The Clever Woman of the Family

“My dear,” exclaimed Fanny, quite hurt, “he was patience itself while he was with us.”

“That’s the difference between illness and recovery, dear Lady Temple! I don’t blame him. Any one might be irritable with fresh undetected splinters of bone always working themselves out, all down one side; and doubts which were worse, the fingers on, or the fingers off, and no escape from folly or politeness, for he could not even use a crutch. Oh, no, I don’t blame him; I quite excuse the general dislike he took to everything at poor dear Littleworthy. He viewed it all like that child in Mrs. Browning’s poem, ‘seeing through tears the jugglers leap,’ and we have partaken of the juggler aspect to him ever since!”

“I don’t think he could ever be very irritable,” said Fanny, taking the accusation much to heart.

“Sister and recovery!” lightly said Bessie; “they encounter what no one else does! He only pined for Bishopsworthy, and when we let him move there, after the first month, he and my uncle were happy. I stayed there for a little while, but I was only in the way, the dear good folks were always putting themselves out on my account; and as to Alick, you can’t think how the absence of his poor ‘souffre-douleur,’ invigorated him. Every day I found him able to put more point into his cutting compliments, and reading to my uncle with more energy; till at last by the time the —th came home, he had not so much as a stiff leg to retire upon. Luckily, he and my uncle both cared too much for my poor father’s wishes for him to do so without, though if any unlucky chance should take Mr. Lifford away from my uncle, he threatens coming to supply the vacancy, unless I should, and that is past hope.”

“Your home is with your uncle,” affirmed Rachel.

“Yes,” she said, mournfully, “dear Littleworthy was too happy to last. It broke itself up by its own charms—all married and gone, and the last rose of summer in my poor person must float away. Jane wants her mother and not me, and my uncle will submit to me as cheerfully as to other necessary evils. It is not myself that I fear for; I shall be very happy with the dear uncle, but it will be a dreadful overthrow to his habits.”

“I do not see why it need be,” said Rachel.

“What! two old bachelors with a young lady turned in on them! And the housekeeper—think of her feelings!”

“I do not think you need be uneasy, my dear,” said Fanny. “Your brother is convinced that it will be the greatest pleasure and comfort to Mr. Clare to have you; and though there may be difficulties at first, I am sure anybody must be the happier for having you,” and she caressed the upturned face, which responded warmly, but with a sigh.

“Alick is no judge! He is the child of the house, and my uncle and Mr. Lifford don’t feel complete without him. My uncle is as fond of me as can be, and he and I could get on beautifully, but then Mr. Lifford is impracticable.”

“Impracticable?” said Rachel, taking up the long word. “He objects to your exerting yourself in the parish. I know what that is.”

“Pray, Rachel,” said Fanny, imploringly, “pray don’t any anything against him! I am very sorry he has annoyed you, but I do like him.”

“Oh, does he play croquet!” cried Bessie.

“I gather,” said Rachel, in her impressive tone, a little disappointed, “that by impracticable you mean one who will not play croquet.”

“You have hit it!” laughed Bessie. “Who will neither play at croquet, nor let one work except in his way. Well, there are hopes for you. I cure the curates of every cure I come near, except, of course, the cure that touches me most nearly. The shoemaker’s wife goes the worst shod! I’ll tame yours.”

“My dear, I can’t have poor Mr. Touchett made game of.”

“I won’t make game of him, dear Lady Temple, only make him play a game.”

“But you said Alick did not approve,” said Fanny, with the dimmest possible ideas of what croquet was, and believing it a wicked flirtation trap that figured in “Punch.”

“Oh, that’s fudge on Master Alick’s part! Just the remains of his old miseries, poor fellow. What he wants is love! Now he’ll meet his fate some of these days; and as he can’t meet three Englishwomen without a mallet in hand, love and croquet will come together.”

“Alick is very good,” went on Lady Temple, not answering, but arguing with herself whether this opposition could be right. “Colonel Hammond gave me such an account of him, so valuable and excellent among the men, and doing all that is possible for their welfare, interesting himself about their library, and the regimental school and all. The colonel said he wished only that he was a little more easy and popular among the young officers; but so many of his own standing were gone by the time he joined again, that he lives almost too much to himself, reads a good deal, and is most exemplary, but does not quite make his influence as available as it might be.”

“That’s just it,” cried Bessie, eagerly; “the boy is a lazy boy, and wants shaking up, or he’ll get savage and no good. Can’t you see, by the way he uses his poor little sister, what an awful don Captain Keith must be to a schoolboy of an ensign? He must be taught toleration and hunted into amiability, or he’ll be the most terrible Turk by the time he is a colonel; and you are the only person that can do it, dear Lady Temple.”

Rachel did not much like this, but it was so prettily and playfully said that the pleasing impression was quite predominant; and when Rachel took leave, it was with a sense of vexation that a person whom she had begun to esteem should be hard upon this bright engaging sister. Yet it might be well if Fanny took note of the admission that he could be irritable as well as stern, and sometimes mistaken in his judgments. What would the Colonel say to all this? The Colonel—here he was coming back again into her imagination. Another symptom!

The brother left the field entirely to his sister for the present; he was a good deal occupied after his leave, and other officers being away, he was detained at Avoncester, and meantime Bessie Keith took all hearts by storm with her gay good humour and eager sympathy. By the end of the first morning she had been to the stable with a swarm of boys, patted, and learnt the names of all the ponies; she was on the warmest terms with the young spaniel, that, to the Curtises’ vexation, one of the officers had given Conrade, and which was always getting into the way; she had won Alison by telling her of Mr. Clare’s recollections of Ermine’s remarkable beauty and intelligence, and charmed Ermine herself by his kind messages and her own sunshiny brightness; she had delighted Mrs. Curtis and Grace by appreciating their views and their flowers; she had discussed hymnals and chants with Mr. Touchett, and promised her services; she had given a brilliant object lesson at Mrs. Kelland’s, and received one herself in lace-making; and had proved herself, to Rachel’s satisfaction, equally practical and well-read. All the outer world was asking, “Have you seen the young lady with Lady Temple?”

Nothing came amiss to her, from the antiquity of man to Stephana’s first words; and whether she taught Grace new stitches, played cricket with Conrade, made boats for Cyril, prattled with Lady Temple, or studied with Rachel, all was done with grace, zest, and sympathy peculiarly her own. Two practisings at the school removed the leaden drawl, and lessened the twang of the choir; and Mr. Touchett looked quite exalted, while even Rachel owned that she had hardly believed her ears.

Rachel and she constituted themselves particular friends, and Grace kept almost aloof in the fear of disturbing them. She had many friends, and this was the first, except Ermine Williams, to whom Rachel had taken, since a favourite companion of her youth had disappointed her by a foolish marriage. Bessie’s confidences had a vigour in them that even Rachel’s half-way meetings could not check, and then the sharp, clever things she would say, in accordance with Rachel’s views, were more sympathetic than anything she had met with. It was another new charm to life.

One great pleasure they enjoyed together was bathing. The Homestead possessed a little cove of its own under the rocks, where there was a bathing-house, and full perfection of arrangement for young ladies’ aquatic enjoyment, in safety and absolute privacy. Rachel’s vigorous strength and health had been greatly promoted by her familiarity with salt water, and Bessie was in ecstasies at the naiad performances they shared together on the smooth bit of sandy shore, where they dabbled and floated fearlessly. One morning, when they had been down very early to be beforehand with the tide, which put a stop to their enjoyment long before the breakfast hour, Bessie asked if they could not profit by their leisure to climb round the edge of the cliff’s instead of returning by the direct path, and Rachel agreed, with the greater pleasure, that it was an enterprise she had seldom performed.

Very beautiful, though adventurous, was the walk—now on the brow of the steep cliff, looking down on the water or on little bays of shingle, now through bits of thicket that held out brambles to entangle the long tresses streaming on their shoulders; always in the brisk morning air, that filled them with strength and spirit, laughing, joking, calling to one another and to Conrade’s little dog, that, like every other creature, had attached itself to Bessie, and had followed her from Myrtlewood that morning, to the vexation of Rachel, who had no love for dogs in their early youth.

They were beyond the grounds of the Homestead, but had to go a little further to get into the path, when they paused above a sort of dip or amphitheatre of rock around a little bay, whilst Rachel began telling of the smugglers’ traditions that haunted the place—how much brandy and silk had there been landed in the time of the great French war, and how once, when hard pressed, a party of smugglers, taking a short cut in the moonlight midnight across the Homestead gardens, had encountered an escaped Guinea-pig, and no doubt taking it for the very rat without a tail, in whose person Macbeth’s witch was to do, and to do, and to do, had been nearly scared out of their wits.

Her story was cut short by a cry of distress from the dog, and looking down, they perceived that the poor fellow had been creeping about the rocks, and had descended to the little cove, whence he was incapable of climbing up again. They called encouragingly, and pretended to move away, but he only moaned more despairingly, and leapt in vain.

“He has hurt his foot!” exclaimed Rachel; “I must go down after him. Yes, Don, yes, poor fellow, I’m coming.”

“My dear Curtia, don’t leap into the gulf!”

“Oh, it’s no great height, and the tide will soon fill up this place.”

“Don’t! don’t! You’ll never be able to get up again.”

But Rachel was already scrambling down, and, in effect, she was sure-footed and used to her own crags, nor was the distance much above thirty foot, so that she was soon safe on the shingle, to the extreme relief of poor Don, shown by grateful whines; but he was still evidently in pain, and Rachel thought his leg was broken. And how to get up the rock, with a spaniel that when she tried to lift it became apparently twice the size she had always believed it to be, and where both hands as well as feet were required, with the sea fast advancing too?

“My dear Rachel, you will only break your neck, too, it is quite vain to try!”

“If you could just come to that first rock, perhaps I could push him up to you!”

Bessie came to it, but screamed. “Oh, I’m not steady; I couldn’t do it! Besides, it would hurt him so, and I know you would fall. Poor fellow, it is very sad; but indeed, Rachel, your life is more precious than a dog’s!”

“I can’t leave him to drown,” said Rachel, making a desperate scramble, and almost overbalancing herself. “Here, if you could only get him by the scrough of his neck, it would not hurt him so much; poor Don, yes, poor fellow!” as he whined, but still showed his confidence in the touching manner of a sensible dog, knowing he is hurt for his good. Bessie made another attempt, but, unused to rocks, she was uneasy about her footing, and merely frightened herself. “Indeed,” she said, “I had better run and call some one; I won’t be long, and you are really quite safe.”

“Yes, quite safe. If you were down here and I above I am sure he could do it easily.”

“Ah! but I’m no cragswoman; I’ll be back instantly.”

“That way, that’s the shortest, call to Zack or his father,” tried Rachel, as the light figure quickly disappeared, leaving her a little annoyed at her predicament. She was not at all alarmed for herself, there was no real danger of drowning, she could at any moment get up the rock herself if she chose to leave the dog to its fate; but that she could not bear to think of, and she even thought the stimulus of necessity might prove the mother of invention, if succour should not come before that lapping flux and reflux of water should have crept up the shingly beach, on which she stood; but she was anxious, and felt more and more drawn to the poor dog, so suffering, yet so patient and confiding. Nor did she like the awkwardness of being helped in what ought to be no difficulty at all to a native, and would not have been had her companion, been Grace or even Conrade. Her hope was that her ally Zack would come, as she had directed Bessie towards the cottage; but, behold, after a wearily long interval, it was no blue jacket that appeared, but a round black sea-hide hat, and a sort of easy clerical-looking dress, that Bessie was fluttering before!

Few words were required, the stranger’s height and length of arms did all that was needful, and Don was placed in safety with less pain and outcry than could have been hoped, Rachel ascending before the polite stranger had time to offer his assistance. The dog’s hurt was, he agreed with Rachel, a broken leg, and his offer of carrying it home could not be refused, especially as he touched it with remarkable tenderness and dexterity, adding that with a splint or two, he thought he had surgery enough to set the limb.

They were much nearer the Homestead than to Myrtle-wood, and as it had been already agreed that Bessie should breakfast there, the three bent their steps up the hill as fast as might be, in consideration of Mrs. Curtis’s anxieties. Bessie in a state of great exultation and amusement at the romantic adventure, Rachel somewhat put out at the untoward mishap that obliged her to be beholden to one of the casual visitors, against whom her mother had such a prejudice.

Still, the gentleman himself was far from objectionable, in appearance or manner; his air was that of an educated man, his dress that of a clergyman at large, his face keen. Rachel remembered to have met him once or twice in the town within the last few days, and wondered if he could be a person who had called in at the lace school and asked so many questions that Mrs. Kelland had decided that he could be after no good; he must be one of the Parliament folks that they sent down to take the bread out of children’s mouths by not letting them work as many hours as was good for them. Not quite believing in a Government commission on lace-making grievances, Rachel was still prepared to greet a kindred spirit of philanthropy, and as she reflected more, thought that perhaps it was well that an introduction had been procured on any terms.

So she thawed a little, and did not leave all the civility to Miss Keith, but graciously responded to the stranger’s admiration of the views, the exquisite framings of the summer sea and sky made by tree, rock, and rising ground, and the walks so well laid out on the little headland, now on smooth turf, now bordering slopes wild with fern and mountain ash, now amid luxuriant exotic shrubs that attested the mildness of Avonmouth winters.

When they came near the front of the house, Rachel took man and dog in through the open window of her own sitting-room, and hastened to provide him with bandages and splints, leaving Bessie to reassure Mrs. Curtis that no human limbs were broken, and that no one was even wet to the skin; nay, Bessie had even the tact to spare Mrs. Curtis the romantic colouring that delighted herself. Grace had followed Rachel to assist at the operation, and was equally delighted with its neatness and tenderness, as well as equally convinced of the necessity of asking the performer first to wash his hands and then to eat his breakfast, both which kind proposals he accepted with diffident gratitude, first casting a glance around the apartment, which, though he said nothing, conveyed that he was profoundly struck with the tokens of occupation that it contained. The breakfast was, in the first place, a very hungry one; indeed, Bessie had been too ravenous to wait till the surgery was over, and was already arrived at her second egg when the others appeared, and the story had again to be told to the mother, and her warm thanks given. Mrs. Curtis did not like strangers when they were only names, but let her be brought in contact, and her good nature made her friendly at once, above all in her own house. The stranger was so grave and quiet too, not at all presuming, and making light of his services, but only afraid he had been trespassing on the Homestead grounds. These incursions of the season visitors were so great a grievance at the Homestead that Mrs. Curtis highly approved his forbearance, whilst she was pleased with his tribute to her scenery, which he evidently admired with an artistic eye. Love of sketching had brought him to Avonmouth, and before he took leave, Mrs. Curtis had accorded him that permission to draw in her little peninsula for which many a young lady below was sighing and murmuring. He thanked her with a melancholy look, confessing that in his circumstances his pencil was his toy and his solace.

“Once again, that landscape painter!” exclaimed Bessie, with uplifted hands, as soon as both he and Mrs. Curtis were out of earshot, “an adventure at last.”

“Not at all,” said Rachel, gravely; “there was neither alarm nor danger.”

“Precisely; the romance minus the disagreeables. Only the sea monster wanting. Young Alcides, and rock—you stood there for sacrifice, I was the weeping Dardanian dames.”

Even Grace could not help laughing at the mischief of the one, and the earnest seriousness of the other.

“Now, Bessie, I entreat that you will not make a ridiculous story of a most simple affair,” implored Rachel.

“I promise not to make one, but don’t blame me if it makes itself.”

“It cannot, unless some of us tell the story.”

“What, do you expect the young Alcides to hold his tongue? That is more than can be hoped of mortal landscape painter.”

“I wish you would not call him so. I am sure he is a clergyman.”

“Landscape painter, I would lay you anything you please.”

“Nay,” said Grace, “according to you, that is just what he ought not to be.”

“I do not understand what diverts you so much,” said Rachel, growing lofty in her displeasure. “What matters it what the man may be?”

“That is exactly what we want to see,” returned Bessie.

Poor Rachel, a grave and earnest person like her, had little chance with one so full of playful wit and fun as Bessie Keith, to whom her very dignity and susceptibility of annoyance made her the better game. To have involved the grave Rachel in such a parody of an adventure was perfectly irresistible to her, and to expect absolute indifference to it would, as Grace felt, have been requiring mere stupidity. Indeed, there was forbearance in not pushing Rachel further at the moment; but proceeding to tell the tale at Myrtlewood, whither Grace accompanied Bessie, as a guard against possible madcap versions capable of misconstruction.

“Yes,” said Rachel to herself, “I see now what Captain Keith regrets. His sister, with all her fine powers and abilities, has had her tone lowered to the hateful conventional style of wit that would put me to the blush for the smallest mishap. I hope he will not come over till it is forgotten, for the very sight of his disapproval would incite her further. I am glad the Colonel is not here. Here, of course, he is in my imagination. Why should I be referring everything to him; I, who used to be so independent? Suppose this nonsense gave him umbrage? Let it. I might then have light thrown on his feelings and my own. At any rate, I will not be conscious. If this stranger be really worth notice, as I think he is, I will trample on her ridicule, and show how little I esteem it.”