"I never knew," said the Colonel; "all my aunt's latter letters spoke of your slow improvement beyond hope."
"True, in her time, I had not reached the point where I stopped. The last time I saw her I was still upstairs; and, indeed, I did not half know what I could do till I tried."
"Yes," said he, brightened by that buoyant look so remarkable in her face; " and you will yet do more, Ermine. You have convinced me that we shall be all the happier together--"
"But that was not what I meant to convince you of--" she said, faintly.
"Not what you meant, perhaps; but what it did convince me was, that you--as you are, my Ermine--are ten thousand times more to me than even as the beautiful girl, and that there never can be a happier pair than we shall be when I am your hands and feet."
Ermine sat up, and rallied all her forces, choked back the swelling of her throat, and said, "Dear Colin, it cannot be! I trusted you were understanding that when I told you how it was with me."
He could not speak from consternation.
"No," she said; "it would be wrong in me to think of it for an instant. That you should have done so, shows--0 Colin, I cannot talk of it; but it would be as ungenerous in me to consent, as it is noble of you to propose it."
"It is no such thing," he answered; "it has been the one object and thought of my life, the only hope I have had all these years."
"Exactly so," she said, struggling again to speak firmly; "and that is the very thing. You kept your allegiance to the bright, tall, walking, active girl, and it would be a shame in the scorched cripple to claim it."
"Don't call yourself names. Have I not told you that you are more than the same?"
"You do not know. You are pleased because my face is not burnt, nor grown much older, and because I can talk and laugh in the same voice still." (Oh, how it quivered!) "But it would be a wicked mockery in me to pretend to be the wife you want. Yes, I know you think you do, but that is just because my looks are so deceitful, and you have kept on thinking about me; but you must make a fresh beginning."
"You can tell me that," he said, indignantly.
"Because it is not new to me," she said; "the quarter of an hour you stood by me, with that deadly calm in your white face, was the real farewell to the young hopeful dream of that bright summer. I wish it was as calm now."
"I believed you dying then," answered he.
"Do not make me think it would have been better for you if I had been," she said, imploringly. "It was as much the end, and I knew it from the time my recovery stopped short. I would have let you know if I could, and then you would not have been so much shocked."
"So as to cut me off from you entirely?"
"No, indeed. The thought of seeing you again was too--too overwhelming to be indulged in; knowing, as I did, that if you were the same to me, it must be at this sad cost to you," and her eyes filled with tears.
"It is you who make it so, Ermine."
"No; it is the providence that has set me aside from the active work of life. Pray do not go on, Colin, it is only giving us both useless pain. You do not know what it costs me to deny you, and I feel that I must. I know you are only acting on the impulse of generosity. Yes, I will say so, though you think it is to please yourself," she added, with one of those smiles that nothing could drive far from her lips, and which made it infinitely harder to acquiesce in her denial.
"I will make you think so in time," he said. "Then I might tell you, you had no right to please yourself," she answered, still with the same air of playfulness; "you have got a brother, you know--and--yes, I hear you growl; but if he is a poor old broken man out of health, it is the more reason you should not vex him, nor hamper yourself with a helpless commodity."
"You are not taking the way to make me forget what my brother has done for us."
"How do you know that he did not save me from being a strong-minded military lady! After all, it was absurd to expect people to look favourably on our liking for one another, and you know they could not be expected to know that there was real stuff in the affair. If there had not been, we should have thought so all the same, you know, and been quite as furious."
He could not help smiling, recollecting fury that, in the course of these twelve years, he had seen evinced under similar circumstances by persons who had consoled themselves before he had done pitying them. "Still," he said gravely, "I think there was harshness."
"So do I, but not so much as I thought at that time, and--oh, surely that is not Rachel Curtis? I told her I thought you would call."
"Intolerable!" he muttered between his teeth. "Is she always coming to bore you?"
"She has been very kind, and my great enlivenment," said Ermine, "and she can't be expected to know how little we want her. Oh, there, the danger is averted! She must have asked if you were here."
"I was just thinking that she was the chief objection to Lady Temple's kind wish of having you at Myrtlewood."
"Does Lady Temple know?" asked Ermine, blushing.
"I could not keep it from one who has been so uniformly kind to me; but I desired her not to let it go further till I should hear your wishes."
"Yes, she has a right to know," said Ermine; "but please, not a word elsewhere."
"And will you not come to stay with her?"
"I? Oh, no; I am fit for no place but this. You don't half know how bad I am. When you have seen a little more of us, you will be quite convinced."
"Well, at least, you give me leave to come here."
"Leave? When it is a greater pleasure than I ever thought to have again; that is, while you understand that you said good-bye to the Ermine of Beauchamp Parsonage twelve years ago, and that the thing here is only a sort of ghost, most glad and grateful to be a friend-- a sister."
"So," he said, "those are to be the terms of my admission."
"The only possible ones."
"I will consider them. I have not accepted them."
"You will," she said.
But she met a smile in return, implying that there might be a will as steadfast as her own, although the question might be waived for a time.
Meantime, Rachel was as nearly hating Colonel Keith as principle would allow, with "Human Reeds," newly finished, burning in her pocket, "Military Society" fermenting in her brain, and "Curatocult" still unacknowledged. Had he not had quite time for any rational visit? Was he to devour Mackarel Lane as well as Myrtlewood? She was on her way to the latter house, meeting Grace as she went, and congratulating herself that he could not be in two places at once, whilst Grace secretly wondered how far she might venture to build on Alison Williams's half confidence, and regretted the anxiety wasted by Rachel and the mother; though, to be sure, that of Mrs. Curtis was less uncalled for than her daughter's, since it was only the fear of Fanny's not being sufficiently guarded against misconstructions.
Rachel held up her hands in despair in the hall. "Six officers' cards!" she exclaimed.
"No, only six cards," said Grace; "there are two of each."
"That's enough," sighed Rachel; "and look there," gazing through the garden-door. "She is walking with the young puppy that dined here on Thursday, and they called Alick."
"Do you remember," said Grace, "how she used to chatter about Alick, when she first came to us, at six years old. He was the child of one of the officers. Can this be the same?"
"That's one of your ideas, Grace. Look, this youth could have been hardly born when Fanny came to us. No; he is only one of the idlers that military life has accustomed her to."
Rather against Grace's feeling, Rachel drew her on, so as to come up with Lady Temple and her friend in the midst of their conversation, and they heard the last words--
"Then you will give me dear Bessie's direction?"
"Thank you, it will be the greatest kindness--"
"Oh, Grace, Rachel, is it you?" exclaimed Fanny. "You have not met before, I think. Mr. Keith--Miss Curtis."
Very young indeed were both face and figure, fair and pa
le, and though there was a moustache, it was so light and silky as to be scarcely visible; the hair, too, was almost flaxen, and the whole complexion had a washed-out appearance. The eyes, indeed, were of the same peculiar deep blue as the Colonel's, but even these were little seen under their heavy sleepy lids, and the long limbs had in every movement something of weight and slowness, the very sight of which fretted Rachel, and made her long to shake him. It appeared that he was come to spend the Sunday at Avonmouth, and Grace tried to extract the comfort for her mother that two gentlemen were better than one, and Fanny need not be on their minds for chaperonage for that day.
A party of garden-chairs on the lawn invited repose, and there the ladies seated themselves; Fanny laying down her heavy crape bonnet, and showing her pretty little delicate face, now much fresher and more roseate than when she arrived, though her wide-spreading black draperies gave a certain dignity to her slight figure, contrasting with the summer muslins of her two cousins; as did her hot-house plant fairness, with their firm, healthy glow of complexion; her tender shrinking grace, with their upright vigour. The gentleman of the party leant hack in a languid, easy posture, as though only half awake, and the whole was so quiet that Grace, missing the usual tumult of children, asked after them.
"The boys have gone to their favourite cove under the plantation. They have a fort there, and Hubert told me he was to be a hero, and Miss Williams a she-ro."
"I would not encourage that description of sport," said Rachel, willing to fight a battle in order to avert maternal anecdotes of boyish sayings.
"They like it so much," said Fanny, "and they learn so much now that they act all the battles they read about."
"That is what I object to," said Rachel; "it is accustoming them to confound heroism with pugnacity."
"No, but Rachel dear, they do quarrel and fight among themselves much less now that this is all in play and good humour," pleaded Fanny.
"Yes, that may be, but you are cultivating the dangerous instinct, although for a moment giving it a better direction."
"Dangerous? Oh, Alick! do you think it can be?" said Fanny, less easily borne down with a supporter beside her.
"According to the Peace Society," he answered, with a quiet air of courteous deference; "perhaps you belong to it?"
"No, indeed," answered Rachel, rather indignantly, "I think war the great purifier and ennobler of nations, when it is for a good and great cause; but I think education ought to protest against confounding mere love of combat with heroism."
"Query, the true meaning of the word?" he said, leaning back.
"Heros, yes from the same root as the German herr," readily responded Rachel, "meaning no more than lord and master; but there can be no doubt that the progress of ideas has linked with it a much nobler association."
"Progress! What, since the heroes were half divine!"
"Half divine in the esteem of a people who thought brute courage godlike. To us the word maintains its semi-divinity, and it should be our effort to associate it only with that which veritably has the god-like stamp."
"And that is--?"
"Doing more than one's duty," exclaimed Rachel, with a glistening eye.
"Very uncomfortable and superfluous, and not at all easy," he said, half shutting his already heavy eyes.
"Easy, no, that's the beauty and the glory--"
"Major Sherborne and Captain Lester in the drawing room, my lady," announced Coombe, who had looked infinitely cheered since this military influx.
"You will come with me, Grace," said Fanny, rising. "I dare say you had rather not, Rachel, and it would be a pity to disturb you, Alick."
"Thank you; it would be decidedly more than my duty."
"I am quite sorry to go, you are so amusing," said Fanny, "but I suppose you will have settled about heroism by the time we come out again, and will tell me what the boys ought to play at."
Rachel's age was quite past the need of troubling herself at being left tete-a-tete with a mere lad like this; and, besides, it was an opportunity not to be neglected of giving a young carpet knight a lesson in true heroism. There was a pause after the other two had moved off. Rachel reflected for a few moments, and then, precipitated by the fear of her audience falling asleep, she exclaimed--
"No words have been more basely misused than hero and heroine. The one is the mere fighting animal whose strength or fortune have borne him through some more than ordinary danger, the other is only the subject of an adventure, perfectly irrespective of her conduct in it."
"Bathos attends all high words," he said, as she paused, chiefly to see whether he was awake, and not like her dumb playfellow of old.
"This is not their natural bathos but their misuse. They ought to be reserved for those who in any department have passed the limits to which the necessity of their position constrained them, and done acts of self-devotion for the good of others. I will give you an instance, and from your own profession, that you may see I am not prejudiced, besides, the hero of it is past praise or blame."
Encouraged by seeing a little more of his eyes, she went on. "It was in the course of the siege of Delhi, a shell came into a tent where some sick and wounded were lying. There was one young officer among them who could move enough to have had a chance of escaping the explosion, but instead of that he took the shell up, its fuse burning as it was, and ran with it out of the tent, then hurled it to a distance. It exploded, and of course was his death, but the rest were saved, and I call that a deed of heroism far greater than mounting a breach or leading a forlorn hope."
"Killed, you say?" inquired Mr. Keith, still in the same lethargic manner.
"Oh yes, mortally wounded: carried back to die among the men he had saved."
"Jessie Cameron singing his dirge," mumbled this provoking individual, with something about the form of his cheek that being taken by Rachel for a derisive smile, made her exclaim vehemently, "You do not mean to undervalue an action like that in comparison with mere animal pugnacity in an advance."
"More than one's duty was your test," he said.
"And was not this more than duty? Ah! I see yours is a spirit of depreciation, and I can only say I pity you."
He took the trouble to lift himself up and make a little bow of acknowledgment. Certainly he was worse than the Colonel; but Rachel, while mustering her powers for annihilating him, was annoyed by all the party in the drawing-room coming forth to join them, the other officers rallying young Keith upon his luxurious station, and making it evident that he was a proverb in the regiment for taking his ease. Chairs were brought out, and afternoon tea, and the callers sat down to wait for Colonel Keith to come in; Grace feeling obliged to stay to help Fanny entertain her visitors, and Rachel to protect her from their follies. One thing Grace began to perceive, that Lady Temple had in her former world been a person of much more consideration than she was made here, and seeing the polite and deferential manner of these officers to her, could only wonder at her gentle content and submission in meeting with no particular attention from anybody, and meekly allowing herself to be browbeaten by Rachel and lectured by her aunt.
A lecture was brewing up for her indeed. Poor Mrs. Curtis was very much concerned at the necessity, and only spurred up by a strong sense of duty to give a hint--the study of which hint cost her a whole sleepless night and a very weary Sunday morning. She decided that her best course would be to drive to Myrtlewood rather early on her way to church, and take up Fanny, gaining a previous conference with her alone, if possible. "Yes, my dear," she said to Grace, "I must get it over before church, or it will make me so nervous all through the service." And Grace, loving her mother best, durst not suggest what it might do to Fanny, hoping that the service might help her to digest the hint.
Mrs. Curtis's regular habits were a good deal shocked to find Fanny still at the breakfast table. The children had indeed long finished, and were scattered about the room, one of them standing between Colonel Keith's knees, repeating a hymn; but the younger guest was s
till in the midst of his meal, and owned in his usual cool manner that he was to blame for the lateness, there was no resisting the charms of no morning parade.
Her aunt's appearance made Fanny imagine it much later than it really was, and she hurried off the children to be dressed, and proceeded herself to her room, Mrs. Curtis following, and by way of preliminary, asking when Colonel Keith was going to Ireland.
"Oh!" said Fanny, blushing most suspiciously under her secret, "he is not going to Ireland now."
"Indeed! I quite understood he intended it."
"Yes," faltered Fanny, "but he found that he need not."
"Indeed!" again ejaculated poor perplexed Mrs. Curtis; "but then, at least, he is going away soon."
"He must go to Scotland by-and-by, but for the present he is going into lodgings. Do you know of any nice ones, dear aunt?"
"Well, I suppose you can't help that; you know, my dear, it would never do for him to stay in this house."
"I never thought of that," said Fanny simply, the colour coming in a fresh glow.
"No, my dear, but you see you are very young and inexperienced. I do not say you have done anything the least amiss, or that you ever would mean it, only you will forgive your old aunt for putting you on your guard."
Fanny kissed her, but with eyes full of tears, and cheeks burning, then her candour drew from her--"It was he that thought of getting a lodging. I am glad I did not persuade him not; but you know he always did live with us."
"With us. Yes, my poor dear, that is the difference, and you see he feels it. But, indeed, my dear child, though he is a very good man, I dare say, and quite a gentleman all but his beard, you had better not encourage-- You know people are so apt to make remarks."
"I have no fear," said Fanny, turning away her head, conscious of the impossibility of showing her aunt her mistake.
"Ah! my dear, you don't guess how ready people are to talk; and you would not like--for your children's sake, for your husband's sake-- that--that--"
The Clever Woman of the Family Page 12
