The long-looked-for letters came after a weary interval of expectation, the more trying to Ermine because the weather had been so bitter that Colin could not shake off his cold, nor venture beyond his own fireside, where Rose daily visited him, and brought home accounts that did not cheer her aunt.
Edward wrote shortly to his sister, as if almost annoyed at the shower of letters that had by every post begun to recall his attention from some new invention on the means of assaying metals:--
"I am sorry you have stirred up Keith to the renewal of this painful subject. You know I considered that page in my life as closed for ever, and I see nothing that would compensate for what it costs me even to think of it. To redeem my name before the world would be of no avail to me now, for all my English habits are broken, and all that made life valuable to me is gone. If Long and Beauchamp could reject my solemn affirmation three years ago, what would a retractation slowly wrung from them be worth to me now? It might once have been, but that is all over now. Even the desire to take care of you would no longer actuate me since you have Keith again; and in a few years I hope to make my child independent in money matters--independent of your love and care you would not wish her to be. Forget the troubles of your life, Ermine, and be happy with your faithful Keith, without further efforts on behalf of one whom they only harass and grieve."
Ermine shed some bitter tears over this letter, the more sorrowful because the refusal was a shock to her own reliance on his honour, and she felt like a traitress to his cause. And Colin would give him up after this ungrateful indifference, if nothing worse. Surely it betrayed a consciousness that the whole of his conduct would not bear inquiry, and she thought of the representations that she had so indignantly rejected, that the accounts, even without the last fatal demand, were in a state that it required an excess of charity to ascribe to mere carelessness on the part of the principal.
She was glad that Alison was absent, and Rose in the garden. She laid her head on her little table, and drew long sobs of keen suffering, the reaction from the enjoyment and hope of the last few months. And so little knew she what she ought to ask, that she could only strive to say, "Thy will be done."
"Ermine! my Ermine, this is not a thing to be so much taken to heart. This foolish philosopher has not even read his letters. I never saw any one more consistently like himself."
Ermine looked up, and Colin was standing over her, muffled up to the eyes, and a letter of his own in his hand. Her first impulse was to cry out against his imprudence, glad as she was to see him. "My cough is nearly gone," he said, unwinding his wrappings, "and I could not stay at home after this wonderful letter--three pages about chemical analysis, which he does me the honour to think I can understand, two of commissions for villainous compounds, and one of protestations that 'I will be drowned; nobody shall help me.'"
Ermine's laugh had come, even amid her tears, his tone was so great a relief to her. She did not know that he had spent some minutes in cooling down his vexation, lest he should speak ungently of her brother's indifference. "Poor Edward," she said, "you don't mean that this is all the reply you have?"
"See for yourself," and he pointed to the divisions of the letter he had described. "There is all he vouchsafes to his own proper affairs. You see he misapprehends the whole; indeed, I don't believe he has even read our letters."
"We often thought he did not attend to all we wrote," said Ermine. "It is very disheartening!"
"Nay, Ermine, you disheartened with the end in view!"
"There are certainly the letters about Maddox's committal still to reach him, but who knows if they will have more effect! Oh, Colin, this was such a hope that--perhaps I have dwelt too much upon it!"
"It is such a hope," he repeated. "There is no reason for laying it aside, because Edward is his old self."
"Colin! you still think so?"
"I think so more than ever. If he will not read reason, he must hear it, and if he takes no notice of the letters we sent after the sessions, I shall go and bring him back in time for the assizes."
"Oh, Colin! it cannot be. Think of the risk! You who are still looking so thin and ill. I cannot let you."
"It will be warm enough by the time I get there."
"The distance! You are doing too much for us."
"No, Ermine," with a smile, "that I will never do."
She tried to answer his smile, but leant back and shed tears, not like the first, full of pain, but of affectionate gratitude, and yet of reluctance at his going. She had ever been the strength and stay of the family, but there seemed to be a source of weakness in his nearness, and this period of his indisposition and of suspense had been a strain on her spirits that told in this gentle weeping. "This is a poor welcome after you have been laid up so long," she said when she could speak again. "If I behave so ill, you will only want to run from the sight of me."
"It will be July when I come back."
"I do not think you ought to go."
"Nor I, if Edward deigns to read the account of Rose's examination."
In that calm smiling resolution Ermine read the needlessness of present argument, and spoke again of his health and his solitary hours.
"Mitchel has been very kind in coming to sit with me, and we have indulged in two or three castles in the air--hospitals in the air, perhaps, I should say. I told him he might bring me down another guest instead of the tailor, and he has brought a poor young pupil teacher, whom Tibbie calls a winsome gallant, but I am afraid she won't save him. Did you ever read the 'Lady of La Garaye'?"
"Not the poem, but I know her story."
"As soon as that parcel comes in, which Villars is always expecting, I propose to myself to read that poem with you. "What's that? It can't be Rachel as usual."
If it was not Rachel, it was the next thing to her, namely, Alick Keith. This was the last day of those that he had spent at the Homestead, and he was leaving Rachel certainly better. She had not fallen back on any evening that he had been there, but to his great regret he would not be able to come out the next day. Regimental duty would take him up nearly all the day, and then he was invited to a party at the Deanery, "which the mother would never have forgiven me for refusing," he said; just as if the mother's desires had the very same power over him as over her daughters. "I came to make a desperate request, Miss Williams," he said. "Would it be any way possible for you to be so kind as to go up and see Rachel? She comes downstairs now, and there are no steps if you go in by the glass doors. Do you think you could manage it?"
"She wishes it!" said Ermine.
"Very much. There are thorns in her mind that no one knows how to deal with so well as you do, and she told me yesterday how she longed to get to you."
"It is very good in her. I have sometimes feared she might think we had dealt unfairly by her if she did not know how very late in the business we suspected that our impostors were the same," said Ermine.
"It is not her way to blame any one but herself," said Alick, "and, in fact, our showing her the woodcut deception was a preparation for the rest of it. But I have said very little to her about all that matter. She required to be led away rather than back to it. Brooding over it is fatal work, and yet her spirits are too much weakened and shattered to bear over-amusement. That is the reason that I thought you would be so very welcome to-morrow. She has seen no one yet but Lady Temple, and shrinks from the very idea."
"I do not see why I should not manage it very well," said Ermine, cheerfully, "if Miss Curtis will let me know in time whether she is equal to seeing me. You know I can walk into the house now."
Alick thanked her earnestly. His listless manner was greatly enlivened by his anxiety, and Colonel Keith was obliged to own that marriage would be a good thing for him; but such a marriage! If from sheer indolence he should leave the government to his wife, then-- Colin could only shrug his shoulders in dismay.
Nevertheless, when Ermine's wheeled chair came to the door the next afternoon, he came with it, and walked by he
r side up the hill, talking of what had been absolutely the last call she had made--a visit when they had both been riding with the young Beauchamps.
"Suppose any one had told me then I should make my next visit with you to take care of me, how pleased I should have been," said Ermine, laughing, and taking as usual an invalid's pleasure in all the little novelties only remarked after long seclusion. That steep, winding, pebbly road, with the ferns and creeping plants on its rocky sides, was a wonderful panorama to her, and she entreated for a stop at the summit to look down on the sea and the town; but here Grace came out to them full of thanks and hopes, little knowing that to them the event was a very great one. When at the glass doors of the garden entrance, Ermine trusted herself to the Colonel's arm, and between him and her crutch crossed the short space to the morning room, where Rachel rose from her sofa, but wisely did not come forward till her guest was safely placed in a large easy chair.
Rachel then held out her hand to the Colonel, and quietly said, "Thank you," in a subdued manner that really touched him, as he retreated quickly and left them together. Then Rachel sat down on a footstool close to Ermine, and looked up to her. "Oh, it is so good of you to come to me! I would not have dared to think of it, but I just said I wished to get out for nothing but to go to you; and then he--Captain Keith-would go and fetch you."
"As the nearest approach to fetching the moon, I suppose," said Ermine, brightly. "It was very kind to me, for I was longing to see you, and I am glad to find you looking better than I expected."
For in truth Rachel's complexion had been little altered by her illness; and the subdued dejected expression was the chief change visible, except in the feebleness and tremulousness of all her movements. "Yes, I am better," she said. "I ought to be, for he is so good to me."
"Dear Rachel, I was so very glad to hear of this," said Ermine, bending down to kiss her.
"Were you? I thought no one could be that cared for him," said Rachel.
"I cared more for him the week that you were ill than ever I had done before."
"Grace tells me of that," said Rachel, "and when he is here I believe it. But, Miss Williams, please look full at me, and tell me whether everybody would not think--I don't say that I could do it--but if every one would not think it a great escape for him if I gave him up."
"No one that could really judge."
"Because, listen," said Rachel, quickly, "the regiment is going to Scotland, and he and the mother have taken it into their heads that I shall get well faster somewhere away from home. And--and they want to have the wedding as soon as I am better; and they are going to write about settlements and all that. I have never said I would, and I don't feel as if--as if I ought to let him do it; and if ever the thing is to be stopped at all, this is the only time."
"But why? You do not wish--"
"Don't talk of what I wish," said Rachel. "Talk of what is good for him."
Ermine was struck with the still resolute determination of judging for herself--the self-sufficiency, almost redeemed by the unselfishness, and the face was most piteously in earnest.
"My dear, surely he can be trusted to judge. He is no boy, in spite of his looks. The Colonel always says that he is as much older than his age in character as he is younger in appearance."
"I know that," said Rachel, "but I don't think he ought to be trusted here; for you see," and she looked down, "all the blindness of--of his affection is enhanced by his nobleness and generosity, and he has nobody to check or stop him; and it does seem to me a shame for us all to catch at such compassion, and encumber him with me, just because I am marked for scorn and dislike. I can't get any one to help me look at it so. My own people would fancy it was only that I did not care for him; and he--I can't even think about it when he is here, but I get quite distracted with doubts if it can be right whenever he goes away. And you are the only person who can help me! Bessie wrote very kindly to me, and I asked to see what she said to him. I thought I might guess her feeling from it. And he said he knew I should fancy it worse than it was if he did not let me see. It was droll, and just like her--not unkind, but I could see it is the property that makes her like it. And his uncle is blind, you know, and could only send a blessing, and kind hopes, and all that. Oh, if I could guess whether that uncle thinks he ought! What does Colonel Keith think? I know you will tell me truly."
"He thinks," said Ermine, with a shaken voice, "that real trustworthy affection outweighs all the world could say."
"But he thinks it is a strange, misplaced liking, exaggerated by pity for one sunk so low?" said Rachel, in an excited manner.
"Rachel," said Ermine, "you must take my beginning as a pledge of my speaking the whole truth. Colonel Keith is certainly not fond of you personally, and rather wonders at Alick, but he has never doubted that this is the genuine feeling that is for life, and that it is capable of making you both better and happier. Indeed, Rachel, we do both feel that you suit Alick much more than many people who have been far better liked."
Rachel looked cheered. "Yet you," she faltered, "you have been an instance of resolute withstanding."
"I don't think I shall be long," murmured Ermine, a vivid colour flashing forth upon her cheek, and leading the question from herself. "Just suppose you did carry out this fierce act of self-abnegation, what do you think could come next?"
"I don't know! I would not break down or die if I could help it," added Rachel, faintly after her brave beginning.
"And for him? Do you think being cast off would be so very pleasant to him?"
Rachel hung her head, and her lips made a half murmur of, "Would not it be good for him?"
"No, Rachel, it is the very sorest trial there can be when, even in the course of providence, kind intentions are coldly requited; and it would be incalculably harder when therewith there would be rejection of love."
"Ah! I never said I could do it. I could not tell him I did not care for him, and short of that nothing would stop it," sobbed Rachel, "only I wished to feel it was not very mean--very wrong." She laid her weary head on Ermine's lap, and Ermine bent down and kissed her.
"So happy, so bright and free, and capable, his life seems now," proceeded Rachel. "I can't understand his joining it to mine; and if people shunned and disliked him for my sake!"
"Surely that will depend on yourself. I have never seen you in society, but if you have the fear of making him unpopular or remarkable before your eyes, you will avoid it."
"Oh, yes, I know," said Rachel, impatiently. "I did think I should not have been a commonplace woman," and she shed a few tears.
Ermine was provoked with her, and began to think that she had been arguing on a wrong tack, and that it would be better after all for Alick to be free. Rachel looked up presently. "It must be very odd to you to hear me say so, but I can't help feeling the difference. I used to think it so poor and weak to be in love, or to want any one to take care of one. I thought marriage such ordinary drudgery, and ordinary opinions so contemptible, and had such schemes for myself. And this--and this is such a break down, my blunders and their consequences have been so unspeakably dreadful, and now instead of suffering, dying--as I felt I ought--it has only made me just like other women, for I know I could not live without him, and then all the rest of it must come for his sake."
"And will make you much more really useful and effective than ever you could have been alone," said Ermine.
"He does talk of doing things together, but, oh! I feel as if I could never dare put out my hand again!"
"Not alone perhaps."
"I like to hear him tell me about the soldiers' children, and what he wants to have done for them."
"You and I little thought what Lady Temple was to bring us," said Ermine, cheerfully, "but you see we are not the strongest creatures in the world, so we must resign ourselves to our fate, and make the best of it. They must judge how many imperfections they choose to endure, and we can only make the said drawbacks as little troublesome as may be. Now, I think I see
Miss Curtis watching in fear that I am over-talking you."
"Oh, must you go? You have really comforted me! I wanted an external opinion very much, and I do trust yours! Only tell me," she added, holding Ermine's hand, "is this indeed so with you?"
"Not yet," said Ermine, softly, "do not speak about it, but I think you will be comforted to hear that this matter of yours, by leading to the matron's confession, may have removed an obstacle that was far more serious in my eyes than even my own helplessness, willing as Colin was to cast both aside. Oh, Rachel, there is a great deal to be thankful for."
Rachel lay down on her sofa, and fell asleep, nor did Alick find any occasion for blaming Grace when he returned the next day. The effect of the conversation had been to bring Rachel to a meek submission, very touching in its passiveness and weary peacefulness. She was growing stronger, walked out leaning on Alick's arm, and was even taken out by him in a boat, a wonderful innovation, for a dangerous accident to Mr. Curtis had given the mother such a horror of the sea that no boating excursions had ever taken place during her solitary reign, and the present were only achieved by a wonderful stretch of dear Alexander's influence. Perhaps she trusted him the more, because his maimed hand prevented him from being himself an oarsman, though he had once been devoted to rowing. At any rate, with an old fisherman at the oar, many hours were spent upon the waters of the bay, in a tranquillity that was balm to the harassed spirit, with very little talking, now and then some reading aloud, but often nothing but a dreamy repose. The novelty and absence of old association was one secret of the benefit that Rachel thus derived. Any bustle or resumption of former habits was a trial to her shattered nerves, and brought back the dreadful haunted nights. The first sight of Conrade, still looking thin and delicate, quite overset her; a drive on the Avoncester road renewed all she had felt on the way thither; three or four morning visitors coming in on her unexpectedly, made the whole morbid sense of eyes staring at her recur all night, and when the London solicitor came down about the settlements, she shrank in such a painful though still submissive way, from the sight of a stranger, far more from the semblance of a dinner party, that the mother yielded, and let her remain in her sitting-room.
The Clever Woman of the Family Page 41
