"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.
Rachel held up her hands in despair in the hall. "Six officers' cards!" she exclaimed.
"No, only six cards," said Grace; "there are two of each."
"That's enough," sighed Rachel; "and look there," gazing through the garden-door. "She is walking with the young puppy that dined here on Thursday, and they called Alick."
"Do you remember," said Grace, "how she used to chatter about Alick, when she first came to us, at six years old. He was the child of one of the officers. Can this be the same?"
"That's one of your ideas, Grace. Look, this youth could have been hardly born when Fanny came to us. No; he is only one of the idlers that military life has accustomed her to."
Rather against Grace's feeling, Rachel drew her on, so as to come up with Lady Temple and her friend in the midst of their conversation, and they heard the last words--
"Then you will give me dear Bessie's direction?"
"Thank you, it will be the greatest kindness--"
"Oh, Grace, Rachel, is it you?" exclaimed Fanny. "You have not met before, I think. Mr. Keith--Miss Curtis."
Very young indeed were both face and figure, fair and pale, and though there was a moustache, it was so light and silky as to be scarcely visible; the hair, too, was almost flaxen, and the whole complexion had a washed-out appearance. The eyes, indeed, were of the same peculiar deep blue as the Colonel's, but even these were little seen under their heavy sleepy lids, and the long limbs had in every movement something of weight and slowness, the very sight of which fretted Rachel, and made her long to shake him. It appeared that he was come to spend the Sunday at Avonmouth, and Grace tried to extract the comfort for her mother that two gentlemen were better than one, and Fanny need not be on their minds for chaperonage for that day.
A party of garden-chairs on the lawn invited repose, and there the ladies seated themselves; Fanny laying down her heavy crape bonnet, and showing her pretty little delicate face, now much fresher and more roseate than when she arrived, though her wide-spreading black draperies gave a certain dignity to her slight figure, contrasting with the summer muslins of her two cousins; as did her hot-house plant fairness, with their firm, healthy glow of complexion; her tender shrinking grace, with their upright vigour. The gentleman of the party leant hack in a languid, easy posture, as though only half awake, and the whole was so quiet that Grace, missing the usual tumult of children, asked after them.
"The boys have gone to their favourite cove under the plantation. They have a fort there, and Hubert told me he was to be a hero, and Miss Williams a she-ro."
"I would not encourage that description of sport," said Rachel, willing to fight a battle in order to avert maternal anecdotes of boyish sayings.
"They like it so much," said Fanny, "and they learn so much now that they act all the battles they read about."
"That is what I object to," said Rachel; "it is accustoming them to confound heroism with pugnacity."
"No, but Rachel dear, they do quarrel and fight among themselves much less now that this is all in play and good humour," pleaded Fanny.
"Yes, that may be, but you are cultivating the dangerous instinct, although for a moment giving it a better direction."
"Dangerous? Oh, Alick! do you think it can be?" said Fanny, less easily borne down with a supporter beside her.
"According to the Peace Society," he answered, with a quiet air of courteous deference; "perhaps you belong to it?"
"No, indeed," answered Rachel, rather indignantly, "I think war the great purifier and ennobler of nations, when it is for a good and great cause; but I think education ought to protest against confounding mere love of combat with heroism."
"Query, the true meaning of the word?" he said, leaning back.
"Heros, yes from the same root as the German herr," readily responded Rachel, "meaning no more than lord and master; but there can be no doubt that the progress of ideas has linked with it a much nobler association."
"Progress! What, since the heroes were half divine!"
"Half divine in the esteem of a people who thought brute courage godlike. To us the word maintains its semi-divinity, and it should be our effort to associate it only with that which veritably has the god-like stamp."
"And that is--?"
"Doing more than one's duty," exclaimed Rachel, with a glistening eye.
"Very uncomfortable and superfluous, and not at all easy," he said, half shutting his already heavy eyes.
"Easy, no, that's the beauty and the glory--"
"Major Sherborne and Captain Lester in the drawing room, my lady," announced Coombe, who had looked infinitely cheered since this military influx.
"You will come with me, Grace," said Fanny, rising. "I dare say you had rather not, Rachel, and it would be a pity to disturb you, Alick."
"Thank you; it would be decidedly more than my duty."
"I am quite sorry to go, you are so amusing," said Fanny, "but I suppose you will have settled about heroism by the time we come out again, and will tell me what the boys ought to play at."