Читать книгу The Young Step-Mother; Or, A Chronicle of Mistakes - Yonge Charlotte Mary - Страница 7

There was a messenger at Fairmead Parsonage by sunrise the next morning, and by twelve o’clock Mr. and Mrs. Ferrars were at Willow Lawn.

Mr. Kendal’s grave brow and depressed manner did not reassure Winifred as he met her in the hall, although his words were, ‘I hope she is doing well.’

He said no more, for the drawing-room door was moving to and fro, as if uneasy on the hinges, and as he made a step towards it, it disclosed a lady with black eyes and pinched features, whom he presented as ‘Miss Meadows.’

‘Well, now—I think—since more efficient—since I leave Mrs. Kendal to better—only pray tell her—my love and my mother’s—if I could have been of any use—or shall I remain?—could I be of any service, Edmund?—I would not intrude when—but in the house—if I could be of any further use.’

‘Of none, thank you,’ said Mr. Kendal, ‘unless you would be kind enough to take home the girls.’

‘Oh, papa!’ cried Lucy, I’ve got the keys. You wont be able to get on at all without me. Sophy may go, but I could not be spared.’

‘Let it be as you will,’ said Mr. Kendal; ‘I only desire quiet, and that you should not inconvenience Mrs. Ferrars.’

‘You will help me, will you not!’ said Winifred, smiling, though she did not augur well from this opening scene. ‘May I go soon to Albinia?’

‘Presently, I hope,’ said Mr. Kendal, with an uneasy glance towards Miss Meadows, ‘she has seen no one as yet, and she is so determined that you cannot come till after Christmas, that she does not expect you.’

Miss Meadows began one of her tangled skeins of words, the most tangible of which was excitement; and Mr. Kendal, knowing by long experience that the only chance of a conclusion was to let her run herself down, held his tongue, and she finally departed.

Then he breathed more freely, and said he would go and prepare Albinia to see her sister, desiring Lucy to show Mrs. Ferrars to her room, and to take care not to talk upon the stairs.

This, Lucy, who was in high glory, obeyed by walking upon creaking tip-toe, apparently borrowed from her aunt, and whispering at a wonderful rate about her eagerness to see dear, dear mamma, and the darling little brother.

The spare room did not look expectant of guests, and felt still less so. It struck Winifred as very like the mouth of a well, and the paper showed patches of ancient damp. One maid was hastily laying the fire, the other shaking out the curtains, in the endeavour to render it habitable, and Lucy began saying, ‘I must apologize. If papa had only given us notice that we were to have the pleasure of seeing you,’ and then she dashed at the maid in all the pleasure of authority. ‘Eweretta, go and bring up Mrs. Ferrars’s trunks directly, and some water, and some towels.’

Winifred thought the greatest mercy to the hunted maid would be to withdraw as soon as she had hastily thrown off bonnet and cloak, and Lucy followed her into the passage, repeating that papa was so absent and forgetful, that it was very inconvenient in making arrangements. Whatever was ordinarily repressed in her, was repaying itself with interest in the pleasure of acting as mistress of the house.

Mrs. Ferrars beheld Gilbert sitting listlessly on the deep window-seat at the end of the passage, resting his head on his hand.

‘Well!’ exclaimed Lucy, ‘if he is not there still! He has hardly stirred since breakfast! Come and speak to Mrs. Ferrars, Gilbert. Or,’ and she simpered, ‘shall it be Aunt Winifred?’

‘As you please,’ said Mrs. Ferrars, advancing towards her old acquaintance, whom she would hardly have recognised, so different was the pale, downcast, slouching figure, from the bright, handsome lad she remembered.

‘How cold your hand is!’ she exclaimed; ‘you should not sit in this cold passage.’

‘As I have been telling him all this morning,’ said Lucy.

‘How is she?’ whispered the boy, rousing himself to look imploringly in Winifred’s face.

‘Your father seems satisfied about her.’

At that moment a door at some distance was opened, and Gilbert seemed to thrill all over as for the moment ere it closed a baby’s cry was heard. He turned his face away, and rested it on the window. ‘My brother! my brother!’ he murmured, but at that moment his father turned the corner of the passage, saying that Albinia had heard their arrival, and was very eager to see her sister.

Still Winifred could not leave the boy without saying, ‘You can make Gilbert happy about her, can you not? He is waiting here, watching anxiously for news of her.’

‘Gilbert himself best knows whether he has a right to be made happy,’ said Mr. Kendal, gravely. ‘I promised to ask no questions till she is able to explain, but I much fear that he has been causing her great grief and distress.’

He fixed his eyes on his son, and Winifred, in the belief that she was better out of their way, hurried to Albinia’s room, and was seen very little all the rest of the day.

She was spared, however, to walk to church the next morning with her husband, Lucy showing them the way, and being quiet and agreeable when repressed by Mr. Ferrars’s presence. After church, Mr. Dusautoy overtook them to inquire after Mrs. Kendal, and to make a kind proposal of exchanging Sunday duty. He undertook to drive the ponies home on the morrow, begged for credentials for the clerk, and messages for Willie and Mary, and seemed highly pleased with the prospect of the holiday, as he called it, only entreating that Mrs. Ferrars would be so kind as to look in on ‘Fanny,’ if Mrs. Kendal could spare her.

‘I thought,’ said Winifred to her husband, ‘that you would rather have exchanged a Sunday when Albinia is better able to enjoy you?’

‘That may yet be, but poor Kendal is so much depressed, that I do not like to leave him.’

‘I have no patience with him!’ cried Winifred; ‘he does not seem to take the slightest pleasure in his baby, and he will hardly let poor Albinia do so either! Do you know, Maurice, it is as bad as I ever feared it would be. No, don’t stop me, I must have it out. I always said he had no business to victimize her, and I am sure of it now! I believe this gloom of his has broken down her own dear sunny spirits! There she is—so unlike herself—so anxious and fidgety about her baby—will hardly take any one’s word for his being as healthy and stout a child as I ever saw! And then, every other moment, she is restless about that boy—always asking where he is, or what he is doing. I don’t see how she is ever to get well, while it goes on in this way! Mr. Kendal told me that Gilbert had been worrying and distressing her; and as to those girls, the eldest of them is intolerable with her airs, and the youngest—I asked her if she liked babies, and she growled, “No.” Lucy said Gilbert was waiting in the passage for news of mamma, and she grunted, “All sham!” and that’s the whole I have heard of her! He is bad enough in himself, but with such a train! My poor Albinia! If they are not the death of her, it will be lucky!’

‘Well done, Winifred!’

‘But, Maurice,’ said his impetuous wife, in a curiously altered tone, ‘are not you very unhappy about Albinia?’

‘I shall leave you to find that out for me.’

‘Then you are not?’

‘I think Kendal thoroughly values and appreciates her, and is very uncomfortable without her.’

‘I suppose so. People do miss a maid-of-all-work. I should not so much mind it, if she had been only his slave, but to be so to all those disagreeable children of his too! And with so little effect. Why can’t he send them all to school?’

‘Propose that to Albinia.’

‘She did want the boy to go somewhere. I should not care where, so it were out of her way. What creatures they must be for her to have produced no more effect on them!’

‘Poor Albinia! I am afraid it is a hard task: but these are still early days, and we see things at a disadvantage. We shall be able to judge whether there be really too great a strain on her spirits, and if so, I would talk to Kendal.’

‘And I wonder what is to come of that. It seems to me like what John Smith calls singing psalms to a dead horse.’

‘John Smith! I am glad you mentioned him; I shall desire Dusautoy to bring him here on Monday.’

‘What! as poor Albinia would say, you can’t exist a week without John Smith.’

‘Even so. I want him to lay out a plan for draining the garden. That pond is intolerable. I suspect that all, yourself included, will become far more good-tempered in consequence.’

‘A capital measure, but do you mean that Edmund Kendal is going to let you and John Smith drain his pond under his very nose, and never find it out? I did not imagine him quite come to that.’

‘Not quite,’ said Maurice; ‘it is with his free consent, and I believe he will be very glad to have it done without any trouble to himself. He said that Albinia thought it damp, and when I put a few sanatory facts before him, thanked me heartily, and seemed quite relieved. If they had only been in Sanscrit, they would have made the greater impression.’

‘One comfort is, Maurice, that however provoking you are at first, you generally prove yourself reasonable at last, I am glad you are not Mr. Kendal.’

‘Ah! it will have a fine effect on you to spend your Christmas-day tete-a-tete with him.’

Mrs. Ferrars’s views underwent various modifications, like all hasty yet candid judgments. She took Mr. Kendal into favour when she found him placidly submitting to Miss Meadows’s showers of words, in order to prevent her gaining access to his wife.

‘Maria Meadows is a very well-meaning person,’ he said afterwards; ‘but I know of no worse infliction in a sick-room.’

‘I wonder,’ thought Winifred, ‘whether he married to get rid of her. I should have thought it justifiable had it been any one but Albinia!’

The call on Mrs. Dusautoy was consoling. It was delightful to find how Albinia was loved and valued at the vicarage. Mrs. Dusautoy began by sending her as a message, John’s first exclamation on hearing of the event. ‘Then she will never be of any more use.’ In fact, she said, it was much to him like having a curate disabled, and she believed he could only be consoled by the hopes of a pattern christening, and of a nursery for his school-girls; but there Winifred shook her head, Fairmead had a prior claim, and Albinia had long had her eye upon a scholar of her own.

‘I told John that she would! and he must bear it as he can,’ laughed Mrs. Dusautoy; and she went on more seriously to say that her gratitude was beyond expression, not merely for the actual help, though that was much, but for the sympathy, the first encouragement they had met among their richer parishioners, and she spoke of the refreshment of the mirthfulness and playful manner, so as to convince Winifred that they had neither died away nor been everywhere wasted.

Winifred had no amenable patient. Weak and depressed as Albinia was, her restlessness and air of anxiety could not be appeased. There was a look of being constantly on the watch, and once, when her door was ajar, before Winifred was aware she exerted her voice to call Gilbert!

Pushing the door just wide enough to enter, and treading almost noiselessly, he came forward, looking from side to side as with a sense of guilt. She stretched out her hand and smiled, and he obeyed the movement that asked him to bend and kiss her, but still durst not speak.

‘Let me have the baby,’ she said.

Mrs. Ferrars laid it beside her, and held aloof. Gilbert’s eyes were fixed intently on it.

‘Yes, Gilbert,’ Albinia said, ‘I know what you will feel for him. He can’t be what you once had—but oh, Gilbert, you will do all that an elder brother can to make him like Edmund!’

Gilbert wrung her fingers, and ventured to stoop down to kiss the little red forehead. The tears were running down his cheeks, and he could not speak.

‘If your father might only say the same of him! that he never grieved him!’ said Albinia; ‘but oh, Gilbert—example,’ and then, pausing and gazing searchingly in his face, ‘You have not told papa.’

‘No,’ whispered Gilbert.

‘Winifred,’ said Albinia, ‘would you be so kind as to ask papa to come?’

Winifred was forced to obey, though feeling much to blame as Mr. Kendal rose with a sigh of uneasiness. Gilbert still stood with his hand clasped in Albinia’s, and she held it while her weak voice made the full confession for him, and assured his father of his shame and sorrow. There needed no such assurance, his whole demeanour had been sorrow all these dreary days, and Mr. Kendal could not but forgive, though his eye spoke deep grief.

‘I could not refuse pardon thus asked,’ he said. ‘Oh, Gilbert, that I could hope this were the beginning of a new course!’

Albinia looked from Gilbert to his little brother, and back again to Gilbert.

‘It shall be,’ she said, and Gilbert’s resolution was perhaps the more sincere that he spoke no word.

‘Poor boy,’ said Albinia, half to herself and half aloud, ‘I think I feel more strong to love and to help him!’

That interview was a dangerous experiment, and she suffered for it. As her brother said, instead of having too little life, she had too much, and could not let herself rest; she had never cultivated the art of being still, and when she was weak, she could not be calm.

Still the strength of her constitution staved off the nervous fever of her spirits, and though she was not at all a comfortable patient, she made a certain degree of progress, so that though it was not easy to call her better, she was not quite so ill, and grew less irrational in her solicitude, and more open to other ideas. ‘Do you know, Winifred,’ she said one day, ‘I have been thinking myself at Fairmead till I almost believed I heard John Smith’s voice under the window.’

Winifred was obliged to look out at the window to hide her smile. Maurice, who was standing on the lawn with the very John Smith, beckoned to her, and she went down to hear his plans. He was wanted at home the next day, and asked whether she thought he had better take Gilbert with him. ‘It is the wisest thing that has been said yet!’ exclaimed she. ‘Now I shall have a chance for Albinia!’ and accordingly, Mr. Kendal having given a gracious and grateful consent, Albinia was informed; but Winifred thought her almost perverse when a perturbed look came over her, and she said, ‘It is very kind in Maurice, but I must speak to him.’

He was struck by the worn, restless expression of her features, so unlike the calm contented repose of a young mother, and when she spoke to him, her first word was of Gilbert. ‘Maurice, it is so kind, I know you will make him happy—but oh! take care—he is so delicate—indeed, he is—don’t let him get wet through.’

Maurice promised, but Albinia resumed with minutiae of directions, ending with, ‘Oh! if he should get hurt or into any mischief, what should we do? Pray, take care, Maurice, you are not used to such delicate boys.’

‘My dear, I think you may rely on me.’

‘Yes, but you will not be too strict with him—’ and more was following, when her brother said, ‘I promise you to make him my special charge. I like the boy very much. I think you may be reasonable, and trust him with me, without so much agitation. You have not let me see my own nephew yet.’

Albinia looked with her wistful piteous face at her brother as he took in his arms her noble-looking fair infant.

‘You are a great fellow indeed, sir,’ said his uncle. ‘Now if I were your mamma, I would be proud of you, rather than—’

‘I am afraid!’ said Albinia, in a sudden low whisper.

He looked at her anxiously.

‘Let me have him,’ she said; then as Maurice bent over her, and she hastily gathered the babe into her arms, she whispered in quick, low, faint accents, ‘Do you know how many children have been born in this house?’

Mr. Ferrars understood her, he too had seen the catalogue in the church, and guessed that the phantoms of her boy’s dead brethren dwelt on her imagination, forbidding her to rejoice in him hopefully. He tried to say something encouraging of the child’s appearance, but she would not let him go on. ‘I know,’ she said, ‘he is so now—but—’ then catching her breath again and speaking very low, ‘his father does not dare look at him—I see that he is sorry for me—Oh, Maurice, it will come, and I shall be able to do nothing!’

Maurice felt his lip quivering as his sister’s voice became choked—the sister to whom he had once been the whole world, and who still could pour out her inmost heart more freely to him than to any other. But it was a time for grave authority, and though he spoke gently, it was almost sternly.

‘Albinia, this is not right. It is not thankful or trustful. No, do not cry, but listen to me. Your child is as likely to do well as any child in the world, but nothing is so likely to do him harm as your want of composure.’

‘I tell myself so,’ said Albinia, ‘but there is no helping it.’

‘Yes, there is. Make it your duty to keep yourself still, and not be troubled about what may or may not happen, but be glad of the present pleasure.’

‘Don’t you think I am?’ said Albinia, half smiling; ‘so glad, that I grow frightened at myself, and—’ As if fain to leave the subject, she added, ‘And it is what you don’t understand, Maurice, but he can’t be the first to Edmund as he is to me—never—and when I get almost jealous for him, I think of Gilbert and the girls—and oh! there is so much to do for them—they want a mother so much—and Winifred wont let me see them, or tell me about them!’

She had grown piteous and incoherent, and a glance from Winifred told him, ‘this is always the way.’

‘My dear,’ he said, ‘you will never be fit to attend to them if you do not use this present time rightly. You may hurt your health, and still more certainly, you will go to work fretfully and impetuously. If you have a busy life, the more reason to learn to be tranquil. Calm is forced on you now, and if you give way to useless nervous brooding over the work you are obliged to lay aside for a time, you have no right to hope that you will either have judgment or temper for your tasks.’

‘But how am I to keep from thinking, Maurice? The weaker I am, the more I think.’

‘Are you dutiful as to what Winifred there thinks wisest? Ah! Albinia, you want to learn, as poor Queen Anne of Austria did, that docility in illness may be self-resignation into higher Hands. Perhaps you despise it, but it is no mean exercise of strength and resolution to be still.’

Albinia looked at him as if receiving a new idea.

‘And,’ he added, bending nearer her face, and speaking lower, ‘when you pray, let them be hearty faithful prayers that God’s hand may be over your child—your children, not half-hearted faithless ones, that He may work out your will in them.’

‘Oh, Maurice, how did you know? But you are not going? I have so much to talk over with you.’

‘Yes, I must go; and you must be still. Indeed I will watch over Gilbert as though he were mine. Yes, even more. Don’t speak again, Albinia, I desire you will not. Good-bye.’

That lecture had been the most wholesome treatment she had yet received; she ceased to give way without effort to restless thoughts and cares, and was much less refractory.

When at last Lucy and Sophia were admitted, Winifred found perils that she had not anticipated. Lucy was indeed supremely and girlishly happy: but it was Sophy whose eye Albinia sought with anxiety, and that eye was averted. Her cheek was cold like that of a doll when Albinia touched it eagerly with her lips; and when Lucy admonished her to kiss the dear little brother, she fairly turned and ran out of the room.

‘Poor Sophy!’ said Lucy. ‘Never mind her, mamma, but she is odder than ever, since baby has been born. When Eweretta came up and told us, she hid her face and cried; and when grandmamma wanted to make us promise to love him with all our hearts, and not make any difference, she would only say, “I wont!”’

‘We will leave him to take care of that, Lucy,’ said Albinia. But though she spoke cheerfully, Winifred was not surprised, after a little interval, to hear sounds like stifled weeping.

Almost every home subject was so dangerous, that whenever Mrs. Ferrars wanted to make cheerful, innocent conversation, she began to talk of her visit to Ireland and the beautiful Galway coast, and the O’Mores of Ballymakilty, till Albinia grew quite sick of the names of the whole clan of thirty-six cousins, and thought, with her aunts, that Winifred was too Irish. Yet, at any other time, the histories would have made her sometimes laugh, and sometimes cry, but the world was sadly out of joint with her.

There was a sudden change when, for the first time her eye rested on the lawn, and she beheld the work of drainage. The light glanced in her eye, the colour rose on her cheek, and she exclaimed, ‘How kind of Edmund!’

Winifred must needs give her husband his share. ‘Ah! you would never have had it done without Maurice.’

‘Yes,’ said Albinia, ‘Edmund has been out of the way of such things, but he consented, you know.’ Then as her eyes grew liquid, ‘A duck pond is a funny subject for sentiment, but oh! if you knew what that place has been to my imagination from the first, and how the wreaths of mist have wound themselves into spectres in my dreams, and stretched out white shrouds now for one, now for the other!’ and she shuddered.

‘And you have gone through all this and never spoken. No wonder your nerves and spirits were tried.’

‘I did speak at first,’ said Albinia; ‘but I thought Edmund did not hear, or thought it nonsense, and so did I at times. But you see he did attend; he always does, you see, at the right time. It was only my impatience.’

‘I suspect Maurice and John Smith had more to do with it,’ said Winifred.

‘Well, we wont quarrel about that,’ said Albinia. ‘I only know that whoever brought it about has taken the heaviest weight off my mind that has been there yet.’

In truth, the terror, half real, half imaginary, had been a sorer burthen than all the positive cares for those unruly children, or their silent, melancholy father; and the relief told in all ways—above all, in the peace with which she began to regard her child. Still she would provoke Winifred by bestowing all her gratitude on Mr. Kendal, who began to be persuaded that he had made an heroic exertion.

Winifred had been somewhat scandalized by discovering Albinia’s deficiencies in the furniture development. She was too active and stirring, and too fond of out-of-door occupation, to regard interior decoration as one of the domestic graces, ‘her nest was rather that of the ostrich than the chaffinch,’ as Winifred told her on the discovery that her morning-room had been used for no other purpose than as a deposit for all the books, wedding presents, lumber, etc., which she had never had leisure to arrange.

‘You might be more civil,’ answered Albinia. ‘Remember that the ringdove never made half such a fuss about her nest as the magpie.’

‘Well, I am glad you have found some likeness in yourself to a dove,’ rejoined Winifred.

Mrs. Ferrars set vigorously to work with Lucy, and rendered the room so pretty and pleasant, that Lucy pronounced that it must be called nothing but the boudoir, for it was a perfect little bijou.

Albinia was laid on the sofa by the sparkling fire, by her side the little cot, and in her hand a most happy affectionate letter from Gilbert, detailing the Fairmead Christmas festivities. She felt the invigoration of change of room, admired and was grateful for Winifred’s work, and looked so fair and bright, so tranquil and so contented, that her sister and husband could not help pausing to contemplate her as an absolutely new creature in a state of quiescence.

It did not last long, and Mrs. Ferrars felt herself the unwilling culprit. Attracted by sounds in the hall, she found the two girls receiving from the hands of Genevieve Durant a pretty basket choicely adorned with sprays of myrtle, saying mamma would be much obliged, and they would take it up at once; Genevieve should take home her basket, and down plunged their hands regardless of the garniture.

Genevieve’s disappointed look caught Winifred’s attention, and springing forward she exclaimed, ‘You shall come to Mrs. Kendal yourself, my dear. She must see your pretty basket,’ and yourself, she could have added, as she met the grateful glitter of the dark eyes.

Lucy remonstrated that mamma had seen no one yet, not even Aunt Maria, but Mrs. Ferrars would not listen, and treading airily, yet with reverence that would have befitted a royal palace, Genevieve was ushered upstairs, and with heartfelt sweetness, and timid grace, presented her etrennes.

Under the fragrant sprays lay a small white-paper parcel, tied with narrow blue satin bows, such as no English fingers could accomplish, and within was a little frock-body, exquisitely embroidered, with a breastplate of actual point lace in a pattern like frostwork on the windows. It was such work as Madame Belmarche had learnt in a convent in times of history, and poor little Genevieve had almost worn out her black eyes on this piece of homage to her dear Mrs. Kendal, grieving only that she had not been able to add the length of robe needed to complete her gift.

Albinia’s kiss was recompense beyond her dreams, and she fairly cried for joy when she was told that she should come and help to dress the babe in it for his christening. Mrs. Ferrars would walk out with her at once to buy a sufficiency of cambric for the mighty skirts.

That visit was indeed nothing but pleasure, but Mrs. Ferrars had not calculated on contingencies and family punctilios. She forgot that it would be a mortal offence to let in any one rather than Miss Meadows; but the rest of the family were so well aware of it, that when she returned she heard a perfect sparrow’s-nest of voices—Lucy’s pert and eager, Miss Meadows’s injured and shrill, and Albinia’s, alas! thin and loud, half sarcasm, half fret.

There sat Aunt Maria fidgeting in the arm-chair; Lucy stood by the fire; Albinia’s countenance sadly different from what it had been in the morning—weary, impatient, and excited, all that it ought not to be!

Winifred would have cleared the room at once, but this was not easy, and poor Albinia was so far gone as to be determined on finishing that endless thing, an altercation, so all three began explaining and appealing at once.

It seemed that Mrs. Osborn was requiting Mrs. Kendal’s neglect in not having inquired after her when the Admiral’s sister’s husband died, by the omission of inquiries at present; whereat Albinia laughed a feeble, overdone giggle, and observed that she believed Mrs. Osborn knew all that passed in Willow Lawn better than the inmates; and Lucy deposed that Sophy and Loo were together every day, though Sophy knew mamma did not like it. Miss Meadows said if reparation were not made, the Osborns had expressed their intention of omitting Lucy and Sophy from their Twelfth-day party.

To this Albinia pettishly replied that the girls were to go to no Christmas parties without her; Miss Meadows had taken it very much to heart, and Lucy was declaiming against mamma making any condescension to Mrs. Osborn, or herself being supposed to care for ‘the Osborn’s parties,’ where the boys were so rude and vulgar, the girls so boisterous, and the dancing a mere romp. Sophy might like it, but she never did!

Miss Meadows was hurt by her niece’s defection, and had come to ‘Oh, very well,’ and ‘things were altered,’ and ‘people used to be grateful to old friends, but there were changes.’ And thereby Lucy grew personal as to the manners of the Osborns, while Albinia defended herself against the being grand or exclusive, but it was her duty to do what she thought right for the children! Yes, Miss Meadows was quite aware—only grandmamma was so nervous about poor dear Gibbie missing his Christmas dinner for the first time—being absent—Mrs. Ferrars would take great care, but damp stockings and all—

Winifred endeavoured to stem the tide of words, but in vain, between the meandering incoherency of the one, and the nervous rapidity of the other, and they had both set off again on this fresh score, when in despair she ran downstairs, rapped at the study door, and cried, ‘Mr. Kendal, Mr. Kendal, will you not come! I can’t get Miss Meadows out of Albinia’s room.’

Forth came Mr. Kendal, walked straight upstairs, and stood in full majesty on the threshold. Holding out his hand to Maria with grave courtesy, he thanked her for coming to see his wife, but at the same time handed her down, saw her out safely at the hall door, and Lucy into the drawing-room.

It was a pity that he had not returned to Albinia’s room, for she was too much excited to be composed without authority. First, she scolded Winifred; ‘it was the thing she most wished to avoid, that he should fancy her teased by anything the Meadowses could say,’ and she laughed, and protested she never was vexed, such absurdity did not hurt her in the least.

‘It has tired you, though,’ said Winifred. ‘Lie quite down and sleep.’

Of course, however, Albinia would not believe that she was tired, and began to talk of the Osborns and their party—she was annoyed at the being thought too fine. ‘If it were not such a penance, and if you would not be gone home, I really would ask you to take the girls, Winifred.’

‘I shall not be gone home.’

‘Yes, you will. I am well, and every one wants you.’

‘Did you not hear Willie’s complimentary message, that he is never naughty now, because Gilbert makes him so happy?’

‘But, Winifred, the penny club! The people must have their things.’

‘They can wait, or—’

‘It is very well for us to talk of waiting,’ cried Albinia, ‘but how should we like a frosty night without cloaks, or blankets, or fire? I did not think it of you, Winifred. It is the first winter I have been away from my poor old dames, and I did think you would have cared for them.’

And thereupon her overwrought spirits gave way in a flood of tears, as she angrily averted her face from her sister, who could have cried too, not at the injustice, but with compassion and perplexity lest there should be an equally violent reaction either of remorse or of mirth.

It must be confessed that Albinia was very much the creature of health. Never having been ill before, the depression had been so new that it broke her completely down; convalescence made her fractious.

Recovery, however, filled her with such an ecstasy of animal spirits that her time seemed to be entirely passed in happiness or in sleep, and cares appeared to have lost all power. It was so sudden a change that Winifred was startled, though it was a very pleasant one, and she did not reflect that this was as far from the calm, self-restrained, meditative tranquillity enjoined by Maurice, as had been the previous restless, querulous state. Both were body more than mind, but Mrs. Ferrars was much more ready to be merry with Albinia than to moralize about her. And it was droll that the penny club was one of the first stages in her revival.

‘Oh, mamma,’ cried Lucy, flying in, ‘Mr. Dusautoy is at the door. There is such a to do. All the women have been getting gin with their penny club tickets, and Mrs. Brock has been stealing the money, and Mr. Dusautoy wants to know if you paid up three-and-fourpence for the Hancock children.’

Albinia instantly invited Mr. Dusautoy to explain in person, and he entered, hearty and pleasant as ever, but in great haste, for he had left his Fanny keeping the peace between five angry women, while he came out to collect evidence.

The Bayford clothing-club payments were collected by Mrs. Brock, the sexton’s wife, and distributed by tickets to be produced at the various shops in the town. Mrs. Brock had detected some women exchanging their tickets for gin, and the offending parties retaliated by accusing her of embezzling the subscriptions, both parties launching into the usual amount of personalities and exaggerations.

Albinia’s testimony cleared Mrs. Brock as to the three-and-fourpence, but she ‘snuffed the battle from afar,’ and rushed into a scheme of taking the clothing-club into her own hands, collecting the pence, having the goods from London, and selling them herself—she would propose it on the very first opportunity to the Dusautoys. Winifred asked if she had not a good deal on her hands already.

‘My dear, I have the work in me of a young giant.’

‘And will Mr. Kendal like it?’

‘He would never find it out unless I told him, and very possibly not then. Six months hence, perhaps, he may tell me he is glad that Lucy is inclined to useful pursuits, and that is approval, Winifred, much more than if I went and worried him about every little petty woman’s matter.’

‘Every one to her taste,’ thought Winifred, who had begun to regard Mr. and Mrs. Kendal in the same relation as the king and queen at chess.

The day before the christening, Mr. Ferrars brought back Gilbert and his own little Willie.

Through all the interchange of greetings, Gilbert would hardly let go Albinia’s hand, and the moment her attention was free, he earnestly whispered, ‘May I see my brother?’

She took him upstairs at once. ‘Let me look a little while,’ he said, hanging over the child with a sort of hungry fondness and curiosity. ‘My brother! my brother!’ he repeated. ‘It has rung in my ears every morning that I can say my brother once more, till I have feared it was a dream.’

It was the sympathy Albinia cared for, come back again! ‘I hope he will be a good brother to you,’ she said.

‘He must be good! he can’t help it! He has you!’ said Gilbert. ‘See, he is opening his eyes—oh! how blue! May I touch him?’

‘To be sure you may. He is not sugar,’ said Albinia, laughing. ‘There—make an arm; you may have him if you like. Your left arm, you awkward man. Yes, that is right. You will do quite as well as I, who never touched a baby till Willie was born. There, sir, how do you like your brother Gilbert?’

Gilbert held him reverently, and gave him back with a sigh when he seemed to have satiated his gaze and touch, and convinced himself that his new possession was substantial. ‘I say,’ he added wistfully, ‘did you think that name would bring ill-luck?

She knew the name he meant, and answered, ‘No, but your father could not have borne it. Besides, Gibbie, we would not think him instead of Edmund. No, he shall learn, to look up to his other brother as you do, and look to meeting and knowing him some day.’

Gilbert shivered at this, and made no opposition to her carrying him downstairs to his uncle, and then Gilbert hurried off for the basket of snowdrops that he had gathered early, from a favourite spot at Fairmead. That short absence seemed to have added double force to his affection; he could hardly bear to be away from her, and every moment when he could gain her ear, poured histories of the delights of Fairmead, where Mr. Ferrars had devoted himself to his amusement, and had made him happier than perhaps he had ever been in his life—he had had a taste of shooting, of skating, of snowballing—he had been useful and important in the village feasts, had dined twice at Colonel Bury’s, and felt himself many degrees nearer manhood.

To hear of her old haunts and friends from such enthusiastic lips, delighted Albinia, and her felicity with her baby, with Mr. Kendal, with her brother and his little son, was one of the brightest things in all the world—the fresh young loving bloom of her matronhood was even sweeter and more beautiful than her girlish days.

Poor little frail, blighted Mrs. Dusautoy! Winifred could not help wondering if the contrast pained her, when in all the glory of her motherly thankfulness, Albinia carried her beautiful newly-christened Maurice Ferrars Kendal to the vicarage to show him off, lying so open-chested and dignified, in Genevieve’s pretty work, with a sort of manly serenity already dawning on his baby brow.

Winifred need not have pitied the little lady. She would not have changed with Mrs. Kendal—no, not for that perfect health, usefulness, value—nor even for such a baby as that. No, indeed! She loved—she rejoiced in all her friend’s sweet and precious gifts—but Mrs. Dusautoy had one gift that she prized above all.

Even grandmamma and Aunt Maria did justice to Master Maurice’s attractions, at least in public, though it came round that Miss Meadows did not admire fat children, and when he had once been seen in Lucy’s arms, an alarm arose that Mrs. Kendal would allow the girls to carry him about, till his weight made them crooked, but Albinia was too joyous to take their displeasure to heart, and it only served her for something to laugh at.

They had a very happy christening party, chiefly juvenile, in honour of little Willie and of Francis and Emily Nugent. Albinia was so radiantly lively and good-natured, and her assistants, Winifred, Maurice, and Mr. Dusautoy, so kind, so droll, so inventive, that even Aunt Maria forgot herself in enjoyment and novelty, and was like a different person. Mr. Kendal looked at her with a pleased sad wonder, and told his wife it reminded him of what she had been when she was nearly the prettiest girl at Bayford. Gilbert devoted himself as usual to making Genevieve feel welcome; and she had likewise Willie Ferrars and Francis Nugent at her feet. Neither urchin would sit two inches away from her all the evening, and in all games she was obliged to obviate jealousies by being partner to both at once. Where there was no one to oppress her, she came out with all her natural grace and vivacity, and people of a larger growth than her little admirers were charmed with her.

Lucy was obliging, ready, and useful, and looked very pretty, the only blot was the heavy dulness of poor Sophy, who seemed resolved to take pleasure in nothing. Winifred varied in opinion whether her moodiness arose from ill-health, or from jealousy of her little brother. This latter Albinia would not believe, especially as she saw that little Maurice’s blue eyes were magnets that held the silent Sophy fast, but surly denials silenced her interrogations as to illness, and made her content to acquiesce in Lucy’s explanation that Sophy was only cross because the Osborns and Drurys were not asked.

Albinia did her duty handsomely by the two families a day or two after, for whatever reports might come round, they were always ready to receive her advances, and she only took notice of what she saw, instead of what she heard. Her brother helped Mr. Kendal through the party, and Winifred made a discovery that excited her more than Albinia thought warranted by any fact relating to the horde of Irish cousins.

‘Only think, Albinia, I have found out that poor Ellen O’More is Mr. Goldsmith’s sister!’

‘Indeed! But I am afraid I don’t remember which Ellen O’More is. You know I never undertake to recollect any but your real cousins out of the thirty-six.’

‘For shame, Albinia, I have so often told you about Ellen. I’m sure you can’t forget. Her husband is my sister’s brother-in-law’s cousin.’

‘Oh, Winifred, Winifred!’

‘But I tell you, her husband is the third son of old Mr. O’More of Ballymakilty, and was in the army.’

‘Oh! the half-pay officer with the twelve children in the cottage on the estate.’

‘There now, I did think you would care when I told you of a soldier, a Waterloo man too, and you only call him a half-pay officer!’

‘I do remember,’ said Albinia, taking a little pity, ‘that you used to be sorry for his good little English wife.’

‘Of course. I knew she had married him very imprudently, but she has struggled gallantly with ill-health, and poverty, and Irish recklessness. I quite venerate her, and it seems these Goldsmiths had so far cast her off that they had no notion of the extent of her troubles.’

‘Just like them,’ said Albinia. ‘Is that the reason you wish me to make the most of the connexion? Let me see, my sister-in-law’s sister’s wife—no, husband’s brother’s uncle, eh?’

‘I don’t want you to do anything,’ said Winifred, a little hurt, ‘only if you had seen Ellen’s patient face you would be interested in her.’

‘Well, I am interested, you know I am, Winifred. I hope you interested our respected banker, which would be more to the purpose.’

‘I think I did,’ said Winifred; ‘at least he said “poor Ellen” once or twice. I don’t want him to do anything for the captain, you might give him a thousand pounds and he would never be the better for it: but that fourth, boy, Ulick, is without exception the nicest fellow I ever saw in my life—so devoted to his mother, so much more considerate and self-denying than any of the others, and very clever. Maurice examined him and was quite astonished. We did get him sent to St. Columba for the present, but whether they will keep him there no one can guess, and it is the greatest pity he should run to waste. I told Mr. Goldsmith all this, and I really think he seemed to attend. I wonder if it will work.’

Albinia was by this time anxious that it should take effect, and they agreed that an old bachelor banker and his sister, both past sixty, were the very people to adopt a promising nephew.

What had become of the multitude of things which Albinia had to discuss with her brother? The floodtide of bliss had floated her over all the stumbling-blocks and shoals that the ebb had disclosed, and she had absolutely forgotten all the perplexities that had seemed so trying. Even when she sought a private interview to talk to him about Gilbert, it was in full security of hearing the praises of her darling.

‘A nice boy, a very nice boy,’ returned Maurice; ‘most amiable and intelligent, and particularly engaging, from his feeling being so much on the surface.’

‘Nothing can be more sincere and genuine,’ she cried, as if this fell a little flat.

‘Certainly not, at the time.’

‘Always!’ exclaimed Albinia. ‘You must not distrust him because he is not like you or Fred, and has never been hardened and taught reserve by rude boys. Nothing was ever more real than his affection, poor dear boy,’ and the tears thrilled to her eyes.

‘No, and it is much to his credit. His love and gratitude to you are quite touching, poor fellow; but the worst of it is that I am afraid he is very timid, both physically and morally.’

Often as she had experienced this truth, the soldier’s daughter could not bear to avow it, and she answered hastily, ‘He has never been braced or trained; he was always ill till within the last few years—coddling at first, neglect afterwards, he has it all to learn, and it is too late for school.’

‘Yes, he is too old to be laughed at or bullied out of cowardice. Indeed, I doubt whether there ever would have been substance enough for much wear and tear.’

‘I know you have a turn for riotous, obstinate boys! You want Willie to be another Fred,’ said Albinia, like an old hen, ruffling up her feathers. ‘You think a boy can’t be good for anything unless he is a universal plague!’

‘I wonder what you will do with your own son,’ said Maurice, amused, ‘since you take Gilbert’s part so fiercely.’

‘I trust my boy will never be as much to be pitied as his brother,’ said Albinia, with tenderness that accused her petulance. ‘At least he can never be a lonely twin with that sore spot in his heart. Oh, Maurice, how can any one help dealing gently with my poor Gibbie?’

‘Gentle dealing is the very thing he wants,’ said Mr. Ferrars; ‘and I am thinking how to find it for him. How did his going to Traversham fail?’

‘I don’t know; Edmund did not like to send him without having seen Traversham, and I could not go. But I don’t think there is any need for his going away. His father has been quite enough tormented about it, and I can manage him very well now. He is always good and happy with me. I mean to try to ride with him, and I have promised to teach him music, and we shall garden. Never fear, I will employ him and keep him out of mischief—it is all pleasure to me.’

‘And pray what are your daughters and baby to do, while you are galloping after Gilbert?’

‘Oh! I’ll manage. We can all do things together. Come, Maurice, I wont have Edmund teased, and I can’t bear parting with any of them, or think that any strange man can treat Gibbie as I should.’

Maurice was edified by his sister’s warm-hearted weakness, but not at all inclined to let ‘Edmund’ escape a ‘teasing.’

Mr. Kendal’s first impulse always was to find a sufficient plea for doing nothing. If Gilbert was to go to India, it was not worth while to give him a classical education.

‘Is he to go to India? Albinia had not told me so.’

‘I thought she was aware of it; but possibly I may not have mentioned it. It has been an understood thing ever since I came home. He will have a good deal of the property in this place, but he had better have seen something of the world. Bayford is no place for a man to settle down in too young.’

‘Certainly,’ said Mr. Ferrars, repressing a smile. ‘Then are you thinking of sending him to Haileybury?’

He was pronounced too young, besides, it was explained that his destination in India was unfixed. On going home it had been a kind of promise that one of the twin brothers should have an appointment in the civil service, the other should enter the bank of Kendal and Kendal, and the survivor was unconsciously suspended between these alternatives, while the doubt served as a convenient protection to his father from making up his mind to prepare him for either of these or for anything else.

The prompt Ferrars temper could bear it no longer, and Maurice spoke out. ‘I’ll tell you what, Kendal, it is time to attend to your own concerns. If you choose to let your son run to ruin, because you will not exert yourself to remove him from temptation, I shall not stand by to see my sister worn out with making efforts to save him. She is willing and devoted, she fancies she could work day and night to preserve him, and she does it with all her heart; but it is not woman’s work, she cannot do it, and it is not fit to leave it to her. When Gilbert has broken her heart as well as yours, and left an evil example to his brother, then you will feel what it is to have kept a lad whom you know to be well disposed, but weak as water, in the very midst of contamination, and to have left your young, inexperienced wife to struggle alone to save him. If you are unwarned by the experience of last autumn and winter, I could not pity you, whatever might happen.’

Maurice, who had run on the longer because Mr. Kendal did not answer immediately, was shocked at his own impetuosity; but a rattling peal of thunder was not more than was requisite.

‘I believe you are right,’ Mr. Kendal said. ‘I was to blame for leaving him so entirely to Albinia; but she is very fond of him, and is one who will never be induced to spare herself, and there were considerations. However, she shall be relieved at once. What do you recommend?’

Mr. Ferrars actually made Mr. Kendal promise to set out for Traversham with him next morning, thirty miles by the railway, to inspect Mr. Downton and his pupils.

Albinia had just sense enough not to object, though the discovery of the Indian plans was such a blow to her that she could not be consoled by all her husband’s representations of the advantages Gilbert would derive there, and of his belief that the Kendal constitution always derived strength from a hot climate, and that to himself going to India seemed going home. She took refuge in the hope that between the two Indian stools Gilbert might fall upon one of the professions which she thought alone worthy of man’s attention, the clerical or the military.

Under Maurice’s escort, Mr. Kendal greatly enjoyed his expedition; liked Traversham, was satisfied with the looks of the pupils, and very much pleased with the tutor, whom he even begged to come to Bayford for a conference with Mrs. Kendal, and this was received by her as no small kindness. She was delighted with Mr. Downton, and felt as if Gilbert could be safely trusted in his charge; nor was Gilbert himself reluctant. He was glad to escape from his tempter, and to begin a new life, and though he hung about Mrs. Kendal, and implored her to write often, and always tell him about his little brother—nay, though he cried like a child at the last, yet still he was happy and satisfied to go, and to break the painful fetters which had held him so long.

And though Albinia likewise shed some parting tears, she could not but own that she was glad to have him in trustworthy hands; and as to the additional time thus gained, it was disposed of in a million of bright plans for every one’s service—daughters, baby, parish, school, classes, clubs, neighbours. It almost made Winifred giddy to hear how much she had undertaken, and yet with what zest she talked and acted.

‘There’s your victim, Winifred,’ said Maurice, as they drove away, and looked back at Albinia, scandalizing Bayford by standing in the open gateway, her face all smiles of cheerful parting, the sun and wind making merry with her chestnut curls, her baby in one arm, the other held up to wave her farewell.

‘That child will catch cold,’ began Winifred, turning to sign her to go in. ‘Well,’ she continued, ‘after all, I believe some people like an idol that sits quiet to be worshipped! To be sure she must want to beat him sometimes, as the Africans do their gods. But, on the whole, her sentiment of reverence is satisfied, and she likes the acting for herself, and reigning absolute. Yes, she is quite happy—why do you look doubtful? Don’t you admire her?’

‘From my heart.’

‘Then why do you doubt? Do you expect her to do anything?’

‘A little too much of everything.’