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

Albinia knew enough of her noble relative to be aware that good dinners and obsequiousness were the way to his esteem, and Algernon’s was the sort of arrogance that would stoop to adore a coronet. All this was nothing, however, to the idea of Lucy, ill in that strange place, with no one to care for her but her hard master. Albinia sometimes thought of going to find her out at Genoa; but this was too utterly wild and impossible, and nothing could be done but to write letters of affectionate inquiry, enclosing them to Lord Belraven.

Algernon’s answer was solemn, and as brief as he could make anything. He was astonished that the event bad escaped the notice of the circle at Bayford, since he believed it had appeared in all the principal European newspapers; and his time had been so fully occupied, that he had imagined that intimation sufficient, since it was evident from the tone of the recent correspondence, that the family of Bayford were inclined to drop future intercourse. He was obliged for the inquiries for Lucy, and was happy to say she was recovering favourably, though the late unfortunate events, and the agitation caused by letters from home, had affected her so seriously, that they had been detained at Genoa for nearly four months to his great inconvenience, instead of pushing on to Florence and Rome. It had been some compensation that he had become extremely intimate with that most agreeable and superior person, Lord Belraven, who had consented to become sponsor to his son.

Lucy wrote to Albinia. Poor thing, the letter was the most childishly expressed, and the least childishly felt, she had ever written; its whole aspect was weak and wobegone; yet there was less self-pity, and more endeavour to make the best of it, than before. She had the dearest little baby in the world; but he was very delicate, and she wished mamma would send out an English nurse, for she could not bear that Italian woman—her black eyes looked so fierce, and she was sure it was not safe to have those immense pins in her hair. Expense was nothing, but she should never be happy till she had an Englishwoman about him, especially now that she was getting better, and Algernon would want her to come out again with him. Dear Algernon, he had lost the Easter at Rome for her sake, but perhaps it was a good thing, for he was often out in Lord Belraven’s yacht, and she could be quiet with baby. She did wish baby to have had her dear brothers’ names, but Algernon would not consent. Next Tuesday he was to be christened; and then followed a string of mighty names, long enough for a Spanish princess, beginning with Belraven!!!

Lucy Dusautoy’s dreary condition in the midst of all that wealth could give, was a contrast to Emily Ferrars’ buoyant delight in the burrow which was her first married home, and proved a paradise to many a stray officer, aye, maybe, to Lieutenant-General Sir William Ferrars himself. Her letters were charming, especially a detail of Fred meeting Bryan O’More coming out of the trenches, grim, hungry, and tired, having recently kicked a newly alighted shell down from the parapet, with the cool words, ‘Be off with you, you ugly baste you;’ of his wolfish appetite after having been long reduced to simple rations, though he kept a curly black lamb loose about his hut, because he hadn’t the heart to kill it; and it served him for bed if not for board, all his rugs and blankets having flown off in the hurricane, or been given to the wounded; he had been quite affronted at the suggestion that a Galway pig was as well lodged as himself—it was an insult to any respectable Irish animal!

Albinia sent Maurice to summon Ulick to enjoy the letter in store for him. He looked grave and embarrassed, and did not light up as usual at Bryan’s praises. He said that his aunt, who had written to him on business, had given a bad account of Mr. Goldsmith, but Albinia hardly thought this accounted for his preoccupation, and was considering how to probe it, when her brother Maurice opened the door. ‘Ulick O’More! that’s right; the very man I was in search of!’

‘How’s Winifred, Maurice?’

‘Getting on wonderfully well. I really think she is going to make a start, after all! and she is in such spirits herself.’

‘And the boy?’

‘Oh, a thumping great fellow! I promise you he’ll be a match for your Maurice.’

‘I do believe it is to reward Winifred for sparing you in the spring when we wanted you so much! Come, sit down, and wait for Edmund.’

‘No; I’ve not a moment to stay. I’m to meet Bury again at Woodside at six o’clock, he drove me there, and I walked on, looking in at your lodgings by the way, Ulick.’

‘I’m not there now. I am keeping guard at the bank.’

‘So they told me. Well, I hope your guard is not too strict for you to come over to Fairmead on Sunday; we want you to do our boy the kindness to be his godfather!’

Sophy blushed with approving gratitude.

‘I don’t consider that it will be a sinecure—he squalls in such a characteristic manner that I am convinced he will rival his cousin here in all amiable and amenable qualities; so I consider it particularly desirable that he should be well provided with great disciplinarians.’

‘You certainly could not find any one more accomplished in teaching dunces to read,’ said Albinia.

‘When their mammas have taught them already!’ added Ulick, laughing. ‘Thank you; but you know I can’t sleep out; Hyder Ali and I are responsible for a big chest of sovereigns, and all the rest of it.’

‘Nor could I lodge you at present; so we are agreed. My proposition is that you should drive my sister over on Sunday morning. My wife is wearying for a sight of her; and she has not been at Fairmead on a Sunday since she left it, eh, Albinia?’

‘I suppose for such a purpose it is not wrong to use the horse,’ she said, her eyes sparkling.

‘And you might put my friend Maurice between you, if you can’t go out pleasuring without him.’

‘I scorn you, sir; Maurice is as good as gold; I shall leave him at home, I think, to prove that I can—’

‘That’s the reward of merit!’ exclaimed Sophy.

‘She expects my children to corrupt him!’ quoth Mr. Ferrars.

‘For shame, Maurice; that’s on purpose to make me bring him. Well, we’ll see what papa says, and if he thinks the new black horse strong enough, or to be trusted with Mr. O’More.’

‘I only wish ‘twas a jaunting car!’ cried Ulick.

‘And what’s the boy’s name to be? Not Belraven, I conclude, like my unfortunate grandson—Maurice, I hope.’

‘No; the precedent of his namesake would be too dangerous. I believe he is to be Edmund Ulick. Don’t take it as too personal, Ulick, for it was the name of our mutual connexion.’

‘I take the personal part though, Maurice; and thank you, said Albinia, and Mr. Ferrars looked more happy and joyous than any time since his wife’s health had begun to fail. Always cheerful, and almost always taking matters up in the most lively point of view, it was only by comparison that want of spirits in him could be detected; and it was chiefly by the vanishing of a certain careworn, anxious expression about his eyes, and by the ring of his merry laugh, that Albinia knew that he thought better of his wife’s state than for the last five or six years.

Albinia and Ulick drove off at six o’clock on a lovely summer Sunday morning, with Maurice between them in a royal state of felicity. That long fresh drive, past summer hay-fields sleeping in their silver bath of dew, and villages tardily awakening to the well-earned Sunday rest, was not the least pleasant part of the day; and yet it was completely happy, not even clouded by one outbreak of Master Maurice. Luckily for him, Mary had a small class, who absorbed her superabundant love of rule; and little Alby was a fair-haired, apple-cheeked maiden of five, who awoke both admiration and chivalry, and managed to coquet with him and Ulick both at once, so that Willie had no disrespect to his sisters to resent.

He was exemplary at church, well-behaved at dinner, and so little on his mamma’s mind, that she had a delightful renewal of her acquaintance with the Sunday-school, and a leisurable gossip with Mrs. Reid and the two Miss Reids, collectively and individually; but the best of all was a long quiet tete-a-tete with Winifred.

After the evening service, Mr. Ferrars himself carried his newly-christened boy back to the mother, and paused that his sister might come with him, and they might feel like the old times, when the three had been alone together.

‘Yes,’ said Winifred, when he had left them, ‘it is very pretty playing at it; but one cannot be the same.’

‘Nor would one exactly wish it,’ said Albinia; ‘though I think you are going to be more the same.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Winifred; ‘the worst of being ill is that it does wear one’s husband so! When he came in, and tried to make me fancy we were gone back to Willie’s time, I could not help thinking how different you both looked.’

‘Well, so much the better and more respectable,’ said Albinia. ‘You know I always wanted to grow old; I don’t want to stop short like your sister Anne, who looks as much the child of the house as ever.

‘I wish you had as few cares as Anne. Look; I declare that’s a grey hair!’

‘I know. I like it; now Sophy is growing young, and I’m growing old, it is all correct.’

‘Old, indeed!’ ejaculated Winifred, looking at her fair fresh complexion and bright features; ‘don’t try for that, when even Edmund is not grey.’

‘Yes he is,’ said Albinia, gravely; ‘Malta sowed many white threads in his black head, and worry about those buildings has brought more.’

‘Worry; I’m very sorry to hear of it.’

‘Yes; the tenures are so troublesome, and everybody is so cantankerous. If he wanted to set up some pernicious manufacture, it could not be worse! The Osbornes, after having lived with Tibb’s Alley close to them all their lives, object to the almshouses! Mr. Baron wont have the new drains carried through his little strip of land. The Town Council think we are going to poison the water; and Pettilove, and everybody else who owns a wretched tenement, that we shall increase the wants of their tenants, and lower their rents. If it be carried through, it will be by that sheer force in going his own way that Edmund can exert when he chooses.’

‘And he will?’

‘O, yes, no fear of that; he goes on, avoiding seeing or hearing what he has not to act upon; but worse than all are the people themselves; Tibb’s Alley all has notice to quit, but none of them can be got rid of till Martinmas, and some not till Lady-day, and the beer-house people are in such a rage! The turn-out of the public-houses come and roar at our gate on Saturday nights; and they write up things on the wall against him! and one day they threw over into the garden what little Awkey called a poor dear dead pussy. I believe they tell them all sorts of absurd things about his tyranny; poor creatures.’

‘Can’t you get it stopped?’

‘Edmund wont summon any one, because he thinks it would do more harm than good. He says it will pass off; but it grieves him more than he shows: he thinks he could once have made himself more popular: but I don’t know, it is a horrid set.’

‘I thought you said he was in good spirits.’

‘And so he is: he never gets depressed and unwilling to be spoken to. He is ready to take interest in everything; and always so busy! When I remember how he never seemed to be obliged to attend to anything, I laugh at the contrast; and yet he goes about it all so gravely and slowly, that it never seems like a change.’

In this and other home talk nearly an hour had passed, when Mr. Ferrars returned. ‘Are you come to tell me to go?’ said Albinia.

‘Not particularly,’ he said, in a tone that made her laugh.

‘No, no,’ said Winifred. ‘I want a great deal more of her. Where have you been?’

‘I have been to see old Wilks; Ulick walked down with me. By-the-bye, Albinia, what nonsense has Fred’s wife been talking to his brother?’

‘Emily does not talk nonsense!’ fired up Albinia, colouring, nevertheless.

‘The worse for her, then! However, it seems Bryan has disturbed this poor fellow very much, by congratulating him on his prospects at Willow Lawn.’

‘Oh! that is what made him so distant and cautious, is it?’ laughed Albinia. ‘I think Mrs. Emily might as well not have betrayed it.’

‘Betrayed! What could have passed?’

‘Oh! Emily and Fred saw it as plain as I did. Why, it does not do credit to your discernment, Maurice; papa found it out long ago, and told me.’

‘Kendal did?’

‘Yes, that he did, and did not mind the notion at all; rather liked it, in fact.’

‘Well!’ said Mr. Ferrars, in a different tone, ‘it is a very queer business! I certainly did not think the lad showed any symptoms. He said he had heard gossip about it before, and had tried to be careful; his aunt talked to him once, but, as he said, it would be nothing but the rankest treason to think of such a thing, on the terms on which he is treated.’

‘Ay, that’s it!’ said Albinia; ‘he acts most perfectly.’

‘Perfectly indeed, if that were acting,’ said Mr. Ferrars.

‘And what made him speak to you?’ asked Winifred.

‘He wanted to consult me. He said it was very hard on him, for all the pleasure he had came from his intercourse with Willow Lawn; and he could not bear to keep at a distance, because it looked as if he had not forgotten the old folly about the caricature; but he was afraid of the report coming to your ears or Mr. Kendal’s, because you would think it so wrong and shameful an abuse of your kindness.’

‘And that’s his whole concern?’

‘So he told me.’

‘And what advice did you give him?’

‘I told him Bayford was bent on gossip, and no one heeded it less than my respected brother and sister.’

‘That was famous of you, Maurice. I was afraid you would have put it upon his honour and the state of his own heart.’

‘Sooth to say, I did not think his heart appeared very ticklish.’

‘Oh! Maurice, Maurice! But you’ve not been there to see the hot fits and the cold fits! It is a very fine thermometer whether he says Sophy or Miss Kendal.’

‘And you say Edmund perceived this?’

‘Much you would trust my unassisted ‘cuteness! I tell you he did, and that it will make him happier than anything.’

‘Very well; then my advice will have done no harm. I did not think there had been so much self-control in an Irishman.’

‘Had he not better say, so much blindness in the rector of Fairmead?’ laughed Albinia.

‘And pray what course is the affair to take?’

‘The present, I suppose. Some catastrophe will occur at last to prove to him that we honour him, and don’t view it as outrageous presumption; and then—oh! there can be no doubt that he will have a share in the bank; and Sophy may buy toleration for his round O. After all, he has the best of it as to ancestry, and we Kendals need not turn up our noses at banking.’

‘I think he will be too proud to address her, except on equality as to money matters.’

‘Pride is sometimes quelled and love free,’ said Albinia. ‘No, no; content yourself with having given the best advice in the world, with your eyes fast shut!’

And Albinia went home in high spirits.

CHAPTER XXIX

Not long afterwards, Ulick O’More was summoned to Bristol, where his uncle had become suddenly worse; but he had only reached Hadminster when a telegraph met him with the news of Mr. Goldsmith’s death, and orders to remain at his post.

He came to the Kendals in the evening in great grief; he had really come to love and esteem his uncle, and he was very unhappy at having lost the chance of a reconciliation for his mother. As her chief friend and confidant, he knew that she regarded the alienation of her own family as the punishment of her disobedient marriage, and that his own appointment had been valued chiefly as an opening towards fraternal feeling, and reproached himself for not having made more direct efforts to induce his uncle to enter into personal intercourse with her.

‘If I had only ventured it before he went to Bristol,’ he said; ‘I was a fool not to have done so; and there, the Goldsmiths detest the very name of us! Why could they not have telegraphed for me? I might have heard what would have done my mother’s heart good for the rest of her life. I am sure my poor uncle wanted to ease his mind!’

‘May he not have sent some communication direct to her?’

‘I trust he did! I have long thought he only kept her aloof from habit, and felt kindly towards her all the time.’

‘And never could persuade himself to make a move towards her until too late,’ said Albinia.

‘Yes. Nothing comes home to one more than the words, “Agree with thine adversary quickly whiles thou art in the way with him.” If once one comes to think there’s creditable pride in holding out, there’s no end to it, or else too much end.’

‘Mr. Goldsmith was persevering in the example his father had set him,’ said Mr. Kendal.

‘Ay! my mother never blamed either, and I’m afraid, if the truth were told, my father was hot enough too, though it would all have been bygones with him long ago, if they would have let it. But I was thinking just then of my own foolishness last winter, when I would not grant you it was pride, Mrs. Kendal, for fear I should have to repent of it.’

‘What has brought you to see that it was?’ asked she.

‘One comes to a better mind when the fit is off,’ he said. ‘I hope I will not be as bad next time.’

‘I hope we shall never give you a next time,’ said Albinia; ‘for neither party is comfortable, perched on a high horse.’

‘And you see,’ continued Ulick, ‘it is hard for us to give up our pride, because it is the only thing we’ve got of our own, and has been meat, drink, and clothing to us for many a year.’

‘So no wonder you make the most of it.’

‘True; I think a very high born and very rich man might be humble,’ said Ulick, so meditatively that they laughed; but Sophy said,

‘No, that is not a paradox; the real difficulty is not in willingly yielding, but in taking what we cannot help.’

‘Well,’ said Ulick, ‘I hope it is not pride not to intend working under Andrew Goldsmith.’

‘Do you consider that as your fate?’ asked Albinia.

‘Never my fate,’ said Ulick, quickly; ‘hardly even my alternative, for he would like to put up a notice, “No Irish need apply.” We had enough of each other last winter.’

‘And do you suppose,’ said Mr. Kendal, ‘that Mr. Goldsmith has left your position exactly the same?’

‘I’ve no reason to think otherwise. I refused all connexion with the bank if it was to interfere with my name. I don’t think it unlikely that he may have left me a small compliment in the way of shares; but if so, I shall sell them, and make them keep me at Oxford. I’m not too old yet!’

‘Then the work of these four years is wasted,’ said Mr. Kendal, gravely.

‘No, indeed,’ cried Ulick; ‘not if it takes me where I’ve always longed to be! Or, if not, I flatter myself I’m accountant enough to be an agent in my own country.’

‘Anything to get away from here,’ said Albinia, with a shade of asperity, provoked by the spirit of enterprise in his voice.

‘After all, it is a bit of a place,’ said Ulick; ‘and the office parlour is not just a paradise! Then ‘tis all on such a narrow scale, too little to absorb one, and too much to let one do anything else; I see how larger transactions might be engrossing, but this is mere cramping and worrying; I know I could do better for my family in the end than by what I can screw out of my salary now; and if it is no longer to give my poor mother a sense of expiation, as she calls it, why, then, the cage-door is open.’

His eyes glittered, and Sophy exclaimed, ‘Yes; and now the training is over, it has made you fitter to fly.’

‘It has,’ he said; ‘and I’m thankful for it. Without being here, I would never have learnt application—nor some better things, I hope.’

They scarcely saw him again till after the funeral, when late in the day he came into the drawing-room, and saying that his aunt was pretty well and composed, he knelt down on the floor with the little Awk, and silently built up a tower with her wooden bricks. His hand trembled nervously at first, but gradually steadied as the elevation became critical; and a smile of interest lighted his face as he became absorbed in raising the structure to the last brick, holding back the eager child with one hand lest she should overthrow it. Completion, triumph, a shock, a downfall!

‘Well,’ cried the elder Albinia, unable to submit to the suspense.

‘Telle est la vie,’ answered Ulick, smiling sadly as he passed his hand over his brow.

‘It’s too bad of him,’ broke out Mrs. Kendal.

‘I thought you were prepared,’ said Sophy, severely, disappointed to see him so much discomposed.

‘How should I be prepared,’ said he, petulantly, ‘for the whole concern, house, and bank, and all the rest of it?’

‘Left to you?’ was the cry.

‘Every bit of it, and an annuity apiece charged on it to my mother and aunt for their lives! My aunt told me how it came about. It was all that fellow Andrew’s fault.’

‘Or misfortune,’ murmured Albinia.

‘My poor uncle had made a will in Andrew’s favour long before my time, and at Bristol he wanted to make some arrangement for my mother and for me; but it seems Mr. Andrew took exception at me—would not promise to continue me on, nor to give me a share in the business, and at last my uncle was so much disgusted, that he sent for a lawyer and cut Andrew out of his will altogether. My aunt says he went on asking for me, and it was Andrew’s fault that they wrote instead of telegraphing. You can’t think what kind messages he sent to me;’ and Ulick’s eyes filled with tears. ‘My poor uncle, away from home, and with that selfish fellow.’

‘Did he send any message to your mother?’

‘Yes! he told my aunt to write to her that he was sorry they had been strangers so long, and that—I’d been like a son to him. I’m sure I wish I had been. I dare say he would have let me if I had not flown out about my O. I could have saved changing it without making such an intolerable row, and then he might have died more at peace with the world.’

‘At peace with you at least he did.’

‘I trust so. But if I could only have been by his side, and felt myself a comfort, and thanked him with all my heart. Maybe he would have listened to me, and not have sown ill-will between Andrew and me, by giving neither what we would like.’

‘Do you expect us to be sorry?’

‘Nay, I came to be helped out of my ingratitude and discontent at finding the cage-door shut, and myself chained to the oar; for as things are left, I could not get it off my hands without giving up my mother’s interests and my aunt’s. Besides, my poor uncle left me an entreaty to keep things up creditably like himself, and do justice by the bank. It is as if, poor man, it was an idol that he had been high priest to, and wanted me to be the same—ay, and sacrifice too.’

‘Nay, there are two ways of working, two kinds of sacrifice; and besides, you are still working for your mother.’

‘So I am, but without the hope she had before. To be sure, it would be affluence at home, or would be if she could have it in her own hands. Little Redmond shall have the best of educations! And we must mind there is something in advance by the time Bryan wants to purchase his company.’

Albinia asked how his aunt liked the arrangement. It seemed that Andrew had offended her nearly as much as her brother, and that she was clinging to Ulick as her great comfort and support; he did not like to stay long away from her, but he had rushed down to Willow Lawn to avoid the jealous congratulations of the cousinhood.

‘You will hardly keep from glad people,’ said Albinia. ‘You must shut yourself up if you cannot be congratulated. How rejoiced Mr. Dusautoy will be!’

‘Whatever is, is best,’ sighed Ulick. ‘I shall mind less when the first is past! I must go and entertain all these people at dinner!’ and he groaned. ‘Good evening. Heigh ho! I wonder if our Banshee will think me worth keening for?’

‘I hope she will have no occasion yet,’ said Albinia, as he shut the door; ‘but she will be a very foolish Banshee if she does not, for she will hardly find such another O’More! Well, Sophy, my dear.’

‘We should have missed him,’ said Sophy, as grave as a judge.

Albinia’s heart beat high with the hope that Ulick would soon perceive sufficient consolation for remaining at Bayford, but of course he could make no demonstration while Miss Goldsmith continued with him. She made herself very dependent on him, and he devoted his evenings to her solace. He had few leisure moments, for the settlement of his affairs occupied him, and full attention was most important to establish confidence at this critical juncture, when it might be feared that his youth, his nation, and Andrew Goldsmith’s murmurs might tell against him. Mr. Kendal set the example of putting all his summer rents into his hands, and used his influence to inspire trust; and fortunately the world had become so much accustomed to transacting affairs with him, that the country business seemed by no means inclined to fall away. Still there was much hard work and some perplexity, the Bristol connexion made themselves troublesome, and the ordinary business was the heavier from the clerks being both so young and inexperienced that he was obliged to exercise close supervision. It was guessed, too, that he was not happy about the effect of the influx of wealth at home, and that he feared it would only add to the number of horses and debts.