CHAPTER II. RACHEL'S DISCIPLINE
'Thought is free, as sages tells us-- Free to rove, and free to soar; But affection lives in bondage, That enthrals her more and more.' JEAN INGELOW.
An old friend lived in the neighbourhood who remembered Fanny's father, and was very anxious to see her again, though not able to leave the house. So the first day that it was fine enough for Mrs. Curtis to venture out, she undertook to convey Fanny to call upon her, and was off with a wonderfully moderate allowance of children, only the two youngest boys outside with their maid. This drive brought more to light about Fanny's past way of life and feelings than had ever yet appeared. Rachel had never elicited nearly so much as seemed to have come forth spontaneously to the aunt, who had never in old times been Fanny's confidante.
Fanny's life had been almost a prolonged childhood. From the moment of her marriage with the kind old General, he and her mother had conspired to make much of her; all the more that she was almost constantly disabled by her state of health, and was kept additionally languid and helpless by the effects of climate. Her mother had managed her household, and she had absolutely had no care, no duty at all but to be affectionate and grateful, and to be pretty and gracious at the dinner parties. Even in her mother's short and sudden illness, the one thought of both the patient and the General had been to spare Fanny, and she had been scarcely made aware of the danger, and not allowed to witness the suffering. The chivalrous old man who had taken on himself the charge of her, still regarded the young mother of his children as almost as much of a baby herself, and devoted himself all the more to sparing her trouble, and preventing her from feeling more thrown upon her by her mother's death. The notion of training her to act alone never even occurred to him, and when he was thrown from his horse, and carried into a wayside-hut to die, his first orders were that no hurried message might be sent to her, lest she might be startled and injured by the attempt to come to him. All he could do for her was to leave her in the charge of his military secretary, who had long been as a son to him. Fanny told her aunt with loving detail all that she had heard from Major Keith of the brave old man's calm and resigned end--too full of trust even to be distressed with alarms for the helpless young wife and children, but committing them in full reliance to the care of their Father in heaven, and to the present kindness of the friend who stood by his pillow.
The will, which not only Rachel but her mother thought strangely unguarded, had been drawn up in haste, because Sir Stephen's family had outgrown the provisions of a former one, which had besides designated her mother, and a friend since dead, as guardians. Haste, and the conscious want of legal knowledge, had led to its being made as simple as possible, and as it was, Sir Stephen had scarcely had the power to sign it.
It was Major Keith who had borne the tidings to the poor little widow, and had taken the sole care of the boys during the sad weeks of care utter prostration and illness. Female friends were with her, and tended her affectionately, but if exertion or thought were required of her, the Major had to be called to her sofa to awaken her faculties, and she always awoke to attend to his wishes, as though he were the channel of her husband's. This state of things ended with the birth of the little girl, the daughter that Sir Stephen had so much wished for, coming too late to be welcomed by him, but awakening her mother to tearful joy and renewed powers of life. The nine months of little Stephana's life had been a tone of continual change and variety, of new interests and occupations, and of the resumption of a feeling of health which had scarcely been tasted since the first plunge into warm climates. Perhaps it was unreasonable to expect to find Fanny broken down; and she talked in her own simple way with abundant overflowing affection of her husband; but even Mrs. Curtis thought it was to her more like the loss of her own father than of the father of her children; and though not in the least afraid of anything unbecoming in her gentle, retiring Fanny, still felt that it was more the charge of a girl than of a widow, dreaded the boys, dreaded their fate, and dreaded the Major more.
During this drive, Grace and Rachel had the care of the elder boys, whom Rachel thought safer in her keeping than in Coombe's. A walk along the cliffs was one resource for their amusement, but it resulted in Conrade's climbing into the most break-neck places, by preference selecting those that Rachel called him out of, and as all the others thought it necessary to go after him, the jeopardy of Leoline and Hubert became greater than it was possible to permit; so Grace took them by the hands, and lured them home with promises of an introduction to certain white rabbits at the lodge. After their departure, their brothers became infinitely more obstreperous. Whether it were that Conrade had some slight amount of consideration for the limbs of his lesser followers, or whether the fact were-- what Rachel did not remotely imagine--that he was less utterly unmanageable with her sister than with herself, certain it is that the brothers went into still more intolerable places, and treated their guardian as ducklings treat an old hen. At last they quite disappeared from the view round a projecting point of rock, and when she turned it, she found a battle royal going on over an old lobster- pot--Conrade hand to hand with a stout fisher-boy, and Francis and sundry amphibious creatures of both sexes exchanging a hail of stones, water-smoothed brick-bats, cockle- shells, fishes' backbones, and other unsavoury missiles. Abstractedly, Rachel had her theory that young gentlemen had better scramble their way among their poor neighbours, and become used to all ranks; but when it came to witnessing an actual skirmish when she was responsible for Fanny's sons, it was needful to interfere, and in equal dismay and indignation she came round the point. The light artillery fled at her aspect, and she had to catch Francis's arm in the act of discharging after them a cuttlefish's white spine, with a sharp 'For shame, they are running away! Conrade, Zack, have done!' Zack was one of her own scholars, and held her in respect.
He desisted at once, and with a touch of his rough forelock, looked sheepish, and said, 'Please ma'am, he was meddling with our lobster- pot.'
'I wasn't doing any harm,' said Conrade. 'I was just looking in, and they all came and shied stones at us.'
'I don't care how the quarrel began,' said Rachel. 'You would not have run into it if you had been behaving properly. Zack was quite right to protect his father's property, but he might have been more civil. Now shake hands, and have done with it.'
'Not shake hands with a low boy,' growled Francis. But happily Conrade was of a freer spirit, and in spite of Rachel's interference, had sense enough to know himself in the wrong. He held out his hand, and when the ceremony had been gone through, put his hands in his pockets, produced a shilling, and said, 'There, that's in case I did the thing any harm.' Rachel would have preferred Zachary's being above its acceptance, but he was not, and she was thankful that a wood path offend itself, leading through the Homestead plantations away from the temptations and perils of the shore.
That the two boys, instead of listening to her remonstrance, took to punching and kicking one another, was a mitigated form of evil for which she willingly compounded, having gone through so much useless interference already, that she felt as if she had no spirit left to keep the peace, and that they must settle their little affairs between themselves. It was the most innocent diversion in which she could hope to see them indulge. She only desired that it might last them past a thrush's nest, in the hedge between the park and plantation, a somewhat treasured discovery of Grace's. No such good luck. Either the thrush's imprudence or Grace's visits had made the nest dangerously visible, and it was proclaimed with a shout. Rachel, in hot haste, warned them against taking birds'-nests in general, and that in particular.
'Nests are made to be taken,' said Francis.
'I've got an egg of all the Australian birds the Major could get me,' said Conrade, 'and I mean to have all the English ones.'
'Oh, one egg; there's no harm in taking that; but this nest has young birds.'
The young birds must of course be seen, and Rachel stood by with despairing frowns, commands, and assurances of their mother's displeasure, while they peeped in, tantalized the gaping yellow throats, by holding up their fingers, and laid hands on the side of the nest, peeping at her with laughing, mischievous eyes, enjoying her distress. She was glad at last to find them coming away without the nest, and after crossing the park, arrived at the house, tired out, but with two hours of the boys still on her hands. They, however, were a little tired, too; and, further, Grace had hunted out the old bowls, much to the delight of the younger ones. This sport lasted a good while, but at last the sisters, who had relaxed their attention a little, perceived that Conrade and Hubert were both missing, and on Rachel's inquiry where they were, she received from Francis that elegant stock answer, 'in their skins.' However, they came to light in process of time, the two mothers returned home, and Mrs. Curtis and Grace
