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

‘Is there no letter from him?’

‘Not for you, papa.’

‘What? Did he write to his uncle?’

‘No, papa—he wrote to me and to Mr. Pettilove. Cannot he be stopped, papa? Can he do any harm? Mr. Dusautoy and Mr. Pettilove think he can.’

‘You mean that he wishes to question the will? You may be quite secure, my dear. Nothing can be more safe.’

‘Oh, papa! I am so very glad. Not to be able to hinder him was so dreadful, when he wanted to pit Lucy and me against you. I could never have looked at you. I should always have felt that you had something to forgive me.’

‘I could not well have confounded you with Algernon, my dear,’ said Mr. Kendal. ‘What did Pettilove mean? Do you know?’

‘Not exactly; something about grandpapa’s old settlement; which frightened the Vicar, though Mrs. Dusautoy said that it was only that he fancied nobody could do anything right without his help. Mr. Dusautoy is more angry with Algernon than I thought he could be with anybody.’

‘No one but Algernon would have ever thought of it,’ said Mr. Kendal. ‘I am sorry he has molested you, my dear. Have you any objection to let me see his letter?’

‘I kept it for you, papa, and a copy of my answer. I thought though I am not of age, perhaps my saying I would have nothing to do with it might do some good.’

Algernon magniloquently condoled with his sister-in-law on the injustice from which she and her sister had suffered, in consequence of the adverse influence which surrounded her brother, and generously informed her that she had a champion to defeat the machinations against their rights. He had little doubt of the futility of the document, and had written to the legal adviser of the late Mr. Meadows to inquire whether the will of that gentleman did not bar any power on the part of his grandson to dispose of the property. She might rely on him not to rest until she should be put in possession of the estate, unless it should prove to have been her grandfathers intention, in case of the present melancholy occurrence, that the elder sister should be the sole inheritrix, and he congratulated her on having such a protector, since, under the unfortunate circumstances, the sisters would have had no one to uphold their cause against their natural guardian.

Sophy’s answer was—

‘Dear Algernon,

‘I prefer my natural guardian to any other whatever. I shall for my part owe you no thanks for attempting to frustrate my dear brother’s wishes, and to raise an unbecoming dissension. I desire that no use of my name may be made, and you may rest assured that I should find nothing so difficult to forgive as any such interference in my behalf.

‘Yours truly,‘SOPHIA KENDAL.’

‘Certainly,’ said Mr. Kendal, ‘no family ill-will is complete unless money matters be brought in to aggravate it.’

‘Do you think I did right, and spoke strongly enough, papa?’

‘Quite strongly enough,’ said Mr. Kendal, suppressing a smile. ‘I hope you wrote kindly to Lucy at the same time.’

‘One could not help that, papa; but I did say a great deal about the outrageous impropriety of raising the question, because I thought Algernon might be ashamed.’

‘Riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt,’ said Mr. Kendal. ‘Your grandfather’s acquisitions have brought us little but evil hitherto, and now I fear that our dear Gilbert’s endeavour to break the net which bound us into that system of iniquity and oppression, may cause alienation from poor Lucy. Sophy, you must allow no apparent coldness or neglect on her part to keep you from writing often and affectionately.’

Maurice here came down with his mother, and as soon as there was a moment’s pause, laid hold of the first book he met with, and began:—

‘I do not see the justness of the analogy to which Onuphrio refers, but there are many parts of that vision on which I should wish to hear the explanations of Philalethes.’

All broke out in amazement, ‘Why, Maurice, has Mrs. Dusautoy been making a scholar of you?’

‘Oh! Maurice, was this your secret?’ cried Sophy.

He had hidden his face in his mother’s lap, and when she raised it struggled to keep it down, and she felt him sobbing and panting for breath. Mr. Kendal stroked his hair, and they tried to soothe him, but he started up abruptly.

‘I don’t mean ever to be a plague again! So I did it. But there—when Ulick said it would be a comfort, you are all going to cry again, papa and all, and that’s worse!’ and stamping his foot passionately, he would have rushed out of the room, but was held fast in his father’s arms, and indeed tears were flowing fast from eyes that his brother’s death had left dry.

‘My child! my dear child!’ said Mr. Kendal, ‘it is comfort. No one can rule you as by God’s grace you can rule yourself, and your endeavours to do this are the greatest blessing I can ask.’

One more kiss from his mother, and she let him go. He did not know how to deal with emotion in himself, and hated the sight of it in others; so that it was better to let him burst away from them, while with one voice they admired, rejoiced, and interrogated Sophy.

‘I know now,’ she said, the rosy glow mantling in her cheek; ‘it must have been Mr. O’More.’

‘Ah! has he been with you?’ said her father.

‘Only once,’ said Sophy, her colour deepening; ‘but Maurice has been in a great hurry every day to go to him, and I saw there was some secret. One day, Susan asked me to prevent Master Maurice from teaching baby such ugly words, that she could not sleep—not bad words, but she thought they were Latin. So I watched, and I heard Maurice singing out some of the legend of Hiawatha, and insisting on poor little Awkey telling him what m-i-s-h-e-n-a-h-m-a, spelt. Poor little Awk stared, as well she might, and obediently made the utmost efforts to say after him, Mishenahma, king of fishes, but he was terribly discomposed at getting nothing but Niffey-ninny, king of fithes. I went to her rescue, and asked what they were about; but Maurice thundered down on me all the Delawares and Mohawks, and the Choctaws and Cameches; and baby squeaked after him as well as she could, till I fairly stopped my ears. I thought Ulick must be reading the legend to him. Now I see he must have been teaching him to read it.’

‘Can it be possible?’ said Mr. Kendal. ‘He could not read words of five letters without spelling.’

‘He always could do much more when he pleased than when he did not please,’ said Albinia. ‘I believe the impulse to use his understanding was all that was wanting, and I am very glad the impulse came from such a motive.’

Mr. Kendal ordained that Maurice’s reward should be learning Latin from himself, a perilous trial; but it proved that Mr. Kendal was really a good teacher for a child of spirit and courage, and Maurice had early come to the age when boys do better with man than with woman. He liked the honour and the awe of papa’s tutorship, and learnt so well, that his father never believed in his past dunceship; but over studies that he did not deem sufficiently masculine, he could be as troublesome as ever, his attention absent, and his restlessness most wearisome. To an ordinary eye, he was little changed; but his mother felt that the great victory of the will had been gained, and that his self was endeavouring to get the better of the spirit of insubordination and mischief. Night after night she found him sleeping with the Balaklava sword by his side, and his hand clasped over it; and he always crept out of the way of Crimean news, though that he gathered up the facts was plain when he committed his sovereign to Ulick, with a request that it might be devoted to the comforts preparing to be sent to the 25th Lancers.

Ulick wished him to consult his mother, but this he repelled. He could not endure the sight of a tear in her eye, and she could not restrain them when that chord was touched. It was a propensity she much disliked, the more because she thought it looked like affectation beside Sophy, whose feelings never took that course, but the more ill-timed the tears, the more they would come, at the most common-place condolence or remote allusion. It was the effect of the long strain on her powers, and the severe shock coming suddenly after so much pressure and fatigue; moreover, her habits had been so long disorganized that her time seemed blank, and she could not rouse herself from a feeling of languor and depression. Then Gilbert had been always on her mind, whether at home or absent; and it did not seem at first as if she had enough to fill up time or thoughts—she absolutely found herself doing nothing, because there was nothing she cared to do.

Mr. Kendal’s first object was the fulfilment of Gilbert’s wishes; but Albinia soon felt how much easier it is for women and boys to make schemes, than for men to bring them to effect, and how rash it is hastily to condemn those who tolerate abuses.

The whole was carefully looked over with a surveyor, and it was only then understood how complicated were the tenures, and how varied the covenants of the numerous small tenements which old Mr. Meadows had amassed. It was not possible to be free of the legal difficulties under at least a year, and plans of drainage might be impeded for want of other people’s consent. Even if all had been smooth, the sacrifice of income, by destroying Tibb’s Alley, and reducing the number of cottages, would be considerable. Meantime, the inspection had brought to light worse iniquities and greater wretchedness than Mr. Kendal had imagined, and his eagerness to set to work was tenfold. His table was heaped with sanitary reports, and his fits of abstraction were over the components of bad air or builder’s estimates.

It only depended on Ulick to have resumed his intimacy at Willow Lawn; but the habit once broken was not resumed. He was often there, but never without invitation; and he was not always to be had. He had less leisure, he was senior clerk, and the junior was dull and untrained; and he often had work to do far into the evening. He looked bright and well, as though possessed of a sense of being valuable in his own place, more conducive to happiness than even congeniality of employment; and Sophy, though now and then disappointed at his non-appearance, always had a good reason for it, and continued to justify Mr. Dusautoy’s boast that the air of the hill had made another woman of her.

Visiting cards had, of course, come in numbers to Willow Lawn, but Albinia seemed to have caught her husband’s aversions, and it would be dangerous to say how long it was before she lashed herself into setting off for a round of calls.

Nothing surprised her more than Miss Goldsmith’s reception. Conscious of her neglect, she expected the stiff manner to be more formal than ever; but the welcome was almost warm, and there was something caressing in her fears that Miss Kendal would be tired. Mr. Goldsmith was not quite well, there were threatenings of gout, and his sister had persuaded him to visit the relations at Bristol next week; everything might safely be trusted to young More, and therewith came such praise of his steadiness and ability, that Albinia did not know which way to look when all was ascribed to Mr. Kendal’s great kindness to him.

It was too palpable to be altogether pleasant. Sophia Kendal was heiress enough to be a very desirable connexion for the bank. Albinia was afraid she should see through the lady’s graciousness, and took her leave in haste; but Sophy only said, ‘Do you remember, mamma, when the Goldsmiths thought we unsettled him?’

Before Albinia had disarmed her reply of the irony on the tip of her tongue, the omnibus came lumbering round the corner, and a voice proceeded from the rear, the door flew open, and there was a rapid exit.

Face and voice, light step, and gay bearing, all were Fred—the empty sleeve, the sole resemblance to the shattered convalescent of a few weeks back.

‘There, Albinia! I said you should see her first. You haven’t got any change, have you?’ the last being addressed either to Albinia, the omnibus conductor, or a lady, who made a tender of two shillings, while Albinia ordered the luggage on to Willow Lawn, though something was faintly said about the inn.

‘And there!’ cried Fred, with an emphatic twist of his moustache, ‘isn’t she all I ever told you?’

‘The last thing was a brick,’ said Albinia, laughing, as she looked at the smiling, confiding, animated face, not the less pleasant for a French Canadian grace that recalled Genevieve.

‘The right article for building a hut, I hope,’ she said, merrily.

‘But how and when could you have come?’

‘This morning, from Liverpool. We did not mean to storm you in this manner; we meant to have settled ourselves at the inn, and walked down; Emily was very particular about it.’

‘But you see, when he saw you, he forgot all my lectures!’ said Emily, taking his welcome for granted.

‘Very proper of him! But, Fred, I don’t quite believe it yet. How long is it since we parted?’

‘Six weeks; just enough to go to Canada and back, with a fortnight in the middle to spare.’

‘And pray how long has Mrs. Fred existed?’

‘Three weeks and two days;’ and turning half round to give her the benefit of his words, ‘it was on purely philanthropic principles, because I could not tie my own necktie.’

‘Now could I,’ said Emily pleadingly to Sophy—‘now could I let him go back again alone, when he came so helpless, and looking so dreadfully ill?’

‘And what are you going to do?’ asked Albinia. ‘You can’t join again.’

‘Join! why not? Here’s a hand for a horse, and an arm for a wife, and the rest will be done much better for me than ever it was before.’

‘But with her? and at Sebastopol!’

‘That’s the very thing’’ cried the colonel, again turning about. ‘Nothing will serve her but to show how a backwoodsman’s daughter can live in a hut.’

‘And what will the general say?’

‘The general,’ cried Emily, ‘will endure me better as a fact than as a prospect; and we will teach him that a lady is not all made of nerves and of fancies! See what he will say if we let him into our paradise!’

Fred brightened, though Albinia’s inquiry had for a moment taken him a little aback. The one being whom he dreaded was General Ferrars, for whom he cared a thousand times more than for his own elder brother, and he was soon speculating, with his usual insouciance, as to how his announcement might have been received by his lordship, and whether the aunts would look at them as they went through London.

Mr. Kendal met them at the gate, amazed at the avalanche of luggage, but well pleased, for he had grown very fond of Fred, and had been very anxious about him, thinking him broken and enfeebled for life, and hardly expecting him to return from his mad expedition. He was slow to believe his eyes and ears when he beheld a hale, handsome, vigorous man, full of life and activity, but his welcome and congratulations were of the warmest. He could far better stand a sudden inroad than if he had had to meditate for a week on entertaining the bride. Not that the bride wanted entertainment, except waiting upon her husband, who let himself be many degrees less handy than at Malta, for the pleasure of her attentions.

Perhaps the person least gratified was Maurice; for the child shrank with shy reverence from him whom his brother had saved, and would as soon have thought of making a plaything of Gilbert’s sword as of having fun with the survivor. The sight of such a merry man was a shock, and he abruptly repelled all attempts at playing with him, and kept apart with a big book on a chair before him, a Kendalism for which he amply compensated when familiarity had diminished his awe.

Mr. Kendal, though little disposed to exert himself to talk, liked to watch his wife reviving into animation, and Sophy taking a full share in the glee with which Emily enjoyed turning the laugh against the good-natured soldier. In the midst of their flush of joy there was a tender consideration about the young couple, such as to hinder their tone from jarring. Indeed, it was less consideration than fellow-feeling, for Gilbert Kendal had become enshrined in the depths of Fred’s heart; while to Emily the visit was well-nigh a pilgrimage. All her hero-worship was directed to the youth who had guarded her soldier’s life, nursed him in his sickness, and, as he averred, inspired him with serious thoughts. Poor, failing, timid, penitent Gilbert was to her a very St. George, and every relic of him was viewed with reverence; she composed a countenance for him from his father’s fine features, and fitted the fragments of his history into an ideal, till Sophy, after being surprised and gratified, began to view Gilbert through a like halo, and to rank him with his twin brother. Friendship was a new and agreeable phase of life to Sophy, who found a suitable companion in such an open-hearted person, simpler in nature, and fresher than herself, free from English commonplaces, though older and of more standing. She expanded and brightened wonderfully, and Emily, imagining her a female Gilbert, was devoted to her, and thought her a marvel of learning, depth, goodness, and humility, the more striking for her tinge of grave pensiveness.

‘Why, Albinia,’ said the colonel, ‘didn’t I hear that it was your handsome daughter who is married?’

‘Yes, poor Lucy was always called our pretty one.’

‘More admired than her sister? Why, she never could have had a countenance!’

‘Yes,’ said Albinia, highly gratified by the opinion of such a connoisseur. ‘I always told Winifred that Sophy was the beauty, but she has only lately had health or animation to set her off.’

‘I declare, when we overtook you in the street, she looked a perfect Spanish princess, in her black robes and great shady hat. You ought always to keep her in black. Ha! Emily, what are you smiling at?’

His wife looked up into his face with mischievous shyness in her eyes, as if she wanted him to say what would be a liberty in her. Somebody else had overtaken the ladies nearly at the same moment, and Albinia exulted in perceiving that the embellishment had been observed by others besides herself. She did not look so severe but that Fred was encouraged to repeat, ‘Only lately had health or animation? When Irish winds blow this way, I fancy—But what will the aunts say?’

‘They are not Sophy’s aunts, whatever they are to you.’

‘What will Kendal say? which is more to the purpose.’

‘Oh! he saw it first; he will be delighted; but you must not say a word to him, for it can’t come to anything just now.’

Albinia was thus confirmed in her anticipations, and the bridal pair, only wishing everybody to be as happy as themselves, took the matter up with such vivid interest and amusement, that she was rather afraid of a manifestation such as to shock either her husband or the parties themselves; but Fred was too much of a gentleman, and Emily too considerate, for anything perilously marked. Only she thought Emily need not have been so decided in making room for Ulick next to Sophy, when they were all looking out at the young moon at the conservatory-door that evening.

And then Emily took her husband’s arm, and insisted on going down the garden to be introduced to English nightingales; and though she was told they never had come there in the memory of man, she was bent on doing as she would be done by, and drew him alone the silvered paths, among the black shadows of the trees; and Ulick asked Sophy if she wished to go too. She looked as if she should like it very much; he fetched a couple of cloaks ont of the hall, put her into one, and ran after Mrs. Ferrars with the other.

‘Well!’ thought Albinia, as she stood at the conservatory-door, ‘how much more boldness and tact some people have than others! If I had lived a hundred years, I should not have managed it so well!’

‘What’s become of them?’ said Mr. Kendal, as she went back to the drawing-room.

‘Gone to listen for nightingales!’

‘Nightingales! How could you let them go into the river-fog?’

‘Emily was bent upon it; she is too much of a bride not to have her way.’

‘Umph! I wonder Sophy was so foolish.’

They came back in a quarter of an hour. No nightingales; and Fred was indulging in reminiscences of bull-frogs; the two ladies were rapturous on the effect of the moonbeams in the ripple of the waters, and the soft furry white mist rising over the meadows. Ulick shivered, and leant over the fire to breathe a drier air, bantering the ladies for their admiration, and declaring that Mrs. Ferrars had taken the moan of an imprisoned house-dog for the nightingale, which he disdainfully imitated with buzz, zizz, and guggle, assuring her she had had no loss; but he looked rather white and chilled. Sophy whispered something to her papa, who rang the bell, and ordered in wine and hot water.

‘There, Emily,’ said Albinia, when he had taken his leave; ‘what shall we say to your nightingales, if Mr. O’More catches his ague again?’

‘Oh, there are moments when people don’t catch agues,’ said Fred. ‘He would be a poor fellow to catch an ague after all that, though, by-the-bye, it is not a place to go to at night without a cigar.’

Albinia was on thorns, lest Sophy should be offended; but though her cheeks lighted up, and she was certainly aware of some part of their meaning, either she did not believe in the possibility of any one bantering her, or else the assumption was more agreeable than the presumption was disagreeable. She endured with droll puzzled dignity, when Fred teased her anxiety the next day to know whether Mr. O’More had felt any ill effects; and it really appeared as if she liked him better for what might have been expected to be a dire affront; but then he was a man whose manner enabled to do and say whatever he pleased.

Emily never durst enter on the subject with her, but had more than one confidential little gossip with Albinia, and repeatedly declared that she hoped to be in England when ‘it’ took place. Indeed that week’s visit made them all so intimate, that it was not easy to believe how recent was the acquaintance.

The aunts had been so much disappointed at Fred’s desertion, so much discomfited at his recovery contrary to all predictions, and so much annoyed at his marriage, that it took all their kindness, and his Crimean fame, to make them invite him and his colonial wife to the Family Office, to be present at the royal distribution of medals. However, the good ladies did their duty; and Emily and Sophy parted with promises of letters.

The beginning of the correspondence was as full a description of the presentation of the medals as could be given by a person who only saw one figure wherever she went, and to whom the great incident of the day was, that the gracious and kindhearted Queen had herself fastened the left-handed colonel’s medal as well as Emily could have done it herself! There was another medal, with two clasps, that came to Bayford, and which was looked at in pensive but not unhappy silence. ‘You shall have it some day, Maurice, but not now,’ said Mr. Kendal, and all felt that now meant his own lifetime. It was placed where Gilbert would well have liked to see it, beside his brother Edmund’s watch.

Emily made Mrs. Annesley and Miss Ferrars more fond of her in three days, than eleven years had made them of Winifred; too fond, indeed, for they fell to preaching to Fred upon the horrors of Sebastopol, till they persuaded him that he was a selfish wretch, and brought him to decree that she should stay with them during his absence. But, as Emily observed, that was not what she left home for; she demolished his arguments with a small amount of playing at petulance, and triumphantly departed for the East, leaving Aunt Mary crying over her as a predestined victim.

The last thing Fred did before sailing, was to send Albinia a letter from his brother, that she might see ‘how very kind and cordial Belraven was,’ besides something that concerned her more nearly.

Lord Belraven was civil when it cost him nothing, and had lately regarded his inconvenient younger brother with favour, as bringing him distinction, and having gained two steps without purchase, removed, too, by his present rank, and the pension for his wound, from being likely to become chargeable to him; so he had written such brotherly congratulations, that good honest Fred was quite affected. He was even discursive enough to mention some connexions of the young man who had been with Fred in the Crimea, a Mr. Cavendish Dusautoy, a very good sort of fellow, who gave excellent dinners, and was a pleasant yachting companion. His wife was said to be very pretty and pleasing, but she had arrived at Genoa very unwell, had been since confined, and was not yet able to see any one. It was said to be the effect of her distress for the death of her brother, and the estrangement from her family, who had behaved very ill about his property. Had not Albinia Ferrars married into that family?