The Clever Woman of the Family

“Dear Rachel, I was so very glad to hear of this,” said Ermine, bending down to kiss her.

“Were you? I thought no one could be that cared for him,” said Rachel.

“I cared more for him the week that you were ill than ever I had done before.”

“Grace tells me of that,” said Rachel, “and when he is here I believe it. But, Miss Williams, please look full at me, and tell me whether everybody would not think—I don’t say that I could do it—but if every one would not think it a great escape for him if I gave him up.”

“No one that could really judge.”

“Because, listen,” said Rachel, quickly, “the regiment is going to Scotland, and he and the mother have taken it into their heads that I shall get well faster somewhere away from home. And—and they want to have the wedding as soon as I am better; and they are going to write about settlements and all that. I have never said I would, and I don’t feel as if—as if I ought to let him do it; and if ever the thing is to be stopped at all, this is the only time.”

“But why? You do not wish—”

“Don’t talk of what I wish,” said Rachel. “Talk of what is good for him.”

Ermine was struck with the still resolute determination of judging for herself—the self-sufficiency, almost redeemed by the unselfishness, and the face was most piteously in earnest.

“My dear, surely he can be trusted to judge. He is no boy, in spite of his looks. The Colonel always says that he is as much older than his age in character as he is younger in appearance.”

“I know that,” said Rachel, “but I don’t think he ought to be trusted here; for you see,” and she looked down, “all the blindness of—of his affection is enhanced by his nobleness and generosity, and he has nobody to check or stop him; and it does seem to me a shame for us all to catch at such compassion, and encumber him with me, just because I am marked for scorn and dislike. I can’t get any one to help me look at it so. My own people would fancy it was only that I did not care for him; and he—I can’t even think about it when he is here, but I get quite distracted with doubts if it can be right whenever he goes away. And you are the only person who can help me! Bessie wrote very kindly to me, and I asked to see what she said to him. I thought I might guess her feeling from it. And he said he knew I should fancy it worse than it was if he did not let me see. It was droll, and just like her—not unkind, but I could see it is the property that makes her like it. And his uncle is blind, you know, and could only send a blessing, and kind hopes, and all that. Oh, if I could guess whether that uncle thinks he ought! What does Colonel Keith think? I know you will tell me truly.”

“He thinks,” said Ermine, with a shaken voice, “that real trustworthy affection outweighs all the world could say.”

“But he thinks it is a strange, misplaced liking, exaggerated by pity for one sunk so low?” said Rachel, in an excited manner.

“Rachel,” said Ermine, “you must take my beginning as a pledge of my speaking the whole truth. Colonel Keith is certainly not fond of you personally, and rather wonders at Alick, but he has never doubted that this is the genuine feeling that is for life, and that it is capable of making you both better and happier. Indeed, Rachel, we do both feel that you suit Alick much more than many people who have been far better liked.”

Rachel looked cheered. “Yet you,” she faltered, “you have been an instance of resolute withstanding.”

“I don’t think I shall be long,” murmured Ermine, a vivid colour flashing forth upon her cheek, and leading the question from herself. “Just suppose you did carry out this fierce act of self-abnegation, what do you think could come next?”

“I don’t know! I would not break down or die if I could help it,” added Rachel, faintly after her brave beginning.

“And for him? Do you think being cast off would be so very pleasant to him?”

Rachel hung her head, and her lips made a half murmur of, “Would not it be good for him?”

“No, Rachel, it is the very sorest trial there can be when, even in the course of providence, kind intentions are coldly requited; and it would be incalculably harder when therewith there would be rejection of love.”

“Ah! I never said I could do it. I could not tell him I did not care for him, and short of that nothing would stop it,” sobbed Rachel, “only I wished to feel it was not very mean—very wrong.” She laid her weary head on Ermine’s lap, and Ermine bent down and kissed her.

“So happy, so bright and free, and capable, his life seems now,” proceeded Rachel. “I can’t understand his joining it to mine; and if people shunned and disliked him for my sake!”

“Surely that will depend on yourself. I have never seen you in society, but if you have the fear of making him unpopular or remarkable before your eyes, you will avoid it.”

“Oh, yes, I know,” said Rachel, impatiently. “I did think I should not have been a commonplace woman,” and she shed a few tears.

Ermine was provoked with her, and began to think that she had been arguing on a wrong tack, and that it would be better after all for Alick to be free. Rachel looked up presently. “It must be very odd to you to hear me say so, but I can’t help feeling the difference. I used to think it so poor and weak to be in love, or to want any one to take care of one. I thought marriage such ordinary drudgery, and ordinary opinions so contemptible, and had such schemes for myself. And this—and this is such a break down, my blunders and their consequences have been so unspeakably dreadful, and now instead of suffering, dying—as I felt I ought—it has only made me just like other women, for I know I could not live without him, and then all the rest of it must come for his sake.”

“And will make you much more really useful and effective than ever you could have been alone,” said Ermine.

“He does talk of doing things together, but, oh! I feel as if I could never dare put out my hand again!”

“Not alone perhaps.”

“I like to hear him tell me about the soldiers’ children, and what he wants to have done for them.”

“You and I little thought what Lady Temple was to bring us,” said Ermine, cheerfully, “but you see we are not the strongest creatures in the world, so we must resign ourselves to our fate, and make the best of it. They must judge how many imperfections they choose to endure, and we can only make the said drawbacks as little troublesome as may be. Now, I think I see Miss Curtis watching in fear that I am over-talking you.”

“Oh, must you go? You have really comforted me! I wanted an external opinion very much, and I do trust yours! Only tell me,” she added, holding Ermine’s hand, “is this indeed so with you?”

“Not yet,” said Ermine, softly, “do not speak about it, but I think you will be comforted to hear that this matter of yours, by leading to the matron’s confession, may have removed an obstacle that was far more serious in my eyes than even my own helplessness, willing as Colin was to cast both aside. Oh, Rachel, there is a great deal to be thankful for.”

Rachel lay down on her sofa, and fell asleep, nor did Alick find any occasion for blaming Grace when he returned the next day. The effect of the conversation had been to bring Rachel to a meek submission, very touching in its passiveness and weary peacefulness. She was growing stronger, walked out leaning on Alick’s arm, and was even taken out by him in a boat, a wonderful innovation, for a dangerous accident to Mr. Curtis had given the mother such a horror of the sea that no boating excursions had ever taken place during her solitary reign, and the present were only achieved by a wonderful stretch of dear Alexander’s influence. Perhaps she trusted him the more, because his maimed hand prevented him from being himself an oarsman, though he had once been devoted to rowing. At any rate, with an old fisherman at the oar, many hours were spent upon the waters of the bay, in a tranquillity that was balm to the harassed spirit, with very little talking, now and then some reading aloud, but often nothing but a dreamy repose. The novelty and absence of old association was one secret of the benefit that Rachel thus derived. Any bustle or resumption of former habits was a trial to her shattered nerves, and brought back the dreadful haunted nights. The first sight of Conrade, still looking thin and delicate, quite overset her; a drive on the Avoncester road renewed all she had felt on the way thither; three or four morning visitors coming in on her unexpectedly, made the whole morbid sense of eyes staring at her recur all night, and when the London solicitor came down about the settlements, she shrank in such a painful though still submissive way, from the sight of a stranger, far more from the semblance of a dinner party, that the mother yielded, and let her remain in her sitting-room.

“May I come in?” said Alick, knocking at the door. “I have something to tell you.”

“What, Alick! Not Mr. Williams come?”

“Nothing so good. In fact I doubt if you will think it good at all. I have been consulting this same solicitor about the title-deeds; that cheese you let fall, you know,” he added, stroking her hand, and speaking so gently that the very irony was rather pleasant.

“Oh, it is very bad.”

“Now wouldn’t you like to hear it was so bad that I should have to sell out, and go to the diggings to make it up?”

“Now, Alick, if it were not for your sake, you know I should like—”

“I know you would; but you see, unfortunately, it was not a cheese at all, only a wooden block that the fox ran away with. Lawyers don’t put people’s title-deeds into such dangerous keeping, the true cheese is safe locked up in a tin-box in Mr. Martin’s chambers in London.”

“Then what did I give Mauleverer?”

“A copy kept for reference down here.” Rachel hid her face.

“There, I knew you would think it no good news, and it is just a thunder-clap to me. All you wanted me for was to defend the mother and make up to the charity, and now there’s no use in me,” he said in a disconsolate tone.

“Oh, Alick, Alick, why am I so foolish?”

“Never mind; I took care Martin should not know it. Nobody is aware of the little affair but our two selves; and I will take care the fox learns the worth of his prize. Only now, Rachel, answer me, is there any use left for me still?”

“You should not ask me such things, Alick, you know it all too well.”

“Not so well that I don’t want to hear it. But I had more to say. This Martin is a man of very different calibre from old Cox, with a head and heart in London charities and churches, and it had struck him as it did you, that the Homestead had an easier bargain of it than that good namesake of yours had ever contemplated. If it paid treble or quadruple rent, the dear mother would never find it out, nor grow a geranium the less.”

“No, she would not! But after all, the lace apprenticeships are poor work.”

“So they are, but Martin says there would be very little difficulty in getting a private bill to enable the trustees to apply the sum otherwise for the benefit of the Avonmouth girls.”

“Then if I had written to him, it would have been all right! Oh, my perverseness!”

“And, Rachel, now that money has been once so intended; suppose it kept its destination. About £500 would put up a tidy little industrial school, and you might not object to have a scholarship or two for some of our little —th Highlander lassies whose fathers won’t make orphans of them for the regular military charities. What, crying, Rachel! Don’t you like it?”

“It is my dream. The very thing I wished and managed so vilely. If Lovedy were alive! Though perhaps that is not the thing to wish. But I can’t bear taking your—”

“Hush! You can’t do worse than separate your own from mine. This is no part of the means I laid before Mr. Martin by way of proving myself a responsible individual. I took care of that. Part of this is prize-money, and the rest was a legacy that a rich old merchant put me down for in a transport of gratitude because his son was one of the sick in the bungalow where the shell came. I have had it these three or four months, and wondered what to do with it.”

“This will be very beautiful, very excellent. And we can give the ground.”

“I have thought of another thing. I never heard of an industrial school where the great want was not food for industry. Now I know the Colonel and Mr. Mitchell have some notion floating in their minds about getting a house for convalescents down here, and it strikes me that this might supply the work in cooking, washing, and so on. I think I might try what they thought of it.”

Rachel could only weep out her shame and thankfulness, and when Alick reverently added that it was a scheme that would require much thought and much prayer, the pang struck her to the heart—how little she had prayed over the F. U. E. E. The prayer of her life had been for action and usefulness, but when she had seen the shadow in the stream, her hot and eager haste, her unconscious detachment from all that was not visible and material had made her adhere too literally to that misinterpreted motto, laborare est orare. How should then her eyes be clear to discern between substance and shadow?

CHAPTER XXIV. THE HONEYMOON

“Around the very place doth brood  A calm and holy quietude.”—REV. ISAAC WILLIAMS.

The level beams of a summer sun, ending one of his longest careers, were tipping a mountain peak with an ineffable rosy purple, contrasting with the deep shades of narrow ravines that cleft the rugged sides, and gradually expanded into valleys, sloping with green pasture, or clothed with wood. The whole picture, with its clear, soft sky, was retraced on the waters of the little lake set in emerald meadows, which lay before the eyes of Rachel Keith, as she reclined in a garden chair before the windows of a pretty rustic-looking hotel, but there was no admiration, no peaceful contemplation on her countenance, only the same weary air of depression, too wistful and startled even to be melancholy repose, and the same bewildered distressed look that had been as it were stamped on her by the gaze of the many unfriendly eyes at the Quarter Sessions, and by her two unfortunate dinner parties.

The wedding was to have been quietness itself, but though the bridegroom had refused to contribute sister, brother-in-law, or even uncle to the numbers, conventionalities had been too strong for Mrs. Curtis, and “just one more” had been added to the guests till a sufficient multitude had been collected to renew all Rachel’s morbid sensations of distress and bewilderment with their accompanying feverish symptoms, and she had been only able to proceed on her journey by very short stages, taken late in the day.

Alick had not forgotten her original views as to travelling, and as they were eventually to go to Scotland, had proposed beginning with Dutch reformatories and Swiss cretins; but she was so plainly unfit for extra fatigue and bustle, that the first few weeks were to be spent in Wales, where the enjoyment of fine scenery might, it was hoped, be beneficial to the jaded spirits, and they had been going through a course of passes and glens as thoroughly as Rachel’s powers would permit, for any over-fatigue renewed feverishness and its delusive miseries, and the slightest alarm told upon the shattered nerves.

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.