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

Mrs. Annesley was talking of the little Kendals, who she had ruled should be at Fairmead.

‘No,’ said Maurice, ‘Albinia thought her son too mighty for Winifred. Our laudable efforts at cousinly friendship usually produce war-whoops that bring the two mammas each to snatch her own offspring from the fray, with a scolding for the sake of appearances though believing the other the only guilty party.’

‘Now, Maurice,’ cried Albinia, ‘you confess how fond Mary is of setting people to rights.’

‘Well—when Maurice bullies Alby.’

‘Aye, you talk of the mammas, and you only want to make out poor Maurice the aggressor.’

‘Never mind, they will work in better than if they were fabulous children. Ah, you are going to contend that yours is a fabulous child. Take care I don’t come on you with the indestructible—’

‘Take care I don’t come on you with Mary’s lessons to Colonel Bury on the game-law.’

‘Does it not do one good to see those two quarrelling just like old times?’ exclaimed one aunt to the other.

‘And William looking on as contemptuous as ever?’ said Albinia.

‘Not at all. I rejoice to have this week with you. I should like to see your boy. Maurice says he is a thorough young soldier.’

Mr. Kendal looked pleased.

The man of study had a penchant for the man of action, and the brothers-in-law were drawing together. Mars, the great geographical master, was but opening his gloomy school on the Turkish soil, and the world was discovering its ignorance beyond the Pinnock’s Catechisms of its youth. Maurice treated Mr. Kendal as a dictionary, and his stores of Byzantine, Othman, and Austrian lore, chimed in with the perceptions of the General, who, going by military maps, described plans of operations which Mr. Kendal could hardly believe he had not found in history, while he could as little credit that Mr. Kendal had neither studied tactics, nor seen the spots of which he could tell such serviceable minutiae.

They had their heads together over the map the whole evening, and the next morning, when the General began to ask questions about Turkish, his sister was proud to hear her husband answering with the directness and precision dear to a military man.

‘That’s an uncommonly learned man, Albinia’s husband,’ began the General, as soon as he had started with his brother on a round of errands.

‘I never met a man of more profound and universal knowledge.’

‘I don’t see that he is so grave and unlike other people. Fred reported that he was silence itself, and she might as well have married Hamlet’s ghost.’

‘Fred saw him at a party,’ said Maurice; then remembering that this might not be explanatory, he added, ‘He shines most when at ease, and every year since his marriage has improved and enlivened him.’

‘I am satisfied. I hardly knew how to judge, though I did not think myself called upon to remonstrate against the marriage, as the aunts wished. I knew I might depend on you, and I thought it high time that she should be settled.’

‘I have been constantly admiring her discernment, for I own that at first his reserve stood very much in my way, but since she has raised his spirits, and taught him to exert himself, he has been a most valuable brother to me.

‘Then you think her happy? I was surprised to see her such a fine-looking woman; my aunts had croaked so much about his children and his mother, that I thought she would be worn to a shadow.’

‘Very happy. She has casual troubles, and a great deal of work, but that is what she is made for.’

‘How does she get on with his children?’

‘Hearty love for them has carried her through the first difficulties, which appalled me, for they had been greatly mismanaged. I am afraid that she has not been able to undo some of the past evil; and with all her good intentions, I am sometimes afraid whether she is old enough to deal with grown-up young people.’

‘You don’t mean that Kendal’s children are grown up? I should think him younger than I am.’

‘He is so, but civil servants marry early, and not always wisely; and the son is about twenty. Poor Albinia dotes on him, and has done more for him than ever his father did; but the lad is weak and tender every way, with no stamina, moral or physical, and with just enough property to do him harm. He has been at Oxford and has failed, and now he is in the militia, but what can be expected of a boy in a country town, with nothing to do? I did not like his looks last week, and I don’t think his being there, always idle, is good for that little manly scamp of Albinia’s own.’

‘Why don’t they put him into the service?’

‘He is too old.’

‘Not too old for the cavalry!’

‘He can ride, certainly, and is a tall, good-looking fellow; but I should not have thought him the stuff to make a dragoon. He has always been puling and delicate, unfit for school, wanting force.’

‘Wanting discipline,’ said the General. ‘I have seen a year in a good regiment make an excellent officer of that very stamp of youngster, just wanting a mould to give him substance.’

‘The regiment should be a very good one,’ said Mr. Ferrars; ‘he would be only too easily drawn in by the bad style of subaltern.’

‘Put him into the 25th Lancers,’ said the General, ‘and set Fred to look after him. Rattlepate as he is, he can take excellent care of a lad to whom he takes a fancy, and if Albinia asked him, he would do it with all his heart.’

‘I wish you would propose it, though I am afraid his father will never consent. I would do a great deal to get him away before he has led little Maurice into harm.’

‘This consideration moved the Rector of Fairmead himself to broach the subject, but neither Mr. Kendal nor Albinia could think of venturing their fragile son in the army, though assured that there was little chance that the 25th Lancers would be summoned to the east, and they would only hold out hopes of little Maurice by and by.

Albinia’s martial ardour was revived as she listened with greater grasp of comprehension to subjects familiar in her girlhood. She again met old friends of her father, the lingering glories of the Peninsula and Waterloo, who liked her for her own sake as well as for her father’s, while Maurice looked on, amused by her husband’s silent pride in her, and her hourly progress in the regard of the General, who began to talk of making a long visit to Fairmead, after what he expected would be a slight demonstration on the Danube. He even began to regret the briefness of the time that he could spend in their society.

Much was crowded into that week, but Albinia contrived to find an hour for a call on her little French friend, to whom she had already forwarded the parcels she had brought from home—a great barm-brack from Biddy, and a store of delicate convent confections from Hadminster.

She was set down at a sober old house in the lawyers’ quarter of the world, and conducted to a pretty, though rather littered drawing-room, where she found a delicate-looking young mamma, and various small children.

‘I’m so glad,’ said little Mrs. Rainsforth, ‘that you have been able to come; it will be such a pleasure to dear Miss Durant; and while one of the children was sent to summon the governess, the lady continued, nervously but warmly, ‘I hope you will think Miss Durant looking well; I am afraid she shuts herself up too much. I’m sure she is the greatest comfort, the greatest blessing to us.’

Albinia’s reply was prevented by a rush of children, followed by the dear little trim, slight figure. There was no fear that Genevieve did not look well or happy. Her olive complexion was healthy; her dark eyes lustrous with gladness; her smile frank and unquelled; her movements full of elastic life.

She led the way to the back parlour, dingy by nature, but bearing living evidence to the charm which she infused into any room. Scratched table, desks, copybooks, and worn grammars, had more the air of a comfortable occupation than of the shabby haunt of irksome taskwork. There were flowers in the window, and the children’s treasures were arranged with taste. Genevieve loved her school-room, and showed off its little advantages with pretty exultation. If Mrs. Kendal could only see how well it looked with the curtains down, after tea!

And then came the long, long talk over home affairs, and the history of half the population of Bayford, Genevieve making inquiries, and drinking in the answers as if she could not make enough of her enjoyment.

Not till all the rest had been discussed, did she say, with dropped eyelids, and a little blush, ‘Is Mr. Gilbert Kendal quite strong?’

‘Thank you, he has been much better this winter, and so useful and kind in nursing grandmamma!’

‘Yes, he was always kind.’

‘He was going to beg me to remember him to you, but he broke off, and said you would not care.’

‘I care for all goodness towards me,’ answered Genevieve, lifting her eyes with a flash of inquiry.

‘I am afraid he is as bad as ever, poor fellow,’ said Albinia, with a little smile and sigh; ‘but he has behaved very well. I must tell you that you were in the same train with him on his journey from Oxford, and he was ashamed to meet your eye.’

‘Ah, I remember well. I thought I saw him. I was bringing George and Fanny from a visit to their aunts, and I was sure it must be Mr. Gilbert.’

‘As prudent as ever, Genevieve.’

‘It would not have been right,’ she said, blushing; ‘but it was such a treat to see a Bayford face, that I had nearly sprung out of the waiting-room to speak to him at the first impulse.’

‘My poor little exile!’ said Albinia.

‘No, that is not my name. Call me my aunt’s bread-winner. That’s my pride! I mean my cause of thankfulness. I could not have earned half so much at home.’

‘I hope indeed you have a home here.’

‘That I have,’ she fervently answered. ‘Oh, without being a homeless orphan, one does not learn what kind hearts there are. Mr. and Mrs. Rainsforth seemed only to fear that they should not be good enough to me.’

‘Do you mean that you found it a little oppressive?’

‘Fi donc, Madame! Yet I must own that with her timid uneasy way, and his so perfect courtesy, they did alarm me a little at first. I pitied them, for I saw them so resolved not to let me feel myself de trop, that I knew I was in their way.’

‘Did not that vex you?’

‘Why, I suppose they set their inconvenience against the needs of their children, and my concern was to do my duty, and be as little troublesome as possible. They pressed me to spend my evenings with them, but I thought that would be too hard on them, so I told them I preferred the last hours alone, and I do not come in unless there are others to prevent their being tete-a-tete.’

‘Very wise. And do you not find it lonely?’

‘It is my time for reading—my time for letters—my time for being at home!’ cried Genevieve. ‘Now however that I hope I am no longer a weight on them, Mrs. Rainsforth will sometimes ask me to come and sing to him, or read aloud, when he comes home so tired that he cannot speak, and her voice is weak. Alas! they are both so fragile, so delicate.’

Her soul was evidently with them and with her charges, of whom there was so much to say, that the carriage came all too soon to hurry Albinia away from the sight of that buoyant sweetness and capacity of happiness.

She was rather startled by Miss Ferrars saying, ‘By-the-by, Albinia, how was it that you never told us of the development of the Infant prodigy?

‘I don’t know what you mean, Aunt Gertrude.’

‘Don’t you remember that boy, that Mrs. Dusautoy Cavendish’s son, whom that poor little companion of hers used to call l’Enfant prodigue. I did not know he was a neighbour of yours, as I find from Lucy.’

‘What did Lucy tell you about him? She did not meet him!’ cried Albinia, endeavouring not to betray her alarm. ‘I mean, did she meet him?’

‘Indeed,’ said Miss Ferrars, ‘you should have warned us if you had any objection, my dear.’

‘Well, but what did happen?’

‘Oh, nothing alarming, I assure you. They met at a ball at Brighton; Lucy introduced him, and said he was your vicar’s nephew; they danced together. I think only once.’

‘I wish you had mentioned it. When did it happen?’

‘I can hardly tell. I think she had been about a fortnight with us, but she seemed so indifferent that I should never have thought it worth mentioning. I remember my sister thought of asking him to a little evening party of ours, and Lucy dissuading her. Now, really, Albinia, don’t look as if we had been betraying our trust. You never gave us any reason to think—’

‘No, no. I beg your pardon, dear aunt. I hope there’s no harm done. If I could have thought of his turning up, I would—But I hope it is all right.’

Such good accounts came from both homes, and the General was so unwilling to part with his brother and sister, that he persuaded them to accompany him to Southampton for embarkation. They all felt that these last days, precious now, might be doubly precious by-and-by, and alone with them and free from the kindly scrutiny of the good aunts, William expanded and evinced more warm fraternal feeling than he had ever manifested. He surprised his sister by thanking her warmly for having come to meet him. ‘I am glad to have been with you, Albinia; I am glad to have seen your husband. I have told Maurice that I am heartily rejoiced to see you in such excellent hands.’

‘You must come and see the children, and know him better.’

‘I hope so, when this affair is over, and I expect it will be soon settled. Anyway, I am glad we have been together. If we meet again, we will try to see more of one another.’

He had said much more to his brother, expressing regret that he had been so much separated from his sister. Thorough soldier as he was, and ardent for active service, the sight of her and her husband had renewed gentler thoughts, and he was so far growing old that the idea of home and rest came invitingly before him. He was softened at the parting, and when he wrung their hands for the last time on the deck of the steamer, they were glad that his last words were, ‘God bless you.’

There had been some uncertainty as to the time of his sailing, and Fairmead and Bayford had been told that unless their travellers arrived by the last reasonable train on Friday, they were not to be expected till the same time on Saturday, Maurice having concocted a scheme for crossing by several junction lines, so as to save waiting; but they had not reckoned on the discourtesies of two rival companies whose lines met at the same station, and the southern train was only in time to hear the parting snort of the engine that it professed to catch.

The Ferrars’ nature, above all when sore with farewells, was not made to submit to having time wasted by treacherous trains on a cold wintry day, and at a small new station, with an apology for a waiting-room, no bookstall, and nothing to eat but greasy gingerbread and hard apples.

Maurice relieved his feelings by heartily rowing all the officials, but he could obtain no redress, as he knew full well the whole time, nor would any train pick them up for full three hours.

So indignant was he, that amusement rendered Albinia patient, especially when he took to striding up and down the platform, devising cases in which the delay might be actionable, and vituperating the placability of Mr. Kendal, who having wrapt up his wife in plaids and seated her on the top of the luggage, had set his back to the wall, and was lost to the present world in a book.

‘Never mind, Maurice,’ said Albinia; ‘in any other circumstances we should think three hours of each other a great boon.’

‘If anything could be an aggravation, it would be to see Albinia philosophical.’

‘You make me so on the principle of the Helots and Spartans.’

It was possible to get to Hadminster by half-past seven, and on to Bayford by nine o’clock, but Fairmead lay further from the line, and the next train did not stop at the nearest station, so Maurice agreed to sleep at Bayford that night; and this settled, set out with his sister to explore the neighbourhood for eatables and church architecture. They made an ineffectual attempt to rouse Mr. Kendal to go with them, but he was far too deep in his book, and only muttered something about looking after the luggage. They found a stale loaf of bread, and a hideous church, but it was a merry walk, and brought them back in their liveliest mood, which lasted even to pronouncing it ‘great fun’ that the Hadminster flies were all at a ball, and that the omnibus must convey them home by the full moonlight.

CHAPTER XXIII

Slowly the omnibus rumbled over the wooden bridge, and then with a sudden impulse it thundered up to the front door.

Albinia jumped out, and caught Sophy in her arms, exclaiming, ‘And how are you all, my dear?’

‘We had quite given you up,’ Gilbert was saying. ‘The fire is in the library,’ he added, as Mr. Kendal was opening the drawing-room door, and closing it in haste at the sight of a pale, uninviting patch of moonlight, and the rush of a blast of cold wind.

‘And how is grandmamma? and the children? My Sophy, you don’t look well, and where’s Lucy?’

Ere she could receive an answer, down jumped, two steps at a time, a half-dressed figure, all white stout legs and arms which were speedily hugging mamma.

‘There’s my man!’ said Mr. Kendal, ‘a good boy, I know.’

‘No!’ cried the bold voice.

‘No?’ (incredulously) what have you been doing?’

‘I broke the conservatory with the marble dog, and—’ he looked at Gilbert.

‘There’s my brave boy,’ said Mr. Kendal, who had suffered so much from his elder son’s equivocation as to be ready to overlook anything for the sake of truth. ‘Here, Uncle Maurice, shake hands with your godson, who always tells truth.’

The urchin folded his arms on his bosom, and looked like a young Bonaparte.

‘Where’s your hand? said his uncle. ‘Wont you give it to me?’

‘No.’

‘He will be wiser to-morrow, if you are so good as to try him again,’ said Albinia, who knew nothing did him more harm than creating a commotion by his caprices; ‘he is up too late, and fractious with sleepiness. Go to bed now, my dear.’

‘I shall not be wiser to-morrow,’ quoth the child, marching out of the room in defiance.

‘Monkey! what’s the matter now?’ exclaimed Albinia; ‘I suppose you have all been spoiling him. But what’s become of Lucy?’

‘Gilbert said she was at the Dusautoys,’ replied Sophy; ‘but if you would but come to grandmamma! She found out that you were expected, and she is in such a state that we have not known what to do.’

‘I’ll come, only, Sophy dear, please order tea and something to eat. Your uncle looks ravenous.’

She broke off, as there advanced into the room a being like Lucy, but covered with streams and spatters of flowing sable tears, like a heraldic decoration, over face, neck, and dress.

All unconscious, she came with outstretched hands and words of welcome, but an astonished cry of ‘Lucy!’ met her, and casting her eyes on her dress, she screamed, ‘Oh goodness! it’s ink!’

‘Where can you have been? what have you been doing?’

‘I—don’t know—Oh! it was the great inkstand, and not the scent—Oh! it is all over me! It’s in my hair!’ shuddering. ‘Oh, dear! oh dear! I shall never get it out!’ and off she rushed, followed by Gilbert, and was soon heard calling the maids to bring hot water to her room.

‘What is all this?’ asked Mr. Kendal.

‘I do not know,’ mournfully answered Sophy.

Albinia left the library, and taking a candle, went into the empty drawing-room. The moonlight shone white upon the table, and showed the large cut-glass ink-bottle in a pool of its own contents; and the sofa-cover had black spots and stains as if it had partaken of the libation.

Sophy saw, and stood like a statue.

‘You know nothing, I am sure,’ said Albinia.

‘Nothing!’ repeated Sophy, with a blank look of wretchedness.

‘If you please, ma’am,’ said the nurse at the door, ‘could you be kind enough to come to Mrs. Meadows, she will be quieter when she has seen you?’

‘Sophy dear, we must leave it now,’ said Albinia. ‘You must see to their tea, they have had nothing since breakfast.’

She hastened to the sick room, where she found Mrs. Meadows in a painful state of agitation and excitement. The nurse said that until this evening, she had been as usual, but finding that Mrs. Kendal was expected, she had been very restless; Miss Kendal was out, and neither Miss Sophy nor Mr. Gilbert could soothe her.

She eagerly grasped the hand of Albinia who bent down to kiss her, and asked how she had been.

‘Oh! my dear, very unwell, very. They should not leave me to myself so long, my dear. I thought you would never come back,’ and she began to cry, and say, ‘no one cared for an old woman.’

Albinia assured her that she was not going away, and restrained her own eager and bewildered feelings to tranquillize her, by prosing on in the lengthy manner which always soothed the poor old lady. It was a great penance, in her anxiety to investigate the mysteries that seemed to swarm in the house, but at last she was able to leave the bedside, though not till she had been twice summoned to tea.

Sophy, lividly pale, was presiding with trembling hands; Gilbert, flushed and nervous, waiting on every one, and trying to be lively and at ease, but secret distress was equally traceable in each.

She durst only ask after the children, and heard that her little namesake had been as usual as good and sweet as child could be. And Maurice?

‘He’s a famous fellow, went on capitally,’ said Gilbert.

‘Yes, till yesterday,’ hoarsely gasped Sophy, sincerity wrenching out the protest by force.

‘Ah, what has he been doing to the conservatory?’

‘He let the little marble dog down from the morning-room window with my netting silk; it fell, and made a great hole,’ said Sophy.

‘What, as a form of dawdling at his lessons?’

‘Yes, but he has not been at all tiresome about them except to-day and yesterday.’

‘And he has told the exact truth,’ said Mr. Kendal, ‘his gallant confession has earned the little cannon I promised him.’

‘I believe,’ said Albinia, ‘that it would be greater merit in Maurice to learn forbearance than to speak truth and be praised for it. I have never seen his truth really tried.’

‘I value truth above all other qualities,’ said Mr. Kendal.

‘So do I,’ said Albinia, ‘and it is my greatest joy in that little fellow; but some time or other it must cost him something, or it will not be tested.’

Mr. Kendal did not like this, and repeated that he must have his cannon. Albinia fancied that she heard something like a groan from Gilbert.

When they broke up for the night, she threw her arm round Sophy as they went upstairs, saying, ‘My poor dear, you look half dead. Have things been going very wrong?’

‘Only these two days,’ said Sophy, ‘and I don’t know that they have either. I am glad you are come!’

‘What kind of things?’ said Albinia, following her into her room.

‘Don’t ask,’ at first began Sophy, but then, frowning as if she could hardly speak, she added, ‘I mean, I don’t know whether it is my own horrid way, or that there is really an atmosphere of something I don’t make out.’

‘Didn’t you tell me Lucy was at the Vicarage?’ said Albinia, suddenly.

‘Gilbert said yes, when I asked if she could be with the Dusautoys,’ said Sophy, ‘when grandmamma wanted her and she did not come. Mamma, please don’t think of what I said, for very likely it is only that I am cross, because of being left alone with grandmamma so long this evening, and then Maurice being slow at his lessons.’

‘You are not cross, Sophy; you are worn out, and perplexed, and unhappy.’

‘Oh! not now you are come home,’ and Sophy laid her head on her shoulder and cried with relief and exhaustion. Albinia caressed her, saying,

‘My trust, my mainstay, my poor Sophy! There, go to bed and sleep, and don’t think of it now. Only first tell me one thing, is that Algernon at home?’

‘No!’ said Sophy, vehemently, ‘certainly not!’

Albinia breathed more freely.

‘Everybody,’ said Sophy, collecting herself, ‘has gone on well, Gilbert and Lucy have been as kind as could be, and Maurice very good, but yesterday morning he went on in his foolish way at lessons, and Gilbert took him out riding before he had finished them. They came in very late, and I think Maurice must have been overtired, for he was so idle this morning, that I threatened to tell, and put him in mind of the cannon papa promised him; but somehow I must have managed badly for he only grew more defiant, and ended by letting the marble dog out of window, so that it went through the roof of the conservatory.’