Charlotte M. Yonge

“ His sister had always bantered her on what had seemed too absurd to be rebutted, and, at any rate, this fainting fit would clench his belief. No doubt he believed it. And if he did, why should not every one else whose opinion she cared for: Ermine, her Colonel, even gentle Fanny—no, she would never believe any harm, she had suffered too much in her cause.
Oh, for simple genuine charity like Fanny’s, with eyes clear with innocence and humility! And now what was before her? should she ever be allowed to hide her head, or should she be forced again to brave that many-eyed world? ”

“ Mr. Grey rubbed his forehead, and looked freshly annoyed at each revelation of the state of things. It had not been Mauleverer, but Rachel, who had asked subscriptions for the education of the children, he had but acted as her servant, the counterfeit of the woodcuts, which Lady Temple suggested, could not be construed into an offence; and it looked very much as if, thanks to his cleverness, and Rachel’s incaution, there was really no case to be made out against him, as if the fox had carried off the bait without even leaving his brush behind him. ”

“ I thought all the world knew—all the inner world, that is, that revels in a secret.”
“Knew what?” said Rachel, unavoidable intolerable colour rushing into her face.
“Why the romance of Colin and Ermine! To live on the verge of such a—a tragi-comedy, is it? and not be aware of it, I do pity you.”
“The only wonder is how you knew it,” said her brother, in a tone of repression.
“I! Oh, it is a fine thing to be a long-eared little pitcher when one’s elders imagine one hears nothing but what is addressed to oneself. ”

“ Rachel was too much tired to do anything but read the new number of her favourite “Traveller’s Magazine,” listening to her mother with one ear, and gathering additional impressions of Sir Stephen Temple’s imprudence, and the need of their own vigilance. To make Fanny feel that she could lean upon some one besides the military secretary, seemed to be the great object, and she was so confiding and affectionate with her own kin, that there were great hopes. Those boys were an infliction, no doubt, but, thought Rachel, “there is always an ordeal at the beginning of one’s mission. ”

“ Were you not one of its most considered inhabitants, scarcely less a child of Aunt Ermine and Aunt Alison than their Rosebud herself?
Murmur, murmur, rippled the child’s happy low-toned monologue directed to her silent but sufficient playmate, and so far from disturbing the aunt, that more than one smile played on her lips at the quaint fancies, and at the well of gladness in the young spirit, which made day after day of the society of a cripple and an old doll, one constant song of bliss, one dream of bright imaginings. ”

“ Isabel he married when she was almost a child to this Comyn Menteith, very young too at the time, and who has turned out a good-natured, reckless, dissipated fellow, who is making away with his property as fast as he can, and to whom Keith’s advice is like water on a duck’s back. It is all rack and ruin and extravagance, a set of ill-regulated children, and Isabel smiling and looking pretty in the midst of them, and perfectly impervious to remonstrance. He is better out of sight of them, for it is only pain and vexation, an example of the sort of match he likes to make. ”

“ Oh, Alick! do you think it can be?” said Fanny, less easily borne down with a supporter beside her.
“According to the Peace Society,” he answered, with a quiet air of courteous deference; “perhaps you belong to it?”
“No, indeed,” answered Rachel, rather indignantly, “I think war the great purifier and ennobler of nations, when it is for a good and great cause; but I think education ought to protest against confounding mere love of combat with heroism.” ”

“ Fanny opened her brown eyes, and awaited the words of wisdom.
“Is it not a flagrant abuse,” continued Rachel, “that whether she have a vocation or not, every woman of a certain rank, who wishes to gain her own livelihood, must needs become a governess? A nursery maid must have a vocation, but an educated or half-educated woman has no choice; and educator she must become, to her own detriment, and that of her victims.” ”

“ Burning tears of disappointment were upon Alison’s cheek, the old hopeless blank was returning, and her brother might come back in vain, to find his enemy beyond his reach. Here was an end alike of his restoration and of Ermine’s happiness!
“Oh!” whispered Lady Temple, “is it not horrid? Is nothing to be done to that dreadful man? I always thought people came here to do justice. I shall never like Sir Edward Morden again! But, oh! what can that be? Where is the Colonel?” ”

“ Yet Rachel was not wont to think how things would sound! And this fresh intense dislike provoked her. Was it the unsuitability of the young widow remarrying? “Surely, surely, it must not be that womanhood in its contemptible side is still so strong that I want to keep all for myself! Shame! And this may be the true life love, suppressed, now able to revive! I have no right to be disgusted, I will watch minutely, and judge if he will be a good guide and father to the boys, though it may save the colonel trouble. ”

“ All I really do care for is your kindness, and helping me about,” and she was really crying like a child unable to learn a lesson.
“Well,” he said, with his own languor of acquiescence, “we are perfectly agreed. Waterfalls are an uncommon bore, if one is not in a concatenation accordingly.”
Rachel was beguiled into a smile.
“Come,” he said, “let us be strong minded! If life should ever become painful to us because of our neglect of the waterfalls, we will set out and fulfil our tale of them. Meantime, let me take you where you shall be really quiet, home to Bishopsworthy.” ”

“ Ignorant of such subjects at the best, her brain was devoid of force even to reason out her own conjectures, or to decide what must be impossible. She felt compelled to keep all to herself; to alarm her mother was out of the question, when Mrs. Curtis was distressed and shaken enough already, and to have told Grace would only have brought her soothing promises of sharing the burthen—exactly what she did not want—and would have led to the fact being known to the family man of business, Mr. Cox, the very last person to whom Rachel wished to confess the proceeding. ”

“ The looks of the sisters met, and read one another so far as to know that the meeting was over, and for the rest they endured, while Rachel remained, little imagining the trial her presence had been to Alison’s burning heart—sick anxiety and doubt. How could it be well? Let him be loveable, let him be constant, that only rendered Ermine’s condition the more pitiable, and the shining glance of her eyes was almost more than Alison could bear. ”

“ The Temple form of shyness seemed to consist in ignoring strangers, but being neither abashed nor silenced, only resenting or avoiding all attempts at intercourse, and as the boys rushed in and out of the rooms, exploring, exclaiming, and calling mamma, to the interruption of all that was going on, only checked for a few minutes by her uplifted hand and gentle hush, Grace saw her mother so stunned and bewildered that she rejoiced in the fear of cold that had decided that Rachel alone should spend the evening there. ”

“ But, thought Rachel, Colonel Keith being her own, what united power they should have over Fanny. Pooh! she had by no means resigned herself to have him, though for Fanny’s sake it might be well, and was there not a foolish prejudice in favour of married women, that impeded the usefulness of single ones? However, if the stiff, dry old man approved of her for her fortune’s sake, that would be quite reason enough for repugnance. ”

“ They were simple words, so simple that the terrible truth with which they were connected, did not come upon Rachel at the first moment; but as if to veil her agitation, she drew towards her a book, an ivory-bound Prayer-book, full of illuminations, of Bessie’s own doing, and her eye fell upon the awful verse, “So long as thou doest well unto thyself, men will speak good of thee.” ”

“ Oh, what it is to be helpless women! You are the very first person, Colin, who has not looked at me pityingly, like a creature to be forborne with an undeniable delusion!”
“They must be very insolent people, then, to look at that brow and eyes, and think even sisterly love could blind them,” he said. “Yes, Ermine, I was certain that unless Edward were more changed than I could believe, there must be some such explanation. ”

“ Let me tell you, Colonel, my heart has been in it ever since I felt the relief of meeting real truth and unselfishness! I liked her that first evening, when she was manfully chasing us off for frivolous danglers round her cousin! I liked her for having no conventionalities, fast or slow, and especially for hating heroes! And when my sister had helped to let her get into this intolerable web, how could I look on without feeling the nobleness that has never shifted blame from herself, but bowed, owned all, suffered—suffered—oh, how grievously! ”

“ The very force of Rachel’s resolution not to be put out of countenance served to cover her with the most uncomfortable blushes, all the more at the thought of her own unlucky exclamation. “I came here,” said Alick, coolly, “to assist in recovering the beloved remains from a watery grave;” and then, as Bessie insisted on hearing the Avoncester version, he gave it; while Grace added the intelligence that the hero was a clergyman, sinking the opinions, as too vague to be mentioned, even had not the company been too flighty for a subject she thought serious and painful. ”

“ I see it every day, in every saucy gesture and coaxing smile, when she tries to turn away displeasure in her naughty fits. I hardly knew how to look on at her airs with Keith, it was so exactly like the little sister I first knew. Rachel, such cleverness as that is a far more perilous gift to woman than your plodding intellectuality could ever be. ”

“ A deception! Oh! he need not have done it! Or,” with a lightened look and tone of relief, “suppose he did it to see whether I should find it out?”
“He is hardly on terms with you for that,” said Ermine; while Alick could not refrain from saying, “Then he would be a more insolent scoundrel than he has shown himself yet.”
“I know he is not quite a gentleman,” said Rachel, “and nothing else gives the instinct of the becoming. You have conquered, Captain Keith, if it be any pleasure to you to have given my trust and hope a cruel shock.” ”

“ If Rachel be an old maid, what is Grace? Come, my dear, resign yourself! There is nothing more unbecoming than want of perception of the close of young-ladyhood.”
“Of course I know we are not quite young girls now,” said Grace, half perplexed, half annoyed.
“Exactly, from this moment we are established as the maiden sisters of Avonmouth, husband and wife to one another, as maiden pairs always are.” ”

“ Everything was an oppression to her; the children, in their wild, joyous spirits and gladsome inattention, tried her patience almost beyond her powers; the charge of the younger ones in their mother’s absence was burthensome, and the delay in returning to her sister became well-nigh intolerable, when she figured to herself Rachel Curtis going down to Ermine with the tidings of Colonel Keith’s arrival, and her own discontent at his influence with her cousin. ”

“ Clare failed not to give full time and patience to pick out all her difficulties, removing scruples at troubling him, by declaring that it was good for his own purpose to unwind every tangle even if he did not use every thread. It was wonderful how many puzzles were absolutely intangible, not even tangled threads, but a sort of nebulous matter that dispersed itself on investigation. And after all, unwilling as she would have been to own it, a woman’s tone of thought is commonly moulded by the masculine intellect, which, under one form or another, becomes the master of her soul. ”

“ With all your resolve to flatten down an adventure, fate is too strong for you. Something will come of it. Is not the very resolve that it shall not be an adventure a token?”
“If any one should wish to forget it, it is you, I think, Bessie,” said Alick. “Your admirable sagacity seems to have been at fault. I thought you prided yourself on your climbing.” ”

“ A call at Myrtlewood was formidable from the bear-garden sounds, and delicate as Lady Temple was considered to be, unable to walk or bear fatigue, she never appeared to be incommoded by the uproar in which she lived, and had even been seen careering about the nursery, or running about the garden, in a way that Grace and Rachel thought would tire a strong woman. ”

“ Grace enjoying herself and her universal popularity, always either talking or dancing, and her mother comfortable and dutiful among other mothers; the brilliant figure and ready grace of Bessie Keith being the one vision that perpetually flitted in her dreams, and the one ever-recurring recollection that Captain Keith, the veritable hero of the shell, had been lectured by her on his own deed! In effect Rachel had never felt so beaten down and ashamed of herself ”

“ Dr. Macvicar authoritatively hushed the woman, but Lovedy looked up with flushed cheeks, and the blue eyes that had been so often noticed for their beauty. The last flush of fever had come to finish the work.
“Don’t fret,” she said, “there’s no one to beat me up there! Please, the verse about the tears.”
Dr. Macvicar and the child both looked towards Rachel, but her whole memory seemed scared away, and it was the old Scotch army surgeon that repeated—
“‘The Lord God shall wipe off tears from all eyes.’ Ah! poor little one, you are going from a world that has been full of woe to you.” ”