The Clever Woman of the Family

“Edward with his head in the clouds! One notion is as likely as the other.—Then absolutely nothing was done!”

“Nothing! The bankruptcy was declared, the whole affair broken up; and certainly if every one had not known Edward to be the most heedless of men, the confusion would have justified them in thinking him a dishonest one. Things had been done in his name by Maddox that might have made a stranger think him guilty of the rest, but to those who had ever known his abstraction, and far more his real honour and uprightness, nothing could have been plainer.”

“It all turned upon his absence.”

“Yes, he must have borne the brunt of what had been done in his name, I know; that would have been bad enough, but in a court of justice, his whole character would have been shown, and besides, a prosecution for forgery of his receipt would have shown what Maddox was, sufficiently to exculpate him.”

“And you say the losers by the deception would not believe in it?”

“No, they only shook their heads at our weak sisterly affection.”

“I wish I could see one of those letters. Where is Maddox now?”

“I cannot tell. He certainly did not go away immediately after the settlement of accounts, but it has not been possible to us to keep up a knowledge of his movements, or something might have turned up to justify Edward. Oh, what it is to be helpless women! You are the very first person, Colin, who has not looked at me pityingly, like a creature to be forborne with an undeniable delusion!”

“They must be very insolent people, then, to look at that brow and eyes, and think even sisterly love could blind them,” he said. “Yes, Ermine, I was certain that unless Edward were more changed than I could believe, there must be some such explanation. You have never seen him since?”

“No, he was too utterly broken by the loss of his wife to feel anything else. For a long time we heard nothing, and that was the most dreadful time of all! Then he wrote from a little German town, where he was getting his bread as a photographer’s assistant. And since that he has cast about the world, till just now he has some rather interesting employment at the mines in the Oural Mountains, the first thing he has really seemed to like or care for.”

“The Oural Mountains! that is out of reach. I wish I could see him. One might find some means of clearing him. What directed your suspicion to Maddox?”

“Chiefly that the letters professed to have been sent in a parcel to him to be posted from the office. If it had been so, Edward and Lucy would certainly have written to us at the same time. I could have shown, too, that Maddox had written to me the day before to ascertain where Edward was, so as to be sure of the date. It was a little country village, and I made a blunder in copying the spelling from Lucy’s writing. Ailie found that very blunder repeated in Dr. Long’s letter, and we showed him that Edward did not write it so. Besides, before going abroad, Edward had lost the seal-ring with his crest, which you gave him. You remember the Saxon’s head?”

“I remember! You all took it much to heart that the engraver had made it a Saracen’s head, and not a long-haired Saxon.”

“Well, Edward had renewed the ring, and taken care to make it a Saxon. Now Ailie could get no one to believe her, but she is certain that the letter was sealed with the old Saracen not the new Saxon. But—but—if you had but been there—”

“Tell me you wished for me, Ermine.”

“I durst not wish anything about you,” she said, looking up through a mist of tears.

“And you, what fixed you here?”

“An old servant of ours had married and settled here, and had written to us of her satisfaction in finding that the clergyman was from Hereford. We thought he would recommend Ailie as daily governess to visitors, and that Sarah would be a comfortable landlady. It has answered very well; Rose deserves her name far more than when we brought her here, and it is wonderful how much better I have been since doctors have become a mere luxury.”

“Do you, can you really mean that you are supporting yourselves?”

“All but twenty-five pounds a year, from a legacy to us, that Mr. Beauchamp would not let them touch. But it has been most remarkable, Colin,” she said, with the dew in her eyes, “how we have never wanted our daily bread, and how happy we have been! If it had not been for Edward, this would in many ways have been our happiest time. Since the old days the little frets have told less, and Ailie has been infinitely happier and brighter since she has had to work instead of only to watch me. Ah, Colin, must I not own to having been happy? Indeed it was very much because peace had come when the suspense had sunk into belief that I might think of you as—, where you would not be grieved by the sight of what I am now—”

As she spoke, a knock, not at the house, but at the room door, made them both start, and impel their chairs to a more ordinary distance, just as Rachel Curtis made her entrance, extremely amazed to find, not Mr. Touchett, but a much greater foe and rival in that unexpected quarter. Ermine, the least disconcerted, was the first to speak. “You are surprised to find a visitor here,” she said, “and indeed only now, did we find out that ‘our military secretary,’ as your little cousins say, was our clear old squire’s nephew.”

There was a ring of gladness in the usually patient voice that struck even Rachel, though she was usually too eager to be observant, but she was still unready with talk for the occasion, and Ermine continued: “We had heard so much of the Major before-hand, that we had a sort of Jupiter-like expectation of the coming man. I am not sure that I shall not go on expecting a mythic major!”

Rachel, never understanding playfulness, thought this both audacious and unnecessary, and if it had come from any one else, would have administered a snub, but she felt the invalid sacred from her weapons.

“Have you ever seen the boys?” asked Colonel Keith. “I am rather proud of Conrade, my pupil; he is so chivalrous towards his mother.”

“Alison has brought down a division or two to show me. How much alike they are.”

“Exactly alike, and excessively unruly and unmanageable,” said Rachel. “I pity your sister.”

“More unmanageable in appearance than in reality,” said the colonel: “there’s always a little trial of strength against the hand over them, and they yield when they find it is really a hand. They were wonderfully good and considerate when it was an object to keep the house quiet.”

Rachel would not encourage him to talk of Lady Temple, so she turned to Ermine on the business that had brought her, collecting and adapting old clothes for emigrants.—It was not exactly gentlemen’s pastime, and Ermine tried to put it aside and converse, but Rachel never permitted any petty consideration to interfere with a useful design, and as there was a press of time for the things, she felt herself justified in driving the intruder off the field and outstaying him. She succeeded; he recollected the desire of the boys that he should take them to inspect the pony at the “Jolly Mariner,” and took leave with—“I shall see you to-morrow.”

“You knew him all the time!” exclaimed Rachel, pausing in her unfolding of the Master Temples’ ship wardrobe. “Why did you not say so?”

“We did not know his name. He was always the ‘Major.’”

“Who, and what is he?” demanded Rachel, as she knelt before her victim, fixing those great prominent eyes, so like those of Red Riding Hood’s grandmother, that Ermine involuntarily gave a backward impulse to her wheeled chair, as she answered the readiest thing that occurred to her,—“He is brother to Lord Keith of Gowan-brae.”

“Oh,” said Rachel, kneeling on meditatively, “that accounts for it. So much the worse. The staff is made up of idle honourables.”

“Quoth the ‘Times!’” replied Ermine; “but his appointment began on account of a wound, and went on because of his usefulness—”

“Wounded! I don’t like wounded heroes,” said Rachel; “people make such a fuss with them that they always get spoilt.”

“This was nine years ago, so you may forget it if you like,” said Ermine, diversion suppressing displeasure.

“And what is your opinion of him?” said Rachel, edging forward on her knees, so as to bring her inquisitorial eyes to bear more fully.

“I had not seen him for twelve years,” said Ermine, rather faintly.

“He must have had a formed character when you saw him last. The twelve years before five-and-forty don’t alter the nature.”

“Five-and-forty! Illness and climate have told, but I did not think it was so much. He is only thirty-six—”

“That is not what I care about,” said Rachel, “you are both of you so cautious that you tell me what amounts to nothing! You should consider how important it is to me to know something about the person in whose power my cousin’s affairs are left.”

“Have you not sufficient guarantee in the very fact of her husband’s confidence?”

“I don’t know. A simple-hearted old soldier always means a very foolish old man.”

“Witness the Newcomes,” said Ermine, who, besides her usual amusement in tracing Rachel’s dicta to their source, could only keep in her indignation by laughing.

“General observation,” said Rachel, not to be turned from her purpose. “I am not foolishly suspicious, but it is not pleasant to see great influence and intimacy without some knowledge of the person exercising it.”

“I think,” said Ermine, bringing herself with difficulty to answer quietly, “that you can hardly understand the terms they are on without having seen how much a staff officer becomes one of the family.”

“I suppose much must be allowed for the frivolity and narrowness of a military set in a colony. Imagine my one attempt at rational conversation last night. Asking his views on female emigration, absolutely he had none at all; he and Fanny only went off upon a nursemaid married to a sergeant!”

“Perhaps the bearings of the question would hardly suit mixed company.”

“To be sure there was a conceited young officer there; for as ill luck will have it, my uncle’s old regiment is quartered at Avoncester, and I suppose they will all be coming after Fanny. It is well they are no nearer, and as this colonel says he is going to Belfast in a day or two, there will not be much provocation to them to come here. Now this great event of the Major’s coming is over, we will try to put Fanny upon a definite system, and I look to you and your sister as a great assistance to me, in counteracting the follies and nonsenses that her situation naturally exposes her to. I have been writing a little sketch of the dangers of indecision, that I thought of sending to the ‘Traveller.’ It would strike Fanny to see there what I so often tell her; but I can’t get an answer about my paper on ‘Curatocult,’ as you made me call it.”

“Did I!”

“You said the other word was of two languages. I can’t think why they don’t insert it; but in the meantime I will bring down my ‘Human Reeds,’ and show them to you. I have only an hour’s work on them; so I’ll come to-morrow afternoon.”

“I think Colonel Keith talked of calling again—thank you,” suggested Ermine in despair.

“Ah, yes, one does not want to be liable to interruptions in the most interesting part. When he is gone to Belfast—”

“Yes, when he is gone to Belfast!” repeated Ermine, with an irresistible gleam of mirth about her lips and eyes, and at that moment Alison made her appearance. The looks of the sisters met, and read one another so far as to know that the meeting was over, and for the rest they endured, while Rachel remained, little imagining the trial her presence had been to Alison’s burning heart—sick anxiety and doubt. How could it be well? Let him be loveable, let him be constant, that only rendered Ermine’s condition the more pitiable, and the shining glance of her eyes was almost more than Alison could bear. So happy as the sisters had been together, so absolutely united, it did seem hard to disturb that calm life with hopes and agitations that must needs be futile; and Alison, whose whole life and soul were in her sister, could not without a pang see that sister’s heart belonging to another, and not for hopeful joy, but pain and grief. The yearning of jealousy was sternly reproved and forced down, and told that Ermine had long been Colin Keith’s, that the perpetrator of the evil had the least right of any one to murmur that her own monopoly of her sister was interfered with; that she was selfish, unkind, envious; that she had only to hate herself and pray for strength to bear the punishment, without alloying Ermine’s happiness while it lasted. How it could be so bright Alison knew not, but so it was she recognised by every tone of the voice, by every smile on the lip, by even the upright vigour with which Ermine sat in her chair and undertook Rachel’s tasks of needlework.

And yet, when the visitor rose at last to go, Alison was almost unwilling to be alone with her sister, and have that power of sympathy put to the test by those clear eyes that were wont to see her through and through. She went with Rachel to the door, and stood taking a last instruction, hearing it not at all, but answering, and relieved by the delay, hardly knowing whether to be glad or not that when she returned Rose was leaning on the arm of her aunt’s chair with the most eager face. But Rose was to be no protection, for what was passing between her and her aunt?

“O auntie, I am go glad he is coming back. He is just like the picture you drew of Robert Bruce for me. And he is so kind. I never saw any gentleman speak to you in such: a nice soft voice.”

Alison had no difficulty in smiling as Ermine stroked the child’s hair, kissed her, and looked up with an arch, blushing, glittering face that could not have been brighter those long twelve years ago.

And then Rose turned round, impatient to tell her other aunt her story. “O aunt Ailie, we have had such a gentleman here, with a great brown beard like a picture. And he is papa’s old friend, and kissed me because I am papa’s little girl, and I do like him so very much. I went where I could look at him in the garden, when you sent me out, aunt Ermine.”

“You did, you monkey?” said Ermine, laughing, and blushing again. “What will you do if I send you out next time? No, I won’t then, my dear, for all the time, I should like you to see him and know him.”

“Only, if you want to talk of anything very particular,” observed Rose.

“I don’t think I need ask many questions,” said Alison, smiling being happily made very easy to her. “Dear Ermine, I see you are perfectly satisfied—”

“O Ailie, that is no word for it! Not only himself, but to find him loving Rose for her father’s sake, undoubting of him through all. Ailie, the thankfulness of it is more than one can bear.”

“And he is the same?” said Alison.

“The same—no, not the same. It is more, better, or I am able to feel it more. It was just like the morrow of the day he walked down the lane with me and gathered honeysuckles, only the night between has been a very, very strange time.”

“I hope the interruption did not come very soon.”

“I thought it was directly, but it could not have been so soon, since you are come home. We had just had time to tell what we most wanted to know, and I know a little more of what he is. I feel as if it were not only Colin again, but ten times Colin. O Ailie, it must be a little bit like the meetings in heaven!”

“I believe it is so with you,” said Alison, scarcely able to keep the tears from her eyes.

“After sometimes not daring to dwell on him, and then only venturing because I thought he must be dead, to have him back again with the same looks, only deeper—to find that he clung to those weeks so long ago, and, above all, that there was not one cloud, one doubt about the troubles—Oh, it is too, too much.”

Ermine lent back with clasped hands. She was like one weary with happiness, and lain to rest in the sense of newly-won peace. She said little more that evening, and if spoken to, seemed like one wakened out of a dream, so that more than once she laughed at herself, begged her sister’s pardon, and said that it seemed to her that she could not hear anything for the one glad voice that rang in her ear, “Colin is come home.” That was sufficient for her, no need for any other sympathy, felt Alison, with another of those pangs crushed down. Then wonder came—whether Ermine could really contemplate the future, or if it were absolutely lost in the present?

Colonel Keith went back to be seized by Conrade and Francis, and walked off to the pony inspection, the two boys, on either side of him, communicating to him the great grievance of living in a poky place like this, where nobody had ever been in the army, nor had a bit of sense, and Aunt Rachel was always bothering, and trying to make mamma think that Con told stories.

“I don’t mind that,” said Conrade, stoutly; “let her try!”

“Oh, but she wanted mamma to shut you up,” added Francis.

“Well, and mamma knows better,” said Conrade, “and it made her leave off teaching me, so it was lucky. But I don’t mind that; only don’t you see, Colonel, they don’t know how to treat mamma! They go and bully her, and treat her like—like a subaltern, till I hate the very sight of it.”

“My boy,” said the Colonel, who had been giving only half attention; “you must make up your mind to your mother not being at the head of everything, as she used to be in your father’s time. She will always be respected, but you must look to yourself as you grow up to make a position tor her!”

“I wish I was grown up!” sighed Conrade; “how I would give it to Aunt Rachel! But why must we live here to have her plaguing us?”

Questions that the Colonel was glad to turn aside by moans of the ponies, and by a suggestion that, if a very quiet one were found, and if Conrade would be very careful, mamma might, perhaps, go out riding with them. The motion was so transcendant that, no sooner had the ponies been seen, than the boys raced home, and had communicated it at the top of their voices to mamma long before their friend made his appearance. Lady Temple was quite startled at the idea. “Dear papa,” as she always called her husband, “had wished her to ride, but she had seldom done so, and now—” The tears came into her eyes.

“I think you might,” said the Colonel, gently; “I could find you a quiet animal, and to have you with Conrade would be such a protection to him,” he added, as the boys had rushed out of the room.

“Yes; perhaps, dear boy. But I could not begin alone; it is so long since I rode. Perhaps when you come back from Ireland.”

“I am not going to Ireland.”

“I thought you said—” said Fanny looking up surprised; “I am very glad! But if you wished to go, pray don’t think about us! I shall learn to manage in time, and I cannot bear to detain you.”

“You do not detain me,” he said, sitting down by her; “I have found what I was going in search of, and through your means.”

“What—what do you mean! You were going to see Miss Williams this afternoon, I thought!”

“Yes, and it was she whom I was seeking.” He paused, and added slowly, as if merely for the sake of dwelling on the words, “I have found her!”

“Miss Williams!” said Fanny, with perplexed looks.

“Miss Williams!—my Ermine whom I had not seen since the day after her accident, when we parted as on her deathbed!”

“That sister! Oh, poor thing, I am so glad! But I am sorry!” cried the much confused Fanny, in a breath; “were not you very much shocked?”

“I had never hoped to see her face in all its brightness again,” he said. “Twelve years! It is twelve years that she has suffered, and of late she has been brought to this grievous state of poverty, and yet the spirit is as brave and cheerful as ever! It looks out of the beautiful eyes—more beautiful than when I first saw them,—I could see and think of nothing else!”

“Twelve years!” repeated Fanny; “is it so long since you saw her?”

“Almost since I heard of her! She was like a daughter to my aunt at Beauchamp, and her brother was my schoolfellow. For one summer, when I was quartered at Hertford, I was with her constantly, but my family would not even hear of the indefinite engagement that was all we could have looked to, and made me exchange into the —th.”

“Ah! that was the way we came to have you! I must tell you, dear Sir Stephen always guessed. Once when he had quite vexed poor mamma by preventing her from joking you in her way about young ladies, he told me that once, when he was young, he had liked some one who died or was married, I don’t quite know which, and he thought it was the same with you, from something that happened when you withdrew your application for leave after your wound.”

“Yes! it was a letter from home, implying that my return would be accepted as a sign that I gave her up. So that was an additional instance of the exceeding kindness that I always received.”

And there was a pause, both much affected by the thought of the good old man’s ever ready consideration. At last Fanny said, “I am sure it was well for us! What would he have done without you?—and,” she added, “do you really mean that you never heard of her all these years?”

“Never after my aunt’s death, except just after we went to Melbourne, when I heard in general terms of the ruin of the family and the false imputation on their brother.”

“Ah! I remember that you did say something about going home, and Sir Stephen was distressed, and mamma and I persuaded you because we saw he would have missed you so much, and mamma was quite hurt at your thinking of going. But if you had only told him your reason, he would never have thought of standing in your way.”

“I know he would not, but I saw he could hardly find any one else just then who knew his ways so well. Besides, there was little use in going home till I had my promotion, and could offer her a home; and I had no notion how utter the ruin was, or that she had lost so much. So little did I imagine their straits that, but for Alison’s look, I should hardly have inquired even on hearing her name.”

“How very curious—how strangely things come round!” said Fanny; then with a start of dismay, “but what shall I do? Pray, tell me what you would like. If I might only keep her a little while till I can find some one else, though no one will ever be so nice, but indeed I would not for a moment, if you had rather not.”

“Why so? Alison is very happy with you, and there can be no reason against her going on.”

“Oh!” cried Lady Temple, with an odd sound of satisfaction, doubt, and surprise, “but I thought you would not like it.”

“I should like, of course, to set them all at ease, but as I can do no more than make a home for Ermine and her niece, I can only rejoice that Alison is with you.”

“But your brother!”

“If he does not like it, he must take the consequence of the utter separation he made my father insist on,” said the Colonel sternly. “For my own part, I only esteem both sisters the more, if that were possible, for what they have done for themselves.”

“Oh! that is what Rachel would like! She is so fond of the sick—I mean of your—Miss Williams. I suppose I may not tell her yet.”

“Not yet, if you please. I have scarcely had time as yet to know what Ermine wishes, but I could not help telling you.”

“Thank you—I am so glad,” she said, with sweet earnestness, holding out her hand in congratulation. “When may I go to her? I should like for her to come and stay here. Do you think she would?”

“Thank you, I will see. I know how kind you would be—indeed, have already been to her.”

“And I am so thankful that I may keep Miss Williams! The dear boys never were so good. And perhaps she may stay till baby is grown up. Oh! how long it will be first!”

“She could not have a kinder friend,” said the Colonel, smiling, and looking at his watch.

“Oh, is it time to dress? It is very kind of my dear aunt; but I do wish we could have stayed at home to-night. It is so dull for the boys when I dine out, and I had so much to ask you. One thing was about that poor little Bessie Keith. Don’t you think I might ask her down here, to be near her brother?”

“It would be a very kind thing in you, and very good for her, but you must be prepared for rather a gay young lady.”

“Oh, but she would not mind my not going out. She would have Alick, you know, and all the boys to amuse her; but, if you think it would be tiresome for her, and that she would not be happy, I should be very sorry to have her, poor child.”