THE CLEVER WOMAN OF THE FAMILY

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

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"Giving up the Cretins?"

"It is no sacrifice. I am thankful not to be hunted about; and if
anything could make me better pleased to be here, it would be feeling
that I was not hindering you."

"Then I will hunt him away for six weeks or two months at least. It
will be a great relief to my uncle's mind."

It was so great a relief that Mr. Clare could hardly bring himself to
accept the sacrifice of the honeymoon, and though there could be
little doubt which way the discussion would end, he had not yielded
when the ponies bore off Rachel on Monday morning.

Timber End was certainly a delightful place. Alick had railed it a
cockney villa, but it was in good taste, and very fair and sweet with
flowers and shade. Bessie's own rooms, where she made Rachel
charmingly at home, were wonderful in choiceness and elegance,
exciting Rachel's surprise how it could be possible to be so
sumptuously lodged in such a temporary abode, for the house was only
hired for a few months, while Gowanbrae was under repair. It was
within such easy reach of London that Bessie had been able from
thence to go through the more needful season gaieties; and she had
thought it wise, both for herself and Lord Keith, not to enter on
their full course. It sounded very moderate and prudent, and Rachel
felt vexed with herself and Alick for recollecting a certain hint of
his, that Lady Keith felt herself more of a star in her own old
neighbourhood than she could be in London, and wisely abstained from
a full flight till she had tried her wings. It was much pleasanter
to go along with Bessie's many far better and more affectionate
reasons for prudence, and her minutely personal confidences about her
habits, hopes, and fears, given with a strong sense of her own
importance and consideration, yet with a warm sisterly tone that made
them tokens of adoption, and with an arch drollery that invested them
with a sort of grace. The number of engagements that she mentioned
in town and country did indeed seem inconsistent with the prudence
she spoke of with regard to her own health, or with her attention to
that of her husband; but it appeared that all were quite necessary
and according to his wishes, and the London ones were usually for the
sake of trying to detach his daughter, Mrs. Comyn Menteith, from the
extravagant set among whom she had fallen. Bessie was excessively
diverting in her accounts of her relations with this scatter-brained
step-daughter of hers, and altogether showed in the most flattering
manner how much more thoroughly she felt herself belonging to her
brother's wife. If she had ever been amazed or annoyed at Alick's
choice, she had long ago surmounted the feeling, or put it out of
sight, and she judiciously managed to leap over all that had passed
since the beginning of the intimacy that had arisen at the station
door at Avoncester. It was very flattering, and would have been
perfectly delightful, if Rachel had not found herself wearying for
Alick, and wondering whether at the end of seven months she should be
as contented as Bessie seemed, to know her husband to be in the
sitting-room without one sight of him.

At luncheon, however, when Lord Keith appeared, nothing could be
prettier than his wife's manner to him--bright, sweet, and with a
touch of graceful deference, at which he always smiled and showed
himself pleased, but Rachel thought him looking much older than in
the autumn--he had little appetite, stooped a good deal, and
evidently moved with pain. He would not go out of doors, and Bessie,
after following him to the library, and spending a quarter of an hour
in ministering to his comfort, took Rachel to sit by a cool dancing
fountain in the garden, and began with some solicitude to consult her
whether he could be really suffering from sciatica, or, as she had
lately begun to suspect, from the effects of a blow from the end of a
scaffold-pole that had been run against him when taking her through a
crowded street. Rachel spoke of advice.

"What you, Rachel! you who despised allopathy!"

"I have learnt not to despise advice."

And Bessie would not trench on Rachel's experiences.

"There's some old Scotch doctor to whom his faith is given, and that
I don't half believe in. If he would see our own Mr. Harvey here it
would be quite another thing; but it is of no use telling him that
Alick would never have had an available knee but for Mr. Harvey's
management. He persists in leaving me to my personal trust in him,
but for himself he won't see him at any price! Have you seen Mr.
Harvey?"

"I have seen no one."

"Oh, I forgot, you are not arrived yet; but--"

"There's some one," exclaimed Rachel, nervously; and in fact a young
man was sauntering towards them. Bessie rose with a sort of
annoyance, and "Never mind, my dear, he is quite inoffensive, we'll
soon get rid of him." Then, as he greeted her with "Good morning,
Lady Keith, I thought I should find you here," she quickly replied.

"If you had been proper behaved and gone to the door, you would have
known that I am not at home."

He smiled, and came nearer.

"No, I am not at home, and, what is more, I do not mean to be. My
uncle will be here directly," she added, in a fee-faw-fum tone.

"Then it is not true that your brother and his bride are arrived?"

"True in the same sense as that I am at home. There she is, you see
--only you are not to see her on any account," as a bow necessarily
passed between him and Rachel. "Now mind you have not been
introduced to Mrs. Keith, and if you utter a breath that will bring
the profane crowd in shoals upon the Rectory, I shall never forgive
you."

"Then I am afraid we must not hope to see you at the bazaar for the
idiots."

"No, indeed," Bessie answered, respecting Rachel's gesture of
refusal; "no one is to infringe her incog, under penalty of never
coming here again."

"You are going?" he added to Bessie; "indeed, that was what brought
me here. My sisters sent me to ask whether they may shelter
themselves under your matronly protection, for my mother dreads the
crush."

"I suppose, as they put my name down, that I must go, but you know I
had much rather give the money outright. It is a farce to call a
bazaar charity."

"Call it what you will, it is one device for a little sensation."

Rachel's only sensation at that moment was satisfaction at the sudden
appearance of Ranger's white head, the sure harbinger of his master
and Alick, and she sprang up to meet them in the shrubbery path--all
her morbid shyness at the sight of a fresh face passing away when her
hand was within Alick's arm. When they came forth upon the lawn,
Alick's brow darkened for a moment, and there was a formal exchange
of greetings as the guest retreated.

"I am so sorry," began Bessie at once; "I had taken precautions
against invasion, but he did not go to the front door. I do so hope
Rachel has not been fluttered."

"I thought he was at Rio," said Alick.

"He could not stand the climate, and was sent home about a month ago
--a regular case of bad shilling, I am afraid, poor fellow! I am so
sorry he came to startle Rachel, but I swore him over to secrecy. He
is not to mention to any living creature that she is nearer than
Plinlimmon till the incog, is laid aside! I know how to stand up for
bridal privileges, and not to abuse the confidence placed in me."

Any one who was up to the game might have perceived that the sister
was trying to attribute all the brother's tone of disapprobation to
his anxiety lest his wife should have been startled, while both knew
as well as possible that there was a deeper ground of annoyance which
was implied in Alick's answer.

"He seems extremely tame about the garden."

"Or he would not have fallen on Rachel. It was only a chance; he
just brought over a message about that tiresome bazaar that has been
dinned into our ears for the last three months. A bazaar for idiots
they may well call it! They wanted a carving of yours, Uncle
George!"

"I am afraid I gave little Alice Bertie one in a weak moment,
Bessie," said Mr. Clare, "but I hardly durst show my face to Lifford
afterwards."

"After all, it is better than some bazaars," said Bessie; "it is only
for the idiot asylum, and I could not well refuse my name and
countenance to my old neighbours, though I stood out against taking a
stall. Lord Keith would not have liked it."

"Will he be able to go with you?" asked Alick.

"Oh, no; it would be an intolerable bore, and his Scottish thrift
would never stand the sight of people making such very bad bargains!
No, I am going to take the Carleton girls in, they are very
accommodating, and I can get away whenever I please. I am much too
forbearing to ask any of you to go with me, though I believe Uncle
George is pining to go and see after his carving."

"No, thank you; after what I heard of the last bazaar I made up my
mind that they are no places for an old parson, nor for his carvings
either, so you are quite welcome to fall on me for my inconsistency."

"Not now, when you have a holiday from Mr. Lifford," returned Bessie.
"Now come and smell the roses."

All the rest of the day Alick relapsed into the lazy frivolous young
officer with whom Rachel had first been acquainted.

As he was driving home in the cool fresh summer night, he began--

"I think I must go to this idiotical bazaar!"

"You!" exclaimed Rachel.

"Yes; I don't think Bessie ought to go by herself with all this
Carleton crew."

"You don't wish me to go," said Rachel, gulping down the effort.

"You! My dear Rachel, I would not take you for fifty pounds, nor
could I go myself without leaving you as vice deputy curate."

"No need for that," said Mr. Clare, from the seat behind; "young
people must not talk secrets with a blind man's ears behind them."

"I make no secret," said Alick. "I could not go without leaving my
wife to take care of my uncle, or my uncle to take care of my wife."

"And you think you ought to go?" said Mr. Clare. "It is certainly
better that Bessie should have a gentleman with her in the crowd; but
you know this is a gossiping neighbourhood, and you must be prepared
for amazement at your coming into public alone not three weeks after
your wedding."

"I can't help it, she can't go, and I must."

"And you will bring down all the morning visitors that you talk of
dreading."

"We will leave you to amuse them, sir. Much better that," he added
between his teeth, "than to leave the very semblance of a secret
trusted by her to that intolerable puppy--"

Rachel said no more, but when she was gone upstairs Mr. Clare
detained his nephew to say, "I beg your pardon, Alick, but you should
be quite sure that your wife likes this proposal."

"That's the value of a strong-minded wife, sir," returned Alick; "she
is not given to making a fuss about small matters."

"Most ladies might not think this a small matter."

"That is because they have no perspective in their brains. Rachel
understands me a great deal too well to make me explain what is
better unspoken."

"You know what I think, Alick, that you are the strictest judge that
ever a merry girl had."

"I had rather you continued to think so, uncle; I should like to
think so myself. Good night."

Alick was right, but whether or not Rachel entered into his motives,
she made no objection to his going to the bazaar with his sister,
being absolutely certain that he would not have done so if he could
have helped it.

Nor was her day at all dreary; Mr. Clare was most kind and attentive
to her, without being oppressive, and she knew she was useful to him.
She was indeed so full of admiration and reverence for him, that once
or twice it crossed her whether she were not belying another of her
principles by lapsing into Curatocult, but the idea passed away with
scorn at the notion of comparing Mr. Clare with the objects of such
devotion. He belonged to that generation which gave its choicest in
intellectual, as well as in religious gifts to the ministry, when a
fresh tide of enthusiasm was impelling men forward to build up,
instead of breaking down, before disappointment and suspicion had
thinned the ranks, and hurled back many a recruit, or doctrinal
carpings had taught men to dread a search into their own tenets. He
was a highly cultivated, large-minded man, and the conversation
between him and his nephew was a constant novelty to her, who had
always yearned after depth and thought, and seldom met with them.
Still here she was constantly feeling how shallow were her
acquirements, how inaccurate her knowledge, how devoid of force and
solidity her reasonings compared with what here seemed to be old,
well-beaten ground. Nay, the very sparkle of fun and merriment
surprised and puzzled her; and all the courtesy of the one gentleman,
and the affection of the other, could not prevent her sometimes
feeling herself the dullest and most ignorant person present. And
yet the sense was never mortifying except when here and there a spark
of the old conceit had lighted itself, and lured her into pretensions
where she thought herself proficient. She was becoming more and more
helpful to Mr. Clare, and his gratitude for her services made them
most agreeable, nor did that atmosphere of peace and sincerity that
reigned round the Rectory lose its charm. She was really happy all
through the solitary Wednesday, and much more contented with the
results than was Alick. "A sickening place," he said, "I am glad I
went."

"How glad Bessie must have been to have you!"

"I believe she was. She has too much good taste for much of what
went on there."

"I doubt," said Mr. Clare, laughing, "if you could have been an
agreeable acquisition."

"I don't know. Bessie fools one into thinking oneself always doing
her a favour. Oh, Rachel, I am thankful you have never taken to
being agreeable."

CHAPTER XXV.

THE HUNTSFORD CROQUET.

"Une femme egoiste, non seulement de coeur, mais d'esprit,
ne pent pas sortir d'elle-meme. Le moi est indelible chez elle.
Une veritable egoiste ne sait meme pas etre fausse."
--MME. E. DE GIRARDIN.

"I am come to prepare you," said Lady Keith, putting her arm into her
brother's, and leading him into the peacock path. "Mrs. Huntsford is
on her way to call and make a dead set to get you all to a garden
party."

"Then we are off to the Earlsworthy Woods."

"Nay, listen, Alick. I have let you alone and defended you for a
whole month, but if you persist in shutting up you wife, people won't
stand it."

"Which of us is the Mahometan?"

"You are pitied! But you see it was a strong thing our appearing
without our several incumbrances, and though an old married woman
like me may do as she pleases, yet for a bridegroom of not three
weeks' standing to resort to bazaars solus argues some weighty
cause."

"And argues rightly."

"Then you are content to be supposed to have an unproduceably
eccentric melancholy bride?"

"Better they should think so than that she should be so. She has
been victimized enough already to her mother's desire to save
appearances."

"You do not half believe me, Alick, and this is really a very kind,
thoughtful arrangement of Mrs. Huntsford's. She consulted me, saying
there were such odd stories about you two that she was most anxious
that Rachel should appear and confute them; and she thought that an
out-of-door party like this would suit best, because it would be
early, and Rachel could get away if she found it too much for her."

"After being walked out to satisfy a curious neighbourhood."

"Now Alick, do consider it. This sort of thing could remind her of
nothing painful; Uncle George would enjoy it."

"And fall over the croquet traps."

"No; if you wanted to attend to him, I could take care of Rachel."

"I cannot tell, Bessie, I believe it is pure goodnature on Mrs.
Huntsford's part, but if we go, it must be from Rachel's spontaneous
movement. I will not press her on any account. I had rather the
world said she was crazy at once than expose her to the risk of one
of the dreadful nights that haunted us till we came here to perfect
quiet."

"But she is well now. She looks better and nicer than I ever saw her.
Really, Alick, now her face is softer, and her eyes more veiled, and
her chin not cocked up, I am quite proud of her. Every one will be
struck with her good looks."

"Flattery, Bessie," he said, not ill pleased. "Yes, she is much
better, and more like herself; but I dread all this being overthrown.
If she herself wishes to go, it may be a good beginning, but she must
not be persuaded."

"Then I must not even tell her that she won't be required to croquet,
and that I'll guard her from all civil speeches."

"No, for indeed, Bessie, on your own account and Lord Keith's, you
should hardly spend a long afternoon from home."

"Here's the war in the enemy's quarters! As to fatigue, dawdling
about Mrs. Huntsford's garden, is much the same as dawdling about my
own, and makes me far more entertaining."

"I cannot help thinking, Bessie, that Lord Keith is more ill than you
suppose. I am sure he is in constant pain."

"So I fear," said Bessie, gravely; "but what can be done? He will
see no one but his old surgeon in Edinburgh."

"Then take him there."

"Take him? You must know what it is to be in the hands of a clever
woman before you make such a proposal."

"You are a cleverer woman than my wife in bringing about what you
really wish."

"Just consider, Alick, our own house is uninhabitable, and this one
on our hands--my aunt coming to me in a month's time. You don't ask
me to do what is reasonable."

"I cannot tell, Bessie. You can be the only judge of what is regard
of the right kind for your husband's health or for yourself; and see,
there is Mrs. Huntsford actually arrived, and talking to my uncle."

"One moment, Alick: I am not going to insult myself so far as to
suppose that poor Charlie Carleton's being at home has anything to do
with your desire to deport me, but I want you to know that he did not
come home till after we were settled here."

"I do not wish to enter into details, Bessie," and he crossed the
lawn towards the window where Mr. Clare and Rachel had just received
Mrs. Huntsford, a goodnatured joyous-looking lady, a favourite with
every one. Her invitation was dexterously given to meet a few
friends at luncheon, and in the garden, where the guests would be
free to come and go; there might perhaps be a little dancing later,
she had secured some good music which would, she knew, attract Mr.
Clare, and she hoped he would bring Captain and Mrs. Keith. She knew
Mrs. Keith had not been well, but she promised her a quiet room to
rest in, and she wanted to show her a view of the Devon coast done by
a notable artist in water-colours. Rachel readily accepted--in fact,
this quiet month had been so full of restoration that she had almost
forgotten her morbid shrinking from visitors; and Bessie infused into
her praise and congratulations a hint that a refusal would have been
much against Alick's reputation, so that she resolved to keep up to
the mark, even though he took care that she should know that she
might yet retract.

"You did not wish me to refuse, Alick," said she, struck by his grave
countenance, when she found him lying on the slope of the lawn
shortly after, in deep thought.

"No, not at all," he replied; "it is likely to be a pleasant affair,
and my uncle will be delighted to have us with him. No," he added,
seeing that she still looked at him inquisitively, "it is the old
story. My sister! Poor little thing! I always feel as though I
wore more unkind and unjust to her than any one else, and yet we are
never together without my feeling as if she was deceiving herself and
me; and yet it is all so fair and well reasoned that one is always
left in the wrong. I regretted this marriage extremely at first, and
I am not the less disposed to regret it now."

"Indeed! Every one says how attentive she is to him, and how nicely
they go on together."

"Pshaw, Rachel! that is just the way. A few words and pretty ways
pass with her and all the world for attention, when she is wherever
her fancy calls her, all for his good. It is just the attention she
showed my uncle. And now it is her will and pleasure to queen it
here among her old friends, and she will not open her eyes to see the
poor old man's precarious state."

"Do you think him so very ill, Alick?"

"I was shocked when I saw him yesterday. As to sciatica, that is all
nonsense; the blow in his side has done some serious damage, and if
it is not well looked-to, who knows what will be the end of it! And
then, a gay young widow with no control over her--I hate to think of
it."

"Indeed," said Rachel, "she is so warm and bright, and really earnest
in her kindness, that she will be sure to see her own way right at
home. I don't think we can guess how obstinate Lord Keith may be in
refusing to take advice."

"He cut me off pretty short," said Alick. "I am afraid he will see
no one here; and, as Bessie says, the move to Scotland would not be
easy just now. As I said, she leaves one in the wrong, and I don't
like the future. But it is of no use to talk of it; so let us come
and see if my uncle wants to go anywhere."

It was Alick's fate never to meet with sympathy in his feeling of his
sister's double-mindedness. Whether it were that he was mistaken, or
that she really had the gift of sincerity for the moment in whatever
she was saying, the most candid and transparent people in the world--
his uncle and his wife--never even succeeded in understanding his
dissatisfaction with Bessie's doings, but always received them at her
own valuation. Even while he had been looking forward, with hope
deferred, to her residence with him as the greatest solace the world
could yet afford him, Mr. Clare had always been convinced that her
constant absence from his Rectory, except when his grand neighbours
were at home, had been unavoidable, and had always credited the
outward tokens of zealous devotion to his church and parish, and to
all that was useful or good elsewhere. In effect there was a charm
about her which no one but her brother ever resisted, and even he
held out by an exertion that made him often appear ungracious.

However, for the present the uneasiness was set aside, in the daily
avocations of the Rectory, where Alick was always a very different
person from what he appeared in Lady Temple's drawing-room,
constantly engaged as he was by unobtrusive watchfulness over his
uncle, and active and alert in this service in a manner that was a
curious contrast to his ordinary sauntering ways. As to Rachel, the
whole state of existence was still a happy dream. She floated on
from day to day in the tranquil activity of the Rectory, without
daring to look back on the past or to think out her present frame of
mind; it was only the languor and rest of recovery after suffering,
and her husband was heedfully watching her, fearing the experiment of
the croquet party, though on many accounts feeling the necessity of
its being made.

Ermine's hint, that with Rachel it rested to prevent her unpopularity
from injuring her husband, had not been thrown away, and she never
manifested any shrinking from the party, and even took some interest
in arraying herself for it.

"That is what I call well turned out," exclaimed Alick, when she came
down.

"Describe her dress, if you please," said Mr. Clare, "I like to hear
how my nieces look."

Alick guided his hand. "There, stroke it down, a long white feather
in a shady hat trimmed with dark green, velvet; she is fresh and
rosy, you know, sir, and looks well in green, and then, is it Grace's
taste, Rachel? for it is the prettiest thing you have worn--a pale
buff sort of silky thing, embroidered all over in the same colour,"
and he put a fold of the dress into his uncle's hand.

"Indian, surely," said Mr. Clare, feeling the pattern, "it is too
intricate and graceful for the West."

"Yes," said Alick, "I remember now, Grace showed it to me. It was
one that Lady Temple brought from India, and never had made up. Poor
Grace could get no sympathy from Rachel about the wedding clothes, so
she was obliged to come to me."

"And I thought you did not know one of my things from another," said
Rachel. "Do you really mean that you care?"

"Depend upon it, he does, my dear," said Mr. Clare. "I have heard
him severely critical on his cousins."

"He has been very good in not tormenting me," said Rachel, nestling
nearer to him.

"I apprehended the consequences," said Alick, "and besides, you never
mounted that black lace pall, or curtain, or whatever you call it,
upon your head, after your first attempt at frightening me away with
it."

"A cap set against, instead of at," said Mr. Clare, laughing; and
therewith his old horse was heard clattering in the yard, and Alick
proceeded to drive the well-used phaeton about three miles through
Earlsworthy Park, to a pleasant-looking demesne in the village
beyond. As they were turning in at the gate, up came Lady Keith with
her two brisk little Shetlands. She was one mass of pretty, fresh,
fluttering blue and white muslin, ribbon, and lace, and looked
particularly well and brilliant.

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