The Clever Woman of the Family

Ermine laughed and looked interested, not quite knowing what other answer to make. Rachel lifted up her eyebrows in amazement.

“Another advantage,” added Alick, who somehow seemed to accept Ermine as one of the family, “is, that he is no impediment to Bessie’s living there, for, poor man, he has a wife, but insane.”

“Then your sister will live there?” said Rachel. “What an enviable position, to have the control of means of doing good that always falls to the women of a clerical family.”

“Tell her so,” said the brother, with his odd, suppressed smile.

“What, she does not think so?”

“Now,” said Mr. Keith, leaning back, “on my answer depends whether Bessie enters this place with a character for chanting, croquet, or crochet. Which should you like worst, Miss Curtis?”

“I like evasions worst of all,” said Rachel, with a flash of something like playful spirit, though there was too much asperity in it.

“But you see, unfortunately, I don’t know,” said Alick Keith, slowly. “I have never been able to find out, nor she either. I don’t know what may be the effect of example,” he added. Ermine wondered whether he were in mischief or earnest, and suspected a little of both.

“I shall be very happy to show Miss Keith any of my ways,” said Rachel, with no doubts at all; “but she will find me terribly impeded here. When does she come?”

“Not for a month or six weeks, when the wedding will be over. It is high time she saw something of her respected guardian.”

“The Colonel?”

“Yes,” then to Ermine, “Every one turns to him with reliance and confidence. I believe no one in the army received so many last charges as he has done, or executes them more fully.”

“And,” said Ermine, feeling pleasure colour her cheek more deeply than was convenient, “you are relations.”

“So far away that only a Scotsman would acknowledge the cousinship.”

“But do not you call yourself Scotch?” said Ermine, who had for years thought it glorious to do so.

“My great grandfather came from Gowan-brae,” said Alick, “but our branch of the family has lived and died in the —th Highlanders for so many generations that we don’t know what a home is out of it. Our birthplaces—yes, and our graves—are in all parts of the world.”

“Were you ever in Scotland?”

“Never; and I dread nothing so much as being quartered there. Just imagine the trouble it would be to go over the pedigree of every Keith I met, and to dine with them all upon haggis and sheeps’ head!”

“There’s no place I want to sea as much as Scotland,” said Rachel.

“Oh, yes! young ladies always do.”

“It is not for a young lady reason,” said Rachel, bluntly. “I want to understand the principle of diffused education, as there practised. The only other places I should really care to see are the Grand Reformatory for the Destitute in Holland, and the Hospital for Cretins in Switzerland.”

“Scotch pedants, Dutch thieves, Swiss goitres—I will bear your tastes in mind,” said Mr. Keith, rising to take leave.

“Really,” said Rachel, when he was gone, “if he had not that silly military tone of joking, there might be something tolerable about him if he got into good hands. He seems to have some good notions about his sister. She must be just out of the school-room, at the very turn of life, and I will try to get her into my training and show her a little of the real beauty and usefulness of the career she has before her. How late he has stayed! I am afraid there is no time for the manuscripts.”

And though Ermine was too honest to say she was sorry, Rachel did not miss the regret.

Colonel Keith came the next day, and under his arm was a parcel, which was laid in little Rose’s arms, and, when unrolled, proved to contain a magnificent wax doll, no doubt long the object of unrequited attachment to many a little Avoncestrian, a creature of beauteous and unmeaning face, limpid eyes, hair that could be brushed, and all her members waxen, as far as could be seen below the provisional habiliment of pink paper that enveloped her. Little Rose’s complexion became crimson, and she did not utter a word, while her aunt, colouring almost as much, laughed and asked where were her thanks.

“Oh!” with a long gasp, “it can’t be for me!”

“Do you think it is for your aunt?” said the Colonel.

“Oh, thank you! But such a beautiful creature for me!” said Rose, with another gasp, quite oppressed. “Aunt Ermine, how shall I ever make her clothes nice enough?”

“We will see about that, my dear. Now take her into the verandah and introduce her to Violetta.”

“Yes;” then pausing and looking into the fixed eyes, “Aunt Ermine, I never saw such a beauty, except that one the little girl left behind on the bench on the esplanade, when Aunt Ailie said I should he coveting if I went on wishing Violetta was like her.”

“I remember,” said Ermine, “I have heard enough of that ‘ne plus ultra’ of doll! Indeed, Colin, you have given a great deal of pleasure, where the materials of pleasure are few. No one can guess the delight a doll is to a solitary imaginative child.”

“Thank you,” he said, smiling.

“I believe I shall enjoy it as much as Rose,” added Ermine, “both for play and as a study. Please turn my chair a little this way, I want to see the introduction to Violetta. Here comes the beauty, in Rose’s own cloak.”

Colonel Keith leant over the back of her chair and silently watched, but the scene was not quite what they expected. Violetta was sitting in her “slantingdicular” position on her chair placed on a bench, and her little mistress knelt down before her, took her in her arms, and began to hug her.

“Violetta, darling, you need not be afraid! There is a new beautiful creature come, and I shall call her Colinette, and we must be very kind to her, because Colonel Keith is so good, and knows your grandpapa; and to tell you a great secret, Violetta, that you must not tell Colinette or anybody, I think he is Aunt Ermine’s own true knight.”

“Hush!” whispered the Colonel, over Ermine’s head, as he perceived her about to speak.

“So you must be very good to her, Violetta, and you shall help me make her clothes; but you need not be afraid I ever could love any one half or one quarter as much as you, my own dear child, not if she were ten times as beautiful, and so come and show her to Augustus. She’ll never be like you, dear old darling.”

“It is a study,” said the Colonel, as Rose moved off with a doll in either hand; “a moral that you should take home.”

Ermine shook her head, but smiled, saying, “Tell me, does your young cousin know—”

“Alick Keith! Not from me, and Lady Temple is perfectly to be trusted; but I believe his father knew it was for no worse reason that I was made to exchange. But never mind, Ermine, he is a very good fellow, and what is the use of making a secret of what even Violetta knows?”

There was no debating the point, for her desire of secrecy was prompted by the resolution to leave him unbound, whereas his wish for publicity was with the purpose of binding himself, and Ermine was determined that discussion was above all to be avoided, and that she would, after the first explanation, keep the conversation upon other subjects. So she only answered with another reproving look and smile, and said, “And now I am going to make you useful. The editor of the ‘Traveller’ is travelling, and has left his work to me. I have been keeping some letters for him to answer in his own hand, because mine betrays womanhood; but I have just heard that he is to stay about six weeks more, and people must be put out of their misery before that. Will you copy a few for me? Here is some paper with the office stamp.”

“What an important woman you are, Ermine.”

“If you had been in England all this time, you would see how easy the step is into literary work; but you must not betray this for the ‘Traveller’s’ sake or Ailie’s.”

“Your writing is not very womanish,” said the colonel, as she gave him his task. “Or is this yours? It is not like that of those verses on Malvern hills that you copied out for me, the only thing you ever gave me.”

“I hope it is more to the purpose than it was then, and it has had to learn to write in all sorts of attitudes.”

“What’s this?” as he went on with the paper; “your manuscript entitled ‘Curatocult.’ Is that the word? I had taken it for the produce of Miss Curtis’s unassisted genius.”

“Have you heard her use it!” said Ermine, disconcerted, having by no means intended to betray Rachel.

“Oh yes! I heard her declaiming on Sunday about what she knows no more about than Conrade! A detestable, pragmatical, domineering girl! I am thankful that I advised Lady Temple only to take the house for a year. It was right she should see her relations, but she must not be tyrannized over.”

“I don’t believe she dislikes it.”

“She dislikes no one! She used to profess a liking for a huge Irishwoman, whose husband had risen from the ranks; the most tremendous woman I ever saw, except Miss Curtis.”

“You know they were brought up together like sisters.”

“All the worse, for she has the habit of passive submission. If it were the mother it would be all right, and I should be thankful to see her in good keeping, but the mother and sister go for nothing, and down comes this girl to battle every suggestion with principles picked up from every catchpenny periodical, things she does not half understand, and enunciates as if no one had even heard of them before.”

“I believe she seldom meets any one who has. I mean to whom they are matters of thought. I really do like her vigour and earnestness.”

“Don’t say so, Ermine! One reason why she is so intolerable to me is that she is a grotesque caricature of what you used to be.”

“You have hit it! I see why I always liked her, besides that it is pleasant to have any sort of visit, and a good scrimmage is refreshing; she is just what I should have been without papa and Edward to keep me down, and without the civilizing atmosphere at the park.”

“Never.”

“No, I was not her equal in energy and beneficence, and I was younger when you came. But I feel for her longing to be up and doing, and her puzzled chafing against constraint and conventionality, though it breaks out in very odd effervescences.”

“Extremely generous of you when you must be bored to death with her interminable talk.”

“You don’t appreciate the pleasure of variety! Besides, she really interests me, she is so full of vigorous crudities. I believe all that is unpleasing in her arises from her being considered as the clever woman of the family; having no man nearly connected enough to keep her in check, and living in society that does not fairly meet her. I want you to talk to her, and take her in hand.”

“Me! Thank you, Ermine! Why, I could not even stand her talking about you, though she has the one grace of valuing you.”

“Then you ought, in common gratitude, for there is no little greatness of soul in patiently coming down to Mackarel Lane to be snubbed by one’s cousin’s governess’s sister.”

“If you will come up to Myrtlewood, you don’t know what you may do.”

“No, you are to set no more people upon me, though Lady Temple’s eyes are very wistful.”

“I did not think you would have held out against her.”

“Not when I had against you? No, indeed, though I never did see anybody more winning than she is in that meek, submissive gentleness! Alison says she has cheered up and grown like another creature since your arrival.”

“And Alexander Keith’s. Yes, poor thing, we have brought something of her own old world, where she was a sort of little queen in her way. It is too much to ask me to have patience with these relations, Ermine. If you could see the change from the petted creature she was with her mother and husband, almost always the first lady in the place, and latterly with a colonial court of her own, and now, ordered about, advised, domineered over, made nobody of, and taking it as meekly and sweetly as if she were grateful for it! I verily believe she is! But she certainly ought to come away.”

“I am not so sure of that. It seems to me rather a dangerous responsibility to take her away from her own relations, unless there were any with equal claims.”

“They are her only relations, and her husband had none. Still to be under the constant yoke of an overpowering woman with unfixed opinions seems to be an unmitigated evil for her and her boys; and no one’s feelings need be hurt by her fixing herself near some public school for her sons’ education. However, she is settled for this year, and at the end we may decide.”

With which words he again applied himself to Ermine’s correspondence, and presently completed the letter, offering to direct the envelope, which she refused, as having one already directed by the author. He rather mischievously begged to see it that he might judge of the character of the writing, but this she resisted.

However, in four days’ time there was a very comical twinkle in his eye, as he informed her that the new number of the “Traveller” was in no favour at the Homestead, “there was such a want of original thought in it.” Ermine felt her imprudence in having risked the betrayal, but all she did was to look at him with her full, steady eyes, and a little twist in each corner of her mouth, as she said, “Indeed! Then we had better enliven it with the recollections of a military secretary,” and he was both convinced of what he guessed, and also that she did not think it right to tell him; “But,” he said, “there is something in that girl, I perceive, Ermine; she does think for herself, and if she were not so dreadfully earnest that she can’t smile, she would be the best company of any of the party.”

“I am so glad you think so! I shall be delighted if you will really talk to her, and help her to argue out some of her crudities. Indeed she is worth it. But I suppose you will hardly stay here long enough to do her any good.”

“What, are you going to order me away?”

“I thought your brother wanted you at home.”

“It is all very well to talk of an ancestral home, but when it consists of a tall, slim house, with blank walls and pepper-box turrets, set down on a bleak hill side, and every one gone that made it once a happy place, it is not attractive. Moreover, my only use there would be to be kept as a tame heir, the person whose interference would be most resented, and I don’t recognise that duty.”

“You are a gentleman at large, with no obvious duty,” said Ermine, meditatively.

“What, none?” bending his head, and looking earnestly at her.

“Oh, if you come here out of duty—” she said archly, and with her merry laugh. “There, is not that a nice occasion for picking a quarrel? And seriously,” she continued, “perhaps it might be good for you if we did. I am beginning to fear that I ought not to keep you lingering here without purpose or occupation.”

“Fulfil my purpose, and I will find occupation.”

“Don’t say that.”

“This once, Ermine. For one year I shall wait in the hope of convincing you. If you do not change, your mind in that time, I shall look for another staff appointment, to last till Rose is ready for me.”

The gravity of this conclusion made Ermine laugh. “That’s what you learnt of your chief,” she said.

“There would be less difference in age,” he said. “Though I own I should like my widow to be less helpless than poor little Lady Temple. So,” he added, with the same face of ridiculous earnest, “if you continue to reject me yourself, you will at least rear her with an especial view to her efficiency in that capacity.”

And as Rose at that critical moment looked in at the window, eager to be encouraged to come and show Colinette’s successful toilette, he drew her to him with the smile that had won her whole heart, and listening to every little bit of honesty about “my work” and “Aunt Ermine’s work,” he told her that he knew she was a very managing domestic character, perfectly equal to the charge of both young ladies.

“Aunt Ermine says I must learn to manage, because some day I shall have to take care of papa.”

“Yes,” with his eyes on Ermine all the while, “learn to be a useful woman; who knows if we shan’t all depend on you by-and-by?”

“Oh do let me be useful to you,” cried Rose; “I could hem all your handkerchiefs, and make you a kettle-holder.”

Ermine had never esteemed him more highly than when he refrained from all but a droll look, and uttered not one word of the sportive courtship that is so peculiarly unwholesome and undesirable with children. Perhaps she thought her colonel more a gentleman than she had done before, if that were possible; and she took an odd, quaint pleasure in the idea of this match, often when talking to Alison of her views of life and education, putting them in the form of what would become of Rose as Lady Keith; and Colin kept his promise of making no more references to the future. On moving into his lodgings, the hour for his visits was changed, and unless he went out to dinner, he usually came in the evening, thus attracting less notice, and moreover rendering it less easy to lapse into the tender subject, as Alison was then at home, and the conversation was necessarily more general.

The afternoons were spent in Lady Temple’s service. Instead of the orthodox dowager britchska and pair, ruled over by a tyrannical coachman, he had provided her with a herd of little animals for harness or saddle, and a young groom, for whom Coombe was answerable. Mrs. Curtis groaned and feared the establishment would look flighty; but for the first time Rachel became the colonel’s ally. “The worst despotism practised in England,” she said, “is that of coachmen, and it is well that Fanny should be spared! The coachman who lived here when mamma was married, answered her request to go a little faster, ‘I shall drive my horses as I plazes,’ and I really think the present one is rather worse in deed, though not in word.”

Moreover, Rachel smoothed down a little of Mrs. Curtis’s uneasiness at Fanny’s change of costume at the end of her first year of widowhood, on the ground that Colonel Keith advised her to ride with her sons, and that this was incompatible with weeds. “And dear Sir Stephen did so dislike the sight of them,” she added, in her simple, innocent way, as if she were still dressing to please him.

“On the whole, mother,” said Rachel, “unless there is more heart-break than Fanny professes, there’s more coquetry in a pretty young thing wearing a cap that says, ‘come pity me,’ than in going about like other people.”

“I only wish she could help looking like a girl of seventeen,” sighed Mrs. Curtis. “If that colonel were but married, or the other young man! I’m sure she will fall into some scrape; she does not know how, out of sheer innocence.”

“Well, mother, you know I always mean to ride with her, and that will be a protection.”

“But, my dear, I am not sure about your riding with these gay officers; you never used to do such things.”

“At my age, mother, and to take care of Fanny.”

And Mrs. Curtis, in her uncertainty whether to sanction the proceedings and qualify them, or to make a protest—dreadful to herself, and more dreadful to Fanny,—yielded the point when she found herself not backed up by her energetic daughter, and the cavalcade almost daily set forth from Myrtlewood, and was watched with eyes of the greatest vexation, if not by kind Mrs. Curtis, by poor Mr. Touchett, to whom Lady Temple’s change of dress had been a grievous shock. He thought her so lovely, so interesting, at first; and now, though it was sacrilege to believe it of so gentle and pensive a face, was not this a return to the world? What had she to do with these officers? How could her aunt permit it? No doubt it was all the work of his great foe, Miss Rachel.

It was true that Rachel heartily enjoyed these rides. Hitherto she had been only allowed to go out under the escort of her tyrant the coachman, who kept her in very strict discipline. She had not anticipated anything much more lively with Fanny, her boys, and ponies; but Colonel Keith had impressed on Conrade and Francis that they were their mother’s prime protectors, and they regarded her bridle-rein as their post, keeping watch over her as if her safety depended on them, and ready to quarrel with each other if the roads were too narrow for all three to go abreast. And as soon as the colonel had ascertained that she and they were quite sufficient to themselves, and well guarded by Coombe in the rear, he ceased to regard himself as bound to their company, but he and Rachel extended their rides in search of objects of interest. She liked doing the honours of the county, and achieved expeditions which her coachman had hitherto never permitted to her, in search of ruins, camps, churches, and towers. The colonel had a turn for geology, though a wandering life even with an Indian baggage-train had saved him from incurring her contempt for collectors; but he knew by sight the character of the conformations of rocks, and when they had mounted one of the hills that surrounded Avonmouth, discerned by the outline whether granite, gneiss, limestone, or slate formed the grander height beyond, thus leading to schemes of more distant rides to verify the conjectures, which Rachel accepted with the less argument, because sententious dogmatism was not always possible on the back of a skittish black mare.

There was no concealing from herself that she was more interested by this frivolous military society than by any she had ever previously met. The want of comprehension of her pursuits in her mother’s limited range of acquaintance had greatly conduced both to her over-weening manner and to her general dissatisfaction with the world, and for the first time she was neither succumbed to, giggled at, avoided, nor put down with a grave, prosy reproof. Certainly Alick Keith, as every one called him, nettled her extremely by his murmured irony, but the acuteness of it was diverting in such a mere lad, and showed that if he could only once be roused, he might be capable of better things. There was an excitement in his unexpected manner of seeing things that was engaging as well as provoking; and Rachel never felt content if he were at Myrtlewood without her seeing him, if only because she began to consider him as more dangerous than his elder namesake, and so assured of his position that he did not take any pains to assert it, or to cultivate Lady Temple’s good graces; he was simply at home and perfectly at ease with her.

Colonel Keith’s tone was different. He was argumentative where his young cousin was sarcastic. He was reading some of the books over which Rachel had strained her capacities without finding any one with whom to discuss them, since all her friends regarded them as poisonous; and even Ermine Williams, without being shaken in her steadfast trust, was so haunted and distressed in her lonely and unvaried life by the echo of these shocks to the faith of others, that absolutely as a medical precaution she abstained from dwelling on them. On the other hand Colin Keith liked to talk and argue out his impressions, and found in Rachel the only person with whom the subject could be safely broached, and thus she for the first time heard the subjects fairly handled. Hitherto she had never thought that justice was done to the argument except by a portion of the press, that drew conclusions which terrified while they allured her, whereas she appreciated the candour that weighed each argument, distinguishing principle from prejudice, and religious faith from conventional construction, and in this measurement of minds she felt the strength, and acuteness of powers superior to her own. He was not one of the men who prefer unintellectual women. Perhaps clever men, of a profession not necessarily requiring constant brain work, are not so much inclined to rest the mind with feminine empty chatter, as are those whose intellect is more on the strain. At any rate, though Colonel Keith was attentive and courteous to every one, and always treated Lady Temple as a prime minister might treat a queen, his tendency to conversation with Rachel was becoming marked, and she grew increasingly prone to consult him. The interest of this new intercourse quite took out the sting of disappointment, when again Curatocult came back, “declined with thanks.” Nay, before making a third attempt she hazarded a question on his opinion of female authorship, and much to her gratification, and somewhat to her surprise, heard that he thought it often highly useful and valuable.