The Young Step-Mother; Or, A Chronicle of Mistakes

He was resolved on an immediate start, and the next few hours were spent in busy preparation, and in watching lest the excited Lucy should frighten her sister. Albinia tried to persuade Mr. Kendal at least to sleep at Fairmead that night, and after watching him drive off, she hurried, dashing away the tears that would gather again and again in her eyes, to hold council with the Dusautoys on the best means of stopping the course of the malady, by depriving it of its victims.

She had a quiet snug evening with Sophy, whom she had so much interested in the destitution of the sick children as to set her to work at some night-gear for them, and she afterwards sat long over the fire trying to read to silence the longing after the little soft cheek that had never yet been laid to rest without her caress, and foreboding that Mr. Kendal would return from his dark solitary drive with his spirits at the lowest ebb.

So late that she had begun to hope that Winifred had obeyed her behest and detained him, she heard his step, and before she could run to meet him, he had already shut himself into the study.

She was at the door in a moment; she feared he had thought her self-willed in the morning, and she was the more bent on rousing him. She knocked—she opened the door. He had thrown himself into his arm-chair, and was bending over the dreary, smouldering, sulky log and white ashes, and his face, as he raised his head, was as if the whole load of care and sorrow had suddenly descended again.

‘I am sorry you sat up,’ was of course his beginning, conveying anything but welcome; but she knew that this only meant that he was in a state of depression. She took hold of his hand, chilled with holding the reins, told him of the good fire in the morning-room, and fairly drew him up-stairs.

There the lamp burnt brightly, and the red fire cast a merry glow over the shining chintz curtains, and the two chairs drawn so cosily towards the fire, the kettle puffing on the hearth, and Albinia’s choice little bed-room set of tea-china ready on the small table. The cheerfulness seemed visibly to diffuse itself over his face, but he still struggled to cherish his gloom, ‘Thank you, but I would not have had you take all this trouble, my dear.’

‘It would be a great deal more trouble if you caught a bad cold. I meant you to sleep at Fairmead.’

‘Yes, they pressed me very kindly, but I could not bear not to come home.’

‘And how did Maurice comport himself?’

‘He talked to the horse and then went to sleep, and he was not at all shy with his aunt after the first. He watched the children, but had not begun to play with them. Still I think he will be quite happy with Lucy there, and I hope it will not be for long.’

It was a favourable sign that Mr. Kendal communicated all these particulars without being plied with questions, and Albinia went on with the more spirit.

‘No, I hope it may not be for long. We have been holding a great council against the enemy, and I do hope that we have really done something. No, you need not be afraid, I have not been there again, but we have been routing out the nucleus, and hope we may starve out the fever for want of victims. You never saw such a swarm as we had to turn out. There were twenty-three people to be considered for.’

‘Twenty-three! Have you turned out the whole block?’

‘No, I wish we had; but that would have been seventy-five. This is only from those two tenements with one door!’

‘Impossible!’

‘I should have thought so; but the lawful inhabitants make up sixteen, and there were seven lodgers.’

Mr. Kendal gave a kind of groan, and asked what she had done; she detailed the measures.

‘Twenty-three people in those two houses, and seventy-five in the whole block of building?’

‘Too true. And if you could only see the rooms! The windows that wont open; the roofs that open too much; the dirt on the staircases, and, oh! the horrible smells!’

‘It shall not go on,’ said Mr. Kendal. ‘I will look over the place.’

‘Not till the fever is out of it,’ hastily interposed Albinia.

He made a sign of assent, and went on: ‘I will certainly talk to Pettilove, and have the place repaired, if it be at my own expense.’

Albinia lifted up her eyes, not understanding at whose expense it should be.

‘The fact is,’ continued Mr. Kendal, ‘that there has been little to induce me to take interest in the property. Old Mr. Meadows was, as you know, a successful solicitor, and purchased these various town tenements bit by bit, and then settled them very strictly on his grandson. He charged the property with life incomes to his widow and daughters, and to me; but the land is in the hands of trustees until my son’s majority, and Pettilove is the only surviving trustee.’

The burning colour mantled in Albinia’s face, and almost inaudibly she said, ‘I beg your pardon, Edmund; I have done you moat grievous injustice. I thought you would not see—’

‘You did not think unjustly, my dear. I ought to have paid more attention to the state of affairs, and have kept Pettilove in order. But I knew nothing of English affairs, and was glad to be spared the unpleasant charge. The consequence of leaving a man like that irresponsible never occurred to me. His whole conscience in the matter is to have a large sum to put into Gilbert’s hands when he comes of age. Why, he upholds those dens of iniquity in Tibbs’s Alley on that very ground!’

‘Poor Gilbert! I am afraid a large sum so collected is not likely to do him much good! and at one-and-twenty—! But that is one notion of faithfulness!’

Albinia was much happier after that conversation. She could better endure to regret her own injustice than to believe her husband the cruel landlord; and it was no small advance that he had afforded her an explanation which once he would have deemed beyond the reach of female capacity.

In spite of the lack of little Maurice’s bright presence, which, to Albinia’s great delight, his father missed as much as she did, the period of quarantine sped by cheerfully. Sophy had not a single sullen fit the whole time, and Albinia having persuaded Mr. Kendal that it would be a sanatory measure to whitewash the study ceiling, he was absolutely forced to turn out of it and live in the morning-room, with all his books piled up in the dining-room. And on that great occasion Albinia abstracted two fusty, faded, green canvas blinds from the windows, carried them off with a pair of tongs, and pushed them into a bonfire in the garden, persuaded they were the last relics of the old fever. She had the laurels cut, the curtains changed, the windows cleaned, and altogether made the room so much lighter, that when Mr. Kendal again took possession, he did not look at all sure whether he liked it; and though he was courteously grateful, he did not avail himself of the den half so much as when it had more congenial gloom. But then he had the morning-room as a resort, and it was one of Albinia’s bargains with herself, that as far as her own influence could prevent it, neither he nor Sophy should ever render it a literal boudoir.

The sense of snugness that the small numbers produced was one great charm, and made Mr. Kendal come unusually far out of his shell. His chief sanatory precaution was to take Albinia out for a drive or walk every day, and these expeditions were greatly enjoyed.

One day, after a visit from her old nurse, Sophy received Albinia with the words,—

‘Oh, mamma,’ she said, ‘old nurse has been telling me such things. I shall never be cross with Aunt Maria again. It is such a sad story, just like one in a book, if she was but that kind of person.’

‘Aunt Maria! I remember Mrs. Dusautoy once saying she gave her the idea of happiness shattered, but—’

‘Did she?’ exclaimed Sophy. ‘I never thought Aunt Maria could have done anything but fidget everybody that came near her; but old nurse says a gentleman was once in love with her, and a very handsome young gentleman too. Old Mr. Pringle’s nephew it was, a very fine young officer in the army. I want you to ask papa if it is true. Nurse says that he wrote to make an offer for her, very handsomely, but grandpapa did not choose that both his daughters should go quite away; so he locked the letter up, and said no, and never told her, and she thought the captain had been trifling and playing her false, and pined and fretted, till she got into this nervous way, and fairly wore herself out, nurse says, and came to be what she is now, instead of the prettiest young lady in the town! And then, mamma, when grandpapa died, she found the letter in his papers, and one inside for her, that had never been given to her; and by that time there was no hope, for Captain Pringle had gone out with his regiment, and married a rich young lady in the Indies! Oh, mamma! you see she really is deserted, and it is all man’s treachery that has broken her heart. I thought people always died or went into convents—I don’t mean that Aunt Maria could have done that, but I did not think that way of hers was a broken heart!’

‘If she has had such troubles, it should indeed make us try to be very forbearing with her,’ said Albinia.

‘Will you ask papa about it?’ entreated Sophy.

‘Yes, certainly; but you must not make sure whether he will think it right to tell us. Poor Aunt Maria; I do think some part of it must be true!’

‘But, mamma, is that really like deserted love?’

‘My dear, I don’t think I ever saw deserted love,’ said Albinia, rather amused. ‘I suppose troubles of any kind, if not—I mean, I suppose, vexations—make people show their want of spirits in the way most accordant with their natural dispositions, and so your poor aunt has grown querulous and anxious.’

‘If she has such a real grand reason for being unhappy, I shall not be cross about it now, except—’

Sophy gave a sigh, and Albinia bade her good night.

Mr. Kendal had never heard the story before, but he remembered many circumstances in corroboration. He knew that Mr. Pringle had a nephew in the army, he recollected that he had made a figure in Maria’s letters to India; and that he had subsequently married a lady in the Mauritius, and settled down on her father’s estate. He testified also to the bright gay youth of poor Maria, and his surprise at the premature loss of beauty and spirits; and from his knowledge of old Mr. Meadows, he believed him capable of such an act of domestic tyranny. Maria had always been looked upon as a mere child, and if her father did not choose to part with her, he would think it for her good, and his own peace, for her not to be aware of the proposal. He was much struck, for he had not suspected his sister-in-law to be capable of such permanent feeling.

‘There was little to help her in driving it away,’ said Albinia. ‘Few occupations or interests, and very little change, to prevent it from preying on her spirits.’

‘True,’ said Mr. Kendal; ‘a narrow education and limited sphere are sad evils in such cases.’

‘Do you think anything can be a cure for disappointment?’ asked Sophy, in such a solemn, earnest tone, that Albinia was disposed to laugh; but she knew that this would be a dire offence, and was much surprised that Sophy had so far broken through her reserve, as to mingle in their conversation on such a subject.

‘Occupation,’ said Mr. Kendal, but speaking rather as if from duty than from conviction. ‘There are many sources of happiness, even if shipwreck have been made on one venture. Your aunt had few resources to which to turn her mind. Every pursuit or study is a help stored up against the vacuity which renders every care more corroding.’

‘Well!’ said Sophy, in her blunt, downright way, ‘I think it would take all the spirit out of everything.’

‘I hope you will never be tried,’ said Mr. Kendal, with a mournful smile, as if he did not choose to confess that she had divined too rightly the probable effect of trouble upon her own temperament.

‘I suppose,’ said Albinia, ‘that the real cure can be but one thing for that, as for any other trouble. I mean, “Thy will be done.” I don’t suppose anything else would give energy to turn to other duties. But it would be more to the purpose to resolve to be more considerate to poor Maria.’

‘I shall never be impatient with her again,’ said Sophy.

And though at first the discovery of so romantic a cause for poor Miss Meadows’s fretfulness dignified it in Sophy’s eyes, yet it did not prove sufficient to make it tolerable when she tormented the window-blinds, teased the fire, was shocked at Sophy’s favourite studies, or insisting on her wishing to see Maria Drury. Nay, the bathos often rendered her petty unconscious provocations the more harassing, and Sophy often felt, in an agony of self-reproach, that she ought to have known herself too well to expect to show forbearance with any one when she was under the influence of ill-temper.

In Easter week Mr. Ferrars brought Lucy and Maurice home, and Gilbert came for a short holiday.

Gilbert was pleased when he was called to go over the empty houses with his father, Mr. Ferrars, and a mason.

Back they came, horrified at the dreadful disrepair, at the narrow area into which such numbers were crowded, and still more at the ill odours which Mr. Ferrars and the mason had gallantly investigated, till they detected the absence of drains, as well as convinced themselves that mending roofs, floors, or windows, would be a mere mockery unless the whole were pulled down.

Mr. Ferrars was more than ever thankful to be a country parson, and mused on the retribution that the miasma, fostered by the avarice of the grandfather and the neglect of the father, had brought on the family. Dives cannot always scorn Lazarus without suffering even in this life.

Gilbert, in the glory of castle-building, was talking eagerly of the thorough renovation that should take place, the sweep that should be made of all the old tenements, and the wide healthy streets and model cottages that should give a new aspect to the town.

Mr. Kendal prepared for the encounter with Pettilove, and his son begged to go with him, to which he consented, saying that it was time Gilbert should have an opinion in a matter that affected him so nearly.

Gilbert’s opinion of the interview was thus announced on his return: ‘If there ever was a brute in the world, it is that Pettilove!’

‘Then he wont consent to do anything?’

‘No, indeed! Say what my father or I would to him, it was all of not the slightest use. He smiled, and made little intolerable nods, and regretted—but there were the settlements, and his late lamented partner! A parcel of stuff. Not so much as a broken window will he mend! He says he is not authorized!’

‘Quite true,’ said Mr. Kendal. ‘The man is warranted in his proceedings, and thinks them his duty, though I believe he has a satisfaction in the power of thwarting me.’

‘I’m sure he has!’ cried Gilbert. ‘I am sure there was spite in his grin when he pulled out that horrid old parchment, with the lines a yard long, and read us out the abominable old crabbed writing, all about the houses, messuages, and tenements thereupon, and a lot of lawyer’s jargon. I’m sure I thought it was left to Peter Pettilove himself. And when I came to understand it, one would have thought it took my father to be the worst enemy we had in the world, bent on cheating us!’

‘That is the assumption on which settlements are drawn up, Gilbert,’ said his father.

‘Can nothing be done, then?’ said Albinia.

‘Thus much,’ said Mr. Kendal. ‘Pettilove will not object to our putting the houses somewhat in repair, as, in fact, that will be making a present to Gilbert; but he will not spend a farthing on them of the trust, except to hinder their absolute falling, nor will he make any regulation on the number of lodgers. As to taking them down, that is, as I always supposed, out of the question, though I think the trustees might have stretched a point, being certain of both my wishes and Gilbert’s.’

‘Don’t you think,’ said Mr. Ferrars, looking up from his book, ‘that a sanatory commission might be got to over-ride Gilbert’s guardian?’

‘My guardian! do not call him so!’ muttered Gilbert.

‘I am afraid,’ said Mr. Kendal, ‘that unless your commission emulated of Albinia and Dusautoy they would have little perception of the evils. Our local authorities are obtuse in such matters.’

‘Agitate! agitate!’ murmured Mr. Ferrars, going on with his book.

‘Well,’ said Albinia, ‘at least there is one beer-shop less in Tibbs’s Alley. And if there are tolerable seasons, I daresay paint, whitewash, and windows to open, may keep the place moderately wholesome till—Are you sixteen yet, Gilbert? Five years.’

‘Yes, and then—’

Gilbert came and sat down beside her, and they built a scheme for the almshouses so much wanted. Gilbert was sure the accumulation would easily cover the expense, and Albinia had many an old woman, who it was hoped might live to enjoy the intended paradise there.

‘Yes, yes, I promise,’ cried Gilbert, warming with the subject, ‘the first thing I shall do—’

‘No, don’t promise,’ said Albinia. ‘Do it from your heart, or not at all.’

‘No, don’t promise, Gilbert,’ said Sophy.

‘Why not, Sophy?’ he said good-humouredly.

‘Because you are just what you feel at the moment,’ said Sophy.

‘You don’t think I should keep it?’

‘No.’

The grave answer fell like lead, and Albinia told her she was not kind or just to her brother. But she still looked steadily at him, and answered, ‘I cannot help it. What is truth, is truth, and Gilbert cares only for what he sees at the moment.’

‘What is truth need not always be fully uttered,’ said Albinia. ‘I hope you may find it untrue.’

But Sophy’s words would recur, and weigh on her painfully.

CHAPTER XI

The summer had just begun, when notice was given that a Confirmation would take place in the autumn; and Lucy’s name was one of the first sent in to Mr. Dusautoy. His plan was to collect his candidates in weekly classes of a few at a time, and likewise to see as much as he could of them in private.

‘Oh! mamma!’ exclaimed Lucy, returning from her first class, ‘Mr. Dusautoy has given us each a paper, where we are to set down our christening days, and our godfathers and godmothers. And only think, I had not the least notion when I was christened. I could tell nothing but that Mr. Wenlock was my godfather! It made me feel quite foolish not to know my godmothers.’

‘We were in no situation to have things done in order,’ said Mr. Kendal, gravely. ‘If I recollect rightly, one of your godmothers was Captain Lee’s pretty young wife, who died a few weeks after.’

‘And the other?’ said Lucy.

‘Your mother, I believe,’ he said.

Lucy employed herself in filling up her paper, and exclaimed, ‘Now I do not know the date! Can you tell me that, papa?’

‘It was the Christmas-day next after your birth,’ he said. ‘I remember that, for we took you to spend Christmas at the nearest station of troops, and the chaplain christened you.’

Lucy wrote down the particulars, and exclaimed, ‘What an old baby I must have been! Six months old! And I wonder when Sophy was christened. I never knew who any of her godfathers and godmothers were. Did you, Sophy?’

‘No—’ she was looking up at her father.

A sudden flush of colour came over his face, and he left the room in haste.

‘Why, Sophy!’ exclaimed Lucy, ‘one would think you had not been christened at all!’

Even the light Lucy was alarmed at the sound of her own words. The same idea had thrilled across Albinia; but on turning her eyes on Sophy, she saw a countenance flushed, anxious, but full rather of trembling hope than of dismay.

In a few seconds Mr. Kendal came back with a thick red pocket-book in his hand, and produced the certificate of the private baptism of Sophia, daughter of Edmund and Lucy Kendal, at Talloon, March 17th, 1838.

Sophy’s face had more disappointment in it than satisfaction.

‘I can explain the circumstances to you now,’ said her father. ‘At Talloon we were almost out of reach of any chaplains, and, as you know, were almost the only English. We always intended to take you to the nearest station, as had been done with Lucy, but your dear mother was never well enough to bear the journey; and when our next little one was born, it was so plain that he could not live, that I sent in haste to beg that the chaplain would come to us. It was then that you were both baptized, and before the week was over, he buried little Henry. It was the first of our troubles. We never again had health or spirits for any festive occasion while we continued in India, and thus the ceremony was never completed. In fact, I take shame to myself for having entirely forgotten that you had never been received into the congregation.’

‘Then I have told a falsehood whenever I said the Catechism!’ burst out Sophy. Lucy would have laughed, and Albinia could almost have been amused at the turn her displeasure had taken.

‘It was not your fault,’ said Mr. Kendal, quietly.

He evidently wished the subject to be at an end, excepting that in silence he laid before Albinia’s eyes the certificate of the baptism of the twin-brothers, not long after the first arrival in India. He then put the book in his pocket, and began, as usual, to read aloud.

‘Oh, don’t go, mamma,’ said Sophy, when she had been carried to her own room at bed-time, and made ready for the night.

Albinia was only too glad to linger, in the hope to be admitted into some of the recesses of that untransparent nature, and by way of assistance, said, ‘I was not at all prepared for this discovery.’

Sophy drew a long sigh, and said, ‘If I had never been christened, I should have thought there was some hope for me.’

‘That would have been too dreadful. How could you imagine your papa capable—?’

‘I thought I had found out why I am so horrid! exclaimed Sophy. ‘Oh, if I could only make a fresh beginning! Mamma, do pray give me a Prayer Book.’

Albinia gave it to her, and she hastily turned the pages to the Order for Private Baptism.

‘At least I have not made the promises and vows!’ she said, as if her stern conscientiousness obtained some relief.

‘Not formally made them,’ said Albinia; ‘but you cannot have a right to the baptismal blessings, except on those conditions.’

‘Mamma, then I never had the sign of the cross on my forehead! It does not feel blest!’ And then, hastily and low, she muttered,’ Oh! is that why I never could bear the cross in all my life!’

‘Nay, my poor Sophy, you must not think of it like a spell. Many bear the cross no better, who have had it marked on their brows.’

‘Can it be done now?’ cried Sophy, eagerly.

‘Certainly; I think it ought to be done. We will see what your father says.’

‘Oh, mamma, beg him, pray him!’ exclaimed Sophy. ‘I know it will make me begin to be good! I can’t bear not to be one of those marked and sealed. Oh! and, mamma, you will be my godmother? Can’t you? If the gleams of goodness and brightness do find me out, they are always from you.’

‘I think I might be, dear child,’ said Albinia, ‘but Mr. Dusautoy must tell us whether I may. But, indeed, I am afraid to see you reckon too much on this. The essential, the regenerating grace, is yours already, and can save you from yourself, and Confirmation adds the rest—but you must not think of any of these like a charm, which will save you all further trouble with yourself. They do not kill the faults, but they enable you to deal with them. Even baptism itself, you know, has destroyed the guilt of past sin, but does not hinder subsequent temptation.’

Albinia hardly knew how far Sophy attended to this caution, for all she said was to reiterate the entreaty that the omitted ceremony might be supplied.

Mr. Kendal gave a ready consent, as soon as he was told that Sophy so ardently wished for it—so willing, indeed, that Albinia was surprised, until he went on to say, ‘No one need be aware of the matter beyond ourselves. Your brother and sister would, I have no doubt, act as sponsors. Nay, if Ferrars would officiate, we need hardly mention it even to Dusautoy. It could take place in your sitting-room.’

‘But, Edmund!’ began Albinia, aghast, ‘would that be the right thing? I hardly think Maurice would consent.’

‘You are not imagining anything so preposterous or inexpedient as to wish to bring Sophia forward in church,’ said Mr. Kendal; ‘even if she were physically capable of it, I should not choose to expose her to anything so painful or undesirable.’