Exulting peals rang out from the Bayford tower, and as Mr. and Mrs. Cavendish Dusautoy alighted from their carriage at Willow Lawn, the cry of the vicar and of the assembled household was, ‘Have you heard that Sebastopol is taken?’
‘Any news of Gilbert?’ was Lucy’s demand.
‘No, the cavalry were not landed, so he had nothing to do with it.’
‘I say, uncle,’ said Algernon, ‘shall I send up a sovereign to those ringers?’
‘Eh! poor fellows, they will be very glad of it, thank you; only I must take care they don’t drink it up. I’m sure they must be tired enough; they’ve been at it ever since the telegraph came in!’
‘There!’ exclaimed Algernon; ‘Barton must have telegraphed from the station when we set out!’
‘You? Did you think the bells were ringing for you,’ exclaimed his uncle, ‘when there’s a great battle won, and Sebastopol taken?’
‘Telegraphs are always lies!’ quoth Mr. Cavendish Dusautoy, tersely, ‘I don’t believe anything has happened at all!’ and he re-pocketed the sovereign.
Meantime Lucy was in a rapture of embracing. She was spread out with stiff silk flounces and velvet mantle, so as to emulate her husband’s importance, and her chains and bracelets clattered so much, that Mr. Kendal could not help saying, ‘You should have taken lessons of your Ayah, to learn how to manage your bangles.’
‘Oh! papa,’ said she, with a newly-learnt little laugh, ‘I could not help it; Louise could not find room for them in my dressing-case.’
They were not, however, lost upon the whole of the family. Grandmamma’s dim eyes lighted when she recognised her favourite grand-daughter in such gorgeous array, and that any one should have come back again was so new and delightful, that it constantly recurred as a fresh surprise and pleasure.
All were glad to have her again—their own Lucy, as she still was, though somewhat of the grandiose style and self-consequence of her husband had overlaid the original nature. She was as good-natured and obliging as ever, and though beginning by conferring her favours as condescensions, she soon would forget that she was the great Mrs. Cavendish Dusautoy, and quickly become the eager, helpful Lucy. She was in very good looks, and bright and happy, admiring Algernon, rejoicing to obey his behests, and enhancing his dignity and her own by her discourses upon his talents and importance. How far she was at ease with him, Albinia sometimes doubted; there now and then was an air of greater freedom when he left the room, and some of her favourite old household avocations were tenderly resumed by stealth, as though she feared he might think them unworthy of his wife.
She gave her spare time to the invalid, who was revived by her presence as by a sunbeam; and Albinia, in her relief and gratitude, did her utmost to keep Algernon happy and contented. She resigned a room to him as an atelier, and let the little Awk be captured to have her likeness taken, she promoted the guitar and key-bugle, and abstained from resenting his strictures on her dinners.
Such a guest reduced Mr. Kendal to absolute silence, but she did not think he suffered much therefrom, and he was often relieved, for all the neighbourhood asked the young couple to dinner. Mrs. Cavendish Dusautoy’s toilette was as good as a play to the oldest and youngest inhabitants of the house, her little sister used to stand by the dressing-table with her small fingers straightened to sustain a column of rings threaded on them, and her arm weighed down with bracelets, and grandmamma’s happiest moments were when she was raised up to contemplate the costly robes, jewelled neck, and garlanded head of her darling.
When it turned out that Sebastopol was anything but taken, Mr. Cavendish Dusautoy’s incredulity was a precious confirmation of his esteem for his own sagacity, more especially as Ulick O’More and Maurice had worn out the little brass piece of ordnance in firing feux de joie.
‘But,’ said Maurice, ‘papa always said it was not true. Now you only said so when you found the bells were ringing for that, and not for you.’
Maurice’s observations were not always convenient. Algernon, with much pomp, had caused a horse to be led to the door, for which he had lately paid eighty guineas, and he was expatiating on its merits, when Maurice broke out, ‘That’s Macheath, the horse that Archie Tritton bought of Mr. Nugent’s coachman for twenty pounds.’
‘Hush, Maurice!’ said his father, ‘you know nothing of it; and Mr. Cavendish Dusautoy pursued, ‘It was bred at Lord Lewthorp’s, and sold because it was too tall for its companion. Laing was on the point of sending it to Tattersalls, where he was secure of a hundred, but he was willing to oblige me, as we had had transactions before.’
‘Papa!’ cried Maurice, ‘I know it is Macheath, for Mr. Tritton showed him to Gilbert and me, when he had just got him, and said he was a showy beast, but incurably lame, so he should get what he could for him from Laing. Now, James, isn’t it?’ he called to the servant who was sedulously turning away a grinning face, but just muttered, ‘Same, sir.’
Mr. Kendal charitably looked the other way, and Algernon muttered some species of imprecation.
Thenceforth Maurice took every occasion of inquiring what had become of Macheath, whether Laing had refunded the price, and what had been done to him for telling stories.
If the boy began in innocence, he went on in mischief; he was just old enough to be a most aggravating compound of simplicity and malice. He was fully aware that Mr. Cavendish Dusautoy was held cheap by his own favourites, and had been partly the cause of his dear Gilbert’s troubles, and his sharp wits and daring nature were excited to the utmost by the solemn irritation that he produced. Not only was it irresistibly droll to tease one so destitute of fun, but he had the strongest desire to see how angry it was possible to make the big brother-in-law, of whom every one seemed in awe.
First, he had recourse to the old term Polysyllable, and when Lucy remonstrated, he answered, ‘I’ve a right to call my brother what I please.’
‘You know how angry mamma would be to hear you.’
‘Mamma calls him the Polysyllable herself,’ said Maurice, looking full at his victim.
Lucy, who would have given the world to hinder this epithet from coming to her husband’s knowledge, began explaining something about Gilbert’s nonsense before he knew him, and how it had been long disused.
‘That’s not true, Lucy,’ quoth the tormentor. ‘I heard mamma tell Sophy herself this morning to write for some fish-sauce, because she said that Polysyllable was so fanciful about his dinner.’
Lucy was ready to cry, and Algernon, endeavouring to recal his usual dignity, exclaimed, ‘If Mrs. Kendal—I mean, Mrs. Kendal has it in her power to take liberties, but if I find you repeating such again, you little imp, it shall be at your risk.’
‘What will you do to me?’ asked the sturdy varlet.
‘Dear Maurice, I hope you’ll never know! Pray don’t try!’ cried Lucy; but if she had had any knowledge of character, she would have seen that she had only provoked the little Berserkar’s curiosity, and had made him determined on proving the undefined threat. So the unfortunate Algernon seldom descended the stairs without two childish faces being protruded from the balusters of the nursery-flight over-head, pursuing him with hissing whispers of ‘Polysyllable’ and ‘Polly-silly,’ and if he ventured on indignant gestures, Maurice returned them with nutcracker grimaces and provoking assurances to his little sister that he could not hurt her.
Algernon could not complain without making himself ridiculous, and Albinia was too much engaged to keep watch over her son, so that the persecution daily became more intolerable, and barren indications of wrath were so diverting to the little monkey, that the presence of the heads of the family was the sole security from his tricks. Poor Lucy was the chief sufferer, unable to restrain her brother, and enduring the brunt of her husband’s irritation, with the great disappointment of being unable to make him happy at her home, and fearing every day that he would fulfil his threat of not staying another week in the house with that intolerable child, for the sake of any one’s grandmother.
Tidings came, however, that completely sobered Maurice, and made them unable to think of moving. It was the first rumour of the charge of Balaklava, with the report that the 25th Lancers were cut to pieces. In spite of Algernon’s reiteration that telegraphs were lies, all the household would have been glad to lose the sense of existence during the time of suspense. Albinia’s heart was wrung as she thought of the cold hurried manner of the last farewell, and every look she cast at her husband’s calm melancholy face, seemed to be asking pardon that his son was not safe in India.
Late that evening the maid came hurriedly in with a packet of papers. ‘A telegraph, ma’am, come express from Hadminster.’
It was to Mrs Kendal from one of her friends at the Horse Guards. She did not know how she found courage to turn her eyes on it, but her shriek was not of sorrow.
‘Major the Honourable F. Ferrars, severely wounded—right arm amputated.’
‘Lieutenant Gilbert Kendal, slightly wounded—contusion, rib broken.’
She saw the light of thankfulness break upon Mr. Kendal’s face, and the next moment flew up to her boy’s bed-side. He started up, half asleep, but crying out, Mamma, where’s Gibbie?’
‘Safe, safe! Maurice dearest, safe; only slightly wounded! Oh, Maurice, God has been very good to us!’
He flung his arms round her neck, as she knelt beside his crib in the dark, and thus Mr. Kendal found the mother and son. As he bent to kiss them, Maurice exclaimed, with a sort of anger, ‘Oh, mamma, why have I got a bullet in my throat?’
Albinia laughed a little hysterically, as if she had the like bullet.
‘It was very kind of Lord H——,’ fervently exclaimed Mr. Kendal; ‘you must write to thank him, Albinia. Gilbert may be considered safe while he is laid up. Perhaps he may be sent home. What should you say to that, Maurice?’
‘Oh! I wouldn’t come home to lose the fun,’ said Maurice. ‘Oh, mamma, let me get up to tell Awkey, and run up to Ulick! Gilbert will be the colonel when I’m a cornet! Oh! I must get up!’
His outspoken childish joy seemed to relieve Albinia’s swelling heart, too full for the expression of thankfulness, and the excitement was too much even for the boy, for he burst into passionate sobs when forbidden to get up and waken his little sister.
The sobering came in Mr. Kendal’s mention of Fred. Albinia was obliged to ask what had happened to him, and was shocked at having overlooked so terrible a misfortune; but Maurice seemed to be quite satisfied. ‘You know, mamma, it said they were cut to pieces. Can’t they make him a wooden arm?’ evidently thinking he could be repaired as easily as the creatures in his sister’s Noah’s Ark. Even Algernon showed a heartiness and fellow-feeling that seemed to make him more like one of the family. Moreover, he was so much elevated at the receipt of a telegraph direct from the fountain-head, that he rode about the next day over all the neighbourhood with the tidings and comported himself as though he had private access to all Lord Raglan’s secrets.
The unwonted emotion tamed Maurice for several days, and his behaviour was the better for his daily rides with papa to Hadminster, to forestall the second post. At last, on his return, his voice rang through the house. ‘Mamma, where are you? The letter is come, and Gilbert shot two Russians, and saved Cousin Fred!’
‘I opened your letter, Albinia,’ said Mr. Kendal; and, as she took it from him, he said, ‘Thank God, I never dared hope for such a day as this!’
He shut himself into the library, while Albinia was sharing with Sophy the precious letter, but with a moment’s disappointment at finding it not from Gilbert, but from her brother William.
‘Before you receive this,’ he wrote, ‘you will have heard of the affair of to-day, and that our two lads have come out of it better than some others. There are but nine officers living, and only four unhurt out of the 25th Lancers, and Fred’s escape is entirely owing to your son.’
Then followed a brief narrative of the events of Balaklava, that fatal charge so well described as ‘magnifique mais pas la guerre,’ a history that seemed like a dream in connexion with the timid Gilbert. His individual story was thus:—He safely rode the ‘half a league’ forward, but when more than half way back, his horse was struck to the ground by a splinter of the same shell that overthrew Major Ferrars, at a few paces’ distance from him. Quickly disengaging himself from his horse, Gilbert ran to assist his friend, and succeeded in extricating him from his horse, and supporting him through the remainder of the terrible space commanded by the batteries. Fred, unable to move without aid, and to whom each step was agony, had entreated Gilbert to relinquish his hold, and not peril himself for a life already past rescue; but Gilbert had not seemed to hear, and when several of the enemy came riding down on them, he had used his revolver with such effect, as to lay two of the number prostrate, and deter the rest from repeating the attack.
‘All this I heard from Fred,’ continued the General; ‘he is in his usual spirits, and tells me that he feels quite jolly since his arm has been off, and he has been in his own bed, but I fear he has a good deal to suffer, for his right side is terribly lacerated, and I shall be glad when the next few days are over. He desires me to say with his love that the best turn you ever did him was putting young Kendal into the 25th. Tell your husband that I congratulate him on his son’s conduct, and am afraid that his promotion without purchase is only too certain. Gilbert’s only message was his love. Speaking seems to give him pain, and he is altogether more prostrated than so slight a wound accounts for; but when I saw him, he had just been told of the death of his colonel and several of his brother officers, among them young Wynne, who shared his tent; and he was completely overcome. There is, however, no cause for uneasiness; he had not even been aware that he was hurt, until he fainted while Fred was under the surgeon’s hands, and was then found to have an ugly contusion of the chest, and a fracture of the uppermost rib on the left side. A few days’ rest will set all that to rights, and I expect to see him on horseback before we can ship poor Fred for Scutari. In the meantime they are both in Fred’s tent, which is fairly comfortable.’
Albinia understood whence came Gilbert’s heroism. He had charged at first, as he had hunted with Maurice, because there was no doing otherwise, and in the critical moment the warm heart had done the rest, and equalled constitutional courage: but then, she saw the gentle tender spirit sinking under the slight injury, and far more at the suffering of his friend, the deadly havoc among his comrades, and his own share in the carnage. The General coolly mentioned the two enemies who had fallen by his pistol, and Maurice shouted about them as if they had been two rabbits, but she knew enough of Gilbert to be sure that what he might do in the exigency of self-defence, would shock and sicken him in recollection. Poor Fred! how little would she once have believed that his frightful wound could be a secondary matter with her, only enhancing her gratitude on account of another.
That was a happy evening; Maurice was sent to ask Ulick to dinner, and at dessert drank the healths of his soldier relatives, among whom Mr. Kendal with a smile at Ulick, included Bryan O’More.
In the universal good-will of her triumph, Albinia having read her precious letter to every one, resolved to let the Drurys hear it, before forwarding it to Fairmead. Lucy’s neglect of that family was becoming flagrant, and Albinia was resolved to take her to make the call. Therefore, after promulgating her intentions too decidedly for Algernon to oppose them, she set out with Lucy in the most virtuous state of mind. Maurice was to ride out with his father, and Sophy was taking care of grandmamma, so she made her expedition with an easy mind, and absolutely enjoyed the change of scenery.
The war had drawn every one nearer together, and Mrs. Drury was really anxious about Gilbert, and grateful for the intelligence. Nor did Lucy meet with anything unpleasant. Mrs. Cavendish Dusautoy, in waist-deep flounces, a Paris bonnet, and her husband’s dignity, impressed her cousins, and whatever use they might make of their tongues, it was not till after she was gone.
As the carriage stopped at the door, Sophy came out with such a perturbed an expression, as seemed to prelude fatal tidings; and Lucy was pausing to listen, when she was hastily summoned by her husband.
‘Oh! mamma, he has struck Maurice such a blow!’ cried Sophy.
‘Algernon? where’s Maurice? is he hurt?’
‘He is in the library with papa.’
She was there in a moment. Maurice sat on his father’s knee, listening to Pope’s Homer, leaning against him, with eye, cheek, and nose exceedingly swelled and reddened; but these were symptoms of which she had seen enough in past days not to be greatly terrified, even while she exclaimed aghast.
‘Aye!’ said Mr. Kendal, sternly. ‘What do you think of young Dusautoy’s handiwork?’
‘What could you have done to him, Maurice?’
‘I painted his image.’
‘The children got into the painting-room,’ said Mr. Kendal, ‘and did some mischief; Maurice ought to have known better, but that was no excuse for his violence. I do not know what would have been the consequence, if poor little Albinia’s screams had not alarmed me. I found Algernon striking him with his doubled fist.’
‘But I gave him a dig in the nose,’ cried Maurice, in exultation; ‘I pulled ever so much hair out of his whiskers. I had it just now.’
‘This sounds very sad,’ said Albinia, interrupting the search for the trophy. ‘What were you doing in the painting-room? You know you had no business there.’
‘Why, mamma, little Awk wanted me to look at the pictures that Lucy shows her. And then, don’t you know his image? the little white bare boy pulling the thorn out of his foot. Awkey said he was naughty not to have his clothes on, and so I thought it would be such fun to make a militiaman of him, and so the paints were all about, and so I gave him a red coat and black trousers.’
‘Oh, Maurice, Maurice, how could you?’
‘I couldn’t help it, mamma! I did so want to see what Algernon would do!’
‘Well.’
‘So he came up and caught us. And wasn’t he in a jolly good rage? that’s all. He stamped, and called me names, and got hold of me to shake me, but I know I kicked him well, and I had quite a handful out of his whisker; but you see poor little Awkey is only a girl, and couldn’t help squalling, so papa came up.’
‘And in time!’ said Mr. Kendal; ‘he reeled against me, almost stunned, and was hardly himself for some moments. His nose bled violently. That fellow’s fist might knock down an ox.’
‘But he didn’t knock me down,’ said Maurice. ‘You told me he did not, papa.’
‘That’s all he thinks of!’ said Mr. Kendal, in admiration.
‘Not a cry nor a tear from first to last. I told Sophy to let me know when Bowles came.’
‘For a black eye?’ cried the hard-hearted mother, laughing. ‘You should have seen what Maurice and Fred used to do to each other.’
‘Oh, tell me, mamma,’ cried Maurice, eagerly.
‘Not now, master,’ she said, not thinking his pugnacity in need of such respectable examples. ‘It would be more to the purpose to ask Mr. Cavendish Dusautoy’s pardon for such very bad behaviour.’
Mr. Kendal looked at her in indignant surprise. ‘Ours is not the side for the apology,’ he said. ‘If Dusautoy has a spark of proper feeling, he must excuse himself for such a brutal assault.’
‘I am afraid Maurice provoked it; I hope my little boy is sorry for having been so mischievous, and sees that he deserves—’
Mr. Kendal silenced her by an impatient gesture, and feeling that anything was better than the discussion before the boy, she tried to speak indifferently, and not succeeding, left the room, much annoyed that alarm and indignation had led the indulgent father to pet and coax the spirit that only wanted to be taken down, and as if her discipline had received its first real shock.
Mr. Kendal followed her upstairs, no less vexed. ‘Albinia, this is absurd,’ he said. ‘I will not have the child punished, or made to ask pardon for being shamefully struck.’
‘It was shameful enough,’ said Albinia; ‘but, after all, I can’t wonder that Algernon was in a passion; Maurice did behave very ill, and it would be much better for him if you would not make him more impudent than he is already.’
‘I did not expect you to take part against your own child, when he has been so severely maltreated,’ said he, with such unreasonable displeasure, that almost thinking it play, she laughed and said, ‘You are as bad as the mothers of the school-children, when they wont have them beaten.’
He gave a look as if loth to trust his ears, walked into his room, and shut the door. The thrill of horror came over her that this was the first quarrel. She had been saucy when he was serious, and had offended him. She sprang to the door, knocked and called, and was in agony at the moment’s delay ere he returned, with his face still stern and set. Pleading and earnest she raised her eyes, and surrendered unconditionally. ‘Dear Edmund, don’t be vexed with me, I should not have said it.’
‘Never mind,’ he said, affectionately; ‘I do not wish to interfere with your authority, but it would be impossible to punish a child who has suffered so severely; and I neither choose that Dusautoy should be made to think himself the injured party, nor that Maurice should be put to the pain of apologizing for an offence, which the other party has taken on himself to cancel with interest.’
Albinia was too much demolished to recollect her two arguments, that pride on their side would only serve to make Algernon prouder, and that she did not believe that asking pardon would be so bitter a pill to Maurice as his father supposed. She could only feel thankful to have been forgiven for her own offence.
When they met at dinner, all were formal, Algernon stiff and haughty, ashamed, but too grand to betray himself, and Lucy restless and uneasy, her eyes looking as if she had been crying. When Maurice came in at dessert, the fourth part of his countenance emulating the unlucky cast in gorgeous hues of crimson and violet, Algernon was startled, and turning to Albinia, muttered something about ‘never having intended,’ and ‘having had no idea.’
He might have said more, if Mr. Kendal, with Maurice on his knee, had not looked as if he expected it; and that look sealed Albinia’s lips against expressing regret for the provocation; but Maurice exclaimed, ‘Never mind, Algernon, it was all fair, and it doesn’t hurt now. I wouldn’t have touched your image, but that I wanted to know what you would do to me. Shake hands; people always do when they’ve had a good mill.’
Mr. Kendal looked across the table to his wife in a state of unbounded exultation in his generous boy, and Albinia felt infinitely relieved and grateful. Mr. Cavendish Dusautoy took the firm young paw, and said with an attempt at condescension, ‘Very well, Maurice, the subject shall be mentioned no more, since you have received a severer lesson than I intended, and appear sensible of your error.’
‘It wasn’t you that made me so,’ began Maurice, with defiant eye; but with a strong sense of ‘let well alone,’ his father cut him short with, ‘That’s enough, my man, you’ve said all that can be wished,’ lifted him again on his knee, and stopped his mouth with almonds and raisins.
The subject was mentioned no more; Lucy considered peace as proclaimed, and herself relieved from the necessity of such an unprecedented deed as preferring an accusation against Maurice, and Albinia, unaware of the previous persecution, did not trace that Maurice considered himself as challenged to prove, that experience of his brother-in-law’s fist did not suffice to make him cease from his ‘fun.’
Two days after, Algernon was coming in from riding, when a simple voice upon the stairs observed, ‘Here’s such a pretty picture!’
‘Eh! what?’ said Algernon; and Maurice held it near to him as he stood taking off his great coat.
‘Such a pretty picture, but you mustn’t have it! No, it is Ulick’s.’
‘Heavens and earth!’ thundered Algernon, as he gathered up the meaning. ‘Who has dared—? Give it me—or—’ and as soon as he was freed from the sleeves, he snatched at the paper, but the boy had already sprung up to the first landing, and waving his treasure, shouted, ‘No, it’s not for you, I’ll not give you Ulick’s picture.’
‘Ulick!’ cried Algernon, in redoubled fury. ‘You’re put up to this! Give it me this instant, or it shall be the worse for you;’ but ere he could stride up the first flight, Maurice’s last leg was disappearing round the corner above, and the next moment the exhibition was repeated overhead in the gallery. Thither did Algernon rush headlong, following the scampering pattering feet, till the door of Maurice’s little room was slammed in his face. Bursting it open, he found the chamber empty, but there was a shout of elvish laughter outside, and a cry of dismay coming up from the garden, impelled him to mount the rickety deal-table below the deep sunk dormer window, when thrusting out his head and shoulders, he beheld his wife and her parents gazing up in terror from the lawn. No wonder, for there was a narrow ledge of leading without, upon which Maurice had suddenly appeared, running with unwavering steps till in a moment he stooped down, and popped through the similar window of Gilbert’s room.
While still too dizzy with horror to feel secure that the child was indeed safe within, those below were startled by a frantic shout from Algernon: ‘Let me out! I say, the imp has locked me in! Let me out!’
Albinia flew into the house and upstairs. Maurice was flourishing the key, and executing a war-dance before the captive’s door, with a chant alternating of war-whoops, ‘Promise not to hurt it, and I’ll let you out!’ and ‘Pity poor prisoners in a foreign land!’
She called to him to desist, but he was too wild to be checked by her voice, and as she advanced to capture him, he shot like an arrow to the other end of the passage, and down the back-stairs. She promised speedy rescue, and hurried down, hoping to seize the culprit in the hall, but he had whipped out at the back-door, and was making for the garden gate, when his father hastened down the path to meet him, and seeing his retreat cut off, he plunged into the bushes, and sprang like a cat up a cockspur-thorn, too slender for ascent by a heavier weight, and thence grinned and waved his hand to his prisoner at the window.
‘Maurice,’ called his father, ‘what does this mean?’
‘I only want to take home Ulick’s picture. Then I’ll let him out.’
‘What picture?’
‘That’s my secret.’
‘This is not play, Maurice,’ said Albinia. ‘Attend to papa.’
The boy swung the light shrub about with him in a manner fearful to behold, and looked irresolute. Lucy put in her cry, ‘You very naughty child, give up the key this moment,’ and above, Algernon bawled appeals to Mr. Kendal, and threats to Maurice.
‘Silence!’ said Mr. Kendal, sternly. ‘Maurice, this must not be. Come down, and give me the key of your room.’
‘I will, papa,’ said Maurice, in a reasonable voice. ‘Only please promise not to let Algernon have Ulick’s picture, for I got it without his knowing it.’
‘I promise,’ said Mr. Kendal. ‘Let us put an end to this.’
Maurice came down, and brought the key to his father, and while Lucy hastened to release her husband, Mr. Kendal seized the boy, finding him already about again to take flight.
‘Papa, let me take home Ulick’s picture before he gets out,’ said Maurice, finding the grasp too strong for him; but Mr. Kendal had taken the picture out of his hand, and looked at it with changed countenance.
It depicted the famous drawing-room scene, in its native element, the moon squinting through inky clouds at Lucy swooning on the sofa, while the lofty presence of the Polysyllable discharged the fluid from the inkstand.
‘Did Mr. O’More give you this?’ asked Mr. Kendal.
‘No, it tumbled out of his paper-case. You know he said I might go to his rooms and get the Illustrated News with the picture of Balaklava, and so the newspaper knocked the paper-case down, and all the things tumbled out, so I picked this up, and thought I would see what Algernon would say to it, and then put it back again. Let me have it, papa, if he catches me, he’ll tear it to smithereens.’
‘Don’t talk Irish, sir,’ said his father. ‘I see where your impertinence comes from, and I will put a stop to it.’
Maurice gave back a step, amazed at his father’s unwonted anger, but far greater wrath was descending in the person of Mr. Cavendish Dusautoy, who came striding across the lawn, and planting himself before his father-in-law, demanded, ‘I beg to know, sir, if it is your desire that I should be deliberately insulted in this house?’
‘No one can be more concerned than I am at what has occurred.’
‘Very well, sir; then I require that this intolerable child be soundly flogged, that beggarly Irishman kicked out, and that infamous libel destroyed!’
‘Oh, papa,’ cried Maurice, ‘you promised me the picture should be safe!’
‘I promise you, you impudent brat,’ cried Algernon, ‘that you shall learn what it is to insult your elders! You shall be flogged till you repent it!’
‘You will allow me to judge of the discipline of my own family,’ said Mr. Kendal.
‘Ay! I knew how it would be! You encourage that child in every sort of unbearable impudence; but I have endured it long enough, and I give you warning that I do not remain another night under this roof unless I see the impertinence flogged out of him.’
‘Papa never whips me,’ interposed Maurice. ‘You must ask mamma.’
Mr. Kendal bit his lips, and Albinia could have smiled, but their sense of the ludicrous inflamed Algernon, and like one beside himself, he swung round, and declaring he should ask his uncle if that were proper treatment, he marched across the lawn, while Mr. Kendal exclaimed, ‘More childish than Maurice!’
‘Oh, mamma, what shall I do?’ was Lucy’s woful cry, as she turned back, finding herself unable to keep up with his huge step, and her calls disregarded.
‘My dear,’ said Albinia, affectionately, ‘you had better compose yourself and follow him. His uncle will bring him to reason, and then you can tell him how sorry we are.’
‘You may assure him,’ said Mr. Kendal, ‘that I am as much hurt as he can be, that such an improper use should have been made of O’More’s intimacy here, and I mean to mark my sense of it.’
‘And,’ said Lucy, ‘I don’t think anything would pacify him so much as Maurice being only a little beaten, not to hurt him, you know.’
‘If Maurice be punished, it shall not be in revenge,’ said Mr. Kendal.
‘I’m afraid nothing else will do,’ said Lucy, wringing her hands. ‘He has really declared that he will not sleep another night here unless Maurice is punished; and whatever he says, he’ll do, and I know it would kill me to go away in this manner.’
Her father confidently averred that he would do no such thing, but she cried so much as to move Maurice into exclaiming, ‘Look here, Lucy, I’ll come up with you, and let him give me one good punch, and then we shall all be comfortable again.’
‘I don’t know about the punching,’ said Albinia; ‘but I think the least you can do, Maurice, is to go and ask his forgiveness for having been so very naughty. You were not thinking what you were about when you locked him in.’
This measure was adopted, Mr. Kendal accompanying Lucy and the boy, while Albinia went in search of Sophy, whom she found in grandmamma’s room, looking very pale. ‘Well?’ was the inquiry, and she told what had passed.
‘I hope Maurice will be punished,’ said Sophy; so unwonted a sentiment, that Albinia quite started, though it was decidedly her own opinion.
‘That meddling with papers was very bad,’ she said, with an extenuating smile.
‘Fun is a perfect demon when it becomes master,’ said Sophy. It was plain that it was not Maurice that she was thinking of, but the caricature. Her sister should have been sacred from derision.
‘We must remember,’ she said, ‘that it was only through Maurice’s meddling that we became aware of the existence of this precious work. It is not as if he had shown it to any one.
‘How many of the O’Mores have made game of it?’ asked Sophy, bitterly. ‘No, I am glad I know of it, I shall not be deceived any more.’
With these words she withdrew, evidently resolved to put an end to the subject. Her face was like iron, and Albinia grieved for the deep resentment that the man whom she had ventured to think of as devoted to herself, had made game of her sister. Poor Sophy, to her that tryste had been a subject of unmitigated affliction and shame, and it was a cruel wound that Ulick O’More should, of all men, have turned it into ridicule. What would be the effect on her?
In process of time Mr. Kendal returned. ‘Albinia,’ he said, ‘this is a most unfortunate affair. He is perfectly impracticable, insists on starting for Paris to-morrow, and I verily believe he will.’
‘Poor Lucy.’
‘She is in such distress, that I could not bear to look at her, but he will not attend to her, nor to his uncle and aunt. Mrs. Dusautoy proposed that they should come to the vicarage, where there would be no danger of collisions with Maurice; but his mind can admit no idea but that he has been insulted, and that we encourage it, and he thinks his dignity concerned in resenting it.’
‘Not much dignity in being driven off the field by a child of six years old.’
‘So his aunt told him, but he mixes it up with O’More, and insists on my complaining to Mr. Goldsmith, and getting the lad dismissed for a libellous caricaturist, as he calls it. Now, little as I should have expected such conduct from O’More, it could not be made a ground of complaint to his uncle.’
‘I should think not. No one with more wit than Algernon would have dreamt of it! But if Ulick came and apologized? Ah! but I forgot! Mr. Goldsmith sent him to London this morning. Well, it may be better that he should be out of the way of Algernon in his present mood.’
‘Humph!’ said Mr. Kendal. ‘It is the first time I ever allowed a stranger to be intimate in my family, and it shall be the last. I never imagined him aware of the circumstance.’
‘Nor I; I am sure none of us mentioned it.’
‘Maurice told him, I suppose. It is well that we should be aware who has instigated the child’s impertinence. I shall keep him as much as possible with me; he must be cured of Irish brogue and Irish coolness before they are confirmed.’
Mr. Kendal’s conscience was evidently relieved by transferring to the Irishman the imputation of fostering Maurice’s malpractices.
They were interrupted by Lucy’s arrival. She was come to take leave of home, for her lord was not to be dissuaded from going to London by the evening’s train. The greater the consternation, the sweeter his revenge. Never able to see more than one side of a question, he could not perceive how impossible it was for the Kendals to fulfil his condition with regard to Ulick O’More, and he sullenly adhered to his obstinate determination. Lucy was in an agony of grief, and perhaps the most painful blow was the perception how little he was swayed by consideration for her. Her maid packed, while her parents tried to console her. It was easier when she bewailed the terrors of the voyage, and the uncertainty of hearing of dear grandmamma and dear Gilbert, than when she sobbed about Algernon having no feeling for her. It might be only too true, but her wifely submission ought not to have acknowledged it, and they would not hear when they could not comfort; and so they were forced to launch her on the world, with a tyrant instead of a guide, and dreading the effect of dissipation on her levity of mind, as much as they grieved for her feeble spirit. It was a piteous parting—a mournful departure for a bride—a heavy penalty for vanity and weakness.
Unfortunately the result is to an action as the lens through which it is viewed, and the turpitude of the deed seems to increase or diminish according to the effect it produces.
Had it been in Algernon Dusautoy’s nature to receive the joke good-humouredly, it might have been regarded as an audacious exercise of wit, and have been quickly forgotten, but when it had actually made a breach between him and his wife’s family, and driven him from Bayford when everything conspired to make his departure unfeelingly cruel, the caricature was regarded as a serious insult and an abuse of intimacy. Even Mr. Kendal was not superior to this view, feeling the offence with all the sensitiveness of a hot-tempered man, a proud reserved guardian of the sanctities of home, and of a father who had seen his daughter’s weakest and most faulty action turned into ridicule, and he seemed to feel himself bound to atone for not going to all the lengths to which Algernon would have impelled him, by showing the utmost displeasure within the bounds of common sense.
Albinia, better appreciating the irresistibly ludicrous aspect of the adventure, argued that the sketch harmlessly shut up in a paper-case showed no great amount of insolence, and that considering how the discovery had been made, it ought not to be visited. She thought the drawing had better be restored without remarks by the same hand that had abstracted it; but Mr. Kendal sternly declared this was impossible, and Sophy’s countenance seconded him.
‘Well, then,’ said Albinia, ‘put it into my hands. I’m a bad manager in general, but I can promise that Ulick will come down so shocked and concerned, that you will not have the heart not to forgive him.’
‘The question is not of forgiveness,’ said Sophy, in the most rigid of voices, as she saw yielding in her father’s face; if any one had to forgive, it was poor Lucy and Algernon. All we have to do, is to be on our guard for the future.’
‘Sophy is right,’ said Mr. Kendal; ‘intimacy must be over with one who has so little discretion or good taste.’
‘Then after his saving Maurice, he is to be given up, because he quizzed the Polysyllable?’ cried Albinia.
‘I do not give him up,’ said Mr. Kendal. ‘I highly esteem his good qualities, and should be happy to do him a service, but I cannot have my family at the mercy of his wit, nor my child taught disrespect. We have been unwisely familiar, and must retreat.’
‘And what do you mean us to do?’ exclaimed Albinia. ‘Are we to cut him systematically?’
‘I do not know what course you may adopt,’ said Mr. Kendal, in a tone whose grave precision rebuked her half petulant, half facetious inquiry. ‘I have told you that I do not mean to do anything extravagant, nor to discontinue ordinary civilities, but I think you will find that our former habits are not resumed.’
‘And Maurice must not be always with him,’ said Sophy.
‘Certainly not; I shall keep the boy with myself.’
It was with the greatest effort that Albinia held her tongue. To have Sophy not only making common cause against her, but inciting her father to interfere about Maurice, was well-nigh intolerable, and she only endured it by sealing her lips as with a bar of iron.
By-and-by came the reflection that if poor Sophy had a secret cause of bitterness, it was she herself who had given those thoughts substance and consciousness, and she quickly forgave every one save herself and Algernon.
As to her little traitor son, she took him seriously in hand at bedtime, and argued the whole transaction with him, representing the dreadful consequences of meddling with people’s private papers under trust. Here was poor Lucy taken away from home, and papa made very angry with Ulick, because Maurice had been meddlesome and mischievous; and though he had not been beaten for it, he would find it a worse punishment not to be trusted another time, nor allowed to be with Ulick.
Maurice turned round with mouth open at hearing of papa’s anger with Ulick, and the accusation of having brought his friend into trouble.
‘Why, Maurice, you remember how unhappy we were, Gilbert and all. It was because it was sadly wrong of Gilbert and Lucy to have let Algernon in without papa’s knowing it, and it was not right or friendly in Ulick to laugh at what was so wrong, and grieved us all so much.’
‘It was such fun,’ said Maurice.
‘Yes, Maurice; but fun is no excuse for doing what is unkind and mischievous. Ulick would not have been amused if he had cared as much for us as we thought he did, but, after all, his drawing the picture would have done no harm but for a little boy, whom he trusted, never thinking that an unkind wish to tease, would betray this foolish action, and set his best friends against him.’
‘I did not know I should,’ said Maurice, winking hard.
‘No; you did not know you were doing what, if you were older, would have been dishonourable.’
That word was too much! First he hid his face from his mother, and cried out fiercely, ‘I’ve not—I’ve not been that and clenched his fist. ‘Don’t say it, mamma.’
‘If you had known what you were doing, it would have been dishonourable,’ she repeated, gravely. ‘It will be a long time before you earn trust and confidence again.’
There was a great struggle with his tears. She had punished him, and almost more than she could bear to see, but she knew the conquest must be secured, and she tried, while she caressed him, to make him look at the real cause of his lapse; he declared that it was ‘such fun’ to provoke Algernon, and a little more brought out a confession of the whole course of persecution, the child’s voice becoming quite triumphant as he told of the success of his tricks, and his mother, though appalled at their audacity, with great difficulty hindering herself from manifesting her amusement.
She did not wonder at Algernon’s having found it intolerable, and though angry with him for having made himself such fair game, she set to work to impress upon Maurice his own errors, and the hatefulness of practical jokes, and she succeeded so far as to leave him crying himself to sleep, completely subdued, while she felt as if all the tears ought to have been shed by herself for her want of vigilance.
Conflicting duties! how hard to strike the balance! She had readily given up her own pleasures for the care of Mrs. Meadows, but when it came to her son’s training, it was another question.
She much wished to see the note with which Mr. Kendal returned the unfortunate sketch, but one of the points on which he was sensitive, was the sacredness of his correspondence, and all that she heard was, that Ulick had answered ‘not at all as Mr. Kendal had expected; he was nothing but an Irishman, after all.’ But at last she obtained a sight of the note.
‘Bayford, Nov. 20th, 1854.
‘Dear Sir,
‘I was much astonished at the contents of your letter of this morning, and greatly concerned that Mr. Cavendish Dusautoy should have done so much honour to any production of mine, as to alter his arrangements on that account.
‘As the scrawl in question was not meant to meet the eye of any living being, I should, for my own part, have considered it proper to take no notice of what was betrayed by mere accident. I should have considered it more conducive to confidence between gentlemen. I fully acquiesce in what you say of the cessation of our former terms of acquaintance, and with many thanks for past kindness, believe me,
‘Your obedient servant,
‘U. O’MORE.’
Nothing was more evidently written in a passion at the invasion of these private papers, and Albinia, though she had always feared he might consider himself the aggrieved party, had hardly expected so much proud irritation and so little regret. Mr. Kendal called him ‘foolish boy,’ and tried to put the matter aside, but he was much hurt, and Ulick put himself decidedly in the wrong by passing in the street with a formal bow, when Mr. Kendal, according to his purpose of ordinary civility without an open rupture, would have shaken hands.
Sophy looked white, stern, and cold, but said not a word; she deepened her father’s displeasure quite sufficiently by her countenance. His was grave disappointment in a youth whom he found less grateful than he thought he had a right to expect; hers was the rankling of what she deemed an insult to her sister, and the festering of a wound of which she was ashamed. She meant to bear it well, but it made her very hard and rigid, and even the children could hardly extract a smile from her. She seemed to have made a determination to do all that Lucy or herself had ever done, and more too, and listened to no entreaties to spare herself. Commands were met with sullen resignation, entreaties were unavailing, and both in the sickroom and the parish, she insisted on working beyond her powers. It was a nightly battle to send her to bed, and Albinia suspected that she did not sleep. Meantime Lucy had sailed, and was presently heard of in a whirl of excitement that shortened her letters, and made them joyous and self-important.
‘Ah!’ said Sophy, ‘she will soon forget that she ever had a home.’
‘Poor dear! Wait till trouble comes, and she will remember it only too sadly,’ sighed Albinia.
‘Trouble is certain enough,’ said Sophy; ‘but I don’t think what we deserve does us much good.’
Sophy could see nothing but the most ungentle and gloomy aspects. Gilbert had not yet written, and she was convinced that he was either very ill, or had only recovered to be killed at Inkermann, and she would only sigh at the Gazette that announced Lieutenant Gilbert Kendal’s promotion to be Captain, and Major the Honourable Frederick Ferrars to be Lieutenant-Colonel.
The day after, however, came the long expected letter from the captain himself. It was to Mrs. Kendal, and she detected a shade of disappointment on her husband’s face, so she would have handed it to him at once, but he said, ‘No, the person to whom the letter is addressed, should always be the first to read it.’
The letter began with Gilbert’s happiness in those from home, which he called the greatest pleasure he had ever known. He feared he had caused uneasiness by not writing sooner, but it had been out of his power while Fred Ferrars was in danger. Then followed the account of the severe illness from which Fred was scarcely beginning to rally, though that morning, on hearing that he was to be sent home as soon as he could move, he had talked about Canada and Emily. Gilbert said that not only time but strength had been wanting for writing, for attendance on Fred had been all that he could attempt, since moving produced so much pain and loss of breath, that he had been forced to be absolutely still whenever he was not wanted, but he was now much better. ‘Though,’ he continued, ‘I do not now mind telling you that I had thought myself gone. You, who have known all my feelings, and have borne with them so kindly, will understand the effect upon me, when on the night previous to the 25th, I distinctly heard my own name, in Edmund’s voice, at the head of my bed, just as he used to call me when he had finished his lessons, and wanted me to come out with him. As I started up, I heard it again outside the tent. I ran to the door, but of course there was nothing, nor did poor Wynne hear anything. I lay awake for some time, but slept at last, and had forgotten all by morning. It did not even occur to me when I saw the pleasant race they had cut out for us, nor through the whole affair. Do not ask me to describe it, the scene haunts me enough. When I found that I had not come off unhurt, and it seemed as if I could not ask for one of our fellows but to hear he was dead or dying, poor Wynne among them, then the voice seemed a summons. I was thoroughly done up, and could not even speak when General Ferrars came to me; I only wanted to be let alone to die in peace. I fancy I slept, for the next thing I heard was the Major’s voice asking for some water, too feebly to wake the fellow who had been left in charge. I got up, and found him in a state of high fever and great pain, and from that time to the present, I have hardly thought of the circumstance, and know not why I have now written it to you. Did my danger actually bring Edmund nearer, or did its presence act on my imagination? Be that as it may, I think, after the first impression of awe and terror, the having heard the dear old voice braced me, and gave me a sense of being near home and less lonely. Not that my hurt has been for an instant dangerous, and I am mending every day; if it were warmer I should get on faster, but I cannot stir into the air without bringing on cough. Tell Ulick O’More that we entertained his brother at tea last evening, we were obliged to desire him to bring his own cup, and he produced the shell of a land tortoise; it was very like the fox and the crane. Poor fellow, it was the first good meal he had for weeks, and I was glad he came in for some famous bread that the General had sent us in. He made us much more merry than was convenient to either of us, not being in condition for laughing. He is a fine lad, and liked by all.’ Then came a break, and the letter closed with such tidings of Inkermann as had reached the invalid’s tent.
A few lines from General Ferrars spoke of the improvement in both patients, adding that Fred had had a hard struggle for his life, and had only been saved, by Gilbert’s unremitting care by day and night.
Heroism had not transformed Gilbert, and Albinia’s old fondness glowed with double ardour as she mused over his history of the battle-eve. His father attributed the impression to a mind full of presage and excitement, acted upon by strong memory; but woman-like, Albinia preferred the belief that the one twin might have been an actual messenger to cheer and strengthen the other for the coming trial. Sophy only said, ‘Gilbert’s fancies as usual.’
‘This was not like fancy,’ said Albinia. ‘This is an unkind way of taking it.’
‘It is common sense,’ she bluntly answered. ‘I don’t see why he should think that Edmund has nothing better to do than to call him. It would be childish.’
Albinia did not reply, disturbed by this display of jealousy and harshness, as if every bud of tenderness had been dried up and withered, and poor Sophy only wanted to run counter to any obvious sentiment.
Albinia was grateful for the message which gave her an excuse for seeking Ulick out, and endeavouring to conciliate him. Mr. Kendal made no objection, and expressed a hope that he might have become reasonable. She therefore contrived to waylay him in the November darkness, holding out her hand so that he took it at unawares, as if not recollecting that he was offended, but in the midst his grasp relaxed, and his head went up.
‘I have a message for you from Gilbert about your brother Bryan,’ she said, and he could not defend himself from manifesting eager interest, as she told of the tea-party; but that over, it was in stiff formal English that he said, ‘I hope you had a good account.’
It struck a chill, and she answered, almost imploringly, ‘Gilbert is much better, thank you.’
‘I am glad to hear it;’ and he was going to bow and pass on, when she exclaimed,
‘Ulick, why are we strangers?’
‘It was agreed on all hands that things past could not be undone,’ he frigidly replied.
‘Too true,’ she said; ‘but I do not think you know how sorry we are for my poor little boy’s foolish trick.’
‘I owe no displeasure to Maurice. He knew no more what he was doing than if he had been a gust of wind; but if the wind had borne a private paper to my feet, I would never have acted on the contents.’
‘Unhappily,’ said Albinia, ‘some revelations, though received against our will, cannot help being felt. We saw the drawing before we knew how he came by it, and you cannot wonder that it gave pain to find that a scene so distressing to us should have furnished you with amusement. It was absurd in itself, but we had hoped it was a secret, and it wounded us because we thought you would have been tender of our feelings.’
‘You don’t mean that it was fact!’ cried Ulick, stopping suddenly; and as her silence replied, he continued, ‘I give you my word and honour that I never imagined there was a word of truth in the farrago old Biddy told me, and I’ll not deny that I did scrawl the scene down as the very picture of a bit of slander. I only wonder I’d not brought it to yourself.’
‘Pray let me hear what she told you.’
‘Oh! she said they two had been colloguing together by moonlight, and you came home in the midst, and Miss Kendal fainted away, so he catches up the ink and throws it over her instead of water, and you and Mr. Kendal came in and were mad entirely; and Mr. Kendal threatened to brain him with the poker if he did not quit it that instant, and sent Gilbert for a soldier for opening the door to him, but you and Lucy went down on your bare knees to get him to relent.’
‘Well, I own the poker does throw an air of improbability over the whole. Minus that and the knees, I am afraid it is only too true. I suppose it got abroad through the servants.’
‘It was an unlucky goose-quill that lay so handy,’ exclaimed Ulick; ‘but you may credit me, no eye but my own ever saw the scrawl, nor would have seen it.’
‘Then, Ulick, if we all own that something is to be regretted, why do we stand aloof, and persist in quarrelling?’
‘I want no quarrel,’ said Ulick, stiffly. ‘Mr. Kendal intimated to me that he did not wish for my company, and I’m not the man to force it.’
‘Oh, Ulick, this is not what I hoped from you!’
‘I’ll tell you what, Mrs. Kendal, you could talk over the Giant’s Causeway if you had a mind,’ said Ulick, with much agitation; ‘but you must not talk over me, for your own judgment would be against it. You know what I am, and what I came of, and what have I in the world except the honour of a gentleman? Mr. Kendal and yourself have been my kindest friends, and I’ll be grateful to my dying day; but if Mr. Kendal thinks I can submit tamely when he resents what he never ought to have noticed, why, then, what have I to do but to show him the difference? If his kindness was to me as a gentleman and his equal, I love and bless him for it, but if it be a patronizing of the poor clerk, why, then, I owe it to myself and my people to show that I can stand alone, without cringing, and being thankful for affronts.’
‘Did it ever occur to you to think whether pride be a sin?’
‘’Tis not pride!’ cried Ulick. It is my duty to my family and my name. You’d say yourself, as you allowed before now, that it would be mere meanness and servility to swallow insults for one’s own profit; and if I were to say “you’re welcome, with many thanks, to shuffle over my private papers, and call myself to account,” I’d better have given up my name at once, for I’d have left the gentleman behind me.’
‘I do believe it is solely for the O’Mores that you are making a duty of implacability!’
‘It is a duty not to run from one’s word, and debase oneself for one’s own advantage.’
‘One would think some wonderful advantage was held out to you.’
‘The pleasantest hours of my life,’ murmured he sadly, under his breath.
‘Well, Ulick,’ she said, holding out her hand, ‘I’m not quite dissatisfied; I think some day even an O’More will see that there is no exception from the law of forgiveness in their special favour, and that you will not be able to go on resenting what we have suffered from the young of the spider-monkey.’
Even this allusion produced no outward effect; he only shook hands gravely, saying, ‘I never did otherwise than forgive, and regret the consequences: I am very thankful for all your past kindness.’
Worse than the Giant’s Causeway, thought Albinia as she parted from him. Nothing is so hopeless as that sort of forgiveness, because it satisfies the conscience.
Mr. Kendal predicted that, the Keltic dignity having been asserted, good sense and principle would restore things to a rational footing. What this meant might be uncertain, but he certainly missed Prometheus, and found Maurice a poor substitute. Indulgence itself could hardly hold out in unmitigated intercourse with an obstreperous dunce not seven years old, and Maurice, deprived of Gilbert, cut off from Ulick, with mamma busy, and Sophy out of spirits, underwent more snubbing than had ever yet fallen to his lot. Not that he was much concerned thereat; and Mr. Kendal would resume his book after a lecture upon good manners, and then be roused to find his library a gigantic cobweb, strings tied to every leg of table or chair, and Maurice and the little Awk enacting spider and fly, heedless of the unwilling flies who might suffer by their trap. Such being the case, his magnanimity was the less amazing when he said, ‘Albinia, there is no reason that O’More should not eat his Christmas dinner here.’
‘Very well. I trust he will not think it needful still to be self-denying.’
‘It is not our part to press advances which are repelled,’ said Sophy.
‘Indeed, Sophy,’ said her father, smiling, ‘I see nothing attractive in the attitude of rocks rent asunder.’
The undesigned allusion must have gone deep, for she coloured to a purple crimson, and said in a freezing tone, ‘I thought you considered that to take him up again would be a direct insult to Lucy and her husband.’
‘They do not show much consideration for us,’ said Mr. Kendal. ‘How long ago was the date of her last letter?’
‘Nearly three weeks,’ said Albinia. ‘Poor child, how could she write with the catalogue raisonnee of the Louvre to learn by heart?’
The Dusautoys yearly gave a Christmas tea-party to the teachers in the Sunday-school, who had of late become more numerous, as Mr. Dusautoy’s influence had had more time to tell. Mrs. Kendal was reckoned on as one of the chief supporters of the gaiety of the evening, but on this occasion she was forced to send Sophia alone.
Sophy regarded it as a duty and a penance, and submitted the more readily because it was so distasteful. It was, however, more than she had reckoned on to find that the party had been extended to the male teachers, an exceedingly good and lugubrious-looking youth lately apprenticed to Mr. Bowles, and Ulick O’More. It was the first time she had met the latter since his offence. She avoided seeing him as long as possible, though all his movements seemed to thrill her, and so confused the conversation which she was trying to keep up, that she found herself saying that Genevieve Durant had lost an arm, and that Gilbert would spend Christmas in London.
She felt him coming nearer; she knew he was passing the Miss Northover in the purple silk and red neck-ribbon; she heard him exchanging a few civil words with the sister with the hair strained off her face; she knew he was coming; she grew more eager in her fears for Mr. Rainsforth’s chest.
Tea was announced. Sophy held back in the general move, Ulick made a step nearer, their eyes met, and if ever eyes spoke, hers ordered him to keep his distance, while he glanced affront for affront, bowed and stepped back.
Sophy sat by Miss Jane Northover, and endeavoured to make her talk. Anything would have been better than the echoes of the sprightliness at the lower end of the table, where Ulick was talking what he would have called blarney to Miss Susan Northover and Miss Mary Anne Higgins, both at once, till he excited them into a perpetual giggle. Mr. Dusautoy was delighted, and evidently thought this brilliant success; Mrs. Dusautoy was less at her ease—the mirth was less sober and more exclusive than she had intended; and Sophy, finding nothing could be made of Miss Jane, turned round to her other neighbour, Mr. Hope, and asked his opinion of the Whewell and Brewster controversy on the Plurality of Worlds.
Mr. Hope had rather a good opinion of Miss Sophia, and as she had never molested him, could talk to her, so he straightway became engrossed in the logical and theological aspects of the theory; and Mrs. Dusautoy could hardly suppress her smile at this unconscious ponderous attempt at a counter flirtation, with Saturn and Jupiter as weapons for light skirmishing.
Ulick received the invitation to dinner, and did not accept it. He said he had an engagement—Albinia wondered what it could be, and had reason afterwards to think that he had the silent young apothecary to a Christmas dinner in his own rooms—an act of charity at least, if not of forgiveness. Mr. Johns, the senior clerk, whose health had long been failing, was about to retire, and this announcement was followed by the appearance of a smart, keen-looking young man of six or seven-and-twenty, whom Miss Goldsmith paraded as her cousin, Mr. Andrew Goldsmith, and it was generally expected that he would be taken into partnership, and undertake old John’s work, but in a fortnight he disappeared, and young O’More was promoted to the vacant post with an increase of salary. It was mortifying only to be informed through Mr. Dusautoy, instead of by the lad himself.
The Eastern letters were the chief comfort. First came tidings that Gilbert, not having yet recovered his contusion, was to accompany Colonel Ferrars to Scutari, and then after a longer interval came a brief and joyous note—Gilbert was coming home! On his voyage from the Crimea he had caught cold, and this had brought on severe inflammation on the injured chest, which had laid him by for many days at Scutari. The colonel had become the stronger of the two, in spite of a fragment of shell lodged so deeply in the side, that the medical board advised his going to London for its removal. Both were ordered home together with six months’ leave, and Gilbert’s note overflowed with glad messages to all, including Algernon, of whose departure he was still in ignorance.
Mr. Kendal knew not whether he was most gratified or discomfited by the insinuating ringer who touched his hat, hoping for due notice of the captain’s arrival in time to welcome him with a peal of bells. Indeed, Bayford was so excited about its hero, that there were symptoms of plans for a grand reception with speeches, cheers, and triumphal arches, which caused Sophy to say she hoped that he would come suddenly without any notice, so as to put a stop to all that nonsense; while Albinia could not help nourishing a strange vague expectation that his return would be the beginning of better days.
At last, Sophia, with a touch of the old penny club fever, toiled over the school clothing wilfully and unnecessarily for two hours, kept up till evening without owning to the pain in her back, but finally returned so faint and dizzy that she was forced to be carried helpless to her room, and the next day could barely drag herself to the couch in the morning-room, where she lay quite prostrated, and grieved at increasing instead of lessening her mother’s cares.
‘Oh, mamma, don’t stay with me. You are much too busy.’
‘No, I am not. The children are out, and grandmamma asleep, and I am going to write to Lucy, but there’s no hurry. Let me cool your forehead a little longer.’
‘How I hate being another bother!’
‘I like you much better so, than when you would not let me speak to you, my poor child.’
‘I could not,’ she said, stifling her voice on the cushion, and averting her head; but in a few moments she made a great effort, and said, ‘You think me unforgiving, mamma. It was not entirely that. It was hating myself for an old fancy, a mere mistake. I have got over it; and I will not be in error again.’
‘Sophy dear, if you find strength in pride, it will only wound yourself.’
‘I do not think I am proud,’ said Sophy, quietly. ‘I may have been headstrong, but I despise myself too much for pride.’
‘Are you sure it was mere fancy? It was an idea that occurred to more than to you.’
‘Hush!’ cried Sophy. ‘Had it been so, could he have ridiculed Lucy? Could he have flown out so against papa? No; that caricature undeceived me, and I am thankful. He treated us as cousins—no more—he would act in the same manner by any of the Miss O’Mores of Ballymakilty, nay, by Jane Northover herself. We did not allow for Irish manner.’
‘If so, he had no right to do so. I shall never wish to see him here again.’
‘No, mamma, he did not know the folly he had to deal with. Next time I meet him, I shall know how to be really indifferent. Now, this is the last time we will mention the subject!’
Albinia obeyed, but still hoped. It was well that hope remained, for her task was heavier than ever; Mrs. Meadows was feebler, but more restless and wakeful, asking twenty times in an hour for Mrs. Kendal. The doctors thought it impossible that she should hold out another fortnight, but she lived on from day to day, and at times Albinia hardly could be absent from her for ten minutes together. Sophy was so completely knocked up that she could barely creep about the house, and was forbidden the sick-room; but she was softened and gentle, and was once more a companion to her father, while eagerly looking forward to devoting herself to Gilbert.
A letter with the Malta post-mark was eagerly opened, as the harbinger of his speedy arrival.
‘Royal Hotel, Malta,
February 10th, 1855.
‘Dearest Mrs. Kendal,
‘I am afraid you will all be much disappointed, though your grief cannot equal mine at the Doctor’s cruel decree. We arrived here the day before yesterday, but I had been so ill all the voyage with pain in the side and cough, that there was no choice but to land, and call in Dr.——, who tells me that my broken rib has damaged my lungs so much, that I must keep perfectly quiet, and not think of going home till warm weather. If I am well enough to join by that time, I shall not see you at all unless you and my father could come out. Am I nourishing too wild a hope in thinking it possible? Since Lucy has been so kind as to promise never to leave grandmamma, I cannot help hoping you might be spared. I do not think my proposal is selfish, since my poor grandmother is so little conscious of your cares; and Ferrars insists on remaining with me till he sees me in your hands, though they say that the splinter must be extracted in London, and every week he remains here is so much suffering, besides delaying his expedition to Canada. I have entreated him to hasten on, but he will not hear of it. He is like a brother or a father to me, and nurses me most tenderly, when he ought to be nursed himself. We are famishing for letters. I suppose all ours have gone up to Balaklava, and thence will be sent to England. If we were but there! We are both much better for the quiet of these two days, and are to move to-morrow to a lodging that a friend of Fred’s has taken for us at Bormola, so as to be out of the Babel of these streets—we stipulated that it should be large enough to take in you and my father. I wish Sophy and the children would come too—it would do them all the good in the world; and Maurice would go crazy among the big guns; I am only afraid we should have him enlisting as a drummer. The happy pair would be very glad to have the house to themselves, and would persuade themselves that it was another honeymoon.
‘Good-bye. Instead of looking for a letter, I shall come down to meet you at the Quarantine harbour. Love to all.
‘Your most affectionate
‘GILBERT KENDAL.’
How differently Gilbert wrote when really ill, from his desponding style when he only fancied himself so, thought Albinia, as, perplexed and grieved, she handed the letter to her husband, and opened the enclosure, written in the laboured, ill-formed characters of a left-hand not yet accustomed to doing the offices of both.
‘Dear Albinia,
‘Come, if possible. His heart is set upon it, though he does not realize his condition, and I cannot bear to tell him. Only the utmost care can save him. I am doing my best for him, but my nursing is as left-handed as my writing.
‘Ever yours,
‘F.F.’
His wife’s look of horror was Mr. Kendal’s preparation for this emphatic summons, perhaps a shock less sudden to him than to her, for he had not been without misgivings ever since he had heard of the situation of the injury. He read and spoke not, till the silence became intolerable, and she burst out almost with a scream, ‘Oh! Edmund, I knew not what I did when I took grandmamma into this house!’
‘This is very perplexing,’ he said, his feelings so intense that he dared only speak of acting; ‘I must set out to-night.’
‘Order me to come with you,’ she said breathlessly. ‘That will cancel everything else.’
‘Would Mrs. Drury take charge of her aunt?’ said he, with a moment’s hesitation; and Albinia felt it implied his impression that they were bound by her repeated promises never to quit the invalid, but she only spoke the more vehemently—
‘Mrs Drury? She might—she would, under the circumstances. She could not refuse. If you desire me to come, I should not be doing wrong; and grandmamma might never even miss me. Surely—oh surely, a young life, full of hope and promise, that may yet be saved, is not to be set against what cannot be prolonged more than a few weeks.’
‘As to that,’ said Mr. Kendal, in the deliberate tone which denoted dissatisfaction, ‘though of course it would be the greatest blessing to have you with us, I think you may trust Gilbert to my care. And we must consider poor Sophia.’
‘She could not bear to be considered.’
‘No; but it would be leaving her in a most distressing position, when she is far from well, and with most uncongenial assistants. You see, poor Gilbert reckons on Lucy being here, which would make it very different. But think of poor Sophia in the event of Mrs. Meadows not surviving till our return!’
‘You are right! It would half kill her! My promise was sacred; I was a wretch to think of breaking it. But when I think of my boy—my Gilbert pining for me, and I deserting him—’
‘For the sake of duty,’ said her husband. ‘Let us do right, and trust that all will be overruled for the best. I shall go with an easier mind if I leave you with the other children, and I can be the sooner with him.’
‘I could travel as fast.’
‘I may soon bring him home to you. Or you might bring the others to join us in the south of France. You will all need change.’
The decision was made, and her judgment acquiesced, though she could hardly have cast the balance for herself. She urged no more, even when relentings came over her husband at the thought of the trials to which he was leaving her, and of those which he should meet in solitude; yet not without a certain secret desire to make himself sufficient for the care and contentment of his own son. He cast about for all possible helpers for her, but could devise nothing except a note entreating her brother to be with her as much as possible, and commending her to the Dusautoys. It was a less decided kindness that he ordered Maurice’s pony to be turned out to grass, so as to prevent rides in solitude, thinking the boy too young to be trusted, and warned by the example of Gilbert’s temptations.
Going up to the bank to obtain a supply of gold, he found young O’More there without his uncle. The tidings of Gilbert’s danger had spread throughout the town, and one heart at least was softened. Ulick wrung the hand that lately he would not touch, and Mr. Kendal forgot his wrath as he replied to the warm-hearted inquiry for particulars.
‘Then Mrs. Kendal cannot go with you?’
‘No, it is impossible. There is no one able to take charge of Mrs. Meadows.’
‘Ah! and Mrs. Cavendish Dusautoy is gone! I grieve for the hour when my pen got the better of me. Mr. Kendal, this is worse than I thought. Your son will never forgive me when he knows I’m at the bottom of his disappointment.’
‘There is something to forgive on all hands,’ said Mr. Kendal. ‘That meddlesome boy of mine has caused worse results than we could have contemplated. I believe it has been a lesson to him.’
‘I know it has to some one else,’ said Ulick. ‘I wish I could do anything! It would be the greatest comfort you could give me to tell me of a thing I could do for Gilbert or any of you. If you’d send me to find Mr. Cavendish Dusautoy, and tell him ‘twas all my fault, and bring them back—’
‘Rather too wild a project, thank you,’ said Mr. Kendal, smiling. ‘No; the only thing you could do, would be—if that boy of mine have not completely forfeited your kindness—’
‘Maurice! Ah! how I have missed the rogue.’
‘Poor little fellow, I am afraid he may be a burthen to himself and every one else. It would be a great relief if you could be kind enough now and then to give him the pleasure of a walk.’
Maurice did not attend greatly to papa’s permission to go out with Mr. O’More. Either it was clogged with too many conditions of discretion, and too many reminiscences of the past; or Maurice’s mind was too much bent on the thought of his brother. Both children haunted the packing up, entreating to send out impossible presents. Maurice could hardly be persuaded out of contributing a perilous-looking boomerang, which he argued had some sense in it; while he scoffed at the little Awk, who stood kissing and almost crying over the china countenance of her favourite doll, entreating that papa would take dear Miss Jenny because Gibbie loved her the best of all, and always put her to sleep on his knees. At last matters were compromised by Sophy, who roused herself to do one of the few things for which she had strength, engrossing them by cutting out in paper an interminable hunt with horses and dogs adhering together by the noses and tails, which, when brilliantly painted according to their united taste, they might safely imagine giving pleasure to Gilbert, while, at any rate, it would do no harm in papa’s pocket-book.
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