The Clever Woman of the Family by Charlotte M. Yonge (the mitten read aloud txt) 📕

Ermine, why do you look so very funny? It was very tiresome. Are not you glad it is over?"

"I was thinking, Rose, what a difficult language plain English is sometimes."

"What, Miss Rachel's? I couldn't understand one bit of her long story, except that she did not like weak tea."

"It was my own that I meant," said Ermine. "But, Rose, always remember that a person who stands plain speaking from one like me has something very noble and generous in her. Were you here all the time, Rosie? I don't wonder you were tired."

"No, Aunt Ermine, I went and told Violetta and Augustus a fairy tale out of my own head."

"Indeed; and how did they like it?"

"Violetta looked at me all the time, and Augustus gave three winks, so I think he liked it."

"Appreciated it!" said Aunt Ermine.


CHAPTER IV. THE HERO.

"And which is Lucy's?
Can it be
That puny fop, armed cap-a-pie,
Who loves in the saloon to show
The arms that never knew a foe."--SCOTT.

"My lady's compliments, ma'am, and she would he much obliged if you would remain till she comes home," was Coombe's reception of Alison. "She is gone to Avoncester with Master Temple and Master Francis."

"Gone to Avoncester!" exclaimed Rachel, who had walked from church to Myrtlewood with Alison.

"Mamma is gone to meet the Major!" cried three of the lesser boys, rushing upon them in full cry; then Leoline, facing round, "Not the major, he is lieutenant-colonel now--Colonel Keith, hurrah!"

"What--what do you mean? Speak rationally, Leoline, if you can."

"My lady sent a note to the Homestead this morning," explained Coombe. "She heard this morning that Colonel Keith intended to arrive to-day, and took the young gentlemen with her to meet him."

Rachel could hardly refrain from manifesting her displeasure, and bluntly asked what time Lady Temple was likely to be at home.

"It depended," Coombe said, "upon the train; it was not certain whether Colonel Keith would come by the twelve or the two o'clock train."

And Rachel was going to turn sharply round, and dash home with the tidings, when Alison arrested her with the question--

"And who is Colonel Keith?"

Rachel was too much wrapped up in her own view to hear the trembling of the voice, and answered, "Colonel Keith! why, the Major! You have not been here so long without hearing of the Major?"

"Yes, but I did not know. Who is he?" And a more observant person would have seen the governess's gasping effort to veil her eagerness under her wonted self-control.

"Don't you know who the Major is?" shouted Leoline. "He is our military secretary."

"That's the sum total of my knowledge," said Rachel, "I don't understand his influence, nor know where he was picked up."

"Nor his regiment?"

"He is not a regimental officer; he is on our staff," said Leoline, whose imagination could not attain to an earlier condition than "on our staff."

"I shall go home, then," said Rachel, "and see if there is any explanation there."

"I shall ask the Major not to let Aunt Rachel come here," observed Hubert, as she departed; it was well it was not before.

"Leoline," anxiously asked Alison, "can you tell me the Major's name?"

"Colonel Keith--Lieutenant-Colonel Keith," was all the answer.

"I meant his Christian name, my dear."

"Only little boys have Christian names!" they returned, and Alison was forced to do her best to tame herself and them to the duties of the long day of anticipation so joyous on their part, so full of confusion and bewildered anxiety on her own. She looked in vain, half stealthily, as often before, for a recent Army List or Peerage. Long ago she had lost the Honourable Colin A. Keith from among the officers of the --th Highlanders, and though in the last Peerage she had laid hands on he was still among the surviving sons of the late Lord Keith, of Gowanbrae, the date had not gone back far enough to establish that he had not died in the Indian war. It was fear that predominated with her, there were many moments when she would have given worlds to be secure that the newcomer was not the man she thought of, who, whether constant or inconstant, could bring nothing but pain and disturbance to the calm tenour of her sister's life. Everything was an oppression to her; the children, in their wild, joyous spirits and gladsome inattention, tried her patience almost beyond her powers; the charge of the younger ones in their mother's absence was burthensome, and the delay in returning to her sister became well-nigh intolerable, when she figured to herself Rachel Curtis going down to Ermine with the tidings of Colonel Keith's arrival, and her own discontent at his influence with her cousin. Would that she had spoken a word of warning; yet that might have been merely mischievous, for the subject was surely too delicate for Rachel to broach with so recent a friend. But Rachel had bad taste for anything! That the little boys did not find Miss Williams very cross that day was an effect of the long habit of self-control, and she could hardly sit still under the additional fret, when, just as tea was spread for the school-room party, in walked Miss Rachel, and sat herself down, in spite of Hubert, who made up a most coaxing, entreating face, as he said, "Please, Aunt Rachel, doesn't Aunt Grace want you very much!"

"Not at all. Why, Hubert?"

"Oh, if you would only go away, and not spoil our fun when the Major comes."

For once Rachel did laugh, but she did not take the hint, and Alison obtained only the satisfaction of hearing that she had at least not been in Mackarel Lane. The wheels sounded on the gravel, out rushed the boys; Alison and Rachel sat in strange, absolute silence, each forgetful of the other, neither guarding her own looks, nor remarking her companion's. Alison's lips were parted by intense listening; Rachel's teeth were set to receive her enemy. There was a chorus of voices in the hall, and something about tea and coming in warned both to gather up their looks before Lady Temple had opened the door, and brought in upon them not one foe, but two! Was Rachel seeing double? Hardly that, for one was tall, bald, and bearded, not dangerously young, but on that very account the more dangerously good-looking; and the other was almost a boy, slim and light, just of the empty young officer type. Here, too, was Fanny, flushed, excited, prettier and brighter than Rachel had seen her at all, waving an introduction with head and hand; and the boys hanging round the Major with deafening exclamations of welcome, in which they were speedily joined by the nursery detachment. Those greetings, those observations on growth and looks, those glad, eager questions and answers, were like the welcome of an integral part of the family; it was far more intimate and familiar than had been possible with the Curtises after the long separation, and it was enough to have made the two spectators feel out of place, if such a sensation had been within Rachel's capacity, or if Alison had not been engaged with the tea. Lady Temple made a few explanations, sotto voce, to Alison, whom she always treated as though in dread of not being sufficiently considerate. "I do hope the children have been good; I knew you would not mind; I could not wait to see you, or I should have been too late to meet the train, and then he would have come by the coach; and it is such a raw east wind. He must be careful in this climate."

"How warm and sunshiny it has been all day," said Rachel, by way of opposition to some distant echo of this whisper.

"Sunshiny, but treacherous," answered Colonel Keith; "there are cold gusts round corners. This must be a very sheltered nook of the coast."

"Quite a different zone from Avoncester," said the youth.

"Yes, delightful. I told you it was just what would suit you," added Fanny, to the colonel.

"Some winds are very cold here," interposed Rachel. "I always pity people who are imposed upon to think it a Mentone near home. They are choking our churchyard."

"Very inconsiderate of them," muttered the young man.

"But what made you come home so late, Fanny?" said Rachel.

Alison suspected a slight look of wonder on the part of both the officers at hearing their general's wife thus called to account; but Fanny, taking it as a matter of course, answered, "We found that the-th was at Avoncester. I had no idea of it, and they did not know I was here; so I went to call upon Mrs. Hammond, and Colonel Keith went to look for Alick, and we have brought him home to dine."

Fanny took it for granted that Rachel must know who Alick was, but she was far from doing so, though she remembered that the --th had been her uncle's regiment, and had been under Sir Stephen Temple's command in India at the time of the mutiny. The thought of Fanny's lapsing into military society was shocking to her. The boys were vociferating about boats, ponies, and all that had been deferred till the Major's arrival, and he was answering them kindly, but hushing the extra outcry less by word than sign, and his own lowered voice and polished manner--a manner that excessively chafed her as a sort of insult to the blunt, rapid ways that she considered as sincere and unaffected, a silkiness that no doubt had worked on the honest, simple general, as it was now working on the weak young widow. Anything was better than leaving her to such influence, and in pursuance of the intention that Rachel had already announced at home, she invited herself to stay to dinner; and Fanny eagerly thanked her, for making it a little less dull for Colonel Keith and Alick. It was so good to come down and help. Certainly Fanny was an innocent creature, provided she was not spoilt, and it was a duty to guard her innocence.

Alison Williams escaped to her home, sure of nothing but that her sister must not be allowed to share her uncertainties; and Lady Temple and her guests sat down to dinner. Rachel meant to have sat at the bottom and carved, as belonging to the house; but Fanny motioned the Colonel to the place, observing, "It is so natural to see you there! One only wants poor Captain Dent at the other end. Do you know whether he has his leave?"

Wherewith commenced a discussion of military friends--who had been heard of from Australia, who had been met in England, who was promoted, who married, who retired, &c., and all the quarters of the-th since its return from India two years ago; Fanny eagerly asking questions and making remarks, quite at home and all animation, absolutely a different being from the subdued, meek little creature that Rachel had hitherto seen. Attempts were made to include Miss Curtis in the conversation by addressing anecdotes to her, and asking if she knew the places named; but she had been to none, and the three old friends quickly fell into the swing of talk about what interested them. Once, however, she came down on them with, "What conclusion have you formed upon female emigration?"

"'His sister she went beyond the seas,