The Young Step-Mother Part 90

'No, papa--he wrote to me and to Mr. Pettilove. Cannot he be stopped, papa? Can he do any harm? Mr. Dusautoy and Mr. Pettilove think he can.'

'You mean that he wishes to question the will? You may be quite secure, my dear. Nothing can be more safe.'

'Oh, papa! I am so very glad. Not to be able to hinder him was so dreadful, when he wanted to pit Lucy and me against you. I could never have looked at you. I should always have felt that you had something to forgive me.'

'I could not well have confounded you with Algernon, my dear,' said Mr.

Kendal. 'What did Pettilove mean? Do you know?'

'Not exactly; something about grandpapa's old settlement; which frightened the Vicar, though Mrs. Dusautoy said that it was only that he fancied n.o.body could do anything right without his help. Mr. Dusautoy is more angry with Algernon than I thought he could be with anybody.'

'No one but Algernon would have ever thought of it,' said Mr. Kendal. 'I am sorry he has molested you, my dear. Have you any objection to let me see his letter?'

'I kept it for you, papa, and a copy of my answer. I thought though I am not of age, perhaps my saying I would have nothing to do with it might do some good.'

Algernon magniloquently condoled with his sister-in-law on the injustice from which she and her sister had suffered, in consequence of the adverse influence which surrounded her brother, and generously informed her that she had a champion to defeat the machinations against their rights. He had little doubt of the futility of the doc.u.ment, and had written to the legal adviser of the late Mr. Meadows to inquire whether the will of that gentleman did not bar any power on the part of his grandson to dispose of the property. She might rely on him not to rest until she should be put in possession of the estate, unless it should prove to have been her grandfathers intention, in case of the present melancholy occurrence, that the elder sister should be the sole inheritrix, and he congratulated her on having such a protector, since, under the unfortunate circ.u.mstances, the sisters would have had no one to uphold their cause against their natural guardian.

Sophy's answer was--

'Dear Algernon,

'I prefer my _natural guardian_ to any other whatever. I shall for my part owe you no thanks for attempting to frustrate my dear brother's wishes, and to raise an unbecoming dissension. I desire that no use of my name may be made, and you may rest a.s.sured that I should find nothing so difficult to forgive as any such interference in my behalf.

'Yours truly, 'SOPHIA KENDAL.'

'Certainly,' said Mr. Kendal, 'no family ill-will is complete unless money matters be brought in to aggravate it.'

'Do you think I did right, and spoke strongly enough, papa?'

'Quite strongly enough,' said Mr. Kendal, suppressing a smile. 'I hope you wrote kindly to Lucy at the same time.'

'One could not help that, papa; but I did say a great deal about the outrageous impropriety of raising the question, because I thought Algernon might be ashamed.'

'Riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt,' said Mr. Kendal.

'Your grandfather's acquisitions have brought us little but evil hitherto, and now I fear that our dear Gilbert's endeavour to break the net which bound us into that system of iniquity and oppression, may cause alienation from poor Lucy. Sophy, you must allow no apparent coldness or neglect on her part to keep you from writing often and affectionately.'

Maurice here came down with his mother, and as soon as there was a moment's pause, laid hold of the first book he met with, and began:--

'I do not see the justness of the a.n.a.logy to which Onuphrio refers, but there are many parts of that vision on which I should wish to hear the explanations of Philalethes.'

All broke out in amazement, 'Why, Maurice, has Mrs. Dusautoy been making a scholar of you?'

'Oh! Maurice, was this your secret?' cried Sophy.

He had hidden his face in his mother's lap, and when she raised it struggled to keep it down, and she felt him sobbing and panting for breath. Mr. Kendal stroked his hair, and they tried to soothe him, but he started up abruptly.

'I don't mean ever to be a plague again! So I did it. But there--when Ulick said it would be a comfort, you are all going to cry again, papa and all, and that's worse!' and stamping his foot pa.s.sionately, he would have rushed out of the room, but was held fast in his father's arms, and indeed tears were flowing fast from eyes that his brother's death had left dry.

'My child! my dear child!' said Mr. Kendal, 'it is comfort. No one can rule you as by G.o.d's grace you can rule yourself, and your endeavours to do this are the greatest blessing I can ask.'

One more kiss from his mother, and she let him go. He did not know how to deal with emotion in himself, and hated the sight of it in others; so that it was better to let him burst away from them, while with one voice they admired, rejoiced, and interrogated Sophy.

'I know now,' she said, the rosy glow mantling in her cheek; 'it must have been Mr. O'More.'

'Ah! has he been with you?' said her father.

'Only once,' said Sophy, her colour deepening; 'but Maurice has been in a great hurry every day to go to him, and I saw there was some secret.

One day, Susan asked me to prevent Master Maurice from teaching baby such ugly words, that she could not sleep--not bad words, but she thought they were Latin. So I watched, and I heard Maurice singing out some of the legend of Hiawatha, and insisting on poor little Awkey telling him what m-i-s-h-e-n-a-h-m-a, spelt. Poor little Awk stared, as well she might, and obediently made the utmost efforts to say after him, Mishenahma, king of fishes, but he was terribly discomposed at getting nothing but Niffey-ninny, king of fithes. I went to her rescue, and asked what they were about; but Maurice thundered down on me all the Delawares and Mohawks, and the Choctaws and Cameches; and baby squeaked after him as well as she could, till I fairly stopped my ears. I thought Ulick must be reading the legend to him. Now I see he must have been teaching him to read it.'

'Can it be possible?' said Mr. Kendal. 'He could not read words of five letters without spelling.'

'He always could do much more when he pleased than when he did not please,' said Albinia. 'I believe the impulse to use his understanding was all that was wanting, and I am very glad the impulse came from such a motive.'

Mr. Kendal ordained that Maurice's reward should be learning Latin from himself, a perilous trial; but it proved that Mr. Kendal was really a good teacher for a child of spirit and courage, and Maurice had early come to the age when boys do better with man than with woman. He liked the honour and the awe of papa's tutorship, and learnt so well, that his father never believed in his past dunceship; but over studies that he did not deem sufficiently masculine, he could be as troublesome as ever, his attention absent, and his restlessness most wearisome. To an ordinary eye, he was little changed; but his mother felt that the great victory of the will had been gained, and that his _self_ was endeavouring to get the better of the spirit of insubordination and mischief. Night after night she found him sleeping with the Balaklava sword by his side, and his hand clasped over it; and he always crept out of the way of Crimean news, though that he gathered up the facts was plain when he committed his sovereign to Ulick, with a request that it might be devoted to the comforts preparing to be sent to the 25th Lancers.

Ulick wished him to consult his mother, but this he repelled. He could not endure the sight of a tear in her eye, and she could not restrain them when that chord was touched. It was a propensity she much disliked, the more because she thought it looked like affectation beside Sophy, whose feelings never took that course, but the more ill-timed the tears, the more they would come, at the most common-place condolence or remote allusion. It was the effect of the long strain on her powers, and the severe shock coming suddenly after so much pressure and fatigue; moreover, her habits had been so long disorganized that her time seemed blank, and she could not rouse herself from a feeling of languor and depression. Then Gilbert had been always on her mind, whether at home or absent; and it did not seem at first as if she had enough to fill up time or thoughts--she absolutely found herself doing nothing, because there was nothing she cared to do.

Mr. Kendal's first object was the fulfilment of Gilbert's wishes; but Albinia soon felt how much easier it is for women and boys to make schemes, than for men to bring them to effect, and how rash it is hastily to condemn those who tolerate abuses.

The whole was carefully looked over with a surveyor, and it was only then understood how complicated were the tenures, and how varied the covenants of the numerous small tenements which old Mr. Meadows had ama.s.sed. It was not possible to be free of the legal difficulties under at least a year, and plans of drainage might be impeded for want of other people's consent. Even if all had been smooth, the sacrifice of income, by destroying Tibb's Alley, and reducing the number of cottages, would be considerable. Meantime, the inspection had brought to light worse iniquities and greater wretchedness than Mr. Kendal had imagined, and his eagerness to set to work was tenfold. His table was heaped with sanitary reports, and his fits of abstraction were over the components of bad air or builder's estimates.

It only depended on Ulick to have resumed his intimacy at Willow Lawn; but the habit once broken was not resumed. He was often there, but never without invitation; and he was not always to be had. He had less leisure, he was senior clerk, and the junior was dull and untrained; and he often had work to do far into the evening. He looked bright and well, as though possessed of a sense of being valuable in his own place, more conducive to happiness than even congeniality of employment; and Sophy, though now and then disappointed at his non-appearance, always had a good reason for it, and continued to justify Mr. Dusautoy's boast that the air of the hill had made another woman of her.

Visiting cards had, of course, come in numbers to Willow Lawn, but Albinia seemed to have caught her husband's aversions, and it would be dangerous to say how long it was before she lashed herself into setting off for a round of calls.

Nothing surprised her more than Miss Goldsmith's reception. Conscious of her neglect, she expected the stiff manner to be more formal than ever; but the welcome was almost warm, and there was something caressing in her fears that Miss Kendal would be tired. Mr. Goldsmith was not quite well, there were threatenings of gout, and his sister had persuaded him to visit the relations at Bristol next week; everything might safely be trusted to young More, and therewith came such praise of his steadiness and ability, that Albinia did not know which way to look when all was ascribed to Mr. Kendal's great kindness to him.

It was too palpable to be altogether pleasant. Sophia Kendal was heiress enough to be a very desirable connexion for the bank. Albinia was afraid she should see through the lady's graciousness, and took her leave in haste; but Sophy only said, 'Do you remember, mamma, when the Goldsmiths thought we unsettled him?'

Before Albinia had disarmed her reply of the irony on the tip of her tongue, the omnibus came lumbering round the corner, and a voice proceeded from the rear, the door flew open, and there was a rapid exit.

Face and voice, light step, and gay bearing, all were Fred--the empty sleeve, the sole resemblance to the shattered convalescent of a few weeks back.

'There, Albinia! I said you should see her first. You haven't got any change, have you?' the last being addressed either to Albinia, the omnibus conductor, or a lady, who made a tender of two shillings, while Albinia ordered the luggage on to Willow Lawn, though something was faintly said about the inn.

'And there!' cried Fred, with an emphatic twist of his moustache, 'isn't she all I ever told you?'

'The last thing was a brick,' said Albinia, laughing, as she looked at the smiling, confiding, animated face, not the less pleasant for a French Canadian grace that recalled Genevieve.

'The right article for building a hut, I hope,' she said, merrily.

'But how and when could you have come?'

'This morning, from Liverpool. We did not mean to storm you in this manner; we meant to have settled ourselves at the inn, and walked down; Emily was very particular about it.'