It must be confessed that Albinia was very much the creature of health. Never having been ill before, the depression had been so new that it broke her completely down; convalescence made her fractious.
Recovery, however, filled her with such an ecstasy of animal spirits that her time seemed to be entirely passed in happiness or in sleep, and cares appeared to have lost all power. It was so sudden a change that Winifred was startled, though it was a very pleasant one, and she did not reflect that this was as far from the calm, self-restrained, meditative tranquillity enjoined by Maurice, as had been the previous restless, querulous state. Both were body more than mind, but Mrs. Ferrars was much more ready to be merry with Albinia than to moralize about her. And it was droll that the penny club was one of the first stages in her revival.
Oh, mamma, cried Lucy, flying in, Mr. Dusautoy is at the door. There is such a to do. All the women have been getting gin with their penny club tickets, and Mrs. Brock has been stealing the money, and Mr. Dusautoy wants to know if you paid up three-and-fourpence for the Hancock children.
Albinia instantly invited Mr. Dusautoy to explain in person, and he entered, hearty and pleasant as ever, but in great haste, for he had left his Fanny keeping the peace between five angry women, while he came out to collect evidence.
The Bayford clothing-club payments were collected by Mrs. Brock, the sextons wife, and distributed by tickets to be produced at the various shops in the town. Mrs. Brock had detected some women exchanging their tickets for gin, and the offending parties retaliated by accusing her of embezzling the subscriptions, both parties launching into the usual amount of personalities and exaggerations.
Albinias testimony cleared Mrs. Brock as to the three-and-fourpence, but she snuffed the battle from afar, and rushed into a scheme of taking the clothing-club into her own hands, collecting the pence, having the goods from London, and selling them herselfshe would propose it on the very first opportunity to the Dusautoys. Winifred asked if she had not a good deal on her hands already.
My dear, I have the work in me of a young giant.
And will Mr. Kendal like it?
He would never find it out unless I told him, and very possibly not then. Six months hence, perhaps, he may tell me he is glad that Lucy is inclined to useful pursuits, and that is approval, Winifred, much more than if I went and worried him about every little petty womans matter.
Every one to her taste, thought Winifred, who had begun to regard Mr. and Mrs. Kendal in the same relation as the king and queen at chess.
The day before the christening, Mr. Ferrars brought back Gilbert and his own little Willie.
Through all the interchange of greetings, Gilbert would hardly let go Albinias hand, and the moment her attention was free, he earnestly whispered, May I see my brother?
She took him upstairs at once. Let me look a little while, he said, hanging over the child with a sort of hungry fondness and curiosity. My brother! my brother! he repeated. It has rung in my ears every morning that I can say my brother once more, till I have feared it was a dream.
It was the sympathy Albinia cared for, come back again! I hope he will be a good brother to you, she said.
He must be good! he cant help it! He has you! said Gilbert. See, he is opening his eyesoh! how blue! May I touch him?
To be sure you may. He is not sugar, said Albinia, laughing. Theremake an arm; you may have him if you like. Your left arm, you awkward man. Yes, that is right. You will do quite as well as I, who never touched a baby till Willie was born. There, sir, how do you like your brother Gilbert?
Gilbert held him reverently, and gave him back with a sigh when he seemed to have satiated his gaze and touch, and convinced himself that his new possession was substantial. I say, he added wistfully, did you think that name would bring ill-luck?
She knew the name he meant, and answered, No, but your father could not have borne it. Besides, Gibbie, we would not think him instead of Edmund. No, he shall learn, to look up to his other brother as you do, and look to meeting and knowing him some day.
Gilbert shivered at this, and made no opposition to her carrying him downstairs to his uncle, and then Gilbert hurried off for the basket of snowdrops that he had gathered early, from a favourite spot at Fairmead. That short absence seemed to have added double force to his affection; he could hardly bear to be away from her, and every moment when he could gain her ear, poured histories of the delights of Fairmead, where Mr. Ferrars had devoted himself to his amusement, and had made him happier than perhaps he had ever been in his lifehe had had a taste of shooting, of skating, of snowballinghe had been useful and important in the village feasts, had dined twice at Colonel Burys, and felt himself many degrees nearer manhood.
To hear of her old haunts and friends from such enthusiastic lips, delighted Albinia, and her felicity with her baby, with Mr. Kendal, with her brother and his little son, was one of the brightest things in all the worldthe fresh young loving bloom of her matronhood was even sweeter and more beautiful than her girlish days.
Poor little frail, blighted Mrs. Dusautoy! Winifred could not help wondering if the contrast pained her, when in all the glory of her motherly thankfulness, Albinia carried her beautiful newly-christened Maurice Ferrars Kendal to the vicarage to show him off, lying so open-chested and dignified, in Genevieves pretty work, with a sort of manly serenity already dawning on his baby brow.
Winifred need not have pitied the little lady. She would not have changed with Mrs. Kendalno, not for that perfect health, usefulness, valuenor even for such a baby as that. No, indeed! She lovedshe rejoiced in all her friends sweet and precious giftsbut Mrs. Dusautoy had one gift that she prized above all.
Even grandmamma and Aunt Maria did justice to Master Maurices attractions, at least in public, though it came round that Miss Meadows did not admire fat children, and when he had once been seen in Lucys arms, an alarm arose that Mrs. Kendal would allow the girls to carry him about, till his weight made them crooked, but Albinia was too joyous to take their displeasure to heart, and it only served her for something to laugh at.
They had a very happy christening party, chiefly juvenile, in honour of little Willie and of Francis and Emily Nugent. Albinia was so radiantly lively and good-natured, and her assistants, Winifred, Maurice, and Mr. Dusautoy, so kind, so droll, so inventive, that even Aunt Maria forgot herself in enjoyment and novelty, and was like a different person. Mr. Kendal looked at her with a pleased sad wonder, and told his wife it reminded him of what she had been when she was nearly the prettiest girl at Bayford. Gilbert devoted himself as usual to making Genevieve feel welcome; and she had likewise Willie Ferrars and Francis Nugent at her feet. Neither urchin would sit two inches away from her all the evening, and in all games she was obliged to obviate jealousies by being partner to both at once. Where there was no one to oppress her, she came out with all her natural grace and vivacity, and people of a larger growth than her little admirers were charmed with her.
Lucy was obliging, ready, and useful, and looked very pretty, the only blot was the heavy dulness of poor Sophy, who seemed resolved to take pleasure in nothing. Winifred varied in opinion whether her moodiness arose from ill-health, or from jealousy of her little brother. This latter Albinia would not believe, especially as she saw that little Maurices blue eyes were magnets that held the silent Sophy fast, but surly denials silenced her interrogations as to illness, and made her content to acquiesce in Lucys explanation that Sophy was only cross because the Osborns and Drurys were not asked.