The Young Step-Mother; Or, A Chronicle of Mistakes

‘Perhaps,’ said Winifred; ‘the worst of being ill is that it does wear one’s husband so! When he came in, and tried to make me fancy we were gone back to Willie’s time, I could not help thinking how different you both looked.’

‘Well, so much the better and more respectable,’ said Albinia. ‘You know I always wanted to grow old; I don’t want to stop short like your sister Anne, who looks as much the child of the house as ever.

‘I wish you had as few cares as Anne. Look; I declare that’s a grey hair!’

‘I know. I like it; now Sophy is growing young, and I’m growing old, it is all correct.’

‘Old, indeed!’ ejaculated Winifred, looking at her fair fresh complexion and bright features; ‘don’t try for that, when even Edmund is not grey.’

‘Yes he is,’ said Albinia, gravely; ‘Malta sowed many white threads in his black head, and worry about those buildings has brought more.’

‘Worry; I’m very sorry to hear of it.’

‘Yes; the tenures are so troublesome, and everybody is so cantankerous. If he wanted to set up some pernicious manufacture, it could not be worse! The Osbornes, after having lived with Tibb’s Alley close to them all their lives, object to the almshouses! Mr. Baron wont have the new drains carried through his little strip of land. The Town Council think we are going to poison the water; and Pettilove, and everybody else who owns a wretched tenement, that we shall increase the wants of their tenants, and lower their rents. If it be carried through, it will be by that sheer force in going his own way that Edmund can exert when he chooses.’

‘And he will?’

‘O, yes, no fear of that; he goes on, avoiding seeing or hearing what he has not to act upon; but worse than all are the people themselves; Tibb’s Alley all has notice to quit, but none of them can be got rid of till Martinmas, and some not till Lady-day, and the beer-house people are in such a rage! The turn-out of the public-houses come and roar at our gate on Saturday nights; and they write up things on the wall against him! and one day they threw over into the garden what little Awkey called a poor dear dead pussy. I believe they tell them all sorts of absurd things about his tyranny; poor creatures.’

‘Can’t you get it stopped?’

‘Edmund wont summon any one, because he thinks it would do more harm than good. He says it will pass off; but it grieves him more than he shows: he thinks he could once have made himself more popular: but I don’t know, it is a horrid set.’

‘I thought you said he was in good spirits.’

‘And so he is: he never gets depressed and unwilling to be spoken to. He is ready to take interest in everything; and always so busy! When I remember how he never seemed to be obliged to attend to anything, I laugh at the contrast; and yet he goes about it all so gravely and slowly, that it never seems like a change.’

In this and other home talk nearly an hour had passed, when Mr. Ferrars returned. ‘Are you come to tell me to go?’ said Albinia.

‘Not particularly,’ he said, in a tone that made her laugh.

‘No, no,’ said Winifred. ‘I want a great deal more of her. Where have you been?’

‘I have been to see old Wilks; Ulick walked down with me. By-the-bye, Albinia, what nonsense has Fred’s wife been talking to his brother?’

‘Emily does not talk nonsense!’ fired up Albinia, colouring, nevertheless.

‘The worse for her, then! However, it seems Bryan has disturbed this poor fellow very much, by congratulating him on his prospects at Willow Lawn.’

‘Oh! that is what made him so distant and cautious, is it?’ laughed Albinia. ‘I think Mrs. Emily might as well not have betrayed it.’

‘Betrayed! What could have passed?’

‘Oh! Emily and Fred saw it as plain as I did. Why, it does not do credit to your discernment, Maurice; papa found it out long ago, and told me.’

‘Kendal did?’

‘Yes, that he did, and did not mind the notion at all; rather liked it, in fact.’

‘Well!’ said Mr. Ferrars, in a different tone, ‘it is a very queer business! I certainly did not think the lad showed any symptoms. He said he had heard gossip about it before, and had tried to be careful; his aunt talked to him once, but, as he said, it would be nothing but the rankest treason to think of such a thing, on the terms on which he is treated.’

‘Ay, that’s it!’ said Albinia; ‘he acts most perfectly.’

‘Perfectly indeed, if that were acting,’ said Mr. Ferrars.

‘And what made him speak to you?’ asked Winifred.

‘He wanted to consult me. He said it was very hard on him, for all the pleasure he had came from his intercourse with Willow Lawn; and he could not bear to keep at a distance, because it looked as if he had not forgotten the old folly about the caricature; but he was afraid of the report coming to your ears or Mr. Kendal’s, because you would think it so wrong and shameful an abuse of your kindness.’

‘And that’s his whole concern?’

‘So he told me.’

‘And what advice did you give him?’

‘I told him Bayford was bent on gossip, and no one heeded it less than my respected brother and sister.’

‘That was famous of you, Maurice. I was afraid you would have put it upon his honour and the state of his own heart.’

‘Sooth to say, I did not think his heart appeared very ticklish.’

‘Oh! Maurice, Maurice! But you’ve not been there to see the hot fits and the cold fits! It is a very fine thermometer whether he says Sophy or Miss Kendal.’

‘And you say Edmund perceived this?’

‘Much you would trust my unassisted ‘cuteness! I tell you he did, and that it will make him happier than anything.’

‘Very well; then my advice will have done no harm. I did not think there had been so much self-control in an Irishman.’

‘Had he not better say, so much blindness in the rector of Fairmead?’ laughed Albinia.

‘And pray what course is the affair to take?’

‘The present, I suppose. Some catastrophe will occur at last to prove to him that we honour him, and don’t view it as outrageous presumption; and then—oh! there can be no doubt that he will have a share in the bank; and Sophy may buy toleration for his round O. After all, he has the best of it as to ancestry, and we Kendals need not turn up our noses at banking.’

‘I think he will be too proud to address her, except on equality as to money matters.’

‘Pride is sometimes quelled and love free,’ said Albinia. ‘No, no; content yourself with having given the best advice in the world, with your eyes fast shut!’

And Albinia went home in high spirits.

CHAPTER XXIX

Not long afterwards, Ulick O’More was summoned to Bristol, where his uncle had become suddenly worse; but he had only reached Hadminster when a telegraph met him with the news of Mr. Goldsmith’s death, and orders to remain at his post.

He came to the Kendals in the evening in great grief; he had really come to love and esteem his uncle, and he was very unhappy at having lost the chance of a reconciliation for his mother. As her chief friend and confidant, he knew that she regarded the alienation of her own family as the punishment of her disobedient marriage, and that his own appointment had been valued chiefly as an opening towards fraternal feeling, and reproached himself for not having made more direct efforts to induce his uncle to enter into personal intercourse with her.

‘If I had only ventured it before he went to Bristol,’ he said; ‘I was a fool not to have done so; and there, the Goldsmiths detest the very name of us! Why could they not have telegraphed for me? I might have heard what would have done my mother’s heart good for the rest of her life. I am sure my poor uncle wanted to ease his mind!’