The Clever Woman of the Family

“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.

“May I come in?” said Alick, knocking at the door. “I have something to tell you.”

“What, Alick! Not Mr. Williams come?”

“Nothing so good. In fact I doubt if you will think it good at all. I have been consulting this same solicitor about the title-deeds; that cheese you let fall, you know,” he added, stroking her hand, and speaking so gently that the very irony was rather pleasant.

“Oh, it is very bad.”

“Now wouldn’t you like to hear it was so bad that I should have to sell out, and go to the diggings to make it up?”

“Now, Alick, if it were not for your sake, you know I should like—”

“I know you would; but you see, unfortunately, it was not a cheese at all, only a wooden block that the fox ran away with. Lawyers don’t put people’s title-deeds into such dangerous keeping, the true cheese is safe locked up in a tin-box in Mr. Martin’s chambers in London.”

“Then what did I give Mauleverer?”

“A copy kept for reference down here.” Rachel hid her face.

“There, I knew you would think it no good news, and it is just a thunder-clap to me. All you wanted me for was to defend the mother and make up to the charity, and now there’s no use in me,” he said in a disconsolate tone.

“Oh, Alick, Alick, why am I so foolish?”

“Never mind; I took care Martin should not know it. Nobody is aware of the little affair but our two selves; and I will take care the fox learns the worth of his prize. Only now, Rachel, answer me, is there any use left for me still?”

“You should not ask me such things, Alick, you know it all too well.”

“Not so well that I don’t want to hear it. But I had more to say. This Martin is a man of very different calibre from old Cox, with a head and heart in London charities and churches, and it had struck him as it did you, that the Homestead had an easier bargain of it than that good namesake of yours had ever contemplated. If it paid treble or quadruple rent, the dear mother would never find it out, nor grow a geranium the less.”

“No, she would not! But after all, the lace apprenticeships are poor work.”

“So they are, but Martin says there would be very little difficulty in getting a private bill to enable the trustees to apply the sum otherwise for the benefit of the Avonmouth girls.”

“Then if I had written to him, it would have been all right! Oh, my perverseness!”

“And, Rachel, now that money has been once so intended; suppose it kept its destination. About £500 would put up a tidy little industrial school, and you might not object to have a scholarship or two for some of our little —th Highlander lassies whose fathers won’t make orphans of them for the regular military charities. What, crying, Rachel! Don’t you like it?”

“It is my dream. The very thing I wished and managed so vilely. If Lovedy were alive! Though perhaps that is not the thing to wish. But I can’t bear taking your—”

“Hush! You can’t do worse than separate your own from mine. This is no part of the means I laid before Mr. Martin by way of proving myself a responsible individual. I took care of that. Part of this is prize-money, and the rest was a legacy that a rich old merchant put me down for in a transport of gratitude because his son was one of the sick in the bungalow where the shell came. I have had it these three or four months, and wondered what to do with it.”

“This will be very beautiful, very excellent. And we can give the ground.”

“I have thought of another thing. I never heard of an industrial school where the great want was not food for industry. Now I know the Colonel and Mr. Mitchell have some notion floating in their minds about getting a house for convalescents down here, and it strikes me that this might supply the work in cooking, washing, and so on. I think I might try what they thought of it.”

Rachel could only weep out her shame and thankfulness, and when Alick reverently added that it was a scheme that would require much thought and much prayer, the pang struck her to the heart—how little she had prayed over the F. U. E. E. The prayer of her life had been for action and usefulness, but when she had seen the shadow in the stream, her hot and eager haste, her unconscious detachment from all that was not visible and material had made her adhere too literally to that misinterpreted motto, laborare est orare. How should then her eyes be clear to discern between substance and shadow?