Charlotte Yonge - Magnum Bonum; Or, Mother Carey's Brood

“Then you travelled all night?”

“Yes, there was a jolly old woman who made us a bed with her shawl, only I tumbled off three times and bumped myself, and she gave us gooseberries, and cake, and once when we stopped a long time a porter got us a cup of tea. Then when we came to where they take the tickets, I think the man was going to make a row, but the guard came up and told him all about it, and I gave him my two half-sovereigns, and he gave me back fourteen shillings change, for he said we were only half-price and second class. Then when once I was in London,” said Jock, as if his foot was on his native heath, “of course I knew what to be at.”

“Have you had nothing to eat?”

“We had each a bun when we got out at Charing Cross, but I’m awfully hungry, mother!”

“I should think so. Janet, my dear, go and order some breakfast for them.”

“And,” said Janet, “must not the others be dreadfully frightened about them at Kyve?”

That question startled her mother into instant action.

“Of course they must! Poor Clara! poor Allen! They must be in a dreadful state. I must telegraph to them at once.”

She lifted Armine off gently to her bed, scarcely disturbing him, twisted up her hair in summary fashion, and the dress, which her friends had dreaded her seeing, was on, she hardly knew how, as she bade old nurse see to Jock’s washing, dressing, and making himself tidy, and then amazed the other ladies by running into the drawing-room crying breathlessly—

“I must telegraph to the Actons,” and plunging to the depths of a drawer in the davenport.

“Caroline, your cap!”

For it was on the back of the head that had never worn a cap before. And not only then, but for the most part whenever they met, those tears and caresses, that poor Mother Carey so much feared, were checked midway by the instinct that made Aunt Ellen run at her with a great pin and cry—

“Caroline, your cap.”

She was still, after having had it fixed, kneeling down, searching for a form for telegraphing, when the door was opened, and in came Colonel Brownlow, looking very pale and fearfully shocked.

“Ellen!” he began, “how shall I ever tell that poor child? Here is Mr. Acton.”

But at that moment up sprang Mother Carey, and as Mr. Acton entered the room she leapt forward—

“Oh! I was just going to telegraph! They are safe! they are here! Jock, Jock!”

And downstairs came tumbling and rushing that same little imp, while the astonishment of his uncle and aunt only allowed them to utter the one word, “John!”

Mr. Acton drew a long breath, and said, “You have given us a pretty fright, boy.”

“Here’s the paper,” added Carey; “telegraph to Clara at once. Ring the bell, Jock; I’ll send to the office.”

All questions were suspended while Mr. Acton wrote the telegram, and then it appeared that the boat had been picked up empty, with Armine’s pocket-handkerchief full of shells in it, and the boys had been given up for lost, it having been concluded that, if they had been seen, the boat also would have been taken in tow, and not cast loose to tell the tale. The two elder boys were almost broken-hearted, and would have been wild to come back to their mother, had it not been impossible to leave poor little Barbara, who clung fast to them, as the only shreds left to her of home and protection. They would at least be comforted in the space of a quarter of an hour!

Carey was completely herself and full of vigour while Mr. Acton was there, consoling him when he lamented not having taken better care, and refusing when he tried to persuade her to accompany him back to Kyve. Neither would Janet return with him, feeling it impossible to relax such watch as she could keep over the Magnum Bonum papers, even though she much longed for her brothers.

“I should insist on her going,” said Aunt Ellen, “after all she has gone through.”

“I don’t think I can,” said Carey. “You would not send away your Jessie?”

Ellen did not quite say that her pretty, sweet, caressing Jessie was different, but she thought it all the same.

Carey did not fulfil her intentions of going into matters of business with her brother-in-law that day, for little Armine, always delicate, had been so much knocked up by his course of adventures, that he needed her care all the rest of the day. Nor would she have been fit for anything else, for when his aunt recommended a totally different treatment for his ailments, she had no spirit to argue, but only looked pale and determined, being too weary and dejected to produce her arguments.

Jock was sufficiently tired to be quiescent in the nursery, where she kept him with her, feeling, in his wistful eyes, and even in poor little Armine’s childish questions, something less like blank desolation than her recent apathy had been, as if she were waking to thrills of pain after the numbness of a blow.

Urged by a restless night and an instinctive longing for fresh air, she took a long walk in the park before anyone came down the next morning, with only Jock for her companion, and she came to the breakfast table with a freshened look, though with a tremulous faintness in her voice, and she let Janet continue tea maker, scarcely seeming to hear or understand the casual remarks around her; but afterwards she said in a resolute tone, “Robert, I am ready whenever you wish to speak to me.”

So in the drawing-room the Colonel, with the two wills in his hand, found himself face to face with her. He was the more nervous of the two, being, much afraid of upsetting that composure which scandalised his wife, but which he preferred to tears; and as he believed her to be a mere child in perception, he explained down to her supposed level, while she listened in a strange inert way, feeling it hard to fix her attention, yet half-amused by the simplicity of his elucidations. “Would Ellen need to be told what an executor meant?” thought she.

She was left sole guardian of the children, “the greatest proof of confidence a parent can give,” impressively observed the Colonel, wondering at the languor of her acquiescence, and not detecting the thought, “Dear Joe! of course! as if he would have done anything else!”

“Of course,” continued the Colonel, “he never expected that it would have proved more than a nominal matter, a mere precaution. For my own part, I can only say that I shall be always ready to assist you with advice or authority if ever you should find the charge too onerous for you.”

“Thank you,” was all she could bring herself to say at that moment, feeling that her boys were her own, though the next she was recollecting that this was no doubt the reason Joe had bidden her live at Kenminster, and in a pang of self-reproach, was hardly attending to the technicalities of the matters of property which were being explained to her.

Her husband had not been able to save much, but his life insurance was for a considerable sum, and there was also the amount inherited from his parents. A portion of the means which his mother had enjoyed passed to the elder brother, and Mrs. Brownlow had sunk most of her individual property in the purchase of the house in which they lived. By the terms of Joseph’s will, everything was left to Caroline unreservedly, save for a stipulation that all, on her death, should be divided among the children, as she should appoint. The house was not even secured to Allen, so that she could let or sell it as she thought advisable.

“I could not sell it,” said Carey quickly, feeling it her first and only home. “I hope to see Allen practising there some day.”

“It is not in a situation where you could sell it to so much advantage as you would have by letting it to whoever takes the practice.”