The Clever Woman of the Family. Yonge Charlotte Mary

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СКАЧАТЬ you, can you really mean that you are supporting yourselves?”

      “All but twenty-five pounds a year, from a legacy to us, that Mr. Beauchamp would not let them touch. But it has been most remarkable, Colin,” she said, with the dew in her eyes, “how we have never wanted our daily bread, and how happy we have been! If it had not been for Edward, this would in many ways have been our happiest time. Since the old days the little frets have told less, and Ailie has been infinitely happier and brighter since she has had to work instead of only to watch me. Ah, Colin, must I not own to having been happy? Indeed it was very much because peace had come when the suspense had sunk into belief that I might think of you as—, where you would not be grieved by the sight of what I am now—”

      As she spoke, a knock, not at the house, but at the room door, made them both start, and impel their chairs to a more ordinary distance, just as Rachel Curtis made her entrance, extremely amazed to find, not Mr. Touchett, but a much greater foe and rival in that unexpected quarter. Ermine, the least disconcerted, was the first to speak. “You are surprised to find a visitor here,” she said, “and indeed only now, did we find out that ‘our military secretary,’ as your little cousins say, was our clear old squire’s nephew.”

      There was a ring of gladness in the usually patient voice that struck even Rachel, though she was usually too eager to be observant, but she was still unready with talk for the occasion, and Ermine continued: “We had heard so much of the Major before-hand, that we had a sort of Jupiter-like expectation of the coming man. I am not sure that I shall not go on expecting a mythic major!”

      Rachel, never understanding playfulness, thought this both audacious and unnecessary, and if it had come from any one else, would have administered a snub, but she felt the invalid sacred from her weapons.

      “Have you ever seen the boys?” asked Colonel Keith. “I am rather proud of Conrade, my pupil; he is so chivalrous towards his mother.”

      “Alison has brought down a division or two to show me. How much alike they are.”

      “Exactly alike, and excessively unruly and unmanageable,” said Rachel. “I pity your sister.”

      “More unmanageable in appearance than in reality,” said the colonel: “there’s always a little trial of strength against the hand over them, and they yield when they find it is really a hand. They were wonderfully good and considerate when it was an object to keep the house quiet.”

      Rachel would not encourage him to talk of Lady Temple, so she turned to Ermine on the business that had brought her, collecting and adapting old clothes for emigrants.—It was not exactly gentlemen’s pastime, and Ermine tried to put it aside and converse, but Rachel never permitted any petty consideration to interfere with a useful design, and as there was a press of time for the things, she felt herself justified in driving the intruder off the field and outstaying him. She succeeded; he recollected the desire of the boys that he should take them to inspect the pony at the “Jolly Mariner,” and took leave with—“I shall see you to-morrow.”

      “You knew him all the time!” exclaimed Rachel, pausing in her unfolding of the Master Temples’ ship wardrobe. “Why did you not say so?”

      “We did not know his name. He was always the ‘Major.’”

      “Who, and what is he?” demanded Rachel, as she knelt before her victim, fixing those great prominent eyes, so like those of Red Riding Hood’s grandmother, that Ermine involuntarily gave a backward impulse to her wheeled chair, as she answered the readiest thing that occurred to her,—“He is brother to Lord Keith of Gowan-brae.”

      “Oh,” said Rachel, kneeling on meditatively, “that accounts for it. So much the worse. The staff is made up of idle honourables.”

      “Quoth the ‘Times!’” replied Ermine; “but his appointment began on account of a wound, and went on because of his usefulness—”

      “Wounded! I don’t like wounded heroes,” said Rachel; “people make such a fuss with them that they always get spoilt.”

      “This was nine years ago, so you may forget it if you like,” said Ermine, diversion suppressing displeasure.

      “And what is your opinion of him?” said Rachel, edging forward on her knees, so as to bring her inquisitorial eyes to bear more fully.

      “I had not seen him for twelve years,” said Ermine, rather faintly.

      “He must have had a formed character when you saw him last. The twelve years before five-and-forty don’t alter the nature.”

      “Five-and-forty! Illness and climate have told, but I did not think it was so much. He is only thirty-six—”

      “That is not what I care about,” said Rachel, “you are both of you so cautious that you tell me what amounts to nothing! You should consider how important it is to me to know something about the person in whose power my cousin’s affairs are left.”

      “Have you not sufficient guarantee in the very fact of her husband’s confidence?”

      “I don’t know. A simple-hearted old soldier always means a very foolish old man.”

      “Witness the Newcomes,” said Ermine, who, besides her usual amusement in tracing Rachel’s dicta to their source, could only keep in her indignation by laughing.

      “General observation,” said Rachel, not to be turned from her purpose. “I am not foolishly suspicious, but it is not pleasant to see great influence and intimacy without some knowledge of the person exercising it.”

      “I think,” said Ermine, bringing herself with difficulty to answer quietly, “that you can hardly understand the terms they are on without having seen how much a staff officer becomes one of the family.”

      “I suppose much must be allowed for the frivolity and narrowness of a military set in a colony. Imagine my one attempt at rational conversation last night. Asking his views on female emigration, absolutely he had none at all; he and Fanny only went off upon a nursemaid married to a sergeant!”

      “Perhaps the bearings of the question would hardly suit mixed company.”

      “To be sure there was a conceited young officer there; for as ill luck will have it, my uncle’s old regiment is quartered at Avoncester, and I suppose they will all be coming after Fanny. It is well they are no nearer, and as this colonel says he is going to Belfast in a day or two, there will not be much provocation to them to come here. Now this great event of the Major’s coming is over, we will try to put Fanny upon a definite system, and I look to you and your sister as a great assistance to me, in counteracting the follies and nonsenses that her situation naturally exposes her to. I have been writing a little sketch of the dangers of indecision, that I thought of sending to the ‘Traveller.’ It would strike Fanny to see there what I so often tell her; but I can’t get an answer about my paper on ‘Curatocult,’ as you made me call it.”

      “Did I!”

      “You said the other word was of two languages. I can’t think why they don’t insert it; but in the meantime I will bring down my ‘Human Reeds,’ and show them to you. I have only an hour’s work on them; so I’ll come to-morrow afternoon.”

      “I think Colonel Keith talked of calling again—thank you,” suggested Ermine in despair.

      “Ah, yes, one does not want to be liable to interruptions in the most interesting part. СКАЧАТЬ