‘There!’ cried Ulick O’More, ‘I may wish you all good-bye. There’s an end of it.’
Mr. Kendal stood aghast.
‘He’s insulted my father and my family,’ cried Ulick, ‘and does he think I’ll write another cipher for him?’
‘Your uncle?’
‘Don’t call him my uncle. I wish I’d never set eyes on his wooden old face, to put the family name and honour in the power of such as he.’
‘What has he done to you?’
‘He has offered to take me as his partner,’ cried Ulick, with flashing eyes; and as an outcry arose, not in sympathy with his resentment, he continued vehemently, ‘Stay, you have not heard! ‘Twas on condition I’d alter my name, leave out the O that has come down to me from them that were kings and princes before his grandfathers broke stones on the road.’
‘He offered to take you into partnership,’ repeated Mr. Kendal.
‘Do you think I could listen to such terms!’ cried the indignant lad. ‘Give up the O! Why, I would never be able to face my brothers!’
‘But, Ulick—’
‘Don’t talk to me, Mr. Kendal; I wouldn’t sell my name if you were to argue to me like Plato, nor if his bank were the Bank of England. I might as well be an Englishman at once.’
‘Then this was the insult?’
‘And enough too, but it wasn’t all. When I answered, speaking as coolly, I assure you, as I’m doing this minute, what does he do, but call it a folly, and taunt us for a crew of Irish beggars! Beggars we may be, but we’ll not be bought by him.’
‘Well, this must have been an unexpected reception of such a proposal.’
‘You may say that! The English think everything may be bought with money! I’d have overlooked his ignorance, poor old gentleman, if he would not have gone and spoken of my O as vulgar. Vulgar! So when I began to tell him how it began from Tigearnach, the O’More of Ballymakilty, that was Tanist of Connaught, in the time of King Mac Murrough, and that killed Phadrig the O’Donoghoe in single combat at the fight of Shoch-knockmorty, and bit off his nose, calling it a sweet morsel of revenge, what does he do but tell me I was mad, and that he would have none of my nonsensical tales of the savage Irish. So I said I couldn’t stand to hear my family insulted, and then—would you believe it? he would have it that it was I that was insolent, and when I was not going to apologize for what I had borne from him, he said he had always known how it would be trying to deal with one of our family, no better than making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. “And I’m obliged for the compliment,” said I, quite coolly and politely, “but no Irish pig would sell his ear for a purse;” and so I came away, quite civilly and reasonably. Aye, I see what you would do, Mr. Kendal, but I beg with all my heart you won’t. There are some things a gentleman should not put up with, and I’ll not take it well of you if you call it my duty to hear my father and his family abused. I’ll despise myself if I could. You don’t—’ cried he, turning round to Albinia.
‘Oh, no, but I think you should try to understand Mr. Goldsmith’s point of view.’
‘I understand it only too well, if that would do any good. Point of view—why, ‘tis the farmyard cock’s point of view, strutting on the top of that bank of his own, and patronizing the free pheasant out in the woods. More fool I for ever letting him clip my wings, but he’s seen the last of me. No, don’t ask me to make it up. It can’t be done—’
‘What can be done to the boy?’ asked Albinia; ‘how can he be brought to hear reason?’
‘Leave him alone,’ Mr. Kendal said, aside; while Ulick in a torrent of eager cadences protested his perfect sanity and reason, and Mr. Kendal quietly left the room, again to start on a peace-making mission, but it was unpromising, for Mr. Goldsmith began by declaring he would not hear a single word in favour of the ungrateful young dog.
Mr. Kendal gathered that young O’More had become so valuable, and that cold and indifferent as Mr. Goldsmith appeared, he had been growing so fond and so proud of his nephew, as actually to resolve on giving him a share of the business, and dividing the inheritance which had hitherto been destined to a certain Andrew Goldsmith, brought up in a relation’s office at Bristol. Surprised at his own graciousness, and anticipating transports of gratitude, his dismay and indignation at the reception of his proposal were extreme, especially as he had no conception of the offence he had given regarding the unfortunate O as a badge of Hibernianism and vulgarity. ‘I put it to you, Mr. Kendal, as a sensible man, whether it would not be enough to destroy the credit of the bank to connect it with such a name as that, looking like an Irish haymaker’s. I should be ashamed of every note I issued.’
‘It is unlucky,’ said Mr. Kendal, ‘and a difficulty the lad could hardly appreciate, since it is a good old name, and the O is a special mark of nobility.’
‘And what has a banker to do with nobility? Pretty sort of nobility too, at that dog-kennel of theirs in Ireland, and his father, a mere adventurer if ever there lived one! But I swore when he carried off poor Ellen that his speculation should do him no good, and I’ve kept my word. I wish I hadn’t been fool enough to meddle with one of the concern! No, no, ‘tis no use arguing, Mr. Kendal, I have done with him! I would not make him a partner, not if he offered to change his name to John Smith! I never thought to meet with such ingratitude, but it runs in the breed! I might have known better than to make much of one of the crew. Yet it is a pity too, we have not had such a clear-headed, trustworthy fellow about the place since young Bowles died; he has a good deal of the Goldsmith in him when you set him to work, and makes his figures just like my poor father. I thought it was his writing the other day till I looked at the date. Clever lad, very, but it runs in the blood. I shall send for Andrew Goldsmith.’
One secret of Mr. Kendal’s power was that he never interrupted, but let people run themselves down and contradict themselves; and all he observed was, ‘However it may end, you have done a great deal for him. Even if you parted now, he would be able to find a situation.’
‘Why—yes,’ said Mr. Goldsmith, ‘the lad knew nothing serviceable when he came, we had an infinity of maggots about algebra and logarithms to drive out of his head; but now he really is nearly as good an accountant as old Johns.’
‘You would be sorry to part with him, and I cannot help hoping this may be made up.’
‘You don’t bring me any message! I’ve said I’ll listen to nothing.’
‘No; the poor boy’s feelings are far too much wounded,’ said Mr. Kendal. ‘Whether rightly or wrongly, he fancies that his father and family have been slightingly spoken of, and he is exceedingly hurt.’
‘His father! I’m sure I did not say a tenth part of what the fellow richly deserves. If the young gentleman is so touchy, he had better go back to Ireland again.’
Nothing more favourable could Mr. Kendal obtain, though he thought Mr. Goldsmith uneasy, and perhaps impressed by the independence of his nephew’s attitude.
It was an arduous office for a peace-maker, where neither party could comprehend the feelings of the other, but on his return he found that Ulick had stormed himself into comparative tranquillity, and was listening the better to the womankind, because they had paid due honour to the amiable ancestral Tigearnach and all his guttural posterity, whose savage exploits and bloody catastrophes acted as such a sedative, that by the time he had come down to Uncle Bryan of the Kaffir war, he actually owned that as to the mighty ‘O,’ Mr. Goldsmith might have erred in sheer ignorance.
‘After all,’ said Albinia, ‘U. O’More is rather personal in writing to a creditor.’
‘It might be worse,’ said Ulick, laughing, ‘if my name was John. I. O’More would be a dangerous confession. But I’ll not be come round even by your fun, Mrs. Kendal, I’ll not part with my father’s name.’
‘No, that would be base,’ said Sophy.
‘Who would wish to persuade you?’ added Albinia. ‘I am sure you are right in refusing with your feelings; I only want you to forgive your uncle, and not to break with him.’
‘I’d forgive him his ignorance, but my mother herself could not wish me to forgive what he said of my father.’
‘And how if he thinks this explosion needs forgiveness?’
‘He must do without it,’ said Ulick. ‘No, I was cool, I assure you, cool and collected, but it was not fit for me to stand by and hear my father insulted.’
Albinia closed the difficult discussion by observing that it was time to dress, and Sophy followed her from the room burning with indignant sympathy. ‘It would be meanly subservient to ask pardon for defending a father whom he thought maligned,’ said Albinia, and Sophy took exception at the word ‘thought.’
‘Ah! of course he cannot be deceived!’ said Albinia—but no sooner were the words spoken than she was half-startled, half-charmed by finding they had evoked a glow of colour.
‘How do you think it will end?’ asked Sophy.
‘I can hardly fancy he will not be forgiven, and yet—it might be better.’
‘Yes, I do think he would get on faster in India,’ said Sophy eagerly; ‘he could do just as Gilbert might have done.’
Was it possible for Albinia to have kept out of her eyes a significant glance, or to have disarmed her lips of a merry smile of amused encouragement! How she had looked she knew not, but the red deepened on Sophy’s whole face, and after one inquiring gaze from the eyes they were cast down, and an ineffable brightness came over the expression, softening and embellishing.
‘What have I done?’ thought Albinia. ‘Never mind—it must have been all there, or it would not have been wakened so easily—if he goes they will have a scene first.’
But when Mr. Kendal came back he only advised Ulick to go to his desk as usual the next day, as if nothing had happened.
And Ulick owned that, turn out as things might, he could not quit his work in the first ardour of his resentment, and with a great exertion of Christian forgiveness, he finally promised not to give notice of his retirement unless his uncle should repeat the offence. This time Albinia durst not look at Sophy.
Rather according to his friend’s hopes than his own, he was able to report at the close of the next day, that he had not ‘had a word from his uncle, except a nod;’ and thus the days passed on, Andrew Goldsmith did not appear, and it became evident that he was to remain on sufferance as a clerk. Nor did Albinia and Sophy venture to renew the subject between themselves. At first there was consciousness in their silence; soon their minds were otherwise engrossed.
Mrs. Meadows was suddenly stricken with paralysis, and was thought to be dying. She recovered partial consciousness in the course of the next day, but was constantly moaning the name of her eldest and favourite granddaughter, and when telegraph and express train brought home the startled and trembling Lucy, she was led at once to the sick bed—where at her name there was the first gleam of anything like pleasure.
‘And where have you been, my dear, this long time?’
‘I’ve been at—at Brighton, dear grandmamma,’ said Lucy, so much agitated as scarcely to be able to recall the name, or utter the words.
‘And—I say, my dear love,’ said Mrs. Meadows, earnestly and mysteriously, ‘have you seen him?’
Poor Lucy turned scarlet with distress and confusion, but she was held fast, and grandmamma pursued, ‘I’m sure he has not his equal for handsomeness and stateliness, and there must have been a pair of you.’
‘Dear grandmamma, we must let Lucy go and take off her things; she shall come back presently, but she has had a long journey,’ interposed Albinia, seeing her ready to sink into the earth.
But Mrs. Meadows had roused into eagerness, and would not let her go. ‘I hope you danced with him, dear,’ she went on; ‘and it’s all nonsense about his being high and silent. Your papa is bent on it, and you’ll live like a princess in India.’
‘She takes you for your mother—she means papa, whispered Albinia, not without a secret flash at once of indignation at perceiving how his first love had been wasted, yet of exultation in finding that no one but herself had known how to love him; but poor Lucy, completely and helplessly overcome, could only exclaim in a faltering voice: ‘Oh, grandmamma, don’t—’ and Albinia was forced to disengage her, support her out of the room, and leaving her to her sister, hasten back to soothe the old lady, who had been terrified by her emotion. It had been a great mistake to bring her in abruptly, when tired with her journey, and not fully aware what awaited her. But there was at that time reason to think all would soon be over, and Albinia was startled and confused.
Albinia had hitherto been the only efficient nurse of the family. Sophy’s presence seemed to stir up instincts of the old wrangling habits, and the invalid was always fretful when left to her, so that to her own exceeding distress she was kept almost entirely out of the sick room.
Lucy, on the other hand, was extremely valuable there, her bright manner and unfailing chatter always amused if needful, and her light step and tender hand made her useful, and highly appreciated by the regular nurse.
For the first few days, they watched in awe for the last dread summons, but gradually it was impossible not to become in a manner habituated to the suspense, so that common things resumed their interest, and though Sophy was pained by the incongruity, it could not have been otherwise without the spirits and health giving way under the strain. Nothing could be more trying than to have the mind wrought up to hourly anticipation of the last parting, and then the delay, without the reaction of recovery, the spirit beyond all reach of intercourse, and the mortal frame languishing and drooping. Mr. Kendal had from the first contemplated the possibility of the long duration of such lingering, and did his utmost to promote such enlivenment and change for the attendants as was consistent with their care of the sufferer. They never dared to be all beyond call at once, since a very little agitation might easily suffice to bring on a fatal attack, and Albinia and Lucy were forced to share the hours of exercise and employment between them, and often Albinia could not leave the house and garden at all.
Gilbert was an excellent auxiliary, and would devote many an hour to the cheering of the poor shattered mind. His entrance seldom failed to break the thread of melancholy murmurs, and he had exactly the gentle, bright attentive manner best fitted to rouse and enliven. Nothing could be more irreproachable, than his conduct, and his consideration and gentleness so much endeared him, that he had never been so much at peace. All he dreaded was the leaving what was truly to him the sanctuary of home, he feared alike temptation and the effort of resistance and could not bear to go away when his grandmother was in so precarious a state, and he could so much lighten Mrs. Kendal’s cares both by being with her, and by watching over Maurice. His parents were almost equally afraid of trusting him in the world; and the embodiment of the militia for the county offered a quasi profession, which would keep him at home and yet give him employment. He was very anxious to be allowed to apply for a commission, and pleaded so earnestly and humbly that it would be his best hope of avoiding his former errors, that Mr. Kendal yielded, though with doubt whether it would be well to confine him to so narrow a sphere. Meantime the corps was quartered at Bayford, and filled the streets with awkward louts in red jackets, who were inveterate in mistaking the right for the left, Gilbert had a certain shy pride in his soldiership, and Maurice stepped like a young Field Marshal when he saw his brother saluted.
Nothing had so much decided this step as the finding that young Dusautoy was to return to his college after Easter. He was at the Vicarage again, marking his haughty avoidance of the Kendal family, and to their great joy, Lucy did not appear distressed, she was completely absorbed in her grandmother, and shrank from all allusion to her lover. Had the small flutter of vanity been cured by a glimpse beyond her own corner of the world?
But soon Albinia became sensible of an alteration in Gilbert. He had no sooner settled completely into his new employment, than a certain restless dissatisfaction seemed to have possessed him. He was fastidious at his meals, grumbled at his horse, scolded the groom, had fits of petulance towards his brother, and almost neglected Mrs. Meadows. No one could wonder at a youth growing weary of such attendance, but his tenderness and amiability had been his best points, and it was grievous to find them failing. Albinia would have charged the alteration on his brother officers, if they had not been a very steady and humdrum set, whose society Gilbert certainly did not prefer. She was more uneasy at finding that he sometimes saw Algernon Dusautoy, though for Lucy’s sake, he always avoided bringing his name forward.
A woman was ill in the bargeman’s cottage by the towing-path, and Albinia had walked to see her. As she came down-stairs, she heard voices, and beheld Mr. Hope evidently on the same errand with herself, talking to Gilbert. She caught the words, ere she could safely descend the rickety staircase, Gilbert was saying,
‘Oh! some happy pair from the High Street!’
‘I beg your pardon,’ said Mr. Hope, ‘I am so blind, I really took it for your sister, but our shopkeepers’ daughters do dress so!’
Albinia looking in the same direction, beheld in a walk that skirted the meadow towards the wood, two figures, of which only one was clearly visible, it was nearly a quarter of a mile off, but there was something about it that made her exclaim, ‘Why, that’s Mr. Cavendish Dusautoy! whom can he be walking with?’
Gilbert started violently at hearing her behind him, and a word or two of greeting passed with Mr. Hope, then there was some spying at the pair, but they were getting further off, and disappeared in the wood, while Gilbert, screwing up his eyes, and stammering, declared he did not know; it might be, he did not think any one could be recognised at such a distance; and then saying that he had fallen in with Mr. Hope by chance, he hastened on. The curate made a brief visit, and walked home with her, examining her on her impression that the gentleman was young Dusautoy, and finally consulting her on the expediency of mentioning the suspicion to the vicar, in case he should be deluding some foolish tradesman’s daughter. Albinia strongly advised his doing so; she had much faith in her own keen eyesight, and could not mistake the majestic mien of Algernon; she thought the vicar ought at once to be warned, but felt relieved that it was not her part to speak.
She was very glad when Mr. Hope took an opportunity of telling her that young Dusautoy was going to the Greenaways in a day or two.
As to Gilbert, it was as if this departure had relieved him from an incubus; he was in better spirits from that moment, and returned to his habits of kindness to both grandmamma and Maurice.
The manifold duties of head sick-nurse, governess, and housekeeper, were apt to clash, and valiant and unwearied as Albinia was, she was obliged perforce to leave the children more to others than she would have preferred. Little Albinia was all docility and sweetness, and already did such wonders with her ivory letters, that the exulting Sophy tried to abash Maurice by auguring that she would be the first to read; to which, undaunted, he replied, ‘She’ll never be a boy!’ Nevertheless Maurice was developing a species of conscience, rendering him trustworthy and obedient out of sight, better, in fact, alone with his own honour and his mother’s commands, than with any authority that he could defy. He knew when his father meant to be obeyed, and Gilbert managed him easily; but he warred with Lucy, ruled Sophy, and had no chivalry for any one but little Albinia, nor obedience except for his mother, and was a terror to maid-servants and elder children. With much of promise, he was anything but an agreeable child, and whilst no one but herself ever punished, contradicted, or complained of him, Albinia had a task that would have made her very uneasy, had not her mind been too fresh and strong for over-sense of responsibility. Each immediate duty in its turn was sufficient for her.
Maurice’s shadow-like pursuit of Gilbert often took him off her hands. It might sometimes be troublesome to the elder brother, and now and then rewarded with a petulant rebuff, but Maurice was only the more pertinacious, and on the whole his allegiance was requited with ardent affection and unbounded indulgence. Nay, once when Maurice and his pony, one or both, were swept on by the whole hunt, and obliged to follow the hounds, Gilbert in his anxiety took leaps that he shuddered to remember, while the urchin sat the first gallantly, and though he fell into the next ditch, scrambled up on the instant, and was borne by his spirited pony over two more, amid universal applause. Mr. Nugent himself rode home with the brothers to tell the story; papa and mamma were too much elated at his prowess to scold.
The eventful year 1854 had begun, and General Ferrars was summoned from Canada to a command in the East. On his arrival in England, he wrote to his brother and sister to meet him in London, and the aunts, delighted to gather their children once more round them, sent pressing invitations, only regretting that there was not room enough in the Family Office for the younger branches.
Mr. Ferrars’ first measure was to ride to Willow Lawn. Knocking at the door of his sister’s morning-room, he found Maurice with a pouting lip, back rounded, and legs twisted, standing upon his elbows, which were planted upon the table on either side of a calico spelling-book. Mr. Kendal stood up straight before the fire, looking distressed and perplexed, and Albinia sat by, a little worn, a little irritable, and with the expression of a wilful victim.
All greeted the new-comer warmly, and Maurice exclaimed, ‘Mamma, I may have a holiday now!’
‘Not till you have learnt your spelling.’ There was some sharpness in the tone, and Maurice’s shoulder-blades looked sulky.
‘In consideration of his uncle,’ began Mr. Kendal, but she put her hand on the boy, saying, ‘You know we agreed there were to be no holidays for a week, because we did not use the last properly.’
He moved off disconsolately, and his father said, ‘I hope you are come to arrange the journey to London. Is Winifred coming with you?’
‘No; a hurry and confusion, and the good aunts would be too much for her, you will be the only one for inspection.’
‘Yes, take him with you, Maurice,’ said Albinia, ‘he must see William.’
‘You must be the exhibitor, then,’ her brother replied.
‘Now, Maurice, I know what you are come for, but you ought to know better than to persuade me, when you know there are six good reasons against my going.’
‘I know of one worth all the six.’
‘Yes,’ said Mr. Kendal; ‘I have been telling her that she is convincing me that I did wrong in allowing her to burthen herself with this charge.’
‘That’s nothing to the purpose,’ said Albinia; ‘having undertaken it, when you all saw the necessity, I cannot forsake it now—’
‘If Mrs. Meadows were in the same condition as she was in two months ago, there might be a doubt,’ said Mr. Kendal; but she is less dependent on your attention, and Lucy and Gilbert are most anxious to devote themselves to her in your absence.’
‘I know they all wish to be kind, but if anything went wrong, I should never forgive myself!’
‘Not if you went out for pleasure alone,’ said her brother; ‘but relationship has demands.’
‘Of course,’ she said, petulantly, ‘if Edmund is resolved, I must go, but that does not convince me that it is right to leave everything to run riot here.’
Mr. Kendal looked serious, and Mr. Ferrars feared that the winter cares had so far told on her temper, that perplexity made her wilful in self-sacrifice. There was a pause, but just as she began to perceive she had said something wrong, the lesser Maurice burst out in exultation,
‘There, it is not indestructible!’
‘What mischief have you been about?’ The question was needless, for the table was strewn with snips of calico.
‘This nasty spelling-book! Lucy said it was called indestructible, because nobody could destroy it, but I’ve taken my new knife to it. And see there!’
‘And now can you make another?’ said his uncle.
‘I don’t want to.’
‘Nor one either, sir,’ said Mr. Kendal. ‘What shall we have to tell Uncle William about you! I’m afraid you are one of the chief causes of mamma not knowing how to go to London.’
Maurice did not appear on the way to penitence, but his mother said, ‘Bring me your knife.’
He hung down his head, and obeyed without a word. She closed it, and laid it on the mantel-shelf, which served as a sort of pound for properties in sequestration.
‘Now, then, go,’ she said, ‘you are too naughty for me to attend to you.’
‘But when will you, mamma?’ laying a hand on her dress.
‘I don’t know. Go away now.’
He slowly obeyed, and as the door shut, she said, ‘There!’ in a tone as if her view was established.
‘You must send him to Fairmead,’ said the uncle.
‘To “terrify” Winifred? No, no, I know better than that; Gilbert can look after him. I don’t so much care about that.’
The admission was eagerly hailed, and objection after objection removed, and having recovered her good humour, she was candid, and owned how much she wished to go. ‘I really want to make acquaintance with William. I’ve never seen him since I came to my senses, and have only taken him on trust from you.’
‘I wish equally that he should see you,’ said her brother. ‘It would be good for him, and I doubt whether he has any conception what you are like.’
‘I’d better stay at home, to leave you and Edmund to depict for his benefit a model impossible idol—the normal woman.’
Maurice looked at her, and shook his head.
‘No—it would be rather—it and its young one, eh?’
Maurice took both her hands. ‘I should not like to tell William what I shall believe if you do not come.’
‘Well, what—’
‘That Edmund is right, and you have been overtasked till you are careful and troubled about many things.’
‘Only too much bent on generous self-devotion,’ said Mr. Kendal, eagerly; ‘too unselfish to cast the balance of duties.’
‘Hush, Edmund,’ said Albinia. ‘I don’t deserve fine words. I honestly believe I want to do what is right, but I can’t be sure what it is, and I have made quite fuss enough, so you two shall decide, and then I shall be made right anyway. Only do it from your consciences.’
They looked at each other, taken aback by the sudden surrender. Mr. Ferrars waited, and her husband said, ‘She ought to see her brother. She needs the change, and there is no sufficient cause to detain her.’
‘She must be content sometimes to trust,’ said Mr. Ferrars.
‘Aye, and all that will go wrong, when my back is turned.’
‘Let it,’ said her brother. ‘The right which depends on a single human eye is not good for much. Let the weeds grow, or you can’t pull them up.’
‘Let the mice play, that the cat may catch them,’ said Albinia, striving to hide her care. ‘One good effect is, that Edmund has not begun to groan.’
Indeed, in his anxiety that she should consent to enjoy herself, he had not had time to shrink from the introduction.
Outside the door they found Maurice waiting, his spelling learnt from a fragment of the indestructible spelling-book, and the question followed, ‘Now, mamma, you wont say I’m too naughty for you to go to London and see Uncle William?’
‘No, my little boy, I mean to trust you, and tell Uncle William that my young soldier is learning the soldier’s first duty—obedience.’
‘And may I have my knife, mamma?’
Papa had settled that question by himself taking it off the chimney-piece and restoring it. If mamma wished the penance to have been longer, she neither looked it nor said it.
The young people received the decision with acclamation, and the two elder ones vied with one another in attempts to set her mind at rest by undertaking everything, and promising for themselves and the children perfect regularity and harmony. Sophy, with a bluntness that King Lear would have highly disapproved, said, ‘She was glad mamma was going, but she knew they should be all at sixes and sevens. She would do her best, and very bad it would be.’
‘Not if you don’t make up your mind beforehand that it must be bad,’ said her uncle.
Sophy smiled, she was much less impervious to cheerful auguries, and spoke with gladness of the pleasure it would give her friend Genevieve to see Mrs. Kendal.
Mr. Ferrars had a short interview with Ulick, and was amused by observing that little Maurice had learnt as much Irish as Ulick had dropped. After the passing fever about his O had subsided, he was parting with some of his ultra-nationality. The whirr of his R’s and his Irish idioms were far less perceptible, and though a word of attack on his country would put him on his mettle, and bring out the Kelt in full force, yet in his reasonable state, his good sense and love of order showed an evident development, and instead of contending that Galway was the most perfect county in the world, he only said it might yet be so.
‘Isn’t he a noble fellow?’ cried Albinia, warmly.
‘Yes,’ said her brother; ‘I doubt whether all the O’Mores put together have ever made such a conquest as he has.’
‘It was fun to see how the aunts were dismayed to find one of the horde in full force here. I believe it was as a measure of precaution that they took Lucy away. I was very glad for Lucy to go, but hers was not exactly the danger.’
‘Ha!’ said Maurice; and Albinia blushed. Whereupon he said interrogatively, ‘Hem?’ which made her laugh so consciously that he added, ‘Don’t you go and be romantic about either of your young ladies, or there will be a general burning of fingers.’
‘If you knew all our secrets, Maurice, you would think me a model of prudence and forbearance.’
‘Ho!’ was his next interjection, ‘so much the worse. For my own part, I don’t expect prudence will come to you naturally till the little Awk has a lover.’
‘Won’t it come any other way?’
‘Yes, in one way,’ he said, gravely.
‘And that way is not easily found by those who have neither humility nor patience,’ she said, sadly, ‘who rush on their own will.’
‘Nay, Albinia, it is being sought, I do believe; and remember the lines—
“Thine own mild energy bestow, And deepen while thou bidst it flow, More calm our stream of love.”’
Forced to resign herself to her holiday, Albinia did so with a good grace, in imitation of her brother, who assured her that he had brought a bottle of Lethe, and had therein drowned wife, children, and parish. Mr. Kendal’s spirits, as usual, rose higher every mile from Bayford, and they were a very lively party when they arrived in Mayfair.
The good aunts were delighted to have round them all those whom they called their children; all except Fred, whom the new arrangements had sent to rejoin his regiment in Ireland.
Sinewy, spare, and wiry, with keen gray eyes under straight brows, narrow temples, a sunburnt face, and alert, upright bearing and quick step, William Ferrars was every inch a soldier; but nothing so much struck Mr. and Mrs. Kendal as the likeness to their little Maurice, though it consisted more in air and gesture than in feature. His speech was brief and to the point, softened into delicately-polished courtesy towards womankind, in the condescension of strength to weakness—the quality he evidently thought their chief characteristic.
Albinia was amused as she watched him with grown-up eyes, and compared present with past impressions. She could now imagine that she had been an inconvenient charge to a young soldier brother, and that he had been glad to make her over to the aunts, only petting and indulging her as a child; looking down on her fancies, and smiling at her sauciness when she was an enthusiastic maiden—treatment which she had so much resented, that she had direfully offended Maurice by pronouncing William a mere martinet, when she was hurt at his neither reading the Curse of Kehama, nor entering into her plans for Fairmead school.
Having herself become a worker, she could better appreciate a man who had seen and acted instead of reading, recollected herself as an emanation of conceit, and felt shy and anxious, even more for her husband than for herself. How would the scholar and the soldier fare together? and could she and Maurice keep them from wearying of each other? She had little trust in her own fascinations, though she saw the General’s eye approvingly fixed on her, and believing herself to be a more pleasing object in her womanly bloom than in her unformed girlhood.
‘How does the Montreal affair go on?’ she asked.
‘What affair?’
‘Fred and Miss Kinnaird.’
‘I am sorry to say he has not put it out of his head.’
‘Surely she is a very nice person.’
‘Pshaw! He has no right to think of a wife these dozen years.’
‘Not even think? When he is not to have one at any rate till he is a field officer!’
‘And he is a fool to have one then. A mere encumbrance to himself and the entire corps.’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Albinia, ‘she always gets the best cabin.’
‘And that is no place for her! No man, as I have told Fred over and over again, ought to drag a woman into hardships for which she is not fitted, and where she interferes with his effectiveness and the comfort of every one else.’
The identical lecture of twelve years since, when he had feared Albinia’s becoming this inconvenient appendage! If he had repeated it on all like occasions, she did not wonder that it had wearied his aide-de-camp.
‘Perhaps,’ she said, ‘the backwoods may have fitted Miss Emily for the life; and I can’t but be glad of Fred’s having been steady to anything.’
Considering this speech like the Kehama days, the General went on to dilate on the damage that marriage was to the ‘service,’ removing the best officers, first from the mess, and then from the army.
‘What a pity William was born too late to be a Knight of St. John!’ said Albinia.
All laughed, but she doubted whether he were pleased, for he addressed himself to one of the aunts, while Maurice spoke to her in an under tone—‘I believe he is quite right. Homes are better for the individual man, but not for the service. How remarkably the analogy holds with this other service!’
‘You mean what St. Paul says of the married and unmarried?’
‘I always think he and his sayings are the most living lessons I know on the requirements of the other army.’
Albinia mused on the insensible change in Maurice. He had not embraced his profession entirely by choice. It had always been understood that one of the younger branches must take the family living; and as Fred had spurned study, he had been bred up to consider it as his fate, and if he had ever had other wishes, he had entirely accepted his destiny, and sincerely turned to his vocation. The knowledge that he must be a clergyman had ruled him and formed him from his youth, and acting through him on his sister, had rendered her more than the accomplished, prosperous young lady her aunts meant to have made her. Yet, even up to a year or two after his Ordination, there had been a sense of sacrifice; he loved sporting, and even balls, and it had been an effort to renounce them. He had avoided coming to London because his keen enjoyment of society tended to make him discontented with his narrow sphere; she had even known him to hesitate to ride with the staff at a review, lest he should make himself liable to repinings. And now how entirely had all this passed away, not merely by outgrowing the enterprising temper and boyish habits, nor by contentment in a happy home, but by the sufficiency and rest of his service, the engrossment in the charge from his great Captain. Without being himself aware of it, he had ceased to distrust a holiday, because it was no longer a temptation; and his animation and mirth were the more free, because self-regulation was so thoroughly established, that restraint was no longer felt.
Mrs. Annesley was talking of the little Kendals, who she had ruled should be at Fairmead.
‘No,’ said Maurice, ‘Albinia thought her son too mighty for Winifred. Our laudable efforts at cousinly friendship usually produce war-whoops that bring the two mammas each to snatch her own offspring from the fray, with a scolding for the sake of appearances though believing the other the only guilty party.’
‘Now, Maurice,’ cried Albinia, ‘you confess how fond Mary is of setting people to rights.’
‘Well—when Maurice bullies Alby.’
‘Aye, you talk of the mammas, and you only want to make out poor Maurice the aggressor.’
‘Never mind, they will work in better than if they were fabulous children. Ah, you are going to contend that yours is a fabulous child. Take care I don’t come on you with the indestructible—’
‘Take care I don’t come on you with Mary’s lessons to Colonel Bury on the game-law.’
‘Does it not do one good to see those two quarrelling just like old times?’ exclaimed one aunt to the other.
‘And William looking on as contemptuous as ever?’ said Albinia.
‘Not at all. I rejoice to have this week with you. I should like to see your boy. Maurice says he is a thorough young soldier.’
Mr. Kendal looked pleased.
The man of study had a penchant for the man of action, and the brothers-in-law were drawing together. Mars, the great geographical master, was but opening his gloomy school on the Turkish soil, and the world was discovering its ignorance beyond the Pinnock’s Catechisms of its youth. Maurice treated Mr. Kendal as a dictionary, and his stores of Byzantine, Othman, and Austrian lore, chimed in with the perceptions of the General, who, going by military maps, described plans of operations which Mr. Kendal could hardly believe he had not found in history, while he could as little credit that Mr. Kendal had neither studied tactics, nor seen the spots of which he could tell such serviceable minutiae.
They had their heads together over the map the whole evening, and the next morning, when the General began to ask questions about Turkish, his sister was proud to hear her husband answering with the directness and precision dear to a military man.
‘That’s an uncommonly learned man, Albinia’s husband,’ began the General, as soon as he had started with his brother on a round of errands.
‘I never met a man of more profound and universal knowledge.’
‘I don’t see that he is so grave and unlike other people. Fred reported that he was silence itself, and she might as well have married Hamlet’s ghost.’
‘Fred saw him at a party,’ said Maurice; then remembering that this might not be explanatory, he added, ‘He shines most when at ease, and every year since his marriage has improved and enlivened him.’
‘I am satisfied. I hardly knew how to judge, though I did not think myself called upon to remonstrate against the marriage, as the aunts wished. I knew I might depend on you, and I thought it high time that she should be settled.’
‘I have been constantly admiring her discernment, for I own that at first his reserve stood very much in my way, but since she has raised his spirits, and taught him to exert himself, he has been a most valuable brother to me.
‘Then you think her happy? I was surprised to see her such a fine-looking woman; my aunts had croaked so much about his children and his mother, that I thought she would be worn to a shadow.’
‘Very happy. She has casual troubles, and a great deal of work, but that is what she is made for.’
‘How does she get on with his children?’
‘Hearty love for them has carried her through the first difficulties, which appalled me, for they had been greatly mismanaged. I am afraid that she has not been able to undo some of the past evil; and with all her good intentions, I am sometimes afraid whether she is old enough to deal with grown-up young people.’
‘You don’t mean that Kendal’s children are grown up? I should think him younger than I am.’
‘He is so, but civil servants marry early, and not always wisely; and the son is about twenty. Poor Albinia dotes on him, and has done more for him than ever his father did; but the lad is weak and tender every way, with no stamina, moral or physical, and with just enough property to do him harm. He has been at Oxford and has failed, and now he is in the militia, but what can be expected of a boy in a country town, with nothing to do? I did not like his looks last week, and I don’t think his being there, always idle, is good for that little manly scamp of Albinia’s own.’
‘Why don’t they put him into the service?’
‘He is too old.’
‘Not too old for the cavalry!’
‘He can ride, certainly, and is a tall, good-looking fellow; but I should not have thought him the stuff to make a dragoon. He has always been puling and delicate, unfit for school, wanting force.’
‘Wanting discipline,’ said the General. ‘I have seen a year in a good regiment make an excellent officer of that very stamp of youngster, just wanting a mould to give him substance.’
‘The regiment should be a very good one,’ said Mr. Ferrars; ‘he would be only too easily drawn in by the bad style of subaltern.’
‘Put him into the 25th Lancers,’ said the General, ‘and set Fred to look after him. Rattlepate as he is, he can take excellent care of a lad to whom he takes a fancy, and if Albinia asked him, he would do it with all his heart.’
‘I wish you would propose it, though I am afraid his father will never consent. I would do a great deal to get him away before he has led little Maurice into harm.’
‘This consideration moved the Rector of Fairmead himself to broach the subject, but neither Mr. Kendal nor Albinia could think of venturing their fragile son in the army, though assured that there was little chance that the 25th Lancers would be summoned to the east, and they would only hold out hopes of little Maurice by and by.
Albinia’s martial ardour was revived as she listened with greater grasp of comprehension to subjects familiar in her girlhood. She again met old friends of her father, the lingering glories of the Peninsula and Waterloo, who liked her for her own sake as well as for her father’s, while Maurice looked on, amused by her husband’s silent pride in her, and her hourly progress in the regard of the General, who began to talk of making a long visit to Fairmead, after what he expected would be a slight demonstration on the Danube. He even began to regret the briefness of the time that he could spend in their society.
Much was crowded into that week, but Albinia contrived to find an hour for a call on her little French friend, to whom she had already forwarded the parcels she had brought from home—a great barm-brack from Biddy, and a store of delicate convent confections from Hadminster.
She was set down at a sober old house in the lawyers’ quarter of the world, and conducted to a pretty, though rather littered drawing-room, where she found a delicate-looking young mamma, and various small children.
‘I’m so glad,’ said little Mrs. Rainsforth, ‘that you have been able to come; it will be such a pleasure to dear Miss Durant; and while one of the children was sent to summon the governess, the lady continued, nervously but warmly, ‘I hope you will think Miss Durant looking well; I am afraid she shuts herself up too much. I’m sure she is the greatest comfort, the greatest blessing to us.’
Albinia’s reply was prevented by a rush of children, followed by the dear little trim, slight figure. There was no fear that Genevieve did not look well or happy. Her olive complexion was healthy; her dark eyes lustrous with gladness; her smile frank and unquelled; her movements full of elastic life.
She led the way to the back parlour, dingy by nature, but bearing living evidence to the charm which she infused into any room. Scratched table, desks, copybooks, and worn grammars, had more the air of a comfortable occupation than of the shabby haunt of irksome taskwork. There were flowers in the window, and the children’s treasures were arranged with taste. Genevieve loved her school-room, and showed off its little advantages with pretty exultation. If Mrs. Kendal could only see how well it looked with the curtains down, after tea!
And then came the long, long talk over home affairs, and the history of half the population of Bayford, Genevieve making inquiries, and drinking in the answers as if she could not make enough of her enjoyment.
Not till all the rest had been discussed, did she say, with dropped eyelids, and a little blush, ‘Is Mr. Gilbert Kendal quite strong?’
‘Thank you, he has been much better this winter, and so useful and kind in nursing grandmamma!’
‘Yes, he was always kind.’
‘He was going to beg me to remember him to you, but he broke off, and said you would not care.’
‘I care for all goodness towards me,’ answered Genevieve, lifting her eyes with a flash of inquiry.
‘I am afraid he is as bad as ever, poor fellow,’ said Albinia, with a little smile and sigh; ‘but he has behaved very well. I must tell you that you were in the same train with him on his journey from Oxford, and he was ashamed to meet your eye.’
‘Ah, I remember well. I thought I saw him. I was bringing George and Fanny from a visit to their aunts, and I was sure it must be Mr. Gilbert.’
‘As prudent as ever, Genevieve.’
‘It would not have been right,’ she said, blushing; ‘but it was such a treat to see a Bayford face, that I had nearly sprung out of the waiting-room to speak to him at the first impulse.’
‘My poor little exile!’ said Albinia.
‘No, that is not my name. Call me my aunt’s bread-winner. That’s my pride! I mean my cause of thankfulness. I could not have earned half so much at home.’
‘I hope indeed you have a home here.’
‘That I have,’ she fervently answered. ‘Oh, without being a homeless orphan, one does not learn what kind hearts there are. Mr. and Mrs. Rainsforth seemed only to fear that they should not be good enough to me.’
‘Do you mean that you found it a little oppressive?’
‘Fi donc, Madame! Yet I must own that with her timid uneasy way, and his so perfect courtesy, they did alarm me a little at first. I pitied them, for I saw them so resolved not to let me feel myself de trop, that I knew I was in their way.’
‘Did not that vex you?’
‘Why, I suppose they set their inconvenience against the needs of their children, and my concern was to do my duty, and be as little troublesome as possible. They pressed me to spend my evenings with them, but I thought that would be too hard on them, so I told them I preferred the last hours alone, and I do not come in unless there are others to prevent their being tete-a-tete.’
‘Very wise. And do you not find it lonely?’
‘It is my time for reading—my time for letters—my time for being at home!’ cried Genevieve. ‘Now however that I hope I am no longer a weight on them, Mrs. Rainsforth will sometimes ask me to come and sing to him, or read aloud, when he comes home so tired that he cannot speak, and her voice is weak. Alas! they are both so fragile, so delicate.’
Her soul was evidently with them and with her charges, of whom there was so much to say, that the carriage came all too soon to hurry Albinia away from the sight of that buoyant sweetness and capacity of happiness.
She was rather startled by Miss Ferrars saying, ‘By-the-by, Albinia, how was it that you never told us of the development of the Infant prodigy?
‘I don’t know what you mean, Aunt Gertrude.’
‘Don’t you remember that boy, that Mrs. Dusautoy Cavendish’s son, whom that poor little companion of hers used to call l’Enfant prodigue. I did not know he was a neighbour of yours, as I find from Lucy.’
‘What did Lucy tell you about him? She did not meet him!’ cried Albinia, endeavouring not to betray her alarm. ‘I mean, did she meet him?’
‘Indeed,’ said Miss Ferrars, ‘you should have warned us if you had any objection, my dear.’
‘Well, but what did happen?’
‘Oh, nothing alarming, I assure you. They met at a ball at Brighton; Lucy introduced him, and said he was your vicar’s nephew; they danced together. I think only once.’
‘I wish you had mentioned it. When did it happen?’
‘I can hardly tell. I think she had been about a fortnight with us, but she seemed so indifferent that I should never have thought it worth mentioning. I remember my sister thought of asking him to a little evening party of ours, and Lucy dissuading her. Now, really, Albinia, don’t look as if we had been betraying our trust. You never gave us any reason to think—’
‘No, no. I beg your pardon, dear aunt. I hope there’s no harm done. If I could have thought of his turning up, I would—But I hope it is all right.’
Such good accounts came from both homes, and the General was so unwilling to part with his brother and sister, that he persuaded them to accompany him to Southampton for embarkation. They all felt that these last days, precious now, might be doubly precious by-and-by, and alone with them and free from the kindly scrutiny of the good aunts, William expanded and evinced more warm fraternal feeling than he had ever manifested. He surprised his sister by thanking her warmly for having come to meet him. ‘I am glad to have been with you, Albinia; I am glad to have seen your husband. I have told Maurice that I am heartily rejoiced to see you in such excellent hands.’
‘You must come and see the children, and know him better.’
‘I hope so, when this affair is over, and I expect it will be soon settled. Anyway, I am glad we have been together. If we meet again, we will try to see more of one another.’
He had said much more to his brother, expressing regret that he had been so much separated from his sister. Thorough soldier as he was, and ardent for active service, the sight of her and her husband had renewed gentler thoughts, and he was so far growing old that the idea of home and rest came invitingly before him. He was softened at the parting, and when he wrung their hands for the last time on the deck of the steamer, they were glad that his last words were, ‘God bless you.’
There had been some uncertainty as to the time of his sailing, and Fairmead and Bayford had been told that unless their travellers arrived by the last reasonable train on Friday, they were not to be expected till the same time on Saturday, Maurice having concocted a scheme for crossing by several junction lines, so as to save waiting; but they had not reckoned on the discourtesies of two rival companies whose lines met at the same station, and the southern train was only in time to hear the parting snort of the engine that it professed to catch.
The Ferrars’ nature, above all when sore with farewells, was not made to submit to having time wasted by treacherous trains on a cold wintry day, and at a small new station, with an apology for a waiting-room, no bookstall, and nothing to eat but greasy gingerbread and hard apples.
Maurice relieved his feelings by heartily rowing all the officials, but he could obtain no redress, as he knew full well the whole time, nor would any train pick them up for full three hours.
So indignant was he, that amusement rendered Albinia patient, especially when he took to striding up and down the platform, devising cases in which the delay might be actionable, and vituperating the placability of Mr. Kendal, who having wrapt up his wife in plaids and seated her on the top of the luggage, had set his back to the wall, and was lost to the present world in a book.
‘Never mind, Maurice,’ said Albinia; ‘in any other circumstances we should think three hours of each other a great boon.’
‘If anything could be an aggravation, it would be to see Albinia philosophical.’
‘You make me so on the principle of the Helots and Spartans.’
It was possible to get to Hadminster by half-past seven, and on to Bayford by nine o’clock, but Fairmead lay further from the line, and the next train did not stop at the nearest station, so Maurice agreed to sleep at Bayford that night; and this settled, set out with his sister to explore the neighbourhood for eatables and church architecture. They made an ineffectual attempt to rouse Mr. Kendal to go with them, but he was far too deep in his book, and only muttered something about looking after the luggage. They found a stale loaf of bread, and a hideous church, but it was a merry walk, and brought them back in their liveliest mood, which lasted even to pronouncing it ‘great fun’ that the Hadminster flies were all at a ball, and that the omnibus must convey them home by the full moonlight.
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