The Long VacationYonge, Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary)
History
The Long Vacation
Yonge, Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary)
Upper class -- England -- History -- 19th century -- Fiction; Vacations -- Fiction
They began to know what love and kindness meant. Kind uncles and aunts
gathered round them. Their mother seemed to be able to live when her
twin-sister hung over her, and as soon as she could be moved, the whole
party left the gloom of Ironbeam for Vale Leston, where a house was
arranged for them. Lady Vanderkist continued a chronic invalid, watched
over by her sister Wilmet and her excellent young daughter Mary. Robina,
who had only one girl, and had not forgotten her training as a teacher,
undertook, with the assistance of Sophia, the second daughter, the
education of the little ones; and the third and fourth, Emilia and Anna,
were adopted into the childless homes of Mrs. Travis Underwood and Mrs.
Grinstead, and lived there as daughters. Business cares of the most
perplexing kind fell, however, on Clement Underwood’s devoted and
unaccustomed head, and in the midst arrived a telegram from Charles
Audley, summoning him instantly to Munich.
Angela was in danger of fulfilling her childish design of marrying a
Duke, or at least a Graf. Diplomates could not choose their society, and
she had utterly disdained all restraints from “the babies,” as she chose
to call Mr. and Mrs. Audley, and thus the wunderschones madchen had
fascinated the Count, an unbelieving Roman Catholic of evil repute, and
had derided their remonstrances.
Clement hurried off, but to find the bird flown. She had come down in
the morning, white and tear-stained, and had told Stella that she could
stay no longer, kissed her, and was gone out of the house before even
Charles could be called. Stella’s anxiety, almost despair, had however
been relieved just before her brother’s arrival by an electric message
from Vale Leston with the words, “Angela safe at home.”
Letters followed, and told how Robina had found her sobbing upon her
brother Felix’s grave. Her explanation was, that on the very night
before her proposed betrothal, she had dreamt that she was drifting
down the Ewe in the little boat Miss Ullin, and saw Felix under the
willow-tree holding out his bared arms to her. She said, “Is that the
scar of the scald?” and his only answer was the call “Angela! Angela!”
and with the voice still sounding in her ears, she awoke, and determined
instantly to obey the call, coming to her, as she felt, from another
world. If it were only from her own conscience, still it was a cause
of great thankfulness to her family, and she soon made herself very
valuable at Vale Leston in a course of epidemics which ran through the
village, and were in some cases very severe. The doctors declared that
two of the little Vanderkists owed their lives to her unremitting care.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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