Ignorant of such subjects at the best, her brain was devoid of force even to reason out her own conjectures, or to decide what must be impossible. She felt compelled to keep all to herself; to alarm her mother was out of the question, when Mrs. Curtis was distressed and shaken enough already, and to have told Grace would only have brought her soothing promises of sharing the burthen--exactly what she did not want--and would have led to the fact being known to the family man of business, Mr. Cox, the very last person to whom Rachel wished to confess the proceeding. It was not so much the humiliation of owning to him such a fatal act of piracy upon his province, as because she believed him to have been the cause that the poor had all this time been cheated of the full value of the estate. He had complacently consulted the welfare of the Curtis family, by charging them with the rent of the fields as ordinary grass land, and it had never dawned on him that it would be only just to increase the rent. Rachel had found him an antagonist to every scheme she had hatched, ever since she was fifteen years old, her mother obeyed him with implicit faith, and it was certain that if the question were once in his hands, he would regard it as his duty to save the Curtis funds, and let the charity sink or swim. And he was the only person out of the house whom Rachel had seen.
As soon as--or rather before--she could bear it, the first day that her presence was supposed not to be perilous to others, she was obliged to have an interview with him, to enable him to prepare the case for the quarter sessions. Nothing could be much worse for her nerves and spirits, but even the mother was absolutely convinced of the necessity, and Rachel was forced to tax her enfeebled powers to enable her to give accurate details of her relations with Mauleverer, and enable him to judge of the form of the indictment. Once or twice she almost sunk back from the exceeding distastefulness of the task, but she found herself urged on, and when she even asked what would happen if she were not well enough to appear, she was gravely told that she must be--it would be very serious if she did not make a great effort, and even her mother shook her head, looked unhappy, but confirmed the admonition. A little revenge or hatred would have been a great help to her, but she could not feel them as impulses. If it had been the woman, she could have gladly aided in visiting such cruelty upon her, but this had not been directly chargeable upon Mauleverer; and though Rachel felt acutely that he had bitterly abused her confidence, she drooped too much to feel the spirit of retort. The notion of being confronted with him before all the world at Avoncester, and being made to bring about his punishment, was simply dreadful to her, but when she murmured some word of this to her mother, Mrs. Curtis fairly started, and said quite fiercely, "My dear, don't let me hear you say any such thing. He is a very wicked man, and you ought to be glad to have him punished!"
She really spoke as if she had been rebuking some infringement of decorum, and Rachel was quite startled. She asked Grace why the mother was so bent on making her vindictive, but Grace only answered that every one must be very much shocked, and turned away the subject.
Prudent Grace! Her whole soul was in a tumult of wrath and shame at what she knew to be the county gossip, but she was aware that Rachel's total ignorance of it was the only chance of her so comporting herself in court as to silence the rumour, and she and her mother were resolutely discreet.
Mrs. Curtis, between nursing, anxiety, and worry, looked lamentably knocked up, and at last Grace and Rachel prevailed on her to take a drive, leaving Rachel on a sofa in her sitting-room, to what was no small luxury to her just at present--that of being miserable alone-- without meeting any one's anxious eyes, or knowing that her listlessness was wounding the mother's heart. Yet the privilege only resulted in a fresh perturbation about the title-deeds, and longing to consult some one who could advise and sympathize. Ermine Williams would have understood and made her Colonel give help, but Ermine seemed as unattainable as Nova Zembla, and she only heard that the Colonel was absent. Her head as aching with the weary load of doubt, and she tried to cheat her woe by a restless movement to the windows. She saw Captain Keith riding to the door. It suddenly darted into her mind that here was one who could and would help her. He could see Mauleverer and ascertain what had become of the deeds; he could guess at the amount of danger! She could not forget his kindness on the night of Lovedy's illness, or the gentleness of his manner about the woodcuts, and with a sudden impulse she rang the bell and desired that Captain Keith might be shown in. She was still standing leaning on the table when he entered.
"This is very good in you," he said; "I met your mother and sister on my way up, and they asked me to leave word of Conrade being better, but they did not tell me I should see you."
"Conrade is better?" said Rachel, sitting down, unable to stand longer.
"Yes, his throat is better. Miss Williams's firmness saved him. They think him quite out of danger."
"Thank Heaven! Oh, I could never have seen his mother again! Oh, she has been the heroine!"
"In the truest sense of the word," he answered. And Rachel looked up with one moment's brightening at the old allusion, but her oppression was too great for cheerfulness, and she answered--
"Dear Fanny, yes, she will be a rebuke to me for ever! But," she added, before he had time to inquire for her health, "I wanted--I wanted to beg you to do me a service. You were so kind the other night."
His reply was to lean earnestly forward, awaiting her words, and she told him briefly of her grievous perplexity about the title-deeds.
"Then," he said, "you would wish for me to see the man and ascertain how he has disposed of them."
"I should be most grateful!"
"I will do my utmost. Perhaps I may not succeed immediately, as I believe visitors are not admitted every day, and he is said to be busy preparing his defence, but I will try, and let you know."
"Thanks, thanks! The doubt is terrible, for I know worry about it would distract my mother."
"I do not imagine," he said, "that much worse consequences than worry could ensue. But there are none more trying."
"Oh not none!"
"Do not let worry about this increase other ills," he said, kindly, "do not think about this again till you hear from me."
"Is that possible?"
"I should not have thought so, if I had not watched my uncle cast off troubles about his eye-sight and the keeping his living."
"Ah! but those were not of his own making."
"'There is a sparkle even in the darkest water.' That was a saying of his," said Alick, looking anxiously at her pale cheek and down- cast eye.
"Not when they are turbid."
"They will clear," he said, and smiled with a look of encouraging hope that again cheered her in spite of herself. "Meantime remember that in any way I can help you, it will be the greatest favour--" he checked himself as he observed the exceeding languor and lassitude apparent in her whole person, and only said, "My sister is too much at the bottom of it for me not to feel it the greatest kindness to me to let me try to be of the slightest use. I believe I had better go now," as he rose and looked at her wistfully; "you are too much tired to talk."
"I believe I am," she said, almost reluctantly, " but thank you, this has done me good."
"And you are really getting better?"
"Yes, I believe so. Perhaps I may feel it when this terrible day is over."
What a comfort it would be, she said to herself, when he was gone, if we had but a near relation like him, who would act for the mother, instead of our being delivered up, bound hand and foot, to Mr. Cox. It would have been refreshing to have kept him now, if I could have done it without talking; it really seemed to keep the horrible thoughts in abeyance, to hear that wonderfully gentle tone! And how kind and soft the look was! I do feel stronger for it! Will it really be better after next week? Alas! that will have undone nothing.
Yet even this perception of a possibility of hope that there would be relief after the ordeal, was new to Rachel; and it soon gave way to that trying feature of illness, the insurmountable dread
of the mere physical fatigue. The Dean of Avoncester, a kind old friend of Mrs. Curtis, had insisted on the mother and daughters coming to sleep at the Deanery, on the Tuesday night, and remaining till the day after the trial; but Rachel's imagination was not even as yet equal to the endurance of the long drive, far less of the formality of a visit. Lady Temple was likewise asked to the Deanery, but Conrade was still too ill for her to think of leaving him for more than the few needful hours of the trial; nor had Alison been able to do more than pay an occasional visit at her sister's window to exchange reports, and so absorbed was she in her boys and their mother, that it was quite an effort of recollection to keep up to Ermine's accounts of Colonel Keith's doings.
It was on the Monday afternoon, the first time she had ventured into the room, taking advantage of Rose having condescended to go out with the Temple nursery establishment, when she found Ermine's transparent face all alive with expectation. "He may come any time now," she said; "his coming to-day or to-morrow was to depend on his getting his business done on Saturday or not."
And in a few minutes' time the well-known knock was heard, and Ermine, with a look half arch half gay, surprised her sister by rising with the aid of the arm of her chair, and adjusting a crutch that had been leaning against it.
"Why Ermine! you could not bear the jarring of that crutch--"
"Five or six years ago, Ailie, when I was a much poorer creature," then as the door opened, "I would make you a curtsey, Colonel Keith, but I am afraid I can't quite do that," though still she moved nearer to meet him, but perhaps there was a look of helplessness which made her exultation piteous, for he responded with an exclamation of alarm, put out his arm to support her, and did not relax a frown of anxiety till he had placed her safe in her chair again, while she laughed perhaps a little less freely, and said, "See what it is to have had to shift for oneself!"
"You met me with your eyes the first time, Ermine, and I never missed anything."
"Well, I think it is hard not to have been more congratulated on my great achievement! I thought I should have had at least as much credit as Widdrington, my favourite hero and model."
"When you have an arm to support you it may be all very well, and I shall never stand it without." Then, as Ermine subsided, unprepared with a reply, "Well, Ailie, how are your boys?"
"Both much better, Francis nearly well."
"You have had a terrible time! And their mother?"
"Dearer and sweeter than ever," said Alison, with her voice trembling; "no one who has not seen her now can guess half what she is!"
"I hope she has not missed me. If this matter had not been so pressing, I could not have stayed away."
"The one message she always gave me was, that you were not to think of coming home; and, indeed, those dear boys were so good, that we managed very well without you."
"Yes, I had faith in your discipline, and I think that matters are in train against Edward comes. Of course there is no letter, or you would have told me."
"He will be coming himself," said Ermine, resolved against again expressing a doubt; while Alison added that he hated letter-writing.
"Nothing could he more satisfactory than Beauchamp's letter," added Colin. "He was so thoroughly convinced, that he immediately began to believe that he had trusted Edward all along, and had only been overruled."
"I dare say," said Ermine, laughing; "I can quite fancy honest Harry completely persuaded that he was Edward's champion, while Maddox was turning him round his finger."
"And such is his good faith, that I hope he will make Edward believe the same! I told you of his sending his love to you, and of his hopes that you would some day come and see the old place. He made his wife quite cordial."
Alison did not feel herself obliged to accept the message, and Ermine could freely say, "Poor Harry! I should like to see him again! He would be exactly the same, I dare say. And how does the old place look?"
"Just what I do not want you to see. They have found out that the Rectory is unhealthy, and stuck up a new bald house on the top of the hill; and the Hall is new furnished in colours that set one's teeth on edge. Nothing is like itself but Harry, and he only when you get him off duty--without his wife! I was glad to get away to Belfast."
"And there, judging from Julia's letter, they must have nearly devoured you."
"They were very hospitable. Your sister is not so very unlike you, Ermine?"
"Oh, Colin!" exclaimed Alison, with an indignation of which she became ashamed, and added, by way of making it better, "Perhaps not so very."
"She was very gracious to me," said Colin, smiling, "and we had much pleasant talk of you."
"Yes," said Ermine, "it will be a great pleasure to poor Julia to be allowed to take us up again, and you thought the doctor sufficiently convinced."
"More satisfactorily so than Harry, for he reasoned out the matter, and seems to me to have gone more by his impression that a man could not be so imprudent as Edward in good faith than by Maddox's representation."
"That is true," said Alison, "he held out till Edward refused to come home, and then nothing would make him listen to a word on his behalf"
"And it will be so again," thought Ermine, with a throb at her heart. Then she asked, "Did you see whether there was a letter for you at home?"
"Yes, I looked in, and found only this, which I have only glanced at, from Bessie."
"From Paris?"
"Yes, they come home immediately after Easter. 'Your brother is resolved I should be presented, and submit to the whole season in style; after which he says I may judge for myself.' What people will do for pretty young wives! Poor Mary's most brilliant season was a winter at Edinburgh; and it must be his doing more than hers, for she goes on: 'Is it not very hard to be precluded all this time from playing the chieftainess in the halls of my forefathers? I shall have to run down to your Gowanbrae to refresh myself, and see what you are all about, for I cannot get the fragment of a letter from Alick; and I met an Avoncestrian the other day, who told me that the whole county was in a state of excitement about the F. U. etc.; that every one believed that the fascinating landscape-painter was on the high road to winning one of the joint-heiresses; but that Lady Temple--the most incredible part of the story--had blown up the whole affair, made her way into the penetralia of the asylum, and rescued two female 'prentices, so nearly whipped to death that it took an infinitesimal quantity of Rachel's homoeopathy to demolish one entirely, and that the virtuous public was highly indignant that there was no inquest nor trial for manslaughter; but that it was certain that Rachel had been extremely ill ever since. Poor Rachel, there must he some grain of truth in all this, but one would like to be able to contradict it. I wrote to ask Alick the rights of the story, but he has not vouchsafed me a line of reply; and I should take it as very kind in you to let me know whether he is in the land of the living or gone to Edinburgh--as I hear is to be the lot of the Highlanders--or pining for the uncroquetable lawn, to which I always told him he had an eye.'"
"She may think herself lucky he has not answered," said Ermine; "he has always been rather unreasonably angry with her for making the introduction."
"That is the reason he has not," added Alison, "for he is certainly not far off. He has been over almost every day to inquire, and played German tactics all Saturday afternoon with Francis to our great relief. But I have stayed away long enough."
"I will walk back with you, Ailie. I must see the good little heroine of the most incredible part of the story."
Lady Temple looked a good deal paler than when he had last seen her, and her eyelids still showed that they had long arrears of sleep to make up; but she came down with outstretched hands and a sunny smile. "They are so much better, and I am so glad you were not at home in the worst of it."
"And I am sorry to have deserted you."
"Oh, no, no, it was much better that you should be away. We should all have wanted you, and that would have been dangerous, and dear, dear Miss Williams did all th
at could be done. Do you know, it taught me that you were right when you told me I ought never to rest till the boys learnt to obey, for obedience' sake, at a word. It showed what a bad mother I am, for I am sure if dear Conrade had been like what he was last year, even she could not have saved him," said Fanny, her eyes full of tears.
Then came her details, to which he listened, as ever, like the brotherly friend he was, and there was a good deal said about restoring the little ones, who were still at Gowanbrae, to which he would by no means as yet consent, though Fanny owned herself to have time now to pine for her Stephana, and to "hear how dismal it is to have a silent nursery."
"Yes, it has been a fearful time. We little guessed how much risk you ran when you went to the rescue."
"Dear Con, when he thought--when we thought he could not get better, said I was not to mind that, and I don't," said Fanny. "I thought it was right, and though I did not know this would come of it, yet you see God has been very merciful, and brought both of my boys out of this dreadful illness, and I dare say it will do them good all their lives now it is over. I am sure it will to me, for I shall always be more thankful."
"Everything does you good," he said.
The Clever Woman of the Family Page 36