“Alas, he thought, how changed that mien,
How changed those timid looks have been,
Since years of guilt and of disguise
Have steeled her brow and armed her eyes.”
Marmion.
“Are you sleepy, Rose? What a yawn!”
“Not sleepy, Aunt Ailie; only it is such a tiresome long day when the
Colonel does not come in.”
“Take care, Rosie; I don’t know what we shall be good for at this rate.”
“We? O Aunt Ermine, then you think it tiresome too. I know you do—”
“What’s that, Rose!”
“It is! it is! I’ll open the door for him.”
The next moment Rose led her Colonel in triumph into the lamp-light.
There was a bright light in his eye, and yet he looked pale, grave, and
worn; and Ermine’s first observation was—
“How came Tibbie to let you out at this time of night?”
“I have not ventured to encounter Tibbie at all. I drove up to your
door.”
“You have been at St. Norbert’s all this time,” exclaimed Alison.
“Do you think no one can carry on a campaign at St. Norbert’s but
yourself and your generalissima, Miss Ailie?” he said, stroking down
Rose’s brown hair.
“Then, if you have not gone home, you have had nothing to eat, and that
is the reason you look so tired,” said Ermine.
“Yes; I had some luncheon at the Abbey.”
“Then, at any rate, you shall have some tea. Rosie, run and fetch the
little kettle.”
“And the Beauchamp cup and saucer,” added Rose, proudly producing the
single relic of a well-remembered set of olden times. “And please,
please, Aunt Ermine, let me sit up to make it for him. I have not seen
him all day, you know; and it is the first time he ever drank tea in our
house, except make-believe with Violetta and Colinette.”
“No, Rose. Your aunt says I spoil that child, and I am going to have my
revenge upon you. You must see the wild beast at his meals another time;
for it just happens that I have a good deal to say to your aunts, and it
is not intended for your ears.”
Rose showed no signs of being spoilt, for she only entreated to be
allowed “just to put the tea-things in order,” and then, winking very
hard, she said she would go.
“Here, Rose, if you please,” said Ermine, clearing the space of table
before her.
“Why, Aunt Ermine, I did not know you could make tea!”
“There are such things as extraordinary occasions, Rose. Now, good
night, my sweet one.”
“Good night, my Lady Discretion. We will make up for it one of these
days. Don’t stay away, pray, Ailie,” as Alison was following the child.
“I have nothing to say till you come back.”
“I know it is good news,” said Ermine; “but it has cost you something,
Colin.”
Instead of answering, he received his cup from her, filled up her
tea-pot, and said—
“How long is it since you poured out tea for me, Ermine?”
“Thirteen years next June, when you and Harry used to come in from the
cricket field, so late and hot that you were ashamed to present yourself
in civilized society at the Great House.”
“As if nobody from the Parsonage ever came down to look on at the
cricket.”
“Yes; being summoned by all the boys to see that nothing would teach a
Scotchman cricket.”
“Ah! you have got the last word, for here comes Ailie.”
“Of course,” said Alison, coming in; “Ermine has had the pith of the
story, so I had better ask at once what it is.”
“That the Beauchamp Eleven beat Her Majesty’s —th Foot on Midsummer
Day, 1846, is the pith of what I have as yet heard,” said Ermine.
“And that Beauchamp ladies are every whit as full of mischief as they
used to be in those days, is the sum of what I have told,” added Colin.
“Yes,” said Ermine, “he has most loyally kept his word of reserving all
for you. He has not even said whether Mauleverer is taken.”
“My story is grave and sad enough,” said Colin, laying aside all his
playfulness, and a serious expression coming over his features; but, at
the same time, the landlady’s sandy cat, which, like all other animals,
was very fond of him, and had established herself on his knee as soon as
Rose had left it vacant, was receiving a certain firm, hard, caressing
stroking, which resulted in vehement purrs on her part, and was
evidently an outlet of suppressed exaltation.
“Is he the same?” asked Alison.
“All in due time; unless, like Miss Rachel, you wish to tell me my story
yourselves. By-the-bye, how is that poor girl to-day?”
“Thoroughly knocked down. There is a sort of feverish lassitude about
her that makes them very anxious. They were hoping to persuade her to
see Mr. Frampton when Lady Temple heard last.”
“Poor thing! it has been a sad affair for her. Well, I told you I should
go over this morning and see Mr. Grey, and judge if anything could
be done. I got to the Abbey at about eleven o’clock, and found the
policeman had just come back after serving the summons, with the news
that Mauleverer was gone.”
“Gone!”
“Clean gone! Absconded from his lodgings, and left no traces behind him.
But, as to the poor woman, the policeman reported that she had been left
in terrible distress, with the child extremely ill, and not a penny, not
a thing to eat in the house. He came back to ask Mr. Grey what was to
be done; and as the suspicion of diphtheria made every one inclined to
fight shy of the house, I thought I had better go down and see what was
to be done. I knocked a good while in vain; but at last she looked out
of window, and I told her I only wanted to know what could be done for
her child, and would send a doctor. Then she told me how to open the
door. Poor thing! I found her the picture of desolation, in the midst of
the dreary kitchen, with the child gasping on her lap; all the pretence
of widowhood gone, and her hair hanging loose about her face, which was
quite white with hunger, and her great eyes looked wild, like the glare
of a wild beast’s in a den. I spoke to her by her own name, and she
started and trembled, and said, ‘Did Miss Alison tell you?’ I said,
‘Yes,’ and explained who I was, and she caught me up half way: ‘O yes,
yes, my lady’s nephew, that was engaged to Miss Ermine!’ And she looked
me full and searchingly in the face, Ermine, when I answered ‘Yes.’ Then
she almost sobbed, ‘And you are true to her;’ and put her hands over her
face in an agony. It was a very strange examination on one’s constancy,
and I put an end to it by asking if she had any friends at home that I
could write to for her; but she cast that notion from her fiercely, and
said she had no friend, no one. He had left her to her fate, because the
child was too ill to be moved. And indeed the poor child was in such a
state that there was no thinking of anything else, and I went at once to
find a doctor and a nurse.”
“Diphtheria again?”
“Yes; and she, poor thing, was in no state to give it the resolute care
that is the only chance. Doctors could be easily found, but I was at my
wit’s end for a nurse, till I remembered that Mr. Mitchell had told
me of a Sisterhood that have a Home at St. Norbert’s, with a nursing
establishment attached to it. So, in despair, I went there, and begged
to see the Superior, and a most kind and sensible lady I found her,
ready to do anything helpful. She lent me a nice little Sister, rather
young, I thought; but who turned out thoroughly efficient, nearly as
good as a doctor. Still, whether the child lives is very doubtful,
though the mother was full of hope when I went in last. She insisted
that I had saved it, when both she and it had been deserted by Maddox,
for whom she had given up everything.”
“Then she owned that he was Maddox?”
“She called him so, without my even putting the question to her. She had
played his game long enough; and now his desertion has evidently put an
end to all her regard for him. It was confusedly and shortly told; the
child was in a state that prevented attention being given to anything
else; but she knows that she had been made a tool of to ruin her master
and you, and the sight of you, Ailie, had evidently stirred up much old
affection, and remembrance of better days.”
“Is she his wife?”
“No, or the evidence she promises could not be used against him. Do you
know this, Ermine?” as he gave her a cover, with a seal upon it.
“The Saracen! the Saracen’s head, Colin; it was made with the lost
seal-ring!”
“The ring was taken from Edward’s dressing-room the night when Rose was
frightened with the phosphorus. Maria declares that she did not suspect
the theft, or Maddox’s purpose, till long after she had left her place.
He effected his practices under pretence of attachment to her, and then
could not shake her off. She went abroad with him after the settlement
of affairs; but he could not keep out of gambling speculation, and lost
everything. Then he seems to have larked about, obtaining means she knew
not how—as artist, lecturer, and what not—till the notable F. U. E. E.
was started. Most likely he would have collected the subscriptions and
made off with them, if Rachel Curtis had not had just sense enough to
trust him with nothing without seeing some result, so that he was forced
to set the affair going with Maria at its head, as the only person
who could co-operate with him. They kept themselves ready for a start
whenever there should be symptoms of a discovery, but, in the meantime,
he gambled away all that he got into his hands, and never gave her
enough to feed the children. Thus she was absolutely driven to force
work from them for subsistence; and she is a passionate creature, whom
jealousy embittered more and more, so that she became more savage than
she knew. Poor thing! She has her punishment. Maddox only came home,
yesterday, too late for any train before the mail, and by that time the
child was too ill to be moved. He must have thought it all up with him,
and wished to be rid of both, for they quarrelled, and he left her to
her misery.”
“What, gone?”
“Yes, but she told us of his haunts—haunts that he thought she did not
know—a fancy shop, kept by a Mrs. Dench at Bristol, where it seems that
he plays the philanthropical lecturer, and probably has been trying to
secure a snug berth for himself unknown, as he thought, to Maria; but
she pried into his letters, and kept a keen watch upon him. He was to
be inquired for there by his Mauleverer name, and, I have little doubt,
will be captured.”
“And then?”
“He will be committed for trial at the sessions; and, in the meantime,
I must see Beauchamp and Dr. Long, and arrange that he should be
prosecuted for the forgery, even though he should slip through our
fingers at the sessions.”
“Oh, could that be?”
“This Clever Woman has managed matters so sweetly, that they might just
as well try her as him for obtaining money on false pretences; and the
man seems to have been wonderfully sharp in avoiding committing himself.
Mrs. Curtis’s man of business has been trying all day to get up the
case, but he has made out nothing but a few more debts such as that
which turned up yesterday; and it is very doubtful how far a case can be
made out against him.”
“And then we should lose him.”
“That is exactly what I wish to avoid. I want to bring up my forces at
once, and have him laid hold of at once for the forgery of those letters
of Edward’s. How long would it take to hear from Ekaterinburg? I suppose
Edward could travel as fast as a letter.”
Alison fairly sprang to her feet.
“O, Colin, Colin! you do not think that Edward would be here by the next
sessions.”
“He ought,” said Colin. “I hope to induce Dr. Long and Harry to write
him such letters as to bring him home at once.”
Self-restrained Alison was fairly overcome. She stretched out both
hands, pressed Colin’s convulsively, then turned away her face, and,
bursting into tears, ran out of the room.
“Poor dear Ailie,” said Ermine; “she has suffered terribly. Her heart is
full of Edward. Oh, I hope he will come.”
“He must. He cannot be so senseless as to stay away.”
“There is that unfortunate promise to his wife; and I fear that he is
become so much estranged from English ways that he will hardly care to
set himself straight here, after the pain that the universal suspicion
gave him.”
“He cannot but care. For the sake of all he must care,” vehemently
repeated Colin, with the punctilious honour of the nobly-born soldier.
“For his child’s sake, this would be enough to bring him from his grave.
If he refused to return to the investigation, it would be almost enough
to make me doubt him.”
“I am glad you said almost,” said Ermine, trying to smile; but he had
absolutely brought tears into her eyes.
“Dear Ermine,” he said, gently, “you need not fear my not trusting
him to the utmost. I know that he has been too much crushed to revive
easily, and that it may not be easy to make him appreciate our hopes
from such a distance; but I think such a summons as this must bring
him.”
“I hope it will,” said Ermine. “Otherwise we should not deserve that you
should have any more to do with us.”
“Ermine, Ermine, do you not know that nothing can make any difference
between us?”
Ermine had collected herself while he spoke.
“I know,” she said, “that all you are doing makes me thank and bless
you—oh! more than I can speak.”
He looked wistfully at her, but, tearful as were her eyes, there was a
resolution, about her face that impressed upon him that she trusted to
his promise of recurring no more within the year to the subject so near
his heart; and he could say no more than, “You forgive me, Ermine, you
know I trust him as you do.”
“I look to your setting him above being only trusted,” said Ermine,
trying to smile. “Oh! if you knew what this ray of hope is in the dreary
darkness that has lasted so long!”
Therewith he was obliged to leave her, and she only saw him for a few
minutes in the morning, when he hurried in to take leave, since, if
matters went right at the magistrates’ bench, he intended to proceed
at once to make such representations in person to Mr. Beauchamp and Dr.
Long, as might induce them to send an urgent recall to Edward in time
for the spring sessions, and for this no time must be lost. Ermine
remained then alone with Rose, feeling the day strangely long and
lonely, and that, perhaps, its flatness might be a preparation for the
extinction of all the brightness that had of late come into her life.
Colin had said he would trust as she did, but those words had made her
aware that she must trust as he did. If he, with his clear sense and
kindly insight into Edward’s character, became convinced that his
absence proceeded from anything worse than the mere fainthearted
indifference that would not wipe off a blot, then Ermine felt that his
judgment would carry her own along with it, and that she should lose her
undoubting faith in her brother’s perfect innocence, and in that case
her mind was made up; Colin might say and do what he would, but she
would never connect him through herself with deserved disgrace. The
parting, after these months of intercourse and increased knowlege of one
another, would be infinitely more wretched than the first; but, cost her
what it would—her life perhaps—the break should be made rather than
let his untainted name be linked with one where dishonour justly
rested. But with her constant principle of abstinence from dwelling on
contingencies, she strove to turn away her mind, and to exert herself;
though this was no easy task, especially on so solitary a day as this,
while Alison was in charge at Myrtlewood in Lady Temple’s absence, and
Rachel Curtis was reported far too ill to leave her room, so that Ermine
saw no one all day except her constant little companion; nor was it till
towards evening that Alison at length made her appearance, bringing a
note which Colin had sent home by Lady Temple.
All had so far gone well. Maria Hatherton had been committed to take her
trial at the quarter sessions for the assault upon the children; but, as
her own little girl was still living, though in extreme danger, and the
Sisters promised to take charge of both for the present, Colonel Keith
had thought it only common humanity to offer bail, and this had been
accepted. Later in the day Mauleverer himself had been brought down,
having been taken up at a grand meeting of his Bristol friends, who had
all rallied round him, expressing strong indignation at the accusation,
and offering evidence as to character. He denied any knowledge of the
name of Maddox, and declared that he was able to prove that his own
account of himself as a popular, philanthropical lecturer was perfectly
correct; and he professed to be much amazed at the charges brought
against him, which could only have arisen from some sudden alarm in the
young lady’s mind, excited by her friends, whom he had always observed
to be prejudiced against him. He appealed strongly against the hardship
of being imprisoned on so slight a charge; but, as he could find no one
to take his part, he reserved his defence for the quarter sessions, for
which he was fully committed. Colin thought, however, that it was so
doubtful whether the charges against him could be substantiated, that
it was highly necessary to be fully prepared to press the former forgery
against him, and had therefore decided upon sleeping at St. Norbert’s
and going on by an early train to obtain legal advice in London, and
then to see Harry Beauchamp. Meantime, Ermine must write to her brother
as urgently as possible, backing up Colin’s own representations of the
necessity of his return.
Ermine read eagerly, but Alison seemed hardly able to command her
attention to listen, and scarcely waited for the end of the letter
before her own disclosure was made. Francis was sickening with
diphtheria; he had been left behind in the morning on account of some
outbreak of peevishness, and Alison, soon becoming convinced that temper
was not solely in fault, had kept him apart from his brothers, and at
last had sent for the doctor, who had at once pronounced it to be
the same deadly complaint which had already declared itself in Rachel
Curtis. Alison had of course devoted herself to the little boy till his
mother’s return from St. Norbert’s, when she had been obliged to give
the first intimation of what the price of the loving little widow’s
exploit might be. “I don’t think she realizes the extent of the
illness,” said Alison; “say what I would, she would keep on thanking me
breathlessly, and only wanting to escape to him. I asked if we should
send to let Colin know, and she answered in her dear, unselfish way, ‘By
no means, it would be safer for him to be out of the way,’ and, besides,
she knew how much depended on his going.”
“She is right,” said Ermine; “I am thankful that he is out of reach of
trying to take a share in the nursing, it is bad enough to have one in
the midst!”
“Yes,” said Alison. “Lady Temple cannot be left to bear this grievous
trouble alone, and when the Homestead cannot help her. Yet, Ermine, what
can be done? Is it safe for you and Rose?”
“Certainly not safe that you should come backwards and forwards,” said
Ermine. “Rose must not be put in danger; so, dear, dear Ailie, you had
better take your things up, and only look in on us now and then at the
window.”
Alison entirely broke down. “Oh, Ermine, Ermine, since you began to
mend, not one night have we been apart!”
“Silly child,” said Ermine, straining her quivering voice to be
cheerful, “I am strong, and Rose is my best little handmaid.”
“I know it is right,” said Alison, “I could not keep from my boys, and,
indeed, now Colin is gone, I do not think any one at Myrtlewood will
have the heart to carry out the treatment. It will almost kill that dear
young mother to see it. No, they cannot be left; but oh, Ermine, it is
like choosing between you and them.”
“Not at all, it is choosing between right and wrong.”
“And Ermine, if—if I should be ill, you must not think of coming near
me. Rose must not be left alone.”
“There is no use in talking of such things,” said Ermine, resolutely,
“let us think of what must be thought of, not of what is in the only
Wise Hands. What has been done about the other children?”
“I have kept them away from the first; I am afraid for none of them but
Conrade.”
“It would be the wisest way to send them, nurses and all, to Gowanbrae.”
“Wise, but cool,” said Alison.
“I will settle that,” returned Ermine. “Tibbie shall come and invite
them, and you must make Lady Temple consent.”
The sisters durst not embrace, but gazed at one another, feeling that
it might be their last look, their hearts swelling with unspoken prayer,
but their features so restrained that neither might unnerve the other.
Then it was that Alison, for the first time, felt absolute relief in the
knowledge, once so bitter, that she had ceased to be the whole world to
her sister. And Ermine, for one moment, felt as if it would be a way out
of all troubles and perplexities if the two sisters could die together,
and leave little Rose to be moulded by Colin to be all he wished; but
she resolutely put aside the future, and roused herself to send a few
words in pencil, requesting Tibbie to step in and speak to her.
That worthy personage had fully adopted her, and entering, tall and
stately, in her evening black silk and white apron, began by professing
her anxiety to be any assistance in her power, saying, “she’d be
won’erfu’ proud to serve Miss Williams, while her sister was sae thrang
waitin’ on her young scholar in his sair trouble.”
Emmie thanked her, and rejoiced that the Colonel was out of harm’s way.
“Deed, aye, ma’am, he’s weel awa’. He has sic a wark wi’ thae laddies
an’ their bit bairn o’ a mither, I’ll no say he’d been easy keepit out
o’ the thick o’ the distress, an’ it’s may be no surprisin’, after
a’ that’s come and gane, that he seeks to take siccan a lift of the
concern. I’ve mony a time heard tell that the auld General, Sir Stephen,
was as good as a faither to him, when he was sick an’ lonesome, puir
lad, in yon far awa’ land o’ wild beasts an’ savages.”
“Would it not be what he might like, to take in the children out of the
way of infection?”
“‘Deed, Miss Ermine,” with a significant curtsey, “I’m thinkin’ ye
ken my maister Colin amaist as weel as I do. He’s the true son of his
forbears, an’ Gowanbrae used to be always open in the auld lord’s time,
that’s his grandfather Foreby, that he owes so much kindness to the
General.”
Ermine further suggested that it was a pity to wait for a letter
from the Colonel, and Tibbie quite agreed. She “liked the nurse as an
extraordinar’ douce woman, not like the fine English madams that Miss
Isabel—that’s Mrs. Comyn Menteith—put about her bairns; and as to
room, the sergeant and the tailor bodie did not need much, and the
masons were only busy in the front parlour.”
“Masons?” asked Ermine.
“On, aye? didna ye ken it’s for the new room, that is to be built out
frae the further parlour, and what they ca’ the bay to the drawin’-room,
just to mak’ the house more conformable like wi’ his name and forbears.
I never thocht but that ye’d surely seen the plans and a’, Miss Ermine,
an’ if so be it was Maister Colin’s pleasure the thing suld be private,
I’m real vext to hae said a word; but ye’ll may be no let on to him,
ma’am, that ye ken onything about it.”
“Those down-stairs rooms so silently begun,” thought Ermine. “How fixed
his intention must be? Oh, how will it end? What would be best for him?
And how can I think of myseif, while all, even my Ailie, are in distress
and danger?”
Ermine had, however, a good deal to think of, for not only had she
Colin’s daily letter to answer, but she had Conrade, Leoline, and Hubert
with her for several hours every day, and could not help being amused by
Rose’s ways with them, little grown-up lady as she was compared to
them. Luckily girls were such uncommon beings with them as to be rather
courted than despised, and Rose, having nothing of the tom-boy, did not
forfeit the privileges of her sex. She did not think they compensated
for her Colonel’s absence, and never durst introduce Violetta to them;
but she enjoyed and profited by the contact with childhood, and was a
very nice little comforter to Conrade when he was taken with a fit of
anxiety for the brother whom he missed every moment.
Quarantine weighed, however, most heavily upon poor Grace Curtis. Rachel
had from the first insisted that she should be kept out of her room; and
the mother’s piteous entreaty always implied that saddest argument, “Why
should I be deprived of you both in one day?” So Grace found herself
condemned to uselessness almost as complete as Ermine’s. She could only
answer notes, respond to inquiries, without even venturing far enough
from the house to see Ermine, or take out the Temple children for a
walk. For indeed, Rachel’s state was extremely critical.
The feverish misery that succeeded Lovedy’s death had been utterly
crushing, the one load of self-accusation had prostrated her, but with
a restlessness of agony, that kept her writhing as it were in her
wretchedness; and then came the gradual increase of physical suffering,
bearing in upon her that she had caught the fatal disorder. To her sense
of justice, and her desire to wreak vengeance on herself, the notion
might be grateful; but the instinct of self-preservation was far
stronger. She could not die. The world here, the world to come, were all
too dark, too confused, to enable her to bear such a doom. She saw her
peril in her mother’s face; in the reiterated visits of the medical
man, whom she no longer spurned; in the calling in of the Avoncester
physician; in the introduction of a professional nurse, and the strong
and agonizing measures to which she had to submit, every time with
the sensation that the suffering could not possibly be greater without
exceeding the powers of endurance.
Then arose the thought that with weakness she should lose all chance of
expressing a wish, and, obtaining pencil and paper, she began to write
a charge to her mother and sister to provide for Mary Morris; but in
the midst there came over her the remembrance of the papers that she had
placed in Mauleverer’s hands—the title-deeds of the Burnaby Bargain; an
estate that perhaps ought to be bringing in as much as half the rental
of the property. It must be made good to the poor. If the title-deeds
had been sold to any one who could claim the property, what would be
the consequence? She felt herself in a mist of ignorance and perplexity;
dreading the consequences, yet feeling as if her own removal might
leave her fortune free to make up for them. She tried to scrawl an
explanation; but mind and fingers were alike unequal to the task, and
she desisted just as fresh torture began at the doctor’s hands—torture
from which they sent her mother away, and that left her exhausted, and
despairing of holding out through a repetition.
And then—and then! “Tell me of my Saviour,” the dying child had said;
and the drawn face had lightened at the words to which Rachel’s oracles
declared that people attached crude or arbitrary meanings; and now she
hardly knew what they conveyed to her, and longed, as for something far
away, for the reality of those simple teachings—once realities, now
all by rote! Saved by faith! What was faith? Could all depend on a
last sensation? And as to her life. Failure, failure through headstrong
blindness and self-will, resulting in the agony of the innocent. Was
this ground of hope? She tried to think of progress and purification
beyond the grave; but this was the most speculative, insecure fabric of
all. There was no habit of trust to it—no inward conviction, no outward
testimony. And even when the extreme danger subsided, and Francis Temple
was known to be better, Rachel found that her sorrow was not yet
ended: for Conrade had been brought home with the symptoms of the
complaint—Conrade, the most beloved and loving of Fanny’s little ones,
the only one who really remembered his father, was in exceeding, almost
hopeless peril, watched day and night by his mother and Miss Williams.
The little Alice, Maria Hatherton’s own child, had lingered and
struggled long, but all the care and kindness of the good Sisters at
St. Norbert’s had been unavailing, she had sunk at last, and the mother
remained in a dull, silent, tearless misery, quietly doing all that was
required of her, but never speaking nor giving the ladies any opening to
try to make an impression upon her.
Rachel gleaned more intelligence than her mother meant her to obtain,
and brooded over it in her weakness and her silence.
Recovery is often more trying than illness, and Rachel suffered greatly.
Indeed, she was not sure that she ought to have recovered at all, and
perhaps the shock to her nerves and spirits was more serious than
the effect of the sharp passing disorder, which had, however, so much
weakened her that she succumbed entirely to the blow. “Accountable for
all,” the words still rang in her ears, and the all for which she was
accountable continually magnified itself. She had tied a dreadful knot,
which Fanny, meek contemned Fanny had cut, but at the cost of grievous
suffering and danger to her boys, and too late to prevent that death
which continually haunted Rachel; those looks of convulsive agony came
before her in all her waking and sleeping intervals. Nothing put them
aside, occupation in her weakness only bewildered and distracted her,
and even though she was advancing daily towards convalescence, leaving
her room, and being again restored to her sister, she still continued
listless, dejected, cast down, and unable to turn her mind from this one
dreary contemplation. Of Fanny and her sons it was hardly possible
to think, and one of the strange perturbations of the mind in illness
caused her to dwell far less on them than on the minor misery of the
fate of the title-deeds of the Burnaby Bargain, which she had put into
Mauleverer’s hand. She fancied their falling into the hands of some
speculator, who, if he did not break the mother’s heart by putting up
a gasometer, would certainly wring it by building hideous cottages, or
desirable marine residences. The value would be enhanced so as to be
equal to more than half that of the Homestead, the poor would have been
cheated of it, and what compensation could be made? Give up all her own
share? Nay, she had nothing absolutely her own while her mother lived,
only £5,000 was settled on her if she married, and she tortured herself
with devising plans that she knew to be impracticable, of stripping
herself, and going forth to suffer the poverty she merited. Yes, but how
would she have lived? Not like the Williamses! She had tried teaching
like the one, and writing like the other, but had failed in both. The
Clever Woman had no marketable or available talent. She knew very well
that nothing would induce her mother and sister to let her despoil
herself, but to have injured them would be even more intolerable; and
more than all was the sickening uncertainty, whether any harm had been
done, or what would be its extent.
Ignorant of such subjects at the best, her brain was devoid of force
even to reason out her own conjectures, or to decide what must be
impossible. She felt compelled to keep all to herself; to alarm her
mother was out of the question, when Mrs. Curtis was distressed and
shaken enough already, and to have told Grace would only have brought
her soothing promises of sharing the burthen—exactly what she did not
want—and would have led to the fact being known to the family man of
business, Mr. Cox, the very last person to whom Rachel wished to confess
the proceeding. It was not so much the humiliation of owning to him such
a fatal act of piracy upon his province, as because she believed him to
have been the cause that the poor had all this time been cheated of the
full value of the estate. He had complacently consulted the welfare
of the Curtis family, by charging them with the rent of the fields as
ordinary grass land, and it had never dawned on him that it would be
only just to increase the rent. Rachel had found him an antagonist to
every scheme she had hatched, ever since she was fifteen years old, her
mother obeyed him with implicit faith, and it was certain that if the
question were once in his hands, he would regard it as his duty to save
the Curtis funds, and let the charity sink or swim. And he was the only
person out of the house whom Rachel had seen.
As soon as—or rather before—she could bear it, the first day that her
presence was supposed not to be perilous to others, she was obliged to
have an interview with him, to enable him to prepare the case for
the quarter sessions. Nothing could be much worse for her nerves and
spirits, but even the mother was absolutely convinced of the necessity,
and Rachel was forced to tax her enfeebled powers to enable her to give
accurate details of her relations with Mauleverer, and enable him to
judge of the form of the indictment. Once or twice she almost sunk back
from the exceeding distastefulness of the task, but she found herself
urged on, and when she even asked what would happen if she were not well
enough to appear, she was gravely told that she must be—it would be
very serious if she did not make a great effort, and even her mother
shook her head, looked unhappy, but confirmed the admonition. A little
revenge or hatred would have been a great help to her, but she could not
feel them as impulses. If it had been the woman, she could have gladly
aided in visiting such cruelty upon her, but this had not been directly
chargeable upon Mauleverer; and though Rachel felt acutely that he had
bitterly abused her confidence, she drooped too much to feel the spirit
of retort. The notion of being confronted with him before all the world
at Avoncester, and being made to bring about his punishment, was simply
dreadful to her, but when she murmured some word of this to her mother,
Mrs. Curtis fairly started, and said quite fiercely, “My dear, don’t let
me hear you say any such thing. He is a very wicked man, and you ought
to be glad to have him punished!”
She really spoke as if she had been rebuking some infringement of
decorum, and Rachel was quite startled. She asked Grace why the mother
was so bent on making her vindictive, but Grace only answered that every
one must be very much shocked, and turned away the subject.
Prudent Grace! Her whole soul was in a tumult of wrath and shame at what
she knew to be the county gossip, but she was aware that Rachel’s total
ignorance of it was the only chance of her so comporting herself in
court as to silence the rumour, and she and her mother were resolutely
discreet.
Mrs. Curtis, between nursing, anxiety, and worry, looked lamentably
knocked up, and at last Grace and Rachel prevailed on her to take a
drive, leaving Rachel on a sofa in her sitting-room, to what was
no small luxury to her just at present—that of being miserable
alone—without meeting any one’s anxious eyes, or knowing that her
listlessness was wounding the mother’s heart. Yet the privilege only
resulted in a fresh perturbation about the title-deeds, and longing to
consult some one who could advise and sympathize. Ermine Williams would
have understood and made her Colonel give help, but Ermine seemed as
unattainable as Nova Zembla, and she only heard that the Colonel was
absent. Her head as aching with the weary load of doubt, and she tried
to cheat her woe by a restless movement to the windows. She saw Captain
Keith riding to the door. It suddenly darted into her mind that here was
one who could and would help her. He could see Mauleverer and ascertain
what had become of the deeds; he could guess at the amount of danger!
She could not forget his kindness on the night of Lovedy’s illness,
or the gentleness of his manner about the woodcuts, and with a sudden
impulse she rang the bell and desired that Captain Keith might be shown
in. She was still standing leaning on the table when he entered.
“This is very good in you,” he said; “I met your mother and sister on
my way up, and they asked me to leave word of Conrade being better, but
they did not tell me I should see you.”
“Conrade is better?” said Rachel, sitting down, unable to stand longer.
“Yes, his throat is better. Miss Williams’s firmness saved him. They
think him quite out of danger.”
“Thank Heaven! Oh, I could never have seen his mother again! Oh, she has
been the heroine!”
“In the truest sense of the word,” he answered. And Rachel looked up
with one moment’s brightening at the old allusion, but her oppression
was too great for cheerfulness, and she answered—
“Dear Fanny, yes, she will be a rebuke to me for ever! But,” she added,
before he had time to inquire for her health, “I wanted—I wanted to beg
you to do me a service. You were so kind the other night.”
His reply was to lean earnestly forward, awaiting her words, and she
told him briefly of her grievous perplexity about the title-deeds.
“Then,” he said, “you would wish for me to see the man and ascertain how
he has disposed of them.”
“I should be most grateful!”
“I will do my utmost. Perhaps I may not succeed immediately, as I
believe visitors are not admitted every day, and he is said to be busy
preparing his defence, but I will try, and let you know.”
“Thanks, thanks! The doubt is terrible, for I know worry about it would
distract my mother.”
“I do not imagine,” he said, “that much worse consequences than worry
could ensue. But there are none more trying.”
“Oh not none!”
“Do not let worry about this increase other ills,” he said, kindly, “do
not think about this again till you hear from me.”
“Is that possible?”
“I should not have thought so, if I had not watched my uncle cast off
troubles about his eye-sight and the keeping his living.”
“Ah! but those were not of his own making.”
“‘There is a sparkle even in the darkest water.’ That was a saying of
his,” said Alick, looking anxiously at her pale cheek and down-cast eye.
“Not when they are turbid.”
“They will clear,” he said, and smiled with a look of encouraging hope
that again cheered her in spite of herself. “Meantime remember that in
any way I can help you, it will be the greatest favour—” he checked
himself as he observed the exceeding languor and lassitude apparent in
her whole person, and only said, “My sister is too much at the bottom of
it for me not to feel it the greatest kindness to me to let me try to
be of the slightest use. I believe I had better go now,” as he rose and
looked at her wistfully; “you are too much tired to talk.”
“I believe I am,” she said, almost reluctantly, “but thank you, this has
done me good.”
“And you are really getting better?”
“Yes, I believe so. Perhaps I may feel it when this terrible day is
over.”
What a comfort it would be, she said to herself, when he was gone, if we
had but a near relation like him, who would act for the mother, instead
of our being delivered up, bound hand and foot, to Mr. Cox. It would
have been refreshing to have kept him now, if I could have done it
without talking; it really seemed to keep the horrible thoughts in
abeyance, to hear that wonderfully gentle tone! And how kind and soft
the look was! I do feel stronger for it! Will it really be better after
next week? Alas! that will have undone nothing.
Yet even this perception of a possibility of hope that there would be
relief after the ordeal, was new to Rachel; and it soon gave way to that
trying feature of illness, the insurmountable dread of the mere physical
fatigue. The Dean of Avoncester, a kind old friend of Mrs. Curtis, had
insisted on the mother and daughters coming to sleep at the Deanery,
on the Tuesday night, and remaining till the day after the trial; but
Rachel’s imagination was not even as yet equal to the endurance of
the long drive, far less of the formality of a visit. Lady Temple was
likewise asked to the Deanery, but Conrade was still too ill for her to
think of leaving him for more than the few needful hours of the trial;
nor had Alison been able to do more than pay an occasional visit at her
sister’s window to exchange reports, and so absorbed was she in her boys
and their mother, that it was quite an effort of recollection to keep up
to Ermine’s accounts of Colonel Keith’s doings.
It was on the Monday afternoon, the first time she had ventured into the
room, taking advantage of Rose having condescended to go out with the
Temple nursery establishment, when she found Ermine’s transparent face
all alive with expectation. “He may come any time now,” she said; “his
coming to-day or to-morrow was to depend on his getting his business
done on Saturday or not.”
And in a few minutes’ time the well-known knock was heard, and Ermine,
with a look half arch half gay, surprised her sister by rising with
the aid of the arm of her chair, and adjusting a crutch that had been
leaning against it.
“Why Ermine! you could not bear the jarring of that crutch—”
“Five or six years ago, Ailie, when I was a much poorer creature,” then
as the door opened, “I would make you a curtsey, Colonel Keith, but I
am afraid I can’t quite do that,” though still she moved nearer to
meet him, but perhaps there was a look of helplessness which made her
exultation piteous, for he responded with an exclamation of alarm, put
out his arm to support her, and did not relax a frown of anxiety till
he had placed her safe in her chair again, while she laughed perhaps a
little less freely, and said, “See what it is to have had to shift for
oneself!”
“You met me with your eyes the first time, Ermine, and I never missed
anything.”
“Well, I think it is hard not to have been more congratulated on my
great achievement! I thought I should have had at least as much credit
as Widdrington, my favourite hero and model.”
“When you have an arm to support you it may be all very well, and I
shall never stand it without.” Then, as Ermine subsided, unprepared with
a reply, “Well, Ailie, how are your boys?”
“Both much better, Francis nearly well.”
“You have had a terrible time! And their mother?”
“Dearer and sweeter than ever,” said Alison, with her voice trembling;
“no one who has not seen her now can guess half what she is!”
“I hope she has not missed me. If this matter had not been so pressing,
I could not have stayed away.”
“The one message she always gave me was, that you were not to think of
coming home; and, indeed, those dear boys were so good, that we managed
very well without you.”
“Yes, I had faith in your discipline, and I think that matters are in
train against Edward comes. Of course there is no letter, or you would
have told me.”
“He will be coming himself,” said Ermine, resolved against again
expressing a doubt; while Alison added that he hated letter-writing.
“Nothing could be more satisfactory than Beauchamp’s letter,” added
Colin. “He was so thoroughly convinced, that he immediately began
to believe that he had trusted Edward all along, and had only been
overruled.”
“I dare say,” said Ermine, laughing; “I can quite fancy honest Harry
completely persuaded that he was Edward’s champion, while Maddox was
turning him round his finger.”
“And such is his good faith, that I hope he will make Edward believe the
same! I told you of his sending his love to you, and of his hopes that
you would some day come and see the old place. He made his wife quite
cordial.”
Alison did not feel herself obliged to accept the message, and Ermine
could freely say, “Poor Harry! I should like to see him again! He would
be exactly the same, I dare say. And how does the old place look?”
“Just what I do not want you to see. They have found out that the
Rectory is unhealthy, and stuck up a new bald house on the top of the
hill; and the Hall is new furnished in colours that set one’s teeth on
edge. Nothing is like itself but Harry, and he only when you get him off
duty—without his wife! I was glad to get away to Belfast.”
“And there, judging from Julia’s letter, they must have nearly devoured
you.”
“They were very hospitable. Your sister is not so very unlike you,
Ermine?”
“Oh, Colin!” exclaimed Alison, with an indignation of which she became
ashamed, and added, by way of making it better, “Perhaps not so very.”
“She was very gracious to me,” said Colin, smiling, “and we had much
pleasant talk of you.”
“Yes,” said Ermine, “it will be a great pleasure to poor Julia to be
allowed to take us up again, and you thought the doctor sufficiently
convinced.”
“More satisfactorily so than Harry, for he reasoned out the matter, and
seems to me to have gone more by his impression that a man could not be
so imprudent as Edward in good faith than by Maddox’s representation.”
“That is true,” said Alison, “he held out till Edward refused to come
home, and then nothing would make him listen to a word on his behalf.”
“And it will be so again,” thought Ermine, with a throb at her heart.
Then she asked, “Did you see whether there was a letter for you at
home?”
“Yes, I looked in, and found only this, which I have only glanced at,
from Bessie.”
“From Paris?”
“Yes, they come home immediately after Easter. ‘Your brother is resolved
I should be presented, and submit to the whole season in style; after
which he says I may judge for myself.’ What people will do for
pretty young wives! Poor Mary’s most brilliant season was a winter at
Edinburgh; and it must be his doing more than hers, for she goes on:
‘Is it not very hard to be precluded all this time from playing the
chieftainess in the halls of my forefathers? I shall have to run down to
your Gowanbrae to refresh myself, and see what you are all about, for
I cannot get the fragment of a letter from Alick; and I met an
Avoncestrian the other day, who told me that the whole county was in a
state of excitement about the F. U. etc.; that every one believed that
the fascinating landscape-painter was on the high road to winning one of
the joint-heiresses; but that Lady Temple—the most incredible part
of the story—had blown up the whole affair, made her way into the
penetralia of the asylum, and rescued two female ‘prentices, so nearly
whipped to death that it took an infinitesimal quantity of Rachel’s
homoeopathy to demolish one entirely, and that the virtuous public was
highly indignant that there was no inquest nor trial for manslaughter;
but that it was certain that Rachel had been extremely ill ever since.
Poor Rachel, there must be some grain of truth in all this, but one
would like to be able to contradict it. I wrote to ask Alick the rights
of the story, but he has not vouchsafed me a line of reply; and I should
take it as very kind in you to let me know whether he is in the land
of the living or gone to Edinburgh—as I hear is to be the lot of the
Highlanders—or pining for the uncroquetable lawn, to which I always
told him he had an eye.’”
“She may think herself lucky he has not answered,” said Ermine; “he
has always been rather unreasonably angry with her for making the
introduction.”
“That is the reason he has not,” added Alison, “for he is certainly not
far off. He has been over almost every day to inquire, and played German
tactics all Saturday afternoon with Francis to our great relief. But I
have stayed away long enough.”
“I will walk back with you, Ailie. I must see the good little heroine of
the most incredible part of the story.”
Lady Temple looked a good deal paler than when he had last seen her, and
her eyelids still showed that they had long arrears of sleep to make up;
but she came down with outstretched hands and a sunny smile. “They are
so much better, and I am so glad you were not at home in the worst of
it.”
“And I am sorry to have deserted you.”
“Oh, no, no, it was much better that you should be away. We should all
have wanted you, and that would have been dangerous, and dear, dear Miss
Williams did all that could be done. Do you know, it taught me that you
were right when you told me I ought never to rest till the boys learnt
to obey, for obedience’ sake, at a word. It showed what a bad mother I
am, for I am sure if dear Conrade had been like what he was last year,
even she could not have saved him,” said Fanny, her eyes full of tears.
Then came her details, to which he listened, as ever, like the brotherly
friend he was, and there was a good deal said about restoring the little
ones, who were still at Gowanbrae, to which he would by no means as yet
consent, though Fanny owned herself to have time now to pine for her
Stephana, and to “hear how dismal it is to have a silent nursery.”
“Yes, it has been a fearful time. We little guessed how much risk you
ran when you went to the rescue.”
“Dear Con, when he thought—when we thought he could not get better,
said I was not to mind that, and I don’t,” said Fanny. “I thought it was
right, and though I did not know this would come of it, yet you see God
has been very merciful, and brought both of my boys out of this dreadful
illness, and I dare say it will do them good all their lives now it is
over. I am sure it will to me, for I shall always be more thankful.”
“Everything does you good,” he said.
“And another thing,” she added, eagerly, “it has made me know that dear
Miss Williams so much better. She was so good, so wonderfully good, to
come away from her sister to us. I thought she was quite gone the first
day, and that I was alone with my poor Francie, and presently there she
was by my side, giving me strength and hope by her very look. I want
to have her for good, I want to make her my sister! She would teach the
boys still, for nobody else could make them good, but if ever her sister
could spare her, she must never go away again.”
“You had better see what she says,” replied the Colonel, with suppressed
emotion.
That night, when Conrade and Francis were both fast asleep, their mother
and their governess sat over the fire together, languid but happy, and
told out their hearts to one another—told out more than Alison had
ever put into words even to Ermine, for her heart was softer and more
unreserved now than ever it had been since her sister’s accident had
crushed her youth. There was thenceforth a bond between her and Lady
Temple that gave the young widow the strong-hearted, sympathizing,
sisterly friend she had looked for in Rachel, and that filled up those
yearnings of the affection that had at first made Alison feel that
Colin’s return made the world dreary to her. Her life had a purpose,
though that purpose was not Ermine! But where were Edward and his
letter?