The Clever Woman of the Family

“In fact,” said Ermine, afterwards to the Colonel, “when you go to Avoncester, I think you may as well get a licence for the wedding of Alison Williams and Fanny Temple at the same time. There has been quite a courtship on the lady’s part.”

The courtship had been the more ardent from Fanny’s alarm lest the brother should deprive her of Alison; and when she found her fears groundless, she thanked him with such fervour, and talked so eagerly of his sister’s excellences that she roused him into a lucid interval, in which he told Colonel Keith that Lady Temple might give him an idea of the style of woman that Lucy had been. Indeed, Colin began to think that it was as well that he was so well wrapped up in smoke and chemistry, otherwise another might have been added to the list of Lady Temple’s hopeless adorers. The person least satisfied was Tibbie, who could not get over the speediness of the marriage, nor forgive the injury to Miss Williams, “of bringing her hame like any pleughman’s wife, wantin’ a honeymoon trip, forbye providin’ hersel’ with weddin’ braws conformable. Gin folk tak’ sic daft notions aff the English, they’d be mair wise like to bide at hame, an’ that’s my way o’ thinkin’.”

Crusty as she was, there was no danger of her not giving her warmest welcome, and thus the morning came. Tibbie had donned her cap, with white satin ribbons, and made of lace once belonging to the only heiress who had ever brought wealth to the Keiths. Edward Williams, all his goods packed up, had gone to join his sisters, and the Colonel, only perceptibly differing from his daily aspect in having a hat free from crape, was opening all the windows in hopes that a thorough draft would remove the last of the tobacco, when the letters were brought in, and among them one of the black bordered bulletins from Littleworthy, which ordinarily arrived by the second post. It was a hurried note, evidently dashed off to catch the morning mail.

My Dear Colonel,—Alick tells me to write in haste to catch the morning post, and beg you to telegraph the instant your wedding is over. The doctors see cause to hasten their measures, but your brother will have nothing done till the will is signed. He and Alick both desire you will not come, but it is getting to be far too much for Alick. I would tell you more if there were time before the post goes. Love to dear Ermine.

Very sincerely yours,R. KEITH.

There was so shocked and startled a look on Colin’s face, that Tibbie believed that his brother must be dead, and when in a few almost inaudible words he told her that he must start for Bishopsworthy by the afternoon train, she fairly began to scold, partly by way of working off the irritation left by her alarm. “The lad’s clean demented! Heard ye ever the like, to rin awa’ frae his new-made wife afore the blessin’s been weel spoke; an’ a’ for the whimsie of that daft English lassie that made siccan a piece of work wi’ her cantrips.”

“I am afraid she is right now,” said the Colonel, “and my brother must not be left any longer.”

“Hout awa, Maister Colin, his lordship has come between you and your luve oft enough already, without partin’ ye at the very church door. Ye would na have the English cast up to us, that one of your name did na ken better what was fittin by his bride!”

“My bride must be the judge, Tibbie. You shall see whether she bids me stay,” said Colin, a little restored by his amusement at her anxiety for his honour among the English. “Now desire Smith to meet me at the church door, and ride at once from thence to Avoncester; and get your face ready to give a cheerful welcome, Tibbie. Let her have that, at least, whatever may come after.”

Tibbie looked after him, and shook her head, understanding from her ain laddie’s pallid check, and resolute lip, nay, in the very sound of his footfall, how sore was his trial, and with one-sided compassion she muttered, “Telegrafted awa on his vera weddin’ day. His Lordship’ll be the death o’ them baith before he’s done.”

As it was in every way desirable that the wedding should be unexpected by Avonmonth in general, it was to take place at the close of the ordinary morning service, and Ermine in her usual seat within the vestry, was screened from knowing how late was Colin’s entrance, or seeing the determined composure that would to her eyes have betrayed how much shaken he was. He was completely himself again by the time the congregation dispersed, leaving only Grace Curtis, Lady Temple, and the little best man, Conrade, a goodly sight in his grey suit and scarlet hose. Then came the slow movement from the vestry, the only really bridal-looking figure being Rose in white muslin and white ribbons; walking timidly and somewhat in awe beside her younger aunt; while her father upheld and guided the elder. Both were in quiet, soft, dark dresses, and straw bonnets, but over hers Ermine wore the small though exquisite Brussels lace veil that had first appeared at her mother’s wedding; and thankful joy and peaceful awe looked so lovely on her noble brow, deep, soft dark eyes, and the more finely moulded, because somewhat worn, features; and so beauteously deepened was the carnation on her cheek, that Mr. Mitchell ever after maintained that he had never married any one to compare with that thirty-three years’ old bride upon crutches, and, as he reported to his wife, in no dress at all.

Her brother, who supported her all the time she stood, was infinitely more nervous than she was. Her native grace and dignity, and absence of all false shame entirely covered her helplessness, and in her earnestness, she had no room for confusion; her only quivering of voice was caught for one moment from the tremulous intensity of feeling that Colin Keith could not wholly keep from thrilling in his tones, as he at last proclaimed his right to love and to cherish her for whom he had so long persevered.

Unobserved, he filled up the half-written despatch with the same pen with which he signed the register, and sent Conrade to the door with it to his already mounted messenger. Then assuming Edward’s place as Ermine’s supporter, he led her to the door, seated her in her wheeled chair, and silently handing Rachel’s note as his explanation to Alison, he turned away, and walked alone by Ermine’s side to his own house. Still silent, he took her into the bright drawing-room he had so long planned for her, and seated her in her own peculiar chair. Then his first words were, “Thank God for this!”

She knew his face. “Colin, your brother is worse?” He bent his head, he could not speak.

“And you have to go to him! This very day?”

“Ermine, you must decide. You are at last my first duty!”

“That means that you know you ought to go. Tell me what it is.”

He told the substance of the note, ending with, “If you could come with me!”

“I would if I should not be a tie and hindrance. No, I must not do that; but here I am, Colin, here I am. And it is all true—it has all come right at last! All we waited for. Nothing has ever been like this.”

She was the stronger. Tears, as much of loving thankfulness as of overflowing disappointment, rushed into his eyes at such a fulfilment of the purpose that he had carried with him by sea and land, in battle and sickness, through all the years of his manhood. And withal her one thought was to infuse in its strongest measure the drop of happiness that was to sustain him through the scenes that awaited him, to make him feel her indeed his wife, and to brighten him with the sunbeam face that she knew had power to cheer him. Rallying her playfulness, she took off her bonnet, and said as she settled her hair, “There, that is being at home! Take my shawl, yes, and these white gloves, and put them out of sight, that I may not feel like a visitor, and that you may see how I shall look when you come back. Do you know, I think your being out of the way will be rather a gain, for there will be a tremendous feminine bustle with the fitting of our possessions.”

Her smile awoke a responsive look, and she began to gaze round and admire, feeling it safest to skim on the surface; and he could not but be gratified by her appreciation of the pains spent upon this, her especial home. He had recovered himself again by the time these few sentences had passed; they discussed the few needful arrangements required by his departure, and Tibbie presently found them so cheerful that she was quite scandalized, and when Ermine held out her hands, saying, “What Tibbie, won’t you come and kiss me, and wish me joy?” she exclaimed—

“Wish ye joy! It’s like me to wish ye joy an yer lad hurled awa frae yer side i’ the blink o’ an ee, by thae wild telegrams. I dinna see what joy’s to come o’t; it’s clean again the Scripture!”

“I told you I had left it to her to decide, Tibbie,” said the Colonel.

“Weel, an what wad ye hae the puir leddy say? She kens what sorts ye, when the head of yer name is sick an lyin’ among thae English loons that hae brocht him to siccan a pass.”

“Right, Tibbie,” exclaimed Ermine, greatly amused at the unexpected turn, purely for the sake of putting Maister Colin in the wrong. “If a gentleman won’t be content without a bride who can’t walk, he must take the consequence, and take his wedding trip by himself! It is my belief, Tibbie, as I have just been telling him, that you and I shall get the house in all the better order for having him off our hands, just at first,” she added, with a look of intelligence.

“Deed, an maybe we shall,” responded Tibbie, with profound satisfaction. “He was aye a camsteary child when there was any wark on hand.”

Colin could not help laughing, and when once this had been effected, Ermine felt that his depression had been sufficiently met, and that she might venture on deeper, and more serious sympathy, befitting the chastened, thankful feelings with which they hailed the crowning of their youthful love, the fulfilment of the hopes and prayers that the one had persisted in through doubt and change, the other had striven to resign into the All-wise Hands.

They had an early meal together, chiefly for the sake of his wheeling her to the head of his table, and “seeing how she looked there,” and then the inexorable hour was come, and he left her, with the echo of her last words in his ear, “Goodbye, Colin, stay as long as you ought. It will make the meeting all the sweeter, and you have your wife to some back to now. Give a sister’s love to your brother, and thanks for having spared you,” and his last look at the door was answered with her sunshiny smile.

But when, a few minutes after, Edward came up with Alison for his farewell, they found her lying back in her chair, half fainting, and her startled look told almost too plainly that she had not thought of her brother. “Never mind,” said Edward, affectionately, as much to console Alison as Ermine for this oblivion; “of course it must be so, and I don’t deserve otherwise. Nothing brought me home but Colin Keith’s telling me that he saw you would not have him till my character was cleared up; and now he has repaired so much of the evil I did you, all I can do is to work to make it up to you in other ways. Goodbye, Ermine, I leave you all in much better hands than mine ever were, you are right enough in feeling that a week of his absence outweighs a year of mine. Bless you for all that you and he have done for my child. She, at least, is a comfort to you.”

Ermine’s powers were absolutely exhausted; she could only answer him by embraces and tears; and all the rest of the day she was, to use her own expression, “good for nothing but to be let alone.” Nor, though she exerted herself that she might with truth write that she was well and happy, was she good for much more on the next, and her jealous guardians allowed her to see no one but soft, fondling Lady Temple, who insisted on a relationship (through Rachel), and whose tender pensive quietness could not fail to be refreshment to the strained spirits, and wearied physical powers, and who better than anybody could talk of the Colonel, nay, who could understand, and even help Ermine herself to understand, that these ever-welling tears came from a source by no means akin to grief or repining.

The whole aspect of the rooms was full of tokens of his love and thought for her. The ground-floor had been altered for her accommodation, the furniture chosen in accordance with her known tastes or with old memories, all undemonstratively prepared while yet she had not decided on her consent. And what touched her above all, was the collection of treasures that he had year by year gathered together for her throughout the weary waiting, purchases at which Lady Temple remembered her mother’s banter, with his quiet evasions of explanation. No wonder Ermine laid her head on her hand, and could not retain her tears, as she recalled the white, dismayed face of the youth, who had printed that one sad earliest kiss on her brow, as she lay fire-scathed and apparently dying; and who had cherished the dream unbroken and unwaveringly, had denied himself consistently, had garnered up those choice tokens when ignorant over whether she still lived; had relied on her trust, and come back, heart-whole, to claim and win her, undaunted by her crippled state, her poverty, and her brother’s blotted name. “How can such love ever be met? Why am I favoured beyond all I could have dared to image to myself?” she thought, and wept again; because, as she murmured to Fanny, “I do thank God for it with all my heart, and I do long to tell him all. I don’t think my married life ought to begin by being sillier than ever I was before, but I can’t help it.”

“And I do love you so much the better for it,” said Fanny; a better companion to-day than the grave, strong Alison, who would have been kind, but would have had to suppress some marvel at the break-down, and some resentment that Edward had no greater share in it.

The morning’s post brought her the first letter from her husband, and in the midst of all her anxiety as to the contents, she could not but linger a moment on the aspect of the Honourable Mrs. Colin Keith in his handwriting; there was a carefulness in the penmanship that assured her that, let him have to tell her what he would, the very inditing of that address had been enjoyment to him. That the border was black told nothing, but the intelligence was such as she had been fully prepared for. Colin had arrived to find the surgeon’s work over, but the patient fast sinking. Even his recognition of his brother had been uncertain, and within twenty-four hours of the morning that had given Colin a home of his own, the last remnant of the home circle of his childhood had passed from him.

Still Ermine had to continue a widowed bride for full a fortnight, whilst the funeral and subsequent arrangements necessitated Colin’s presence in Scotland. It was on a crisp, beautiful October evening that Rose, her chestnut hair flying about her brow, stood, lighted up by the sunbeams in the porch, with upraised face and outstretched hands, and as the Colonel bent down to receive her joyous embrace, said, “Aunt Ermine gave me leave to bring you to the door. Then I am going to Myrtlewood till bed-time. And after that I shall always have you.”

The open door showed Ermine, too tremulous to trust to her crutch, but leaning forward, her eyes liquid with tears of thankfulness. The patient spirits had reached their home and haven, the earthly haven of loving hearts, the likeness of the heavenly haven, and as her head leant, at last, upon his shoulder, and his guardian arm encircled her, there was such a sense of rest and calm that even the utterance of their inward thanksgiving, or of a word of tenderness would have jarred upon them. It was not till a knock and message at the door interrupted them, that they could break the blessed stillness.

“And there you are, my Ermine!” said Colin, standing on the hearth-rug, and surveying her with satisfied eyes. “You are a queenly looking dame in your black draperies, and you look really well, much better than Rachel led me to expect.”

“Ah! when she was here I had no fixed day to look forward to. And receiving our poor little orphan baby was not exactly like receiving his uncle, though Rachel seemed to think it ought to make up for anything.”

“She was thoroughly softened by that child! It was a spirited thing her bringing him down here on the Monday when we started for Scotland, and then coming all the way alone with her maid. I did not think Alick would have consented, but he said she would always be the happier for having deposited her charge in your hands.”

“It was a great wrench to her. I felt it like robbery when she put the little fellow down on my lap and knelt over him, not able to get herself away, but saying that she was not fit to have him; she could not bear it if she made him hate her as Conrade did! I am glad she has had his first smile, she deserves it.”

“Is Tibbie in charity with him?”

“Oh, more than in charity! She did not take the first announcement of his coming very amiably; but when I told her she was to reign in the nursery, and take care the poor little chief know the sound of a Scots’ tongue, she began to thaw; and when he came into the house, pity or loyalty, or both, flamed up hotly, and have quite relieved me; for at first she made a baby of me, and was a perfect dragon of jealousy at poor Ailie’s doing anything for me. It was a rich scene when Rachel began giving her directions out of ‘Hints for the Management of Infants,’ just in the old voice, and Tibbie swept round indignantly, ‘His Lordship, Lord Keith of Gowanbrae, suld hae the best tendance she could gie him. She did na lippen to thae English buiks, as though she couldna rear a wean without bulk learning.’ Poor Rachel nearly cried, and was not half comforted by my promising to study the book as much as she pleased.”

“It will never do to interfere with Tibbie, and I own I am much of her opinion, I had rather trust to her than to Rachel, or the book!”

“Well, the more Rachel talked book, the more amiable surprise passed between her mother and Lady Temple that the poor little follow should have lived at all, and I believe they were very angry with me for thinking her views very sensible. Lady Temple is so happy with him. She says it is so melancholy to have a house without a baby, that she comes in twice or three times a day to console herself with this one.”

“Did you not tell me that she and the Curtises spent the evening with you?”

“Yes, it was rather shocking to receive them without you, but it was the only way of being altogether on Rachel’s one evening here; and it was very amusing, Mrs. Curtis so happy with her daughter looking well and bright, and Rachel with so much to tell about Bishopsworthy, till at last Grace, in her sly odd way, said she thought dear Alexander had even taught Rachel curatolatry; whereupon Rachel fired up at such an idea being named in connexion with Mr. Clare, then came suddenly, and very prettily, down, and added, ‘Living with Alick and Mr. Clare has taught me what nonsense I talked in those days.’”

“Well done, Rachel! It proves what Alick always said, that her great characteristic is candour!”

“I hope she was not knocked up by the long night journey all at one stretch. Mrs. Curtis was very uneasy about it, but nothing would move her; she owned that Alick did not expect her, for she had taken care he should not object, by saying nothing of her intention, but she was sure he would be ill on Wednesday morning, and then Mrs. Curtis not only gave in directly, but all we married women turned upon poor Grace for hinting that Alick might prefer a day’s solitary illness to her being over-tired.”

“She was extremely welcome! Alick was quite done for by all he had gone through; he was miserably ill, and I hardly knew what to do with him, and he mended from the moment his face lightened up at the sight of her.”

“There’s the use of strength of mind! How is Alick?”

“Getting better under M’Vicar and Edinburgh winds. It was hard on him to have borne the brunt of all the nursing that terrible last week, and in fact I never knew how much he was going through rather than summon me. His sauntering manner always conceals how much he is doing, and poor Keith was so fond of him, and liked his care so much that almost the whole fell upon him at last. And I believe he said more that was good for Keith, and brought in Mr. Clare more than perhaps I should ever have been able to do. So though I must regret having been away, it may have been the best thing.”

“And it was by your brother’s earnest wish,” said Ermine; “it was not as if you had stayed away for your own pleasure.”

“No! Poor Keith repeatedly said he could not die in peace till he had secured our having the sole charge of his son. It was a strong instinct that conquered inveterate prejudice! Did I tell you about the will?”

“You said I should hear particulars when you came.”

“The personal guardianship is left to us first, then to Alick and Rachel, with £300 a year for the expenses. Then we have Auchinvar. The estate is charged with an equivalent settlement upon Mary, a better plan, which I durst not propose, but with so long a minority the estate will bear it. Alick has his sister’s fortune back again, and the Menteith children a few hundreds; but Menteith is rabid about the guardianship, and would hardly speak to Alick.”

“And you?”

“They always keep the peace with me. Isabel even made us a wedding present—a pair of miniatures of my father and mother, that I am very glad to rescue, though, as she politely told me, I was welcome to them, for they were hideously dressed, and she wanted the frames for two sweet photographs of Garibaldi and the Queen of Naples.”

Then looking up as if to find a place for them—

“Why, Ermine, what have you done to the room? It is the old parsonage drawing-room!”

“Did not you mean it, when you took the very proportions of the bay window, and chose just such a carpet?”

“But what have you done to it?”

“Ailie and Rose, and Lady Temple and her boys, have done it. I have sat looking on, and suggesting. Old things that we kept packed up have seen the light, and your beautiful Indian curiosities have found their corners.”

“And the room has exactly the old geranium scent!”

“I think the Curtises must have brought half their greenhouse down. Do you remember the old oak-leaf geranium that you used to gather a leaf of whenever you passed our old conservatory?”

“I have been wondering where the fragrance came from that made the likeness complete. I have smelt nothing like it since!”

“I said that I wished for one, and Grace got off without a word, and searched everywhere at Avoncester till she found one in a corner of the Dean’s greenhouse. There, now you have a leaf in your fingers, I think you do feel at home.”

“Not quite, Ermine. It still has the dizziness of a dream. I have so often conjured up all this as a vision, that now there is nothing to take me away from it, I can hardly feel it a reality.”

“Then I shall ring. Tibbie and the poor little Lord upstairs are substantial witnesses to the cares and troubles of real life.”

CHAPTER XXX. WHO IS THE CLEVER WOMAN?

“Half-grown as yet, a child and vain,  She cannot fight the fight of death.  What is she cut from love and faith?”Knowledge and Wisdom, TENNYSON.

It was long before the two Mrs. Keiths met again. Mrs. Curtis and Grace were persuaded to spend the spring and summer in Scotland, and Alick’s leave of absence was felt to be due to Mr. Clare, and thus it was that the first real family gathering took place on occasion of the opening of the institution that had grown out of the Burnaby Bargain. This work had cost Colonel Keith and Mr. Mitchell an infinity of labour and perseverance before even the preliminaries could be arranged, but they contrived at length to carry it out, and by the fourth spring after the downfall of the F. U. E. E. a house had been erected for the convalescents, whose wants were to be attended to by a matron, assisted by a dozen young girls in training for service.

The male convalescents were under the discipline of Sergeant O’Brien and the whole was to be superintended by Colonel and Mrs. Keith. Ermine undertook to hear a class of the girls two or three times a week, and lower rooms had been constructed with a special view to her being wheeled into them, so as to visit the convalescents, and give them her attention and sympathy. Mary Morris was head girl, most of the others were from Avonmouth, but two pale Londoners came from Mr. Touchett’s district, and a little motherless lassie from the —th Highlanders was brought down with the nursery establishment, on which Mrs. Alexander Keith now practised the “Hints on the management of Infants.”