It may be conceived how pleasant it was to the clever woman of the family to hear her mother declaiming on the arts by which she had been duped by this adventurer, appealing continually to Grace and Fanny, and sometimes to herself, and all before Mr. Grey, on whose old-world prejudices she had bestowed much more antagonism than he had thought it worth while to bestow on her new lights. Yet, at the moment, this operation of being written down an ass, was less acutely painful to her than the perception that was simultaneously growing on her of the miserable condition of poor little Lovedy, whose burning hand she held, and whose gasping breath she heard, as the child rested feebly in the chair in which she had been placed. Rachel had nothing vindictive or selfish in her mood, and her longing was, above all, to get away, and minister to the poor child's present sufferings; but she found herself hemmed in, and pinned down by the investigation pushed on by her mother, involving answers and explanations that she alone could make.
Mr. Grey rubbed his forehead, and looked freshly annoyed at each revelation of the state of things. It had not been Mauleverer, but Rachel, who had asked subscriptions for the education of the children, he had but acted as her servant, the counterfeit of the woodcuts, which Lady Temple suggested, could not be construed into an offence; and it looked very much as if, thanks to his cleverness, and Rachel's incaution, there was really no case to be made out against him, as if the fox had carried off the bait without even leaving his brush behind him. Sooth to say, the failure was a relief to Rachel, she had thrown so much of her will and entire self into the upholding him, that she could not yet detach herself or sympathize with those gentle souls, the mother and Fanny, in keenly hunting him down. Might he not have been as much deceived in Mrs. Rawlins as herself? At any rate she hoped for time to face the subject, and kneeling on the ground so as to support little Lovedy's sinking head on her shoulder, made the briefest replies in her power when referred to. At last, Grace recollected the morning's affair of Mrs. Rossitur's bills. Mr. Grey looked as if he saw daylight, Grace volunteered to fetch both the account-book and Mrs. Rossitur, and Rachel found the statement being extracted from her of the monthly production of the bills, with the entries in the book, and of her having given the money for their payment. Mr. Grey began to write, and she perceived that he was taking down her deposition. She beckoned Mary to support her poor little companion, and rising to her feet, said, to the horror and consternation of her mother, "Mr. Grey, pray let me speak to you!"
He rose at once, and followed her to the hall, where he looked prepared to be kind but firm.
"Must this be done to-day?" she said.
"Why not?" he answered.
"I want time to think about it. The woman has acted like a fiend, and I have not a word to say for her; but I cannot feel that it is fair, after such long and entire trust of this man, to turn on him suddenly without notice."
"Do you mean that you will not prosecute?" said Mr. Grey, with a dozen notes of interjection in his voice.
"I have not said so. I want time to make up my mind, and to hear what he has to say for himself."
"You will hear that at the Bench on Wednesday."
"It will not be the same thing."
"I should hope not!"
"You see," said Rachel, perplexed and grievously wanting time to rally her forces, "I cannot but feel that I have trusted too easily, and perhaps been to blame myself for my implicit confidence, and after that it revolts me to throw the whole blame on another."
"If you have been a simpleton, does that make him an honest man?" said Mr. Grey, impatiently.
"No," said Rachel, "but--"
"What?"
"My credulity may have caused his dishonesty," she said, bringing, at last, the words to serve the idea.
"Look you here, Rachel," said Mr. Grey, constraining himself to argue patiently with his old friend's daughter; "it does not simply lie between you and him--a silly girl who has let herself be taken in by a sharper. That would be no more than giving a sixpence to a fellow that tells me he lost his arm at Sebastopol when he has got it sewn up in a bag. But you have been getting subscriptions from all the world, making yourself answerable to them for having these children educated, and then, for want of proper superintendence, or the merest rational precaution, leaving them to this barbarous usage. I don't want to be hard upon you, but you are accountable for all this; you have made yourself so, and unless you wish to be regarded as a sharer in the iniquity, the least you can do by way of compensation, is not to make yourself an obstruction to the course of justice."
"I don't much care how I am regarded," said Rachel, with subdued tone and sunken head; "I only want to do right, and not act spitefully and vindictively before he has had warning to defend himself."
"Or to set off to delude as many equal foo--mistaken people as he can find elsewhere! Eh, Rachel? Don't you see, it this friend of yours be innocent, a summons will not hurt him, it will only give him the opportunity of clearing himself."
"Yes, I see," owned Rachel, and overpowered, though far from satisfied, she allowed herself to be brought back, and did what was required of her, to the intense relief of her mother. During her three minute conference no one in the study had ventured on speaking or stirring, and Mrs. Curtis would not thank her biographer for recording the wild alarms that careered through her brain, as to the object of her daughter's tete-a-tete with the magistrate.
It was over at last, and the hall of justice broke up. Mary Morris was at once in her mother's arms, and in a few minutes more making up for all past privations by a substantial meal in the kitchen. But Mrs. Kelland had gone to Avoncester to purchase thread, and only her daughter Susan had come up, the girl who was supposed to be a sort of spider, with no capacities beyond her web. Nor did Rachel think Lovedy capable of walking down to Mackarel Lane, nor well enough for the comfortless chairs and the third part of a bed. No, Mr. Grey's words that Rachel was accountable for the children's sufferings had gone to her heart. Pity was there and indignation, but these had brought such an anguish of self-accusation as she could only appease by lavishing personal care upon the chief sufferer. She carried the child to her own sitting-room and made a couch for her before the fire, sending Susan away with the assurance that Lovedy should stay at the Homestead, and be nursed and fed till she was well and strong again. Fanny, who had accompanied her, thought the child very ill, and was urgent that the doctor should be sent for; but between Rachel and the faculty of Avonmouth there was a deadly feud, and the proposal was scouted. Hunger and a bad cold were easily treated, and maybe there was a spark of consolation in having a patient all to herself and her homoeopathic book.
So Fanny and her two boys walked down the hill together in the dark. Colonel Keith and Alison Williams had already taken the same road, anxiously discussing the future. Alison asked why Colin had not given Mauleverer's alias. "I had no proof," he said. "You were sure of the woman, but so far it is only guess work with him; though each time Rose spoke of seeing Maddox coincided with one of Mauleverer's visits. Besides, Alison, on the back of that etching in Rose's book is written, Mrs. Williams, from her humble and obliged servant, R. Maddox.'"
"And you said nothing about it?"
"No, I wished to make myself secure, and to see my way before speaking out."
"What shall you do? Can you trust to Rose's identifying him?"
"I shall ride in to-morrow to see what is going on, and judge if it will be well to let her see this man, if he have not gone off, as I should fear was only too likely. Poor little Lady Temple, her exploit has precipitated matters."
"And you will let every one, Dr. Long and all, know what a wretch they have believed. And then--"
"Stay, Alison, I am afraid they will not take Maddox's subsequent guilt as a proof of Edward's innocence."
"It is a proof that his stories were not worth credit."
"To you and me it is, who do not need such proof. It is possible that among his papers something may be found that may implicate him and clear Edward
, but we can only hold off and watch. And I greatly fear both man and woman will have slipped through our fingers, especially if she knew you."
"Poor Maria, who could have thought of such frightful barbarity?" sighed Alison. "I knew she was a passionate girl, but this is worse than one can bear to believe."
She ceased, for she had been inexpressibly shocked, and her heart still yearned towards every Beauchamp school child.
"I suppose we must tell Ermine," she added; "indeed, I know I could not help it."
"Nor I," he said, smiling, "though there is only too much fear that nothing will come of it but disappointment. At least, she will tell us how to meet that."
CHAPTER XIX. THE BREWST SHE BREWED.
"Unwisely, not ignobly, have I given." Timon of Athens.
Under the circumstances of the Curtis family, no greater penance could have been devised than the solemn dinner party which had to take place only an hour after the investigation was closed. Grace in especial was nearly distracted between her desire to calm her mother and to comfort her sister, and the necessity of attending to the Grey family, who repaid themselves for their absence from the scene of action by a torrent of condolences and questions, whence poor Grace gathered to her horror and consternation that the neighbourhood already believed that a tenderer sentiment than philanthropy had begun to mingle in Rachel's relations with the secretary of the F. U. E. E. Feeling it incumbent on the whole family to be as lively and indifferent as possible, Grace, having shut her friends into their rooms to perform their toilette, hurried to her sister, to find her so entirely engrossed with her patient as absolutely to have forgotten the dinner party. No wonder! She had had to hunt up a housemaid to make up a bed for Lovedy in a little room within her own, and the undressing and bathing of the poor child had revealed injuries even in a more painful state than those which had been shown to Mr. Grey, shocking emaciation, and most scanty garments. The child was almost torpid, and spoke very little. She was most unwilling to attempt to swallow; however, Rachel thought that some of her globules had gone down, and put much faith in them, and in warmth and sleep; but incessantly occupied, and absolutely sickened by the sight of the child's hurts, she looked up with loathing at Grace's entreaty that she would, dress for the dinner.
"Impossible," she said.
"You must, Rachel dear; indeed, you must."
"As if I could leave her."
"Nay, Rachel, but if you would only send--"
"Nonsense, Grace; if I can stay with her I can restore her far better than could an allopathist, who would not leave nature to herself. 0 Grace, why can't you leave me in peace? Is it not bad enough without this?"
"Dear Rachel, I am very sorry; but if you did not come down to dinner, think of the talk it would make."
"Let them talk."
"Ah, Rachel, but the mother! Think how dreadful the day's work has been to her; and how can she ever get through the evening if she is in a fright at your not coming down?"
"Dinner parties are one of the most barbarous institutions of past stupidity," said Rachel, and Grace was reassured. She hovered over Rachel while Rachel hovered over the sick child, and between her own exertions and those of two maids, had put her sister into an evening dress by the time the first carriage arrived. She then rushed to her own room, made her own toilette, and returned to find Rachel in conference with Mrs. Kelland, who had come home at last, and was to sit with her niece during the dinner. Perhaps it was as well for all parties that this first interview was cut very short, but Rachel's burning cheeks did not promise much for the impression of ease and indifference she was to make, as Grace's whispered reminders of "the mother's" distress dragged her down stairs among the all too curious glances of the assembled party.
All had been bustle. Not one moment for recollection had yet been Rachel's. Mr. Grey's words, "Accountable for all," throbbed in her ears and echoed in her brain--the purple bruises, the red stripes, verging upon sores, were before her eyes, and the lights, the flowers, the people and their greetings, were like a dizzy mist. The space before dinner was happily but brief, and then, as last lady, she came in as a supernumerary on the other arm of Grace's cavalier, and taking the only vacant chair, found herself between a squire and Captain Keith, who had duly been bestowed on Emily Grey.
Here there was a moment's interval of quiet, for the squire was slightly deaf, and, moreover, regarded her as a little pert girl, not to be encouraged, while Captain Keith was resigned to the implied homage of the adorer of his cross; so that, though the buzz of talk and the clatter of knives and forks roared louder than it had ever seemed to do since she had been a child, listening from the outside, the immediate sense of hurry and confusion, and the impossibility of seeing or hearing anything plainly, began to diminish. She could not think, but she began to wonder whether any one knew what had happened; and, above all, she perfectly dreaded the quiet sting of her neighbour's word and eye, in this consummation of his victory. If he glanced at her, she knew she could not bear it; and if he never spoke to her at all, it would be marked reprehension, which would be far better than sarcasm. He was evidently conscious of her presence; for when, in her insatiable thirst, she had drained her own supply of water, she found the little bottle quietly exchanged for that before him. It was far on in the dinner before Emily's attention was claimed by the gentleman on her other hand, and then there was a space of silence before Captain Keith almost made Rachel start, by saying--
"This has come about far more painfully than could have been expected."
"I thought you would have triumphed," she said.
"No, indeed. I feel accountable for the introduction that my sister brought upon you."
"It was no fault of hers," said Rachel, sadly.
"I wish I could feel it so."
"That was a mere chance. The rest was my own doing."
"Aided and abetted by more than one looker-on."
"No. It is I who am accountable," she said, repeating Mr. Grey's words.
"You accept the whole?"
It was his usual, cool, dry tone; but as she replied, "I must," she involuntarily looked up, with a glance of entreaty to be spared, and she met those dark, grey, heavy-lidded eyes fixed on her with so much concern as almost to unnerve her.
"You cannot," he answered; "every bystander must rue the apathy that let you be so cruelly deceived, for want of exertion on their part."
"Nay," she said; "you tried to open my eyes. I think this would have come worse, but for this morning's stroke."
"Thank you," he said, earnestly.
"I daresay you know more than I have been able to understand," she presently added; "it is like being in the middle of an explosion, without knowing what stands or falls."
"And lobster salad as an aggravation!" said he, as the dish successively persecuted them. "This dinner is hard on you."
"Very; but my mother would have been unhappy if I had stayed away. It is the leaving the poor child that grieves me. She is in a fearful state, between sore throat, starvation, and blows."
The picture of the effect of the blows coming before Rachel at that moment, perilled her ability even to sit through the dinner; but her companion saw the suddening whitening of her cheek, and by a dexterous signal at once caused her glass to be filled. Habit was framing her lips to say something about never drinking wine; but somehow she felt a certain compulsion in his look, and her compliance restored her. She returned to the subject, saying, "But it was only the woman that was cruel."
"She had not her Sepoy face for nothing."
"Did I hear that Miss Williams knew her?"
"Yes, it seems she was a maid who had once been very cruel to little Rose Williams. The Colonel seems to think the discovery may have important consequences. I hardly know how."
This conversation sent Rachel out of the dining-room more like herself than she had entered it; but she ran upstairs at once to Lovedy, and remained with her till disinterred by the desperate Grace, who could not see three people talkin
g together without blushing with indignation at the construction they were certainly putting on her sister's scarlet cheeks and absence from the drawing- room. With all Grace's efforts, however, she could not bring her truant back before the gentlemen had come in. Captain Keith had seen their entrance, and soon came up to Rachel.
"How is your patient?" he asked.
"She is very ill; and the worst of it is, that it seems such agony to her to attempt to swallow."
"Have you had advice for her?"
"No; I have often treated colds, and I thought this a case, aggravated by that wicked treatment."
"Have you looked into her mouth?"
"Yes; the skin is frightfully brown and dry."
He leant towards her, and asked, in an under tone--
"Did you ever see diphtheria"
"No!"--her brow contracting--"did you?"
"Yes; we had it through all the children of the regiment at Woolwich."
"You think this is it?"
He asked a few more questions, and his impression was evidently confirmed.
"I must send for Mr. Frampton," said Rachel, homeopathy succumbing to her terror; but then, with a despairing glance, she beheld all the male part of the establishment handing tea.
"Where does he live? I'll send him up."
"Thank you, oh! thank you. The house with the rails, under the east cliff."
He was gone, and Rachel endured the reeling of the lights, and the surges of talk, and the musical performances that seemed to burst the drum of her ear; and, after all, people went away, saying to each other that there was something very much amiss, and that poor dear Mrs. Curtis was very much to blame for not having controlled her daughters.
They departed at last, and Grace, without uttering the terrible word, was explaining to the worn-out mother that little Lovedy was more unwell, and that Captain Keith had kindly offered to fetch the doctor, when the Captain himself returned.
"I am sorry to say that Mr. Frampton is out, not likely to be at home till morning, and his partner is with a bad accident at Avonford. The best plan will be for me to ride back to Avoncester, and send out Macvicar, our doctor. He is a kind-hearted man, of much experience in this kind of thing."
The Clever Woman of the Family Page 33
