An ordeal was coming for which Rachel was thus in some degree prepared. On the return of the party from the book club, Mrs. Curtis came into Rachel’s sitting-room, and hung lingering over the fire as if she had something to say, but did not know how to begin. At last, however, she said, “I do really think it is very unfair, but it was not his fault, he says.”
“Who?” said Rachel, dreamily.
“Why, Colonel Keith, my dear,” said good Mrs. Curtis, conceiving that her pronominal speech had “broken” her intelligence; “it seems we were mistaken in him all this time.”
“What, about Miss Williams?” said Rachel, perceiving how the land lay; “how did you hear it?”
“You knew it, my dear child,” cried her mother in accents of extreme relief.
“Only this afternoon, from Bessie Keith.”
“And Fanny knew it all this time,” continued Mrs. Curtis. “I cannot imagine how she could keep it from me, but it seems Miss Williams was resolved it should not be known. Colonel Keith said he felt it was wrong to go on longer without mentioning it, and I could not but say that it would have been a great relief to have known it earlier.”
“As far as Fanny was concerned it would,” said Rachel, looking into the fire, but not without a sense of rehabilitating satisfaction, as the wistful looks and tone of her mother convinced her that this semi-delusion had not been confined to herself.
“I could not help being extremely sorry for him when he was telling me,” continued Mrs. Curtis, as much resolved against uttering the idea as Rachel herself could be. “It has been such a very long attachment, and now he says he has not yet been able to overcome her scruples about accepting him in her state. It is quite right of her, I can’t say but it is; but it is a very awkward situation.”
“I do not see that,” said Rachel, feeling the need of decision in order to reassure her mother; “it is very sad and distressing in some ways, but no one can look at Miss Williams without seeing that his return has done her a great deal of good; and whether they marry or not, one can only be full of admiration and respect for them.”
“Yes, yes,” faltered Mrs. Curtis; “only I must say I think it was due to us to have mentioned it sooner.”
“Not at all, mother. Fanny knew it, and it was nobody’s concern but hers. Pray am I to have Owen’s Palaeontology?”
“No, Colonel Keith bought that, and some more of the solid books. My dear, he is going to settle here; he tells me he has actually bought that house he and his brother are in.”
“Bought it!”
“Yes; he says, anyway, his object is to be near Miss Williams. Well, I cannot think how it is to end, so near the title as he is, and her sister a governess, and then that dreadful business about her brother, and the little girl upon her hands. Dear me, I wish Fanny had anyone else for a governess.”
“So do not I,” said Rachel. “I have the greatest possible admiration for Ermine Williams, and I do not know which I esteem most, her for her brave, cheerful, unrepining unselfishness, or him for his constancy and superiority to all those trumpery considerations. I am glad to have the watching of them. I honour them both.”
Yes, and Rachel honoured herself still more for being able to speak all this freely and truly out of the innermost depths of her candid heart.
XIV
The Gowanbrae Ball
“Your honour’s pardon,
Coriolanus
I’d rather have my wounds to heal again,
Than hear say how I got them.”
“Yes, I go the week after next.”
“So soon? I thought you were to stay for our ball.”
“Till this time next year? No, no, I can’t quite do that, thank you.”
“This very winter.”
“Oh, no—no such thing! Why, half the beauty and fashion of the neighbourhood is not come into winter quarters yet. Besides, the very essence of a military ball is that it should be a parting—the brightest and the last. Good morning.”
And Meg’s head, nothing loth, was turned away from the wide view of the broad vale of the Avon, with the Avoncester Cathedral towers in the midst, and the moors rising beyond in purple distance. The two young lieutenants could only wave their farewells, as Bessie cantered merrily over the soft smooth turf of the racecourse, in company with Lord Keith, the Colonel, and Conrade.
“Do you not like dancing?” inquired Lord Keith, when the canter was over, and they were splashing through a lane with high hedges.
“I’m not so unnatural,” returned Bessie, with a merry smile, “but it would never do to let the Highlanders give one now. Alick has been telling me that the expense would fall seriously on a good many of them.”
“True,” said Colonel Keith, “too many fêtes come to be a heavy tax.”
“That is more consideration than is common in so young a lad,” added Lord Keith.
“Yes, but dear Alick is so full of consideration,” said the sister, eagerly. “He does not get half the credit for it that he deserves, because, you know, he is so quiet and reserved, and has that unlucky ironical way with him that people don’t like; especially rattlepates like those,” pointing with her whip in the direction of the two young officers.
“It is a pity,” said the Colonel, “it lessens his influence. And it is strange I never perceived it before his return to England.”
“Oh! there’s much owing to the habitual languor of that long illness. That satirical mumble is the only trouble he will take to lift up his testimony, except when a thing is most decidedly his duty, and then he does it as England expects.”
“And he considered it his duty to make you decline this ball?” said Lord Keith.
“Oh, not his more than mine,” said Bessie. “I don’t forget that I am
