"Only, if you want to talk of anything very particular," observed Rose.
"I don't think I need ask many questions," said Alison, smiling being happily made very easy to her. "Dear Ermine, I see you are perfectly satisfied--"
"0 Ailie, that is no word for it! Not only himself, but to find him loving Rose for her father's sake, undoubting of him through all. Ailie, the thankfulness of it is more than one can bear."
"And he is the same?" said Alison.
"The same--no, not the same. It is more, better, or I am able to feel it more. It was just like the morrow of the day he walked down the lane with me and gathered honeysuckles, only the night between has been a very, very strange time."
"I hope the interruption did not come very soon."
"I thought it was directly, but it could not have been so soon, since you are come home. We had just had time to tell what we most wanted to know, and I know a little more of what he is. I feel as if it were not only Colin again, but ten times Colin. 0 Ailie, it must be a little bit like the meetings in heaven!"
"I believe it is so with you," said Alison, scarcely able to keep the tears from her eyes.
"After sometimes not daring to dwell on him, and then only venturing because I thought he must be dead, to have him back again with the same looks, only deeper--to find that he clung to those weeks so long ago, and, above all, that there was not one cloud, one doubt about the troubles--Oh, it is too, too much."
Ermine lent back with clasped hands. She was like one weary with happiness, and lain to rest in the sense of newly-won peace. She said little more that evening, and if spoken to, seemed like one wakened out of a dream, so that more than once she laughed at herself, begged her sister's pardon, and said that it seemed to her that she could not hear anything for the one glad voice that rang in her ear, "Colin is come home." That was sufficient for her, no need for any other sympathy, felt Alison, with another of those pangs crushed down. Then wonder came--whether Ermine could really contemplate the future, or if it were absolutely lost in the present?
Colonel Keith went back to be seized by Conrade and Francis, and walked off to the pony inspection, the two boys, on either side of him, communicating to him the great grievance of living in a poky place like this, where nobody had ever been in the army, nor had a bit of sense, and Aunt Rachel was always bothering, and trying to make mamma think that Con told stories.
"I don't mind that," said Conrade, stoutly; "let her try!"
"Oh, but she wanted mamma to shut you up," added Francis.
"Well, and mamma knows better," said Conrade, "and it made her leave off teaching me, so it was lucky. But I don't mind that; only don't you see, Colonel, they don't know how to treat mamma! They go and bully her, and treat her like--like a subaltern, till I hate the very sight of it."
"My boy," said the Colonel, who had been giving only half attention; "you must make up your mind to your mother not being at the head of everything, as she used to be in your father's time. She will always be respected, but you must look to yourself as you grow up to make a position tor her!"
"I wish I was grown up!" sighed Conrade; "how I would give it to Aunt Rachel! But why must we live here to have her plaguing us?"
Questions that the Colonel was glad to turn aside by moans of the ponies, and by a suggestion that, if a very quiet one were found, and if Conrade would be very careful, mamma might, perhaps, go out riding with them. The motion was so transcendant that, no sooner had the ponies been seen, than the boys raced home, and had communicated it at the top of their voices to mamma long before their friend made his appearance. Lady Temple was quite startled at the idea. "Dear papa," as she always called her husband, "had wished her to ride, but she had seldom done so, and now--" The tears came into her eyes.
"I think you might," said the Colonel, gently; "I could find you a quiet animal, and to have you with Conrade would be such a protection to him," he added, as the boys had rushed out of the room.
"Yes; perhaps, dear boy. But I could not begin alone; it is so long since I rode. Perhaps when you come back from Ireland."
"I am not going to Ireland."
"I thought you said--" said Fanny looking up surprised; "I am very glad! But if you wished to go, pray don't think about us! I shall learn to manage in time, and I cannot bear to detain you."
"You do not detain me," he said, sitting down by her; "I have found what I was going in search of, and through your means."
"What--what do you mean! You were going to see Miss Williams this afternoon, I thought!"
"Yes, and it was she whom I was seeking." He paused, and added slowly, as if merely for the sake of dwelling on the words, "I have found her!"
"Miss Williams!" said Fanny, with perplexed looks.
"Miss Williams!--my Ermine whom I had not seen since the day after her accident, when we parted as on her deathbed!"
"That sister! Oh, poor thing, I am so glad! But I am sorry!" cried the much confused Fanny, in a breath; "were not you very much shocked?"
"I had never hoped to see her face in all its brightness again," he said. "Twelve years! It is twelve years that she has suffered, and of late she has been brought to this grievous state of poverty, and yet the spirit is as brave and cheerful as ever! It looks out of the beautiful eyes--more beautiful than when I first saw them,--I could see and think of nothing else!"
"Twelve years!" repeated Fanny; "is it so long since you saw her?"
"Almost since I heard of her! She was like a daughter to my aunt at Beauchamp, and her brother was my schoolfellow. For one summer, when I was quartered at Hertford, I was with her constantly, but my family would not even hear of the indefinite engagement that was all we could have looked to, and made me exchange into the -th."
"Ah! that was the way we came to have you! I must tell you, dear Sir Stephen always guessed. Once when he had quite vexed poor mamma by preventing her from joking you in her way about young ladies, he told me that once, when he was young, he had liked some one who died or was married, I don't quite know which, and he thought it was the same with you, from something that happened when you withdrew your application for leave after your wound."
"Yes! it was a letter from home, implying that my return would be accepted as a sign that I gave her up. So that was an additional instance of the exceeding kindness that I always received."
And there was a pause, both much affected by the thought of the good old man's ever ready consideration. At last Fanny said, "I am sure it was well for us! What would he have done without you?--and," she added, "do you really mean that you never heard of her all these years?"
"Never after my aunt's death, except just after we went to Melbourne, when I heard in general terms of the ruin of the family and the false imputation on their brother."
"Ah! I remember that you did say something about going home, and Sir Stephen was distressed, and mamma and I persuaded you because we saw he would have missed you so much, and mamma was quite hurt at your thinking of going. But if you had only told him your reason, he would never have thought of standing in your way."
"I know he would not, but I saw he could hardly find any one else just then who knew his ways so well. Besides, there was little use in going home till I had my promotion, and could offer her a home; and I had no notion how utter the ruin was, or that she had lost so much. So little did I imagine their straits that, but for Alison's look, I should hardly have inquired even on hearing her name."
"How very curious--how strangely things come round!" said Fanny; then with a start of dismay, "but what shall I do? Pray, tell me what you would like. If I might only keep her a little while till I can find some one else, though no one will ever be so nice, but indeed I would not for a moment, if you had rather not."
"Why so? Alison is very happy with you, and there can be no reason against her going on."
"Oh!" cried Lady Temple, with an odd sound of satisfaction, doubt, and surprise, "but I thought you would not like it."
"I should like,
of course, to set them all at ease, but as I can do no more than make a home for Ermine and her niece, I can only rejoice that Alison is with you."
"But your brother!"
"If he does not like it, he must take the consequence of the utter separation he made my father insist on," said the Colonel sternly. "For my own part, I only esteem both sisters the more, if that were possible, for what they have done for themselves."
"Oh! that is what Rachel would like! She is so fond of the sick--I mean of your--Miss Williams. I suppose I may not tell her yet."
"Not yet, if you please. I have scarcely had time as yet to know what Ermine wishes, but I could not help telling you."
"Thank you--I am so glad," she said, with sweet earnestness, holding out her hand in congratulation. "When may I go to her? I should like for her to come and stay here. Do you think she would?"
"Thank you, I will see. I know how kind you would be--indeed, have already been to her."
"And I am so thankful that I may keep Miss Williams! The dear boys never were so good. And perhaps she may stay till baby is grown up. Oh! how long it will be first!"
"She could not have a kinder friend," said the Colonel, smiling, and looking at his watch.
"Oh, is it time to dress? It is very kind of my dear aunt; but I do wish we could have stayed at home to-night. It is so dull for the boys when I dine out, and I had so much to ask you. One thing was about that poor little Bessie Keith. Don't you think I might ask her down here, to be near her brother?"
"It would be a very kind thing in you, and very good for her, but you must be prepared for rather a gay young lady."
"Oh, but she would not mind my not going out. She would have Alick, you know, and all the boys to amuse her; but, if you think it would be tiresome for her, and that she would not be happy, I should be very sorry to have her, poor child."
"I was not afraid for her," said Colonel Keith, smiling, "but of her being rather too much for you."
"Rachel is not too much for me," said Fanny, "and she and Grace will entertain Bessie, and take her out. But I will talk to Alick. He spoke of coming to-morrow. And don't you think I might ask Colonel and Mrs. Hammond to spend a day? They would so like the sea for the children."
"Certainly."
"Then perhaps you would write--oh, I forgot," colouring up, "I never can forget the old days, it seems as if you were on the staff still."
"I always am on yours, and always hope to be," he said, smiling, "though I am afraid I can't write your note to the Hammonds for you."
"But you won't go away," she said. "I know your time will be taken up, and you must not let me or the boys be troublesome; but to have you here makes me so much less lost and lonely. And I shall have such a friend in your Erminia. Is that her name?"
"Ermine, an old Welsh name, the softest I ever heard. Indeed it is dressing time," added Colonel Keith, and both moved away with the startled precision of members of a punctual military household, still feeling themselves accountable to somebody.
CHAPTER VI. ERMINE'S RESOLUTION
"For as his hand the weather steers, So thrive I best 'twixt joys and tears, And all the year have some green ears."--H. VAUGHAN.
Alison had not been wrong in her presentiment that the second interview would be more trying than the first. The exceeding brightness and animation of Ermine's countenance, her speaking eyes, unchanged complexion, and lively manner--above all, the restoration of her real substantial self--had so sufficed and engrossed Colin Keith in the gladness of their first meeting that he had failed to comprehend her helpless state; and already knowing her to be an invalid, not entirely recovered from her accident, he was only agreeably surprised to see the beauty of face he had loved so long, retaining all its vivacity of expression. And when he met Alison the next morning with a cordial brotherly greeting and inquiry for her sister, her "Very well," and "not at all the worse for the excitement," were so hearty and ready that he could not have guessed that "well" with Ermine meant something rather relative than positive. Alison brought him a playful message from her, that since he was not going to Belfast, she should meet him with a freer conscience if he would first give her time for Rose's lessons, and, as he said, he had lived long enough with Messrs. Conrade and Co. to acknowledge the wisdom of the message. But Rose had not long been at leisure to look out for him before he made his appearance, and walked in by right, as one at home; and sitting down in his yesterday's place, took the little maiden on his knee, and began to talk to her about the lessons he had been told to wait for. What would she have done without them? He knew some people who never could leave the house quiet enough to hear one's-self speak if they were deprived of lessons. Was that the way with her? Rose laughed like a creature, her aunt said, "to whom the notion of noise at play was something strange and ridiculous; necessity has reduced her to Jacqueline Pascal's system with her pensionnaires, who were allowed to play one by one without any noise."
"But I don't play all alone," said Rose; "I play with you, Aunt Ermine, and with Violetta."
And Violetta speedily had the honour of an introduction, very solemnly gone through, in due form; Ermine, in the languid sportiveness of enjoyment of his presence and his kindness to the child, inciting Rose to present Miss Violetta Williams to Colonel Keith, an introduction that he returned with a grand military salute, at the same time as he shook the doll's inseparable fingers. "Well, Miss Violetta, and Miss Rose, when you come to live with me, I shall hope for the pleasure of teaching you to make a noise."
"What does he mean?" said Rose, turning round amazed upon her aunt.
"I am afraid he does not quite know," said Ermine, sadly.
"Nay, Ermine," said he, turning from the child, and bending over her, "you are the last who should say that. Have I not told you that there is nothing now in our way--no one with a right to object, and means enough for all we should wish, including her--? What is the matter?" he added, startled by her look.
"Ah, Colin! I thought you knew--"
"Knew what, Ermine?" with his brows drawn together.
"Knew--what I am," she said; "knew the impossibility. What, they have not told you? I thought I was the invalid, the cripple, with every one."
"I knew you had suffered cruelly; I knew you were lame," he said, breathlessly; "but--what--"
"It is more than lame," she said. "I should be better off if the fiction of the Queens of Spain were truth with me. I could not move from this chair without help. Oh, Colin! poor Colin! it was very cruel not to have prepared you for this!" she added, as he gazed at her in grief and dismay, and made a vain attempt to find the voice that would not come. "Yes, indeed it is so," she said; "the explosion, rather than the fire, did mischief below the knee that poor nature could not repair, and I can but just stand, and cannot walk at all."
"Has anything been done--advice?" he murmured.
"Advice upon advice, so that I felt at the last almost a compensation to be out of the way of the doctors. No, nothing more can be done; and now that one is used to it, the snail is very comfortable in its shell. But I wish you could have known it sooner!" she added, seeing him shade his brow with his hand, overwhelmed.
"What you must have suffered!" he murmured.
"That is all over long ago; every year has left that further behind, and made me more content. Dear Colin, for me there is nothing to grieve."
He could not control himself, rose up, made a long stride, and passed through the open window into the garden.
"Oh, if I could only follow him," gasped Ermine, joining her hands and looking up.
"Is it because you can't walk?" said Rose, somewhat frightened, and for the first time beginning to comprehend that her joyous-tempered aunt could be a subject for pity.
"Oh! this was what I feared!" sighed Ermine. "Oh, give us strength to go through with it." Then becoming awake to the child's presence- -"A little water, if you please, my dear." Then, more composedly, "Don't be frightened, my Rose; you did not know it was such a shock to find me so la
id by--"
"He is in the garden walking up and down," said Rose. "May I go and tell him how much merrier you always are than Aunt Ailie?"
Poor Ermine felt anything but merry just then, but she had some experience of Rose's powers of soothing, and signed assent. So in another second Colonel Keith was met in the hasty, agonized walk by which he was endeavouring to work off his agitation, and the slender child looked wistfully up at him from dark depths of half understanding eyes--"Please, please don't be so very sorry," she said. "Aunt Ermine does not like it. She never is sorry for herself--"
"Have I shaken her--distressed her?" he asked, anxiously.
"She doesn't like you to be sorry," said Rose, looking up. "And, indeed, she does not mind it; she is such a merry aunt! Please, come in again, and see how happy we always are--"
The last words were spoken so near the window that Ermine caught them, and said, "Yes, come in, Colin, and learn not to grieve for me, or you will make me repent of my selfish gladness yesterday."
"Not grieve!" he exclaimed, "when I think of the beautiful vigorous being that used to be the life of the place--" and he would have said more but for a deprecating sign of the hand.
"Well," she said, half smiling, "it is a pity to think even of a crushed butterfly; but indeed, Colin, if you can bear to listen to me, I think I can show you that it all has been a blessing even by sight, as well as, of course, by faith. Only remember the unsatisfactoriness of our condition--the never seeing or hearing from one another after that day when Mr. Beauchamp came down on us. Did not the accident win for us a parting that was much better to remember than that state of things? Oh, the pining, weary feel as if all the world had closed on me! I do assure you it was much worse than anything that came after the burn. Yes, if I had been well and doing like others, I know I should have fretted and wearied, pined myself ill perhaps, whereas I could always tell myself that every year of your absence might be a step towards your finding me well; and when I was forced to give up that hope for myself, why then, Colin, the never seeing your name made me think you would never be disappointed and grieved as you are now. It is very merciful the way that physical trials help one through those of the mind."
The Clever Woman of the Family Page 11