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

/> "I am afraid that can only be done in one way, which you are not likely at present to take," said Ermine with a serious mouth, but with light dancing in her eyes.

"I know no one less likely to marry again," he continued, "yet no one of whom the world is so unlikely to believe it. Her very gentle simplicity and tenderness tell against her! Well, the only hope now is that the poor man has not made his disappointment conspicuous enough for her to know that it is attributed to her. It is the beginning of the fulfilment of Keith's prediction that offers and reports will harass her into the deed!"

"There is nothing so fallacious as prophecies against second marriages, but I don't believe they will. She is too quietly dignified for the full brunt of reports to reach her, and too much concentrated on her children to care about them."

"Well, I have to see her to-morrow to make her sign some papers about her pension, so I shall perhaps find out how she takes it."

He found Fanny quite her gentle composed self, as usual uncomprehending and helpless about her business affairs, and throwing the whole burthen on him of deciding on her investments; but in such a gracious, dependent, grateful way that he could not but take pleasure in the office, and had no heart for the lesson he had been meditating on the need of learning to act for herself, if she wished to do without a protector. It was not till she had obediently written her "Frances Grace Temple" wherever her prime minister directed, that she said with a crimson blush, "Is it true that poor Mr. Touchett is going away for the winter?"

"I believe he is even going before Sunday."

"I am very glad--I mean I am very sorry. Do you think any one knows why it is?"

"Very few are intimate enough to guess, and those who are, know you too well to think it was otherwise than very foolish on his part."

"I don't know," said Fanny, "I think I must have been foolish too, or he never could have thought of it. And I was so sorry for him, he seemed so much distressed."

"I do not wonder at that, when he had once allowed himself to admit the thought."

"Yes, that is the thing. I am afraid I can't be what I ought to be, or people would never think of such nonsense," said Fanny, with large tears welling into her eyes. "I can't be guarding that dear memory as I ought, to have two such things happening so soon."

"Perhaps they have made you cherish it all the more."

"As if I wanted that! Please will you tell me how I could have been more guarded. I don't mind your knowing about this; indeed you ought, for Sir Stephen trusted me to you, but I can't ask my aunt or any one else. I can't talk about it, and I would not have them know that Sir Stephen's wife can't get his memory more respected."

She did not speak with anger as the first time, but with most touching sadness.

"I don't think any one could answer," he said.

"I did take my aunt's advice about the officers being here. I have not had them nearly as much as Bessie would have liked, not even Alick. I have been sorry it was so dull for her, but I thought it could not be wrong to be intimate with one's clergyman, and Rachel was always so hard upon him."

"You did nothing but what was kind and right. The only possible thing that could have been wished otherwise was the making a regular habit of his playing croquet here."

"Ah! but the boys and Bessie liked it so much. However, I dare say it was wrong. Alick never did like it."

"Not wrong, only a little overdone. You ladies want sometimes to be put in mind that, because a clergyman has to manage his own time, he is not a whit more really at liberty than a soldier or a lawyer, whose hours are fixed for him. You do not do him or his parish any kindness by engrossing him constantly in pastimes that are all very well once in a way, but which he cannot make habitual without detriment to his higher duties."

"But I thought he would have known when he had time."

"I am afraid curates are but bits of human nature after all."

"And what ought I to have done?"

"If you had been an exceedingly prudent woman who knew the world, you would have done just as you did about the officers, been friendly, and fairly intimate, but instead of ratifying the daily appointments for croquet, have given a special invitation now and then, and so shown that you did not expect him without one."

"I see. Oh, if I had only thought in time, I need not have driven him away from his parish! I hope he won't go on being unhappy long! Oh, I wish there may be some very nice young lady where he is going. If he only would come back married!"

"We would give him a vote of thanks."

"What a wedding present I would make her," proceeded Fanny, brightening perceptibly; "I would give her my best Indian table, only I always meant that for Ermine. I think she must have the emu's egg set in Australian gold."

"If she were to be induced by the bribe," said Colonel Keith, laughing, "I think Ermine would be sufficiently provided for by the emu's egg. Do you know," he added, after a pause, "I think I have made a great step in that direction."

She clasped her hands with delighted sympathy. "She has given me leave to mention the matter," he continued, "and I take that as a sign that her resistance will give way."

"Oh, I am very glad," said Fanny, "I have so wished them to know at the Homestead," and her deepened colour revealed, against her will, that she had not been insensible to the awkwardness of the secrecy.

"I should rather like to tell your cousin Rachel myself," said the Colonel; "she has always been very kind to Ermine, and appreciated her more than I should have expected. But she is not easily to be seen now."

"Her whole heart is in her orphan asylum," said Fanny. "I hope you will soon go with us and see it; the little girls look so nice."

The brightening of his prospects seemed to have quite consoled her for her own perplexities.

That Avonmouth should have no suspicion of the cause of the sudden change of pastor could hardly be hoped; but at least Lady Temple did not know how much talk was expended upon her, how quietly Lord Keith hugged himself, how many comical stories Bessie detailed in her letters to her Clare cousins, nor how Mrs. Curtis resented the presumption; and while she shrank from a lecture, more especially as she did not see how dear Fanny was to blame, flattered herself and Grace that, for the future, Colonel Keith and Rachel would take better care of her.

Rachel did not dwell much on the subject, it was only the climax of conceit, croquet, and mere womanhood; and she was chiefly anxious to know whether Mr. Mitchell, the temporary clergyman, would support the F. U. E. E., and be liberal enough to tolerate Mr. Mauleverer. She had great hopes from a London incumbent, and, besides, Bessie Keith knew him, and spoke of him as a very sensible, agreeable, earnest man.

"Earnest enough for you, Rachel," she said, laughing.

"Is he a party man?"

"Oh, parties are getting obsolete! He works too hard for fighting battles outside."

The Sunday showed a spare, vigorous face, and a voice and pronunciation far more refined than poor Mr. Touchett's; also the sermons were far more interesting, and even Rachel granted that there were ideas in it. The change was effected with unusual celerity, for it was as needful to Mrs. Mitchell to be speedily established in a warm climate, as it was desirable to Mr. Touchett to throw himself into other scenes; and the little parsonage soon had the unusual ornaments of tiny children with small spades and wheelbarrows.

The father and mother were evidently very shy people, with a great deal beneath their timidity, and were much delighted to have an old acquaintance like Miss Keith to help them through their introductions, an office which she managed with all her usual bright tact. The discovery that Stephana Temple and Lucy Mitchell had been born within two days of one another, was the first link of a warm friendship between the two mammas; and Mr. Mitchell fell at once into friendly intercourse with Ermine Williams, to whom Bessie herself conducted him for his first visit, when they at once discovered all manner of mutual acquaintance among his college friends; and his next step was to make the very arrangement for Ermine's church-going, for which she had long been wishing in secret, but which never having occurred to poor Mr. Touchett, she had not dared to propose, lest there should be some great inconvenience in the way.

Colonel Keith was the person, however, with whom the new comers chiefly fraternized, and he was amused with their sense of the space for breathing compared with the lanes and alleys of their own district. The schools and cottages seemed to them so wonderfully large, the children so clean, even their fishiness a form of poetical purity, the people ridiculously well off, and even Mrs. Kelland's lace-school a palace of the free maids that weave their thread with bones. Mr. Mitchell seemed almost to grudge the elbow room, as he talked of the number of cubic feet that held a dozen of his own parishioners; and needful as the change had been for the health of both husband and wife, they almost reproached themselves for having fled and left so many pining for want of pure air, dwelling upon impossible castles for the importation of favourite patients to enjoy the balmy breezes of Avonmouth.

Rachel talked to them about the F. U. E. E., and was delighted by the flush of eager interest on Mrs. Mitchell's thin face. "Objects" swarmed in their parish, but where were the seven shillings per week to come from? At any rate Mr. Mitchell would, the first leisure day, come over to St. Herbert's with her, and inspect. He did not fly off at the first hint of Mr. Mauleverer's "opinions," but said he would talk to him, and thereby rose steps untold in Rachel's estimation. The fact of change is dangerously pleasant to the human mind; Mr. Mitchell walked at once into popularity, and Lady Temple had almost conferred a public benefit by what she so little liked to remember. At any rate she had secured an unexceptionable companion, and many a time resorted to his wing, leaving Bessie to amuse Lord Keith, who seemed to be reduced to carry on his courtship to the widow by attentions to her guest.


CHAPTER XIII. THE FOX AND THE CROW.


"She just gave one squall,
When the cheese she let fall,
And the fox ran away with his prize."
JANE TAYLOR.

"My dear," said Mrs. Curtis, one Monday morning, "I offered Colonel Keith a seat