his tone of consideration cheered and supported her when in actual conference with him, and as he explained his plans, he added that he hoped there would be scarcely any interruption to her intercourse with her sister.
'You know,' she said abruptly, 'that we could go to Ekaterinburg.'
'And what is your feeling about it? Remember, Ailie, that I am your brother too.' And as she hesitated, 'your feelings--no doubt you are in many minds!'
'Ah, yes; I never settled anything without Ermine, and she will not help me now. And she has been so worn with the excitement and anxiety of all this long detention of yours, that I don't dare to say a word that could prey on her.'
'In fact, you would chiefly be decided by Edward's own wishes.'
'If I were sure of them,' sighed poor Alison; 'but he lives on experiments, and can hardly detach himself from them even to attend to Ermine herself. I don't know whether we should be a comfort or a burthen, and he would be afraid to hurt our feelings by telling the truth. I have been longing to consult you who have seen him at that place in Russia.'
'And indeed, Ailie, he is so wedded to smoke and calculations, and so averse to this sublunary world, that though your being with him might be beneficial, still I greatly question whether the risk of carrying poor little Rose to so remote a place in such a climate, would be desirable. If he were pining to have a home made for him, it would be worth doing; as it is, the sacrifice would be disproportioned.'
'It would be no sacrifice if he only wanted us.'
'Where you are wanted is here. Ermine wants you. I want you. The Temples want you.'
'Now, Colin, tell me truly. Edward feels as I do, and Dr. Long spoke seriously of it. Will not my present position do you and Ermine harm among your friends?'
'With no friend we wish to make or keep!'
'If I do remain,' continued Alison, 'it must be as I am. I would not live upon you, even if you asked me, which you have too much sense to do; and though dear Lady Temple is everything to me, and wants me to forget that I am her governess, that would be a mere shuffle, but if it is best for you that I should give it up, and go out, say so at once.'
'Best for me to have eight Temples thrown on my hands, all in despair! To have you at Myrtlewood is an infinite relief to me, both on their account and Ermine's. You should not suspect a penniless Scotsman of such airs, Ailie.'
'Not you, Colin, but your family.'
'Isabel Menteith thinks a glass-blower was your father, and Mauleverer your brother, so yours is by far the most respectable profession. No, indeed, my family might be thankful to have any one in it who could do as you have done.'
Alison's scruples were thus disposed of, and when Edward's brain cleared itself from platinum, he showed himself satisfied with the decision, though he insisted on henceforth sending home a sum sufficient for his daughter's expenses, and once said something that could be construed into a hope of spending a quiet old age with her and his sister; but at present he was manifestly out of his element, and was bent on returning to Ekaterinburg immediately after the marriage.
His presence was but a qualified pleasure. Naturally shy and absent, his broken spirits and removal from domestic life, and from society, had exaggerated his peculiarities; and under the pressure of misfortune, caused in a great measure by his own negligence, he had completely given way, without a particle of his sister's patience or buoyancy, and had merely striven to drown his troubles in engrossing problems of his favourite pursuit, till the habit of abstraction had become too confirmed to be shaken off. When the blot on his name was removed, he was indeed sensible that he was no longer an exile, but he could not resume his old standing, friendships rudely severed could not be re-united; his absorption had grown by indulgence; old interests had passed away; needful conformity to social habits was irksome, and even his foreign manner and appearance testified to his entire unfitness for English life.
Tibbie was in constant dread of his burning the house down, so incalculable and preposterous were his hours, and the Colonel, longing to render the house a perfect shrine for his bride, found it hard to tolerate the fumes with which her brother saturated it. If he had been sure that opium formed no portion of Edward's solace, his counsel to Alison would have been less decisive. To poor little Rose, her father was an abiding perplexity and distress; she wanted to love him, and felt it absolute naughtiness to be constantly disappointed by his insensibility to her approaches, or else repelled and disgusted by that vice of the Russian sheep. And a vague hint of being transported to the Ural mountains, away from Aunt Ermine, had haunted her of late more dreadfully than even the lions of old; so that the relief was ineffable when her dear Colonel confided to her that she was to be his niece and Aunt Ermine's handmaid, sent her to consult with Tibbie on her new apartment, and invited Augustus to the most eligible hole in the garden. The grotto that Rose, Conrade, and Francis proceeded to erect with pebbles and shells, was likely to prove as alarming to that respectable reptile as a model cottage to an Irish peasant.
Ermine had dropped all scruples about Rose's intercourse with other children, and the feeling that she might associate with them on equal terms, perhaps, was the most complete assurance of Edward's restoration. She was glad that companionship should render the little maiden more active and childlike, for Edward's abstraction had made her believe that there might be danger in indulging the dreaminess of the imaginative child.
No one welcomed the removal of these restraints more warmly than Lady Temple. She was perhaps the happiest of the happy, for with her there was no drawback, no sorrow, no parting to fear. Her first impulse, when Colonel Keith came to tell her his plans, was to seize on hat and shawl, and rush down to Mackarel Lane to kiss Ermine with all her heart, and tell her that 'it was the most delightful thing of her to have consented at last, for nobody deserved so well to be happy as that dear Colonel;' and then she clung to Alison, declaring that now she should have her all to herself, and if she would only come to Myrtlewood, she would do her very best to make her comfortable there, and it should be her home--her home always.
'In fact,' said Ermine, afterwards to the Colonel, 'when you go to Avoncester, I think you may as well get a licence for the wedding of Alison Williams and Fanny Temple at the same time. There has been quite a courtship on the lady's part.'
The courtship had been the more ardent from Fanny's alarm lest the brother should deprive her of Alison; and when she found her fears groundless, she thanked him with such fervour, and talked so eagerly of his sister's excellences that she roused him into a lucid interval, in which he told Colonel Keith that Lady Temple might give him an idea of the style of woman that Lucy had been. Indeed, Colin began to think that it was as well that he was so well wrapped up in smoke and chemistry, otherwise another might have been added to the list of Lady Temple's hopeless adorers. The person least satisfied was Tibbie, who could not get over the speediness of the marriage, nor forgive the injury to Miss Williams, 'of bringing her hame like any pleughman's wife, wantin' a honeymoon trip, forbye providin' hersel' with weddin' braws conformable. Gin folk tak' sic daft notions aff the English, they'd be mair wise like to bide at hame, an' that's my way o' thinkin'.'
Crusty as she was, there was no danger of her not giving her warmest welcome, and thus the morning came. Tibbie had donned her cap, with white satin ribbons, and made of lace once belonging to the only heiress who had ever brought wealth to the Keiths. Edward Williams, all his goods packed up, had gone to join his sisters, and the Colonel, only perceptibly differing from his daily aspect in having a hat free from crape, was opening all the windows in hopes that a thorough draft would remove the last of the tobacco, when the letters were brought in, and among them one of the black bordered bulletins from Littleworthy, which ordinarily arrived by the second post. It was a hurried note, evidently dashed off to catch the morning mail.
My Dear Colonel,--Alick tells me to write in haste to catch the morning post, and beg you to telegraph the instant your wedding is over. The doctors see cause to hasten their measures, but your brother will have nothing done till the will is signed. He and Alick both desire you will not come, but it is getting to be far too much for Alick. I would tell you more if there were time before the post goes. Love to dear Ermine. Very sincerely yours, R. KEITH.
There was so shocked and startled a look on Colin's face, that Tibbie believed that his brother must be dead, and when in a few almost inaudible words he told her that he must start for Bishopsworthy by the afternoon train, she fairly began to scold, partly by way of working off the irritation left by her alarm. 'The lad's clean demented! Heard ye ever the like, to rin awa' frae his new-made wife afore the blessin's been weel spoke; an' a' for the whimsie of that daft English lassie that made siccan a piece of work wi' her cantrips.'
'I am afraid she is right now,' said the Colonel, 'and my brother must not be left any longer.'
