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

That last farewell, that dawn of peace, so long prayed for, so ardently desired, had given Mr. Kendal such thankfulness and relief as sustained him, and enabled him to support his wife, who knew not how to meet her first home grief; whereas to him sorrow had long been a household guest more familiar than joy; and he was more at rest about his son than he had been for many a year. He could dwell on him together with Edmund, instead of connecting him with shame, grief, and pain; though how little could he have borne to think that thus it would end, when in the springtime of his manhood he had rejoiced over his beautiful twin boys.

He knew his son better than heretofore. After the first day’s disappointment, Gilbert had found him all-sufficient, and had rested on his tenderness. All sternness had ceased on one side, all concealment on the other, and the sweetness of both characters had had full scope. Gilbert’s ardent love of home had shown itself in every word, and his last exertion, had been to write a long letter to his little brother, which had been completed and despatched by a private hand a few days previously. He had desired that Maurice should have his sword, and mentioned the books which he wished his sisters to share, talking of Sophy as one whom he honoured much, and wished he had known better; but much pained by hearing nothing from Lucy, and lamenting his share in her union with Algernon. He had said something about his wish that the almshouses should be built, but his father had turned away the subject, knowing that in case of his dying intestate and unmarried, the property was settled on the sisters, and seeing little chance of any such work being carried out with the co-operation of Mr. Cavendish Dusautoy. Latterly he had spoken of Genevieve Durant; he knew better how unworthy of her he had been, and how harassing his pursuit must have appeared, but he could not help entreating that her pardon might be asked in his name, that she might hear that he had loved her to the last, and above all, that his father would never lose sight of her; and Mr. Kendal’s promise to regard her as the next thing to his daughters had been requited with a look of the utmost gratitude and affection.

This was the substance of what Mr. Kendal told his wife as they sat together, unwitting of the lapse of time, and shrinking from any interruption that might mar their present peace and renew the sense of bereavement.

Mr. Ferrars was the first to knock at the door. He had been doing his utmost to spare both them and Fred, who needed all his care. These four months of mutual dependence had been even more endearing than the rescue of Fred’s life on the battlefield; and he declared that Gilbert had done him more good than any one else. They had been so thrown together as to make the ‘religious sentiment’ of the younger tell upon the warm though thoughtless heart of the elder. They had been most fondly attached; and in his present state, reduced by wounds and exhausted by watching, Fred was more overpowered than those more closely concerned. He could hardly speak collectedly when an officer of the garrison called to consult him with regard to a military funeral, and it was for this that Maurice was obliged to refer to the father. There were indeed none of his regiment in the island, but there was a universal desire in the garrison to do honour to the distinguished young officer, for whom great interest had been felt and the compliment brought a glow of exultation to Mr. Kendal’s face, as he expressed his warm thanks, but desired that the decision might rest with Fred himself, as his son’s lieutenant-colonel.

Maurice felt himself fully justified in his expedition when he found that all devolved on him, even writing to Sophy, and making the most necessary arrangements; for the colonel was incapable of exertion, Albinia was prostrated by the shock, and Mr. Kendal appeared to be lulled into a strange calm by the effects of the excessive bodily weariness consequent on the exhausting attendance of the last few days. They all depended upon Mr. Ferrars, and recognised his presence as an infinite comfort.

In the morning Albinia came forth like one who had been knocked down and shattered, weary and gentle, and with the tears ever welling into her eyes, above all when she endeavoured to write to Sophy; and she showed her ordinary earnestness only when she entreated to see her boy once more. Her husband took her to look on the countenance settled into the expression of unearthly peace, but she was not satisfied; it was not her own Gilbert, boyish, sensitive, dependent, and shrinking. The pale brow, the marked manly features, the lower ones concealed by the brown moustache, belonged to the hero who had dared the deadly ride and borne his friend through the storm of shot and shell; the noble, settled, steadfast face was the face of a stranger, and gave her a thrill of disappointment. She gloried in the later Gilbert, but the last she had seen of him whom she loved for his weakness, had been when she had not heeded his farewell.

It made the pang the less when evening came and he was carried to his resting-place. They would have persuaded Frederick to spare himself, but as the only officer of the same corps, as well as for the sake of many closer ties, he would not hear of being absent, and made his cousin Maurice do his best to restore the smart soldierly air which he for the first time thought of regretting.

Gilbert’s horse had perished at Balaklava, but his cap, sword, and spurs, were laid on the coffin, and from her shaded window Albinia watched it borne between the files of soldiers with arms reversed; and the procession of officers whose bright array contrasted with the colonel’s war-worn dress, ghastly cheek, and empty sleeve, tokens of the reality of war amid its pageantry, as all moved slowly away to the deep tones of the solemn Dead March, music well befitting the calm grandeur of the face she had seen, and leaving her heart throbbing with the deep exulting awe and pathos of a soldier’s funeral. She knelt alone, and followed the burial service in the stillness of the room overlooking the broad expanse of blue sea and sky; and by-and-by, through the window came the sound of the volley fired over the grave, the farewell of the army to the soldier at rest, his battles ended.

‘There was peace, and there was glory; but she could not divest herself of a sense of unreality. She could not feel as if it were really and truly Gilbert, and she were mourning for him. All was like a dream—that solemn military spectacle—the serene, grave sunshine on the fortress-harbour stretching its mailed arms into the sea—the roofs of the knightly old monastic city rising in steps from the bay crowded with white sails—and even those around her were different, her husband pale and still, as in a region above common life, and her cousin like another man, without his characteristic joyousness and insouciance. She could hardly induce herself, in her drowsy state, to believe that all was indeed veritable and tangible.

There was nothing to detain them at Malta, and Mr. Ferrars, who arranged everything, thought the calm of a sea-voyage would be better for them all than the bustle and fatigue of a land journey.

‘Kendal himself does not care about getting home,’ he said to Fred, who was afraid this was determined on his account. ‘I fear many annoyances are in store for him. His son-in-law will not be pleasant to deal with about the property.’

With an exclamation Fred started from the chairs on which he had been resting, and dived into his sabre-tasch which hung from the wall. ‘I never liked to begin about it,’ he said, ‘but I ought to have given them this. It was done when he was so bad at Scutari. One night he worked himself into a fever lest he should not live till his birthday, and said a great deal about this Dusautoy making himself an annoyance, perhaps insisting on a sale and turning his father out. Nothing pacified him till, the very day he was of age, we got the vice-consul to draw up what he wanted, and witness it, and so did I and the doctor, and here it is. Afterwards he warned me to say nothing of it when Mr. Kendal came, for he said if the other fellow made a row, it would be better his father should be able to say he had known nothing of the matter.’

‘Does he make his father his heir?’

‘That’s the whole of it. He said his sisters would see it was the only way to get things even, and I was to tell Albinia something about building cottages or almshouses. Ay, “his father was to do what ought to have been done.”’

‘Well, there’s the best deed of poor Gilbert’s life!’

‘Thank you,’ mumbled Fred, hall drolly, half gravely.

‘Ay, Kendal and Albinia will do more good with that property than you have thought of in all your life, sir.’

‘Their future and my past,’ laughed Fred, adding more gravely, ‘Scamp as I am, there’s more responsibility coming on me now, and I have gone through some preparation for it. If I can get out to Canada—’

‘You will not lessen your responsibilities,’ said Maurice, smiling, ‘nor your competency to meet them.’

‘I trust not,’ said Fred.

Mr. Ferrars read in his countenance far more than was implied by those words. The General, by treating him as a boy, had kept him one, and perhaps his levity had been prolonged by the rejection of his first love; but a really steady attachment had settled his character, and he had been undergoing much training through his own sufferings, Gilbert’s illness, and the sense of the new position that awaited him as commanding officer; and for the first time Maurice, who had always been very fond of him, felt that he was talking to a high-principled and right-minded man instead of the family pet and laughing-stock.

‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘that you cannot have heard often from Montreal since you have been in the East.’

‘No. If my letters are anywhere, it is at the Family Office. I desired them to be forwarded thither from head-quarters, not expecting to be detained here. But,’ cried Fred with animation, ‘what think you of the General actually writing to Mr. Kinnaird from Balaklava?’

‘It would have been too bad if he had not.’

‘I believe he did so solely to make me sleep, but it is the first time he has deigned to treat the affair as anything but a delusion, and he can’t retract now. Since that, poor Gilbert has made a scrap or two of mine presentable, and there’s all that I have been able to accomplish; but I hope it may have set her mind at rest.’

‘Shall I be secretary?’

‘Thank you, I think not. She would only worry herself about what is before me; and if the doctors let me off easy, I had rather report of myself in person.’

His eyes danced, and Maurice thought his unselfishness deserved a reward.

‘My poor Gilbert’s last secret,’ said Mr. Kendal, as he laid before his wife the brief document by which his son had designated him as his sole heir and executor. ‘A gift to you, and a trust to me.’

Albinia looked up for explanation.

‘While he intrusts his sisters to my justice, he tacitly commends to me the works which you wished to see accomplished.’

‘The almshouses! The improvements! Do you mean to undertake them?’

‘It shall be my most sacred duty.’

‘Oh! that we could have planned it with him!’

‘Perhaps I value this the more from the certainty that it is spontaneous,’ said Mr. Kendal. ‘It showed great consideration and forethought, that he said nothing of his intention to me. Had he mentioned it, I should have thought it right to suggest his leaving his sisters their share; and yet, as we are situated with young Dusautoy, it would have been awkward to have interfered. He did well and wisely to be silent.’

‘You don’t expect Algernon to be discontented. Impossible, at such a time, and so well off as he is!’

‘I wish it may be impossible.’

‘What do you mean, to do?’

‘As far as I can see at present, I shall do this. I fear neither the mode of acquisition nor the management of that property was such as to bring a blessing, and I believe my poor boy has made it over to me in order to free his sisters from the necessity of winking at oppression and iniquity. Had it gone to them, matters must have been let alone till Sophia came of age, and even then, all improvements must have depended on Algernon’s consent. The land and houses we will keep, and sufficient ready money for the building and repairs; and to this, Sophia, at least, will gladly agree. The rest—something under twenty thousand, if I remember correctly—is the girls’ right. I will settle Lucy’s share on her so as to be out of her husband’s power, and Sophia shall have hers when she comes of age.’

‘I am sure that will take from Algernon all power of grumbling, though I cannot believe that even he could complain.’

‘You approve, then?’

‘How can you ask? It is the first thing that has seemed like happiness, if it did not make one long for him to talk it over!’ The wound was still very recent, and her spirits very tender, and the more she felt the blessing of the association with Gilbert in the work of love, the more she wept, though not altogether in sorrow.

Mortified at having come so much overworked and weakened, as to occasion only trouble and anxiety, she yielded resignedly when forbidden to wear out strength and spirits by a visit to the burial-ground before her embarkation. She must content herself with Maurice’s description of the locality, and carry away in her eye only the general picture of the sapphire ocean and white rock fortress of the holy warriors vowed to tenderness and heroism, as the last resting-place of her cherished Gilbert, when ‘out of weakness he had been made strong’ in penitence and love.

CHAPTER XXVII

Had Sophia’s wishes been consulted, she would have preferred nursing her sorrows at home; but no choice had been left, and at the vicarage the fatherly kindness of Mr. Dusautoy, and the considerate let-alone system of his wife, kept her at ease and not far from cheerful, albeit neither the simplicity of the one nor the keenness of the other was calculated to draw her into unreserve: comfort was in the children.

The children clung to her as if she made their home, little Albinia preferring her even to Uncle John, as he had insisted on being called ever since Lucy had become his niece, and Maurice invoking caresses, the bestowal of which was his mother’s rare privilege. The boy was dull and listless, and though riot and mirth could be only too easily excited, his wildest shouts and most frantic gesticulations were like efforts to throw off a load at his heart. Time hung heavy on his hands, and he would lie rolling and kicking drearily on the floor, watching with some envy his little sister as she spelt her way prosperously through ‘Little Charles,’ or daintily and distinctly repeated her hymns. ‘Nothing to do’ was the burthen of his song, and with masculine perverseness he disdained every occupation suggested to him. Sophy might boast of his obedience and quiescence, but Mrs. Dusautoy pitied all parties, and wondered when he would be disposed of at school.

Permission to open letters had been left with Sophy, who with silent resignation followed the details of poor Gilbert’s rapid decay. At last came the parcel by the private hand, containing a small packet for each of the family. Sophy received a silver Maltese Cross, and little Albinia a perfumy rose-leaf bracelet. There was a Russian grape-shot for Maurice, and with it a letter.

With childish secrecy, he refused to let any one look at so much as the envelope, and ran away with it, shouting ‘It’s mine.’ Sophy was grieved that it should be treated like a toy, and fearing that, while playing at importance, he would lose or destroy it, without coming to a knowledge of the contents, she durst not betray her solicitude, lest she should give a stimulus to his wilfulness and precipitate its fate. However, when he had galloped about enough, he called imperatively, ‘Sophy;’ and she found him lying on his back on the grass, the black cat an unwilling prisoner on his chest.

‘You may read it to Smut and me,’ he said.

It bore date the day after his father’s arrival, but it had evidently been continued at many different times; and as the handwriting became more feeble, the style grew more earnest, so that, but for her hoarse, indifferent voice, Sophy could hardly have accomplished the reading.

‘My dear Maurice,

‘Many, many thanks to you and dear little Awkey for your present. I have set it up like a picture, and much do I like to look at it, and guess who chose the colours and who are the hunters. I am sure the fat man in the red coat is the admiral. It makes the place seem like home to see what tells so plainly of you and baby.

‘Kiss my little Awk for me, and thank her for wanting to send me Miss Jenny, dear little maid; I like to think of it. You will not let her quite forget me. You must show her my name if it is put up in church, like Edmund’s and all the little ones’; and you will sometimes tell her about dear old Ned on a Sunday evening when you are both very good.

‘I think you know that you and she will never again run out into the hall to pull Gibbie almost down between you. Perhaps by the time you read this, you will be the only son, with all the comfort and hope of the house resting upon you. My poor Maurice, I know what it is to be told so, and only to feel that one has no brother; but at least it cannot be to you as it was with me, when it was as if half myself were gone, and all my stronger, better, braver self.

‘My father has been reading to me the Rich Man and Lazarus. Maurice, when you read of him and the five brethren, think of me, and how I pray that I may not have left seeds of temptation for you. In the time of my loneliness, Tritton was good-natured, but I ought to have avoided him; and that to which he introduced me has been the bane of my life. Nothing gives me such anguish as to think I have made you acquainted with that set. Keep out of their way! Never go near those pigeon-shootings and donkey-races; they seem good fun, but it is disobedience to go, and the things that happen there are like the stings of venomous creatures; the poison was left to fester even when your mother seemed to have cured me. Neither now nor when you are older resort to such things or such people. Next time you meet Tritton and Shaw tell them I desired to be remembered to them; after that have nothing to do with them; touch your hat and pass on. They meant it in good nature, and thought no harm, but they were my worst enemies; they led me astray, and taught me deception as a matter of course. Oh! Maurice, never think it manly to have the smallest reserve with your parents. I would give worlds to have sooner known that truth would have been freedom and rest. Thank Heaven, your faults are not my faults. If you go wrong, it will be with a high hand, but you would wring hearts that can ill bear further grief and disappointment. Oh! that I were more worthy to pray that you may use your strength and spirit the right way; then you will be gladness to our father and mother, and when you lie down to die, you will be happier than I am.

‘I want to tell you more, but it hurts me to write long. If I could only see you—not only in my dreams. I wake, and my heart sickens with longing for a sight of my brave boy’s merry face, till I almost feel as if it would make me well; but it is a blessing past hope to have my father with me, and know him as I have never done before. Give little Albinia these beads, with my love, and be a better brother to her than I was to poor Lucy.

‘Good-by, Maurice. No one can tell what you have been to me since your mother put you into my arms, and I felt I had a brother again. God bless you and cancel all evil you may have caught from me. Papa will give you my sword. Perhaps you will wear it one day, and under my colonel. I have never been so happy as in the time it was mine. When you look at it, always say this to yourself: “Fear God, and fear nothing else.” O that I had done so!

‘Let your dear, dear mother be happy in you: it will be the only way to make her forgive me in her heart. Good-by, my own dear, brave boy.

‘Your most affectionate brother,‘G. KENDAL.’

‘I say, Smut,’ quoth Maurice, ‘I think you and our Tabby would make two famous horses for Awkey’s little cart. I shall take you home and harness you.’

Sophy sat breathless at his indifference. ‘You mustn’t,’ she said in hasty anger; ‘Smut is not yours.’

‘Well, Jack said that our Tabby had two kittens up in the loft; I think they’ll make better ponies. I shall go and try them!’

‘Don’t plague the kittens.’

‘I’ll not plague them; I’ll only make ponies of them. Give me the letter.’

‘No, not to play with the cats. I thought you would have cared about such a letter!’

‘You have no right to keep it! It is mine; give it me!’ cried Maurice, passionately.

‘Promise to take real care of it.’

He only tore it from her, and was gone.

‘I’m a fool to expect anything from such a child,’ she thought.

At two o’clock the Vicar hurried into the bank. ‘Good morning, Mr. Goldsmith, I beg your pardon; I wanted to ask if Mr. O’More has seen little Maurice Kendal.’

‘Not since yesterday—what’s the matter?’

‘The child is not come in to dinner. He is nowhere at home or at Willow Lawn.’

‘Ha!’ cried Ulick. ‘Can he be gone to see his pony at Hobbs’s!’

‘No, it has been sent to Fairmead. Then you have no notion where the child can be? Sophy is nearly distracted. She saw him last about ten o’clock, bent on harnessing some kittens, but he’s not in the hay-loft!’

‘He may be gone to the toy-shop after the harness. Or has anyone looked in the church-tower—he was longing to go up it, and if the door were open—’

‘The very thing!’ cried the Vicar. ‘I’ll go this moment.’

‘Or there’s old Peter, the sailor,’ called Ulick; ‘if he wanted any tackle fitted, he might go to him.’

‘You had better go yourself, More,’ said Mr. Goldsmith. ‘One would not wish to keep poor Miss Kendal in suspense, though I dare say the boy is safe enough.’

Mr. Goldsmith was thanked, and Ulick hurried out, Hyder Ali leaping up in amazement at his master being loose at that time of day.

Everybody had thought the child was with somebody else till dinner-time, and the state of the vicarage was one of dire alarm and self-reproach. Sophy was seeking and calling in every possible place, and had just brought herself to own the message of remembrance in Gilbert’s letter, thinking it possible Maurice might have gone to deliver it at Robbles Leigh; and Mr. Hope had undertaken to go thither in quest of him. Ulick and Mr. Dusautoy, equally disappointed by the tower and the sailor, went again to Willow Lawn to interrogate the servants. The gardener’s boy had heard Maurice scolding and the cat squalling, and the cook had heard his step in the house. They hurried into his little room—he was not there, but the drawers had been disturbed.

‘He may be gone to Fairmead!’ cried the Vicar.

‘How?’ said Ulick. ‘Ha! Hyder, sir!’ holding up a little shoe. ‘Seek! That’s my fine doggie—they only call you a mongrel because you have all the canine virtues united. See what you can do as sleuth hound. Ha! We’ll nose him out for you in no time, Mr. Dusautoy!’

After sniffing round the drawers, the yellow tripod made an ungainly descent of the stairs, his nose down all the way, then across the hall and out at the gate; but when, after poking about, the animal set off on the turnpike-road, the Vicar demurred.

‘Stay; the poor dog only wants to get you out for a walk. He is making for the Hadminster road.’

‘And why wouldn’t he, if the child is nowhere in Bayford?

‘I can’t answer it to his mother wasting time in this way. You may do as you like. I shall go to the training-stables, where he has once been, if not on to Fairmead. I can’t see Sophy till he is found!’

‘I shall abide by my little Orangeman,’ said Ulick; and they parted.

Hyder Ali pursued his way in the March dust, while Ulick eagerly scanned for the traces of a child’s foot. Four miles did the dog go on, evidently following a scent, but Ulick’s mind misgave him as Hadminster church-tower rose before him, and the dog took the ascent to the station.

Ulick made his way in as a train stood panting before the platform. He had a glimpse of a square face and curly hair at the window of a second-class carriage.

‘Maurice, come back!’ he cried. ‘Here, guard! this little boy must come back!’