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The Young Step-Mother; Or, A Chronicle of Mistakes

by Charlotte M. Yonge · English · Gutenberg #5843 · 1,198,646 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Young Step-Mother; Or, A Chronicle of Mistakes

Author: Charlotte M. Yonge


        
Release date: June 1, 2004 [eBook #5843]
                Most recently updated: October 13, 2016

Language: English

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THE YOUNG STEP-MOTHER

or, A CHRONICLE OF MISTAKES

By Charlotte M Yonge


     Fail--yet rejoice, because no less
     The failure that makes thy distress
     May teach another full success.

     Nor with thy share of work be vexed
     Though incomplete and even perplexed
     It fits exactly to the next.
                            ADELAIDE A PROCTOR





CHAPTER I.


‘Have you talked it over with her?’ said Mr. Ferrars, as his little
slender wife met him under the beeches that made an avenue of the lane
leading to Fairmead vicarage.

‘Yes!’ was the answer, which the vicar was not slow to understand.

‘I cannot say I expected much from your conversation, and perhaps we
ought not to wish it. We are likely to see with selfish eyes, for what
shall we do without her?’

‘Dear Albinia! You always taunted me with having married your sister as
much as yourself.’

‘So I shall again, if you cannot give her up with a good grace.’

‘If I could have had my own way in disposing of her.’

‘Perhaps the hero of your own composition might be less satisfactory to
her than is Kendal.’

‘At least he should be minus the children!’

‘I fancy the children are one great attraction. Do you know how many
there are?’

‘Three; but if Albinia knows their ages she involves them in a discreet
haze. I imagine some are in their teens.’

‘Impossible, Winifred, he is hardly five-and-thirty.’

‘Thirty-eight, he said yesterday, and he married very early. I asked
Albinia if her son would be in tail-coats; but she thought I was
laughing at her, and would not say. She is quite eager at the notion of
being governess to the girls.’

‘She has wanted scope for her energies,’ said Mr. Ferrars. ‘Even
spoiling her nephew, and being my curate, have not afforded field enough
for her spirit of usefulness.’

‘That is what I am afraid of.’

‘Of what, Winifred?’

‘That it is my fault. Before our marriage, you and she were the whole
world to each other; but since I came, I have seen, as you say, that the
craving for work was strong, and I fear it actuates her more than she
knows.’

‘No such thing. It is a case of good hearty love. What, are you afraid
of that, too?’

‘Yes, I am. I grudge her giving her fresh whole young heart away to a
man who has no return to make. His heart is in his first wife’s grave.
Yes, you may smile, Maurice, as if I were talking romance; but only look
at him, poor man! Did you ever see any one so utterly broken down? She
can hardly beguile a smile from him.’

‘His melancholy is one of his charms in her eyes.’

‘So it may be, as a sort of interesting romance. I am sure I pity the
poor man heartily, but to see her at three-and-twenty, with her sweet
face and high spirits, give herself away to a man who looks but half
alive, and cannot, if he would, return that full first love--have the
charge of a tribe of children, be spied and commented on by the first
wife’s relations--Maurice, I cannot bear it.’

‘It is not what we should have chosen,’ said her husband, ‘but it has
a bright side. Kendal is a most right-minded, superior man, and she
appreciates him thoroughly. She has great energy and cheerfulness, and
if she can comfort him, and rouse him into activity, and be the kind
mother she will be to his poor children, I do not think we ought to
grudge her from our own home.’

‘You and she have so strong a feeling for motherless children!’

‘Thinking of Kendal as I do, I have but one fear for her.’

‘I have many--the chief being the grandmother.’

‘Mine will make you angry, but it is my only one. You, who have only
known her since she has subdued it, have probably never guessed that she
has that sort of quick sensitive temper--’

‘Maurice, Maurice! as if I had not been a most provoking, presuming
sister-in-law. As if I had not acted so that if Albinia ever had a
temper, she must have shown it.’

‘I knew you would not believe me, and I really am not afraid of her
doing any harm by it, if that is what you suspect me of. No, indeed; but
I fear it may make her feel any trials of her position more acutely than
a placid person would.’

‘Oho! so you own there will be trials!’

‘My dear Winifred, as if I had not sat up till twelve last night laying
them before Albinia. How sick the poor child must be of our arguments,
when there is no real objection, and she is so much attached! Have you
heard anything about these connexions of his? Did you not write to Mrs.
Nugent? I wish she were at home.’

‘I had her answer by this afternoon’s post, but there is nothing to
tell. Mr. Kendal has only been settled at Bayford Bridge a few years,
and she never visited any one there, though Mr. Nugent had met Mr.
Kendal several times before his wife’s death, and liked him. Emily is
charmed to have Albinia for a neighbour.’

‘Does she know nothing of the Meadows’ family?’

‘Nothing but that old Mrs. Meadows lives in the town with one unmarried
daughter. She speaks highly of the clergyman.’

‘John Dusautoy? Ay, he is admirable--not that I have done more than see
him at visitations when he was curate at Lauriston.’

‘Is he married?’

‘I fancy he is, but I am not sure. There is one good friend for Albinia
any way!’

‘And now for your investigations. Did you see Colonel Bury?’

‘I did, but he could say little more than we knew. He says nothing
could be more exemplary than Kendal’s whole conduct in India, he only
regretted that he kept so much aloof from others, that his principle and
gentlemanly feeling did not tell as much as could have been wished. He
has always been wrapped up in his own pursuits--a perfect dictionary of
information.’

‘We had found out that, though he is so silent. I should think him a
most elegant scholar.’

‘And a deep one. He has studied and polished his acquirements to
the utmost. I assure you, Winifred, I mean to be proud of my
brother-in-law.’

‘What did you hear of the first wife?’

‘It was an early marriage. He went home as soon as he had sufficient
salary, married her, and brought her out. She was a brilliant dark
beauty, who became quickly a motherly, housewifely, common-place
person--I should think there had been a poet’s love, never awakened
from.’

‘The very thing that has always struck me when, poor man, he has tried
to be civil to me. Here is a man, sensible himself, but who has never
had the hap to live with sensible women.’

‘When their children grew too old for India, she came into some little
property at Bayford Bridge, which enabled him to retire. Colonel Bury
came home in the same ship, and saw much of them, liked him better and
better, and seems to have been rather wearied by her. A very good woman,
he says, and Kendal most fondly attached; but as to comparing her with
Miss Ferrars, he could not think of it for a moment. So they settled at
Bayford, and there, about two years ago, came this terrible visitation
of typhus fever.’

‘I remember how Colonel Bury used to come and sigh over his friend’s
illness and trouble.’

‘He could not help going over it again. The children all fell ill
together--the two eldest were twin boys, one puny, the other a very
fine fellow, and his father’s especial pride and delight. As so often
happens, the sickly one was spared, the healthy one was taken.’

‘Then Albinia will have an invalid on her hands!’

‘The Colonel says this Edmund was a particularly promising boy, and poor
Kendal felt the loss dreadfully. He sickened after that, and his wife
was worn out with nursing and grief, and sank under the fever at
once. Poor Kendal has never held up his head since; he had a terrible
relapse.’

‘And,’ said Winifred, ‘he no sooner recovers than he goes and marries
our Albinia!’

‘Two years, my dear.’

‘Pray explain to me, Maurice, why, when people become widowed in any
unusually lamentable way, they always are the first to marry again.’

‘Incorrigible. I meant to make you pity him.’

‘I did, till I found I had wasted my pity. Why could not these Meadowses
look after his children! Why must the Colonel bring him here? I believe
it was with malice prepense!’

‘The Colonel went to see after him, and found him so drooping and
wretched, that he insisted on bringing him home with him, and old Mrs.
Meadows and her daughter almost forced him to accept the invitation.’

‘They little guessed what the Colonel would be at!’

‘You will be better now you have the Colonel to abuse,’ said her
husband.

‘And pray what do you mean to say to the General?’

‘Exactly what I think.’

‘And to the aunts?’ slyly asked the wife.

‘I think I shall leave you all that correspondence. It will be too
edifying to see you making common cause with the aunts.’

‘That comes of trying to threaten one’s husband; and here they come,’
said Winifred. ‘Well, Maurice, what can’t be cured must be endured.
Albinia’a heart is gone, he is a very good man, and spite of India,
first wife, and melancholy, he does not look amiss!’

Mr. Ferrars smiled at the chary, grudging commendation of the tall,
handsome man who advanced through the beech-wood, but it was too true
that his clear olive complexion had not the line of health, that there
was a world of oppression on his broad brow and deep hazel eyes, and
that it was a dim, dreamy, reluctant smile that was awakened by the
voice of the lady who walked by his side, as if reverencing his grave
mood.

She was rather tall, very graceful, and well made, but her features were
less handsome than sweet, bright, and sensible. Her hair was nut-brown,
in long curled waves; her eyes, deep soft grey, and though downcast
under the new sympathies, new feelings, and responsibilities that
crowded on her, the smile and sparkle that lighted them as she blushed
and nodded to her brother and sister, showed that liveliness was the
natural expression of that engaging face.

Say what they would, it was evident that Albinia Ferrars had cast in
her lot with Edmund Kendal, and that her energetic spirit and love of
children animated her to embrace joyfully the cares which such a choice
must impose on her.

As might have been perceived by one glance at the figure, step, and
bearing of Mr. Ferrars, perfectly clerical though they were, he belonged
to a military family. His father had been a distinguished Peninsular
officer, and his brother, older by many years, held a command in Canada.
Maurice and Albinia, early left orphans, had, with a young cousin, been
chiefly under the charge of their aunts, Mrs. Annesley and Miss Ferrars,
and had found a kind home in their house in Mayfair, until Maurice had
been ordained to the family living of Fairmead, and his sister had gone
to live with him there, extorting the consent of her elder brother
to her spending a more real and active life than her aunts’ round of
society could offer her.

The aunts lamented, but they could seldom win their darling to them for
more than a few weeks at a time, even after their nephew Maurice had--as
they considered--thrown himself away on a little lively lady of Irish
parentage, no equal in birth or fortune, in their opinion, for the
grandson of Lord Belraven.

They had been very friendly to the young wife, but their hopes had all
the more been fixed on Albinia; and even Winifred could afford them some
generous pity in the engagement of their favourite niece to a retired
East India Company’s servant--a widower with three children.




CHAPTER II.



The equinoctial sun had long set, and the blue haze of March east
wind had deepened into twilight and darkness when Albinia Kendal found
herself driving down the steep hilly street of Bayford. The town was not
large nor modern enough for gas, and the dark street was only lighted
here and there by a shop of more pretension; the plate-glass of the
enterprising draper, with the light veiled by shawls and ribbons, the
‘purple jars,’ green, ruby, and crimson of the chemist; and the modest
ray of the grocer, revealing busy heads driving Saturday-night bargains.

‘How well I soon shall know them all,’ said Albinia, looking at her
husband, though she knew she could not see his face, as he leant back
silently in his corner, and she tried to say no more. She was sure that
coming home was painful to him; he had been so willing to put it off,
and to prolong those pleasant seaside days, when there had been such
pleasant reading, walking, musing, and a great deal of happy silence.

Down the hill, and a little way on level ground--houses on one side,
something like hedge or shrubbery on the other--a stop--a gate
opened--a hollow sound beneath the carriage, as though crossing a wooden
bridge--trees--bright windows--an open door--and light streaming from
it.

‘Here is your home, Albinia,’ said that deep musical voice that she
loved the better for the subdued melancholy of the tones, and the
suppressed sigh that could not be hidden.

‘And my children,’ she eagerly said, as he handed her out, and,
springing to the ground, she hurried to the open door opposite,
where, in the lamp-light, she saw, moving about in shy curiosity and
embarrassment, two girls in white frocks and broad scarlet sashes, and
a boy, who, as she advanced, retreated with his younger sister to the
fireplace, while the elder one, a pretty, and rather formal looking girl
of twelve, stood forward.

Albinia held out her arms, saying, ‘You are Lucy, I am sure,’ and
eagerly kissed the girl’s smiling, bright face.

‘Yes, I am Lucy,’ was the well-pleased answer, ‘I am glad you are come.’

‘I hope we shall be very good friends,’ said Albinia, with the sweet
smile that few, young or old, could resist. ‘And this is Gilbert,’ as
she kissed the blushing cheek of a thin boy of thirteen--‘and Sophia.’

Sophia, who was eleven, had not stirred to meet her. She alone inherited
her father’s fine straight profile, and large black eyes, but she had
the heaviness of feature that sometimes goes with very dark complexions.
The white frock did not become her brown neck and arms, her thick black
hair was arranged in too womanly a manner, and her head and face looked
too large; moreover, there was no lighting-up to answer the greeting,
and Albinia was disappointed.

Poor child, she thought, she is feeling deeply that I am an interloper,
it will be different now her father is coming.

Mr. Kendal was crossing the hall, and as he entered he took the hand and
kissed the forehead of each of the three, but Sophia stood with the same
half sullen indifference--it might be shyness, or sensibility.

‘How much you are grown!’ he said, looking at the children with some
surprise.

In fact, though Albinia knew their ages, they were all on a larger scale
than she had expected, and looked too old for the children of a man of
his youthful appearance. Gilbert had the slight look of rapid growth;
Lucy, though not so tall, and with a small, clear, bright face, had the
air of a little woman, and Sophia’s face might have befitted any age.

‘Yes, papa,’ said Lucy; ‘Gilbert has grown an inch-and-a-half since
October, for we measured him.’

‘Have you been well, Gilbert?’ continued Mr. Kendal, anxiously.

‘I have the toothache, said Gilbert, piteously.

‘Happily, nothing more serious,’ thrust in Lucy; ‘Mr. Bowles told Aunt
Maria that he considers Gilbert’s health much improved.’

Albinia asked some kind questions about the delinquent tooth, but the
answers were short; and, to put an end to the general constraint, she
asked Lucy to show her to her room.

It was a pretty bay-windowed room, and looked cheerful in the firelight.
Lucy’s tongue was at once unloosed, telling that Gilbert’s tutor, Mr.
Salsted, had insisted on his having his tooth extracted, and that he had
refused, saying it was quite well; but Lucy gave it as her opinion that
he much preferred the toothache to his lessons.

‘Where does Mr. Salsted live?’

‘At Tremblam, about two miles off; Gilbert rides the pony over there
every day, except when he has the toothache, and then he stays at home.’

‘And what do you do?’

‘We went to Miss Belmarche till the end of our quarter, and since that
we have been at home, or with grandmamma. Do you _really_ mean that we
are to study with you?’

‘I should like it, my dear. I have been looking forward very much to
teaching you and Sophia.’

‘Thank you, mamma.’

The word was said with an effort as if it came strangely, but it
thrilled Albinia’s heart, and she kissed Lucy, who clung to her, and
returned the caress.

‘I shall tell Gilbert and Sophy what a dear mamma you are,’ she said.
‘Do you know, Sophy says she shall never call you anything but Mrs.
Kendal; and I know Gilbert means the same.’

‘Let them call me whatever suits them best,’ said Albinia; ‘I had
rather they waited till they feel that they like to call me as you have
done--thank you for it, dear Lucy. You must not fancy I shall be at
all hurt at your thinking of times past. I shall want you to tell me of
them, and of your own dear mother, and what will suit papa best.’

Lucy looked highly gratified, and eagerly said, ‘I am sure I shall love
you just like my own mamma.’

‘No,’ said Albinia, kindly; ‘I do not expect that, my dear. I don’t ask
for any more than you can freely give, dear child. You must bear with
having me in that place, and we will try and help each other to
make your papa comfortable; and, Lucy, you will forgive me, if I am
impetuous, and make mistakes.’

Lucy’s little clear black eyes looked as if nothing like this had ever
come within her range of observation, and Albinia could sympathize with
her difficulty of reply.

Mr. Kendal was not in the drawing-room when they re-entered, there was
only Gilbert nursing his toothache by the fire, and Sophy sitting in the
middle of the rug, holding up a screen. She said something good-natured
to each, but neither responded graciously, and Lucy went on talking,
showing off the room, the chiffonieres, the ornaments, and some pretty
Indian ivory carvings. There was a great ottoman of Aunt Maria’s work,
and a huge cushion with an Arab horseman, that Lucy would uncover,
whispering, ‘Poor mamma worked it,’ while Sophy visibly winced, and
Albinia hurried it into the chintz cover again, lest Mr. Kendal should
come. But Lucy had full time to be communicative about the household
with such a satisfied, capable manner, that Albinia asked if she had
been keeping house all this time.

‘No; old Nurse kept the keys, and managed till now; but she went this
morning.’

Sophy’s mouth twitched.

‘She was so very fond--’ continued Lucy.

‘Don’t!’ burst out Sophy, almost the first word Albinia had heard from
her; but no more passed, for Mr. Kendal came in, and Lucy’s conversation
instantly was at an end.’

Before him she was almost as silent as the others, and he seldom
addressed himself to her, only inquiring once after her grandmamma’s
health, and once calling Sophy out of the way when she was standing
between the fire and--He finished with the gesture of command, whether
he said ‘Your mamma,’ none could tell.

It was late, and the meal was not over before bed-time, when Albinia
lingered to find remedies for Gilbert’s toothache, pleased to feel
herself making a commencement of motherly care, and to meet an
affectionate glance of thanks from Mr. Kendal’s eye. Gilbert, too,
thanked her with less shyness than before, and was hopeful about the
remedy; and with the feeling of having made a beginning, she ran down
to tell Mr. Kendal that she thought he had hardly done justice to the
children--they were fine creatures--something so sweet and winning about
Lucy--she liked Gilbert’s countenance--Sophy must have something deep
and noble in her.

He lifted his head to look at her bright face, and said, ‘They are very
much obliged to you.’

‘You must not say that, they are my own.’

‘I will not say it again, but as I look at you, and the home to which I
have brought you, I feel that I have acted selfishly.’

Albinia timidly pressed his hand, ‘Work was always what I wished,’ she
said, ‘if only I could do anything to lighten your grief and care.’

He gave a deep, heavy sigh. Albinia felt that if he had hoped to have
lessened the sadness, he had surely found it again at his own door. He
roused himself, however, to say, ‘This is using you ill, Albinia; no one
is more sensible of it than I am.’

‘I never sought more than you can give,’ she murmured; ‘I only wish to
do what I can for you, and you will not let me disturb you.’

‘I am very grateful to you,’ was his answer; a sad welcome for a bride.
‘And these poor children will owe everything to you.’

‘I wish I may do right by them,’ said Albinia, fervently.

‘The flower of the flock’--began Mr. Kendal, but he broke off at once.

Albinia had told Winifred that she could bear to have his wife’s memory
first with him, and that she knew that she could not compensate to him
for his loss, but the actual sight of his dejection came on her with
a chill, and she had to call up all her energies and hopes, and, still
better, the thought of strength not her own, to enable her to look
cheerfully on the prospect. Sleep revived her elastic spirits, and with
eager curiosity she drew up her blind in the morning, for the first view
of her new home.

But there was a veil--moisture made the panes resemble ground glass, and
when she had rubbed that away, and secured a clear corner, her range of
vision was not much more extensive. She could only see the grey outline
of trees and shrubs, obscured by the heavy mist; and on the lawn below,
a thick cloud that seemed to hang over a dark space which she suspected
to be a large pond.

‘There is very little to be gained by looking out here!’ Albinia
soliloquized. ‘It is not doing the place justice to study it on a misty,
moisty morning. It looks now as if that fever might have come bodily out
of the pond. I’ll have no more to say to it till the sun has licked
up the fog, and made it bright! Sunday morning--my last Sunday without
school-teaching I hope! I famish to begin again--and I will make time
for that, and the girls too! I am glad he consents to my doing whatever
I please in that way! I hope Mr. Dusautoy will! 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 Kendal.
           Died February 18th, 1845, aged 35 years.

      Edmund Meadows Kendal, born January 20th, 1834.
           Died February 10th, 1845.

      Maria Kendal, born September 5th, 1840.
           Died September 14th, 1840.

      Sarah Anne Kendal, born October 3rd, 1841.
           Died November 20th, 1843.

      John Augustus Kendal, born January 4th, 1842.
           Died July 6th, 1842.

      Anne Maria Kendal, born June 12th, 1844.
           Died 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 for
the past affect Albinia, as she thought of her husband’s world of hidden
grief, but a shudder for the future came over her, as she remembered
having read that such mortality is a test of the healthiness of a
locality. What could she think of Willow Lawn? It was with a strong
effort that she brought her attention back to Him Who controlleth the
sickness that destroyeth at noon-day.

But Mr. Dusautoy’s deep, powerful intonations roused her wandering
thoughts, and she was calmed and reassured by the holy Feast, in which
she joined with her husband.

Mr. Kendal’s fine face was calm and placid, as best she loved to look
upon it, when they came out of church, and she was too happy to disturb
the quiet by one word. Lively and animated as she was, there was a sort
of repose and enjoyment in the species of respect exacted by his grave
silent demeanour.

If this could only have lasted longer! but he was taking her along an
irregular street, and too soon she saw a slight colour flit across his
cheek, and his eyebrows contract, as he unlatched a green door in a high
wall, and entered a little flagged court, decorated by a stand destined
for flowers.

Albinia caught the blush, and felt more bashful than she had believed
was in her nature, but she had a warm-hearted determination that she
would work down prejudices, and like and be liked by all that concerned
him and his children. So she smiled at him, and went bravely on into the
matted hall and up the narrow stairs, and made a laughing sign when he
looked back at her ere he tapped at the sitting-room door.

It was opened from within before he could turn the handle, and a shrill
voice, exaggerating those of the girls, showered welcomes with such
rapidity, that Albinia was seated at the table, and had been helped
to cold chicken, before she could look round, or make much answer to
reiterations of ‘so very kind.’

It was a small room, loaded with knicknacks and cushions, like a
repository of every species of female ornamental handiwork in vogue for
the last half century, and the luncheon-tray in the middle of all, ready
for six people, for the two girls were there, and though Mr. Kendal
stood up by the fire, and would not eat, he and his black image,
reflected backwards and forwards in the looking-glass and in the little
round mirror, seemed to take up more room than if he had been seated.

Mrs. Meadows was slight, shrunken, and gentle-looking, with a sweet tone
in her voice, great softness of manner, and pretty blue eyes. Albinia
only wished that she had worn mourning, it would have been so much more
becoming than bright colours, but that was soon overlooked in gratitude
for her affectionate reception, and in the warmth of feeling excited by
her evident fondness and solicitude for Mr. Kendal.

Miss Meadows was gaily dressed in youthful fashion, such as evidently
had set her off to advantage when she had been a bright, dark, handsome
girl; but her hair was thin, her cheeks haggard, the colour hardened,
and her forty years apparent, above all, in an uncomfortable furrow on
the brow and round the mouth; her voice had a sharp distressed tone that
grated even in her lowest key, and though she did not stammer, she could
never finish a sentence, but made half-a-dozen disjointed commencements
whenever she spoke. Albinia pitied her, and thought her nervous, for she
was painfully assiduous in waiting on every one, scarcely sitting down
for a minute before she was sure that pepper, or pickle, or new bread,
or stale bread, or something was wanted, and squeezing round the table
to help some one, or to ring the bell every third minute, and all in
a dress that had a teasing stiff silken rustle. She offered Mr. Kendal
everything in the shape of food, till he purchased peace by submitting
to take a hard biscuit, while Albinia was not allowed her glass of water
till all manner of wines, foreign and domestic, had been tried upon her
in vain.

Conversation was not easy. Gilbert was inquired after, and his aunt
spoke in her shrill, injured note, as she declared that she had done her
utmost to persuade him to have the tooth extracted, and began a history
of what the dentist ought to have done five years ago.

His grandmother softly pitied him, saying poor little Gibbie was such
a delicate boy, and required such careful treatment; and when Albinia
hoped that he was outgrowing his ill-health, she was amused to find that
desponding compassion would have been more pleasing.

There had been a transaction about a servant in her behalf: and Miss
Meadows insisted on hunting up a note, searching all about the room, and
making her mother and Sophy move from the front of two table-drawers, a
disturbance which Sophy did not take with such placid looks as did her
grandmother.

The name of the maid was Eweretta Dobson, at which there was a general
exclamation.

‘I wonder what is the history of the name,’ said Albinia; ‘it sounds
like nothing but the diminutive of ewer. I hope she will not be the
little pitcher with long ears.’

Mr. Kendal looked as much amused as he ever did, but no one else gave
the least token of so much as knowing what she meant, and she felt as if
she had been making a foolish attempt at wit.

‘You need not call her so,’ was all that Mrs. Meadows said.

‘I do not like calling servants by anything but their true names,’
answered Albinia; ‘it does not seem to me treating them with proper
respect to change their names, as if we thought them too good for them.
It is using them like slaves.

Lucy exclaimed, ‘Why! grandmamma’s Betty is really named Philadelphia.’

Albinia laughed, but was disconcerted by finding that she had really
given annoyance. ‘I beg your pardon,’ she said. ‘It is only a fancy
of my own. I am afraid that I have many fancies for my friends to
bear with. You see I have so fine a name of my own, that I have a
fellow-feeling for those under the same affliction; and I believe some
servants like an alias rather than be teased for their finery, so I
shall give Miss Eweretta her choice between that and her surname.

The old lady looked good-natured, and that matter blew over; but Miss
Meadows fell into another complication of pros and cons about writing
for the woman’s character, looking miserably harassed whether she should
write, or Mrs. Kendal, before she had been called upon.

Albinia supposed that Mrs. Wolfe might call in the course of the week;
but this Miss Meadows did not know, and she embarked in so many half
speeches, and looked so mysterious and significant at her mother, that
Albinia began to suspect that some dreadful truth was behind.

‘Perhaps,’ said the old lady, ‘perhaps Mrs. Kendal might make it
understood through you, my dear Maria, that she is ready to receive
visits.’

‘I suppose they must be!’ said Albinia.

‘You see, my dear, people would be most happy, but they do not know
whether you have arrived. You have not appeared at church, as I may
say.’

‘Indeed,’ said Albinia, much diverted by her new discoveries in the
realms of etiquette, ‘I was rather in a cupboard, I must allow. Ought we
to have sailed up the aisle in state in the Grandison pattern? Are you
ready?’ and she glanced up at her husband, but he only half heard.

‘No,’ said Miss Meadows, fretfully; ‘but you have not appeared as a
bride. The straw bonnet--you see people cannot tell whether you are not
incog, as yet--’

To refrain from laughing was impossible. ‘My tarn cap,’ she exclaimed;
‘I am invisible in it! What shall I do? I fear I shall never be
producible, for indeed it is my very best, my veritable wedding-bonnet!’

Lucy looked as if she thought it not worth while to be married for no
better a bonnet than that.

‘Absurdity!’ said Mr. Kendal.

If he would but have given a good hearty laugh, thought Albinia, what a
consolation it would be! but she considered herself to have had a lesson
against laughing in that house, and was very glad when he proposed going
home. He took a kind, affectionate leave of the old lady, who again
looked fondly in big face, and rejoiced in his having recovered his
looks.

As they arrived at home, Lucy announced that she was just going to speak
to Lizzie Osborn, and Sophy ran after her to a house of about the same
degree as their own, but dignified as Mount Lodge, because it stood
on the hill side of the street, while Mr. Kendal’s house was for more
gentility called ‘Willow Lawn.’ Gilbert was not to be found; but at four
o’clock the whole party met at dinner, before the evening service.

Gilbert could eat little, and on going back to the fire to roast his
cheek instead of going to church, was told by his father, ‘I cannot
have this going on. You must go to Mr. Bowles directly after breakfast
to-morrow, have the tooth drawn, and then go on to Mr. Salsted’s.

The tone was one that admitted of no rebellion. If Mr. Kendal interfered
little, his authority was absolute where he did interfere, and Albinia
could only speak a few kind words of encouragement, but the boy was
vexed and moody, seemed half asleep when they came home, and went to bed
as soon as tea was over.

Sophy went to bed too, Mr. Kendal went to his study, and Albinia, after
this day of novelty and excitement, drew her chair to the fire, and as
Lucy was hanging wearily about, called her to her side, and made her
talk, believing that there was more use in studying the girl’s character
than even in suggesting some occupation, though that was apparently the
great want of the whole family on Sunday.

Lucy’s first confidence was that Gilbert had not been out alone, but
with that Archibald Tritton. Mr. Tritton had a great farm, and was a
sort of gentleman, and Gilbert was always after that Archy. She thought
it ‘very undesirable,’ and Aunt Maria had talked to him about it, but he
never listened to Aunt Maria.

Albinia privately thought that it must be a severe penance to listen to
Aunt Maria, and took Gilbert’s part. She supposed that he must be very
solitary; it must be a melancholy thing to be a twin left alone.

‘And Edmund, dear Edmund, was always so kind and so fond of Gilbert!’
said Lucy. ‘You would not have thought they were twins, Edmund was so
much the tallest and strongest. It seemed so odd that Gilbert should
have got over it, when he did not. Should you like to hear all about it,
mamma?’

It was Albinia’s great wish to lift that dark veil, and Lucy began, with
as much seriousness and sadness as could co-exist with the satisfaction
and importance of having to give such a narration, and exciting emotion
and pity. It was remarkable how she managed to make herself the heroine
of the story, though she had been sent out of the house, and had escaped
the infection. She spoke in phrases that showed that she had so often
told the story as to have a set form, caught from her elders, but still
it had a deep and intrinsic interest for the bride, that made her sit
gazing into the fire, pressing Lucy’s hand, and now and then sighing
and shuddering slightly as she heard how there had been a bad fever
prevailing in that lower part of the town, and how the two boys were
both unwell one damp, hot autumn morning, and Lucy dwelt on the escape
it had been that she had not kissed them before going to school. Sophy
had sickened the same day, and after the tedious three weeks, when
father and mother were spent with attendance on the three, Edmund, after
long delirium, had suddenly sunk, just as they had hopes of him; and
the same message that told Lucy of her brother’s death, told her of the
severe illness of both parents.

The disease had done the work rapidly on the mother’s exhausted frame,
and she was buried a week after her boy. Lucy had seen the procession
from the window, and thought it necessary to tell how she had cried.

Mr. Kendal’s had been a long illness; the first knowledge of his loss
had caused a relapse, and his recovery had long been doubtful. As soon
as the children were able to move, they were sent with Miss Meadows to
Ramsgate, and Lucy had joined them there.

‘The day before I went, I saw papa,’ she said. ‘I had gone home for some
things that I was to take, and his room door was open, so he saw me on
the stairs, and called me, for there was no fear of infection then. Oh,
he was so changed! his hair all cut off, and his cheeks hollow, and he
was quite trembling, as he lay back on pillows in the great arm-chair.
You can’t think what a shock it was to me to see him in such a state.
He held out his arms, and I flung mine round his neck, and sobbed and
cried. And he just said, so faintly, “Take her away, Maria, I cannot
bear it.” I assure you I was quite hysterical.’

‘You must have wished for more self-command,’ said Albinia, disturbed by
Lucy’s evident pleasure in having made a scene.

‘Oh, but it was such a shock, and such a thing to see the house all
empty and forlorn, with the windows open, and everything so still! Miss
Belmarche cried too, and said she did not wonder my feelings overcame
me, and _she_ did not see papa.’

‘Ah! Lucy,’ said Albinia, fervently, ‘how we must try to make him happy
after all that he has gone through!’

‘That is what grandmamma said when she got his letter. “I would be glad
of anything,” she said, “that would bring back a smile to him.” And Aunt
Maria said she had done her best for him, but he must consult his own
happiness; and so I say. When people talk to me, I say that papa is
quite at liberty to consult his own happiness.’

‘Thank you.’

Lucy did not understand the tone, and went on patronizing. ‘And if they
say you look younger than they expected, I don’t object to that at all.
I had rather you were not as old as Aunt Maria, or Miss Belmarche.’

‘Who thinks me so young?’

‘Oh! Aunt Maria, and grandmamma, and Mrs. Osborn, and all; but I don’t
mind that, it is only Sophy who says you look like a girl. Aunt Maria
says Sophy has an unmanageable temper.’

‘Don’t you think you can let me find that out for myself?’

‘I thought you wanted me to tell you about everybody.’

‘Ah! but tell me of the good in your brother and sister.’

‘I don’t know how,’ said Lucy. ‘Gilbert is so tiresome, and so is Sophy.
I heard Mary telling Jane, “I’m sure the new missus will have a heavy
handful of those two.”’

‘And what of yourself?’ said Albinia.

‘Oh! I don’t know,’ said Lucy, modestly.

Mr. Kendal came in, and as Albinia looked at his pensive brow, she was
oppressed by the thought of his sufferings in that dreary convalescence.
At night, when she looked from her window, the fog hung white, like
mildew over the pond, and she could not reason herself out of a spectral
haunting fancy that sickness lurked in the heavy, misty atmosphere. She
dreamt of it and the four babies, started, awoke, and had to recall
all her higher trust to enable her vigour to chase off the oppressive
imagination.




CHAPTER III.



Fog greeted Mrs. Kendal’s eyes as she rose, and she resolved to make
an attack on the pond without loss of time. But Mr. Kendal was absorbed
nearly all breakfast-time in a letter from India, containing a scrap in
some uncouth character. As he finished his last cup of tea, he looked
up and said, ‘A letter from my old friend Penrose, of Bombay--an
inscription in the Salsette caves.’

‘Have you seen the Salsette caves?

‘Yes.’

She was longing to hear about them, but his horse was announced.

‘You said you would be engaged in the morning while I ride out,
Albinia?’ he said, ‘I shall return before luncheon. Gilbert, you had
better go at once to Mr. Bowles. I shall order your pony to be ready
when you come back.’

There was not a word of remonstrance, though the boy looked very
disconsolate, and began to murmur the moment his father had gone.
Albinia, who had regarded protection at a dentist’s one of the offices
of the head of a family, though dismayed at the task, told Gilbert that
she would come with him in a moment. The girls exclaimed that no one
thought of going with him, and fearing she had put an affront on his
manliness, she asked what he would like, but could get no answer, only
when Lucy scolded him for lingering, he said, ‘I thought _she_ was going
with me.’

‘Amiable,’ thought Albinia, as she ran up to put on her bonnet; ‘but I
suppose toothache puts people out of the pale of civilization. And if he
is thankless, is not that treating me more like a mother?’

Perhaps he had accepted her escort in hopes of deferring the evil hour,
for he seemed discomfited to see her so quickly ready, and not grateful
to his sisters, who hurried them by saying that Mr. Bowles would be gone
out upon his rounds.

Mr. Bowles was amazed at the sight of Mrs. Kendal, and so elaborate in
compliments and assurances that Mrs. Bowles would do herself the honour
of calling, that Albinia, pitying Gilbert, called his attention back.

With him the apothecary was peremptory and facetious. ‘He had expected
that he should soon see him after his papa’s return!’ And with a
‘soon be over,’ he set him down, and Albinia bravely stood a desperate
wringing of her hand at the tug of war. She was glad she had come, for
the boy suffered a good deal, and was faint, and Mr. Bowles pronounced
his mouth in no state for a ride to Tremblam.

‘I must go,’ said Gilbert, as they walked home, ‘I wish papa would
listen to anything.’

‘He would not wish you to hurt yourself.’

‘When papa says a thing--’ began Gilbert.

‘Well, Gilbert, you are quite right, and I hope you don’t think I
mean to teach you disobedience. But I do desire you, on my own
responsibility, not to go and catch an inflammation in your jaw. I’ll
undertake papa.’

Gilbert at once became quite another creature. He discoursed so much,
that she had to make him restore the handkerchief to his mouth; he held
open the gate, showed her a shoal of minnows, and tried to persuade her
to come round the garden before going in, but she clapped her hands
at him, and hunted him back into the warm room, much impressed and
delighted by his implicit obedience to his father. With Lucy and Sophy,
his remaining seemed likewise to make a great sensation; they looked at
Mrs. Kendal and whispered, and were evidently curious as to the result
of her audacity. Albinia, who had grown up with her brother Maurice and
cousin Frederick, was more used to boys than to girls, and was already
more at ease with her son than her daughters.

Gilbert lent a ready hand with hammer and chisel, and boxes were opened,
to the great delight and admiration of the girls. They were all very
happy and busy setting things to rights, but Albinia was in difficulty
how to bestow her books. There was an unaccountable scarcity both of
books and book-cases; none were to be seen except that, in a chiffoniere
in the drawing-room, there was a row in gilded bindings, chiefly Pope,
Gray, and the like; and one which Albinia took out had pages which
stuck together, a little pale blue string, faded at the end, and in the
garlanded fly-leaf the inscription, ‘To Miss Lucy Meadows, the reward of
good conduct, December 20th, 1822.’ The book seemed rather surprised at
being opened, and Albinia let it close itself as Lucy said, ‘Those are
poor mamma’s books, all the others are in the study. Come in, and I’ll
show you.’

She threw open the door, and Albinia entered. The study was shaded with
a mass of laurels that kept out the sun, and made it look chill and sad,
and the air in it was close. The round library-table was loaded with
desks, pocket-books, and papers, the mantelpiece was covered with
letters, and book-shelves mounted to the ceiling, filled with the
learned and the poetical of new and old times.

Over the fireplace hung what it needed not Lucy’s whisper to point out,
as ‘Poor mamma’s picture.’ It represented a very pretty girl, with
dark eyes, brilliant colour, and small cherry mouth, painted in the
exaggerated style usually called ‘ridiculously like.’

Albinia’s first feeling was that there was nothing in herself that could
atone for the loss of so fair a creature, and the thought became more
oppressive as she looked at a niche in the wall, holding a carved
sandal-wood work-box, with a silver watch lying on it.

‘Poor Edmund’s watch,’ said Lucy. ‘It was given to him for a reward just
before he was ill.’

Albinia tried to recover composure by reading the titles of the books.
Suddenly, Lucy started and exclaimed, ‘Come away. There he is!’

‘Why come away?’ said Albinia.

‘I would not have him find me there for all the world.’

In all her vexation and dismay, Albinia could not help thinking of
Bluebeard’s closet. Her inclination was to stay where she was, and take
her chance of losing her head, yet she felt as if she could not bear to
be found invading a sanctuary of past recollections, and was relieved to
find that it was a false alarm, though not relieved by the announcement
that Admiral and Mrs. Osborn and the Miss Osborns were in the
drawing-room.

‘Before luncheon--too bad!’ she exclaimed, as she hurried upstairs to
wash off the dust of unpacking.

Ere she could hurry down, there was another inundation streaming across
the hall, Mrs. Drury and three Miss Drurys, who, as she remembered, when
they began to kiss her, were some kind of cousins.

There was talk, but Albinia could not give entire attention; she was
watching for Mr. Kendal’s return, that she might guard Gilbert from his
displeasure, and the instant she heard him, she sprang up, and flew into
the hall. He could not help brightening at the eager welcome, but when
she told him of Mr. Bowles’ opinion, he looked graver, and said, ‘I fear
you must not always attach credit to all Gilbert’s reports.’

‘Mr. Bowles told me himself that he must run no risk of inflammation.’

‘You saw Mr. Bowles?’

‘I went with Gilbert.’

‘You? I never thought of your imposing so unpleasant a task on yourself.
I fear the boy has been trespassing on your kindness.’

‘No, indeed, he never asked me, but--’ with a sort of laugh to hide the
warmth excited by his pleased, grateful look, ‘I thought it all in the
day’s work, only natural--’

She would have given anything to have had time to enjoy his epanchement
de coeur at those words, bit she was obliged to add, ‘Alas! there’s all
the world in the drawing-room!’

‘Who?’

‘Osborns and Drurys.’

‘Do you want me?’

‘I ran away on the plea of calling you.’

‘I’ll never do so again,’ was her inward addition, as his countenance
settled into the accustomed fixed look of abstraction, and as an
unwilling victim he entered the room with her, and the visitors were
‘dreadful enough’ to congratulate him.

Albinia knew that it must be so unpleasant to him, that she blushed up
to the roots of her hair, and could not look at anybody.

When she recovered, the first comers were taking leave, but the second
set stayed on and on till past luncheon-time, and far past her patience,
before the room was at last cleared.

Gilbert hurried in, and was received by his father with, ‘You are very
much obliged to her!’

‘Indeed I am,’ said Gilbert, in a winning, pleasant manner.

‘I don’t want you to be,’ said Albinia, affectionately laying her arm
on his shoulder. ‘And now for luncheon--I pitied you, poor fellow; I
thought you must have been famished.’

‘Anything not to have all the Drurys at luncheon,’ said Gilbert,
confidentially, ‘I had begun to wish myself at Tremblam.’

‘By the bye,’ said Mr. Kendal, waking as he sat down at the bottom of
the table, ‘how was it that the Drurys did not stay to luncheon?’

‘Was that what they were waiting for?’ exclaimed Albinia. ‘Poor people,
I had no notion of that.’

‘They do have luncheon here in general,’ said Mr. Kendal, as if not
knowing exactly how it came to pass.

‘O yes,’ said Lucy; ‘Sarah Anne asked me whether we ate wedding-cake
every day.’

‘Poor Miss Sarah Anne!’ said Albinia, laughing. ‘But one cannot help
feeling inhospitable when people come so unconscionably early, and cut
up all one’s morning.’

The door was again besieged by visitors, just as they were all going out
to make the round of the garden, and it was not till half-past four
that the succession ceased, and Albinia was left to breathe freely, and
remember how often Maurice had called her to order for intolerance of
morning calls.

‘And not the only people I cared to see,’ she said, ‘the Dusautoys and
Nugents. But they have too much mercy to call the first day.’

Mr. Kendal looked as if his instinct were drawing him study-wards,
but Albinia hung on his arm, and made him come into the garden. Though
devoid of Winifred’s gardening tastes, she was dismayed at the untended
look of the flower-beds. The laurels were too high, and seemed to choke
the narrow space, and the turf owed its verdant appearance to damp moss.
She had made but few steps before the water squished under her feet,
and impelled her to exclaim, ‘What a pity this pond should not be filled
up!’

‘Filled up!--’

‘Yes, it would be so much less damp. One might drain it off into the
river, and then we should get rid of the fog.’

And she began actively to demonstrate the convenient slope, and the
beautiful flower-bed that might be made in its place. Mr. Kendal
answered with a few assenting sounds and complacent looks, and Albinia,
accustomed to a brother with whom to assent was to act, believed the
matter was in train, and that pond and fever would be annihilated.

The garden opened into a meadow with a causeway leading to a canal bank,
where there was a promising country walk, but the cruel visitors had
left no time for exploring, and Albinia had to return home and hurry up
her arrangements before there was space to turn round in her room--even
then it was not what Winifred could have seen without making a face.

Mr. Kendal had read aloud to his wife in the evening during the stay at
the sea-side, and she was anxious not to let the habit drop. He liked
it, and read beautifully, and she thought it good for the children. She
therefore begged him to read, catching him on the way to his study, and
coaxing him to stay no longer than to find a book. He brought Schlegel’s
Philosophy of History. She feared that it was above the young ones, but
it was delightful to herself, and the custom had better be established
before it was perilled by attempts to adapt it to the children. Lucy
and Sophy seemed astonished and displeased, and their whispers had to be
silenced, Gilbert learnt his lessons apart. Albinia rallied her spirits,
and insisted to herself that she did not feel discouraged.

Monday had gone, or rather Albinia had been robbed of it by
visitors--now for a vigorous Tuesday. Her unpacking and her setting
to rights were not half over, but as the surface was habitable, she
resolved to finish at her leisure, and sacrifice no more mornings of
study.

So after she had lingered at the door, to delight Gilbert by admiring
his pony, she returned to the dining-room, where the girls were loading
a small table in the window with piles of books and exercises, and Lucy
was standing, looking all eagerness to show off her drawings.

‘Yes, my dear, but first we had better read. I have been talking to your
papa, and we have settled that on Wednesdays and Fridays we will go
to church; but on these days we will begin by reading the Psalms and
Lessons.’

‘Oh,’ said Lucy, ‘we never do that, except when we are at grandmamma’s.’

‘Pray are you too old or too young for it?’ said Albinia.

‘We did it to please grandmamma,’ said Sophy.

‘Now you will do it to please me,’ said Albinia, ‘if for no better
reason. Fetch your Bibles and Prayerbooks.’

‘We shall never have time for our studies, I assure you, mamma,’
objected Lucy.

‘That is not your concern,’ said Albinia, her spirit rising at the
girls’ opposition. ‘I wish for obedience.’

Lucy went, Sophy leant against the table like a post. Albinia regretted
that the first shot should have been fired for such a cause, and sat
perplexing herself whether it were worse to give way, or to force the
girls to read Holy Scripture in such a mood.

Lucy came flying down with the four books in her hands, and began
officiously opening them before her sister, and exhorting her not to
give way to sullenness--she ought to like to read the Bible--which of
course made Sophy look crosser. The desire to establish her authority
conquered the scruple about reverence. Albinia set them to read, and
suffered for it. Lucy road flippantly; Sophy in the hoarse, dull, dogged
voice of a naughty boy. She did not dare to expostulate, lest she should
exasperate the tempers that she had roused.

‘Never mind,’ she thought, ‘when the institution is fixed, they will be
more amenable.’

She tried a little examination afterwards, but not one answer was to
be extracted from Sophy, and Lucy knew far less than the first class
at Fairmead, and made her replies wide of the mark, with an air of
satisfaction that nearly overthrew the young step-mother’s patience.

When Albinia took her Bible upstairs, she gave Sophy time to say what
Lucy reported instantly on her entrance.

‘Dear me, mamma, here is Sophy declaring that you ought to be a
charity-schoolmistress. You wont be angry with her, but it is so funny!’

‘If you were at my charity school, Lucy,’ said Albinia, ‘the first
lesson I should give you would be against telling tales.’

Lucy subsided.

Albinia turned to Sophy. ‘My dear,’ she said, ‘perhaps I pressed this on
when you were not prepared for it, but I have always been used to think
of it as a duty.’

Sophy made no answer, but her moody attitude relaxed, and Albinia took
comfort in the hope that she might have been gracious if she had known
how to set about it.

‘I suppose Miss Belmarche is a Roman Catholic,’ she said, wishing to
account for this wonderful ignorance, and addressing herself to Sophy;
but Lucy, whom she thought she had effectually put down, was up again in
a moment like a Jack-in-a-box.

‘O yes, but not Genevieve. Her papa made it his desire that she should
be brought up a Protestant. Wasn’t it funny? You know Genevieve is
Madame Belmarche’s grand-daughter, and Mr. Durant was a dancing-master.’

‘Madame Belmarche’s father and brother were guillotined,’ continued
Sophy.

‘Ah! then she is an emigrant?’

‘Yes. Miss Belmarche has always kept school here. Our own mamma, and
Aunt Maria went to school to her, and Miss Celeste Belmarche married Mr.
Durant, a dancing-master--she was French teacher in a school in London
where he taught, and Madame Belmarche did not approve, for she and her
husband were something very grand in France, so they waited and waited
ever so long, and when at last they did marry, they were quite old, and
she died very soon; and they say he never was happy again, and pined
away till he really did die of grief, and so Genevieve came to her
grandmamma to be brought up.’

‘Poor child! How old is she?’

‘Fifteen,’ said Lucy. ‘She teaches in the school. She is not at all
pretty, and such a queer little thing.’

‘Was her father French?’

‘No,’ said Sophy.

‘Yes,’ said Lucy. ‘You know nothing about it, Sophy. He was French, but
of the Protestant French sort, that came to England a great many years
ago, when they ran away from the Sicilian Vespers, or the Edict of
Nantes, I don’t remember which; only the Spitalfields weavers have
something to do with it. However, at any rate Genevieve has got
something in a drawer up in her own room that she is very secret about,
and wont show to anybody.’

‘I think it is something that somebody was killed with,’ said Sophy, in
a low voice.

‘Dear me, if it is, I am sure it is quite wicked to keep it. I shall
be quite afraid to go into her room, and you know I slept there all the
time of the fever.’

‘It did not hurt you,’ said Sophy.

Albinia had been strongly interested by the touching facts, so
untouchingly narrated, and by the characteristic account of the Huguenot
emigration, but it suddenly occurred to her that she was promoting
gossip, and she returned to business. Lucy showed off her attainments
with her usual self-satisfaction. They were what might be expected from
a second-rate old-fashioned young ladies’ school, where nothing was
good but the French pronunciation. She was evidently considered a great
proficient, and her glib mediocrity was even more disheartening than
the ungracious carelessness or dulness--there was no knowing which--that
made her sister figure wretchedly in the examination. However, there was
little time--the door-bell rang at a quarter to twelve, and Mrs. Wolfe
was in the drawing-room.

‘I told you so,’ whispered Lucy, exultingly.

‘This is unbearable,’ cried Albinia. ‘I shall give notice that I am
always engaged in the morning.’

She desired each young lady to work a sum in her absence, and left them
to murmur, if they were so disposed. Perhaps it was Lucy’s speech that
made her inflict the employment; at any rate, her spirit was not as
serene as she could have desired.

Mr. Kendal was quite willing that she should henceforth shut her door
against company in the morning; that is to say, he bowed his head
assentingly. She was begging him to take a walk with her, when, at
another sound of the bell, he made a precipitate retreat into his
study. The visitors were the Belmarche family. The old lady was dark
and withered, small, yet in look and air, with a certain nobility and
grandeur that carried Albinia back in a moment to the days of hoops
and trains, of powder and high-heeled shoes, and made her feel that the
sweeping courtesy had come straight from the days of Marie
Antoinette, and that it was an honour and distinction conferred by a
superior--superior, indeed, in all the dignity of age, suffering, and
constancy.

Albinia blushed, and took her hand with respect very unlike the
patronizing airs of Bayford Bridge towards ‘poor old Madame Belmarche,’
and with downcast eyes, and pretty embarrassment, heard the stately
compliments of the ancien regime.

Miss Belmarche was not such a fine specimen of Sevres porcelain as
her mother. She was a brown, dried, small woman, having lost, or never
possessed, her country’s taste in dress, and with a rusty bonnet over
the tight, frizzly curls of her front, too thin and too scantily robed
to have any waist, and speaking English too well for the piquant grace
of her mother’s speech. Poor lady! born an exile, she had toiled, and
struggled for a whole lifetime to support her mother; but though care
had worn her down, there was still vivacity in her quick little black
eyes, and though her teeth were of a dreadful colour, her laugh was so
full of life and sweetness, that Albinia felt drawn towards her in a
moment.

Silent and demure, plainly dressed in an old dark merino, and a
white-ribboned faded bonnet, sat a little figure almost behind her
grandmother. Her face had the French want of complexion, but the eyes
were of the deepest, most lustrous hue of grey, almost as dark as the
pupils, and with the softness of long dark eyelashes--beautiful eyes,
full of light and expression--and as she moved towards the table, there
was a finish and delicacy about the whole form and movements, that made
her a most pleasing object.

But Albinia could not improve her acquaintance, for in flowed another
party of visitors, and Madame curtsied herself out again, Albinia
volunteering that she would soon come to see her, and being answered,
‘You will do me too much honour.’

Another afternoon devoured by visitors! Every one seemed to have come
except the persons who would have been most welcome, Mr. Dusautoy, and
Winifred’s friends, the Nugents.

When, at four o’clock, she had shaken hands with the last guest, she
gave a hearty yawn, jumped up and shook herself, as she exclaimed,
‘There! There! that is done! I wonder whether your papa would come out
now?’

‘He is in his study,’ said the girls.

Albinia thought of knocking and calling at the door, but somehow it
seemed impossible, and she decided on promenading past his window to
show that she was ready for him. But alas! those evergreens! She could
not see in, and probably he could not see out.

‘Ha!’ cried Lucy, as they pursued their walk into the kitchen garden,
‘here are some asparagus coming up. Grandmamma always has our first
asparagus.’

Albinia was delighted to find such an opening. Out came her knife--they
would cut the heads and take them up at once; but when the tempting
white-stalked, pink-tipped bundle had been made up and put into a
basket, a difficulty arose.

‘I’ll call the boy to take it,’ said Lucy.

‘What, when we are going ourselves?’ said Albinia.

‘Oh! but we can’t.’

‘Why? Do you think we shall break down under the weight?’

‘O no, but people will stare.’

‘Why--what should they stare at?’

‘It looks _so_ to carry a basket--’

Albinia burst into one of her merriest peals of laughing.

‘Not carry a basket! My dear, I have looked _so_ all the days of my
life. Bayford must endure the spectacle, so it may as well begin at
once.’

‘But, dear mamma--’

‘I’m not asking you to carry it. O no, I only hope you don’t think it
too ungenteel to walk with me. But the notion of calling a boy away from
his work, to carry a couple of dozen asparagus when an able-bodied woman
is going that way herself!’

Albinia was so tickled that she could hardly check herself, even when
she saw Lucy looking distressed and hurt, and little laughs would break
out every moment as she beheld the young lady keeping aloof, as if
ashamed of her company, turning towards the steep church steps, willing
at least to hide the dreadful sight from the High Street.

Just as they had entered the narrow alley, they heard a hasty tread, and
almost running over them with his long strides, came Mr. Dusautoy.
He brought himself up short, just in time, and exclaimed, ‘I beg your
pardon--Mrs. Kendal, I believe. Could you be kind enough to give me a
glass of brandy?’

Albinia gave a great start, as well she might.

‘I was going to fetch one,’ quickly proceeded Mr. Dusautoy, ‘but your
house is nearer. A poor man--there--just come home--been on the tramp
for work--quite exhausted--’ and he pointed to one of the cottages.

‘I’ll fetch it at once,’ cried Albinia.

‘Thank you,’ he said, as they crossed the street. ‘This poor fellow has
had nothing all day, has walked from Hadminster--just got home, sank
down quite worn out, and there is nothing in the house but dry bread.
His wife wants something nearly as much as he does.’

In the excitement, Albinia utterly forgot all scruples about
‘Bluebeard’s closet.’ She hurried into the house, and made but one dash,
standing before her astonished husband’s dreamy eyes, exclaiming, ‘Pray
give me the key of the cellaret; there’s a poor man just come home,
fainting with exhaustion, Mr. Dusautoy wants some brandy for him.’

Like a man but half awake, obeying an apparition, Mr. Kendal put his
hand into his pocket and gave her the key. She was instantly opening the
cellaret, seeking among the bottles, and asking questions all the time.
She proposed taking a jug of the kitchen-tea then in operation, and
Mr. Dusautoy caught at the idea, so that poor Lucy beheld the dreadful
spectacle of the vicar bearing a can full of steaming tea, and Mrs.
Kendal a small cup with the ‘spirituous liquor.’ What was the asparagus
to this?

Albinia told her to go on to Mrs. Meadows’, and that she should soon
follow. She intended to have gone the moment that she had carried in
the cup, leaving Mr. Dusautoy in the cottage, but the poor trembling
frightened wife needed woman’s sympathy and soothing, and she waited
to comfort her, and to see the pair more able to enjoy the meeting, in
their tidy, but bare and damp-looking cottage. She promised broth for
the morrow, and took her leave, the vicar coming away at the same time.

‘Thank you,’ he said, warmly, as they came out, and turned to mount the
hill together.

‘May I go and call on them again?’

‘It will be very kind in you. Poor Simkins is a steady, good sort of
fellow, but a clumsy workman, down-hearted, and with poor health, and
things have been untoward with him.’

‘People, who do not prosper in the world are not always the worst,’ said
Albinia.

‘No, indeed, and these are grateful, warm-hearted people that you will
like, if you can get over the poor woman’s lackadaisical manner. But you
are used to all that,’ he added, smiling. ‘I see you know what poor folk
are made of.’

‘I have been living among them nearly all my days,’ said Albinia. ‘I
hope you will give me something to do, I should be quite forlorn without
it;’ and she looked up to his kind, open face, as much at home with him
as if she had known, him for years.

‘Fanny--my wife--shall find work for you,’ he said. ‘You must excuse her
calling on you, she is never off the sofa, but--’ And what a bright look
he gave! as much as to say that his wife _on_ the sofa was better than
any one else _off_. ‘I was hoping to call some of these afternoons,’ he
continued, ‘but I have had little time, and Fanny thought your door was
besieged enough already.’

‘Thank you,’ said Albinia; ‘I own I thought it was your kindness in
leaving me a little breathing time. And would Mrs. Dusautoy be able to
see me if I were to call?’

‘She would be delighted. Suppose you were to come in at once.’

‘I wish I could, but I must go on to Mrs. Meadows’. If I were to come
to-morrow?’

‘Any time--any time,’ he said. ‘She is always at home, and she has
been much better since we came here. We were too much in the town at
Lauriston.’

Mr. Dusautoy, having a year ago come out of the diocese where had
been Albinia’s home, they had many common friends, and plunged into
‘ecclesiastical intelligence,’ with a mutual understanding of the topics
most often under discussion, that made Albinia quite in her element. ‘A
great Newfoundland dog of a man in size, and countenance, and kindness,’
thought she. ‘If his wife be worthy of him, I shall reck little of all
the rest.’

Her tread the gayer for this resumption of old habits, she proceeded
to Mrs. Meadows’, where the sensation created by her poor little basket
justified Lucy’s remonstrance. There were regrets, and assurances
that the girl could have come in a moment, and that she need not have
troubled herself, and her laughing declarations that it was no trouble
were disregarded, except that the old lady said, in gentle excuse to her
daughter, that Mrs. Kendal had always lived in the country, where people
could do as they pleased.

‘I mean to do as I please here,’ said Albinia, laughing; but the speech
was received with silent discomfiture that made her heartily regret it.
She disdained to explain it away; she was beginning to hold Mrs. and
Miss Meadows too cheap to think it worth while.

‘Well,’ said Mrs. Meadows, as if yielding up the subject, ‘things may be
different from what they were in my time.’

‘Oh! mamma--Mrs. Kendal--I am sure--’ Albinia let Maria flounder, but
she only found her way out of the speech with ‘Well! and is not it the
most extraordinary!--Mr. Dusautoy--so rude--’

‘I should not wonder if you found me almost as extraordinary as Mr.
Dusautoy,’ said Albinia.

Why would Miss Meadows always nettle her into saying exactly the
wrong thing, so as to alarm and distress the old lady? That want of
comprehension of playfulness was a strangely hard trial. She turned to
Mrs. Meadows and tried to reassure her by saying, ‘You know I have been
always in the clerical line myself, so I naturally take the part of the
parson.’

‘Yes, my dear,’ said Mrs. Meadows. ‘I dare say Mr. Dusautoy is a
very good man, but I wish he would allow his poor delicate wife more
butcher’s meat, and I don’t think it looks well to see the vicarage
without a man-servant.’

Albinia finally made her escape, and while wondering whether she should
ever visit that house without tingling with irritation with herself
and with the inmates, Lucy exclaimed, ‘There, you see I was right.
Grandmamma and Aunt Maria were surprised when I told them that you said
you were an able-bodied woman.’

What would not Albinia have given for Winifred to laugh with her? What
to do now she did not know, so she thought it best not to hear, and to
ask the way to a carpenter’s shop to order some book-shelves.

She was more uncomfortable after she came home, for by the sounds when
Mr. Kendal next emerged from his study, she found that he had locked
himself in, to guard against further intrusion. And when she offered to
return to him the key of the cellaret, he quietly replied that he should
prefer her retaining it,--not a formidable answer in itself, but one
which, coupled with the locking of the door, proved to her that she
might do anything rather than invade his privacy.

Now Maurice’s study was the thoroughfare of the household, the place for
all parish preparations unpresentable in the drawing-room, and Albinia
was taken by surprise. She grew hot and cold. Had she done anything
wrong? Could he care for her if he could lock her out?

‘I will not be morbid, I will not be absurd,’ said she to herself,
though the tears stood in her eyes. ‘Some men do not like to be rushed
in upon! It may be only habit. It may have been needful here. It is base
to take petty offences, and set up doubts.’

And Mr. Kendal’s tender manner when they were again together, his gentle
way of addressing her, and a sort of shy caress, proved that he was
far from all thought of displeasure; nay, he might be repenting of his
momentary annoyance, though he said nothing.

Albinia went to inquire after the sick man at her first leisure moment,
and while talking kindly to the wife, and hearing her troubles, was
surprised at the forlorn rickety state of the building, the broken
pavement, damp walls, and door that would not shut, because the frame
had sunk out of the perpendicular.

‘Can’t you ask your landlord to do something to the house?’

‘It is of no use, ma’am, Mr. Pettilove never will do nothing. Perhaps if
you would be kind enough to say a word to him, ma’am--’

‘Mr. Pettilove, the lawyer? I’ll try if Mr. Kendal can say anything to
him. It really is a shame to leave a house in this condition.’

Thanks were so profuse, that she feared that she was supposed to possess
some power of amelioration. The poor woman even insisted on conducting
her up a break-neck staircase to see the broken ceiling, whence water
often streamed in plentifully from the roof.

Her mind full of designs against the cruel landlord, she speeded up
the hill, exhilarated by each step she took into the fresh air, to the
garden-gate, which she was just unhasping when the hearty voice of the
Vicar was heard behind her. ‘Mrs. Kendal! I told Fanny you would come.’

Instead of taking her to the front door he conducted her across a
sloping lawn towards a French window open to the bright afternoon
sunshine.

‘Here she is, here is Mrs. Kendal!’ he said, sending his voice before
him, as they came in sight of the pretty little drawing-room, where
through the gay chintz curtains, she saw the clear fire shining upon
half-a-dozen school girls, ranged opposite to a couch. ‘Ah!’ as he
perceived them, ‘shall I take her for a turn in the garden while you
finish your lesson?’

‘One moment, if you please. I did not know it was so late,’ and a face
as bright as all the rest was turned towards the window.

‘Ah! give her her scholars, and she never knows how time passes,’ said
Mr. Dusautoy. ‘But step this way, and I’ll show you the best view in
Bayford.’ He took her up a step or two, to a little turfed mound, where
there was a rustic seat commanding the whole exquisite view of river,
vale, and woodland, with the church tower rising in the foreground. The
wind blew pleasantly, chasing the shadows of the clouds across the open
space. Albinia was delighted to feel it fan her brow, and her eager
exclamations contented Mr. Dusautoy. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it was all Fanny’s
notion. She planned it all last summer when I took her round the garden.
It is wonderful what an eye she has! I only hope when the dry weather
comes, that I shall be able to get her up there to enjoy it.’

On coming down they found that Mrs. Dusautoy had dismissed her class,
and come out to a low, long-backed sloping garden-seat at the window.
She was very little and slight, a mere doll in proportion to her great
husband, who could lift her as easily and tenderly as a baby, paying her
a sort of reverential deference and fond admiration that rendered them a
beautiful sight, in such full, redoubled measure was his fondness repaid
by the little, clever, fairy-looking woman, with her playful manner,
high spirits, keen wit, and the active habits that even confirmed
invalidism could not destroy. She had small deadly white hands, a fair
complexion, that varied more than was good for her, pretty, though
rather sharp and irregular features, and hazel eyes dancing with
merriment, and face and figure at some years above thirty, would have
suited a girl of twenty. To see Mr. Dusautoy bringing her footstools,
shawls, and cushions, and to remember the accusation of starvation, was
almost irresistibly ludicrous.

‘Now, John, you had better have been giving Mrs. Kendal a chair all this
time.’

‘Mrs. Kendal will excuse,’ said Mr. Dusautoy, as he brought her a seat.

‘Mrs. Kendal has excused,’ said Mrs. Dusautoy, bursting into a merry
fit of laughter. ‘Oh, I never heard anything more charming than your
introduction! I beg your pardon, but I laughed last evening till I was
worn out, and waked in the night laughing again.’

It was exhilarating to find that any one laughed at Bayford, and Albinia
partook of the mirth with all her heart. ‘Never was an address more
gratifying to me!’ she said.

‘It was like him! so unlike Bayford! So bold a venture!’ continued Mrs.
Dusautoy amid peals of laughter.

‘What is there to laugh at?’ said Mr. Dusautoy, putting on a look
between merriment and simplicity. ‘What else could I have done? I should
have done the same whoever I had met.’

‘Ah! now he is afraid of your taking it as too great a compliment! To
do him justice I believe he would, but the question is, what answer he
would have had.’

‘Nobody could have refused--’ began Albinia.

‘Oh!’ cried Mrs. Dusautoy. ‘Little you know Bayford.

‘Fanny! Fanny! this is too bad. Madame Belmarche--’

‘Would have had nothing but eau sucre! No, John, decidedly you and
Simkins fell upon your legs, and you had better take credit for your
“admirable sagacity.”’.

‘I like the people,’ said Albinia, ‘but they never can be well while
they live in such a shocking place. It is quite a disgrace to Bayford.’

‘It is in a sad state,’ said Mr. Dusautoy.

‘I know I should like to set my brother upon that Mr. Pettilove, who
they say will do nothing,’ exclaimed Albinia.

The Vicar was going to have said something, but a look from his wife
checked him. Albinia was sorry for it, as she detected a look of
suppressed amusement on Mrs. Dusautoy’s face. ‘I mean to ask Mr. Kendal
what can be done,’ she said; ‘and in the meantime, to descend from what
we can’t do to what we can. Mr. Dusautoy told me to come to you for
orders.’

‘And I told Mr. Dusautoy that I should give you none.’

‘Oh! that is hard.’

‘If you could have heard him! He thought he _had_ got a working lady at
last, and he would have had no mercy upon you. One would have imagined
that Mr. Kendal had brought you here for his sole behoof!’

‘Then I shall look to you, Mr. Dusautoy.’

‘No, I believe she is quite right,’ he said. ‘She says you ought to
undertake nothing till you have had time to see what leisure you have to
give us.’

‘Nay, I have been used to think the parish my business, home my
leisure.’

‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Dusautoy, ‘but then you were the womankind of the
clergy, now you are a laywoman.’

‘I think you have work at home,’ said the Vicar.

‘Work, but not work _enough!_’ cried Albinia. ‘The girls will help me;
only tell me what I may do.’

‘I say, “what you can,”’ said Mrs. Dusautoy. ‘You see before you a
single-handed man. Only two of the ladies here can be called coadjutors,
one being poor little Genevieve Durant, the other the bookseller’s
daughter, Clarissa Richardson, who made all the rest fly off. All the
others do what good they mean to do according to their own sweet will,
free and independent women, and we can’t have any district system, so I
think you can only do what just comes to hand.’

Most heartily did Albinia undertake all that Mrs. Dusautoy would let her
husband assign to her.

‘Yes, John is a strong temptation,’ said the bright little invalid, ‘but
you must let Mrs. Kendal find out in a month’s time whether she has work
enough.’

‘I could think my wise brother Maurice had been cautioning you,’ said
Albinia, taking leave as of an old friend, for indeed she felt more
at home with Mrs. Dusautoy than with any acquaintance she had made in
Bayford.

Albinia told her husband of the state of the cottages, and railed at Mr.
Pettilove much to her own satisfaction. Mr. Kendal answered, ‘He would
see about it,’ an answer of which Albinia had yet to learn the import.




CHAPTER IV.



There are some characters so constituted, that of them the old proverb,
that Love is blind, is perfectly true; they can see no imperfection in
the mind or body of those dear to them. There are others in whom the
strongest affections do not destroy clearness of vision, who see their
friends on all sides, and perceive their faults and foibles, without
loving them the less.

Albinia Kendal was a person of the latter description. It might almost
be called her temptation, that her mind beheld all that came before it
in a clear, and a humorous light, such as only a disposition overflowing
with warm affection and with the energy of kindness, could have
prevented from bordering upon censoriousness. She had imagination, but
it was not such as to make an illusion of the present, or to interfere
with her almost satirical good sense. Happily, religion and its earthly
manifestation--charity regulated her, taught her to fear to judge lest
she should be judged, strengthened her naturally fond affections, and
tempered the keenness that disappointment might soon have turned to
sourness. The tongue, the temper, and the judgment knew their own
tendencies, and a guard was set over them; and if the sentinel were ever
torpid or deceived, repentance paid the penalty.

She had not long seen her husband at home before she had involuntarily
completed her view of his character. Nature must have designed him for
a fellow of a college, where, apart from all cares, he might have
collected fragments of forgotten authors, and immortalized his name by
some edition of a Greek Lyric poet, known by four poems and a half,
and two-thirds of a line quoted somewhere else. In such a controversy,
lightened by perpetually polished poems, by a fair amount of modern
literature, select college friendships, and methodical habits, Edmund
Kendal would have been in his congenial element, lived and died, and had
his portrait hung up as one of the glories of his college.

But he had been carried off from school, before he had done more than
prove his unusual capacity. All his connexions were Indian, and his
father, who had not seen him since his earliest childhood, offered him
no choice but an appointment in the civil service. He had one stimulus;
he had seen Lucy Meadows in the radiant glory of girlish beauty, and had
fastened on her all a poet’s dreams, deepening and becoming more fervid
in the recesses of a reserved heart, which did not easily admit new
sensations. That stimulus carried him out cheerfully to India, and
quickened his abilities, so that he exerted himself sufficiently
to obtain a lucrative situation early in life. He married, and his
household must have been on the German system, all the learning on
one side, all the domestic cares on the other. The understanding and
refinement wanting in his wife, he believed to be wanting in all women.
As resident at a small remote native court in India, he saw no female
society such as could undeceive him; and subsequently his Bayford life
had not raised his standard of womankind. A perfect gentleman, his
superiority was his own work, rather than that of station or education,
and so he had never missed intercourse with really ladylike or
cultivated, female minds, expected little from wife, or daughters, or
neighbours; had a few learned friends, but lived within himself. He had
acquired a competence too soon, and had the great misfortune of property
without duties to present themselves obviously. He had nothing to do but
to indulge his naturally indolent scholarly tastes, which, directed as
they had been to Eastern languages, had even less chance of sympathy
among his neighbours than if they had been classical. Always reserved,
and seldom or never meeting with persons who could converse with him,
he had lapsed into secluded habits, and learnt to shut himself up in his
study and exclude every one, that he might have at least a refuge from
the gossip and petty cares that reigned everywhere else. So seldom was
anything said worth his attention, that he never listened to what was
passing, and had learnt to say ‘very well’--‘I’ll see about it,’ without
even knowing what was said to him.

But though his wife had been no companion, the illusion had never died
away, he had always loved her devotedly, and her loss had shattered all
his present rest and comfort; as entirely as the death of his son had
taken from him hope and companionship.

What a home it must have been, with Lucy reigning over it in her pert
self-sufficiency, Gilbert and Sophy running riot and squabbling,
and Maria Meadows coming in on them with her well-meant worries and
persecutions!

When taken away from the scene of his troubles, his spirits revived;
afraid to encounter his own household alone, he had thought Albinia the
cure for everything. But at home, habit and association had proved too
strong for her presence--the grief, which he had tried to leave behind,
had waited ready to meet him on the threshold, and the very sense that
it was a melancholy welcome added to his depression, and made him less
able to exert himself. The old sorrows haunted the walls of the house,
and above all the study, and tarried not in seizing on their unresisting
victim. Melancholy was in his nature, his indolence gave it force,
and his habits were almost ineffaceable, and they were habits of quiet
selfishness, formed by a resolute, though inert will, and fostered by
an adoring wife. A youth spent in India had not given him ideas of
responsibilities beyond his own family, and his principles, though
sound, had not expanded the views of duty with which he had started in
life.

It was a positive pleasure to Albinia to discover that there had been an
inefficient clergyman at Bayford before Mr. Dusautoy, and to know that
during half the time that the present vicar had held the living, Mr.
Kendal had been absent, so that his influence had had no time to work.
She began to understand her line of action. It must be her effort, in
all loving patience and gentleness, to raise her husband’s spirits and
rouse his faculties; to make his powers available for the good of his
fellow-creatures, to make him an active and happy man, and to draw him
and his children together. This was truly a task to make her heart throb
high with hope and energy. Strong and brave was that young heart, and
not self-confident--the difficulty made her only the more hopeful,
because she saw it was her duty. She was secure of her influence
with him. If he did exclude her from his study, he left her supreme
elsewhere, and though she would have given the world that their
sovereignty might be a joint one _everywhere_, still she allowed much
for the morbid inveterate habit of dreading disturbance. When he began
by silence and not listening, she could always rouse him, and give him
animation, and he was so much surprised and pleased whenever she entered
into any of his pursuits, that she had full hope of drawing him out.

One day when the fog, instead of clearing off had turned to violent
rain, Albinia had been out on parish work, and afterwards enlivening
old Mrs. Meadows by dutifully spending an hour with her, while Maria
was nursing a nervous headache--she had been subject to headaches ever
since...an ominous sigh supplied the rest.

But all the effect of Albinia’s bright kindness was undone, when the
grandmother learnt that Gilbert was gone to his tutor, and would have
to come home in the rain, and she gave such an account of his exceeding
delicacy, that Albinia became alarmed, and set off at once that she
might consult his father about sending for him.

Her opening of the hall door was answered by Mr. Kendal emerging from
his study. He was looking restless and anxious, came to meet her,
and uncloaked her, while he affectionately scolded her for being so
venturesome. She told him where she had been, and he smiled, saying,
‘You are a busy spirit! But you must not be too imprudent.’

‘Oh, nothing hurts me. It is poor Gilbert that I am anxious about.’

‘So am I. Gilbert has not a constitution fit for exposure. I wish he
were come home.’

‘Could we not send for him? Suppose we sent a fly.’

He was consenting with a pleased smile, when the door opened, and there
stood the dripping Gilbert, completely wet through, pale and chilled,
with his hair plastered down, and his coat stuck all over with the
horse’s short hair.

‘You must go to bed at once, Gilbert,’ said his father. ‘Are you cold?’

‘Very. It was such a horrid driving wind, and I rode so fast,’ said
Gilbert; violently shivering, as they helped to pull him out of his
great coat; he put his hand to his mouth, and said that his face ached.
Mr. Kendal was very anxious, and Albinia hurried the boy up to bed,
and meantime ordered quickly a basin of the soup preparing for dinner,
warmed some worsted socks at the fire, and ran upstairs with them.

He seemed to have no substance in him; he had hardly had energy to
undress himself, and she found him with his face hidden on the pillow,
shivering audibly, and actually crying. She was aghast.

The boys with whom she had been brought up, would never have given
way so entirely without resistance; but between laughing, cheering,
scolding, covering him up close, and rubbing his hands with her own, she
comforted him, so that he could be grateful and cheerful when his father
himself came up with the soup. Albinia noticed a sort of shudder pass
over Mr. Kendal as he entered, and he stood close by Gilbert, turning
his back on everything else, while he watched the boy eat the soup,
as if restored by every spoonful. ‘That was a good thought,’ was his
comment to his wife, and the look of gratitude brought a flush of
pleasure into her cheek.


Of all the dinners, this was the most pleasant; he was more gentle and
affectionate, and she made him tell her about the Persian poets, and
promise to show her some specimens of the Rose Garden of Saadi--she had
never before been so near having his pursuits opened to her.

‘What a favourite Gilbert is!’ Lucy said to Sophia, as Albinia lighted a
candle and went up to his room.

‘He makes such a fuss,’ said Sophy. ‘What is there in being wet through
to cry about?’

Albinia heard a little shuffle as she opened the door, and Gilbert
pushed a book under his pillow. She asked him what he had been reading.
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘he had not been doing it long, for the flickering of the
candle hurt his eyes.’

‘Yes, you had better not,’ said Albinia, moving the flaring light to a
less draughty part of the dingy whitewashed attic. ‘Or shall I read to
you?’

‘Are you come to stay with me?’ cried the boy, raising himself up to
look after her, as she moved about the room and stood looking from the
window over the trees at the water meadows, now flooded into a lake, and
lighted by the beams of a young moon.

‘I can stay till your father is ready for tea,’ said Albinia, coming
nearer. ‘Let me see whether your hands are hot.’

She found her own hand suddenly clasped, and pressed to his lips, and
then, as if ashamed, he turned his face away; nor would she betray her
pleasure in it, but merely said, ‘Shall I go on with your book!’

‘No,’ said he, wearily turning his reddened cheek to the other side. ‘I
only took it because it is so horrid lying here thinking.’

‘I am very sorry to hear it. Do you know, Gibbie, that it is said there
is nothing more lamentable than for a man not to like to have his own
thoughts for his company,’ said she, gaily.

‘Ah! but--!’ said Gilbert. ‘If I lie here alone, I’m always looking
out there,’ and he pointed to the opposite recess. She looked, but saw
nothing. ‘Don’t you know?’ he said.

‘Edmund?’ she asked.

He grasped her hands in both his own. ‘Aye! Ned used to sleep there. I
always look for him there.’

‘Do you mean that you would rather have another room? I would manage it
directly.’

‘O no, thank you, I like it for some things. Take the candle--look by
the shutter--cut out in the wood.’

The boys’ scoring of ‘E. & G. K.,’ was visible there.

‘Papa has taken all he could of Edmund’s,’ said Gilbert, ‘but he could
not take that! No, I would not have any other room if you were to give
me the best in the house.’

‘I am sure not! But, my dear, considering what Edmund was, surely they
should be gentle, happy thoughts that the room should give you.’

He shuddered, and presently said, ‘Do you know what?’ and paused; then
continued, with an effort, getting tight hold of her hand, ‘Just before
Edmund died--he lay out there--I lay here--he sat up all white in bed,
and he called out, clear and loud, “Mamma, Gilbert”--I saw him--and
then--he was dead! And you know mamma did die--and I’m sure I shall!’ He
had worked himself into a trembling fit, hid his face and sobbed.

‘But you have not died of the fever.’

‘Yes--but I know it means that I shall die young! I am sure it does! It
was a call! I heard Nurse say it was a call!’

What was to be done with such a superstition? Albinia did not think it
would be right to argue it away. It might be in truth a warning to him
to guard his ways--a voice from the twin-brother, to be with him through
life. She knelt down by him, and kissed his forehead.

‘Dear Gilbert,’ she said, ‘we all shall die.’

‘Yes, but I shall die young.’

‘And if you should. Those are happy who die young. How much pain your
baby-brother and sisters have missed! How happy Edmund is now!’

‘Then you really think it meant that I shall’’ he cried, tremblingly. ‘O
don’t! I can’t die!’

‘Your brother called on what he loved best,’ said Albinia. ‘It may mean
nothing. Or rather, it may mean that your dear twin-brother is watching
for you, I am sure he is, to have you with him, for what makes your
mortal life, however long, seem as nothing. It was a call to you to be
as pure on earth as he is in heaven. O Gilbert, how good you should be!’

Gilbert did not know whether it frightened him or soothed him to see his
superstition treated with respect--neither denied, nor reasoned away.
But the ghastliness was not in the mere fear that death might not be far
off.

The pillow had turned a little on one side--Albinia tried to smooth
it--the corner of a book peeped out. It was a translation of The Three
Musqueteers, one of the worst and most fascinating of Dumas’ romances.

‘You wont tell papa!’ cried Gilbert, raising himself, in far more real
and present terror than he had previously shown.

‘How did you get it? Whose is it?’

‘It is my own. I bought it at Richardson’s. It is very funny. But you
wont tell papa? I never was told not; indeed I was not.’

‘Now, Gilbert dear, will you tell me a few things? I do only wish what
is good for you. Why don’t you wish that papa should hear of this book?’

Gilbert writhed himself.

‘You know he would not like it?’

‘Then why did you take to reading it?’

‘Oh!’ cried the boy, ‘if you only did know how stupid and how miserable
it has been! More than half myself gone, and Sophy always glum, and Lucy
always plaguing, and Aunt Maria always being a torment, you would not
wonder at one’s doing anything to forget it!’

‘Yes, but why do what you knew to be wrong?’

‘Nobody told me not.’

‘Disobedience to the spirit, then, if not to the letter. It was not the
way to be happier, my poor boy, nor nearer to your brother and mother.’

‘Things didn’t use to be stupid when Ned was there!’ sobbed Gilbert,
bursting into a fresh flood of tears.

‘Ah! Gilbert, I grieved most of all for _you_ when first I heard your
story, before I thought I should ever have anything to do with you,’
said Albinia, hanging over him fondly. ‘I always thought it must be so
forlorn to be a twin left solitary. But it is sadder still than I knew,
if grief has made you put yourself farther from him instead of nearer.’

‘I shall be good again now that I have you,’ said Gilbert, as he looked
up into that sweet face.

‘And you will begin by making a free confession to your father, and
giving up the book.’

‘I don’t see what I have to confess. He would be so angry, and he never
told me not. Oh! I cannot tell him.’

She felt that this was not the right way to begin a reformation, and yet
she feared to press the point, knowing that the one was thought severe,
the other timid.

‘At least you will give up the book,’ she said.

‘O dear! if you would let me see whether d’Artagnan got to England. I
must know that! I’m sure there can’t be any harm in that. Do you know
what it is about?’

‘Yes, I do. My brother got it by some mistake among some French books.
He read some of the droll unobjectionable parts to my sister and me, but
the rest was so bad, that he threw it into the fire.’

‘Then you think it funny?’

‘To be sure I do.’

‘Do you remember the three duels all at once, and the three valets? Oh!
what fun it is. But do let me see if d’Artagnan got the diamonds.’

‘Yes, he did. But will this satisfy you, Gilbert? You know there are
some exciting pleasures that we must turn our backs on resolutely. I
think this book is one of them. Now you will let me take it? I will tell
your father about it in private, and he cannot blame you. Then, if he
will give his consent, whenever you can come home early, come to my
dressing-room, out of your sisters’ way, and I will read to you the
innocent part, so as to get the story out of your brain.’

‘Very well,’ said Gilbert, slowly. ‘Yes, if you will not let papa be
angry with me. And, oh dear! must you go?’

‘I think you had better dress yourself and come down to tea. There is
nothing the matter with you now, is there?’

He was delighted with the suggestion, and promised to come directly;
and Albinia carried off her prize, exceedingly hopeful and puzzled,
and wondering whether her compromise had been a right one, or a mere
tampering with temptation--delighted with the confidence and affection
bestowed on her so freely, but awe-struck by the impression which the
boy had avowed, and marvelling how it should be treated, so as to render
it a blessed and salutary restraint, rather than the dim superstitious
terror that it was at present. At least there was hope of influencing
him, his heart was affectionate, his will on the side of right, and in
consideration of feeble health and timid character, she would overlook
the fact that he had not made one voluntary open confession, and that
the partial renunciation had been wrung from him as a choice of evils.
She could only feel how much he was to be pitied, and how he responded
to her affection.

She was crossing the hall next day, when she heard a confusion of
tongues through the open door of the dining-room, and above all,
Gilbert’s. ‘Well, I say there are but two ladies in Bayford. One is Mrs.
Kendal, and the other is Genevieve Durant!’

‘A dancing-master’s daughter!’ Lucy’s scornful tone was unmistakeable,
and so was the ensuing high-pitched querulous voice, ‘Well, to be sure,
Gilbert might be a little more--a little more civil. Not that I’ve a
word to say against--against your--your mamma. Oh, no!--glad to see--but
Gilbert might be more civil.’

‘I think so indeed,’ said Albinia. ‘Good morning, Miss Meadows. You see
Gilbert has come home quite alive enough for mischief.’

‘Ah! I thought I might be excused. Mamma was so uneasy--though I know
you don’t admit visitors--my just coming to see--We’ve been always so
anxious about Gilbert. Gibbie dear, where is that flannel I gave you for
your throat?’

She advanced to put her finger within his neck-tie and feel for it.
Gilbert stuck his chin down, and snapped with his teeth like a gin. Lucy
exclaimed, ‘Now, Gilbert, I know mamma will say that is wrong.’

‘Ah! we are used to Gilbert’s tricks. Always bear with a boy’s antics,’
said Miss Meadows, preventing whatever she thought was coming out of
Mrs. Kendal’s month. Albinia took the unwise step of laughing, for her
sympathies were decidedly with resistance both to flannels and to the
insertion of that hooked finger.

‘Mr. Bowles has always said it was a case for great care. Flannel next
the skin--no exposure,’ continued Miss Meadows, tartly. ‘I am sure--I
know I am the last person to wish to interfere--but so delicate--You’ll
excuse--but my mother was uneasy; and people who go out in all
weathers--’

‘I hope Mrs. Meadows had my note this morning.’

‘O yes! I am perfectly aware. Thank you. Yes, I know the rule, but
you’ll excuse--My mother was still anxious--I know you exclude visitors
in lesson-time. I’m going. Only grandmamma would be glad--not that she
wishes to interfere--but if Gilbert had on his piece of flannel--’

‘Have you, Gilbert?’ said Albinia, becoming tormented.

‘I have been flannel all over all my life,’ said Gilbert, sulkily, ‘one
bit more or less can make no odds.’

‘Then you have not that piece? said Albinia.

‘Oh, my dear! Think of that! New Saxony! I begged it of Mr. Holland. A
new remnant--pink list, and all! I said it was just what I wanted
for Master Gilbert. Mr. Holland is always a civil, feeling man. New
Saxony--three shillings the yard--and trimmed with blue sarsenet! Where
is it, Gilbert?’

‘In a soup dish, with a crop of mustard and cress on it,’ said Gilbert,
with a wicked wink at Albinia, who was unable to resist joining in the
girls’ shout of laughing, but she became alarmed when she found that
poor Miss Meadows was very near crying, and that her incoherency became
so lachrymose as to be utterly incomprehensible.

Lucy, ashamed of her laughter, solemnly declared that it was very wrong
of Gilbert, and she hoped he would not suffer from it, and Albinia,
trying to become grave, judicial, and conciliatory, contrived to
pronounce that it was very silly to leave anything off in an east wind,
and hoping to put an end to the matter, asked Aunt Maria to sit down,
and judge how they went on with their lessons.

O no, she could not interrupt. Her mother would want her. She knew Mrs.
Kendal never admitted visitors. She had no doubt she was quite right.
She hoped it would be understood. She would not intrude. In fact,
she could neither go nor stay. She would not resume her seat, nor let
anything go on, and it was full twenty minutes before a series of little
vibrating motions and fragmentary phrases had borne her out of the
house.

‘Well!’ cried Gilbert, ‘I hoped Aunt Maria had left off coming down upon
us.’

‘O, mamma!’ exclaimed Lucy, ‘you never sent your love to grandmamma.’

‘Depend upon it she was waiting for that,’ said Gilbert.

I’m sure I wish I had known it,’ said Albinia, not in the most judicious
manner. ‘Half-past eleven!’

‘Aunt Maria says she can’t think how you can find time for church when
you can’t see visitors in the morning,’ said Lucy. ‘And oh! dear mamma,
grandmamma says gravy soup was enough to throw Gilbert into a fever.’

‘At any rate, it did not,’ said Albinia.

‘Oh! and, dear mamma, Mrs. Osborn is so hurt that you called on Mrs.
Dusautoy before returning her visit; and Aunt Maria says if you don’t
call to-day you will never get over it, and she says that--’

‘What business has Mrs. Osborn to ask whom I called on?’ exclaimed
Albinia, impatiently.

‘Because Mrs. Osborn is the leading lady in the town,’ said Lucy. ‘She
told Miss Goldsmith that she had no notion of not being respected.’

‘And she can’t bear the Dusautoys. She left off subscribing to anything
when they came; and he behaved very ill to the Admiral and everybody at
a vestry-meeting.’

‘I shall ask your papa before I am in any hurry to call on the Osborns!’
cried Albinia. ‘I have no desire to be intimate with people who treat
their clergyman in that way.’

‘But Mrs. Osborn is quite the leader!’ exclaimed Lucy. They keep the
best society here. So many families in the county come and call on
them.’

‘Very likely--’

‘Ah! Mrs. Osborn told Aunt Maria that as the Nugents called on you, and
you had such connexions, she supposed you would be high. But you wont
make me separate from Lizzie, will you? I suppose Miss Nugent is a
fashionable young lady.’

‘Miss Nugent is five years old. Don’t let us have any more of this
nonsense.’

‘But you wont part me from Lizzie Osborn,’ said Lucy, hanging her head
pathetically on one side.

‘I shall talk to your father. He said, the other day, he did not wish
you to be so much with her.’

Lucy melted into tears, and Albinia was conscious of having been first
indiscreet and then sharp, hurt at the comments, feeling injured by
Lucy’s evident habit of reporting whatever she said, and at the failure
of the attempt to please Mrs. Meadows. She was so uneasy about the
Osborn question, that she waylaid Mr. Kendal on his return from riding,
and laid it before him.

‘My dear Albinia,’ he said, as if he would fain have avoided the appeal,
‘you must manage your own visiting affairs your own way. I do not wish
to offend my neighbours, nor would I desire to be very intimate with any
one. I suppose you must pay them ordinary civility, and you know what
that amounts to. As to the leadership in society here, she is a noisy
woman, full of pretension, and thus always arrogates the distinction to
herself. Your claims will establish themselves.’

‘Oh, you don’t imagine me thinking of that!’ cried Albinia, laughing. ‘I
meant their behaving ill to Mr. Dusautoy.’

‘I know nothing about that. Mr. Dusautoy once called to ask for my
support for a vestry meeting, but I make it a rule never to meddle with
parish skirmishes. I believe there was a very unbecoming scene, and that
Mr. Dusautoy was in the minority.’

‘Ah, Edmund, next time you’ll see if a parson’s sister can sit quietly
by to see the parson beaten!’

He smiled, and moved towards his study.

‘Then I am to be civil?’

‘Certainly.’

‘But is it necessary to call to-day?’

‘I should suppose not;’ and there he was, shut up in his den. Albinia
went back, between laughing and vexation, and Lucy looked up from her
exercise to say, ‘Does papa say you must call on the Osborns?’

It was undignified! She bit her lip, and felt her false position, as
with a quiver of the voice she replied, ‘We shall make nothing but
mischief if we talk now. Go on with your business.’

The sharp, curious eyes did not take themselves off her face. She leant
over Sophy, who was copying a house, told her the lines were slanting,
took the pencil from her hand, and tried to correct them, but found
herself making them over-black, and shaky. She had not seen such a
line since the days of her childhood’s ill-temper. She walked to the
fireplace and said, ‘I am going to call on Mrs. Osborn to-day. Not that
your father desires it, but because I have been indulging in a wrong
feeling.’

‘I’m sure you needn’t,’ cried Gilbert. ‘It is very impertinent of
Mrs. Osborn. Why, if he is an admiral, she was the daughter of an old
lieutenant of the Marines, and you are General Sir Maurice Ferrars’
first cousin.’

‘Hush, hush, Gilbert!’ said Albinia, blushing and distressed. ‘Mrs.
Osborn’s standing in the place entitles her to all attention. I was
thinking of nothing of the kind. It was because I gave way to a wrong
feeling that I mean to go this afternoon.’

On the Sunday, when Mr. and Mrs. Kendal went to pay their weekly visit
to Mrs. Meadows, they found the old lady taking a turn in the garden.
And as they were passing by the screen of laurels, Gilbert’s voice was
heard very loud, ‘That’s too bad, Lucy! Grandmamma, don’t believe one
word of it!’

‘Gilbert, you--you are, I’m sure, very rude to your sister.’

‘I’ll not stand to hear false stories of Mrs. Kendal!’

‘What is all this?’ said Mr. Kendal, suddenly appearing, and discovering
Gilbert pirouetting with indignation before Lucy.

Miss Meadows burst out with a shower of half sentences, grandmamma
begged that no notice might be taken of the children’s nonsense, Lucy
put on an air of injured innocence, and Gilbert was beginning to speak,
but his father put him aside, saying, ‘Tell me what has happened,
Sophia. From you I am certain of hearing the exact truth.’

‘Only,’ growled Sophy, in her hoarse boy’s voice, ‘Lucy said mamma said
she would not call on Mrs. Osborn unless you ordered her, and when you
did, she cried and flew into a tremendous passion.’

‘Sophy, what a story,’ exclaimed Lucy, but Gilbert was ready to
corroborate his younger sister’s report.

‘You know Lucy too well to attach any importance to her
misrepresentations,’ said Mr. Kendal, turning to Mrs. Meadows, ‘but
I know not what amends she can make for this most unprovoked slander.
Speak, Lucy, have you no apology to make?’

For Lucy, in self-defence, had begun to cry, and her grandmother seemed
much disposed to do the same. Miss Meadows had tears in her eyes,
and incoherencies on her lips. The distress drove away all Albinia’s
inclination to laugh, and clasping her two hands over her husband’s arm,
she said, ‘Don’t, Edmund, it is only a misunderstanding of what really
happened. I did have a silly fit, you know, so it is my fault.’

‘I cannot forgive for you as you do for yourself,’ said Mr. Kendal, with
a look that was precious to her, though it might have given a pang to
the Meadowses. ‘I did not imagine that my daughter could be so lost to
the sense of your kindness and forbearance. Have you nothing to say,
Lucy?’

‘Poor child! she cannot speak,’ said her grandmother. ‘You see she is
very sorry, and Mrs. Kendal is too kind to wish to say any more about
it.’

‘Go home at once, Lucy,’ said her father. ‘Perhaps solitude may bring
you to a better state of feeling. Go!’

Direct resistance to Mr. Kendal was never thought of, and Lucy turned
to go. Her aunt chose to accompany her, and though this was a decided
relief to the company she left, it was not likely to be the best thing
for the young lady herself.

Mr. Kendal gave his arm to Mrs. Meadows, saying gravely that Lucy must
not be encouraged in her habit of gossiping and inaccuracy. Mrs. Meadows
quite agreed with him, it was a very bad habit for a girl, she was very
sorry for it, she wished she could have attended to the dear children
better, but she was sure dear Mrs. Kendal would make them everything
desirable. She only hoped that she would remember their disadvantages,
have patience, and not recollect this against poor Lucy.

The warm indignation and championship of her husband and his son were
what Albinia chiefly wished to recollect; but it was impossible to free
herself from a sense of pain and injury in the knowledge that she lived
with a spy who would exaggerate and colour every careless word.

Mr. Kendal returned to the subject as they walked home.

‘I hope you will talk seriously to Lucy about her intolerable
gossiping,’ he said. ‘There is no safety in mentioning any subject
before her; and Maria Meadows makes her worse. Some stop must be put to
it.’

‘I should like to wait till next time,’ said Albinia.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Because this is too personal to myself.’

‘Nay, your own candour is an example to which Lucy can hardly be
insensible. Besides, it is a nuisance which must be abated.’

Albinia could not help thinking that he suffered from it as little as
most people, and wondering whether it were this which had taught him
silence.

They met Miss Meadows at their own gate, and she told them that dear
Lucy was very sorry, and she hoped they would take no more notice of a
little nonsense that could do no one any harm; she would be more on her
guard next time.

Mr. Kendal made no answer. Albinia ventured to ask him whether it would
not be better to leave it, since her aunt had talked to her.

‘No,’ he said; ‘Maria has no influence whatever with the children.
She frets them by using too many words about everything. One quiet
remonstrance from you would have far more effect.’

Albinia called the culprit and tried to reason with her. Lucy tried at
first to battle it off by saying that she had made a mistake, and Aunt
Maria had said that she should hear no more about it. ‘But, my dear, I
am afraid you must hear more. It is not that I am hurt, but your papa
has desired me to talk to you. You would be frightened to hear what he
says.’

Lucy chose to hear, and seemed somewhat struck, but she was sure that
she meant no harm; and she had a great deal to say for herself, so
voluble and so inconsequent, that argument was breath spent in vain; and
Albinia was obliged to wind up, as an ultimatum, with warning her, that
till she should prove herself trustworthy, nothing interesting would be
talked of before her.

The atmosphere of gossip certainly had done its part in cultivating Mr.
Kendal’s talent for silence. When Albinia had him all to herself, he was
like another person, and the long drives to return visits in the country
were thoroughly enjoyable. So, too, were the walks home from the dinner
parties in the town, when the husband and wife lingered in the starlight
or moonlight, and felt that the weary gaiety of the constrained evening
was made up for.

Great was the offence they gave by not taking out the carriage!

It was disrespect to Bayford, and one of the airs of which Mrs. Kendal
was accused. As granddaughter of a Baron, daughter of one General
Officer and sister of another, and presented at Court, the Bayford
ladies were prepared to consider her a fine lady, and when they found
her peculiarly simple, were the more aggrieved, as if her contempt
were ironically veiled. Her walks, her dress, her intercourse with the
clergy, were all airs, and Lucy spared her none of the remarks. Albinia
might say, ‘Don’t tell me all Aunt Maria says,’ but it was impossible
not to listen; and whether in mirth or vexation, she was sure to be
harmed by what she heard.

And yet, except for the tale-bearing, Lucy was really giving less
trouble than her sister, she was quick, observant, and obliging, and
under Albinia’s example, the more salient vulgarities of speech and
manner were falling off. There had seldom been any collision, since it
had become evident that Mrs. Kendal could and would hold her own;
and that her address and air, even while criticised, were regarded as
something superior, so that it was a distinction to belong to her. How
many of poor Albinia’a so-called airs should justly have been laid to
Lucy’s account?

On the other hand, Sophy would attend to a word from her father,
where she had obstinately opposed her step-mother’s wishes, making her
obedience marked, as if for the very purpose of enforcing the contrast.
It was a character that Albinia could not as yet fathom. In all
occupations and amusements, Sophy followed the lead of her elder sister,
and in her lessons, her sole object seemed to be to get things done with
as little trouble as possible, and especially without setting her mind
to work, and yet in the very effort to escape diligence or exertion, she
sometimes showed signs of so much ability as to excite a longing desire
to know of what she would be capable when once aroused and interested;
but the surly, ungracious temper rendered this apparently impossible,
and whatever Albinia attempted, was sure, as if for the very reason that
it came from her, to be answered with a redoubling of the growl of that
odd hoarse voice.

On Lucy’s birthday, there was an afternoon party of her young friends,
including Miss Durant. Albinia, who, among the girlhood of Fairmead and
its neighbourhood, had been so acceptable a playmate, that her marriage
had caused the outcry that ‘there would never be any fun again without
Miss Ferrars,’ came out on the lawn with the girls, in hopes of setting
them to enjoy themselves. But they looked at her almost suspiciously,
retained their cold, stiff, company manners, and drew apart into
giggling knots. She relieved them of her presence, and sitting by the
window, watched Genevieve walking up and down alone, as if no one cared
to join her. Presently Lucy and Lizzie Osborn spoke to her, and she went
in. Albinia went to meet her in the hall; she coloured and said, ‘She
was only come to fetch Miss Osborn’s cloak.’

Albinia saw her disposing it over Lizzie’s shoulders, and then running
in again. This time it was for Miss Louisa’s cloak, and a third time
for Miss Drury’s shawl, which Albinia chose to take out herself, and
encountering Sophia, said, ‘Next time, you had better run on errands
yourself instead of sending your guests.’

Sophy gave a black look, and she retreated, but presently the groups
coalesced, and Maria Drury and Sophy ran out to call Genevieve into
the midst. Albinia hoped they were going to play, but soon she beheld
Genevieve trying to draw back, but evidently imprisoned, there was an
echo of a laugh that she did not like; the younger girls were skipping
up in the victim’s face in a rude way; she hastily turned round as in
indignation, one hand raised to her eyes, but it was instantly snatched
down by Maria Drury, and the pitiless ring closed in. Albinia sprang to
her feet, exclaiming aloud, ‘They are teasing her!’ and rushed into the
garden, hearing on her way, ‘No, we wont let you go!--you shall
tell us--you shall promise to show us--my papa is a magistrate, you
know--he’ll come and search--Jenny, you shall tell!’

Come with me, Genevieve,’ said Albinia, standing in the midst of the
tormentors, and launching a look of wrath around her, as she saw tears
in the young girl’s eyes, and taking her hand, found it trembling
with agitation. Fondling it with both her own, she led Genevieve away,
turning her back upon Lucy and her, ‘We were only--’

The poor girl shook more and more, and when they reached the shelter of
the house, gave way to a tightened, oppressed sob, and at the first
kind words a shower of tears followed, and she took Albinia’s hand, and
clasped it to her breast in a manner embarrassing to English feelings,
though perfectly natural and sincere in her. ‘Ah! si bonne! si bonne!
pardonnes-moi, Madame!’ she exclaimed, sobbing, and probably not knowing
that she was speaking French; ‘but, oh, Madame, you will tell me! Is it
true--can he?’

‘Can who? What do you mean, my dear?’

‘The Admiral,’ said Genevieve, looking about frightened, and sinking
her voice to a whisper. ‘Miss Louisa said so, that he could send and
search--’

‘Search for what, my dear?’

‘For my poor little secret. Ah, Madame, assuredly I may tell you. It
is but a French Bible, it belonged to my martyred ancestor, Francois
Durant, who perished at the St. Barthelemi--it is stained with his
blood--it has been handed on, from one to the other--it was all that
Jacques Durant rescued when he fled from the Dragonnades--it was given
to me by my own dear father on his death-bed, with a charge to keep
it from my grandmother, and not to speak of it--but to guard it as
my greatest treasure. And now--Oh, I am not disobeying him,’ cried
Genevieve, with a fresh burst of tears. ‘You can feel for me, Madame,
you can counsel me. Can the magistrates come and search, unless I
confess to those young ladies?’

‘Most decidedly not,’ said Albinia. ‘Set your mind at rest, my poor
child; whoever threatened you played you a most base, cruel trick.’

‘Ah, do not be angry with them, Madame; no doubt they were in sport.
They could not know how precious that treasure was to me, and they will
say much in their gaiety of heart.’

‘I do not like such gaiety,’ said Albinia. ‘What, they wished to make
you confess your secret?’

‘Yes. They had learnt by some means that I keep one of my drawers
locked, and they had figured to themselves that in it was some relic of
my Huguenot ancestors. They thought it was some instrument of death, and
they said that unless I would tell them the whole, the Admiral had the
right of search, and, oh! it was foolish of me to believe them for a
moment, but I only thought that the fright would, kill my grandmother.
Oh, you were so good, Madame, I shall never forget; no, not to the end
of my life, how you rescued me!’

‘We did not bring you here to be teased,’ said Albinia, caressing her.
‘I should like to ask your pardon for what they have made you undergo.’

‘Ah, Madame!’ said Genevieve, smiling, ‘it is nothing. I am well used to
the like, and I heed it little, except when it falls on such subjects as
these.’

She was easily drawn into telling the full history of her treasure, as
she had learnt from her father’s lips, the Huguenot shot down by the
persecutors, and the son who had fled into the mountains and returned
to bury the corpse, and take the prized, blood-stained Bible from the
breast; the escapes and dangers of the two next generations; the
few succeeding days of peace; and, finally, the Dragonnade, when the
children had been snatched from the Durant family, and the father and
mother had been driven at length to fly in utter destitution, and had
made their way to England in a wretched, unprovisioned open boat. The
child for whose sake they fled, was the only one rescued from the hands
of these enemies, and the tradition of their sufferings had been handed
on with the faithfully preserved relic, down to the slender girl, their
sole descendant, and who in early childhood had drunk in the tale
from the lips of her father. The child of the persecutors and of the
persecuted, Genevieve Durant did indeed represent strangely the history
of her ancestral country; and as Albinia said to her, surely it might be
hoped that the faith in which she had been bred up, united what was true
and sound in the religion of both Reformed and Romanist.

The words made the brown cheek glow. ‘Ah, Madame, did I not say I
could talk with you? You, who do not think me a heretic, as my dear
grandmother’s friends do, and who yet can respect my grandmother’s
Church.’

Assuredly little Genevieve was one of the most interesting and engaging
persons that Albinia had ever met, and she listened earnestly to her
artless history, and pretty enthusiasms, and the story which she could
not tell without tears, of her father’s care, when the reward of her
good behaviour had been the reading one verse in the quaint black letter
of the old French Bible.

The conversation lasted till Gilbert made his appearance, and Albinia
was glad to find that his greeting to Genevieve was cordial and
affectionate, and free from all that was unpleasant in his sisters’
manner, and he joined himself to their company when Albinia proposed
a walk along the broad causeway through the meadows. It was one of
the pleasantest walks that she had taken at Bayford, with both her
companions so bright and merry, and the scene around in all the beauty
of spring. Gilbert, with the courtesy that Albinia’s very presence had
infused into him, gathered a pretty wild bouquet for each, and Albinia
talked of cowslip-balls, and found that neither Gilbert nor Genevieve
had ever seen one; then she pitied them, and owned that she did not know
how to get through a spring without one; and Gilbert having of course
a pocketful of string, a delicious ball was constructed, over which
Genevieve went into an inexpressible ecstasy.

All the evening, Gilbert devoted himself to Genevieve, though more than
one of the others tried to attract him, playing off the follies of more
advanced girlhood, to the vexation of Albinia, who could not bear to see
him the centre of attention to silly girls, when he ought to have been
finding his level among boys.

‘Gilbert makes himself so ridiculous about Jenny Durant,’ said his
sisters, when he insisted on escorting her home, and thus they brought
on themselves Albinia’s pent-up indignation at their usage of their
guest. Lucy argued in unsatisfactory self-defence, but Sophy, when
shown how ungenerous her conduct had been, crimsoned deeply, and though
uttering no word of apology, wore a look that gave her step-mother for
the first time a hope that her sullenness might not be so much from want
of compunction, as from want of power to express it.

Oh! for a consultation with her brother. But he and his wife were taking
a holiday among their kindred in Ireland, and for once Albinia could
have echoed the aunts’ lamentation that Winifred had so many relations!




CHAPTER V.



Albinia needed patience to keep alive hope and energy, for a sore
disappointment awaited her. Whatever had been her annoyances with the
girls, she had always been on happy and comfortable terms with Gilbert,
he had responded to her advances, accommodated himself to her wishes,
adopted her tastes, and returned her affection. She had early perceived
that his father and sisters looked on him as the naughty one of the
family, but when she saw Lucy’s fretting interference, and, Sophia’s
wrangling contempt, she did not wonder that an unjust degree of blame
had often fallen to his share; and under her management, he scarcely
ever gave cause for complaint. That he was evidently happier and better
for her presence, was compensation for many a vexation; she loved him
with all her heart, made fun with him, told legends of the freaks of
her brother Maurice and cousin Fred, and grudged no trouble for his
pleasure.

As long as The Three Musqueteers lasted, he had come constantly to
her dressing-room, and afterwards she promised to find other pleasant
reading; but after such excitement, it was not easy to find anything
that did not appear dry. As the daughter of a Peninsular man, she
thought nothing so charming as the Subaltern, and Gilbert seemed to
enjoy it; but by the time he had heard all her oral traditions of the
war by way of notes, his attendance began to slacken; he stayed out
later, and always brought excuses--Mr. Salsted had kept him, he had
been with a fellow, or his pony had lost a shoe. Albinia did not care
to question, the evenings were light and warm, and the one thing she
desired for him was manly exercise: she thought it much better for him
to be at play with his fellow-pupils, and she could not regret the gain
of another hour to her hurried day.

One morning, however, Mr. Kendal called her, and his look was so grave
and perturbed, that she hardly waited till the door was shut to ask in
terror, what could be the matter.

‘Nothing to alarm you,’ he said. ‘It is only that I am vexed about
Gilbert. I have reason to fear that he is deceiving us again; and I
want you to help us to recollect on which days he should have been at
Tremblam. My dear, do not look so pale!’

For Albinia had turned quite white at hearing that the boy, on whom
she had fixed her warm affection, had been carrying on a course of
falsehood; but a moment’s hope restored her. ‘I did keep him at home
on Tuesday,’ she said, ‘it was so very hot, and he had a headache. I
thought I might. You told me not to send him on doubtful days.’

‘I hope you may be able to make out that it is right,’ said Mr. Kendal,
‘but I am afraid that Mr. Salsted has too much cause of complaint. It is
the old story!’

And so indeed it proved, when Albinia heard what the tutor had come
to say. The boy was seldom in time, often altogether missing, excusing
himself by saying he was kept at home by fears of the weather; but Mr.
Salsted was certain that his father could not know how he disposed of
his time, namely, in a low style of sporting with young Tritton, the son
of a rich farmer or half-gentleman, who was the pest of Mr. Salsted’s
parish. Ill-learnt, slurred-over lessons, with lame excuses, were
nothing as compared with this, and the amount of petty deceit,
subterfuge, and falsehood, was frightful, especially when Albinia
recollected the tone of thought which the boy had seemed to be catching
from her. Unused to duplicity, except from mere ignorant, unmanageable
school-children, she was excessively shocked, and felt as if he must be
utterly lost to all good, and had been acting a lie from first to last.
After the conviction had broken on her, she hardly spoke, while Mr.
Kendal was promising to talk to his son, threaten him with severe
punishment, and keep a strict account of his comings and goings, to be
compared weekly with Mr. Salsted’s notes of his arrival. This settled,
the tutor departed, and no sooner was he gone, than Albinia, hiding her
face in her hands, shed tears of bitter grief and disappointment. ‘My
dearest,’ said her husband, fondly, ‘you must not let my boy’s doings
grieve you in this manner. You have been doing your utmost for him, if
any one could do him good, it would be you.’

‘O no, surely I must have made some dreadful mistake, to have promoted
such faults.’

‘No, I have long known him not to be trustworthy. It is an evil of long
standing.’

‘Was it always so?’

‘I cannot tell,’ said he, sitting down beside her, and shading his brow
with one hand; ‘I have only been aware of it since he has been left
alone. When the twins were together, they were led by one soul of truth
and generosity. What this poor fellow was separately no one could know,
while he had his brother to guide and shield him. The first time I
noticed the evil was when we were recovering. Gilbert and Sophia were
left together, and in one of their quarrels injured some papers of
mine. I was very weak, and had little power of self-control; I believe I
terrified him too much. There was absolute falsehood, and the truth was
only known by Sophia’s coming forward and confessing the whole. It
was ill managed. I was not equal to dealing with him, and whether the
mischief began then or earlier, it has gone on ever since, breaking
out every now and then. I had hoped that with your care--But oh! how
different it would have been with his brother! Albinia, what would I not
give that you had but seen _him!_ Not a fault was there; not a moment’s
grief did he give us, till--O what an overthrow of hope!’ And he gave
way to an excess of grief that quite appalled her, and made her feel
herself powerless to comfort. She only ventured a few words of peace and
hope; but the contrast between the brothers, was just then keen agony,
and he could not help exclaiming how strange it was, that Edmund should
be the one to be taken.

‘Nay,’ he said, ‘was not he ripe for better things? May not poor Gilbert
have been spared that longer life may train him to be like his brother?’

‘He never will be like him,’ cried Mr. Kendal. ‘No! no! The difference
is evident in the very countenance and features.’

‘Was he like you?’

‘They said so, but you could not gather an idea of him from me,’ said
Mr. Kendal, smiling mournfully, as he met her gaze. ‘It was the most
beautiful countenance I ever saw, full of life and joy; and there were
wonderful expressions in the eyes when he was thinking or listening.
He used to read the Greek Testament with me every morning, and his
questions and remarks rise up before me again. That text--You have seen
it in church.’

‘Because I live, ye shall live also,’ Albinia repeated.

‘Yes. A little before his illness we came to that. He rested on it, as
he used to do on anything that struck him, and asked me, “whether it
meant the life hereafter, or the life that is hidden here?” We went over
it with such comments as I could find, but his mind was not satisfied;
and it must have gone on working on it, for one night, when I had been
thinking him delirious, he called me, and the light shone out of those
bright dark eyes of his as he said, joyfully, “It is both, papa! It is
hidden here, but it will shine out there,” and as I did not catch his
meaning, he repeated the Greek words.’

‘Dear boy! Some day we shall be glad that the full life and glory came
so soon.’

He shook his head, the parting was still too recent, and it was
the first time he had been able to speak of his son. It was a great
satisfaction to her that the reserve had once been broken; it seemed
like compensation for the present trouble, though that was acutely
felt, and not softened by the curious eyes and leading questions of the
sisters, when she returned to give what attention she could to their
interrupted lessons.

Gilbert returned, unsuspicious of the storm, till his father’s stern
gravity, and her depressed, pre-occupied manner, excited his attention,
and he asked her anxiously whether anything were the matter. A sad
gesture replied, and perhaps revealed the state of the case, for he
became absolutely silent. Albinia left them together. She watched
anxiously, and hurried after Mr. Kendal into the study, where his manner
showed her not to be unwelcome as the sharer of his trouble. ‘I do not
know what to do,’ he said, dejectedly. ‘I can make nothing of him. It is
all prevarication and sulkiness! I do not think he felt one word that I
said.’

‘People often feel more than they show.’

He groaned.

‘Will you go to him?’ he presently added. ‘Perhaps I grew too angry at
last, and I believe he loves you. At least, if he does not, he must be
more unfeeling than I can think him. You do not dislike it, dearest.’

‘O no, no! If I only knew what would be best for him!’

‘He may be more unreserved with you,’ said Mr. Kendal; and as he
was anxious for her to make the attempt, she moved away, though in
perplexity, and in the revulsion of feeling, with a sort of disgust
towards the boy who had deceived her so long.

She found him seated on a wheelbarrow by the pond, chucking pebbles into
the still black water, and disturbing the duckweed on the surface. His
colour was gone, and his face was dark and moody, and strove not to
relax, as she said, ‘O Gilbert, how could you?’

He turned sharply away, muttering, ‘She is coming to bother, now!’

It cut her to the heart. ‘Gilbert!’ was all she could exclaim, but the
tone of pain made him look at her, as if in spite of himself, and as he
saw the tears he exclaimed in an impatient voice of rude consolation,
‘There’s nothing to take so much to heart. No one thinks anything of
it!’

‘What would Edmund have thought?’ said Albinia; but the appeal came
too soon, he made an angry gesture and said, ‘He was nearly three years
younger than I am now! He would not have been kept in these abominable
leading-strings.’

She was too much shocked to find an answer, and Gilbert went on,
‘Watched and examined wherever I go--not a minute to myself--nothing
but lessons at Tremblam, and bother at home; driven about hither and
thither, and not allowed a friend of my own, nor to do one single thing!
There’s no standing it, and I won’t!’

‘I am very sorry,’ said Albinia, struggling with choking tears. ‘It has
been my great wish to make things pleasant to you. I hope I have not
teased or driven you to--’

‘Nonsense!’ exclaimed Gilbert, disrespectfully indeed, but from the
bottom of his heart, and breaking at once into a flood of tears. ‘You
are the only creature that has been kind to me since I lost my mother
and Ned, and now they have been and turned you against me too;’ and he
sobbed violently.

‘I don’t know what you mean, Gilbert. If I stand in your mother’s place,
I can’t be turned against you, any more than she could,’ and she stroked
his brow, which she found so throbbing as to account for his paleness.
‘You can grieve and hurt me, but you can’t prevent me from feeling for
you, nor for your dear father’s grief.’

He declared that people at home knew nothing about boys, and made an
uproar about nothing.

‘Do you call falsehood nothing?’

‘Falsehood! A mere trifle now and then, when I am driven to it by being
kept so strictly.’

‘I don’t know how to talk to you, Gilbert,’ said Albinia, rising; ‘your
conscience knows better than your tongue.’

‘Don’t go;’ and he went off into another paroxysm of crying, as he
caught hold of her dress; and when he spoke again his mood was changed;
he was very miserable, nobody cared for him, he did not know what to do;
he wanted to do right, and to please her, but Archie Tritton would not
let him alone; he wished he had never seen Archie Tritton. At last,
walking up and down with him, she drew from him a full confidence, and
began to understand how, when health and strength had come back to him
in greater measure than he had ever before enjoyed, the craving for
boyish sports had awakened, just after he had been deprived of his
brother, and was debarred from almost every wholesome manner of
gratifying it. To fall in with young Tritton was as great a misfortune
as could well have befallen a boy, with a dreary home, melancholy,
reserved father, and wearisome aunt. Tritton was a youth of seventeen,
who had newly finished his education at an inferior commercial school,
and lived on his father’s farm, giving himself the airs of a sporting
character, and fast hurrying into dissipation.

He was really good-natured, and Gilbert dwelt on his kindness with
warmth and gratitude, and on his prowess in all sporting accomplishments
with a perfect effervescence of admiration. He evidently patronized
Gilbert, partly from good-natured pity, and partly as flattered by the
adherence of a boy of a grade above him; and Gilbert was proud of the
notice of one who seemed to him a man, and an adept in all athletic
games. It was a dangerous intimacy, and her heart sank as she found that
the pleasures to which he had been introducing Gilbert, were not merely
the free exercise, the rabbit-shooting and rat-hunting of the farm, nor
even the village cricket-match, all of which, in other company, would
have had her full sympathy. But there had been such low and cruel sports
that she turned her head away sickened at the notion of any one dear to
her having been engaged in such amusements, and when Gilbert in excuse
said that every one did it, she answered indignantly, ‘My brothers
never!’

‘It is no use talking about what swells do that hunt and shoot and go to
school,’ answered Gilbert.

‘Do you wish you went to school?’ asked Albinia.

‘I wish I was out of it all!’

He was in a very different frame. He owned that he knew how wrong it
had been to deceive, but he seemed to look upon it as a sort of fate;
he wished he could help it, but could not, he was so much afraid of his
father that he did not know what he said; Archie Tritton said no one
could get on without.--There was an utter bewilderment in his notions,
here and there showing a better tone, but obscured by the fancies
imbibed from his companion, that the knowledge and practice of evil
were manly. At one moment he cried bitterly, and declared that he was
wretched; at another he defended each particular case with all his
might, changing and slipping away so that she did not know where to take
him. However, the conclusion was far more in pity than anger, and after
receiving many promises that if she would shield him from his father and
bear with him, he would abstain from all she disapproved, she caressed
and soothed the aching head, and returned to his father hopeful and
encouraged, certain that the evil had been chiefly caused by weakness
and neglect and believing that here was a beginning of repentance. Since
there was sorrow and confession, there surely must be reformation.

For a week Gilbert went on steadily, but at the end of that time his
arrivals at home became irregular, and one day there was another great
aberration. On a doubtful day, when it had been decided that he might
go safely between the showers, he never came to Tremblam at all, and Mr.
Salsted sent a note to Mr. Kendal to let him know that his son had been
at the races--village races, managed by the sporting farmers of the
neighbourhood. There was a sense of despair, and again a talk, bringing
at once those ever-ready tears and protestations, sorrow genuine, but
fruitless. ‘It was all Archie’s fault, he had overtaken him, persuaded
him that Mr. Salsted would not expect him, promised him that he should
see the celebrated ‘Blunderbuss,’ Sam Shepherd’s horse, that won the
race last year. Gilbert had gone ‘because he could not help it.’

‘Not help it!’ cried Albinia, looking at him with her clear indignant
eyes. ‘How can you be such a poor creature, Gilbert?’

‘It is very hard!’ exclaimed Gilbert; ‘I must go past Robble’s Leigh
twice every day of my life, and Archie will come out and be at me.’

‘That is the very temptation you have to resist,’ said Albinia. ‘Fight
against it, pray against it, resolve against it; ride fast, and don’t
linger and look after him.’

He looked desponding and miserable. If she could only have put a spirit
into him!

‘Shall I walk and meet you sometimes before you get to Robbie’s Leigh!’

His face cleared up, but the cloud returned in a moment.

‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘Only tell me. You know I wish for nothing so
much as to help you.’

He did confess that there was nothing he should like better, if Archie
would not be all the worse another time, whenever he should catch him
alone.

‘But surely, Gilbert, he is not always lying in ambush for you, like a
cat for a mouse. You can’t be his sole game.’

‘No, but he is coming or going, or out with his gun, and he will often
come part of the way with me, and he is such a droll fellow!’

Albinia thought that there was but one cure. To leave Gilbert daily
exposed to the temptation must be wrong, and she laid the case before
Mr. Kendal with so much earnestness, that he allowed that it would be
better to send the boy from home; and in the meantime, Albinia obtained
that Mr. Kendal should ride some way on the Tremblam road with his son
in the morning, so as to convoy him out of reach of the tempter; whilst
she tried to meet him in the afternoon, and managed so that he should be
seldom without the hope of meeting her.

Albinia’s likings had taken a current absolutely contrary to all her
preconceived notions; Sophia, with her sullen truth, was respected, but
it was not easy to like her even as well as Lucy, who, though pert and
empty, had much good-nature and good-temper, and was not indocile; while
Gilbert, in spite of a weak, shallow character, habits of deception, and
low ungentlemanly tastes, had won her affection, and occupied the chief
of her time and thoughts; and she dreaded the moment of parting
with him, as removing the most available and agreeable of her young
companions.

That moment of parting, though acknowledged to be expedient, did not
approach. Gilbert, could not be sent to a public school without risk and
anxiety which his father did not like, and which would have been horror
to his grandmother; and Albinia herself did not feel certain that he
was fit for it, nor that it was her part to enforce it. She wrote to
her brother, and found that he likewise thought a tutor would be a safe
alternative; but then he must be a perfect man in a perfect climate, and
Mr. Kendal was not the man to make researches. Mr. Dusautoy mentioned
one clergyman who took pupils, Maurice Ferrars another, but there
was something against each. Mr. Kendal wrote four letters, and was
undecided--a third was heard of, but the locality was doubtful, and
the plan went off, because Mr. Kendal could not make up his mind to go
thirty miles to see the place, and talk to a stranger.

Albinia found that her power did not extend beyond driving him from
‘I’ll see about it,’ to ‘Yes, by all means.’ Action was a length to
which he could not be brought. Mr. Nugent was very anxious that he
should qualify as a magistrate since a sensible, highly-principled man
was much wanted counterbalance Admiral Osborn’s misdirected, restless
activity and the lower parts of the town were in a dreadful state. Mrs.
Nugent talked to Albinia, and she urged it in vain. To come out of his
study, examine felons, contend with the Admiral, and to meet all the
world at the quarter sessions, was abhorrent to him, and he silenced her
almost with sternness.

She was really hurt and vexed, and scarcely less so by a discovery that
she made shortly after. The hot weather had made the houses beneath the
hill more close and unwholesome than ever, Simkins’s wife had fallen
into a lingering illness, and Albinia, visiting her constantly, was
painfully sensible of the dreadful atmosphere in which she lived, under
the roof, with a window that would not open. She offered to have the
house improved at her own expense, but was told that Mr. Pettilove would
raise the rent if anything were laid out on it. She went about talking
indignantly of Mr. Pettilove’s cruelty and rapacity, and when Mr.
Dusautoy hinted that Pettilove was only agent, she exclaimed that the
owner was worse, since ignorance alone could be excused. Who was the
wretch? Some one, no doubt, who never came near the place, and only
thought of it as money.

‘Fanny,’ said Mr. Dusautoy, ‘I really think we ought to tell her.’

‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Dusautoy, ‘I think it would be better. The houses
belonged to old Mr. Meadows.’

‘Oh, if they are Mrs. Meadows’s, I don’t wonder at anything.’

‘I believe they are Gilbert Kendal’s.’

They were very kind; Mr. Dusautoy strode out at the window, and his wife
would not look at Albinia during the minute’s struggle to regain her
composure, under the mortification that her husband should have let her
rave so much and so long about what must be in his own power. Her only
comfort was the hope that he had never heard what she said, and she knew
that he so extremely disliked a conference with Pettilove, that he would
consent to anything rather than have a discussion.

She was, for the first time in her life, out of spirits. Gilbert was
always upon her mind; and the daily walk to meet him was a burthen,
consuming a great deal of time, and becoming trying on hot summer
afternoons, the more so as she seldom ventured to rest after it, lest
dulness should drive Gilbert into mischief, or, if nothing worse, into
quarrelling with Sophia. If she could not send him safely out fishing,
she must be at hand to invent pleasures and occupations for him; and the
worst of it was, that the girls grudged her attention to their brother,
and were becoming jealous. They hated the walk to Robble’s Leigh,
and she knew that it was hard on them that their pleasure should be
sacrificed, but it was all-important to preserve him from evil. She had
wished to keep the tutor-negotiations a secret, but they had oozed out,
and she found that Mrs. and Miss Meadows had been declaring that they
had known how it would be--whatever people said beforehand, it always
came to the same thing in the end, and as to its being necessary, poor
dear Gibbie was very different before the change at home.

Albinia could not help shedding a few bitter tears. Why was she to
be always misjudged, even when she meant the best? And, oh! how hard,
well-nigh impossible, to forgive and candidly to believe that, in the
old lady, at least, it was partiality, and not spite.

In September, Mr. and Mrs. Ferrars returned from their journey. Albinia
was anxious to see them, for if there was a sense that she had fallen
short of her confident hopes of doing prosperously, there was also a
great desire for their sympathy and advice. But Maurice had been too
long away from his parish to be able to spare another day, and begged
that the Kendals would come to Fairmead. Seeing that Albinia’s heart was
set on it, Mr. Kendal allowed himself to be stirred up to appoint a time
for driving her over to spend a long day at Fairmead.

For her own pleasure and ease of mind, Albinia made a point of taking
Gilbert, and the girls were to spend the day with their grandmother.

‘Pretty old Fairmead!’ she cried, as the beech-trees rose before her;
and she was turning round every minute to point out to Gilbert some of
the spots of which she had told him, and nodding to the few scattered
children who were not at school, and who looked up with mouths from
ear to ear, and flushed cheeks, as they curtsied to ‘Miss Ferrars.’ The
‘Miss Ferrars’ life seemed long ago.

They came to the little green gate that led to what had been ‘home’ for
the happiest years of Albinia’s life, and from the ivy porch there was
a rush of little Willie and Mary, and close at hand their mamma, and
Maurice emerging from the school. It was very joyous and natural. But
there were two more figures, not youthful, but of decided style and
air, and quiet but fashionable dress, and Albinia had only time to say
quickly to her husband, ‘my aunts,’ before she was fondly embraced.

It was not at all what she had intended. Mrs. Annesley and Miss Ferrars
were very kind aunts, and she had much affection for them; but there was
an end of the hope of the unreserve and confidence that she wanted.
She could get plenty of compassion and plenty of advice, but her
whole object would be to avoid these; and, besides, Mr. Kendal had not
bargained for strangers. What would become of his opportunity of getting
better acquainted with Maurice and Winifred, and of all the pleasures
that she had promised Gilbert?

At least, however, she was proud that her aunts should see what a
fine-looking man her husband was, and they were evidently struck with
his appearance and manner. Gilbert, too was in very good looks, and was
altogether a bright, gentlemanly boy, well made, though with the air
of growing too fast, and with something of uncertainty about his
expression.

It was quickly explained that the aunts had only decided, two days
before, on coming to Fairmead at once, some other engagement having
failed them, and they were delighted to find that they should meet their
dear Albinia, and be introduced to Mr. Kendal. Setting off before the
post came in, Albinia had missed Winifred’s note to tell her of their
arrival.

‘And,’ said Winifred, as she took Albinia upstairs, ‘if I did suspect
that would be the case, I wont say I regretted it. I did not wish to
afford Mr. Kendal the pleasures of anticipation.’

‘Perhaps it was better,’ said Albinia, smiling, ‘especially as I suppose
they will stay for the next six weeks, so that the days will be short
before you will be free.’

‘And now let me see you, my pretty one,’ said Winifred, fondly. ‘Are you
well, are you strong? No, don’t wriggle your head away, I shall believe
nothing but what I read for myself.’

‘Don’t believe anything you read without the notes,’ said Albinia. ‘I
have a great deal to say to you, but I don’t expect much opportunity
thereof.’

Certainly not, for Miss Ferrars was knocking at the door. She had never
been able to suppose that the sisters-in-law could be more to each other
than she was to her own niece.

So it became a regular specimen of a ‘long day’ spent together by
relations, who, intending to be very happy, make themselves very
weary of each other, by discarding ordinary occupations, and reducing
themselves to needlework and small talk. Albinia was bent on liveliness,
and excelled herself in her droll observations; but to Winifred, who
knew her so well, this brilliancy did not seem like perfect ease; it was
more like effort than natural spirits. This was no wonder, for not only
had the sight of new people thrown Mr. Kendal into a severe access
of shyness and silence, but he was revolving in fear and dread the
expediency of asking them to Willow Lawn, and considering whether
Albinia and propriety could make the effort bearable. Silent he sat,
while the aunts talked of their wishes that one nephew would marry, and
that the other would not, and no one presumed to address him, except
little Mary, who would keep trotting up to him, to make him drink out of
her doll’s tea-cups.

Mr. Ferrars took pity on him, and took him and Gilbert out to call upon
Colonel Bury; but this did not lessen his wife’s difficulties, for there
was a general expectation that she would proceed to confidences;
whereas she would do nothing but praise the Dusautoys, ask after all
the parishioners of Fairmead one by one, and consult about French
reading-books and Italian grammars. Mrs. Annesley began a gentle warning
against overtaxing her strength, and Miss Ferrars enforced it with such
vehemence, that Winifred, who had been rather on that side, began to
take Albinia’s part, but perceived, with some anxiety, that her sister’s
attempts to laugh off the admonition almost amounted to an admission
that she was working very hard. As to the step-daughters, no
intelligence was attainable, except that Lucy would be pleased with
a new crochet pattern, and that Sophy was like her father, but not so
handsome.

The next division of time passed better. Albinia walked out at the
window to meet the gentlemen when they came home, and materially
relieved Mr. Kendal’s mind by saying to him, ‘The aunts are settled in
here till they go to Knutsford. I hope you don’t think--there is not the
least occasion for asking them to stay with us.’

‘Are you sure you do not wish it?’ said Mr. Kendal, with great kindness,
but an evident weight removed.

‘Most certain!’ she exclaimed, with full sincerity; ‘I am not at all
ready for them. What should I do with them to entertain?’

‘Very well,’ said Mr. Kendal, ‘you must be the judge. If there be no
necessity, I shall be glad to avoid unsettling our habits, and probably
Bayford would hardly afford much enjoyment to your aunts.’

Albinia glanced in his face, and in that of her brother, with her own
arch fun. It was the first time that day that Maurice had seen that
peculiarly merry look, and he rejoiced, but he was not without fear that
she was fostering Mr. Kendal’s retiring habits more than was good for
him. But it was not only on his account that she avoided the invitation,
she by no means wished to show Bayford to her fastidious aunts, and felt
as if to keep them satisfied and comfortable would be beyond her power.

Set free from this dread, and his familiarity with his brother-in-law
renewed, Mr. Kendal came out to great advantage at the early dinner.
Miss Ferrars was well read and used to literary society, and she started
subjects on which he was at home, and they discussed new books and
criticised critics, so that his deep reading showed itself, and even a
grave, quiet tone of satire, such as was seldom developed, except under
the most favourable circumstances. He and Aunt Gertrude were evidently
so well pleased with each other, that Albinia almost thought she had
been precipitate in letting him off the visit.

Gilbert had, fortunately, a turn for small children, and submitted to be
led about the garden by little Willie; and as far as moderate enjoyment
went, the visit was not unsuccessful; but as for what Albinia came for,
it was unattainable, except for one little space alone with her brother.

‘I meant to have asked a great deal,’ she said, sighing.

‘If you, want me, I would contrive to ride over,’ said Maurice.

‘No, it is not worth that. But, Maurice, what is to be done when one
sees one’s duty, and yet fails for ever for want of tact and temper! Ah,
I know what you will say, and I often say it to myself, but whatever I
propose, I always do either the wrong thing or in the wrong way!’

‘You fall a hundred times a day, but are raised up again,’ said Maurice.

‘Maurice, tell me one thing. Is it wrong to do, not the best, but only
the best one can?’

‘It is the wrong common to us all,’ said Maurice.

‘I used to believe in “whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing
well.” Now, I do everything ill, rather than do nothing at all.’

‘There are only two ways of avoiding that.’

‘And they are--?’

‘Either doing nothing, or admiring all your own doings.’

‘Which do you recommend?’ said Albinia, smiling, but not far from tears.

‘My dear,’ said Maurice, ‘all I can dare to recommend, is patience and
self-control. Don’t fret and agitate yourself about what you can’t do,
but do your best to do calmly what you can. It will be made up, depend
upon it.’

There was no time for more, but the sound counsel, the sympathy, and
playfulness had done Albinia wonderful good, and she was almost glad
there had been no more privacy, or her friends might have guessed that
she had not quite found a counsellor at home.




CHAPTER VI.



The Christmas holidays did indeed put an end to the walks to meet
Gilbert, but only so as to make Albinia feel responsible for him all
day long, and uneasy whenever he was not accounted for. She played chess
with him, found books, and racked her brains to seek amusements for
him; but knowing all the time that it was hopeless to expect a boy of
fourteen to be satisfied with them. One or two boys of his age had come
home for the holidays, and she tried to be relieved by being told that
he was going out with Dick Wolfe or Harry Osborn, but it was not quite
satisfactory, and she began to look fagged and unwell, and had lost so
much of her playfulness, that even Mr. Kendal was alarmed.

Sophia’s birthday fell in the last week before Christmas, and it had
always been the family custom to drink tea with Mrs. Meadows. Albinia
made the engagement with a sense of virtuous resignation, though not
feeling well enough for the infliction, but Mr. Kendal put a stop to all
notion of her going. She expected to enjoy her quiet solitary evening,
but the result was beyond her hopes, for as she was wishing Gilbert
good-bye, she heard the click of the study lock, and in came Mr. Kendal.

‘I thought you were gone,’ she said.

‘No. I did not like to leave you alone for a whole evening.’

If it were only an excuse to himself for avoiding the Meadows’ party, it
was too prettily done for the notion to occur to his wife, and never had
she spent a happier evening. He was so unusually tender and unreserved,
so desirous to make her comfortable, and, what was far more to her,
growing into so much confidence, that it was even better than what she
used last year to picture to herself as her future life with him. It
even came to what he had probably never done for any one. She spoke of a
beautiful old Latin hymn, which she had once read with her brother, and
had never seen adequately translated, and he fetched a manuscript book,
where, written out with unrivalled neatness, stood a translation of his
own, made many years ago, full of scholarly polish. She ventured to ask
leave to copy it. ‘I will copy it for you,’ he said, ‘but it must be for
yourself alone.’

She was grateful for the concession, and happy in the promise.
She begged to turn the page, and it was granted. There were other
translations, chiefly from curious oriental sources, and there were
about twenty original poems, elaborated in the same exquisite manner,
and with a deep melancholy strain of thought, and power of beautiful
description, that she thought finer and more touching than almost
anything she had read.

‘And these are all locked up for ever. No one has seen them.’

‘So. When I was a young lad, my poor father put some lines of mine
into a newspaper. That sufficed me,’ and he shut the clasped book as if
repenting of having revealed the contents.

‘No, I was not thinking of anything you would dislike with regard to
those verses. I don’t like to let in the world on things precious,
but (how could she venture so far!) I was thinking how many powers and
talents are shut up in that study! and whether they might not have been
meant for more. I beg your pardon if I ought not to say so.’

‘The time is past,’ he replied, without displeasure; ‘my youth is gone,
and with it the enterprise and hopefulness that can press forward,
insensible to annoyance. You should have married a man with freshness
and energy more responsive to your own.’

‘Oh, Edmund, that is a severe reproach for my impertinent speech.’

‘You must not expect too much from me,’ he continued. ‘I told you that
I was a broken, grief-stricken man, and you were content to be my
comforter.’

‘Would that I could be so!’ exclaimed Albinia, ‘but to try faithfully, I
must say what is on my mind. Dear Edmund, if you would only look out of
your books, and see how much good you could do, here in your own sphere,
how much the right wants strengthening, how much evil cries out to be
repressed, how sadly your own poor suffer--oh! if you once began, you
would be so much happier!’

She trembled with earnestness, and with fear of her own audacity, but a
resounding knock at the door prevented her from even discovering whether
he were offended. He started away to secure his book, and the two girls
came in. Albinia could hardly believe it late enough for their return,
but they accounted for having come rather earlier by saying that Gilbert
had been making himself so ridiculous when he had come at last, that
grandmamma had sent him home.

‘At last!’ said Albinia. ‘He set off only ten minutes after you, as soon
as he found that papa was not coming.’

‘All I know,’ said Lucy, ‘is, that he did not come till half-past nine,
and said he had come from home.’

‘And where can he be now?’

‘Gone to bed,’ growled Sophy.

‘I don’t know what he has been doing,’ said Lucy, who since the
suspicion of favouritism, had seemed to find especial pleasure in
bringing forward her brother’s faults; ‘but he came in laughing like a
plough-boy, and talking perfect nonsense. And when Aunt Maria spoke to
him, he answered quite rudely, that he wasn’t going to be questioned and
called to order, he had enough of petticoat government at home.’

‘No,’ said Sophy, breaking in with ungracious reluctance, as if against
her will conveying some comfort to her step-mother for the sake of
truth, ‘what he said was, that if he bore with petticoat government at
home, it was because Mrs. Kendal was pretty and kind, and didn’t torment
him out of his life for nothing, and what he stood from her, he would
not stand from any other woman.’

‘But, Sophy, I am sure he did say Mrs. Kendal knew what she was going
to say, and said it, and it was worth hearing, and he laughed in Aunt
Maria’s face, and told her not to make so many bites at a cherry.’

‘He must have been beside himself,’ said Albinia, in a bewilderment
of consternation, but Mr. Kendal’s return put a stop to all, for the
sisters never told tales before him, and she would not bring the subject
under his notice until she should be better informed. His suffering was
too great, his wrath too stern, to be excited without serious cause; but
she spent a wakeful, anxious night, revolving all imaginable evils into
which the boy could have fallen, and perplexing herself what measures
to take, feeling all the more grieved and bound to him by the preference
that, even in this dreadful mood, he had expressed for her. She fell
into a restless sleep in the morning, from which she wakened so late as
to have no time to question Gilbert before breakfast. On coming down,
she found that he had not made his appearance, and had sent word that he
had a bad headache, and wanted no breakfast. His father, who had made a
visit of inspection, said he thought it was passing off, smiling as he
observed upon Mrs. Meadows’s mince-pie suppers and home-made wine.

Lucy said nothing, but glanced knowingly at her sister and at Albinia,
from neither of whom did she get any response.

Albinia did not dare to take any measures till Mr. Kendal had ridden
out, and then she went up and knocked at Gilbert’s door. He was better,
he said, and was getting up, he would be down-stairs presently. She
watched for him as he came down, looking still very pale and unwell. She
took him into her room, made him sit by the fire, and get a little life
and warmth into his chilled hands before she spoke. ‘Yes, Gilbert,
I don’t wonder you cannot lift up your head while so much is on your
mind.’

Gilbert started and hid his face.

‘Did you think I did not know, and was not grieved?’

‘Well,’ he cried, peevishly, ‘I’m sure I have the most ill-natured pair
of sisters in the world.’

‘Then you meant to deceive us again, Gilbert.’

He had relapsed into the old habit--as usual, a burst of tears and a
declaration that no one was ever so badly off, and he did not know what
to do.

‘You _do_ know perfectly well what to do, Gilbert. There is nothing for
it but to tell me the whole meaning of this terrible affair, and I will
see whether I can help you.’

It was always the same round, a few words would always bring the
confession, and that pitiful kind of helpless repentance, which had only
too often given her hope.

Gilbert assured her that he had fully purposed following his sisters,
but that on the way he had unluckily fallen in with Archie Tritton and a
friend, who had driven in to hear a man from London singing comic songs
at the King’s Head, and they had persuaded him to come in. He had been
uneasy and tried to get away, but the dread of being laughed at about
his grandmother’s tea had prevailed, and he had been supping on oysters
and porter, and trying to believe himself a fast man, till Archie, who
had assured him that he was himself going home in ‘no time,’ had found
it expedient to set off, and it had been agreed that he should put a
bold face on it, and profess that he had never intended to do more than
come and fetch his sisters home.

That the porter had anything to do with his extraordinary manner to his
grandmother and aunt, was so shocking a notion, and the very hint made
him cry so bitterly, and protest so earnestly that he had only had one
pint, which he did not like, and only drank because he was afraid of
being teased, that Albinia was ready to believe that he had been so
elevated by excitement as to forget himself, and continue the style
of the company he had left. It was bad enough, and she felt almost
overpowered by the contemplation of the lamentable weakness of the poor
boy, of the consequences, and of what was incumbent on her.

She leant back and considered a little while, then sighed heavily, and
said, ‘Gilbert, two things must be done. You must make an apology
to your grandmother and aunt, and you must confess the whole to your
father.’

He gave a sort of howl, as if she were misusing his confidence.

‘It must be,’ she said. ‘If you are really sorry, you will not shrink.
I do not believe that it could fail to come to your father’s knowledge,
even if I did not know it was my duty to tell him, and how much better
to confess it yourself.’

For this, however, Gilbert seemed to have no force; he cried piteously,
bewailed himself, vowed incoherently that he would never do so again,
and if she had not pitied him so much, would have made her think him
contemptible.

She was inexorable as to having the whole told, though dreading the
confession scarcely less than he did; and he finally made a virtue
of necessity, and promised to tell, if only she would not desert him,
declaring, with a fresh flood of tears, that he should never do wrong
when she was by. Then came the apology. It was most necessary, and he
owned that it would be much better to be able to tell his father that
his grandmother had forgiven him; but he really had not nerve to set
out alone, and Albinia, who had begun to dread having him out of sight,
consented to go and protect him.

He shrank behind her, and she had to bear the flood of Maria’s surprises
and regrets, before she could succeed in saying that he was very sorry
for yesterday’s improper behaviour, and had come to ask pardon.

Grandmamma was placable; Gilbert’s white face and red eyes were pleading
enough, and she was distressed at Mrs. Kendal having come out, looking
pale and tired. If she had been alone, the only danger would have been
that the offence would be lost in petting; but Maria had been personally
wounded, and the jealousy she already felt of the step-mother, had been
excited to the utmost by Gilbert’s foolish words. She was excessively
grieved, and a great deal more angry with Mrs. Kendal than with Gilbert;
and the want of justification for this feeling, together with her great
excitement, distress, and embarrassment, made her attempts to be dry and
dignified ludicrously abortive. She really seemed to have lost the power
of knowing what she said. She was glad Mrs. Kendal could walk up this
morning, since she could not come at night.

‘It was not my fault,’ said Albinia, earnestly; ‘Mr. Kendal forbade me.
I am sure I wish we had come.’

The old lady would have said something kind about not reproaching
herself, but Miss Meadows interposed with, ‘It was very unlucky, to be
sure--Mr. Kendal never failed them before, not that she would wish--but
she had always understood that to let young people run about late in
the evening by themselves--not that she meant anything, but it was very
unfortunate--if she had only been aware--Betty should have come down to
walk up with them.’

Gilbert could not forbear an ashamed smile of intense affront at this
reproach to his manliness.

‘It was exceedingly unfortunate,’ said Albinia, trying to repress her
vexation; ‘but Gilbert must learn to have resolution to guard himself.
And now that he is come to ask your forgiveness, will you not grant it
to him?’

‘Oh, yes, yes, certainly, I forgive him from my heart. Yes, Gilbert,
I do, only you must mind and beware--it is a very shocking thing--low
company and all that--you’ve made yourself look as ill--and if you knew
what a cake Betty had made--almond and citron both--“but it’s for Master
Gilbert,” she said, “and I don’t grudge”--and then to think--oh, dear!’

Albinia tried to express for him some becoming sorrow at having
disappointed so much kindness, but she brought Miss Meadows down on her
again.

‘Oh, yes--she grudged nothing--but she never expected to meet with
gratitude--she was quite prepared--’ and she swallowed and almost
sobbed, ‘there had been changes. She was ready to make every excuse--she
was sure she had done her best--but she understood--she didn’t want to
be assured. It always happened so--she knew her homely ways were not
what Mrs. Kendal had been used to--and she didn’t wonder--she only hoped
the dear children--’ and she was absolutely crying.

‘My dear Maria,’ said her mother, soothingly, ‘you have worked yourself
into such a state, that you don’t know what you are saying. You must not
let Mrs. Kendal think that we don’t know that she is leading the dear
children to all that is right and kind towards as.’

‘Oh, no, I don’t accuse any one. Only if they like to put me down under
their feet and trample on me, they are welcome. That’s all I have to
say.’

Albinia was too much annoyed to be amused, and said, as she rose to
take leave, ‘I think it would be better for Gilbert, as well as for
ourselves, if we were to say no more till some more cool and reasonable
moment.’

‘I am as cool as possible,’ said Miss Meadows, convulsively clutching
her hand; ‘I’m not excited. Don’t excite yourself, Mrs. Kendal--it is
very bad for you. Tell her not, Mamma--oh! no, don’t be excited--I mean
nothing--I forgive poor dear Gibbie whatever little matters--I know
there was excuse--boys with unsettled homes--but pray don’t go and
excite yourself--you see how cool I am--’

And she pursued Albinia to the garden-gate, recommending her at every
step not to be excited, for she was as cool as possible, trembling and
stammering all the time, with flushed cheeks, and tears in her eyes.

‘I wonder who she thinks is excited?’ exclaimed Albinia, as they finally
turned their backs on her.

It was hardly in human nature to help making the observation, but it
was not prudent. Gilbert took licence to laugh, and say, ‘Aunt Maria is
beside herself.’

‘I never heard anything so absurd or unjust!’ cried Albinia, too much
irritated to remember anything but the sympathy of her auditor. ‘If I am
to be treated in this manner, I have done striving to please them. Due
respect shall be shown, but as to intimacy and confidence--’

‘I’m glad you see it so at last!’ cried Gilbert. ‘Aunt Maria has been
the plague of my life, and I’m glad I told her a bit of my mind!’

What was Albinia’s consternation! Her moment’s petulance had undone her
morning’s work.

‘Gilbert,’ she said, ‘we are both speaking very wrongly. I especially,
who ought to have helped you.’

Spite of all succeeding humility the outburst had been fatal, and argue
and plead as she might, she could not restore the boy to anything like
the half satisfactory state of penitence in which she had led him from
home. The giving way to her worse nature had awakened his, and though he
still allowed that she should prepare the way for his confession to his
father, all real sense of his outrageous conduct towards his aunt was
gone.

Disheartened and worn out, Albinia did not feel equal even to going to
take off her walking things, but sat down in the drawing-room on the
sofa, and tried to silence the girls’ questions and chatter, by desiring
Lucy to read aloud.

By-and-by Mr. Kendal was heard returning, and she rose to arrest him in
the hall. Her looks began the story, for he exclaimed, ‘My dear Albinia,
what is the matter?’

‘Oh, Edmund, I have such things to tell you! I have been doing so
wrong.’

She was almost sobbing, and he spoke fondly. ‘No, Albinia, I can hardly
believe that. Something has vexed you, and you must take time to compose
yourself.’

He led her up to her own room, tried to soothe her, and would not listen
to a word till she should be calm. After lying still for a little while,
she thought she had recovered, but the very word ‘Gilbert’ brought such
an expression of anxiety and sternness over his brow as overcame her
again, and she could not speak without so much emotion that he silenced
her; and finding that she could neither leave the subject, nor mention
it without violent agitation, he said he would leave her for a little
while, and perhaps she might sleep, and then be better able to speak to
him. Still she held him, and begged that he would say nothing to Gilbert
till he had heard her, and to pacify her he yielded, passed his promise,
and quitted her with a kiss.




CHAPTER VII.



There was a messenger at Fairmead Parsonage by sunrise the next morning,
and by twelve o’clock Mr. and Mrs. Ferrars were at Willow Lawn.

Mr. Kendal’s grave brow and depressed manner did not reassure Winifred
as he met her in the hall, although his words were, ‘I hope she is doing
well.’

He said no more, for the drawing-room door was moving to and fro, as if
uneasy on the hinges, and as he made a step towards it, it disclosed a
lady with black eyes and pinched features, whom he presented as ‘Miss
Meadows.’

‘Well, now--I think--since more efficient--since I leave Mrs. Kendal
to better--only pray tell her--my love and my mother’s--if I could
have been of any use--or shall I remain?--could I be of any service,
Edmund?--I would not intrude when--but in the house--if I could be of
any further use.’

‘Of none, thank you,’ said Mr. Kendal, ‘unless you would be kind enough
to take home the girls.’

‘Oh, papa!’ cried Lucy, I’ve got the keys. You wont be able to get on at
all without me. Sophy may go, but I could not be spared.’

‘Let it be as you will,’ said Mr. Kendal; ‘I only desire quiet, and that
you should not inconvenience Mrs. Ferrars.’

‘You will help me, will you not!’ said Winifred, smiling, though she did
not augur well from this opening scene. ‘May I go soon to Albinia?’

‘Presently, I hope,’ said Mr. Kendal, with an uneasy glance towards Miss
Meadows, ‘she has seen no one as yet, and she is so determined that you
cannot come till after Christmas, that she does not expect you.’

Miss Meadows began one of her tangled skeins of words, the most tangible
of which was excitement; and Mr. Kendal, knowing by long experience that
the only chance of a conclusion was to let her run herself down, held
his tongue, and she finally departed.

Then he breathed more freely, and said he would go and prepare Albinia
to see her sister, desiring Lucy to show Mrs. Ferrars to her room, and
to take care not to talk upon the stairs.

This, Lucy, who was in high glory, obeyed by walking upon creaking
tip-toe, apparently borrowed from her aunt, and whispering at a
wonderful rate about her eagerness to see dear, dear mamma, and the
darling little brother.

The spare room did not look expectant of guests, and felt still less
so. It struck Winifred as very like the mouth of a well, and the paper
showed patches of ancient damp. One maid was hastily laying the fire,
the other shaking out the curtains, in the endeavour to render it
habitable, and Lucy began saying, ‘I must apologize. If papa had only
given us notice that we were to have the pleasure of seeing you,’ and
then she dashed at the maid in all the pleasure of authority. ‘Eweretta,
go and bring up Mrs. Ferrars’s trunks directly, and some water, and some
towels.’

Winifred thought the greatest mercy to the hunted maid would be to
withdraw as soon as she had hastily thrown off bonnet and cloak, and
Lucy followed her into the passage, repeating that papa was so absent
and forgetful, that it was very inconvenient in making arrangements.
Whatever was ordinarily repressed in her, was repaying itself with
interest in the pleasure of acting as mistress of the house.

Mrs. Ferrars beheld Gilbert sitting listlessly on the deep window-seat
at the end of the passage, resting his head on his hand.

‘Well!’ exclaimed Lucy, ‘if he is not there still! He has hardly stirred
since breakfast! Come and speak to Mrs. Ferrars, Gilbert. Or,’ and she
simpered, ‘shall it be Aunt Winifred?’

‘As you please,’ said Mrs. Ferrars, advancing towards her old
acquaintance, whom she would hardly have recognised, so different was
the pale, downcast, slouching figure, from the bright, handsome lad she
remembered.

‘How cold your hand is!’ she exclaimed; ‘you should not sit in this cold
passage.’

‘As I have been telling him all this morning,’ said Lucy.

‘How is she?’ whispered the boy, rousing himself to look imploringly in
Winifred’s face.

‘Your father seems satisfied about her.’

At that moment a door at some distance was opened, and Gilbert seemed to
thrill all over as for the moment ere it closed a baby’s cry was heard.
He turned his face away, and rested it on the window. ‘My brother! my
brother!’ he murmured, but at that moment his father turned the corner
of the passage, saying that Albinia had heard their arrival, and was
very eager to see her sister.

Still Winifred could not leave the boy without saying, ‘You can make
Gilbert happy about her, can you not? He is waiting here, watching
anxiously for news of her.’

‘Gilbert himself best knows whether he has a right to be made happy,’
said Mr. Kendal, gravely. ‘I promised to ask no questions till she is
able to explain, but I much fear that he has been causing her great
grief and distress.’

He fixed his eyes on his son, and Winifred, in the belief that she was
better out of their way, hurried to Albinia’s room, and was seen very
little all the rest of the day.

She was spared, however, to walk to church the next morning with her
husband, Lucy showing them the way, and being quiet and agreeable when
repressed by Mr. Ferrars’s presence. After church, Mr. Dusautoy overtook
them to inquire after Mrs. Kendal, and to make a kind proposal of
exchanging Sunday duty. He undertook to drive the ponies home on the
morrow, begged for credentials for the clerk, and messages for Willie
and Mary, and seemed highly pleased with the prospect of the holiday, as
he called it, only entreating that Mrs. Ferrars would be so kind as to
look in on ‘Fanny,’ if Mrs. Kendal could spare her.

‘I thought,’ said Winifred to her husband, ‘that you would rather have
exchanged a Sunday when Albinia is better able to enjoy you?’

‘That may yet be, but poor Kendal is so much depressed, that I do not
like to leave him.’

‘I have no patience with him!’ cried Winifred; ‘he does not seem to take
the slightest pleasure in his baby, and he will hardly let poor Albinia
do so either! Do you know, Maurice, it is as bad as I ever feared it
would be. No, don’t stop me, I must have it out. I always said he had no
business to victimize her, and I am sure of it now! I believe this gloom
of his has broken down her own dear sunny spirits! There she is--so
unlike herself--so anxious and fidgety about her baby--will hardly take
any one’s word for his being as healthy and stout a child as I ever saw!
And then, every other moment, she is restless about that boy--always
asking where he is, or what he is doing. I don’t see how she is ever to
get well, while it goes on in this way! Mr. Kendal told me that Gilbert
had been worrying and distressing her; and as to those girls, the eldest
of them is intolerable with her airs, and the youngest--I asked her if
she liked babies, and she growled, “No.” Lucy said Gilbert was waiting
in the passage for news of mamma, and she grunted, “All sham!” and
that’s the whole I have heard of her! He is bad enough in himself, but
with such a train! My poor Albinia! If they are not the death of her, it
will be lucky!’

‘Well done, Winifred!’

‘But, Maurice,’ said his impetuous wife, in a curiously altered tone,
‘are not you very unhappy about Albinia?’

‘I shall leave you to find that out for me.’

‘Then you are not?’

‘I think Kendal thoroughly values and appreciates her, and is very
uncomfortable without her.’

‘I suppose so. People do miss a maid-of-all-work. I should not so much
mind it, if she had been only _his_ slave, but to be so to all those
disagreeable children of his too! And with so little effect. Why can’t
he send them all to school?’

‘Propose that to Albinia.’

‘She did want the boy to go somewhere. I should not care where, so
it were out of her way. What creatures they must be for her to have
produced no more effect on them!’

‘Poor Albinia! I am afraid it is a hard task: but these are still early
days, and we see things at a disadvantage. We shall be able to judge
whether there be really too great a strain on her spirits, and if so, I
would talk to Kendal.’

‘And I wonder what is to come of that. It seems to me like what John
Smith calls singing psalms to a dead horse.’

‘John Smith! I am glad you mentioned him; I shall desire Dusautoy to
bring him here on Monday.’

‘What! as poor Albinia would say, you can’t exist a week without John
Smith.’

‘Even so. I want him to lay out a plan for draining the garden. That
pond is intolerable. I suspect that all, yourself included, will become
far more good-tempered in consequence.’

‘A capital measure, but do you mean that Edmund Kendal is going to let
you and John Smith drain his pond under his very nose, and never find it
out? I did not imagine him quite come to that.’

‘Not _quite_,’ said Maurice; ‘it is with his free consent, and I believe
he will be very glad to have it done without any trouble to himself. He
said that Albinia _thought it damp_, and when I put a few sanatory facts
before him, thanked me heartily, and seemed quite relieved. If they had
only been in Sanscrit, they would have made the greater impression.’

‘One comfort is, Maurice, that however provoking you are at first, you
generally prove yourself reasonable at last, I am glad you are not Mr.
Kendal.’

‘Ah! it will have a fine effect on you to spend your Christmas-day
tete-a-tete with him.’

Mrs. Ferrars’s views underwent various modifications, like all hasty
yet candid judgments. She took Mr. Kendal into favour when she found
him placidly submitting to Miss Meadows’s showers of words, in order to
prevent her gaining access to his wife.

‘Maria Meadows is a very well-meaning person,’ he said afterwards; ‘but
I know of no worse infliction in a sick-room.’

‘I wonder,’ thought Winifred, ‘whether he married to get rid of her. I
should have thought it justifiable had it been any one but Albinia!’

The call on Mrs. Dusautoy was consoling. It was delightful to find how
Albinia was loved and valued at the vicarage. Mrs. Dusautoy began by
sending her as a message, John’s first exclamation on hearing of the
event. ‘Then she will never be of any more use.’ In fact, she said, it
was much to him like having a curate disabled, and she believed he could
only be consoled by the hopes of a pattern christening, and of a nursery
for his school-girls; but there Winifred shook her head, Fairmead had a
prior claim, and Albinia had long had her eye upon a scholar of her own.

‘I told John that she would! and he must bear it as he can,’ laughed
Mrs. Dusautoy; and she went on more seriously to say that her gratitude
was beyond expression, not merely for the actual help, though that was
much, but for the sympathy, the first encouragement they had met among
their richer parishioners, and she spoke of the refreshment of the
mirthfulness and playful manner, so as to convince Winifred that they
had neither died away nor been everywhere wasted.

Winifred had no amenable patient. Weak and depressed as Albinia was, her
restlessness and air of anxiety could not be appeased. There was a look
of being constantly on the watch, and once, when her door was ajar,
before Winifred was aware she exerted her voice to call Gilbert!

Pushing the door just wide enough to enter, and treading almost
noiselessly, he came forward, looking from side to side as with a sense
of guilt. She stretched out her hand and smiled, and he obeyed the
movement that asked him to bend and kiss her, but still durst not speak.

‘Let me have the baby,’ she said.

Mrs. Ferrars laid it beside her, and held aloof. Gilbert’s eyes were
fixed intently on it.

‘Yes, Gilbert,’ Albinia said, ‘I know what you will feel for him. He
can’t be what you once had--but oh, Gilbert, you will do all that an
elder brother can to make him like Edmund!’

Gilbert wrung her fingers, and ventured to stoop down to kiss the little
red forehead. The tears were running down his cheeks, and he could not
speak.

‘If your father might only say the same of him! that he never grieved
him!’ said Albinia; ‘but oh, Gilbert--example,’ and then, pausing and
gazing searchingly in his face, ‘You have not told papa.’

‘No,’ whispered Gilbert.

‘Winifred,’ said Albinia, ‘would you be so kind as to ask papa to come?’

Winifred was forced to obey, though feeling much to blame as Mr. Kendal
rose with a sigh of uneasiness. Gilbert still stood with his hand
clasped in Albinia’s, and she held it while her weak voice made the
full confession for him, and assured his father of his shame and sorrow.
There needed no such assurance, his whole demeanour had been sorrow all
these dreary days, and Mr. Kendal could not but forgive, though his eye
spoke deep grief.

‘I could not refuse pardon thus asked,’ he said. ‘Oh, Gilbert, that I
could hope this were the beginning of a new course!’

Albinia looked from Gilbert to his little brother, and back again to
Gilbert.

‘It _shall_ be,’ she said, and Gilbert’s resolution was perhaps the more
sincere that he spoke no word.

‘Poor boy,’ said Albinia, half to herself and half aloud, ‘I think I
feel more strong to love and to help him!’

That interview was a dangerous experiment, and she suffered for it. As
her brother said, instead of having too little life, she had too much,
and could not let herself rest; she had never cultivated the art of
being still, and when she was weak, she could not be calm.

Still the strength of her constitution staved off the nervous fever of
her spirits, and though she was not at all a comfortable patient, she
made a certain degree of progress, so that though it was not easy to
call her better, she was not quite so ill, and grew less irrational in
her solicitude, and more open to other ideas. ‘Do you know, Winifred,’
she said one day, ‘I have been thinking myself at Fairmead till I almost
believed I heard John Smith’s voice under the window.’

Winifred was obliged to look out at the window to hide her smile.
Maurice, who was standing on the lawn with the very John Smith, beckoned
to her, and she went down to hear his plans. He was wanted at home the
next day, and asked whether she thought he had better take Gilbert with
him. ‘It is the wisest thing that has been said yet!’ exclaimed she.
‘Now I shall have a chance for Albinia!’ and accordingly, Mr. Kendal
having given a gracious and grateful consent, Albinia was informed; but
Winifred thought her almost perverse when a perturbed look came over
her, and she said, ‘It is very kind in Maurice, but I must speak to
him.’

He was struck by the worn, restless expression of her features, so
unlike the calm contented repose of a young mother, and when she spoke
to him, her first word was of Gilbert. ‘Maurice, it is so kind, I know
you will make him happy--but oh! take care--he is so delicate--indeed,
he is--don’t let him get wet through.’

Maurice promised, but Albinia resumed with minutiae of directions,
ending with, ‘Oh! if he should get hurt or into any mischief, what
should we do? Pray, take care, Maurice, you are not used to such
delicate boys.’

‘My dear, I think you may rely on me.’

‘Yes, but you will not be too strict with him--’ and more was following,
when her brother said, ‘I promise you to make him my special charge.
I like the boy very much. I think you may be reasonable, and trust
him with me, without so much agitation. You have not let me see my own
nephew yet.’

Albinia looked with her wistful piteous face at her brother as he took
in his arms her noble-looking fair infant.

‘You are a great fellow indeed, sir,’ said his uncle. ‘Now if I were
your mamma, I would be proud of you, rather than--’

‘I am afraid!’ said Albinia, in a sudden low whisper.

He looked at her anxiously.

‘Let me have him,’ she said; then as Maurice bent over her, and she
hastily gathered the babe into her arms, she whispered in quick, low,
faint accents, ‘Do you know how many children have been born in this
house?’

Mr. Ferrars understood her, he too had seen the catalogue in the church,
and guessed that the phantoms of her boy’s dead brethren dwelt on her
imagination, forbidding her to rejoice in him hopefully. He tried to say
something encouraging of the child’s appearance, but she would not let
him go on. ‘I know,’ she said, ‘he is so now--but--’ then catching her
breath again and speaking very low, ‘his father does not dare look at
him--I see that he is sorry for me--Oh, Maurice, it will come, and I
shall be able to do nothing!’

Maurice felt his lip quivering as his sister’s voice became choked--the
sister to whom he had once been the whole world, and who still could
pour out her inmost heart more freely to him than to any other. But
it was a time for grave authority, and though he spoke gently, it was
almost sternly.

‘Albinia, this is not right. It is not thankful or trustful. No, do not
cry, but listen to me. Your child is as likely to do well as any child
in the world, but nothing is so likely to do him harm as your want of
composure.’

‘I tell myself so,’ said Albinia, ‘but there is no helping it.’

‘Yes, there is. Make it your duty to keep yourself still, and not be
troubled about what may or may not happen, but be glad of the present
pleasure.’

‘Don’t you think I am?’ said Albinia, half smiling; ‘so glad, that I
grow frightened at myself, and--’ As if fain to leave the subject, she
added, ‘And it is what you don’t understand, Maurice, but he can’t be
the first to Edmund as he is to me--never--and when I get almost jealous
for him, I think of Gilbert and the girls--and oh! there is so much to
do for them--they want a mother so much--and Winifred wont let me see
them, or tell me about them!’

She had grown piteous and incoherent, and a glance from Winifred told
him, ‘this is always the way.’

‘My dear,’ he said, ‘you will never be fit to attend to them if you do
not use this present time rightly. You may hurt your health, and still
more certainly, you will go to work fretfully and impetuously. If you
have a busy life, the more reason to learn to be tranquil. Calm is
forced on you now, and if you give way to useless nervous brooding over
the work you are obliged to lay aside for a time, you have no right to
hope that you will either have judgment or temper for your tasks.’

‘But how am I to keep from thinking, Maurice? The weaker I am, the more
I think.’

‘Are you dutiful as to what Winifred there thinks wisest? Ah! Albinia,
you want to learn, as poor Queen Anne of Austria did, that docility in
illness may be self-resignation into higher Hands. Perhaps you despise
it, but it is no mean exercise of strength and resolution to be still.’

Albinia looked at him as if receiving a new idea.

‘And,’ he added, bending nearer her face, and speaking lower, ‘when you
pray, let them be hearty faithful prayers that God’s hand may be over
your child--your children, not half-hearted faithless ones, that He may
work out your will in them.’

‘Oh, Maurice, how did you know? But you are not going? I have so much to
talk over with you.’

‘Yes, I must go; and you must be still. Indeed I will watch over Gilbert
as though he were mine. Yes, even more. Don’t speak again, Albinia, I
desire you will not. Good-bye.’

That lecture had been the most wholesome treatment she had yet received;
she ceased to give way without effort to restless thoughts and cares,
and was much less refractory.

When at last Lucy and Sophia were admitted, Winifred found perils that
she had not anticipated. Lucy was indeed supremely and girlishly happy:
but it was Sophy whose eye Albinia sought with anxiety, and that eye was
averted. Her cheek was cold like that of a doll when Albinia touched
it eagerly with her lips; and when Lucy admonished her to kiss the dear
little brother, she fairly turned and ran out of the room.

‘Poor Sophy!’ said Lucy. ‘Never mind her, mamma, but she is odder than
ever, since baby has been born. When Eweretta came up and told us, she
hid her face and cried; and when grandmamma wanted to make us promise
to love him with all our hearts, and not make any difference, she would
only say, “I wont!”’

‘We will leave him to take care of that, Lucy,’ said Albinia. But
though she spoke cheerfully, Winifred was not surprised, after a little
interval, to hear sounds like stifled weeping.

Almost every home subject was so dangerous, that whenever Mrs. Ferrars
wanted to make cheerful, innocent conversation, she began to talk of
her visit to Ireland and the beautiful Galway coast, and the O’Mores
of Ballymakilty, till Albinia grew quite sick of the names of the whole
clan of thirty-six cousins, and thought, with her aunts, that Winifred
was too Irish. Yet, at any other time, the histories would have made her
sometimes laugh, and sometimes cry, but the world was sadly out of joint
with her.

There was a sudden change when, for the first time her eye rested on the
lawn, and she beheld the work of drainage. The light glanced in her eye,
the colour rose on her cheek, and she exclaimed, ‘How kind of Edmund!’

Winifred must needs give her husband his share. ‘Ah! you would never
have had it done without Maurice.’

‘Yes,’ said Albinia, ‘Edmund has been out of the way of such things, but
he consented, you know.’ Then as her eyes grew liquid, ‘A duck pond is
a funny subject for sentiment, but oh! if you knew what that place has
been to my imagination from the first, and how the wreaths of mist have
wound themselves into spectres in my dreams, and stretched out white
shrouds now for one, now for the other!’ and she shuddered.

‘And you have gone through all this and never spoken. No wonder your
nerves and spirits were tried.’

‘I did speak at first,’ said Albinia; ‘but I thought Edmund did not
hear, or thought it nonsense, and so did I at times. But you see he
did attend; he always does, you see, at the right time. It was only my
impatience.’

‘I suspect Maurice and John Smith had more to do with it,’ said
Winifred.

‘Well, we wont quarrel about that,’ said Albinia. ‘I only know that
whoever brought it about has taken the heaviest weight off my mind that
has been there yet.’

In truth, the terror, half real, half imaginary, had been a sorer
burthen than all the positive cares for those unruly children, or their
silent, melancholy father; and the relief told in all ways--above all,
in the peace with which she began to regard her child. Still she would
provoke Winifred by bestowing all her gratitude on Mr. Kendal, who began
to be persuaded that he had made an heroic exertion.

Winifred had been somewhat scandalized by discovering Albinia’s
deficiencies in the furniture development. She was too active and
stirring, and too fond of out-of-door occupation, to regard interior
decoration as one of the domestic graces, ‘her nest was rather that of
the ostrich than the chaffinch,’ as Winifred told her on the discovery
that her morning-room had been used for no other purpose than as a
deposit for all the books, wedding presents, lumber, etc., which she had
never had leisure to arrange.

‘You might be more civil,’ answered Albinia. ‘Remember that the ringdove
never made half such a fuss about her nest as the magpie.’

‘Well, I am glad you have found some likeness in yourself to a dove,’
rejoined Winifred.

Mrs. Ferrars set vigorously to work with Lucy, and rendered the room so
pretty and pleasant, that Lucy pronounced that it must be called nothing
but the boudoir, for it was a perfect little bijou.

Albinia was la

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