The Clever Woman of the Family. Yonge Charlotte Mary

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СКАЧАТЬ it must be a mistake. Conrade assures me he never touched the nest.”

      “So he persists in it?”

      “And indeed, Rachel dear, I cannot help believing him. If it had been Francie, now; but I never knew Conrade tell an untruth in his life.”

      “You never knew, because you always believe him.”

      “And it is not only me, but I have often heard the Major say he could always depend on Conrade’s word.”

      Rachel’s next endeavour was at gentle argument. “It must be dreadful to make such a discovery, but it was far worse to let deceit go on undetected; and if only they were firm—” At that moment she beheld two knickerbocker boys prancing on the lawn.

      “Didn’t you lock the door? Has he broken out? How audacious!”

      “I let him come out,” said Fanny; “there was nothing to shut him up for. I beg your pardon, dear Rachel; I am very sony for the poor little birds and for Grace, but I am sure Conrade did not take it.”

      “How can you be so unreasonable, Fanny—the evidence,” and Rachel went over it all again.

      “Don’t you think,” said Fanny, “that some boy may have got into the park?”

      “My dear Fanny, I am sorry for you, it is quite out of the question to think so; the place is not a stone’s-throw from Randall’s lodge. It will be the most fatal thing in the world to let your weakness be imposed on in this way. Now that the case is clear, the boy must be forced to confession, and severely punished.”

      Fanny burst into tears.

      “I am very sorry for you, Fanny. I know it is very painful; I assure you it is so to me. Perhaps it would be best if I were to lock him up, and go from time to time to see if he is come to a better mind.”

      She rose up.

      “No, no, Rachel!” absolutely screamed Fanny, starting up, “my boy hasn’t done anything wrong, and I won’t have him locked up! Go away! If anything is to be done to my boys, I’ll do it myself: they haven’t got any one but me. Oh, I wish the Major would come!”

      “Fanny, how can you be so foolish?—as if I would hurt your boys!”

      “But you won’t believe Conrade—my Conrade, that never told a falsehood in his life!” cried the mother, with a flush in her cheeks and a bright glance in her soft eyes. “You want me to punish him for what he hasn’t done.”

      “How much alike mothers are in all classes of life,” thought Rachel, and much in the way in which she would have brought Zack’s mother to reason by threats of expulsion from the shoe-club, she observed, “Well Fanny, one thing is clear, while you are so weak as to let that boy go on in his deceit, unrepentant and unpunished, I can have no more to do with his education.”

      “Indeed,” softly said Fanny, “I am afraid so, Rachel. You have taken a great deal of trouble, but Conrade declares he will never say a lesson to you again, and I don’t quite see how to make him after this.”

      “Oh, very well; then there’s an end of it. I am sorry for you, Fanny.”

      And away walked Rachel, and as she went towards the gate two artificial jets d’eau, making a considerable curve in the air, alighted, the one just before her, the other, better aimed, in the back of her neck. She had too much dignity to charge back upon the offenders, but she went home full of the story of Fanny’s lamentable weakness, and prognostications of the misery she was entailing on herself. Her mother and sister were both much concerned, and thought Fanny extremely foolish; Mrs. Curtis consoling herself with the hope that the boys would be cured and tamed at school, and begging that they might never be let loose in the park again. Rachel could not dwell much longer on the matter, for she had to ride to Upper Avon Park to hold council on the books to be ordered for the book-club; for if she did got go herself, whatever she wanted especially was always set aside as too something or other for the rest of the subscribers.

      Mrs. Curtis was tired, and stayed at home; and Grace spent the afternoon in investigations about the harrying of the thrushes, but, alas! without coming a bit nearer the truth. Nothing was seen or heard of Lady Temple till, at half-past nine, one of the midges, or diminutive flies used at Avonmonth, came to the door, and Fanny came into the drawing-room—wan, tearful, agitated.

      “Dear Rachel, I am so afraid I was hasty, I could not sleep without coming to tell you how sorry I am.”

      “Then you are convinced? I knew you would be.”

      “Oh, yes, I have just been sitting by him after he was gone to bed. He never goes to sleep till I have done that, and he always tells me if anything is on his mind. I could not ask him again, it would have been insulting him; but he went over it all of himself, and owned he ought not to have put a finger on the edge of the nest, but he wanted so to see what it was lined with; otherwise he never touched it. He says, poor boy, that it was only your being a civilian that made you not able to believe him, I am sure you must believe him now.”

      Mrs. Curtis began, in her gentle way, about the difficulty of believing one’s children in fault, but Lady Temple was entirely past accepting the possibility of Conrade’s being to blame in this particular instance. It made her bristle up again, so that even Rachel saw the impossibility of pressing it, and trusted to some signal confutation to cure her of her infatuation. But she was as affectionate as ever, only wanting to be forgiven for the morning’s warmth, and to assure dear Aunt Curtis, dear Grace, and dearest Rachel in particular, that there was no doing without them, and it was the greatest blessing to be near them.

      “Oh! and the squirting, dear Rachel! I was so sorry when I found it out, it was only Francie and Leo. I was very angry with them for it, and I should like to make them ask pardon, only I don’t think Francie would. I’m afraid they are very rude boys. I must write to the Major to find me a governess that won’t be very strict with them, and if she could be an officer’s daughter, the boys would respect her so much more.”

      CHAPTER III. MACKAREL LANE

      “For I would lonely stand

        Uplifting my white hand,

        On a mission, on a mission,

        To declare the coming vision.”

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

      “Well, Grace, all things considered, perhaps I had better walk down with you to Mackarel Lane, and then I can form a judgment on these Williamses without committing Fanny.”

      “Then you do not intend to go on teaching?”

      “Not while Conrade continues to brave me, and is backed up by poor Fanny.”

      “I might speak to Miss Williams after church, and bring her in to Myrtlewood for Fanny to see.”

      “Yes, that might do in time; but I shall make up my mind first. Poor Fanny is so easily led that we must take care what influences fall in her way.”

      “I always wished you would call.”

      “Yes, and I would not by way of patronage to please Mr. Touchett, but this is for a purpose; and I hope we shall find both sisters at home.”

      Mackarel Lane was at right angles to the shore, running up the valley of the Avon; but it soon ceased to be fishy, and became agricultural, owning a few cottages of very humble gentility, which were wont to hang out boards to СКАЧАТЬ