Kitabı oku: «The Young Step-Mother; Or, A Chronicle of Mistakes», sayfa 14
‘We shall see you again, and we shall know each other better,’ he said, kindly. ‘You are my godchild now, Sophy, and you know that I must remember you constantly in prayer.’
‘Yes,’ she faintly said.
‘And will you promise me to try my remedy? I think it will soften your heart to the graces of the Blessed Comforter. And even if all seems gloom within, look out, see others happy, try to rejoice with them, and peace will come in! Now, goodbye, my dear godchild, and the God of Peace bless you, and give you rest.
CHAPTER XII
Mr. Dusautoy had given notice of the day of the Confirmation, when Mr. Kendal called his wife.
‘I wonder,’ he said, ‘my dear, whether Sophia can spare you to take a walk with me before church.’
Sophy, who was well aware that a walk with him was the greatest and rarest treat to his wife, gave gracious permission, and in a few minutes they were walking by the bright canal-side, under the calm evening sunshine and deep blue sky of early autumn.
Mr. Kendal said not a word, and Albinia, leaning on his arm, listened, as it were, to the stillness, or rather to the sounds that marked it—the gurgling of the little streams let off into the water-courses in the meadows; the occasional plunge of the rat from the banks, the sounds from the town, softened by distance, and the far-off cawings of the rooks, which she could just see wheeling about as little black specks over the plantations of Woodside, or watching the swallows assembling for departure sitting in long ranks, like an ornament along the roof of a neighbouring barn.
Long, long it was before Mr. Kendal broke silence, but when at length he did speak, his words amazed her extremely.
‘Albinia, poor Sophia’s admission into the Church has not been the only neglect. I have never been confirmed. I intend to speak to Dusautoy this evening, but I thought you would wish to know it first.’
‘Thank you. I suppose you went out to India too young.’
‘Poor Maria says truly that no one thought of these things in our day, at least so far as we were concerned. I must explain to you, Albinia, how it is that I see things very differently now from the light in which I once viewed them. I was sent home from India, at six years old, to correspondents and relations to whom I was a burthen. I was placed at a private school, where the treatment was of the harsh style so common in those days. The boys always had more tasks than they could accomplish, and were kept employed by being always in arrears with their lessons. This pressed less heavily upon me than on most; but though I seldom incurred punishment, there was a sort of hard distrust of me, I believe because the master could not easily overwhelm me with work, so as to have me in his power. I know I was often unjustly treated, and I never was popular.’
‘Yes, I can imagine you extremely miserable.’
‘You can understand my resolution that my boys should not be sent to England to be homeless, and how I judged all schools by my own experience. I stayed there too late, till I was beyond both tormentors and masters, and was left to an unlimited appetite for books, chiefly poetry. Our religious instruction was a nullity, and I am only surprised that the results were not worse. India was not likely to supply what education had omitted. Looking back on old journals and the like, I am astonished to see how unsettled my notions were—my sublimity, which was really ignorant childishness, and yet my perfect unconsciousness of my want of Christianity.’
‘I dare say you cannot believe it was yourself, any more than I can. What brought other thoughts!’
‘Practical obligations made me somewhat less dreamy, and my dear boy, Edmund, did much for me, but all so insensibly, that I can remember no marked change. I do not know whether you will understand me, when I say that I had attained to somewhat of what I should call personal religion, such as we often find apart from the Church.’
‘But, Edmund, you always were a Churchman.’
‘I was; but I viewed the Church merely as an establishment—human, not divine. I had learnt faith from Holy Scripture, from my boy, from the infants who passed away so quickly, and I better understood how to direct the devotional tendencies that I had never been without, but the sacramental system had never dawned on my comprehension, nor the real meaning of Christian fellowship. Thence my isolation.’
‘You had never fairly seen the Church.’
‘Never. It might have made a great difference to me if Dusautoy had been here at the time of my trouble. When he did come, I had sunk into a state whence I could not rouse myself to understand his principles. I can hardly describe how intolerable my life had become. I was almost resolved on returning to India. I believe I should have done so if you had not come to my rescue.’
‘What would you have done with the children?’
‘To say the truth I had idolized their brother to such an exclusive degree, that I could not turn to the others when he was taken from me. I deserved to lose him; and since I have seen this unfortunate strain of melancholy developed in poor Sophia, who so much resembles him, I have been the more reconciled to his having been removed. I never understood what the others might be until you drew them out.’
Albinia paused, afraid to press his reserve too far; and the next thing she said was, ‘I think I understand your distinction between personal religion and sacramental truth. It explains what has often puzzled me about good devout people who did not belong to the Church. The Visible Church cannot save without this individual personal religion but without having recourse to the Church, there is—’ she could not find the word.
‘There is a loss of external aid,’ he said; ‘nay, of much more. There is no certainty of receiving the benefits linked by Divine Power to her ordinances. Faith, in fact, while acknowledging the great Object of Faith, refuses or neglects to exercise herself upon the very subjects which He has set before her; and, in effect, would accept Him on her terms, not on His own.’
‘It was not refusal on your part,’ said Albinia.
‘No, it was rather indifference and imaginary superiority. But I have read and thought much of late, and see more clearly. If I thought of this rite of Confirmation at all, it was only as a means of impressing young minds. I now see every evidence that it is the completion of Baptismal grace, and without, like poor Sophia, expecting that effects would ever have been perceptible, I think that had I known how to seek after the Spirit of Counsel and Ghostly Strength, I might have given way less to the infirmities of my character, and have been less wilfully insensible to obvious duties.’
‘Then you have made up your mind?’
‘Yes. I shall speak to Mr. Dusautoy at once.’
‘And,’ she said, feeling for his sensitive shyness, ‘no one else need know it—at least—’
‘I should not wish to conceal it from the children,’ he answered, with his scrupulous candour. He was supine when thought more ill of than he deserved, but he always defended himself from undeserved credit.
‘Whom do you think I have for a candidate?’ said Mr. Dusautoy that evening.
‘Another now! I thought you were talking to Mr. Kendal about the onslaught on the Pringle pew.’
‘What do you think of my churchwarden himself?’
‘You don’t mean that he has never been confirmed!’
‘So he tells me. He went out to India young, and was never in the way of such things. Well, it will be a great example.’
‘Take care what you do. He will never endure having it talked of.’
‘I think he has made up his mind, and is above all nonsense. I am sure it is well that I need not examine him. I should soon get beyond my depth.’
‘And what good did his depth ever do to him,’ indignantly cried Mrs. Dusautoy, ‘till that dear good wife of his took him in hand? Don’t you remember what a log he was when first we came—how I used to say he gave you subscriptions to get rid of you.’
‘Well, well, Fanny, what’s the use of recollecting all our foolish first impressions. I always told you he was the most able man in the parish.’
‘Fanny’ laughed merrily at this piece of sagacity, as she said ‘Ay, the most able and the least practicable; and the best of it is, that his wife has not the most distant idea that she has been the making of him. She nearly quarrelled with me for hinting it. She would have it that “Edmund” had it all in him, and had only recovered his health and spirits.’
And, indeed, it was no wonder she was happy. This step taken of free will by Mr. Kendal, was an evidence not only of a powerful reasoning intellect bowed to an act of simple faith but of a victory over the false shame that had always been a part of his nature. Nor did it apparently cost him as much as his consent to Sophy’s admission into the Church; the first effort had been the greatest, and he was now too much taken up with deep thoughts of devotion to be sensitive as to the eyes and remarks of the world. The very resolution to bend in faithful obedience to a rite usually belonging to early youth and not obviously enforced to human reason, nor made an express condition of salvation, was as a pledge that he would strive to walk for the future in the path of self-denying obedience. Who that saw the manly well-knit form kneeling among the slight youthful ones around, and the thoughtful, sorrow-marked brow bowed down beneath the Apostolic hand, could doubt that such faith and such humble obedience would surely be endowed with a full measure of the Spirit of Ghostly Might, to lead him on in his battle with himself? Those young ones needed the ‘sevenfold veil between them and the fires of youth,’ but surely the freshening and renewing came most blessedly to the man weary already with sin and woe, and tired out alike with himself and the world, because he had lived to himself alone.
CHAPTER XIII
Old Mr. Pringle never stirred beyond his parlour, and was invisible to every one, except his housekeeper and doctor, but his tall, square, curtained pew was jealously locked up, and was a grievance to the vicar, who having been foiled in several attempts, was meditating a fresh one, if, as he told his wife, he could bring his churchwarden up to the scratch, when one Sunday morning the congregation was electrified by the sound of a creak and a shake, and beheld a stout hale sunburnt gentleman, fighting with the disused door, and finally gaining the victory by strength of hand, admitting himself and a boy among the dust and the cobwebs.
Had Mr. Pringle, or rather his housekeeper, made a virtue of necessity? and if so, who could it be?
Albinia hailed the event as a fertile source of conjecture which might stave off dangerous subjects in the Sunday call, but there was no opportunity for any discussion, for Maria was popping about, settling and unsettling everything and everybody, in a state of greater confusion than ever, inextricably entangling her inquiries for Sophy with her explanations about the rheumatism which had kept grandmamma from church, and jumping up to pull down the Venetian blind, which descended awry, and went up worse. The lines got into such a hopeless complication, that Albinia came to help her, while Mr. Kendal stood dutifully by the fire, in the sentry-like manner in which he always passed that hour, bending now and then to listen and respond to some meek remark of old Mrs. Meadows, and now and then originating one. As to assisting Maria in any pother, he well knew that would be a vain act of chivalry, and he generally contrived to be insensible to her turmoils.
‘Who could that have been in old Pringle’s seat?’ he presently began, appropriating Albinia’s cherished morsel of gossip; but he was not allowed to enjoy it, for Miss Meadows broke out,
‘Oh, Edmund! this blind, I beg your pardon, but if you would help—’
He was obliged to move to the window, and nervously clutching his arm, she whispered, ‘You’ll excuse it, I know, but don’t mention it—not a word to mamma.’ Mr. Kendal looked at Albinia to gather what could be this dreadful subject, but the next words made it no longer doubtful. ‘Ah, you were away, there’s no use in explaining—but not a word of Sam Pringle. It would only make her uneasy—’ she gasped in a floundering whisper, stopping suddenly short, for at that moment the stranger and his son were entering the garden, so near them, that they might have seen the three pairs of eyes levelled on them, through the wide open end of the unfortunate blind, which was now in the shape of a fan.
Albinia’s cheeks glowed with sympathy, and she longed for the power of helping her, marvelling how a being so nervously restless and devoid of self-command could pass through a scene likely to be so trying. The bell sounded, and the loud hearty tones of a manly voice were heard. Albinia looked to see whether her help were needed, but Miss Meadows’s whole face was brightened, and moving across the room with unusually even steps, she leant on the arm of her mother’s chair, saying, ‘Mamma, it is Captain Pringle. You remember Samuel Pringle? He settled in the Mauritius, you know, and he was at church this morning with his little boy.’
There was something piteous in the searching look of inquiry that Mrs. Meadows cast at her daughter’s face, but Maria had put it aside with an attempt at a smile, as ‘Captain Pringle’ was announced.
He trod hard, and spoke loud, and his curly grizzled hair was thrown back from a bronzed open face, full of broad heartiness, as he walked in with outstretched hand, exclaiming, ‘Well, and how do you do?’ shaking with all his might the hand that Maria held out. ‘And how are you, Mrs. Meadows? You see I could not help coming back to see old friends.’
‘Old friends are always welcome, sir,’ said the old lady, warmly. ‘My son, Mr. Kendal, sir—Mrs. Kendal,’ she added, with a becoming old-fashioned movement of introduction.
‘Very glad to meet you,’ said the captain, extending to each such a hearty shake of the hand, that Albinia suspected he was taking her on trust for Maria’s sister.
‘Your little boy?’ asked Mrs. Meadows.
‘Ay—Arthur, come and make the most of yourself, my man,’ said he, thumping the shy boy on the back to give him courage. ‘I’ve brought him home for his schooling—quite time, you see, though what on earth I’m to do without him—’
The boy looked miserable at the words. ‘Ay, ay,’ continued his father, ‘you’ll do well enough. I’m not afraid for you, master, but that you’ll be happy as your father was before you, when once you have fellows to play with you. Here is Mr. Kendal will tell you so.’
It was an unfortunate appeal, but Mr. Kendal made the best of it, saying that his boy was very happy at his tutor’s.
‘A private tutor, eh?’ said the rough captain, ‘I’d not thought of that—neither home nor school. I had rather do it thoroughly, and trust to numbers to choose friends from, and be licked into shape.’
Poor little Arthur looked as if the process would be severe; and by way of consolation, Mrs. Meadows suggested, a piece of cake. Maria moved to ring the bell. It was the first time she had stirred since the visitor came in, and he getting up at the same time, that she might not trouble herself, their eyes met. ‘I’m very glad to see you again,’ he exclaimed, catching hold of her hand for another shake; ‘but, bless me! you are sadly altered! I’m sorry to see you looking so ill.’
‘We all grow old, you know,’ said Maria, endeavouring to smile, but half strangled by a tear, and looking at that moment as she might have done long ago. ‘You find many changes.’
‘I hope you find Mr. Pringle pretty well,’ said Albinia, thinking this might be a relief, and accordingly, the kind-hearted captain began, ruefully to describe the sad alterations that time had wrought. Then he explained that he had had little correspondence with home, and had only landed three days since, so that he was ignorant of all Bayford tidings, and began asking after a multitude of old friends and acquaintance.
The Kendals thought all would go on the better in their absence, and escaped from the record of deaths and marriages, each observing to the other as they left the house, that there could be little doubt that nurse’s story was true, but both amazed by the effect on Maria, who had never been seen before to sit so long quiet in her chair. Was his wife alive? Albinia thought not, but could not be certain. His presence was evidently happiness to Miss Meadows, but would this last? Would this renewal soothe her, or only make her more restless and unhappy?
Albinia found that Sophy’s imagination bad been quicker than her own. Lucy had brought home the great news of the stranger, and she had leapt at once to the conclusion that it must be the hero of nurse’s story, but she had had the resolution to keep the secret from her sister, who was found reproaching her with making mysteries. When Lucy heard that it was Captain Pringle, she was quite provoked.
‘Only Mr. Pringle’s nephew?’ she said, disdainfully. ‘What was the use of making a fuss? I thought it was some one interesting!’
Sophy was able to walk to church in the evening, but was made to go in to rest at the vicarage before returning home. While this was being discussed before the porch, Albinia felt a pressure on her arm, and looking round, saw Maria Meadows.
‘Can you spare me a few moments?’ she said; and Albinia turned aside with her to the flagged terrace path between the churchyard and vicarage garden, in the light of a half-moon.
‘You were so kind this morning,’ began Maria, ‘that I thought—you see it is very awkward—not that I have any idea—but if you would speak to Edmund—I know he is not in the habit—morning visits and—’
‘Do you wish him to call? He had been thinking of it.’
Maria would have been unbounded in her gratitude, but catching herself up, she disclaimed all personal interest—only she said Edmund knew nothing of anything that had passed—if he did, he would see they would feel—
‘I think,’ said Albinia, kindly, ‘that we do know that you had some troubles on that score. Old nurse said something to Sophy, but no other creature knows it.’
‘Ah!’ exclaimed Maria, ‘that is what comes of trusting any one. I was so ill when I found out how it had been, that I could not keep it from nurse, but from mamma I did—my poor father being just gone and all—I could not have had her know how much I felt it—the discovery I mean—and it is what I wish her never to do. But oh! Mrs. Kendal, think what it was to find out that when I had been thinking he had been only trifling with me all those years, to find that he had been so unkindly treated. There was his own dear letter to me never unsealed; and there was another to my father saying in a proud-spirited way that he did not know what he had done to be so served, and he wished I might find happiness, for I would never find one that loved me as well. I who had turned against him in my heart!’
‘It was cruel indeed! And you kept it from your mother!’ said Albinia, beginning to honour her.
‘My poor father was just gone, you know, and I could not be grieving her with what was passed and over, and letting her know that my father had broken my heart, as indeed I think he did, though he meant it all for the best. But oh! I thought it hard when Lucy had married the handsomest man in the country, and gone out to India, without a word against it, that I might not please myself, because I was papa’s favourite.’
‘It was very hard not to be made aware of his intentions.’
‘Yea,’ said Maria; ‘for it gave me such a bitter, restless feeling against him—though I ought to have known him better than to think he would give one minute’s pain he could help; and then when I knew the truth, the bitterness all went to poor papa’s memory, and yet perhaps he never meant to be unkind either.’
Albinia said some kind words, and Maria went on:
‘But what I wanted to say was this—Please don’t let mamma suspect one bit about it; and next, if Edmund would not mind showing him a little attention. Do you think he would, my dear? I do so wish that he should not think we were hurt by his marriage, and you see, two lone women can do nothing to make it agreeable; besides that, it would not be proper.’
‘Is his wife living?’
‘My dear, I could not make up my tongue to ask—the poor dear boy there and all—but it is all the same. I hope she is, for I would not see him unhappy, and you don’t imagine I have any folly in my head—oh, no! for I know what a fright the fret and the wear of this have made me; and besides, I never could leave mamma. So I trust his wife is living to make him happy, and I shall be more at peace now I have seen him again, since he turned his horse at Bobble’s Leigh, and said I should soon hear from him again.’
‘Indeed I think you will be happier. There is something very soothing in taking up old feelings and laying them to rest. I hope even now there is less pain than pleasure.’
‘I can’t help it,’ said Maria. ‘I do hope it is not wrong; but his very voice has got the old tone in it, as if it were the old lullaby that my poor heart has been beating for all these years.’
Who would have thought of Maria speaking poetically? But her words did indeed seem to be the truth. In spite of the embarrassment of her situation and the flutter of her feelings, she was in a state of composure unexampled. Albinia had just gratified her greatly by a few words on Captain Pringle’s evident good-nature, when a tread came behind them.
‘Ha! you here?’ exclaimed the loud honest voice.
‘We were taking a turn in the moonlight,’ said Albinia. ‘A beautiful night.’
‘Beautiful! Arthur and I have been a bit of the way home with old Goldsmith. There’s an evergreen, to be sure; and now—are you bound homewards, Maria?’
Maria clung to Albinia’s arm. Perhaps in the days of the last parting, she had been less careful to be with a chaperon.
‘Ah! I forgot,’ said the captain; ‘your way lies the other side of the hill. I had very nearly walked into Willow Lawn this morning, only luckily I bethought me of asking.’
‘I hope you will yet walk into Willow Lawn,’ said Albinia.
‘Ah! thank you; I should like to see the old place. I dare say it may be transmogrified now, but I think I could find my way blindfold about the old garden. I say, Maria, do you remember that jolly tea-party on the lawn, when the frog made one too many?’
‘That I do—’ Maria could not utter more, and Albinia said she was afraid he would miss a great deal.
‘I reckoned on that when I came home. Changes everywhere; but after the one great change,’ he added, mournfully, ‘the others tell less. One has the less heart to care for an old tree or an old path.’
Albinia felt sure he could mean only one great change, but they were now at Mrs. Meadows’s door, and Maria wished them good night, giving a most grateful squeeze of the hand to Mrs. Kendal.
‘Where are you bound now?’ asked the captain.
‘Back to the vicarage, to take up my husband and the girls,’ said Albinia, ‘but good night. I am not afraid.’
The captain, however, chose to continue a squire of dames, and walked at her side, presently giving utterance to a sound of commiseration. ‘Ah! well, poor Maria, I never thought to see her so altered. Why, she had the prettiest bloom—I dare say you remember—but, I beg your pardon, somehow I thought you were her elder sister.’
‘Mr. Kendal’s first wife was,’ said Albinia, pitying the poor man; but Captain Pringle was not a man for awkwardness, and the short whistle with which he received her answer set her off laughing.
‘I beg your pardon,’ he said, recovering himself; ‘but you see I am all astray, like a man buried and dug up again, so no wonder I make strange blunders; and my poor uncle is grown so childish, that he does not know one person from another, and began by telling me Maria Meadows had married and gone out to India. I had not had a letter these seven years, so I thought it was high time to bring my boy home, and renew old times, though how I am ever to go back without him—’
‘Is he your only one?’
‘Yes. I lost his mother when he was six years old, and we have been all the world to each other since, till I began to think I was spoiling him outright, and it was time he should see what Old England was made of.’
Albinia had something like a discovery to impart now; but she hated the sense of speculating on the poor man’s intentions. He talked so much, that he saved her trouble in replying, and presently resumed the subject of Maria’s looks.
‘She has had a harassed life, I fear,’ said Albinia.
‘Eh! old Meadows was a terrible old tyrant, I believe; but she was his pet. I thought he refused her nothing—but there’s no trusting such a Turk! Oh! ah! I dare say,’ as if replying to something within. And then having come to the vicarage wicket, Albinia took leave of him and ran indoors, answering the astonished queries as to how she had been employed, ‘Walking home with Aunt Maria and Captain Pringle!’
It was rather a relief at such a juncture that Lucy’s curious eyes should be removed. Mr. Ferrars came to talk his wife’s state over with his sister. Her children were too much for Winifred, and he wished to borrow Lucy for a few weeks, till a governess could be found for them.
It struck Albinia that this would be an excellent thing for Genevieve Durant, and she at once contrived to ask her to tea, and privately propound the plan.
Genevieve faltered much of thanks, and said that Madame was very good; but the next morning a note was brought in, which caused a sudden change of countenance:
‘My dear Madame,
‘I was so overwhelmed with your kindness last night, and so unwilling to appear ungrateful, that perhaps I left you under a false impression. I entreat you not to enter on the subject with my grandmamma or my aunt. They would grieve to prevent what they would think for my advantage, and would, I am but too sure, make any sacrifice on my account; but they are no longer young, and though my aunt does not perceive it, I know that the real work of the school depends on me, and that she could not support the fatigue if left unassisted. They need their little Genevieve, likewise, to amuse them in their evenings; and, forgive me, madame, I could not, without ingratitude, forsake them now. Thus, though with the utmost sense of your kindness, I must beg of you to pardon me, and not to think me ungrateful if I decline the situation so kindly offered to me by Mr. Ferrars, thanking you ten thousand times for your too partial recommendation, and entreating you to pardon
‘Your most grateful and humble servant,
‘GENEVIEVE CELESTE DURANT.’
‘There!’ said Albinia, tossing the note to her brother, who was the only person present excepting Gilbert.
‘Poor Albinia,’ he said, ‘it is hard to be disappointed in a bit of patronage.’
‘I never meant it as patronage,’ said Albinia, slightly hurt. ‘I thought it would help you, and rescue her from that school. There will she spend the best years of her life in giving a second-rate education to third-rate girls, not one of whose parents can appreciate her, till she will grow as wizened and as wooden as Mademoiselle herself.’
‘Happily,’ said Mr. Ferrars, ‘there are worse things than being spent in one’s duty. She may be doing an important work in her sphere.’
‘So does a horse in a mill,’ exclaimed Albinia; ‘but you would not put a hunter there. Yes, yes, I know, education, and these girls wanting right teaching; but she, poor child, has been but half educated herself, and has not time to improve herself. If she does good, it is by force of sheer goodness, for they all look down upon her, as much as vulgarity can upon refinement.’
‘I told her so,’, exclaimed Gilbert; ‘I told her it was the only way to teach them what she was worth.’
‘What did you know of the matter?’ asked Albinia; and the colour mounted in the boy’s face as he muttered, ‘She was overcome when she came down, she said you had been so kind, and we were obliged to walk up and down before she could compose herself, for she did not want the old ladies to know anything about it.’
‘And did she not wish to go?’
‘No, though I did the best I could. I told her what a jolly place it was, and that the children would be a perfect holiday to her. And I showed her it would not be like going away, for she might come over here whenever she pleased; and when I have my horse, I would come and bring her word of the old ladies once a week.’
‘Inducements, indeed!’ said Mr. Ferrars. ‘And she could not be incited by any of these?’
‘No,’ said Gilbert, ‘she would not hear of leaving the old women. She was only afraid it would vex Mrs. Kendal, and she could not bear not to take the advice of so kind a friend, she said. You are not going to be angry with her,’ he added.
‘No,’ said Albinia, ‘one cannot but honour her motives, though I think she is mistaken; and I am sorry for her; but she knows better than to be afraid of me.’
With which assurance Gilbert quitted the room, and the next moment, hearing the front door, she exclaimed, ‘I do believe he is gone to tell her how I took the announcement.’
Maurice gave a significant ‘Hem!’ to which his sister replied, ‘Nonsense!’
‘Very romantic consolations and confidences.’
‘Not at all. They have been used to each other all their lives, and he used to be the only person who knew how to behave to her, so no wonder they are great friends. As to anything else, she is nineteen, and he not sixteen.’
‘One great use of going to school is to save lads from that silly pastime. I advise you to look to these moonlight escortings!’
‘One would think you were an old dowager, Maurice. I suppose Colonel Bury may not escort Miss Mary.’
‘Ah, Albinia, you are a very naughty child still.’
‘Of course, when you are here to keep me in order, I wish I never were so at other times when it is not so safe.’
Mr. Kendal was kind and civil to Captain Pringle, and though the boisterous manner seemed to affect him like a thunderstorm, Maria imagined they were delighted with one another.
Maria was strangely serene and happy; her querulous, nervous manner smoothed away, as if rest had come to her at last; and even if the renewed intercourse were only to result in a friendship, there was hope that the troubled spirit had found repose now that misunderstandings were over, and the sore sense of ill-usage appeased.
