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

worse, the fingers on, or the fingers off, and no escape from folly or politeness, for he could not even use a crutch. Oh, no, I don't blame him; I quite excuse the general dislike he took to everything at poor dear Littleworthy. He viewed it all like that child in Mrs. Browning's poem, 'seeing through tears the jugglers leap,' and we have partaken of the juggler aspect to him ever since!"

"I don't think he could ever be very irritable," said Fanny, taking the accusation much to heart.

"Sister and recovery!" lightly said Bessie; "they encounter what no one else does! He only pined for Bishopsworthy, and when we let him move there, after the first month, he and my uncle were happy. I stayed there for a little while, but I was only in the way, the dear good folks were always putting themselves out on my account; and as to Alick, you can't think how the absence of his poor 'souffre-douleur,' invigorated him. Every day I found him able to put more point into his cutting compliments, and reading to my uncle with more energy; till at last by the time the --th came home, he had not so much as a stiff leg to retire upon. Luckily, he and my uncle both cared too much for my poor father's wishes for him to do so without, though if any unlucky chance should take Mr. Lifford away from my uncle, he threatens coming to supply the vacancy, unless I should, and that is past hope."

"Your home is with your uncle," affirmed Rachel.

"Yes," she said, mournfully, "dear Littleworthy was too happy to last. It broke itself up by its own charms--all married and gone, and the last rose of summer in my poor person must float away. Jane wants her mother and not me, and my uncle will submit to me as cheerfully as to other necessary evils. It is not myself that I fear for; I shall be very happy with the dear uncle, but it will be a dreadful overthrow to his habits."

"I do not see why it need be," said Rachel.

"What! two old bachelors with a young lady turned in on them! And the housekeeper--think of her feelings!"

"I do not think you need be uneasy, my dear," said Fanny. "Your brother is convinced that it will be the greatest pleasure and comfort to Mr. Clare to have you; and though there may be difficulties at first, I am sure anybody must be the happier for having you," and she caressed the upturned face, which responded warmly, but with a sigh.

"Alick is no judge! He is the child of the house, and my uncle and Mr. Lifford don't feel complete without him. My uncle is as fond of me as can be, and he and I could get on beautifully, but then Mr. Lifford is impracticable."

"Impracticable?" said Rachel, taking up the long word. "He objects to your exerting yourself in the parish. I know what that is."

"Pray, Rachel," said Fanny, imploringly, "pray don't any anything against him! I am very sorry he has annoyed you, but I do like him."

"Oh, does he play croquet!" cried Bessie.

"I gather," said Rachel, in her impressive tone, a little disappointed, "that by impracticable you mean one who will not play croquet."

"You have hit it!" laughed Bessie. "Who will neither play at croquet, nor let one work except in his way. Well, there are hopes for you. I cure the curates of every cure I come near, except, of course, the cure that touches me most nearly. The shoemaker's wife goes the worst shod! I'll tame yours."

"My dear, I can't have poor Mr. Touchett made game of."

"I won't make game of him, dear Lady Temple, only make him play a game."

"But you said Alick did not approve," said Fanny, with the dimmest possible ideas of what croquet was, and believing it a wicked flirtation trap that figured in "Punch."

"Oh, that's fudge on Master Alick's part! Just the remains of his old miseries, poor fellow. What he wants is love! Now he'll meet his fate some of these days; and as he can't meet three Englishwomen without a mallet in hand, love and croquet will come together."

"Alick is very good," went on Lady Temple, not answering, but arguing with herself whether this opposition could be right. "Colonel Hammond gave me such an account of him, so valuable and excellent among the men, and doing all that is possible for their welfare, interesting himself about their library, and the regimental school and all. The colonel said he wished only that he was a little more easy and popular among the young officers; but so many of his own standing were gone by the time he joined again, that he lives almost too much to himself, reads a good deal, and is most exemplary, but does not quite make his influence as available as it might be."

"That's just it," cried Bessie, eagerly; "the boy is a lazy boy, and wants shaking up, or he'll get savage and no good. Can't you see, by the way he uses his poor little sister, what an awful don Captain Keith must be to a schoolboy of an ensign? He must be taught toleration and hunted into amiability, or he'll be the most terrible Turk by the time he is a colonel; and you are the only person that can do it, dear Lady Temple."

Rachel did not much like this, but it was so prettily and playfully said that the pleasing impression was quite predominant; and when Rachel took leave, it was with a sense of vexation that a person whom she had begun to esteem should be hard upon this bright engaging sister. Yet it might be well if Fanny took note of the admission that he could be irritable as well as stern, and sometimes mistaken in his judgments. What would the Colonel say to all this? The Colonel--here he was coming back again into her imagination. Another symptom!

The brother left the field entirely to his sister for the present; he was a good deal occupied after his leave, and other officers being away, he was detained at Avoncester, and meantime Bessie Keith took all hearts by storm with her gay good humour and eager sympathy. By the end of the first morning she had been to the stable with a swarm of boys, patted, and learnt the names of all the ponies; she was on the warmest terms with the young spaniel, that, to the Curtises' vexation, one of the officers had given Conrade, and which was always getting into the way; she had won Alison by telling her of Mr. Clare's recollections of Ermine's remarkable beauty and intelligence, and charmed Ermine herself by his kind messages and her own sunshiny brightness; she had delighted Mrs. Curtis and Grace by appreciating their views and their flowers; she had discussed hymnals and chants with Mr. Touchett, and promised her services; she had given a brilliant object lesson at Mrs. Kelland's, and received one herself in lace-making; and had proved herself, to Rachel's satisfaction, equally practical and well-read. All the outer world was asking, "Have you seen the young lady with Lady Temple?"

Nothing came amiss to her, from the antiquity of man to Stephana's first words; and whether she taught Grace new stitches, played cricket with Conrade, made boats for Cyril, prattled with Lady Temple, or studied with Rachel, all was done with grace, zest, and sympathy peculiarly her own. Two practisings at the school removed the leaden drawl, and lessened the twang of the choir; and Mr. Touchett looked quite exalted, while even Rachel owned that she had hardly believed her ears.

Rachel and she constituted themselves particular friends, and Grace kept almost aloof in the fear of disturbing them. She had many friends, and this was the first, except Ermine Williams, to whom Rachel had taken, since a favourite companion of her youth had disappointed her by a foolish marriage. Bessie's confidences had a vigour in them that even Rachel's half-way meetings could not check, and then the sharp, clever things she would say, in accordance with Rachel's views, were more sympathetic than anything she had met with. It was another new charm to life.

One great pleasure they enjoyed together was bathing. The Homestead possessed a little cove of its own under the rocks, where there was a bathing-house, and full perfection of arrangement for young ladies' aquatic enjoyment, in safety and absolute privacy. Rachel's vigorous strength and health had been greatly promoted by her familiarity with salt water, and Bessie was in ecstasies at the naiad performances they shared together on the smooth bit of sandy shore, where they dabbled and floated fearlessly. One morning, when they had been down very early to be beforehand with the tide, which put a stop to their enjoyment long before the breakfast hour, Bessie asked if they could not profit by their leisure to climb round the edge of the cliff's instead of returning by the direct path, and Rachel agreed, with the greater pleasure, that it was an enterprise she had seldom performed.

Very beautiful, though adventurous, was the walk--now on the brow of the steep cliff, looking down on the water or on little bays of shingle, now through bits of thicket that held out brambles to entangle the long tresses streaming on their shoulders; always in the brisk morning air, that filled them with strength and spirit, laughing, joking, calling to one another and to Conrade's little dog, that, like every other creature, had attached itself to Bessie, and had followed her from Myrtlewood that morning, to the vexation of Rachel, who had no love for dogs in their early youth.

They were beyond the grounds of the Homestead, but had to go a little further to get into the path, when they paused above a sort of dip or amphitheatre of rock around a little bay, whilst Rachel began telling of the smugglers' traditions that haunted the place--how much brandy and silk had there been landed in the time of the great French war, and how once, when hard pressed, a party of smugglers, taking a short cut in the moonlight midnight across the Homestead gardens, had encountered an escaped Guinea-pig, and no doubt taking it for the very rat without a tail, in whose person Macbeth's witch was to do, and to do, and to do, had been nearly scared out of their wits.

Her story was cut short by a cry of distress from the dog, and looking down, they perceived that the poor fellow had been creeping about the rocks, and had descended to the little cove, whence he was incapable of climbing up again. They called encouragingly, and pretended to move away, but he only moaned more despairingly, and leapt in vain.

"He has hurt his foot!" exclaimed Rachel; "I must go down after him. Yes, Don, yes, poor fellow, I'm coming."

"My dear Curtia, don't leap into the gulf!"

"Oh, it's no great height, and the tide will soon fill up this place."

"Don't! don't! You'll never be able to get up again."

But Rachel was already scrambling down, and, in effect, she was sure-footed and used to her own crags, nor was the distance much above thirty foot, so that she was soon safe on the shingle, to the extreme relief of poor Don, shown by grateful whines; but he was still evidently in pain, and Rachel thought his leg was broken. And how to get up the rock, with a spaniel that when she tried to lift it became apparently twice the size