Читать книгу The Young Step-Mother; Or, A Chronicle of Mistakes - Yonge Charlotte Mary - Страница 3

Fog greeted Mrs. Kendal’s eyes as she rose, and she resolved to make an attack on the pond without loss of time. But Mr. Kendal was absorbed nearly all breakfast-time in a letter from India, containing a scrap in some uncouth character. As he finished his last cup of tea, he looked up and said, ‘A letter from my old friend Penrose, of Bombay—an inscription in the Salsette caves.’

‘Have you seen the Salsette caves?

‘Yes.’

She was longing to hear about them, but his horse was announced.

‘You said you would be engaged in the morning while I ride out, Albinia?’ he said, ‘I shall return before luncheon. Gilbert, you had better go at once to Mr. Bowles. I shall order your pony to be ready when you come back.’

There was not a word of remonstrance, though the boy looked very disconsolate, and began to murmur the moment his father had gone. Albinia, who had regarded protection at a dentist’s one of the offices of the head of a family, though dismayed at the task, told Gilbert that she would come with him in a moment. The girls exclaimed that no one thought of going with him, and fearing she had put an affront on his manliness, she asked what he would like, but could get no answer, only when Lucy scolded him for lingering, he said, ‘I thought she was going with me.’

‘Amiable,’ thought Albinia, as she ran up to put on her bonnet; ‘but I suppose toothache puts people out of the pale of civilization. And if he is thankless, is not that treating me more like a mother?’

Perhaps he had accepted her escort in hopes of deferring the evil hour, for he seemed discomfited to see her so quickly ready, and not grateful to his sisters, who hurried them by saying that Mr. Bowles would be gone out upon his rounds.

Mr. Bowles was amazed at the sight of Mrs. Kendal, and so elaborate in compliments and assurances that Mrs. Bowles would do herself the honour of calling, that Albinia, pitying Gilbert, called his attention back.

With him the apothecary was peremptory and facetious. ‘He had expected that he should soon see him after his papa’s return!’ And with a ‘soon be over,’ he set him down, and Albinia bravely stood a desperate wringing of her hand at the tug of war. She was glad she had come, for the boy suffered a good deal, and was faint, and Mr. Bowles pronounced his mouth in no state for a ride to Tremblam.

‘I must go,’ said Gilbert, as they walked home, ‘I wish papa would listen to anything.’

‘He would not wish you to hurt yourself.’

‘When papa says a thing—’ began Gilbert.

‘Well, Gilbert, you are quite right, and I hope you don’t think I mean to teach you disobedience. But I do desire you, on my own responsibility, not to go and catch an inflammation in your jaw. I’ll undertake papa.’

Gilbert at once became quite another creature. He discoursed so much, that she had to make him restore the handkerchief to his mouth; he held open the gate, showed her a shoal of minnows, and tried to persuade her to come round the garden before going in, but she clapped her hands at him, and hunted him back into the warm room, much impressed and delighted by his implicit obedience to his father. With Lucy and Sophy, his remaining seemed likewise to make a great sensation; they looked at Mrs. Kendal and whispered, and were evidently curious as to the result of her audacity. Albinia, who had grown up with her brother Maurice and cousin Frederick, was more used to boys than to girls, and was already more at ease with her son than her daughters.

Gilbert lent a ready hand with hammer and chisel, and boxes were opened, to the great delight and admiration of the girls. They were all very happy and busy setting things to rights, but Albinia was in difficulty how to bestow her books. There was an unaccountable scarcity both of books and book-cases; none were to be seen except that, in a chiffoniere in the drawing-room, there was a row in gilded bindings, chiefly Pope, Gray, and the like; and one which Albinia took out had pages which stuck together, a little pale blue string, faded at the end, and in the garlanded fly-leaf the inscription, ‘To Miss Lucy Meadows, the reward of good conduct, December 20th, 1822.’ The book seemed rather surprised at being opened, and Albinia let it close itself as Lucy said, ‘Those are poor mamma’s books, all the others are in the study. Come in, and I’ll show you.’

She threw open the door, and Albinia entered. The study was shaded with a mass of laurels that kept out the sun, and made it look chill and sad, and the air in it was close. The round library-table was loaded with desks, pocket-books, and papers, the mantelpiece was covered with letters, and book-shelves mounted to the ceiling, filled with the learned and the poetical of new and old times.

Over the fireplace hung what it needed not Lucy’s whisper to point out, as ‘Poor mamma’s picture.’ It represented a very pretty girl, with dark eyes, brilliant colour, and small cherry mouth, painted in the exaggerated style usually called ‘ridiculously like.’

Albinia’s first feeling was that there was nothing in herself that could atone for the loss of so fair a creature, and the thought became more oppressive as she looked at a niche in the wall, holding a carved sandal-wood work-box, with a silver watch lying on it.

‘Poor Edmund’s watch,’ said Lucy. ‘It was given to him for a reward just before he was ill.’

Albinia tried to recover composure by reading the titles of the books. Suddenly, Lucy started and exclaimed, ‘Come away. There he is!’

‘Why come away?’ said Albinia.

‘I would not have him find me there for all the world.’

In all her vexation and dismay, Albinia could not help thinking of Bluebeard’s closet. Her inclination was to stay where she was, and take her chance of losing her head, yet she felt as if she could not bear to be found invading a sanctuary of past recollections, and was relieved to find that it was a false alarm, though not relieved by the announcement that Admiral and Mrs. Osborn and the Miss Osborns were in the drawing-room.

‘Before luncheon—too bad!’ she exclaimed, as she hurried upstairs to wash off the dust of unpacking.

Ere she could hurry down, there was another inundation streaming across the hall, Mrs. Drury and three Miss Drurys, who, as she remembered, when they began to kiss her, were some kind of cousins.

There was talk, but Albinia could not give entire attention; she was watching for Mr. Kendal’s return, that she might guard Gilbert from his displeasure, and the instant she heard him, she sprang up, and flew into the hall. He could not help brightening at the eager welcome, but when she told him of Mr. Bowles’ opinion, he looked graver, and said, ‘I fear you must not always attach credit to all Gilbert’s reports.’

‘Mr. Bowles told me himself that he must run no risk of inflammation.’

‘You saw Mr. Bowles?’

‘I went with Gilbert.’

‘You? I never thought of your imposing so unpleasant a task on yourself. I fear the boy has been trespassing on your kindness.’

‘No, indeed, he never asked me, but—’ with a sort of laugh to hide the warmth excited by his pleased, grateful look, ‘I thought it all in the day’s work, only natural—’

She would have given anything to have had time to enjoy his epanchement de coeur at those words, bit she was obliged to add, ‘Alas! there’s all the world in the drawing-room!’

‘Who?’

‘Osborns and Drurys.’

‘Do you want me?’

‘I ran away on the plea of calling you.’

‘I’ll never do so again,’ was her inward addition, as his countenance settled into the accustomed fixed look of abstraction, and as an unwilling victim he entered the room with her, and the visitors were ‘dreadful enough’ to congratulate him.

Albinia knew that it must be so unpleasant to him, that she blushed up to the roots of her hair, and could not look at anybody.

When she recovered, the first comers were taking leave, but the second set stayed on and on till past luncheon-time, and far past her patience, before the room was at last cleared.

Gilbert hurried in, and was received by his father with, ‘You are very much obliged to her!’

‘Indeed I am,’ said Gilbert, in a winning, pleasant manner.

‘I don’t want you to be,’ said Albinia, affectionately laying her arm on his shoulder. ‘And now for luncheon—I pitied you, poor fellow; I thought you must have been famished.’

‘Anything not to have all the Drurys at luncheon,’ said Gilbert, confidentially, ‘I had begun to wish myself at Tremblam.’

‘By the bye,’ said Mr. Kendal, waking as he sat down at the bottom of the table, ‘how was it that the Drurys did not stay to luncheon?’

‘Was that what they were waiting for?’ exclaimed Albinia. ‘Poor people, I had no notion of that.’

‘They do have luncheon here in general,’ said Mr. Kendal, as if not knowing exactly how it came to pass.

‘O yes,’ said Lucy; ‘Sarah Anne asked me whether we ate wedding-cake every day.’

‘Poor Miss Sarah Anne!’ said Albinia, laughing. ‘But one cannot help feeling inhospitable when people come so unconscionably early, and cut up all one’s morning.’

The door was again besieged by visitors, just as they were all going out to make the round of the garden, and it was not till half-past four that the succession ceased, and Albinia was left to breathe freely, and remember how often Maurice had called her to order for intolerance of morning calls.

‘And not the only people I cared to see,’ she said, ‘the Dusautoys and Nugents. But they have too much mercy to call the first day.’

Mr. Kendal looked as if his instinct were drawing him study-wards, but Albinia hung on his arm, and made him come into the garden. Though devoid of Winifred’s gardening tastes, she was dismayed at the untended look of the flower-beds. The laurels were too high, and seemed to choke the narrow space, and the turf owed its verdant appearance to damp moss. She had made but few steps before the water squished under her feet, and impelled her to exclaim, ‘What a pity this pond should not be filled up!’

‘Filled up!—’

‘Yes, it would be so much less damp. One might drain it off into the river, and then we should get rid of the fog.’

And she began actively to demonstrate the convenient slope, and the beautiful flower-bed that might be made in its place. Mr. Kendal answered with a few assenting sounds and complacent looks, and Albinia, accustomed to a brother with whom to assent was to act, believed the matter was in train, and that pond and fever would be annihilated.

The garden opened into a meadow with a causeway leading to a canal bank, where there was a promising country walk, but the cruel visitors had left no time for exploring, and Albinia had to return home and hurry up her arrangements before there was space to turn round in her room—even then it was not what Winifred could have seen without making a face.

Mr. Kendal had read aloud to his wife in the evening during the stay at the sea-side, and she was anxious not to let the habit drop. He liked it, and read beautifully, and she thought it good for the children. She therefore begged him to read, catching him on the way to his study, and coaxing him to stay no longer than to find a book. He brought Schlegel’s Philosophy of History. She feared that it was above the young ones, but it was delightful to herself, and the custom had better be established before it was perilled by attempts to adapt it to the children. Lucy and Sophy seemed astonished and displeased, and their whispers had to be silenced, Gilbert learnt his lessons apart. Albinia rallied her spirits, and insisted to herself that she did not feel discouraged.

Monday had gone, or rather Albinia had been robbed of it by visitors—now for a vigorous Tuesday. Her unpacking and her setting to rights were not half over, but as the surface was habitable, she resolved to finish at her leisure, and sacrifice no more mornings of study.

So after she had lingered at the door, to delight Gilbert by admiring his pony, she returned to the dining-room, where the girls were loading a small table in the window with piles of books and exercises, and Lucy was standing, looking all eagerness to show off her drawings.

‘Yes, my dear, but first we had better read. I have been talking to your papa, and we have settled that on Wednesdays and Fridays we will go to church; but on these days we will begin by reading the Psalms and Lessons.’

‘Oh,’ said Lucy, ‘we never do that, except when we are at grandmamma’s.’

‘Pray are you too old or too young for it?’ said Albinia.

‘We did it to please grandmamma,’ said Sophy.

‘Now you will do it to please me,’ said Albinia, ‘if for no better reason. Fetch your Bibles and Prayerbooks.’

‘We shall never have time for our studies, I assure you, mamma,’ objected Lucy.

‘That is not your concern,’ said Albinia, her spirit rising at the girls’ opposition. ‘I wish for obedience.’

Lucy went, Sophy leant against the table like a post. Albinia regretted that the first shot should have been fired for such a cause, and sat perplexing herself whether it were worse to give way, or to force the girls to read Holy Scripture in such a mood.

Lucy came flying down with the four books in her hands, and began officiously opening them before her sister, and exhorting her not to give way to sullenness—she ought to like to read the Bible—which of course made Sophy look crosser. The desire to establish her authority conquered the scruple about reverence. Albinia set them to read, and suffered for it. Lucy road flippantly; Sophy in the hoarse, dull, dogged voice of a naughty boy. She did not dare to expostulate, lest she should exasperate the tempers that she had roused.

‘Never mind,’ she thought, ‘when the institution is fixed, they will be more amenable.’

She tried a little examination afterwards, but not one answer was to be extracted from Sophy, and Lucy knew far less than the first class at Fairmead, and made her replies wide of the mark, with an air of satisfaction that nearly overthrew the young step-mother’s patience.

When Albinia took her Bible upstairs, she gave Sophy time to say what Lucy reported instantly on her entrance.

‘Dear me, mamma, here is Sophy declaring that you ought to be a charity-schoolmistress. You wont be angry with her, but it is so funny!’

‘If you were at my charity school, Lucy,’ said Albinia, ‘the first lesson I should give you would be against telling tales.’

Lucy subsided.

Albinia turned to Sophy. ‘My dear,’ she said, ‘perhaps I pressed this on when you were not prepared for it, but I have always been used to think of it as a duty.’

Sophy made no answer, but her moody attitude relaxed, and Albinia took comfort in the hope that she might have been gracious if she had known how to set about it.

‘I suppose Miss Belmarche is a Roman Catholic,’ she said, wishing to account for this wonderful ignorance, and addressing herself to Sophy; but Lucy, whom she thought she had effectually put down, was up again in a moment like a Jack-in-a-box.

‘O yes, but not Genevieve. Her papa made it his desire that she should be brought up a Protestant. Wasn’t it funny? You know Genevieve is Madame Belmarche’s grand-daughter, and Mr. Durant was a dancing-master.’

‘Madame Belmarche’s father and brother were guillotined,’ continued Sophy.

‘Ah! then she is an emigrant?’

‘Yes. Miss Belmarche has always kept school here. Our own mamma, and Aunt Maria went to school to her, and Miss Celeste Belmarche married Mr. Durant, a dancing-master—she was French teacher in a school in London where he taught, and Madame Belmarche did not approve, for she and her husband were something very grand in France, so they waited and waited ever so long, and when at last they did marry, they were quite old, and she died very soon; and they say he never was happy again, and pined away till he really did die of grief, and so Genevieve came to her grandmamma to be brought up.’

‘Poor child! How old is she?’

‘Fifteen,’ said Lucy. ‘She teaches in the school. She is not at all pretty, and such a queer little thing.’

‘Was her father French?’

‘No,’ said Sophy.

‘Yes,’ said Lucy. ‘You know nothing about it, Sophy. He was French, but of the Protestant French sort, that came to England a great many years ago, when they ran away from the Sicilian Vespers, or the Edict of Nantes, I don’t remember which; only the Spitalfields weavers have something to do with it. However, at any rate Genevieve has got something in a drawer up in her own room that she is very secret about, and wont show to anybody.’

‘I think it is something that somebody was killed with,’ said Sophy, in a low voice.

‘Dear me, if it is, I am sure it is quite wicked to keep it. I shall be quite afraid to go into her room, and you know I slept there all the time of the fever.’

‘It did not hurt you,’ said Sophy.

Albinia had been strongly interested by the touching facts, so untouchingly narrated, and by the characteristic account of the Huguenot emigration, but it suddenly occurred to her that she was promoting gossip, and she returned to business. Lucy showed off her attainments with her usual self-satisfaction. They were what might be expected from a second-rate old-fashioned young ladies’ school, where nothing was good but the French pronunciation. She was evidently considered a great proficient, and her glib mediocrity was even more disheartening than the ungracious carelessness or dulness—there was no knowing which—that made her sister figure wretchedly in the examination. However, there was little time—the door-bell rang at a quarter to twelve, and Mrs. Wolfe was in the drawing-room.

‘I told you so,’ whispered Lucy, exultingly.

‘This is unbearable,’ cried Albinia. ‘I shall give notice that I am always engaged in the morning.’

She desired each young lady to work a sum in her absence, and left them to murmur, if they were so disposed. Perhaps it was Lucy’s speech that made her inflict the employment; at any rate, her spirit was not as serene as she could have desired.

Mr. Kendal was quite willing that she should henceforth shut her door against company in the morning; that is to say, he bowed his head assentingly. She was begging him to take a walk with her, when, at another sound of the bell, he made a precipitate retreat into his study. The visitors were the Belmarche family. The old lady was dark and withered, small, yet in look and air, with a certain nobility and grandeur that carried Albinia back in a moment to the days of hoops and trains, of powder and high-heeled shoes, and made her feel that the sweeping courtesy had come straight from the days of Marie Antoinette, and that it was an honour and distinction conferred by a superior—superior, indeed, in all the dignity of age, suffering, and constancy.

Albinia blushed, and took her hand with respect very unlike the patronizing airs of Bayford Bridge towards ‘poor old Madame Belmarche,’ and with downcast eyes, and pretty embarrassment, heard the stately compliments of the ancien regime.

Miss Belmarche was not such a fine specimen of Sevres porcelain as her mother. She was a brown, dried, small woman, having lost, or never possessed, her country’s taste in dress, and with a rusty bonnet over the tight, frizzly curls of her front, too thin and too scantily robed to have any waist, and speaking English too well for the piquant grace of her mother’s speech. Poor lady! born an exile, she had toiled, and struggled for a whole lifetime to support her mother; but though care had worn her down, there was still vivacity in her quick little black eyes, and though her teeth were of a dreadful colour, her laugh was so full of life and sweetness, that Albinia felt drawn towards her in a moment.

Silent and demure, plainly dressed in an old dark merino, and a white-ribboned faded bonnet, sat a little figure almost behind her grandmother. Her face had the French want of complexion, but the eyes were of the deepest, most lustrous hue of grey, almost as dark as the pupils, and with the softness of long dark eyelashes—beautiful eyes, full of light and expression—and as she moved towards the table, there was a finish and delicacy about the whole form and movements, that made her a most pleasing object.

But Albinia could not improve her acquaintance, for in flowed another party of visitors, and Madame curtsied herself out again, Albinia volunteering that she would soon come to see her, and being answered, ‘You will do me too much honour.’

Another afternoon devoured by visitors! Every one seemed to have come except the persons who would have been most welcome, Mr. Dusautoy, and Winifred’s friends, the Nugents.

When, at four o’clock, she had shaken hands with the last guest, she gave a hearty yawn, jumped up and shook herself, as she exclaimed, ‘There! There! that is done! I wonder whether your papa would come out now?’

‘He is in his study,’ said the girls.

Albinia thought of knocking and calling at the door, but somehow it seemed impossible, and she decided on promenading past his window to show that she was ready for him. But alas! those evergreens! She could not see in, and probably he could not see out.

‘Ha!’ cried Lucy, as they pursued their walk into the kitchen garden, ‘here are some asparagus coming up. Grandmamma always has our first asparagus.’

Albinia was delighted to find such an opening. Out came her knife—they would cut the heads and take them up at once; but when the tempting white-stalked, pink-tipped bundle had been made up and put into a basket, a difficulty arose.

‘I’ll call the boy to take it,’ said Lucy.

‘What, when we are going ourselves?’ said Albinia.

‘Oh! but we can’t.’

‘Why? Do you think we shall break down under the weight?’

‘O no, but people will stare.’

‘Why—what should they stare at?’

‘It looks so to carry a basket—’

Albinia burst into one of her merriest peals of laughing.

‘Not carry a basket! My dear, I have looked so all the days of my life. Bayford must endure the spectacle, so it may as well begin at once.’

‘But, dear mamma—’

‘I’m not asking you to carry it. O no, I only hope you don’t think it too ungenteel to walk with me. But the notion of calling a boy away from his work, to carry a couple of dozen asparagus when an able-bodied woman is going that way herself!’

Albinia was so tickled that she could hardly check herself, even when she saw Lucy looking distressed and hurt, and little laughs would break out every moment as she beheld the young lady keeping aloof, as if ashamed of her company, turning towards the steep church steps, willing at least to hide the dreadful sight from the High Street.

Just as they had entered the narrow alley, they heard a hasty tread, and almost running over them with his long strides, came Mr. Dusautoy. He brought himself up short, just in time, and exclaimed, ‘I beg your pardon—Mrs. Kendal, I believe. Could you be kind enough to give me a glass of brandy?’

Albinia gave a great start, as well she might.

‘I was going to fetch one,’ quickly proceeded Mr. Dusautoy, ‘but your house is nearer. A poor man—there—just come home—been on the tramp for work—quite exhausted—’ and he pointed to one of the cottages.

‘I’ll fetch it at once,’ cried Albinia.

‘Thank you,’ he said, as they crossed the street. ‘This poor fellow has had nothing all day, has walked from Hadminster—just got home, sank down quite worn out, and there is nothing in the house but dry bread. His wife wants something nearly as much as he does.’

In the excitement, Albinia utterly forgot all scruples about ‘Bluebeard’s closet.’ She hurried into the house, and made but one dash, standing before her astonished husband’s dreamy eyes, exclaiming, ‘Pray give me the key of the cellaret; there’s a poor man just come home, fainting with exhaustion, Mr. Dusautoy wants some brandy for him.’

Like a man but half awake, obeying an apparition, Mr. Kendal put his hand into his pocket and gave her the key. She was instantly opening the cellaret, seeking among the bottles, and asking questions all the time. She proposed taking a jug of the kitchen-tea then in operation, and Mr. Dusautoy caught at the idea, so that poor Lucy beheld the dreadful spectacle of the vicar bearing a can full of steaming tea, and Mrs. Kendal a small cup with the ‘spirituous liquor.’ What was the asparagus to this?

Albinia told her to go on to Mrs. Meadows’, and that she should soon follow. She intended to have gone the moment that she had carried in the cup, leaving Mr. Dusautoy in the cottage, but the poor trembling frightened wife needed woman’s sympathy and soothing, and she waited to comfort her, and to see the pair more able to enjoy the meeting, in their tidy, but bare and damp-looking cottage. She promised broth for the morrow, and took her leave, the vicar coming away at the same time.

‘Thank you,’ he said, warmly, as they came out, and turned to mount the hill together.

‘May I go and call on them again?’

‘It will be very kind in you. Poor Simkins is a steady, good sort of fellow, but a clumsy workman, down-hearted, and with poor health, and things have been untoward with him.’

‘People, who do not prosper in the world are not always the worst,’ said Albinia.

‘No, indeed, and these are grateful, warm-hearted people that you will like, if you can get over the poor woman’s lackadaisical manner. But you are used to all that,’ he added, smiling. ‘I see you know what poor folk are made of.’

‘I have been living among them nearly all my days,’ said Albinia. ‘I hope you will give me something to do, I should be quite forlorn without it;’ and she looked up to his kind, open face, as much at home with him as if she had known, him for years.

‘Fanny—my wife—shall find work for you,’ he said. ‘You must excuse her calling on you, she is never off the sofa, but—’ And what a bright look he gave! as much as to say that his wife on the sofa was better than any one else off. ‘I was hoping to call some of these afternoons,’ he continued, ‘but I have had little time, and Fanny thought your door was besieged enough already.’

‘Thank you,’ said Albinia; ‘I own I thought it was your kindness in leaving me a little breathing time. And would Mrs. Dusautoy be able to see me if I were to call?’

‘She would be delighted. Suppose you were to come in at once.’

‘I wish I could, but I must go on to Mrs. Meadows’. If I were to come to-morrow?’

‘Any time—any time,’ he said. ‘She is always at home, and she has been much better since we came here. We were too much in the town at Lauriston.’

Mr. Dusautoy, having a year ago come out of the diocese where had been Albinia’s home, they had many common friends, and plunged into ‘ecclesiastical intelligence,’ with a mutual understanding of the topics most often under discussion, that made Albinia quite in her element. ‘A great Newfoundland dog of a man in size, and countenance, and kindness,’ thought she. ‘If his wife be worthy of him, I shall reck little of all the rest.’

Her tread the gayer for this resumption of old habits, she proceeded to Mrs. Meadows’, where the sensation created by her poor little basket justified Lucy’s remonstrance. There were regrets, and assurances that the girl could have come in a moment, and that she need not have troubled herself, and her laughing declarations that it was no trouble were disregarded, except that the old lady said, in gentle excuse to her daughter, that Mrs. Kendal had always lived in the country, where people could do as they pleased.

‘I mean to do as I please here,’ said Albinia, laughing; but the speech was received with silent discomfiture that made her heartily regret it. She disdained to explain it away; she was beginning to hold Mrs. and Miss Meadows too cheap to think it worth while.

‘Well,’ said Mrs. Meadows, as if yielding up the subject, ‘things may be different from what they were in my time.’

‘Oh! mamma—Mrs. Kendal—I am sure—’ Albinia let Maria flounder, but she only found her way out of the speech with ‘Well! and is not it the most extraordinary!—Mr. Dusautoy—so rude—’

‘I should not wonder if you found me almost as extraordinary as Mr. Dusautoy,’ said Albinia.

Why would Miss Meadows always nettle her into saying exactly the wrong thing, so as to alarm and distress the old lady? That want of comprehension of playfulness was a strangely hard trial. She turned to Mrs. Meadows and tried to reassure her by saying, ‘You know I have been always in the clerical line myself, so I naturally take the part of the parson.’

‘Yes, my dear,’ said Mrs. Meadows. ‘I dare say Mr. Dusautoy is a very good man, but I wish he would allow his poor delicate wife more butcher’s meat, and I don’t think it looks well to see the vicarage without a man-servant.’

Albinia finally made her escape, and while wondering whether she should ever visit that house without tingling with irritation with herself and with the inmates, Lucy exclaimed, ‘There, you see I was right. Grandmamma and Aunt Maria were surprised when I told them that you said you were an able-bodied woman.’

What would not Albinia have given for Winifred to laugh with her? What to do now she did not know, so she thought it best not to hear, and to ask the way to a carpenter’s shop to order some book-shelves.

She was more uncomfortable after she came home, for by the sounds when Mr. Kendal next emerged from his study, she found that he had locked himself in, to guard against further intrusion. And when she offered to return to him the key of the cellaret, he quietly replied that he should prefer her retaining it,—not a formidable answer in itself, but one which, coupled with the locking of the door, proved to her that she might do anything rather than invade his privacy.

Now Maurice’s study was the thoroughfare of the household, the place for all parish preparations unpresentable in the drawing-room, and Albinia was taken by surprise. She grew hot and cold. Had she done anything wrong? Could he care for her if he could lock her out?

‘I will not be morbid, I will not be absurd,’ said she to herself, though the tears stood in her eyes. ‘Some men do not like to be rushed in upon! It may be only habit. It may have been needful here. It is base to take petty offences, and set up doubts.’

And Mr. Kendal’s tender manner when they were again together, his gentle way of addressing her, and a sort of shy caress, proved that he was far from all thought of displeasure; nay, he might be repenting of his momentary annoyance, though he said nothing.

Albinia went to inquire after the sick man at her first leisure moment, and while talking kindly to the wife, and hearing her troubles, was surprised at the forlorn rickety state of the building, the broken pavement, damp walls, and door that would not shut, because the frame had sunk out of the perpendicular.

‘Can’t you ask your landlord to do something to the house?’

‘It is of no use, ma’am, Mr. Pettilove never will do nothing. Perhaps if you would be kind enough to say a word to him, ma’am—’

‘Mr. Pettilove, the lawyer? I’ll try if Mr. Kendal can say anything to him. It really is a shame to leave a house in this condition.’

Thanks were so profuse, that she feared that she was supposed to possess some power of amelioration. The poor woman even insisted on conducting her up a break-neck staircase to see the broken ceiling, whence water often streamed in plentifully from the roof.

Her mind full of designs against the cruel landlord, she speeded up the hill, exhilarated by each step she took into the fresh air, to the garden-gate, which she was just unhasping when the hearty voice of the Vicar was heard behind her. ‘Mrs. Kendal! I told Fanny you would come.’

Instead of taking her to the front door he conducted her across a sloping lawn towards a French window open to the bright afternoon sunshine.

‘Here she is, here is Mrs. Kendal!’ he said, sending his voice before him, as they came in sight of the pretty little drawing-room, where through the gay chintz curtains, she saw the clear fire shining upon half-a-dozen school girls, ranged opposite to a couch. ‘Ah!’ as he perceived them, ‘shall I take her for a turn in the garden while you finish your lesson?’

‘One moment, if you please. I did not know it was so late,’ and a face as bright as all the rest was turned towards the window.

‘Ah! give her her scholars, and she never knows how time passes,’ said Mr. Dusautoy. ‘But step this way, and I’ll show you the best view in Bayford.’ He took her up a step or two, to a little turfed mound, where there was a rustic seat commanding the whole exquisite view of river, vale, and woodland, with the church tower rising in the foreground. The wind blew pleasantly, chasing the shadows of the clouds across the open space. Albinia was delighted to feel it fan her brow, and her eager exclamations contented Mr. Dusautoy. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it was all Fanny’s notion. She planned it all last summer when I took her round the garden. It is wonderful what an eye she has! I only hope when the dry weather comes, that I shall be able to get her up there to enjoy it.’

On coming down they found that Mrs. Dusautoy had dismissed her class, and come out to a low, long-backed sloping garden-seat at the window. She was very little and slight, a mere doll in proportion to her great husband, who could lift her as easily and tenderly as a baby, paying her a sort of reverential deference and fond admiration that rendered them a beautiful sight, in such full, redoubled measure was his fondness repaid by the little, clever, fairy-looking woman, with her playful manner, high spirits, keen wit, and the active habits that even confirmed invalidism could not destroy. She had small deadly white hands, a fair complexion, that varied more than was good for her, pretty, though rather sharp and irregular features, and hazel eyes dancing with merriment, and face and figure at some years above thirty, would have suited a girl of twenty. To see Mr. Dusautoy bringing her footstools, shawls, and cushions, and to remember the accusation of starvation, was almost irresistibly ludicrous.

‘Now, John, you had better have been giving Mrs. Kendal a chair all this time.’

‘Mrs. Kendal will excuse,’ said Mr. Dusautoy, as he brought her a seat.

‘Mrs. Kendal has excused,’ said Mrs. Dusautoy, bursting into a merry fit of laughter. ‘Oh, I never heard anything more charming than your introduction! I beg your pardon, but I laughed last evening till I was worn out, and waked in the night laughing again.’

It was exhilarating to find that any one laughed at Bayford, and Albinia partook of the mirth with all her heart. ‘Never was an address more gratifying to me!’ she said.

‘It was like him! so unlike Bayford! So bold a venture!’ continued Mrs. Dusautoy amid peals of laughter.

‘What is there to laugh at?’ said Mr. Dusautoy, putting on a look between merriment and simplicity. ‘What else could I have done? I should have done the same whoever I had met.’

‘Ah! now he is afraid of your taking it as too great a compliment! To do him justice I believe he would, but the question is, what answer he would have had.’

‘Nobody could have refused—’ began Albinia.

‘Oh!’ cried Mrs. Dusautoy. ‘Little you know Bayford.

‘Fanny! Fanny! this is too bad. Madame Belmarche—’

‘Would have had nothing but eau sucre! No, John, decidedly you and Simkins fell upon your legs, and you had better take credit for your “admirable sagacity.”’.

‘I like the people,’ said Albinia, ‘but they never can be well while they live in such a shocking place. It is quite a disgrace to Bayford.’

‘It is in a sad state,’ said Mr. Dusautoy.

‘I know I should like to set my brother upon that Mr. Pettilove, who they say will do nothing,’ exclaimed Albinia.

The Vicar was going to have said something, but a look from his wife checked him. Albinia was sorry for it, as she detected a look of suppressed amusement on Mrs. Dusautoy’s face. ‘I mean to ask Mr. Kendal what can be done,’ she said; ‘and in the meantime, to descend from what we can’t do to what we can. Mr. Dusautoy told me to come to you for orders.’

‘And I told Mr. Dusautoy that I should give you none.’

‘Oh! that is hard.’

‘If you could have heard him! He thought he had got a working lady at last, and he would have had no mercy upon you. One would have imagined that Mr. Kendal had brought you here for his sole behoof!’

‘Then I shall look to you, Mr. Dusautoy.’

‘No, I believe she is quite right,’ he said. ‘She says you ought to undertake nothing till you have had time to see what leisure you have to give us.’

‘Nay, I have been used to think the parish my business, home my leisure.’

‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Dusautoy, ‘but then you were the womankind of the clergy, now you are a laywoman.’

‘I think you have work at home,’ said the Vicar.

‘Work, but not work enough!’ cried Albinia. ‘The girls will help me; only tell me what I may do.’

‘I say, “what you can,”’ said Mrs. Dusautoy. ‘You see before you a single-handed man. Only two of the ladies here can be called coadjutors, one being poor little Genevieve Durant, the other the bookseller’s daughter, Clarissa Richardson, who made all the rest fly off. All the others do what good they mean to do according to their own sweet will, free and independent women, and we can’t have any district system, so I think you can only do what just comes to hand.’

Most heartily did Albinia undertake all that Mrs. Dusautoy would let her husband assign to her.

‘Yes, John is a strong temptation,’ said the bright little invalid, ‘but you must let Mrs. Kendal find out in a month’s time whether she has work enough.’

‘I could think my wise brother Maurice had been cautioning you,’ said Albinia, taking leave as of an old friend, for indeed she felt more at home with Mrs. Dusautoy than with any acquaintance she had made in Bayford.

Albinia told her husband of the state of the cottages, and railed at Mr. Pettilove much to her own satisfaction. Mr. Kendal answered, ‘He would see about it,’ an answer of which Albinia had yet to learn the import.