Charlotte Yonge - The Clever Woman of the Family

“Well,” she said, half smiling, “it is a pity to think even of a crushed butterfly; but indeed, Colin, if you can bear to listen to me, I think I can show you that it all has been a blessing even by sight, as well as, of course, by faith. Only remember the unsatisfactoriness of our condition—the never seeing or hearing from one another after that day when Mr. Beauchamp came down on us. Did not the accident win for us a parting that was much better to remember than that state of things? Oh, the pining, weary feel as if all the world had closed on me! I do assure you it was much worse than anything that came after the burn. Yes, if I had been well and doing like others, I know I should have fretted and wearied, pined myself ill perhaps, whereas I could always tell myself that every year of your absence might be a step towards your finding me well; and when I was forced to give up that hope for myself, why then, Colin, the never seeing your name made me think you would never be disappointed and grieved as you are now. It is very merciful the way that physical trials help one through those of the mind.”

“I never knew,” said the Colonel; “all my aunt’s latter letters spoke of your slow improvement beyond hope.”

“True, in her time, I had not reached the point where I stopped. The last time I saw her I was still upstairs; and, indeed, I did not half know what I could do till I tried.”

“Yes,” said he, brightened by that buoyant look so remarkable in her face; “and you will yet do more, Ermine. You have convinced me that we shall be all the happier together—”

“But that was not what I meant to convince you of—” she said, faintly.

“Not what you meant, perhaps; but what it did convince me was, that you—as you are, my Ermine—are ten thousand times more to me than even as the beautiful girl, and that there never can be a happier pair than we shall be when I am your hands and feet.”

Ermine sat up, and rallied all her forces, choked back the swelling of her throat, and said, “Dear Colin, it cannot be! I trusted you were understanding that when I told you how it was with me.”

He could not speak from consternation.

“No,” she said; “it would be wrong in me to think of it for an instant. That you should have done so, shows—O Colin, I cannot talk of it; but it would be as ungenerous in me to consent, as it is noble of you to propose it.”

“It is no such thing,” he answered; “it has been the one object and thought of my life, the only hope I have had all these years.”

“Exactly so,” she said, struggling again to speak firmly; “and that is the very thing. You kept your allegiance to the bright, tall, walking, active girl, and it would be a shame in the scorched cripple to claim it.”

“Don’t call yourself names. Have I not told you that you are more than the same?”

“You do not know. You are pleased because my face is not burnt, nor grown much older, and because I can talk and laugh in the same voice still.” (Oh, how it quivered!) “But it would be a wicked mockery in me to pretend to be the wife you want. Yes, I know you think you do, but that is just because my looks are so deceitful, and you have kept on thinking about me; but you must make a fresh beginning.”

“You can tell me that,” he said, indignantly.

“Because it is not new to me,” she said; “the quarter of an hour you stood by me, with that deadly calm in your white face, was the real farewell to the young hopeful dream of that bright summer. I wish it was as calm now.”

“I believed you dying then,” answered he.

“Do not make me think it would have been better for you if I had been,” she said, imploringly. “It was as much the end, and I knew it from the time my recovery stopped short. I would have let you know if I could, and then you would not have been so much shocked.”

“So as to cut me off from you entirely?”

“No, indeed. The thought of seeing you again was too—too overwhelming to be indulged in; knowing, as I did, that if you were the same to me, it must be at this sad cost to you,” and her eyes filled with tears.

“It is you who make it so, Ermine.”

“No; it is the providence that has set me aside from the active work of life. Pray do not go on, Colin, it is only giving us both useless pain. You do not know what it costs me to deny you, and I feel that I must. I know you are only acting on the impulse of generosity. Yes, I will say so, though you think it is to please yourself,” she added, with one of those smiles that nothing could drive far from her lips, and which made it infinitely harder to acquiesce in her denial.

“I will make you think so in time,” he said. “Then I might tell you, you had no right to please yourself,” she answered, still with the same air of playfulness; “you have got a brother, you know—and—yes, I hear you growl; but if he is a poor old broken man out of health, it is the more reason you should not vex him, nor hamper yourself with a helpless commodity.”

“You are not taking the way to make me forget what my brother has done for us.”

“How do you know that he did not save me from being a strong-minded military lady! After all, it was absurd to expect people to look favourably on our liking for one another, and you know they could not be expected to know that there was real stuff in the affair. If there had not been, we should have thought so all the same, you know, and been quite as furious.”

He could not help smiling, recollecting fury that, in the course of these twelve years, he had seen evinced under similar circumstances by persons who had consoled themselves before he had done pitying them. “Still,” he said gravely, “I think there was harshness.”

“So do I, but not so much as I thought at that time, and—oh, surely that is not Rachel Curtis? I told her I thought you would call.”

“Intolerable!” he muttered between his teeth. “Is she always coming to bore you?”

“She has been very kind, and my great enlivenment,” said Ermine, “and she can’t be expected to know how little we want her. Oh, there, the danger is averted! She must have asked if you were here.”

“I was just thinking that she was the chief objection to Lady Temple’s kind wish of having you at Myrtlewood.”

“Does Lady Temple know?” asked Ermine, blushing.

“I could not keep it from one who has been so uniformly kind to me; but I desired her not to let it go further till I should hear your wishes.”

“Yes, she has a right to know,” said Ermine; “but please, not a word elsewhere.”

“And will you not come to stay with her?”

“I? Oh, no; I am fit for no place but this. You don’t half know how bad I am. When you have seen a little more of us, you will be quite convinced.”

“Well, at least, you give me leave to come here.”

“Leave? When it is a greater pleasure than I ever thought to have again; that is, while you understand that you said good-bye to the Ermine of Beauchamp Parsonage twelve years ago, and that the thing here is only a sort of ghost, most glad and grateful to be a friend—a sister.”

“So,” he said, “those are to be the terms of my admission.”

“The only possible ones.”

“I will consider them. I have not accepted them.”

“You will,” she said.

But she met a smile in return, implying that there might be a will as steadfast as her own, although the question might be waived for a time.

Meantime, Rachel was as nearly hating Colonel Keith as principle would allow, with “Human Reeds,” newly finished, burning in her pocket, “Military Society” fermenting in her brain, and “Curatocult” still unacknowledged. Had he not had quite time for any rational visit? Was he to devour Mackarel Lane as well as Myrtlewood? She was on her way to the latter house, meeting Grace as she went, and congratulating herself that he could not be in two places at once, whilst Grace secretly wondered how far she might venture to build on Alison Williams’s half confidence, and regretted the anxiety wasted by Rachel and the mother; though, to be sure, that of Mrs. Curtis was less uncalled for than her daughter’s, since it was only the fear of Fanny’s not being sufficiently guarded against misconstructions.