It was so great a relief that Mr. Clare could hardly bring himself to
accept the sacrifice of the honeymoon, and though there could be little
doubt which way the discussion would end, he had not yielded when the
ponies bore off Rachel on Monday morning.
Timber End was certainly a delightful place. Alick had railed it a
cockney villa, but it was in good taste, and very fair and sweet with
flowers and shade. Bessie's own rooms, where she made Rachel charmingly
at home, were wonderful in choiceness and elegance, exciting Rachel's
surprise how it could be possible to be so sumptuously lodged in such
a temporary abode, for the house was only hired for a few months, while
Gowanbrae was under repair. It was within such easy reach of London that
Bessie had been able from thence to go through the more needful season
gaieties; and she had thought it wise, both for herself and Lord Keith,
not to enter on their full course. It sounded very moderate and prudent,
and Rachel felt vexed with herself and Alick for recollecting a certain
hint of his, that Lady Keith felt herself more of a star in her own old
neighbourhood than she could be in London, and wisely abstained from a
full flight till she had tried her wings. It was much pleasanter to go
along with Bessie's many far better and more affectionate reasons for
prudence, and her minutely personal confidences about her habits,
hopes, and fears, given with a strong sense of her own importance and
consideration, yet with a warm sisterly tone that made them tokens of
adoption, and with an arch drollery that invested them with a sort of
grace. The number of engagements that she mentioned in town and country
did indeed seem inconsistent with the prudence she spoke of with regard
to her own health, or with her attention to that of her husband; but it
appeared that all were quite necessary and according to his wishes,
and the London ones were usually for the sake of trying to detach his
daughter, Mrs. Comyn Menteith, from the extravagant set among whom she
had fallen. Bessie was excessively diverting in her accounts of
her relations with this scatter-brained step-daughter of hers, and
altogether showed in the most flattering manner how much more thoroughly
she felt herself belonging to her brother's wife. If she had ever been
amazed or annoyed at Alick's choice, she had long ago surmounted the
feeling, or put it out of sight, and she judiciously managed to leap
over all that had passed since the beginning of the intimacy that had
arisen at the station door at Avoncester. It was very flattering, and
would have been perfectly delightful, if Rachel had not found herself
wearying for Alick, and wondering whether at the end of seven months she
should be as contented as Bessie seemed, to know her husband to be in
the sitting-room without one sight of him.