The Young Step-Mother Part 103

Albinia had brought herself to give fair sympathy to the lovers; and when once she had begun it was easy to go on, not as ardently as if she had never indulged in her folly, but enough to gratify two such happy and grateful people, who wanted no one but each other, and agreed in nothing better than in thinking her a sort of guardian angel to them both.

Genevieve had a.s.suredly never given her heart to Gilbert, and it was ready in all the freshness of maidenly bliss to meet the manly ardour of Ulick O'More. He was almost overpoweringly demonstrative and eager, now and then making game of himself, but yet not able to help rus.h.i.+ng down to Willow Lawn ten or twelve times a day, just to satisfy himself that his treasure was there, and if he could not meet with her, catching hold of Mr. or Mrs. Kendal to rave till they drove him back to his business.

Such glee danced in his eyes, there was such suppressed joyousness in his countenance, and his step was so much nearer a dance than a walk, that his very air well-nigh betrayed what was to be an absolute secret, till there had been an answer from Ballymakilty, until which time Genevieve would not rest in the hope of a happy future, nor give up her fears that she had not brought pain upon him.

In he came at last, so exulting and so grateful, that it was a shock to discover that 'the kindest letter and fullest consent in the world,'

meant his father's 'supposing he would do as he pleased; as long as he asked for nothing, it was no concern of his.' It was discovered, by Ulick's delight, that he had expected to have a battle, and Albinia was scandalized, but Mr. Kendal told her it somewhat depended on what manner of father it was, whether an independent son could defer implicitly to his judgment; and though principle might withhold Ulick from flat disobedience, he might not scruple at extorting reluctant consent.

Besides his mother, whom he honoured far more really, had written, not without disappointment, but with full confidence in his ability to judge for himself.

Mr. Kendal and Mr. Ferrars both wrote warmly in Genevieve's praise, and certainly her footing at Willow Lawn was the one point d'appui in bringing round the O'More family; so that as Ulick truly said, 'It was Mrs. Kendal whom he had to thank for the blessing of his life.' Had poor Miss Goldsmith's description of Miss Durant's birth, parentage, and education been the only one that had reached Ballymakilty, a prohibition would a.s.suredly have been issued; but he was left sufficiently free to satisfy his own conscience, and before Genevieve had surmounted half her scruples, the whole town was ringing with the news, though no one could guess how it had got wind. To be sure the Dusautoys had been put into a state of rapture, and poor Mr. Hope had had the fatal stroke administered to him. He looked so like a ghost that Mr. Dusautoy contrived to release him at once, whereupon he went to try the most unwholesome curacy he could find, with serious intentions of exchanging his living for it; but he fortunately became so severely and helplessly ill there, that he was pretty well cured of his mental fever, and quite content to go to his heath, and do his work there like the humble and earnest man that he was, perhaps all the better for having been personally taught something more than could be gained from books and colleges.

Miss Goldsmith was the most to be pitied. She would not hear a word from her nephew, refused to go near Willow Lawn, packed up her goods and went to Bath, where Ulick promised the much distressed Genevieve that she would yet relent. Genevieve was somewhat consoled by the increasing cordiality of the Irish letters, and was carried along by the extreme delight and triumph of her good old aunt. By some wonderful exertion of Irish faculties, Ulick succeeded in bringing mademoiselle to Bayford in his jaunting car, when she laughed, wept, sobbed, and embraced, in a bewilderment of transport; p.r.o.nounced the trousseau worthy of an angel of the ancien regime; warned Genevieve against expecting amour to continue instead of amitie, and carried home conversation for the nuns for the rest of their lives.

That trousseau was Sophy's special charge, and most jealous was she that it should in no respect fall short of that outfit of Lucy's for which she had cared so little. A hard task it was to make Genevieve accept what Lucy had exacted, but Sophy held the purse-strings, wrote the orders, and had her own way.

She and her little sister were the only available bridesmaids, since Rose O'More was not allowed to come. Having made up her mind to this from the first, when the subject came forward, her open, cheerful look and manner were meant to show that she was not afraid, and that her wish was real. Freely resigning him, why should she not be glad to join in calling down the blessing?

The wedding was fixed for Easter week, which fell early, and Albinia cast about for some excuse for taking her away afterwards. An opportune occasion offered. Sir William Ferrars wrote from the East to propose the Kendals meeting him in Italy, and travelling home together, he was longing, he said, to see something of his sister, and he should enjoy sight-seeing ten times as much with a clever man like her husband to tell him all about it.

Mr. Ferrars strongly seconded the project! Clever fellow, not a word did he say; but did not he know the secrets of that household as well or better than the inmates themselves?'

Now that Tibb's Alley was deserted, and plans fixed, architect and clerk of the works chosen, March winds ready for building and underground work to begin at once, what could be more prudent than for the inhabitants of Willow Lawn to remove far from the disturbance of ancient drains and no drains, and betake themselves to a purer atmosphere? Mr. Kendal was of no use as a superintendent, and needed no persuasion to flee from the chance of typhus.

As to the children, the time had come early when Maurice's whole nature cried out for school. He was much improved, and there was that real principle within him which made it not unsafe to launch him in a world where he might meet with more useful trials than those of home. Child as he was, his propensities were too much limited by the bounds of the town-house and garden, and the society of his sisters, one too old and one too young to serve as tomboys. He needed to meet his match, and work his way; Albinia felt that school had become his element, and Mr. Kendal only wanted to make his education the reverse of Gilbert's; so he ran nearly frantic between the real jacket and the promise of going to school with Willie. He knew not, though his mother mourned over, the coming heart-sickness and mother-sickness of the first night, the first Sunday, the first trouble. It was sure to be very severe in one of such strong and affectionate feeling, but it must come sooner or later, and the better that it should be conquered while home was still a paradise.

Fairmead was not so far from his destination but that his uncle would keep an eye on him; and Winifred held out a hope that if the tour lasted long enough, he should bring out both boys to spend their holidays with them. A very good Winifred!

Albinia the Less was to become a traveller, for the good reason that n.o.body could or would go without her. They were to go direct to Lucy, who was at Naples with a second boy, and pining for home faces and home comforts--the inducement which perhaps worked most strongly to make Sophy like the journey, for since her delusion had been swept, away, a doubly deep and intense feeling had sprung up towards her own only sister, whose foibles had been forgotten in long separation.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

The Lake of Lucerne lay blue and dark in the shade of the mountains, on whose summits the evening suns.h.i.+ne was fast mounting, peak after peak falling into purple shadow.

There was a small inlet where a stream rushed down between the hills, and on the green slope stood a chalet, the rich red of the roof contrasting with the green pasture. A little boat was moored to a stump near the land, and in it sat Sophia Kendal, her hat by her side, listening to and answering merrily the chatter of Maurice, who tumbled about in the boat, often causing it severe shocks, while he inspected the cut of the small sail which she was making for the miniature specimen, which he often tried in the clear cold water.

Farther off, a little up the hill-side, Willie Ferrars was holding the hand of the chestnut-curled, black-eyed fairy, 'little Awk,' who was impressing him by her fluency in two languages at once, according as she chattered to him in English, or in French to a picturesque peasant, her great ally, who was mowing his flowery crop of hay, glancing like an illumination, with an under-current of brilliant blossoms among the gra.s.s.

Wandering with slow conversational pace up and down the beach of the lake, were Mr. Kendal and Sir William Ferrars, conversing as usual; the soldier, with quick alert comprehension, wide observation, and clearness of mind, which jumped to the very points to which the scholar's deeply-read and long-digested arguments were bringing him more slowly.

On a projecting point sat Albinia, her fair hair shaded under her dark hat, beneath which her English complexion glowed fresh and youthful, as with flat tin box by her side, and block sketch-book on her knee, she mixed and she painted, and tried to catch those purples and those blues with unabated ardour. Suddenly a great trailing frond of mountain fern came over the brim of her hat from behind. 'Oh, Maurice, don't!' Then, looking up and laughing, 'Oh, it is you, is it? I knew Maurice would do, whichever it might be; but see, the other is quite out of mischief.'

'Unless he should upset Sophy into the lake.'

'He can't do that, the rope is too short. But is not he very much improved? He has quite lost his imperious manner towards her.'

'Nothing like school for making a boy behave himself to his sisters.'

'Exactly, as I learnt by experience long ago. I am glad William did not see him till he had learnt to be agreeable. How he does admire him!'

'You'll never make anything of that sketch; the mountain is humpbacked, and the face of that precipice is exactly like Colonel Bury;' and he caught up a pencil to help out the resemblance with nostril and eyebrow.

'For shame, to be so mischievous; such a great boy as you.'

'Well, we all came out here to be great boys, didn't we? I am sure you look a dozen years younger than when I last saw you, Mrs. Grandmother.

By-the-by, it was a bold stroke to enc.u.mber yourself with that brat; what's become of him?'

'Susan has taken him in asleep. You see, Maurice, I really could not help it, the poor little thing was so sickly, and had never thriven; but when they were a little while in bracing air, Lucy was longing to have him in England, and his father, who never believes in anything but what he likes, _would_ not see it, and what with those Italian servants, and Algernon hunting Lucy about as he does, it would have been the death of him. Susan, good creature, had taken to him of her own accord the moment we came to Naples, and could not have borne to leave him, and you know the Awk is almost off her hands now, and Sophy, who first proposed it, or I am sure I should never have ventured, is delighted to do anything for either of them, and always has her little sister in her room. As to papa, he was very good, and the child is very little in his way, and has been quite well ever since we have been in this delicious air.'

'How did you get Lucy to consent?'

'Poor dear, it was a melancholy business; but she had so often been in alarm about him, and had suffered so much from having to leave him with people she did not trust, that she caught at the proposal before she fairly contemplated what the parting would be; and when she did, Algernon was too glad to be relieved from him not to keep her up to it, but it wont do to think of it, she has her baby, who is healthier, and if they remain abroad, I suspect we shall keep little Ralph altogether; he is a dear little fellow, and Sophy has so taken possession of Albinia, that I should be quite lost if I did not set up a private child.

'What do you call him? I thought his name was Belraven.'

'I could not possibly call him so; and his aunts, by way of adding to the aviary, made him Ralph the Raven, so I mean it to stick by him; I believe papa has forgotten the other dreadful fact, for I caught him giving his name as Ralph Cavendish Dusautoy. How the dear vicar of Bayford will devour him! and what work I shall have to keep him from being spoilt!'

'Then you think they will remain abroad?'

'Algernon hates England; and all his habits are foreign.'

'Did he make himself tolerably agreeable?'

'He really did. One could bear to be patronized by one's host better than by one's guest, and he was in wholesome awe of William. Besides, he is really at home in Italy, and knows his way about so well, that he was not a bad Cicerone. I am sure Sophy could never have done either Vesuvius or Pompeii without his arrangements; and as long as he had a victim for his catalogue raisonnee, he was very placable and obliging.

That was all extracts, so it really was not so bad.'

'So you were satisfied?'

'He has a bad lot about him, that's the worst--Polish counts, disreputable artists and poets, any one who has a spurious sort of fame, and knows how to flatter him. Edmund was terribly disgusted.'

'Very bad for his wife.'

'You see, she is a thorough-going mother, and no linguist. She really is improved, and I like her more really than ever I could, poor dear.

I believe her head was once quite turned, and that he influenced her entirely, and made her forget everything else; but she has a heart, though not much of a head, and sorrow and illness and children have brought it out, and she is what a 'very woman' becomes, I suppose, if there be any good in her, an abstract wife and mother.'

'Was it not dangerous to take away her child?'

'There was another, you know, and it was to save his life. The duties clashed, and were destroying all comfort.'

'How does he behave to her?'

'I believe she has all the love he has to spare; he is proud of her, and dresses her up, and has endless portraits of her. Luckily she keeps her beauty. She is more refined, and has more expression; one could sometimes cry to watch her, and he likes to have her with him, and to discourse to her, but without the slightest perception or consideration of what she would prefer, and with no notion of sacrificing anything for her or the children. I know she is afraid of him; I have seen her tremble if there were any chance of his being annoyed; and she would not object to any plan of his if it were to cost her life. I believe it would be misery to her, but I think she would resist--ay, she _did_ resist, and in vain, for the sake of her child.'

'Does her affection hold out, do you think?'

'Oh, yes, the spaniel and walnut-tree love, which is in us all, and doubly in the very woman. It is very beautiful. She is so proud of him and of her gilded slavery, and so unconsciously submissive and patient; but it is a harder life, I guess, than we can see. I am sure it must be, for every bit of personal vanity and levity is worn out of her; she only goes out to satisfy him; dresses to please his eye, and talks, with her eye seeking round for him, in dread of being rebuked for mistakes or bad French. And for the rest, her joy is to be left in peace with little Algernon upon her lap. Yes, I hope living in all womanly virtues may be training and compensation, but the saddest part of the affair is that he does not think it fas.h.i.+onable to be religious, and she has not moral courage to make open resistance.'