The Young Step-Mother; Or, A Chronicle of Mistakes. Yonge Charlotte Mary

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СКАЧАТЬ I wish Edmund knew him better—but oh! what a shy man it is!’

      With a light step she went down-stairs, and found Mr Kendal waiting for her in the dining-room, his face brightening as she entered.

      ‘I am sorry Bayford should wear this heavy cloud to receive you,’ he said.

      ‘It will soon clear,’ she answered, cheerfully. ‘Have you heard of poor Gilbert this morning?’

      ‘Not yet.’ Then, after a pause, ‘I have generally gone to Mrs. Meadows after the morning service,’ he said, speaking with constraint.

      ‘You will take me?’ said Albinia. ‘I wish it, I assure you.’

      It was evidently what he wished her to propose, and he added, ‘She must never feel herself neglected, and it will be better at once.’

      ‘So much more cordial,’ said Albinia. ‘Pray let us go!’

      They were interrupted by the voices of the girls—not unpleasing voices, but loud and unsubdued, and with a slight tone of provincialism, which seemed to hurt Mr. Kendal’s ears, for he said, ‘I hope you will tune those voices to something less unlike your own.’

      As he spoke, the sisters appeared in the full and conscious rustling of new lilac silk dresses, which seemed to have happily carried off all Sophy’s sullenness, for she made much more brisk and civil answers, and ran across the room in a boisterous manner, when her father sent her to see whether Gilbert were up.

      There was a great clatter, and Gilbert chased her in, breathless and scolding, but the tongues were hushed before papa, and no more was heard than that the tooth was better, and had not kept him awake. Lucy seemed disposed to make conversation, overwhelming Albinia with needless repetitions of ‘Mamma dear,’ and plunging into what Mrs. Bowles and Miss Goldsmith had said of Mr. Dusautoy, and how he kept so few servants, and the butcher had no orders last time he called. Aunt Maria thought he starved and tyrannized over that poor little sickly Mrs. Dusautoy.

      Mr. Kendal said not one word, and seemed not to hear. Albinia felt as if she had fallen into a whirlpool of gossip; she looked towards him, and hoped to let the conversation drop, but Sophy answered her sister, and, at last, when it came to something about what Jane heard from Mrs. Osborn’s Susan, Albinia gently whispered, ‘I do not think this entertains your papa, my dear,’ and silence sank upon them all.

      Albinia’s next venture was to ask about that which had been her Sunday pleasure from childhood, and she turned to Sophy, and said, ‘I suppose you have not begun to teach at the school yet!’

      Sophy’s great eyes expanded, and Lucy said, ‘Oh dear mamma! nobody does that but Genevieve Durant and the monitors. Miss Wolte did till Mr. Dusautoy came, but she does not approve of him.’

      ‘Lucy, you do not know what you are saying,’ said Mr. Kendal, and again there was an annihilating silence, which Albinia did not attempt to disturb.

      At church time, she met the young ladies in the hall, in pink bonnets and sea-green mantillas over the lilac silks, all evidently put on for the first time in her honour, an honour of which she felt herself the less deserving, as, sensible that this was no case for bridal display, she wore a quiet dark silk, a Cashmere shawl, and plain straw bonnet, trimmed with white.

      With manifest wish for reciprocity, Lucy fell into transports over the shawl, but gaining nothing by this, Sophy asked if she did not like the mantillas? Albinia could only make civility compatible with truth by saying that the colour was pretty, but where was Gilbert? He was on a stool before the dining-room fire, looking piteous, and pronouncing his tooth far too bad for going to church, and she had just time for a fresh administration of camphor before Mr. Kendal came forth from his study, and gave her his arm.

      The front door opened on a narrow sweep, the river cutting it off from the road, and crossed by two wooden bridges, beside each of which stood a weeping-willow, budding with fresh spring foliage. Opposite were houses of various pretentious, and sheer behind them rose the steep hill, with the church nearly at the summit, the noble spire tapering high above, and the bells ringing out a cheerful chime. The mist had drawn up, and all was fresh and clear.

      ‘There go Lizzie and Loo!’ cried Lucy, ‘and the Admiral and Mrs. Osborn. I’ll run and tell them papa is come home.’

      Sophy was setting off also, but Mr. Kendal stopped them, and lingered a moment or two, making an excuse of looking for a needless umbrella, but in fact to avoid the general gaze. As if making a desperate plunge, however, and looking up and down the broad street, so as to be secure that no acquaintance was near, he emerged with Albinia from the gate, and crossed the road as the chime of the bells changed.

      ‘We are late,’ he said. ‘You will prefer the speediest way, though it is somewhat steep.’

      The most private way, Albinia understood, and could also perceive that the girls would have liked the street which sloped up the hill, and thought the lilac and green insulted by being conducted up the steep, irregular, and not very clean bye-lane that led directly up the ascent, between houses, some meanly modern, some picturesquely ancient, with stone steps outside to the upper story, but all with far too much of pig-stye about them for beauty or fragrance. Lucy held up her skirts, and daintily picked her way, and Albinia looked with kindly eyes at the doors and windows, secretly wondering what friends she should find there.

      The lane ended in a long flight of more than a hundred shallow steps cut out in the soft stone of the hill, with landing-places here and there, whence views were seen of the rich meadow-landscape beyond, with villages, orchards, and farms, and the blue winding river Baye in the midst, woods rising on the opposite side under the soft haze of distance. On the other side, the wall of rock was bordered by gardens, with streamers of ivy or periwinkle here and there hanging down.

      The ascent ended in an old-fashioned stone stile; and here Sophy, standing on the step, proclaimed, with unnecessary loudness, that Mr. Dusautoy was carrying Mrs. Dusautoy across the churchyard. This had the effect of making a pause, but Albinia saw the rector, a tall, powerful man, rather supporting than actually carrying, a little fragile form to the low-browed door leading into the chancel on the north side. The church was handsome, though in the late style, and a good deal misused by eighteenth-century taste; and Albinia was full of admiration as Mr. Kendal conducted her along the flagged path.

      She was rather dismayed to find herself mounting the gallery stairs, and to emerge into a well-cushioned abode, with the shield-bearing angel of the corbel of an arch all to herself, and a very good view of the cobwebs over Mr. Dusautoy’s sounding-board. It seemed to suit all parties, however, for Lucy and Sophia took possession of the forefront, and their father had the inmost corner, where certainly nobody could see him.

      Just opposite to Albinia was a mural tablet, on which she read what revealed to her more of the sorrows of her household than she had guessed before:

‘To the memory of Lucy, the beloved wife of Edmund KendalDied February 18th, 1845, aged 35 yearsEdmund Meadows Kendal, born January 20th, 1834Died February 10th, 1845Maria Kendal, born September 5th, 1840Died September 14th, 1840Sarah Anne Kendal, born October 3rd, 1841Died November 20th, 1843John Augustus Kendal, born January 4th, 1842Died July 6th, 1842Anne Maria Kendal, born June 12th, 1844Died June 19th, 1844.’

      Then followed, in the original Greek, the words, ‘Because I live, ye shall live also.’

      Four infants! how many hopes laid here! All the English-born children of the family had died in their cradles, and not only did compassion СКАЧАТЬ