“Oh, if you come here out of duty—” she said archly, and with her merry laugh. “There, is not that a nice occasion for picking a quarrel? And seriously,” she continued, “perhaps it might be good for you if we did. I am beginning to fear that I ought not to keep you lingering here without purpose or occupation.”
“Fulfil my purpose, and I will find occupation.”
“Don’t say that.”
“This once, Ermine. For one year I shall wait in the hope of convincing you. If you do not change your mind in that time, I shall look for another staff appointment, to last till Rose is ready for me.”
The gravity of this conclusion made Ermine laugh. “That’s what you learnt of your chief,” she said.
“There would be less difference in age,” he said. “Though I own I should like my widow to be less helpless than poor little Lady Temple. So,” he added, with the same face of ridiculous earnest, “if you continue to reject me yourself, you will at least rear her with an especial view to her efficiency in that capacity.”
And as Rose at that critical moment looked in at the window, eager to be encouraged to come and show Colinette’s successful toilette, he drew her to him with the smile that had won her whole heart, and listening to every little bit of honesty about “my work” and “Aunt Ermine’s work,” he told her that he knew she was a very managing domestic character, perfectly equal to the charge of both young ladies.
“Aunt Ermine says I must learn to manage, because some day I shall have to take care of papa.”
“Yes,” with his eyes on Ermine all the while, “learn to be a useful woman; who knows if we shan’t all depend on you by-and-by?”
“Oh do let me be useful to you,” cried Rose; “I could hem all your handkerchiefs, and make you a kettle-holder.”
Ermine had never esteemed him more highly than when he refrained from all but a droll look, and uttered not one word of the sportive courtship that is so peculiarly unwholesome and undesirable with children. Perhaps she thought her colonel more a gentleman than she had done before, if that were possible; and she took an odd, quaint pleasure in the idea of this match, often when talking to Alison of her views of life and education, putting them in the form of what would become of Rose as Lady Keith; and Colin kept his promise of making no more references to the future. On moving into his lodgings, the hour for his visits was changed, and unless he went out to dinner, he usually came in the evening, thus attracting less notice, and moreover rendering it less easy to lapse into the tender subject, as Alison was then at home, and the conversation was necessarily more general.
The afternoons were spent in Lady Temple’s service. Instead of the orthodox dowager britchska and pair, ruled over by a tyrannical coachman, he had provided her with a herd of little animals for harness or saddle, and a young groom, for whom Coombe was answerable. Mrs. Curtis groaned and feared the establishment would look flighty; but for the first time Rachel became the colonel’s ally. “The worst despotism practised in England,” she said, “is that of coachmen, and it is well that Fanny should be spared! The coachman who lived here when mamma was married, answered her request to go a little faster, ‘I shall drive my horses as I plazes,’ and I really think the present one is rather worse in deed, though not in word.”
Moreover, Rachel smoothed down a little of Mrs. Curtis’s uneasiness at Fanny’s change of costume at the end of her first year of widowhood, on the ground that Colonel Keith advised her to ride with her sons, and that this was incompatible with weeds. “And dear Sir Stephen did so dislike the sight of them,” she added, in her simple, innocent way, as if she were still dressing to please him.
“On the whole, mother,” said Rachel, “unless there is more heartbreak than Fanny professes, there’s more coquetry in a pretty young thing wearing a cap that says, ‘come pity me,’ than in going about like other people.”
“I only wish she could help looking like a girl of seventeen,” sighed Mrs. Curtis. “If that colonel were but married; or the other young man! I’m sure she will fall into some scrape; she does not know how, out of sheer innocence.”
“Well, mother, you know I always mean to ride with her, and that will be a protection.”
“But, my dear, I am not sure about your riding with these gay officers; you never used to do such things.”
“At my age, mother, and to take care of Fanny.”
And Mrs. Curtis, in her uncertainty whether to sanction the proceedings and qualify them, or to make a protest—dreadful to herself, and more dreadful to Fanny—yielded the point when she found herself not backed up by her energetic daughter, and the cavalcade almost daily set forth from Myrtlewood, and was watched with eyes of the greatest vexation, if not by kind Mrs. Curtis, by poor Mr. Touchett, to whom Lady Temple’s change of dress had been a grievous shock. He thought her so lovely, so interesting, at first; and now, though it was sacrilege to believe it of so gentle and pensive a face, was not this a return to the world? What had she to do with these officers? How could her aunt permit it? No doubt it was all the work of his great foe, Miss Rachel.
It was true that Rachel heartily enjoyed these rides. Hitherto she had been only allowed to go out under the escort of her tyrant the coachman, who kept her in very strict discipline. She had not anticipated anything much more lively with Fanny, her boys, and ponies; but Colonel Keith had impressed on Conrade and Francis that they were their mother’s prime protectors, and
