Читать книгу The Young Step-Mother; Or, A Chronicle of Mistakes - Yonge Charlotte Mary - Страница 4

There are some characters so constituted, that of them the old proverb, that Love is blind, is perfectly true; they can see no imperfection in the mind or body of those dear to them. There are others in whom the strongest affections do not destroy clearness of vision, who see their friends on all sides, and perceive their faults and foibles, without loving them the less.

Albinia Kendal was a person of the latter description. It might almost be called her temptation, that her mind beheld all that came before it in a clear, and a humorous light, such as only a disposition overflowing with warm affection and with the energy of kindness, could have prevented from bordering upon censoriousness. She had imagination, but it was not such as to make an illusion of the present, or to interfere with her almost satirical good sense. Happily, religion and its earthly manifestation—charity regulated her, taught her to fear to judge lest she should be judged, strengthened her naturally fond affections, and tempered the keenness that disappointment might soon have turned to sourness. The tongue, the temper, and the judgment knew their own tendencies, and a guard was set over them; and if the sentinel were ever torpid or deceived, repentance paid the penalty.

She had not long seen her husband at home before she had involuntarily completed her view of his character. Nature must have designed him for a fellow of a college, where, apart from all cares, he might have collected fragments of forgotten authors, and immortalized his name by some edition of a Greek Lyric poet, known by four poems and a half, and two-thirds of a line quoted somewhere else. In such a controversy, lightened by perpetually polished poems, by a fair amount of modern literature, select college friendships, and methodical habits, Edmund Kendal would have been in his congenial element, lived and died, and had his portrait hung up as one of the glories of his college.

But he had been carried off from school, before he had done more than prove his unusual capacity. All his connexions were Indian, and his father, who had not seen him since his earliest childhood, offered him no choice but an appointment in the civil service. He had one stimulus; he had seen Lucy Meadows in the radiant glory of girlish beauty, and had fastened on her all a poet’s dreams, deepening and becoming more fervid in the recesses of a reserved heart, which did not easily admit new sensations. That stimulus carried him out cheerfully to India, and quickened his abilities, so that he exerted himself sufficiently to obtain a lucrative situation early in life. He married, and his household must have been on the German system, all the learning on one side, all the domestic cares on the other. The understanding and refinement wanting in his wife, he believed to be wanting in all women. As resident at a small remote native court in India, he saw no female society such as could undeceive him; and subsequently his Bayford life had not raised his standard of womankind. A perfect gentleman, his superiority was his own work, rather than that of station or education, and so he had never missed intercourse with really ladylike or cultivated, female minds, expected little from wife, or daughters, or neighbours; had a few learned friends, but lived within himself. He had acquired a competence too soon, and had the great misfortune of property without duties to present themselves obviously. He had nothing to do but to indulge his naturally indolent scholarly tastes, which, directed as they had been to Eastern languages, had even less chance of sympathy among his neighbours than if they had been classical. Always reserved, and seldom or never meeting with persons who could converse with him, he had lapsed into secluded habits, and learnt to shut himself up in his study and exclude every one, that he might have at least a refuge from the gossip and petty cares that reigned everywhere else. So seldom was anything said worth his attention, that he never listened to what was passing, and had learnt to say ‘very well’—‘I’ll see about it,’ without even knowing what was said to him.

But though his wife had been no companion, the illusion had never died away, he had always loved her devotedly, and her loss had shattered all his present rest and comfort; as entirely as the death of his son had taken from him hope and companionship.

What a home it must have been, with Lucy reigning over it in her pert self-sufficiency, Gilbert and Sophy running riot and squabbling, and Maria Meadows coming in on them with her well-meant worries and persecutions!

When taken away from the scene of his troubles, his spirits revived; afraid to encounter his own household alone, he had thought Albinia the cure for everything. But at home, habit and association had proved too strong for her presence—the grief, which he had tried to leave behind, had waited ready to meet him on the threshold, and the very sense that it was a melancholy welcome added to his depression, and made him less able to exert himself. The old sorrows haunted the walls of the house, and above all the study, and tarried not in seizing on their unresisting victim. Melancholy was in his nature, his indolence gave it force, and his habits were almost ineffaceable, and they were habits of quiet selfishness, formed by a resolute, though inert will, and fostered by an adoring wife. A youth spent in India had not given him ideas of responsibilities beyond his own family, and his principles, though sound, had not expanded the views of duty with which he had started in life.

It was a positive pleasure to Albinia to discover that there had been an inefficient clergyman at Bayford before Mr. Dusautoy, and to know that during half the time that the present vicar had held the living, Mr. Kendal had been absent, so that his influence had had no time to work. She began to understand her line of action. It must be her effort, in all loving patience and gentleness, to raise her husband’s spirits and rouse his faculties; to make his powers available for the good of his fellow-creatures, to make him an active and happy man, and to draw him and his children together. This was truly a task to make her heart throb high with hope and energy. Strong and brave was that young heart, and not self-confident—the difficulty made her only the more hopeful, because she saw it was her duty. She was secure of her influence with him. If he did exclude her from his study, he left her supreme elsewhere, and though she would have given the world that their sovereignty might be a joint one everywhere, still she allowed much for the morbid inveterate habit of dreading disturbance. When he began by silence and not listening, she could always rouse him, and give him animation, and he was so much surprised and pleased whenever she entered into any of his pursuits, that she had full hope of drawing him out.

One day when the fog, instead of clearing off had turned to violent rain, Albinia had been out on parish work, and afterwards enlivening old Mrs. Meadows by dutifully spending an hour with her, while Maria was nursing a nervous headache—she had been subject to headaches ever since…an ominous sigh supplied the rest.

But all the effect of Albinia’s bright kindness was undone, when the grandmother learnt that Gilbert was gone to his tutor, and would have to come home in the rain, and she gave such an account of his exceeding delicacy, that Albinia became alarmed, and set off at once that she might consult his father about sending for him.

Her opening of the hall door was answered by Mr. Kendal emerging from his study. He was looking restless and anxious, came to meet her, and uncloaked her, while he affectionately scolded her for being so venturesome. She told him where she had been, and he smiled, saying, ‘You are a busy spirit! But you must not be too imprudent.’

‘Oh, nothing hurts me. It is poor Gilbert that I am anxious about.’

‘So am I. Gilbert has not a constitution fit for exposure. I wish he were come home.’

‘Could we not send for him? Suppose we sent a fly.’

He was consenting with a pleased smile, when the door opened, and there stood the dripping Gilbert, completely wet through, pale and chilled, with his hair plastered down, and his coat stuck all over with the horse’s short hair.

‘You must go to bed at once, Gilbert,’ said his father. ‘Are you cold?’

‘Very. It was such a horrid driving wind, and I rode so fast,’ said Gilbert; violently shivering, as they helped to pull him out of his great coat; he put his hand to his mouth, and said that his face ached. Mr. Kendal was very anxious, and Albinia hurried the boy up to bed, and meantime ordered quickly a basin of the soup preparing for dinner, warmed some worsted socks at the fire, and ran upstairs with them.

He seemed to have no substance in him; he had hardly had energy to undress himself, and she found him with his face hidden on the pillow, shivering audibly, and actually crying. She was aghast.

The boys with whom she had been brought up, would never have given way so entirely without resistance; but between laughing, cheering, scolding, covering him up close, and rubbing his hands with her own, she comforted him, so that he could be grateful and cheerful when his father himself came up with the soup. Albinia noticed a sort of shudder pass over Mr. Kendal as he entered, and he stood close by Gilbert, turning his back on everything else, while he watched the boy eat the soup, as if restored by every spoonful. ‘That was a good thought,’ was his comment to his wife, and the look of gratitude brought a flush of pleasure into her cheek.

Of all the dinners, this was the most pleasant; he was more gentle and affectionate, and she made him tell her about the Persian poets, and promise to show her some specimens of the Rose Garden of Saadi—she had never before been so near having his pursuits opened to her.

‘What a favourite Gilbert is!’ Lucy said to Sophia, as Albinia lighted a candle and went up to his room.

‘He makes such a fuss,’ said Sophy. ‘What is there in being wet through to cry about?’

Albinia heard a little shuffle as she opened the door, and Gilbert pushed a book under his pillow. She asked him what he had been reading. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘he had not been doing it long, for the flickering of the candle hurt his eyes.’

‘Yes, you had better not,’ said Albinia, moving the flaring light to a less draughty part of the dingy whitewashed attic. ‘Or shall I read to you?’

‘Are you come to stay with me?’ cried the boy, raising himself up to look after her, as she moved about the room and stood looking from the window over the trees at the water meadows, now flooded into a lake, and lighted by the beams of a young moon.

‘I can stay till your father is ready for tea,’ said Albinia, coming nearer. ‘Let me see whether your hands are hot.’

She found her own hand suddenly clasped, and pressed to his lips, and then, as if ashamed, he turned his face away; nor would she betray her pleasure in it, but merely said, ‘Shall I go on with your book!’

‘No,’ said he, wearily turning his reddened cheek to the other side. ‘I only took it because it is so horrid lying here thinking.’

‘I am very sorry to hear it. Do you know, Gibbie, that it is said there is nothing more lamentable than for a man not to like to have his own thoughts for his company,’ said she, gaily.

‘Ah! but—!’ said Gilbert. ‘If I lie here alone, I’m always looking out there,’ and he pointed to the opposite recess. She looked, but saw nothing. ‘Don’t you know?’ he said.

‘Edmund?’ she asked.

He grasped her hands in both his own. ‘Aye! Ned used to sleep there. I always look for him there.’

‘Do you mean that you would rather have another room? I would manage it directly.’

‘O no, thank you, I like it for some things. Take the candle—look by the shutter—cut out in the wood.’

The boys’ scoring of ‘E. & G. K.,’ was visible there.

‘Papa has taken all he could of Edmund’s,’ said Gilbert, ‘but he could not take that! No, I would not have any other room if you were to give me the best in the house.’

‘I am sure not! But, my dear, considering what Edmund was, surely they should be gentle, happy thoughts that the room should give you.’

He shuddered, and presently said, ‘Do you know what?’ and paused; then continued, with an effort, getting tight hold of her hand, ‘Just before Edmund died—he lay out there—I lay here—he sat up all white in bed, and he called out, clear and loud, “Mamma, Gilbert”—I saw him—and then—he was dead! And you know mamma did die—and I’m sure I shall!’ He had worked himself into a trembling fit, hid his face and sobbed.

‘But you have not died of the fever.’

‘Yes—but I know it means that I shall die young! I am sure it does! It was a call! I heard Nurse say it was a call!’

What was to be done with such a superstition? Albinia did not think it would be right to argue it away. It might be in truth a warning to him to guard his ways—a voice from the twin-brother, to be with him through life. She knelt down by him, and kissed his forehead.

‘Dear Gilbert,’ she said, ‘we all shall die.’

‘Yes, but I shall die young.’

‘And if you should. Those are happy who die young. How much pain your baby-brother and sisters have missed! How happy Edmund is now!’

‘Then you really think it meant that I shall’’ he cried, tremblingly. ‘O don’t! I can’t die!’

‘Your brother called on what he loved best,’ said Albinia. ‘It may mean nothing. Or rather, it may mean that your dear twin-brother is watching for you, I am sure he is, to have you with him, for what makes your mortal life, however long, seem as nothing. It was a call to you to be as pure on earth as he is in heaven. O Gilbert, how good you should be!’

Gilbert did not know whether it frightened him or soothed him to see his superstition treated with respect—neither denied, nor reasoned away. But the ghastliness was not in the mere fear that death might not be far off.

The pillow had turned a little on one side—Albinia tried to smooth it—the corner of a book peeped out. It was a translation of The Three Musqueteers, one of the worst and most fascinating of Dumas’ romances.

‘You wont tell papa!’ cried Gilbert, raising himself, in far more real and present terror than he had previously shown.

‘How did you get it? Whose is it?’

‘It is my own. I bought it at Richardson’s. It is very funny. But you wont tell papa? I never was told not; indeed I was not.’

‘Now, Gilbert dear, will you tell me a few things? I do only wish what is good for you. Why don’t you wish that papa should hear of this book?’

Gilbert writhed himself.

‘You know he would not like it?’

‘Then why did you take to reading it?’

‘Oh!’ cried the boy, ‘if you only did know how stupid and how miserable it has been! More than half myself gone, and Sophy always glum, and Lucy always plaguing, and Aunt Maria always being a torment, you would not wonder at one’s doing anything to forget it!’

‘Yes, but why do what you knew to be wrong?’

‘Nobody told me not.’

‘Disobedience to the spirit, then, if not to the letter. It was not the way to be happier, my poor boy, nor nearer to your brother and mother.’

‘Things didn’t use to be stupid when Ned was there!’ sobbed Gilbert, bursting into a fresh flood of tears.

‘Ah! Gilbert, I grieved most of all for you when first I heard your story, before I thought I should ever have anything to do with you,’ said Albinia, hanging over him fondly. ‘I always thought it must be so forlorn to be a twin left solitary. But it is sadder still than I knew, if grief has made you put yourself farther from him instead of nearer.’

‘I shall be good again now that I have you,’ said Gilbert, as he looked up into that sweet face.

‘And you will begin by making a free confession to your father, and giving up the book.’

‘I don’t see what I have to confess. He would be so angry, and he never told me not. Oh! I cannot tell him.’

She felt that this was not the right way to begin a reformation, and yet she feared to press the point, knowing that the one was thought severe, the other timid.

‘At least you will give up the book,’ she said.

‘O dear! if you would let me see whether d’Artagnan got to England. I must know that! I’m sure there can’t be any harm in that. Do you know what it is about?’

‘Yes, I do. My brother got it by some mistake among some French books. He read some of the droll unobjectionable parts to my sister and me, but the rest was so bad, that he threw it into the fire.’

‘Then you think it funny?’

‘To be sure I do.’

‘Do you remember the three duels all at once, and the three valets? Oh! what fun it is. But do let me see if d’Artagnan got the diamonds.’

‘Yes, he did. But will this satisfy you, Gilbert? You know there are some exciting pleasures that we must turn our backs on resolutely. I think this book is one of them. Now you will let me take it? I will tell your father about it in private, and he cannot blame you. Then, if he will give his consent, whenever you can come home early, come to my dressing-room, out of your sisters’ way, and I will read to you the innocent part, so as to get the story out of your brain.’

‘Very well,’ said Gilbert, slowly. ‘Yes, if you will not let papa be angry with me. And, oh dear! must you go?’

‘I think you had better dress yourself and come down to tea. There is nothing the matter with you now, is there?’

He was delighted with the suggestion, and promised to come directly; and Albinia carried off her prize, exceedingly hopeful and puzzled, and wondering whether her compromise had been a right one, or a mere tampering with temptation—delighted with the confidence and affection bestowed on her so freely, but awe-struck by the impression which the boy had avowed, and marvelling how it should be treated, so as to render it a blessed and salutary restraint, rather than the dim superstitious terror that it was at present. At least there was hope of influencing him, his heart was affectionate, his will on the side of right, and in consideration of feeble health and timid character, she would overlook the fact that he had not made one voluntary open confession, and that the partial renunciation had been wrung from him as a choice of evils. She could only feel how much he was to be pitied, and how he responded to her affection.

She was crossing the hall next day, when she heard a confusion of tongues through the open door of the dining-room, and above all, Gilbert’s. ‘Well, I say there are but two ladies in Bayford. One is Mrs. Kendal, and the other is Genevieve Durant!’

‘A dancing-master’s daughter!’ Lucy’s scornful tone was unmistakeable, and so was the ensuing high-pitched querulous voice, ‘Well, to be sure, Gilbert might be a little more—a little more civil. Not that I’ve a word to say against—against your—your mamma. Oh, no!—glad to see—but Gilbert might be more civil.’

‘I think so indeed,’ said Albinia. ‘Good morning, Miss Meadows. You see Gilbert has come home quite alive enough for mischief.’

‘Ah! I thought I might be excused. Mamma was so uneasy—though I know you don’t admit visitors—my just coming to see—We’ve been always so anxious about Gilbert. Gibbie dear, where is that flannel I gave you for your throat?’

She advanced to put her finger within his neck-tie and feel for it. Gilbert stuck his chin down, and snapped with his teeth like a gin. Lucy exclaimed, ‘Now, Gilbert, I know mamma will say that is wrong.’

‘Ah! we are used to Gilbert’s tricks. Always bear with a boy’s antics,’ said Miss Meadows, preventing whatever she thought was coming out of Mrs. Kendal’s month. Albinia took the unwise step of laughing, for her sympathies were decidedly with resistance both to flannels and to the insertion of that hooked finger.

‘Mr. Bowles has always said it was a case for great care. Flannel next the skin—no exposure,’ continued Miss Meadows, tartly. ‘I am sure—I know I am the last person to wish to interfere—but so delicate—You’ll excuse—but my mother was uneasy; and people who go out in all weathers—’

‘I hope Mrs. Meadows had my note this morning.’

‘O yes! I am perfectly aware. Thank you. Yes, I know the rule, but you’ll excuse—My mother was still anxious—I know you exclude visitors in lesson-time. I’m going. Only grandmamma would be glad—not that she wishes to interfere—but if Gilbert had on his piece of flannel—’

‘Have you, Gilbert?’ said Albinia, becoming tormented.

‘I have been flannel all over all my life,’ said Gilbert, sulkily, ‘one bit more or less can make no odds.’

‘Then you have not that piece? said Albinia.

‘Oh, my dear! Think of that! New Saxony! I begged it of Mr. Holland. A new remnant—pink list, and all! I said it was just what I wanted for Master Gilbert. Mr. Holland is always a civil, feeling man. New Saxony—three shillings the yard—and trimmed with blue sarsenet! Where is it, Gilbert?’

‘In a soup dish, with a crop of mustard and cress on it,’ said Gilbert, with a wicked wink at Albinia, who was unable to resist joining in the girls’ shout of laughing, but she became alarmed when she found that poor Miss Meadows was very near crying, and that her incoherency became so lachrymose as to be utterly incomprehensible.

Lucy, ashamed of her laughter, solemnly declared that it was very wrong of Gilbert, and she hoped he would not suffer from it, and Albinia, trying to become grave, judicial, and conciliatory, contrived to pronounce that it was very silly to leave anything off in an east wind, and hoping to put an end to the matter, asked Aunt Maria to sit down, and judge how they went on with their lessons.

O no, she could not interrupt. Her mother would want her. She knew Mrs. Kendal never admitted visitors. She had no doubt she was quite right. She hoped it would be understood. She would not intrude. In fact, she could neither go nor stay. She would not resume her seat, nor let anything go on, and it was full twenty minutes before a series of little vibrating motions and fragmentary phrases had borne her out of the house.

‘Well!’ cried Gilbert, ‘I hoped Aunt Maria had left off coming down upon us.’

‘O, mamma!’ exclaimed Lucy, ‘you never sent your love to grandmamma.’

‘Depend upon it she was waiting for that,’ said Gilbert.

I’m sure I wish I had known it,’ said Albinia, not in the most judicious manner. ‘Half-past eleven!’

‘Aunt Maria says she can’t think how you can find time for church when you can’t see visitors in the morning,’ said Lucy. ‘And oh! dear mamma, grandmamma says gravy soup was enough to throw Gilbert into a fever.’

‘At any rate, it did not,’ said Albinia.

‘Oh! and, dear mamma, Mrs. Osborn is so hurt that you called on Mrs. Dusautoy before returning her visit; and Aunt Maria says if you don’t call to-day you will never get over it, and she says that—’

‘What business has Mrs. Osborn to ask whom I called on?’ exclaimed Albinia, impatiently.

‘Because Mrs. Osborn is the leading lady in the town,’ said Lucy. ‘She told Miss Goldsmith that she had no notion of not being respected.’

‘And she can’t bear the Dusautoys. She left off subscribing to anything when they came; and he behaved very ill to the Admiral and everybody at a vestry-meeting.’

‘I shall ask your papa before I am in any hurry to call on the Osborns!’ cried Albinia. ‘I have no desire to be intimate with people who treat their clergyman in that way.’

‘But Mrs. Osborn is quite the leader!’ exclaimed Lucy. They keep the best society here. So many families in the county come and call on them.’

‘Very likely—’

‘Ah! Mrs. Osborn told Aunt Maria that as the Nugents called on you, and you had such connexions, she supposed you would be high. But you wont make me separate from Lizzie, will you? I suppose Miss Nugent is a fashionable young lady.’

‘Miss Nugent is five years old. Don’t let us have any more of this nonsense.’

‘But you wont part me from Lizzie Osborn,’ said Lucy, hanging her head pathetically on one side.

‘I shall talk to your father. He said, the other day, he did not wish you to be so much with her.’

Lucy melted into tears, and Albinia was conscious of having been first indiscreet and then sharp, hurt at the comments, feeling injured by Lucy’s evident habit of reporting whatever she said, and at the failure of the attempt to please Mrs. Meadows. She was so uneasy about the Osborn question, that she waylaid Mr. Kendal on his return from riding, and laid it before him.

‘My dear Albinia,’ he said, as if he would fain have avoided the appeal, ‘you must manage your own visiting affairs your own way. I do not wish to offend my neighbours, nor would I desire to be very intimate with any one. I suppose you must pay them ordinary civility, and you know what that amounts to. As to the leadership in society here, she is a noisy woman, full of pretension, and thus always arrogates the distinction to herself. Your claims will establish themselves.’

‘Oh, you don’t imagine me thinking of that!’ cried Albinia, laughing. ‘I meant their behaving ill to Mr. Dusautoy.’

‘I know nothing about that. Mr. Dusautoy once called to ask for my support for a vestry meeting, but I make it a rule never to meddle with parish skirmishes. I believe there was a very unbecoming scene, and that Mr. Dusautoy was in the minority.’

‘Ah, Edmund, next time you’ll see if a parson’s sister can sit quietly by to see the parson beaten!’

He smiled, and moved towards his study.

‘Then I am to be civil?’

‘Certainly.’

‘But is it necessary to call to-day?’

‘I should suppose not;’ and there he was, shut up in his den. Albinia went back, between laughing and vexation, and Lucy looked up from her exercise to say, ‘Does papa say you must call on the Osborns?’

It was undignified! She bit her lip, and felt her false position, as with a quiver of the voice she replied, ‘We shall make nothing but mischief if we talk now. Go on with your business.’

The sharp, curious eyes did not take themselves off her face. She leant over Sophy, who was copying a house, told her the lines were slanting, took the pencil from her hand, and tried to correct them, but found herself making them over-black, and shaky. She had not seen such a line since the days of her childhood’s ill-temper. She walked to the fireplace and said, ‘I am going to call on Mrs. Osborn to-day. Not that your father desires it, but because I have been indulging in a wrong feeling.’

‘I’m sure you needn’t,’ cried Gilbert. ‘It is very impertinent of Mrs. Osborn. Why, if he is an admiral, she was the daughter of an old lieutenant of the Marines, and you are General Sir Maurice Ferrars’ first cousin.’

‘Hush, hush, Gilbert!’ said Albinia, blushing and distressed. ‘Mrs. Osborn’s standing in the place entitles her to all attention. I was thinking of nothing of the kind. It was because I gave way to a wrong feeling that I mean to go this afternoon.’

On the Sunday, when Mr. and Mrs. Kendal went to pay their weekly visit to Mrs. Meadows, they found the old lady taking a turn in the garden. And as they were passing by the screen of laurels, Gilbert’s voice was heard very loud, ‘That’s too bad, Lucy! Grandmamma, don’t believe one word of it!’

‘Gilbert, you—you are, I’m sure, very rude to your sister.’

‘I’ll not stand to hear false stories of Mrs. Kendal!’

‘What is all this?’ said Mr. Kendal, suddenly appearing, and discovering Gilbert pirouetting with indignation before Lucy.

Miss Meadows burst out with a shower of half sentences, grandmamma begged that no notice might be taken of the children’s nonsense, Lucy put on an air of injured innocence, and Gilbert was beginning to speak, but his father put him aside, saying, ‘Tell me what has happened, Sophia. From you I am certain of hearing the exact truth.’

‘Only,’ growled Sophy, in her hoarse boy’s voice, ‘Lucy said mamma said she would not call on Mrs. Osborn unless you ordered her, and when you did, she cried and flew into a tremendous passion.’

‘Sophy, what a story,’ exclaimed Lucy, but Gilbert was ready to corroborate his younger sister’s report.

‘You know Lucy too well to attach any importance to her misrepresentations,’ said Mr. Kendal, turning to Mrs. Meadows, ‘but I know not what amends she can make for this most unprovoked slander. Speak, Lucy, have you no apology to make?’

For Lucy, in self-defence, had begun to cry, and her grandmother seemed much disposed to do the same. Miss Meadows had tears in her eyes, and incoherencies on her lips. The distress drove away all Albinia’s inclination to laugh, and clasping her two hands over her husband’s arm, she said, ‘Don’t, Edmund, it is only a misunderstanding of what really happened. I did have a silly fit, you know, so it is my fault.’

‘I cannot forgive for you as you do for yourself,’ said Mr. Kendal, with a look that was precious to her, though it might have given a pang to the Meadowses. ‘I did not imagine that my daughter could be so lost to the sense of your kindness and forbearance. Have you nothing to say, Lucy?’

‘Poor child! she cannot speak,’ said her grandmother. ‘You see she is very sorry, and Mrs. Kendal is too kind to wish to say any more about it.’

‘Go home at once, Lucy,’ said her father. ‘Perhaps solitude may bring you to a better state of feeling. Go!’

Direct resistance to Mr. Kendal was never thought of, and Lucy turned to go. Her aunt chose to accompany her, and though this was a decided relief to the company she left, it was not likely to be the best thing for the young lady herself.

Mr. Kendal gave his arm to Mrs. Meadows, saying gravely that Lucy must not be encouraged in her habit of gossiping and inaccuracy. Mrs. Meadows quite agreed with him, it was a very bad habit for a girl, she was very sorry for it, she wished she could have attended to the dear children better, but she was sure dear Mrs. Kendal would make them everything desirable. She only hoped that she would remember their disadvantages, have patience, and not recollect this against poor Lucy.

The warm indignation and championship of her husband and his son were what Albinia chiefly wished to recollect; but it was impossible to free herself from a sense of pain and injury in the knowledge that she lived with a spy who would exaggerate and colour every careless word.

Mr. Kendal returned to the subject as they walked home.

‘I hope you will talk seriously to Lucy about her intolerable gossiping,’ he said. ‘There is no safety in mentioning any subject before her; and Maria Meadows makes her worse. Some stop must be put to it.’

‘I should like to wait till next time,’ said Albinia.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Because this is too personal to myself.’

‘Nay, your own candour is an example to which Lucy can hardly be insensible. Besides, it is a nuisance which must be abated.’

Albinia could not help thinking that he suffered from it as little as most people, and wondering whether it were this which had taught him silence.

They met Miss Meadows at their own gate, and she told them that dear Lucy was very sorry, and she hoped they would take no more notice of a little nonsense that could do no one any harm; she would be more on her guard next time.

Mr. Kendal made no answer. Albinia ventured to ask him whether it would not be better to leave it, since her aunt had talked to her.

‘No,’ he said; ‘Maria has no influence whatever with the children. She frets them by using too many words about everything. One quiet remonstrance from you would have far more effect.’

Albinia called the culprit and tried to reason with her. Lucy tried at first to battle it off by saying that she had made a mistake, and Aunt Maria had said that she should hear no more about it. ‘But, my dear, I am afraid you must hear more. It is not that I am hurt, but your papa has desired me to talk to you. You would be frightened to hear what he says.’

Lucy chose to hear, and seemed somewhat struck, but she was sure that she meant no harm; and she had a great deal to say for herself, so voluble and so inconsequent, that argument was breath spent in vain; and Albinia was obliged to wind up, as an ultimatum, with warning her, that till she should prove herself trustworthy, nothing interesting would be talked of before her.

The atmosphere of gossip certainly had done its part in cultivating Mr. Kendal’s talent for silence. When Albinia had him all to herself, he was like another person, and the long drives to return visits in the country were thoroughly enjoyable. So, too, were the walks home from the dinner parties in the town, when the husband and wife lingered in the starlight or moonlight, and felt that the weary gaiety of the constrained evening was made up for.

Great was the offence they gave by not taking out the carriage!

It was disrespect to Bayford, and one of the airs of which Mrs. Kendal was accused. As granddaughter of a Baron, daughter of one General Officer and sister of another, and presented at Court, the Bayford ladies were prepared to consider her a fine lady, and when they found her peculiarly simple, were the more aggrieved, as if her contempt were ironically veiled. Her walks, her dress, her intercourse with the clergy, were all airs, and Lucy spared her none of the remarks. Albinia might say, ‘Don’t tell me all Aunt Maria says,’ but it was impossible not to listen; and whether in mirth or vexation, she was sure to be harmed by what she heard.

And yet, except for the tale-bearing, Lucy was really giving less trouble than her sister, she was quick, observant, and obliging, and under Albinia’s example, the more salient vulgarities of speech and manner were falling off. There had seldom been any collision, since it had become evident that Mrs. Kendal could and would hold her own; and that her address and air, even while criticised, were regarded as something superior, so that it was a distinction to belong to her. How many of poor Albinia’a so-called airs should justly have been laid to Lucy’s account?

On the other hand, Sophy would attend to a word from her father, where she had obstinately opposed her step-mother’s wishes, making her obedience marked, as if for the very purpose of enforcing the contrast. It was a character that Albinia could not as yet fathom. In all occupations and amusements, Sophy followed the lead of her elder sister, and in her lessons, her sole object seemed to be to get things done with as little trouble as possible, and especially without setting her mind to work, and yet in the very effort to escape diligence or exertion, she sometimes showed signs of so much ability as to excite a longing desire to know of what she would be capable when once aroused and interested; but the surly, ungracious temper rendered this apparently impossible, and whatever Albinia attempted, was sure, as if for the very reason that it came from her, to be answered with a redoubling of the growl of that odd hoarse voice.

On Lucy’s birthday, there was an afternoon party of her young friends, including Miss Durant. Albinia, who, among the girlhood of Fairmead and its neighbourhood, had been so acceptable a playmate, that her marriage had caused the outcry that ‘there would never be any fun again without Miss Ferrars,’ came out on the lawn with the girls, in hopes of setting them to enjoy themselves. But they looked at her almost suspiciously, retained their cold, stiff, company manners, and drew apart into giggling knots. She relieved them of her presence, and sitting by the window, watched Genevieve walking up and down alone, as if no one cared to join her. Presently Lucy and Lizzie Osborn spoke to her, and she went in. Albinia went to meet her in the hall; she coloured and said, ‘She was only come to fetch Miss Osborn’s cloak.’

Albinia saw her disposing it over Lizzie’s shoulders, and then running in again. This time it was for Miss Louisa’s cloak, and a third time for Miss Drury’s shawl, which Albinia chose to take out herself, and encountering Sophia, said, ‘Next time, you had better run on errands yourself instead of sending your guests.’

Sophy gave a black look, and she retreated, but presently the groups coalesced, and Maria Drury and Sophy ran out to call Genevieve into the midst. Albinia hoped they were going to play, but soon she beheld Genevieve trying to draw back, but evidently imprisoned, there was an echo of a laugh that she did not like; the younger girls were skipping up in the victim’s face in a rude way; she hastily turned round as in indignation, one hand raised to her eyes, but it was instantly snatched down by Maria Drury, and the pitiless ring closed in. Albinia sprang to her feet, exclaiming aloud, ‘They are teasing her!’ and rushed into the garden, hearing on her way, ‘No, we wont let you go!—you shall tell us—you shall promise to show us—my papa is a magistrate, you know—he’ll come and search—Jenny, you shall tell!’

Come with me, Genevieve,’ said Albinia, standing in the midst of the tormentors, and launching a look of wrath around her, as she saw tears in the young girl’s eyes, and taking her hand, found it trembling with agitation. Fondling it with both her own, she led Genevieve away, turning her back upon Lucy and her, ‘We were only—’

The poor girl shook more and more, and when they reached the shelter of the house, gave way to a tightened, oppressed sob, and at the first kind words a shower of tears followed, and she took Albinia’s hand, and clasped it to her breast in a manner embarrassing to English feelings, though perfectly natural and sincere in her. ‘Ah! si bonne! si bonne! pardonnes-moi, Madame!’ she exclaimed, sobbing, and probably not knowing that she was speaking French; ‘but, oh, Madame, you will tell me! Is it true—can he?’

‘Can who? What do you mean, my dear?’

‘The Admiral,’ said Genevieve, looking about frightened, and sinking her voice to a whisper. ‘Miss Louisa said so, that he could send and search—’

‘Search for what, my dear?’

‘For my poor little secret. Ah, Madame, assuredly I may tell you. It is but a French Bible, it belonged to my martyred ancestor, Francois Durant, who perished at the St. Barthelemi—it is stained with his blood—it has been handed on, from one to the other—it was all that Jacques Durant rescued when he fled from the Dragonnades—it was given to me by my own dear father on his death-bed, with a charge to keep it from my grandmother, and not to speak of it—but to guard it as my greatest treasure. And now—Oh, I am not disobeying him,’ cried Genevieve, with a fresh burst of tears. ‘You can feel for me, Madame, you can counsel me. Can the magistrates come and search, unless I confess to those young ladies?’

‘Most decidedly not,’ said Albinia. ‘Set your mind at rest, my poor child; whoever threatened you played you a most base, cruel trick.’

‘Ah, do not be angry with them, Madame; no doubt they were in sport. They could not know how precious that treasure was to me, and they will say much in their gaiety of heart.’

‘I do not like such gaiety,’ said Albinia. ‘What, they wished to make you confess your secret?’

‘Yes. They had learnt by some means that I keep one of my drawers locked, and they had figured to themselves that in it was some relic of my Huguenot ancestors. They thought it was some instrument of death, and they said that unless I would tell them the whole, the Admiral had the right of search, and, oh! it was foolish of me to believe them for a moment, but I only thought that the fright would, kill my grandmother. Oh, you were so good, Madame, I shall never forget; no, not to the end of my life, how you rescued me!’

‘We did not bring you here to be teased,’ said Albinia, caressing her. ‘I should like to ask your pardon for what they have made you undergo.’

‘Ah, Madame!’ said Genevieve, smiling, ‘it is nothing. I am well used to the like, and I heed it little, except when it falls on such subjects as these.’

She was easily drawn into telling the full history of her treasure, as she had learnt from her father’s lips, the Huguenot shot down by the persecutors, and the son who had fled into the mountains and returned to bury the corpse, and take the prized, blood-stained Bible from the breast; the escapes and dangers of the two next generations; the few succeeding days of peace; and, finally, the Dragonnade, when the children had been snatched from the Durant family, and the father and mother had been driven at length to fly in utter destitution, and had made their way to England in a wretched, unprovisioned open boat. The child for whose sake they fled, was the only one rescued from the hands of these enemies, and the tradition of their sufferings had been handed on with the faithfully preserved relic, down to the slender girl, their sole descendant, and who in early childhood had drunk in the tale from the lips of her father. The child of the persecutors and of the persecuted, Genevieve Durant did indeed represent strangely the history of her ancestral country; and as Albinia said to her, surely it might be hoped that the faith in which she had been bred up, united what was true and sound in the religion of both Reformed and Romanist.

The words made the brown cheek glow. ‘Ah, Madame, did I not say I could talk with you? You, who do not think me a heretic, as my dear grandmother’s friends do, and who yet can respect my grandmother’s Church.’

Assuredly little Genevieve was one of the most interesting and engaging persons that Albinia had ever met, and she listened earnestly to her artless history, and pretty enthusiasms, and the story which she could not tell without tears, of her father’s care, when the reward of her good behaviour had been the reading one verse in the quaint black letter of the old French Bible.

The conversation lasted till Gilbert made his appearance, and Albinia was glad to find that his greeting to Genevieve was cordial and affectionate, and free from all that was unpleasant in his sisters’ manner, and he joined himself to their company when Albinia proposed a walk along the broad causeway through the meadows. It was one of the pleasantest walks that she had taken at Bayford, with both her companions so bright and merry, and the scene around in all the beauty of spring. Gilbert, with the courtesy that Albinia’s very presence had infused into him, gathered a pretty wild bouquet for each, and Albinia talked of cowslip-balls, and found that neither Gilbert nor Genevieve had ever seen one; then she pitied them, and owned that she did not know how to get through a spring without one; and Gilbert having of course a pocketful of string, a delicious ball was constructed, over which Genevieve went into an inexpressible ecstasy.

All the evening, Gilbert devoted himself to Genevieve, though more than one of the others tried to attract him, playing off the follies of more advanced girlhood, to the vexation of Albinia, who could not bear to see him the centre of attention to silly girls, when he ought to have been finding his level among boys.

‘Gilbert makes himself so ridiculous about Jenny Durant,’ said his sisters, when he insisted on escorting her home, and thus they brought on themselves Albinia’s pent-up indignation at their usage of their guest. Lucy argued in unsatisfactory self-defence, but Sophy, when shown how ungenerous her conduct had been, crimsoned deeply, and though uttering no word of apology, wore a look that gave her step-mother for the first time a hope that her sullenness might not be so much from want of compunction, as from want of power to express it.

Oh! for a consultation with her brother. But he and his wife were taking a holiday among their kindred in Ireland, and for once Albinia could have echoed the aunts’ lamentation that Winifred had so many relations!