As far as Rachel could make out, the poor young man’s grief and despair had been poured out to his mother, and she, unable to soothe, had come to try to extract some assurance that the catastrophe had been unconnected with his folly. A very slight foundation would have served her, but this Rachel would not give, honestly believing him the cause of the accident, and also that the shock to the sense of duty higher than he could understand had occasioned the excitement which had destroyed the slender possibility of recovery. She pitied the unhappy man more than she had done at first, and she was much pained by his mother’s endeavours to obtain a palliative for him, but she could not be untrue. “Indeed,” she said, “I fear no one can say it was not so; I don’t think anything is made better by blinking the reality.”
“Oh, Mrs. Keith, it is so dreadful. I cannot tell my poor son. I don’t know what might be the consequence.”
Tears came into Rachel’s eyes. “Indeed,” she said, “I am very sorry for you. I believe everyone knows that I have felt what it is to be guilty of fatal mischief, but, indeed, indeed I am sure that to realize it all is the only way to endure it, so as to be the better for it. Believe me, I am very sorry, but I don’t think it would be any real comfort to your son to hear that poor Bessie had never been careful, or that I was inexperienced, or the nurse ignorant. It is better to look at it fairly. I hear Mr. Clare coming in. Will you see him?” she added suddenly, much relieved.
But Mrs. Carleton did not wish to see him, and departed, thinking Alick Keith’s wife as bad as had ever been reported, and preparing an account of her mismanagement wherewith to remove her son’s remorse.
She was scarcely gone, and Rachel had not had time to speak to Mr. Clare, before another visitor was upon her, no other than Lord Keith’s daughter, Mrs. Comyn Menteith; or, as she introduced herself, “I’m Isabel. I came down from London today because it was so very shocking and deplorable, and I am dying to see my poor little brother and uncle Colin. I must keep away from poor papa till the doctors are gone, so I came here.”
She was a little woman in the delicately featured style of sandy prettiness, and exceedingly talkative and good-natured. The rapid tongue, though low and modulated, jarred painfully on Rachel’s feelings in the shaded staircase, and she was glad to shut the door of the temporary nursery, when Mrs. Menteith pounced upon the poor little baby, pitying him with all her might, comparing him with her own children, and asking authoritative questions, coupled with demonstrations of her intention of carrying him off to her own nursery establishment, which had been left in Scotland with a head nurse, whose name came in with every fourth word—that is, if he lived at all, which she seemed to think a hopeless matter.
She spoke of “poor dear Bessie,” with such affection as was implied in “Oh, she was such a darling! I got on with her immensely. Why didn’t you send to me, though I don’t know that Donald would have let me come,” and she insisted on learning the whole history, illustrating it profusely with personal experiences. Rachel was constantly hoping to be released from a subject so intensely painful; but curiosity prevailed through the chatter, and kept hold of the thread of the story. Mrs. Menteith decidedly thought herself defrauded of a summons. “It was very odd of them all not to telegraph for me. Those telegrams are such a dreadful shock. There came one just as I set out from Timber End, and I made sure little Sandie was ill at home, for you know the child is very delicate, and there are so many things going about, and what with all this dreadful business, I was ready to faint, and after all it was only a stupid thing for Uncle Colin from those people at Avoncester.”
“You do not know what it was?”
“Somebody was convicted or acquitted, I forget which, but I know it had something to do with Uncle Colin’s journey to Russia; so ridiculous of him at his age, when he ought to know better, and so unlucky for all the family, his engagement to that swindler’s sister. By the by, did he not cheat you out of ever so much money?”
“Oh, that had nothing to do with it—it was not Miss Williams’s brother—it was not he that was tried.”
“Wasn’t he? I thought he was found guilty or something; but it is very unfortunate for the family, for Uncle Colin won’t give her up, though she is a terrible cripple, too. And to tell you a secret, it was his obstinacy that made papa marry again; and now it is of no use, this poor little fellow will never live, and this sharper’s sister will be Lady Keith after all! So unlucky! Papa says she is very handsome, and poor Bessie declares she is quite ladylike.”
“The most superior person I ever knew,” said Rachel, indignantly.
“Ah, yes, of course she must be very clever and artful if her brother is a swindler.”
“But indeed he is not, he was cheated; the swindler was Maddox.”
“Oh, but he was a glassblower, or something, I know, and her sister is a governess. I am sure it is no fault of mine! The parties I gave
