The Family Office had been asked to receive the whole party on their return. Mr. Kendal had business in London, and could not bear to part with the colonel till he had seen him safely lodged, and heard the surgeon’s opinion.
Mr. Ferrars was laying himself out to guard his brother-in-law from being oppressed by the sympathetic welcome of the good aunts; but though the good ladies never failed in kindness, all the excess was directed into a different channel; Albinia herself was but secondary to the wounded hero, for whom alone they had eyes and ears. They would hardly let him stand erect for a moment; easy-chairs and couches were offered, soup and wine, biscuits and coffee were suggested, and questions were crowded on him, while he, poor fellow, wistfully gazed at the oft-directed pile of foreign letters on the side-table, and in pure desperation became too fatigued to go down to luncheon.
When the others returned, he was standing on the rug, curling his moustaches. There was a glow of colour on his hollow cheek, and his eyes danced; he put out his hand, and catching Albinia’s with boyish playfulness, he squeezed it triumphantly, with the words, ‘Albinia, she’s a brick!’
They went their several ways, Fred to rest, Maurice to make an appointment for him with the doctor, and Albinia to Genevieve, whom Mr. Kendal regarded like his son’s widow, forgetting that the attachment had been neither sanctioned nor returned. He could not rest without seeing her, and delivering that last message, but he was glad to have the way prepared by his wife, and proposed to call for her when his law business should be over.
Albinia sent in her card, and asked whether Miss Durant were at liberty. Genevieve came hurrying to her with outstretched hands: ‘Dear Mrs. Kendal, this is kind!’ and led her to the back drawing-room, where they were with one impulse enfolded in each other’s tearful embrace.
‘Oh! madame, how much you have suffered!’
‘You know all?’ said Albinia.
‘O no, very little. My aunt knows little of Bayford now, and her sight is too weak for much writing.’
Genevieve pushed back her hair; she looked ill and heavy-eyed, with the extinguished air that sorrow gave her. Gilbert had distressed, perplexed her, and driven her from home, but what could be remembered, save the warm affection he had lavished on her, and the pain she had inflicted? Uneasiness and sorrow, necessarily unavowed, had preyed on the poor girl for weeks in secret; and even now she hardly presumed to give way, relief, almost luxury, as it was to be pressed in those kind arms, and suffered to weep freely for the champion of her younger days. When she had heard how he had thought of her to the last, her emotion grew less controllable; and Albinia was touched by the idea that there had all along been a stifled preference. Embellished as Gilbert now was, she could not but wish to believe that his affection had not been wasted; and his constancy might well be touching in one of the heroes of the six hundred. At least, Genevieve had a most earnest and loving appetite for every detail, and though the afternoon was nearly gone, neither felt as if half an hour had passed when admittance was asked for Mr. Kendal.
It was a trying moment, but Genevieve was too simple, genuine, and grateful to pause in selfish embarrassment. Had she toyed with Gilbert’s affection, she could not have met his father with such maidenly modesty, and sweet sympathy and respect in her blushing cheek and downcast, tearful eyes.
He took her hand, speaking in the kindest tone of his mellow voice: ‘My dear, Mrs. Kendal has told you what brings us here, and how much we feel for and with you.’
‘So kind in you,’ said Genevieve, faltering.
‘Poor child, she has suffered grievously for want of fuller tidings,’ said Albinia; ‘she has been keeping her sorrow pent up all this time.’
‘She has acted, as she has done throughout, most consistently,’ said Mr. Kendal. ‘My dear, though it was inexpedient to show my sentiments, I always respected my son for having placed his affections so worthily, and though circumstances were unfortunately adverse, I cannot thank you enough for your course of action and the influence you exercised.’
‘I never did,’ murmured Genevieve.
‘Not perhaps consciously; but unswerving rectitude of conduct is one of the strongest earthly influences. He was sensible of it. He bade me tell you that whenever higher and better thoughts came to him, you were connected with them; and when to his surprise, poor boy, he found that he was thought to have distinguished himself, his first thought was that it might be a step to your esteem. He desired me to thank you for all that you have been to him, to entreat you to pardon the annoyance of which he was the occasion, and to beg you to wear this for his sake, if you could think of his presumption with forgiveness and toleration. Those were his words; but I trust you do not retain displeasure, for though, perhaps, foolishly and obtrusively expressed, it was sincere and lasting affection.’
‘Oh, sir!’ exclaimed Genevieve, ‘do not speak thus! What can I feel save that it will be my tenderest and deepest pride to have been so regarded. Oh! that I could thank him! but,’ clasping her hands together, ‘I cannot even thank you.’
‘The best way to gratify us,’ he said, ‘will be always to remember that you have a home at Willow Lawn, and a daughter’s place in our hearts. Think of me like a father, Genevieve;’ and he kissed her drooping forehead.
‘Oh! Mr. Kendal, this is goodness.’
He turned to Albinia to suggest, ‘It must be intolerable to be here at present. Speak to Mrs. Rainsforth, let us take her home, if it be but for a week.’
Leaving him to make the proposition to Genevieve, Albinia gained admittance to the other drawing-room, which she found all over little children, and their mother looking unequal to dispensing with their deputy. She said she had feared Miss Durant was looking ill, and had something weighing on her spirits, though she was always so cheerful and helpful, but baby had not been well, and Mr. Rainsforth was not at all strong, and her views had evidently taken no wider range.
Albinia began to think her proposal cruel, and prefaced it by a few words on the state of the case. The little bit of romance touched the kind heart. Mrs. Rainsforth was shocked to think of the grief the governess must have suffered in secret while aiding to bear her burdens, and was resolved on letting her have this respite, going eagerly to assure her that she could well be spared; baby was better, and papa was better, and the children would be good.
But Genevieve knew too well how necessary she was, and had been telling Mr. Kendal of the poor little mother’s anxieties with her many delicate children, and her husband’s failing health. She could not leave them with a safe conscience; and she would not show how she longed after quiet, the country, and her aunt. She stood firm, and Albinia could not say that she was not right. Mrs. Rainsforth was distressed, though much relieved, and was only pacified by the engagement that Miss Durant should, when it was practicable, spend a long holiday with her friends.
‘At home!’ said Mr. Kendal, and the responsive look of mournful gratitude from beneath the black dewy eyelashes dispelled all marvel at his son’s enduring attachment.
He was wonderfully patient when Mrs. Rainsforth could not be content without Mrs. Kendal’s maternal and medical opinion of the baby, on the road to and from the nursery consulting her on all the Mediterranean climates, and telling her what each doctor had said of Mr. Rainsforth’s lungs, in the course of which Miss Durant and her romance were put as entirely out of the little lady’s mind as if she had never existed.
The next day the Kendals set their faces homewards, leaving Maurice till the surgeon’s work should be done, and Fred, as the aunts fondly hoped, to be their nursling.
But, behold! Sunday and Monday Colonel Fred spent in bed, smiling incessantly; Tuesday and Wednesday on the sofa; Thursday in going about London; Friday he was off to Liverpool; Saturday had sailed for Canada.
Albinia was coming nearer to the home that was pulling her by the heart-strings. Hadminster was past, and she had heard the welcome wards, ‘All well,’ from the servant who brought the carriage; but how much more there was to know than Sophy’s detailed letters could convey—Sophy, whose sincerity, though one of the most trustworthy things in the world, was never quite to be relied on as to her own health or Maurice’s conduct.
At the gate there was a little chestnut curled being in a short black frock, struggling to pull the heavy gate open with her plump arms, and standing for one moment with her back to it, screaming ‘Mamma! Papa!’ then jumping and clapping her hands in ecstasy and oblivion that the swing of the gate might demolish her small person between it and the horse. But there was no time for fright. Sophy caught her and secured the gate together; and the first glimpse assured Albinia that the hard gloom was absent. And there was Maurice, leaning against the iron rail of the hall steps; but he hardly moved, and his face was so strangely white and set, that Albinia caught him in her arms, crying, ‘Are you well, my boy? Sophy, is he well?’
‘Quite well,’ said Sophy; but the boy had wriggled himself loose, stood but for an instant to receive his father’s kiss, and had hold of the sword. The long cavalry sabre was almost as tall as himself, and he stood with both arms clasped round it; but no sooner did he feel their eyes upon him, than he turned about and ran upstairs.
It was not gracious, but they excused it; they had their little Albinia comfortably and childishly happy, as yet without those troublesome Kendal feelings that always demonstrated themselves in some perverse manner.
And Sophy stood among them—that brighter, better Sophy who had so long been obscured, happy to have them at home; talking and asking questions eagerly about the journey, and describing the kindness of the Dusautoys and the goodness of the children.
‘Have you heard from Lucy?’ asked Mr. Kendal, as Albinia went in pursuit of her little boy.
‘Yes—poor Lucy?’
‘Is there no letter from him?’
‘Not for you, papa.’
‘What? Did he write to his uncle?’
‘No, papa—he wrote to me and to Mr. Pettilove. Cannot he be stopped, papa? Can he do any harm? Mr. Dusautoy and Mr. Pettilove think he can.’
‘You mean that he wishes to question the will? You may be quite secure, my dear. Nothing can be more safe.’
‘Oh, papa! I am so very glad. Not to be able to hinder him was so dreadful, when he wanted to pit Lucy and me against you. I could never have looked at you. I should always have felt that you had something to forgive me.’
‘I could not well have confounded you with Algernon, my dear,’ said Mr. Kendal. ‘What did Pettilove mean? Do you know?’
‘Not exactly; something about grandpapa’s old settlement; which frightened the Vicar, though Mrs. Dusautoy said that it was only that he fancied nobody could do anything right without his help. Mr. Dusautoy is more angry with Algernon than I thought he could be with anybody.’
‘No one but Algernon would have ever thought of it,’ said Mr. Kendal. ‘I am sorry he has molested you, my dear. Have you any objection to let me see his letter?’
‘I kept it for you, papa, and a copy of my answer. I thought though I am not of age, perhaps my saying I would have nothing to do with it might do some good.’
Algernon magniloquently condoled with his sister-in-law on the injustice from which she and her sister had suffered, in consequence of the adverse influence which surrounded her brother, and generously informed her that she had a champion to defeat the machinations against their rights. He had little doubt of the futility of the document, and had written to the legal adviser of the late Mr. Meadows to inquire whether the will of that gentleman did not bar any power on the part of his grandson to dispose of the property. She might rely on him not to rest until she should be put in possession of the estate, unless it should prove to have been her grandfathers intention, in case of the present melancholy occurrence, that the elder sister should be the sole inheritrix, and he congratulated her on having such a protector, since, under the unfortunate circumstances, the sisters would have had no one to uphold their cause against their natural guardian.
Sophy’s answer was—
‘Dear Algernon,
‘I prefer my natural guardian to any other whatever. I shall for my part owe you no thanks for attempting to frustrate my dear brother’s wishes, and to raise an unbecoming dissension. I desire that no use of my name may be made, and you may rest assured that I should find nothing so difficult to forgive as any such interference in my behalf.
‘Yours truly,
‘SOPHIA KENDAL.’
‘Certainly,’ said Mr. Kendal, ‘no family ill-will is complete unless money matters be brought in to aggravate it.’
‘Do you think I did right, and spoke strongly enough, papa?’
‘Quite strongly enough,’ said Mr. Kendal, suppressing a smile. ‘I hope you wrote kindly to Lucy at the same time.’
‘One could not help that, papa; but I did say a great deal about the outrageous impropriety of raising the question, because I thought Algernon might be ashamed.’
‘Riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt,’ said Mr. Kendal. ‘Your grandfather’s acquisitions have brought us little but evil hitherto, and now I fear that our dear Gilbert’s endeavour to break the net which bound us into that system of iniquity and oppression, may cause alienation from poor Lucy. Sophy, you must allow no apparent coldness or neglect on her part to keep you from writing often and affectionately.’
Maurice here came down with his mother, and as soon as there was a moment’s pause, laid hold of the first book he met with, and began:—
‘I do not see the justness of the analogy to which Onuphrio refers, but there are many parts of that vision on which I should wish to hear the explanations of Philalethes.’
All broke out in amazement, ‘Why, Maurice, has Mrs. Dusautoy been making a scholar of you?’
‘Oh! Maurice, was this your secret?’ cried Sophy.
He had hidden his face in his mother’s lap, and when she raised it struggled to keep it down, and she felt him sobbing and panting for breath. Mr. Kendal stroked his hair, and they tried to soothe him, but he started up abruptly.
‘I don’t mean ever to be a plague again! So I did it. But there—when Ulick said it would be a comfort, you are all going to cry again, papa and all, and that’s worse!’ and stamping his foot passionately, he would have rushed out of the room, but was held fast in his father’s arms, and indeed tears were flowing fast from eyes that his brother’s death had left dry.
‘My child! my dear child!’ said Mr. Kendal, ‘it is comfort. No one can rule you as by God’s grace you can rule yourself, and your endeavours to do this are the greatest blessing I can ask.’
One more kiss from his mother, and she let him go. He did not know how to deal with emotion in himself, and hated the sight of it in others; so that it was better to let him burst away from them, while with one voice they admired, rejoiced, and interrogated Sophy.
‘I know now,’ she said, the rosy glow mantling in her cheek; ‘it must have been Mr. O’More.’
‘Ah! has he been with you?’ said her father.
‘Only once,’ said Sophy, her colour deepening; ‘but Maurice has been in a great hurry every day to go to him, and I saw there was some secret. One day, Susan asked me to prevent Master Maurice from teaching baby such ugly words, that she could not sleep—not bad words, but she thought they were Latin. So I watched, and I heard Maurice singing out some of the legend of Hiawatha, and insisting on poor little Awkey telling him what m-i-s-h-e-n-a-h-m-a, spelt. Poor little Awk stared, as well she might, and obediently made the utmost efforts to say after him, Mishenahma, king of fishes, but he was terribly discomposed at getting nothing but Niffey-ninny, king of fithes. I went to her rescue, and asked what they were about; but Maurice thundered down on me all the Delawares and Mohawks, and the Choctaws and Cameches; and baby squeaked after him as well as she could, till I fairly stopped my ears. I thought Ulick must be reading the legend to him. Now I see he must have been teaching him to read it.’
‘Can it be possible?’ said Mr. Kendal. ‘He could not read words of five letters without spelling.’
‘He always could do much more when he pleased than when he did not please,’ said Albinia. ‘I believe the impulse to use his understanding was all that was wanting, and I am very glad the impulse came from such a motive.’
Mr. Kendal ordained that Maurice’s reward should be learning Latin from himself, a perilous trial; but it proved that Mr. Kendal was really a good teacher for a child of spirit and courage, and Maurice had early come to the age when boys do better with man than with woman. He liked the honour and the awe of papa’s tutorship, and learnt so well, that his father never believed in his past dunceship; but over studies that he did not deem sufficiently masculine, he could be as troublesome as ever, his attention absent, and his restlessness most wearisome. To an ordinary eye, he was little changed; but his mother felt that the great victory of the will had been gained, and that his self was endeavouring to get the better of the spirit of insubordination and mischief. Night after night she found him sleeping with the Balaklava sword by his side, and his hand clasped over it; and he always crept out of the way of Crimean news, though that he gathered up the facts was plain when he committed his sovereign to Ulick, with a request that it might be devoted to the comforts preparing to be sent to the 25th Lancers.
Ulick wished him to consult his mother, but this he repelled. He could not endure the sight of a tear in her eye, and she could not restrain them when that chord was touched. It was a propensity she much disliked, the more because she thought it looked like affectation beside Sophy, whose feelings never took that course, but the more ill-timed the tears, the more they would come, at the most common-place condolence or remote allusion. It was the effect of the long strain on her powers, and the severe shock coming suddenly after so much pressure and fatigue; moreover, her habits had been so long disorganized that her time seemed blank, and she could not rouse herself from a feeling of languor and depression. Then Gilbert had been always on her mind, whether at home or absent; and it did not seem at first as if she had enough to fill up time or thoughts—she absolutely found herself doing nothing, because there was nothing she cared to do.
Mr. Kendal’s first object was the fulfilment of Gilbert’s wishes; but Albinia soon felt how much easier it is for women and boys to make schemes, than for men to bring them to effect, and how rash it is hastily to condemn those who tolerate abuses.
The whole was carefully looked over with a surveyor, and it was only then understood how complicated were the tenures, and how varied the covenants of the numerous small tenements which old Mr. Meadows had amassed. It was not possible to be free of the legal difficulties under at least a year, and plans of drainage might be impeded for want of other people’s consent. Even if all had been smooth, the sacrifice of income, by destroying Tibb’s Alley, and reducing the number of cottages, would be considerable. Meantime, the inspection had brought to light worse iniquities and greater wretchedness than Mr. Kendal had imagined, and his eagerness to set to work was tenfold. His table was heaped with sanitary reports, and his fits of abstraction were over the components of bad air or builder’s estimates.
It only depended on Ulick to have resumed his intimacy at Willow Lawn; but the habit once broken was not resumed. He was often there, but never without invitation; and he was not always to be had. He had less leisure, he was senior clerk, and the junior was dull and untrained; and he often had work to do far into the evening. He looked bright and well, as though possessed of a sense of being valuable in his own place, more conducive to happiness than even congeniality of employment; and Sophy, though now and then disappointed at his non-appearance, always had a good reason for it, and continued to justify Mr. Dusautoy’s boast that the air of the hill had made another woman of her.
Visiting cards had, of course, come in numbers to Willow Lawn, but Albinia seemed to have caught her husband’s aversions, and it would be dangerous to say how long it was before she lashed herself into setting off for a round of calls.
Nothing surprised her more than Miss Goldsmith’s reception. Conscious of her neglect, she expected the stiff manner to be more formal than ever; but the welcome was almost warm, and there was something caressing in her fears that Miss Kendal would be tired. Mr. Goldsmith was not quite well, there were threatenings of gout, and his sister had persuaded him to visit the relations at Bristol next week; everything might safely be trusted to young More, and therewith came such praise of his steadiness and ability, that Albinia did not know which way to look when all was ascribed to Mr. Kendal’s great kindness to him.
It was too palpable to be altogether pleasant. Sophia Kendal was heiress enough to be a very desirable connexion for the bank. Albinia was afraid she should see through the lady’s graciousness, and took her leave in haste; but Sophy only said, ‘Do you remember, mamma, when the Goldsmiths thought we unsettled him?’
Before Albinia had disarmed her reply of the irony on the tip of her tongue, the omnibus came lumbering round the corner, and a voice proceeded from the rear, the door flew open, and there was a rapid exit.
Face and voice, light step, and gay bearing, all were Fred—the empty sleeve, the sole resemblance to the shattered convalescent of a few weeks back.
‘There, Albinia! I said you should see her first. You haven’t got any change, have you?’ the last being addressed either to Albinia, the omnibus conductor, or a lady, who made a tender of two shillings, while Albinia ordered the luggage on to Willow Lawn, though something was faintly said about the inn.
‘And there!’ cried Fred, with an emphatic twist of his moustache, ‘isn’t she all I ever told you?’
‘The last thing was a brick,’ said Albinia, laughing, as she looked at the smiling, confiding, animated face, not the less pleasant for a French Canadian grace that recalled Genevieve.
‘The right article for building a hut, I hope,’ she said, merrily.
‘But how and when could you have come?’
‘This morning, from Liverpool. We did not mean to storm you in this manner; we meant to have settled ourselves at the inn, and walked down; Emily was very particular about it.’
‘But you see, when he saw you, he forgot all my lectures!’ said Emily, taking his welcome for granted.
‘Very proper of him! But, Fred, I don’t quite believe it yet. How long is it since we parted?’
‘Six weeks; just enough to go to Canada and back, with a fortnight in the middle to spare.’
‘And pray how long has Mrs. Fred existed?’
‘Three weeks and two days;’ and turning half round to give her the benefit of his words, ‘it was on purely philanthropic principles, because I could not tie my own necktie.’
‘Now could I,’ said Emily pleadingly to Sophy—‘now could I let him go back again alone, when he came so helpless, and looking so dreadfully ill?’
‘And what are you going to do?’ asked Albinia. ‘You can’t join again.’
‘Join! why not? Here’s a hand for a horse, and an arm for a wife, and the rest will be done much better for me than ever it was before.’
‘But with her? and at Sebastopol!’
‘That’s the very thing’’ cried the colonel, again turning about. ‘Nothing will serve her but to show how a backwoodsman’s daughter can live in a hut.’
‘And what will the general say?’
‘The general,’ cried Emily, ‘will endure me better as a fact than as a prospect; and we will teach him that a lady is not all made of nerves and of fancies! See what he will say if we let him into our paradise!’
Fred brightened, though Albinia’s inquiry had for a moment taken him a little aback. The one being whom he dreaded was General Ferrars, for whom he cared a thousand times more than for his own elder brother, and he was soon speculating, with his usual insouciance, as to how his announcement might have been received by his lordship, and whether the aunts would look at them as they went through London.
Mr. Kendal met them at the gate, amazed at the avalanche of luggage, but well pleased, for he had grown very fond of Fred, and had been very anxious about him, thinking him broken and enfeebled for life, and hardly expecting him to return from his mad expedition. He was slow to believe his eyes and ears when he beheld a hale, handsome, vigorous man, full of life and activity, but his welcome and congratulations were of the warmest. He could far better stand a sudden inroad than if he had had to meditate for a week on entertaining the bride. Not that the bride wanted entertainment, except waiting upon her husband, who let himself be many degrees less handy than at Malta, for the pleasure of her attentions.
Perhaps the person least gratified was Maurice; for the child shrank with shy reverence from him whom his brother had saved, and would as soon have thought of making a plaything of Gilbert’s sword as of having fun with the survivor. The sight of such a merry man was a shock, and he abruptly repelled all attempts at playing with him, and kept apart with a big book on a chair before him, a Kendalism for which he amply compensated when familiarity had diminished his awe.
Mr. Kendal, though little disposed to exert himself to talk, liked to watch his wife reviving into animation, and Sophy taking a full share in the glee with which Emily enjoyed turning the laugh against the good-natured soldier. In the midst of their flush of joy there was a tender consideration about the young couple, such as to hinder their tone from jarring. Indeed, it was less consideration than fellow-feeling, for Gilbert Kendal had become enshrined in the depths of Fred’s heart; while to Emily the visit was well-nigh a pilgrimage. All her hero-worship was directed to the youth who had guarded her soldier’s life, nursed him in his sickness, and, as he averred, inspired him with serious thoughts. Poor, failing, timid, penitent Gilbert was to her a very St. George, and every relic of him was viewed with reverence; she composed a countenance for him from his father’s fine features, and fitted the fragments of his history into an ideal, till Sophy, after being surprised and gratified, began to view Gilbert through a like halo, and to rank him with his twin brother. Friendship was a new and agreeable phase of life to Sophy, who found a suitable companion in such an open-hearted person, simpler in nature, and fresher than herself, free from English commonplaces, though older and of more standing. She expanded and brightened wonderfully, and Emily, imagining her a female Gilbert, was devoted to her, and thought her a marvel of learning, depth, goodness, and humility, the more striking for her tinge of grave pensiveness.
‘Why, Albinia,’ said the colonel, ‘didn’t I hear that it was your handsome daughter who is married?’
‘Yes, poor Lucy was always called our pretty one.’
‘More admired than her sister? Why, she never could have had a countenance!’
‘Yes,’ said Albinia, highly gratified by the opinion of such a connoisseur. ‘I always told Winifred that Sophy was the beauty, but she has only lately had health or animation to set her off.’
‘I declare, when we overtook you in the street, she looked a perfect Spanish princess, in her black robes and great shady hat. You ought always to keep her in black. Ha! Emily, what are you smiling at?’
His wife looked up into his face with mischievous shyness in her eyes, as if she wanted him to say what would be a liberty in her. Somebody else had overtaken the ladies nearly at the same moment, and Albinia exulted in perceiving that the embellishment had been observed by others besides herself. She did not look so severe but that Fred was encouraged to repeat, ‘Only lately had health or animation? When Irish winds blow this way, I fancy—But what will the aunts say?’
‘They are not Sophy’s aunts, whatever they are to you.’
‘What will Kendal say? which is more to the purpose.’
‘Oh! he saw it first; he will be delighted; but you must not say a word to him, for it can’t come to anything just now.’
Albinia was thus confirmed in her anticipations, and the bridal pair, only wishing everybody to be as happy as themselves, took the matter up with such vivid interest and amusement, that she was rather afraid of a manifestation such as to shock either her husband or the parties themselves; but Fred was too much of a gentleman, and Emily too considerate, for anything perilously marked. Only she thought Emily need not have been so decided in making room for Ulick next to Sophy, when they were all looking out at the young moon at the conservatory-door that evening.
And then Emily took her husband’s arm, and insisted on going down the garden to be introduced to English nightingales; and though she was told they never had come there in the memory of man, she was bent on doing as she would be done by, and drew him alone the silvered paths, among the black shadows of the trees; and Ulick asked Sophy if she wished to go too. She looked as if she should like it very much; he fetched a couple of cloaks ont of the hall, put her into one, and ran after Mrs. Ferrars with the other.
‘Well!’ thought Albinia, as she stood at the conservatory-door, ‘how much more boldness and tact some people have than others! If I had lived a hundred years, I should not have managed it so well!’
‘What’s become of them?’ said Mr. Kendal, as she went back to the drawing-room.
‘Gone to listen for nightingales!’
‘Nightingales! How could you let them go into the river-fog?’
‘Emily was bent upon it; she is too much of a bride not to have her way.’
‘Umph! I wonder Sophy was so foolish.’
They came back in a quarter of an hour. No nightingales; and Fred was indulging in reminiscences of bull-frogs; the two ladies were rapturous on the effect of the moonbeams in the ripple of the waters, and the soft furry white mist rising over the meadows. Ulick shivered, and leant over the fire to breathe a drier air, bantering the ladies for their admiration, and declaring that Mrs. Ferrars had taken the moan of an imprisoned house-dog for the nightingale, which he disdainfully imitated with buzz, zizz, and guggle, assuring her she had had no loss; but he looked rather white and chilled. Sophy whispered something to her papa, who rang the bell, and ordered in wine and hot water.
‘There, Emily,’ said Albinia, when he had taken his leave; ‘what shall we say to your nightingales, if Mr. O’More catches his ague again?’
‘Oh, there are moments when people don’t catch agues,’ said Fred. ‘He would be a poor fellow to catch an ague after all that, though, by-the-bye, it is not a place to go to at night without a cigar.’
Albinia was on thorns, lest Sophy should be offended; but though her cheeks lighted up, and she was certainly aware of some part of their meaning, either she did not believe in the possibility of any one bantering her, or else the assumption was more agreeable than the presumption was disagreeable. She endured with droll puzzled dignity, when Fred teased her anxiety the next day to know whether Mr. O’More had felt any ill effects; and it really appeared as if she liked him better for what might have been expected to be a dire affront; but then he was a man whose manner enabled to do and say whatever he pleased.
Emily never durst enter on the subject with her, but had more than one confidential little gossip with Albinia, and repeatedly declared that she hoped to be in England when ‘it’ took place. Indeed that week’s visit made them all so intimate, that it was not easy to believe how recent was the acquaintance.
The aunts had been so much disappointed at Fred’s desertion, so much discomfited at his recovery contrary to all predictions, and so much annoyed at his marriage, that it took all their kindness, and his Crimean fame, to make them invite him and his colonial wife to the Family Office, to be present at the royal distribution of medals. However, the good ladies did their duty; and Emily and Sophy parted with promises of letters.
The beginning of the correspondence was as full a description of the presentation of the medals as could be given by a person who only saw one figure wherever she went, and to whom the great incident of the day was, that the gracious and kindhearted Queen had herself fastened the left-handed colonel’s medal as well as Emily could have done it herself! There was another medal, with two clasps, that came to Bayford, and which was looked at in pensive but not unhappy silence. ‘You shall have it some day, Maurice, but not now,’ said Mr. Kendal, and all felt that now meant his own lifetime. It was placed where Gilbert would well have liked to see it, beside his brother Edmund’s watch.
Emily made Mrs. Annesley and Miss Ferrars more fond of her in three days, than eleven years had made them of Winifred; too fond, indeed, for they fell to preaching to Fred upon the horrors of Sebastopol, till they persuaded him that he was a selfish wretch, and brought him to decree that she should stay with them during his absence. But, as Emily observed, that was not what she left home for; she demolished his arguments with a small amount of playing at petulance, and triumphantly departed for the East, leaving Aunt Mary crying over her as a predestined victim.
The last thing Fred did before sailing, was to send Albinia a letter from his brother, that she might see ‘how very kind and cordial Belraven was,’ besides something that concerned her more nearly.
Lord Belraven was civil when it cost him nothing, and had lately regarded his inconvenient younger brother with favour, as bringing him distinction, and having gained two steps without purchase, removed, too, by his present rank, and the pension for his wound, from being likely to become chargeable to him; so he had written such brotherly congratulations, that good honest Fred was quite affected. He was even discursive enough to mention some connexions of the young man who had been with Fred in the Crimea, a Mr. Cavendish Dusautoy, a very good sort of fellow, who gave excellent dinners, and was a pleasant yachting companion. His wife was said to be very pretty and pleasing, but she had arrived at Genoa very unwell, had been since confined, and was not yet able to see any one. It was said to be the effect of her distress for the death of her brother, and the estrangement from her family, who had behaved very ill about his property. Had not Albinia Ferrars married into that family?
Albinia knew enough of her noble relative to be aware that good dinners and obsequiousness were the way to his esteem, and Algernon’s was the sort of arrogance that would stoop to adore a coronet. All this was nothing, however, to the idea of Lucy, ill in that strange place, with no one to care for her but her hard master. Albinia sometimes thought of going to find her out at Genoa; but this was too utterly wild and impossible, and nothing could be done but to write letters of affectionate inquiry, enclosing them to Lord Belraven.
Algernon’s answer was solemn, and as brief as he could make anything. He was astonished that the event bad escaped the notice of the circle at Bayford, since he believed it had appeared in all the principal European newspapers; and his time had been so fully occupied, that he had imagined that intimation sufficient, since it was evident from the tone of the recent correspondence, that the family of Bayford were inclined to drop future intercourse. He was obliged for the inquiries for Lucy, and was happy to say she was recovering favourably, though the late unfortunate events, and the agitation caused by letters from home, had affected her so seriously, that they had been detained at Genoa for nearly four months to his great inconvenience, instead of pushing on to Florence and Rome. It had been some compensation that he had become extremely intimate with that most agreeable and superior person, Lord Belraven, who had consented to become sponsor to his son.
Lucy wrote to Albinia. Poor thing, the letter was the most childishly expressed, and the least childishly felt, she had ever written; its whole aspect was weak and wobegone; yet there was less self-pity, and more endeavour to make the best of it, than before. She had the dearest little baby in the world; but he was very delicate, and she wished mamma would send out an English nurse, for she could not bear that Italian woman—her black eyes looked so fierce, and she was sure it was not safe to have those immense pins in her hair. Expense was nothing, but she should never be happy till she had an Englishwoman about him, especially now that she was getting better, and Algernon would want her to come out again with him. Dear Algernon, he had lost the Easter at Rome for her sake, but perhaps it was a good thing, for he was often out in Lord Belraven’s yacht, and she could be quiet with baby. She did wish baby to have had her dear brothers’ names, but Algernon would not consent. Next Tuesday he was to be christened; and then followed a string of mighty names, long enough for a Spanish princess, beginning with Belraven!!!
Lucy Dusautoy’s dreary condition in the midst of all that wealth could give, was a contrast to Emily Ferrars’ buoyant delight in the burrow which was her first married home, and proved a paradise to many a stray officer, aye, maybe, to Lieutenant-General Sir William Ferrars himself. Her letters were charming, especially a detail of Fred meeting Bryan O’More coming out of the trenches, grim, hungry, and tired, having recently kicked a newly alighted shell down from the parapet, with the cool words, ‘Be off with you, you ugly baste you;’ of his wolfish appetite after having been long reduced to simple rations, though he kept a curly black lamb loose about his hut, because he hadn’t the heart to kill it; and it served him for bed if not for board, all his rugs and blankets having flown off in the hurricane, or been given to the wounded; he had been quite affronted at the suggestion that a Galway pig was as well lodged as himself—it was an insult to any respectable Irish animal!
Albinia sent Maurice to summon Ulick to enjoy the letter in store for him. He looked grave and embarrassed, and did not light up as usual at Bryan’s praises. He said that his aunt, who had written to him on business, had given a bad account of Mr. Goldsmith, but Albinia hardly thought this accounted for his preoccupation, and was considering how to probe it, when her brother Maurice opened the door. ‘Ulick O’More! that’s right; the very man I was in search of!’
‘How’s Winifred, Maurice?’
‘Getting on wonderfully well. I really think she is going to make a start, after all! and she is in such spirits herself.’
‘And the boy?’
‘Oh, a thumping great fellow! I promise you he’ll be a match for your Maurice.’
‘I do believe it is to reward Winifred for sparing you in the spring when we wanted you so much! Come, sit down, and wait for Edmund.’
‘No; I’ve not a moment to stay. I’m to meet Bury again at Woodside at six o’clock, he drove me there, and I walked on, looking in at your lodgings by the way, Ulick.’
‘I’m not there now. I am keeping guard at the bank.’
‘So they told me. Well, I hope your guard is not too strict for you to come over to Fairmead on Sunday; we want you to do our boy the kindness to be his godfather!’
Sophy blushed with approving gratitude.
‘I don’t consider that it will be a sinecure—he squalls in such a characteristic manner that I am convinced he will rival his cousin here in all amiable and amenable qualities; so I consider it particularly desirable that he should be well provided with great disciplinarians.’
‘You certainly could not find any one more accomplished in teaching dunces to read,’ said Albinia.
‘When their mammas have taught them already!’ added Ulick, laughing. ‘Thank you; but you know I can’t sleep out; Hyder Ali and I are responsible for a big chest of sovereigns, and all the rest of it.’
‘Nor could I lodge you at present; so we are agreed. My proposition is that you should drive my sister over on Sunday morning. My wife is wearying for a sight of her; and she has not been at Fairmead on a Sunday since she left it, eh, Albinia?’
‘I suppose for such a purpose it is not wrong to use the horse,’ she said, her eyes sparkling.
‘And you might put my friend Maurice between you, if you can’t go out pleasuring without him.’
‘I scorn you, sir; Maurice is as good as gold; I shall leave him at home, I think, to prove that I can—’
‘That’s the reward of merit!’ exclaimed Sophy.
‘She expects my children to corrupt him!’ quoth Mr. Ferrars.
‘For shame, Maurice; that’s on purpose to make me bring him. Well, we’ll see what papa says, and if he thinks the new black horse strong enough, or to be trusted with Mr. O’More.’
‘I only wish ‘twas a jaunting car!’ cried Ulick.
‘And what’s the boy’s name to be? Not Belraven, I conclude, like my unfortunate grandson—Maurice, I hope.’
‘No; the precedent of his namesake would be too dangerous. I believe he is to be Edmund Ulick. Don’t take it as too personal, Ulick, for it was the name of our mutual connexion.’
‘I take the personal part though, Maurice; and thank you, said Albinia, and Mr. Ferrars looked more happy and joyous than any time since his wife’s health had begun to fail. Always cheerful, and almost always taking matters up in the most lively point of view, it was only by comparison that want of spirits in him could be detected; and it was chiefly by the vanishing of a certain careworn, anxious expression about his eyes, and by the ring of his merry laugh, that Albinia knew that he thought better of his wife’s state than for the last five or six years.
Albinia and Ulick drove off at six o’clock on a lovely summer Sunday morning, with Maurice between them in a royal state of felicity. That long fresh drive, past summer hay-fields sleeping in their silver bath of dew, and villages tardily awakening to the well-earned Sunday rest, was not the least pleasant part of the day; and yet it was completely happy, not even clouded by one outbreak of Master Maurice. Luckily for him, Mary had a small class, who absorbed her superabundant love of rule; and little Alby was a fair-haired, apple-cheeked maiden of five, who awoke both admiration and chivalry, and managed to coquet with him and Ulick both at once, so that Willie had no disrespect to his sisters to resent.
He was exemplary at church, well-behaved at dinner, and so little on his mamma’s mind, that she had a delightful renewal of her acquaintance with the Sunday-school, and a leisurable gossip with Mrs. Reid and the two Miss Reids, collectively and individually; but the best of all was a long quiet tete-a-tete with Winifred.
After the evening service, Mr. Ferrars himself carried his newly-christened boy back to the mother, and paused that his sister might come with him, and they might feel like the old times, when the three had been alone together.
‘Yes,’ said Winifred, when he had left them, ‘it is very pretty playing at it; but one cannot be the same.’
‘Nor would one exactly wish it,’ said Albinia; ‘though I think you are going to be more the same.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Winifred; ‘the worst of being ill is that it does wear one’s husband so! When he came in, and tried to make me fancy we were gone back to Willie’s time, I could not help thinking how different you both looked.’
‘Well, so much the better and more respectable,’ said Albinia. ‘You know I always wanted to grow old; I don’t want to stop short like your sister Anne, who looks as much the child of the house as ever.
‘I wish you had as few cares as Anne. Look; I declare that’s a grey hair!’
‘I know. I like it; now Sophy is growing young, and I’m growing old, it is all correct.’
‘Old, indeed!’ ejaculated Winifred, looking at her fair fresh complexion and bright features; ‘don’t try for that, when even Edmund is not grey.’
‘Yes he is,’ said Albinia, gravely; ‘Malta sowed many white threads in his black head, and worry about those buildings has brought more.’
‘Worry; I’m very sorry to hear of it.’
‘Yes; the tenures are so troublesome, and everybody is so cantankerous. If he wanted to set up some pernicious manufacture, it could not be worse! The Osbornes, after having lived with Tibb’s Alley close to them all their lives, object to the almshouses! Mr. Baron wont have the new drains carried through his little strip of land. The Town Council think we are going to poison the water; and Pettilove, and everybody else who owns a wretched tenement, that we shall increase the wants of their tenants, and lower their rents. If it be carried through, it will be by that sheer force in going his own way that Edmund can exert when he chooses.’
‘And he will?’
‘O, yes, no fear of that; he goes on, avoiding seeing or hearing what he has not to act upon; but worse than all are the people themselves; Tibb’s Alley all has notice to quit, but none of them can be got rid of till Martinmas, and some not till Lady-day, and the beer-house people are in such a rage! The turn-out of the public-houses come and roar at our gate on Saturday nights; and they write up things on the wall against him! and one day they threw over into the garden what little Awkey called a poor dear dead pussy. I believe they tell them all sorts of absurd things about his tyranny; poor creatures.’
‘Can’t you get it stopped?’
‘Edmund wont summon any one, because he thinks it would do more harm than good. He says it will pass off; but it grieves him more than he shows: he thinks he could once have made himself more popular: but I don’t know, it is a horrid set.’
‘I thought you said he was in good spirits.’
‘And so he is: he never gets depressed and unwilling to be spoken to. He is ready to take interest in everything; and always so busy! When I remember how he never seemed to be obliged to attend to anything, I laugh at the contrast; and yet he goes about it all so gravely and slowly, that it never seems like a change.’
In this and other home talk nearly an hour had passed, when Mr. Ferrars returned. ‘Are you come to tell me to go?’ said Albinia.
‘Not particularly,’ he said, in a tone that made her laugh.
‘No, no,’ said Winifred. ‘I want a great deal more of her. Where have you been?’
‘I have been to see old Wilks; Ulick walked down with me. By-the-bye, Albinia, what nonsense has Fred’s wife been talking to his brother?’
‘Emily does not talk nonsense!’ fired up Albinia, colouring, nevertheless.
‘The worse for her, then! However, it seems Bryan has disturbed this poor fellow very much, by congratulating him on his prospects at Willow Lawn.’
‘Oh! that is what made him so distant and cautious, is it?’ laughed Albinia. ‘I think Mrs. Emily might as well not have betrayed it.’
‘Betrayed! What could have passed?’
‘Oh! Emily and Fred saw it as plain as I did. Why, it does not do credit to your discernment, Maurice; papa found it out long ago, and told me.’
‘Kendal did?’
‘Yes, that he did, and did not mind the notion at all; rather liked it, in fact.’
‘Well!’ said Mr. Ferrars, in a different tone, ‘it is a very queer business! I certainly did not think the lad showed any symptoms. He said he had heard gossip about it before, and had tried to be careful; his aunt talked to him once, but, as he said, it would be nothing but the rankest treason to think of such a thing, on the terms on which he is treated.’
‘Ay, that’s it!’ said Albinia; ‘he acts most perfectly.’
‘Perfectly indeed, if that were acting,’ said Mr. Ferrars.
‘And what made him speak to you?’ asked Winifred.
‘He wanted to consult me. He said it was very hard on him, for all the pleasure he had came from his intercourse with Willow Lawn; and he could not bear to keep at a distance, because it looked as if he had not forgotten the old folly about the caricature; but he was afraid of the report coming to your ears or Mr. Kendal’s, because you would think it so wrong and shameful an abuse of your kindness.’
‘And that’s his whole concern?’
‘So he told me.’
‘And what advice did you give him?’
‘I told him Bayford was bent on gossip, and no one heeded it less than my respected brother and sister.’
‘That was famous of you, Maurice. I was afraid you would have put it upon his honour and the state of his own heart.’
‘Sooth to say, I did not think his heart appeared very ticklish.’
‘Oh! Maurice, Maurice! But you’ve not been there to see the hot fits and the cold fits! It is a very fine thermometer whether he says Sophy or Miss Kendal.’
‘And you say Edmund perceived this?’
‘Much you would trust my unassisted ‘cuteness! I tell you he did, and that it will make him happier than anything.’
‘Very well; then my advice will have done no harm. I did not think there had been so much self-control in an Irishman.’
‘Had he not better say, so much blindness in the rector of Fairmead?’ laughed Albinia.
‘And pray what course is the affair to take?’
‘The present, I suppose. Some catastrophe will occur at last to prove to him that we honour him, and don’t view it as outrageous presumption; and then—oh! there can be no doubt that he will have a share in the bank; and Sophy may buy toleration for his round O. After all, he has the best of it as to ancestry, and we Kendals need not turn up our noses at banking.’
‘I think he will be too proud to address her, except on equality as to money matters.’
‘Pride is sometimes quelled and love free,’ said Albinia. ‘No, no; content yourself with having given the best advice in the world, with your eyes fast shut!’
And Albinia went home in high spirits.
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