. He has not been
away for more than a year, and now he is getting quite knocked up.
All he does care to do, is to take lodgings near his wife's asylum,
poor man, and see her occasionally: sad work, but it is rest, and
winds him up again; and there is no one but myself to whom he likes
to leave my uncle. Strangers always do too little or too much; and
there is a young man at Littleworthy for the long vacation who can
help on a Sunday."

"Oh, pray let us stay as long as we can!"

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