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Anthony Trollope - "The Courtship of Susan Bell"

Frank Preston Stearns - "Sketches from Concord and Appledore"

George Meredith - "Lord Ormont and his Aminta, v5"

Samuel Pepys - "Diary of Samuel Pepys, December 1666"

THE CLEVER WOMAN OF THE FAMILY

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




"But I don't play all alone," said Rose; "I play with you, Aunt
Ermine, and with Violetta."

And Violetta speedily had the honour of an introduction, very
solemnly gone through, in due form; Ermine, in the languid
sportiveness of enjoyment of his presence and his kindness to the
child, inciting Rose to present Miss Violetta Williams to Colonel
Keith, an introduction that he returned with a grand military salute,
at the same time as he shook the doll's inseparable fingers. "Well,
Miss Violetta, and Miss Rose, when you come to live with me, I shall
hope for the pleasure of teaching you to make a noise."

"What does he mean?" said Rose, turning round amazed upon her aunt.

"I am afraid he does not quite know," said Ermine, sadly.

"Nay, Ermine," said he, turning from the child, and bending over her,
"you are the last who should say that. Have I not told you that
there is nothing now in our way--no one with a right to object, and
means enough for all we should wish, including her--? What is the
matter?" he added, startled by her look.

"Ah, Colin! I thought you knew--"

"Knew what, Ermine?" with his brows drawn together.

"Knew--what I am," she said; "knew the impossibility. What, they
have not told you? I thought I was the invalid, the cripple, with
every one."

"I knew you had suffered cruelly; I knew you were lame," he said,
breathlessly; "but--what--"

"It is more than lame," she said. "I should be better off if the
fiction of the Queens of Spain were truth with me. I could not move
from this chair without help. Oh, Colin! poor Colin! it was very
cruel not to have prepared you for this!" she added, as he gazed at
her in grief and dismay, and made a vain attempt to find the voice
that would not come. "Yes, indeed it is so," she said; "the
explosion, rather than the fire, did mischief below the knee that
poor nature could not repair, and I can but just stand, and cannot
walk at all."

"Has anything been done--advice?" he murmured.

"Advice upon advice, so that I felt at the last almost a compensation
to be out of the way of the doctors. No, nothing more can be done;
and now that one is used to it, the snail is very comfortable in its
shell. But I wish you could have known it sooner!" she added, seeing
him shade his brow with his hand, overwhelmed.

"What you must have suffered!" he murmured.

"That is all over long ago; every year has left that further behind,
and made me more content. Dear Colin, for me there is nothing to
grieve."

He could not control himself, rose up, made a long stride, and passed
through the open window into the garden.

"Oh, if I could only follow him," gasped Ermine, joining her hands
and looking up.

"Is it because you can't walk?" said Rose, somewhat frightened, and
for the first time beginning to comprehend that her joyous-tempered
aunt could be a subject for pity.

"Oh! this was what I feared!" sighed Ermine. "Oh, give us strength
to go through with it." Then becoming awake to the child's presence
--"A little water, if you please, my dear." Then, more composedly,
"Don't be frightened, my Rose; you did not know it was such a shock
to find me so laid by--"

"He is in the garden walking up and down," said Rose. "May I go and
tell him how much merrier you always are than Aunt Ailie?"

Poor Ermine felt anything but merry just then, but she had some
experience of Rose's powers of soothing, and signed assent. So in
another second Colonel Keith was met in the hasty, agonized walk by
which he was endeavouring to work off his agitation, and the slender
child looked wistfully up at him from dark depths of half
understanding eyes--"Please, please don't be so very sorry," she
said. "Aunt Ermine does not like it. She never is sorry for
herself--"

"Have I shaken her--distressed her?" he asked, anxiously.

"She doesn't like you to be sorry," said Rose, looking up. "And,
indeed, she does not mind it; she is such a merry aunt! Please, come
in again, and see how happy we always are--"

The last words were spoken so near the window that Ermine caught
them, and said, "Yes, come in, Colin, and learn not to grieve for me,
or you will make me repent of my selfish gladness yesterday."

"Not grieve!" he exclaimed, "when I think of the beautiful vigorous
being that used to be the life of the place--" and he would have said
more but for a deprecating sign of the hand.

"Well," she said, half smiling, "it is a pity to think even of a
crushed butterfly; but indeed, Colin, if you can bear to listen to
me, I think I can show you that it all has been a blessing even by
sight, as well as, of course, by faith. Only remember the
unsatisfactoriness of our condition--the never seeing or hearing from
one another after that day when Mr. Beauchamp came down on us. Did
not the accident win for us a parting that was much better to
remember than that state of things? Oh, the pining, weary feel as if
all the world had closed on me! I do assure you it was much worse
than anything that came after the burn. Yes, if I had been well and
doing like others, I know I should have fretted and wearied, pined
myself ill perhaps, whereas I could always tell myself that every
year of your absence might be a step towards your finding me well;
and when I was forced to give up that hope for myself, why then,
Colin, the never seeing your name made me think you would never be
disappointed and grieved as you are now. It is very merciful the way
that physical trials help one through those of the mind."

"I never knew," said the Colonel; "all my aunt's latter letters spoke
of your slow improvement beyond hope."

"True, in her time, I had not reached the point where I stopped. The
last time I saw her I was still upstairs; and, indeed, I did not half
know what I could do till I tried."

"Yes," said he, brightened by that buoyant look so remarkable in her
face; "and you will yet do more, Ermine. You have convinced me that
we shall be all the happier together--"

"But that was not what I meant to convince you of--" she said,
faintly.

"Not what you meant, perhaps; but what it did convince me was, that
you--as you are, my Ermine--are ten thousand times more to me than
even as the beautiful girl, and that there never can be a happier
pair than we shall be when I am your hands and feet."

Ermine sat up, and rallied all her forces, choked back the swelling
of her throat, and said, "Dear Colin, it cannot be! I trusted you
were understanding that when I told you how it was with me."

He could not speak from consternation.

"No," she said; "it would be wrong in me to think of it for an
instant. That you should have done so, shows--O Colin, I cannot talk
of it; but it would be as ungenerous in me to consent, as it is noble
of you to propose it."

"It is no such thing," he answered; "it has been the one object and
thought of my life, the only hope I have had all these years."

"Exactly so," she said, struggling again to speak firmly; "and that
is the very thing. You kept your allegiance to the bright, tall,
walking, active girl, and it would be a shame in the scorched cripple
to claim it."

"Don't call yourself names. Have I not told you that you are more
than the same?"

"You do not know. You are pleased because my face is not burnt, nor
grown much older, and because I can talk and laugh in the same voice
still." (Oh, how it quivered!) "But it would be a wicked mockery in
me to pretend to be the wife you want. Yes, I know you think you do,
but that is just because my looks are so deceitful, and you have kept
on thinking about me; but you must make a fresh beginning."

"You can tell me that," he said, indignantly.

"Because it is not new to me," she said; "the quarter of an hour you
stood by me, with that deadly calm in your white face, was the real
farewell to the young hopeful dream of that bright summer. I wish it
was as calm now."

"I believed you dying then," answered he.

"Do not make me think it would have been better for you if I had
been," she said, imploringly. "It was as much the end, and I knew it
from the time my recovery stopped short. I would have let you know
if I could, and then you would not have been so much shocked."

"So as to cut me off from you entirely?"

"No, indeed. The thought of seeing you again was too--too
overwhelming to be indulged in; knowing, as I did, that if you were
the same to me, it must be at this sad cost to you," and her eyes
filled with tears.

"It is you who make it so, Ermine."

"No; it is the providence that has set me aside from the active work
of life. Pray do not go on, Colin, it is only giving us both useless
pain. You do not know what it costs me to deny you, and I feel that
I must. I know you are only acting on the impulse of generosity.
Yes, I will say so, though you think it is to please yourself," she
added, with one of those smiles that nothing could drive far from her
lips, and which made it infinitely harder to acquiesce in her denial.

"I will make you think so in time," he said. "Then I might tell you,
you had no right to please yourself," she answered, still with the
same air of playfulness; "you have got a brother, you know--and--yes,
I hear you growl; but if he is a poor old broken man out of health,
it is the more reason you should not vex him, nor hamper yourself
with a helpless commodity."

"You are not taking the way to make me forget what my brother has
done for us."

"How do you know that he did not save me from being a strong-minded
military lady! After all, it was absurd to expect people to look
favourably on our liking for one another, and you know they could not
be expected to know that there was real stuff in the affair. If
there had not been, we should have thought so all the same, you know,
and been quite as furious."

He could not help smiling, recollecting fury that, in the course of
these twelve years, he had seen evinced under similar circumstances
by persons who had consoled themselves before he had done pitying
them. "Still," he said gravely, "I think there was harshness."

"So do I, but not so much as I thought at that time, and--oh, surely
that is not Rachel Curtis? I told her I thought you would call."

"Intolerable!" he muttered between his teeth. "Is she always coming
to bore you?"

"She has been very kind, and my great enlivenment," said Ermine, "and
she can't be expected to know how little we want her. Oh, there, the
danger is averted! She must have asked if you were here."

"I was just thinking that she was the chief objection to Lady
Temple's kind wish of having you at Myrtlewood."

"Does Lady Temple know?" asked Ermine, blushing.

"I could not keep it from one who has been so uniformly kind to me;
but I desired her not to let it go further till I should hear your
wishes."

"Yes, she has a right to know," said Ermine; "but please, not a word
elsewhere."

"And will you not come to stay with her?"

"I? Oh, no; I am fit for no place but this. You don't half know how
bad I am. When you have seen a little more of us, you will be quite
convinced."

"Well, at least, you give me leave to come here."

"Leave? When it is a greater pleasure than I ever thought to have
again; that is, while you understand that you said good-bye to the
Ermine of Beauchamp Parsonage twelve years ago, and that the thing
here is only a sort of ghost, most glad and grateful to be a friend--
a sister."

"So," he said, "those are to be the terms of my admission."

"The only possible ones."

"I will consider them. I have not accepted them."

"You will," she said.

But she met a smile in return, implying that there might be a will as
steadfast as her own, although the question might be waived for a
time.

Meantime, Rachel was as nearly hating Colonel Keith as principle
would allow, with "Human Reeds," newly finished, burning in her
pocket, "Military Society" fermenting in her brain, and "Curatocult"
still unacknowledged. Had he not had quite time for any rational
visit? Was he to devour Mackarel Lane as well as Myrtlewood? She
was on her way to the latter house, meeting Grace as she went, and
congratulating herself that he could not be in two places at once,
whilst Grace secretly wondered how far she might venture to build on
Alison Williams's half confidence, and regretted the anxiety wasted
by Rachel and the mother; though, to be sure, that of Mrs. Curtis was
less uncalled for than her daughter's, since it was only the fear of
Fanny's not being sufficiently guarded against misconstructions.

Rachel held up her hands in despair in the hall. "Six officers'
cards!" she exclaimed.

"No, only six cards," said Grace; "there are two of each."

"That's enough," sighed Rachel; "and look there," gazing through the
garden-door. "She is walking with the young puppy that dined here on
Thursday, and they called Alick."

"Do you remember," said Grace, "how she used to chatter about Alick,
when she first came to us, at six years old. He was the child of one
of the officers. Can this be the same?"

"That's one of your ideas, Grace. Look, this youth could have been
hardly born when Fanny came to us. No; he is only one of the idlers
that military life has accustomed her to."

Rather against Grace's feeling, Rachel drew her on, so as to come up
with Lady Temple and her friend in the midst of their conversation,
and they heard the last words--

"Then you will give me dear Bessie's direction?"

"Thank you, it will be the greatest kindness--"

"Oh, Grace, Rachel, is it you?" exclaimed Fanny. "You have not met
before, I think. Mr. Keith--Miss Curtis."

Very young indeed were both face and figure, fair and pale, and
though there was a moustache, it was so light and silky as to be
scarcely visible; the hair, too, was almost flaxen, and the whole
complexion had a washed-out appearance. The eyes, indeed, were of
the same peculiar deep blue as the Colonel's, but even these were
little seen under their heavy sleepy lids, and the long limbs had in
every movement something of weight and slowness, the very sight of
which fretted Rachel, and made her long to shake him. It appeared
that he was come to spend the Sunday at Avonmouth, and Grace tried to
extract the comfort for her mother that two gentlemen were better
than one, and Fanny need not be on their minds for chaperonage for
that day.

A party of garden-chairs on the lawn invited repose, and there the
ladies seated themselves; Fanny laying down her heavy crape bonnet,
and showing her pretty little delicate face, now much fresher and
more roseate than when she arrived, though her wide-spreading black
draperies gave a certain dignity to her slight figure, contrasting
with the summer muslins of her two cousins; as did her hot-house
plant fairness, with their firm, healthy glow of complexion; her
tender shrinking grace, with their upright vigour. The gentleman of
the party leant hack in a languid, easy posture, as though only half
awake, and the whole was so quiet that Grace, missing the usual
tumult of children, asked after them.

"The boys have gone to their favourite cove under the plantation.
They have a fort there, and Hubert told me he was to be a hero, and
Miss Williams a she-ro."

"I would not encourage that description of sport," said Rachel,
willing to fight a battle in order to avert maternal anecdotes of
boyish sayings.

"They like it so much," said Fanny, "and they learn so much now that
they act all the battles they read about."

"That is what I object to," said Rachel; "it is accustoming them to
confound heroism with pugnacity."

"No, but Rachel dear, they do quarrel and fight among themselves much
less now that this is all in play and good humour," pleaded Fanny.

"Yes, that may be, but you are cultivating the dangerous instinct,
although for a moment giving it a better direction."

"Dangerous? Oh, Alick! do you think it can be?" said Fanny, less
easily borne down with a supporter beside her.

"According to the Peace Society," he answered, with a quiet air of
courteous deference; "perhaps you belong to it?"

"No, indeed," answered Rachel, rather indignantly, "I think war the
great purifier and ennobler of nations, when it is for a good and
great cause; but I think education ought to protest against
confounding mere love of combat with heroism."

"Query, the true meaning of the word?" he said, leaning back.

"Heros, yes from the same root as the German herr," readily responded
Rachel, "meaning no more than lord and master; but there can be no
doubt that the progress of ideas has linked with it a much nobler
association."

"Progress! What, since the heroes were half divine!"

"Half divine in the esteem of a people who thought brute courage
godlike. To us the word maintains its semi-divinity, and it should
be our effort to associate it only with that which veritably has the
god-like stamp."

"And that is--?"

"Doing more than one's duty," exclaimed Rachel, with a glistening
eye.

"Very uncomfortable and superfluous, and not at all easy," he said,
half shutting his already heavy eyes.

"Easy, no, that's the beauty and the glory--"

"Major Sherborne and Captain Lester in the drawing room, my lady,"
announced Coombe, who had looked infinitely cheered since this
military influx.

"You will come with me, Grace," said Fanny, rising. "I dare say you
had rather not, Rachel, and it would be a pity to disturb you,
Alick."

"Thank you; it would be decidedly more than my duty."

"I am quite sorry to go, you are so amusing," said Fanny, "but I
suppose you will have settled about heroism by the time we come out
again, and will tell me what the boys ought to play at."

Rachel's age was quite past the need of troubling herself at being
left tete-a-tete with a mere lad like this; and, besides, it was an
opportunity not to be neglected of giving a young carpet knight a
lesson in true heroism. There was a pause after the other two had
moved off. Rachel reflected for a few moments, and then,
precipitated by the fear of her audience falling asleep, she
exclaimed--

"No words have been more basely misused than hero and heroine. The
one is the mere fighting animal whose strength or fortune have borne
him through some more than ordinary danger, the other is only the
subject of an adventure, perfectly irrespective of her conduct in
it."

"Bathos attends all high words," he said, as she paused, chiefly to
see whether he was awake, and not like her dumb playfellow of old.

"This is not their natural bathos but their misuse. They ought to be
reserved for those who in any department have passed the limits to
which the necessity of their position constrained them, and done acts
of self-devotion for the good of others. I will give you an
instance, and from your own profession, that you may see I am not
prejudiced, besides, the hero of it is past praise or blame."

Encouraged by seeing a little more of his eyes, she went on. "It was
in the course of the siege of Delhi, a shell came into a tent where
some sick and wounded were lying. There was one young officer among
them who could move enough to have had a chance of escaping the
explosion, but instead of that he took the shell up, its fuse burning
as it was, and ran with it out of the tent, then hurled it to a
distance. It exploded, and of course was his death, but the rest
were saved, and I call that a deed of heroism far greater than
mounting a breach or leading a forlorn hope."

"Killed, you say?" inquired Mr. Keith, still in the same lethargic
manner.

"Oh yes, mortally wounded: carried back to die among the men he had
saved."

"Jessie Cameron singing his dirge," mumbled this provoking
individual, with something about the form of his cheek that being
taken by Rachel for a derisive smile, made her exclaim vehemently,
"You do not mean to undervalue an action like that in comparison with
mere animal pugnacity in an advance."

"More than one's duty was your test," he said.

"And was not this more than duty? Ah! I see yours is a spirit of
depreciation, and I can only say I pity you."

He took the trouble to lift himself up and make a little bow of
acknowledgment. Certainly he was worse than the Colonel; but Rachel,
while mustering her powers for annihilating him, was annoyed by all
the party in the drawing-room coming forth to join them, the other
officers rallying young Keith upon his luxurious station, and making
it evident that he was a proverb in the regiment for taking his ease.
Chairs were brought out, and afternoon tea, and the callers sat down
to wait for Colonel Keith to come in; Grace feeling obliged to stay
to help Fanny entertain her visitors, and Rachel to protect her from
their follies. One thing Grace began to perceive, that Lady Temple
had in her former world been a person of much more consideration than
she was made here, and seeing the polite and deferential manner of
these officers to her, could only wonder at her gentle content and
submission in meeting with no particular attention from anybody, and
meekly allowing herself to be browbeaten by Rachel and lectured by
her aunt.

A lecture was brewing up for her indeed. Poor Mrs. Curtis was very
much concerned at the necessity, and only spurred up by a strong
sense of duty to give a hint--the study of which hint cost her a
whole sleepless night and a very weary Sunday morning. She decided
that her best course would be to drive to Myrtlewood rather early on
her way to church, and take up Fanny, gaining a previous conference
with her alone, if possible. "Yes, my dear," she said to Grace, "I
must get it over before church, or it will make me so nervous all
through the service." And Grace, loving her mother best, durst not
suggest what it might do to Fanny, hoping that the service might help
her to digest the hint.

Mrs. Curtis's regular habits were a good deal shocked to find Fanny
still at the breakfast table. The children had indeed long finished,
and were scattered about the room, one of them standing between
Colonel Keith's knees, repeating a hymn; but the younger guest was
still in the midst of his meal, and owned in his usual cool manner
that he was to blame for the lateness, there was no resisting the
charms of no morning parade.

Her aunt's appearance made Fanny imagine it much later than it really
was, and she hurried off the children to be dressed, and proceeded
herself to her room, Mrs. Curtis following, and by way of
preliminary, asking when Colonel Keith was going to Ireland.

"Oh!" said Fanny, blushing most suspiciously under her secret, "he is
not going to Ireland now."

"Indeed! I quite understood he intended it."

"Yes," faltered Fanny, "but he found that he need not."

"Indeed!" again ejaculated poor perplexed Mrs. Curtis; "but then, at
least, he is going away soon."

"He must go to Scotland by-and-by, but for the present he is going
into lodgings. Do you know of any nice ones, dear aunt?"

"Well, I suppose you can't help that; you know, my dear, it would
never do for him to stay in this house."

"I never thought of that," said Fanny simply, the colour coming in a
fresh glow.

"No, my dear, but you see you are very young and inexperienced. I do
not say you have done anything the least amiss, or that you ever
would mean it, only you will forgive your old aunt for putting you on
your guard."

Fanny kissed her, but with eyes full of tears, and cheeks burning,
then her candour drew from her--"It was he that thought of getting a
lodging. I am glad I did not persuade him not; but you know he
always did live with us."

"With us. Yes, my poor dear, that is the difference, and you see he
feels it. But, indeed, my dear child, though he is a very good man,
I dare say, and quite a gentleman all but his beard, you had better
not encourage-- You know people are so apt to make remarks."

"I have no fear," said Fanny, turning away her head, conscious of the
impossibility of showing her aunt her mistake.

"Ah! my dear, you don't guess how ready people are to talk; and you
would not like--for your children's sake, for your husband's sake--
that--that--"

"Pray, pray aunt," cried Fanny, much pained, "indeed you don't know.
My husband had confidence in him more than in any one. He told him
to take care of me and look after the boys. I couldn't hold aloof
from him without transgressing those wishes"--and the words were lost
in a sob.

"My dear, indeed I did not mean to distress you. You know, I dare
say--I mean--" hesitated poor Mrs. Curtis. "I know you must see a
great deal of him. I only want you to take care--appearances are
appearances, and if it was said you had all these young officers
always coming about--"

"I don't think they will come. It was only just to call, and they
have known me so long. It is all out of respect to my father and Sir
Stephen," said Fanny, meekly as ever. "Indeed, I would not for the
world do anything you did not like, dear aunt; but there can't be any
objection to my having Mrs. Hammond and the children to spend the day
to-morrow."

Mrs. Curtis did not like it; she had an idea that all military ladies
were dashing and vulgar, but she could not say there was any
objection, so she went on to the head of poor Fanny's offending.
"This young man, my dear, he seems to make himself very intimate."

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