“The counterfeit presentment.”—Hamlet.
Christmas came, and Rachel agreed with Mr. Mauleverer that it was better
not to unsettle the children at the F. U. E. E. by permitting them to
come home for holidays, a decision which produced much discontent in
their respective families. Alison, going to Mrs. Morris with her pupils,
to take her a share of Christmas good cheer, was made the receptacle of
a great lamentation over the child’s absence; and, moreover, that the
mother had not been allowed to see her alone, when taken by Miss Rachel
to the F. U. E. E.
“Some one ought to take it up,” said Alison, as she came home, in her
indignation. “Who knows what may be done to those poor children? Can’t
Mr. Mitchell do something?”
But Mr. Mitchell was not sufficiently at home to interfere. He was
indeed negotiating an exchange with Mr. Touchett, but until this was
effected he could hardly meddle in the matter, and he was besides
a reserved, prudent man, slow to commit himself, so that his own
impression of the asylum could not be extracted from him. Here, however,
Colonel Keith put himself forward. He had often been asked by Rachel
to visit the F. U. E. E., and he surprised and relieved Alison by
announcing his intention of going over to St. Norbert’s alone and
without notice, so as to satisfy himself as far as might be as to
the treatment of the inmates, and the genuineness of Mauleverer’s
pretensions. He had, however, to wait for weather that would not make
the adventure one of danger to him, and he regarded the cold and rain
with unusual impatience, until, near the end of January, he was able to
undertake his expedition.
After much knocking and ringing the door was opened to him by a rude,
slatternly, half-witted looking charwoman, or rather girl, who said
“Master was not in,” and nearly shut the door in his face. However, he
succeeded in sending in his card, backed by the mention of Lady Temple
and Miss Curtis; and this brought out Mrs. Rawlins, her white streamers
floating stiff behind her, full of curtsies and regrets at having to
refuse any friend of Miss Curtis, but Mr. Mauleverer’s orders were
precise and could not be infringed. He was gone to lecture at Bristol,
but if the gentleman would call at any hour he would fix to morrow or
next day, Mr. Mauleverer would be proud to wait on him.
When he came at the appointed time, all was in the normal state of the
institution. The two little girls in white pinafores sat upon their
bench with their books before them, and their matron presiding over
them; Mr. Mauleverer stood near, benignantly attentive to the children
and obligingly so to the visitor, volunteering information and answering
all questions. Colonel Keith tried to talk to the children, but when he
asked one of them whether she liked drawing better than lace-making
her lips quivered, and Mrs. Rawlins replied for her, that she was never
happy except with a pencil in her hand. “Show the gentleman, my dear,”
and out came a book of studios of cubes, globes, posts, etc., while Mr.
Mauleverer talked artistically of drawing from models. Next, he observed
on a certain suspicious blackness of little Mary’s eye, and asked her
what she had done to herself. But the child hung her head, and Mrs.
Rawlins answered for her, “Ah! Mary is ashamed to tell: but the
gentleman will think nothing of it, my dear. He knows that children will
be children, and I cannot bear to check them, the dears.”
More briefly Mr. Mauleverer explained that Mary had fallen while playing
on the stairs; and with this superficial inspection he must needs
content himself, though on making inquiry at the principal shops, he
convinced himself that neither Mr. Mauleverer nor the F. U. E. E. were
as well known at St. Norbert’s as at Avonmouth. He told Rachel of his
expedition, and his interest in her work gratified her, though she would
have preferred being his cicerone. She assured him that he must have
been very much pleased, especially with the matron.
“She is a handsome woman, and reminds me strongly of a face I saw in
India.”
“There are some classes of beauty and character that have a remarkable
sameness of feature,” began Rachel.
“Don’t push that theory, for your matron’s likeness was a very handsome
Sepoy havildar whom we took at Lucknow, a capital soldier before the
mutiny, and then an ineffable ruffian.”
“The mutiny was an infectious frenzy; so that you establish nothing
against that cast of countenance.”
Never, indeed, was there more occasion for perseverance in Rachel’s
championship. Hitherto Mrs. Kelland had been nailed to her pillow by the
exigencies of Lady Keith’s outfit, and she and her minions had toiled
unremittingly, without a thought beyond their bobbins, but as soon as
the postponed orders were in train, and the cash for the wedding veil
and flounces had been transmitted, the good woman treated herself and
her daughters to a holiday at St. Norbert’s, without intimating her
intention to her patronesses; and the consequence was a formal complaint
of her ungrateful and violent language to Mrs. Rawlins on being refused
admission to the asylum without authority from Mr. Mauleverer or Miss
Curtis.
Rachel, much displeased, went down charged with reproof and
representation, but failed to produce the desired effect upon the aunt.
“It was not right,” Mrs. Kelland reiterated, “that the poor lone orphan
should not see her that was as good as a mother, when she had no one
else to look to. They that kept her from her didn’t do it for no good
end.”
“But, Mrs. Kelland, rules are rules.”
“Don’t tell me of no rules, Miss Rachel, as would cut a poor child off
from her friends as her mother gave her to on her death-bed. ‘Sally,’
says she, ‘I know you will do a mother’s part by that poor little maid;’
and so I did till I was over persuaded to let her go to that there
place.”
“Indeed you have nothing to regret there, Mrs. Kelland; you know, that
with the kindest intentions, you could not make the child happy.”
“And why was that, ma’am, but because her mother was a poor creature
from town, that had never broke her to her work. I never had the trouble
with a girl of my own I had with her. ‘It’s all for your good, Lovedy,’
I says to her, and poor child, maybe she wishes herself back again.”
“I assure you, I always find the children well and happy, and it is very
unfair on the matron to be angry with her for being bound by rules, to
which she must submit, or she would transgress the regulations under
which we have laid her! It is not her choice to exclude you, but her
duty.”
“Please, ma’am, was it her duty to be coming out of the house in a
‘genta coloured silk dress, and a drab bonnet with a pink feather in
it?” said Mrs. Kelland, with a certain, air of simplicity, that provoked
Rachel to answer sharply—
“You don’t know what you are talking about, Mrs. Kelland.”
“Well, ma’am, it was a very decent woman as told me, an old lady of the
name of Drinkwater, as keeps a baker’s shop on the other side of the
way, and she never sees bread enough go in for a cat to make use of,
let alone three poor hungry children. She says all is not right there,
ma’am.”
“Oh, that must be mere gossip and spite at not having the custom. It
quite accounts for what she may say, and indeed you brought it all on
yourself by not having asked me for a note. You must restrain yourself.
What you may say to me is of no importance, but you must not go and
attack those who are doing the very best for your niece.”
Rachel made a dignified exit, but before she had gone many steps, she
was assailed by tearful Mrs. Morris: “Oh, Miss Rachel, if it would not
be displeasing to you, would you give me an order for my child to come
home. Ours is a poor place, but I would rather make any shift for us to
live than that she should be sent away to some place beyond sea.”
“Some place beyond sea!”
“Yes, ma’am. I beg your pardon, ma’am, but they do say that Mr.
Maw-and-liver is a kidnapper, ma’am, and that he gets them poor
children to send out to Botany Bay to be wives to the convicts as are
transported, Miss Rachel, if you’ll excuse it. They say there’s a whole
shipload of them at Plymouth, and I’d rather my poor Mary came to the
Union at home than to the like of that, Miss Rachel.”
This alarm, being less reasonable, was even more difficult to talk
down than Mrs. Kelland’s, and Rachel felt as if there wore a general
conspiracy to drive her distracted, when on going home she found the
drawing-room occupied by a pair of plump, paddy-looking old friends, who
had evidently talked her mother into a state of nervous alarm. On her
entrance, Mrs. Curtis begged the gentleman to tell dear Rachel what
he had been saying, but this he contrived to avoid, and only on his
departure was Rachel made aware that he and his wife had come, fraught
with tidings that she was fostering a Jesuit in disguise, that Mrs.
Rawlins was a lady abbess of a new order, Rachel herself in danger of
being entrapped, and the whole family likely to be entangled in the
mysterious meshes, which, as good Mrs. Curtis more than once repeated,
would be “such a dreadful thing for poor Fanny and the boys.”
Her daughters, by soothing and argument, allayed the alarm, though the
impression was not easily done away with, and they feared that it might
yet cost her a night’s rest. These attacks—absurd as they were—induced
Rachel to take measures for their confutation, by writing to Mr.
Mauleverer, that she thought it would be well to allow the pupils to pay
a short visit to their homes, so as to satisfy their friends.
She did not receive an immediate answer, and was beginning to feel vexed
and anxious, though not doubtful, when Mr. Mauleverer arrived, bringing
two beautiful little woodcuts, as illustrations for the “Journal of
Female Industry.” They were entitled “The free maids that weave their
thread with bones,” and one called “the Ideal,” represented a latticed
cottage window, with roses, honeysuckles, cat, beehives, and all
conventional rural delights, around a pretty maiden singing at her
lace-pillow; while the other yclept the “Real,” showed a den of
thin, wizened, half-starved girls, cramped over their cushions in
a lace-school. The design was Mr. Mauleverer’s, the execution the
children’s; and neatly mounted on cards, the performance did them great
credit, and there was great justice in Mr. Manleverer’s view that while
they were making such progress, it would be a great pity to interrupt
the preparation of the first number by sending the children home even
for a few hours. Rachel consented the more readily to the postponement
of the holiday, as she had now something to show in evidence of the
reality of their doings, and she laid hands upon the cuts, in spite of
Mr. Mauleverer’s unwillingness that such mere essays should be displayed
as specimens of the art of the F. U. E. E. When the twenty pounds which
she advanced should have been laid out in blocks, ink, and paper,
there was little doubt that the illustrations of the journal would be a
triumphant instance of female energy well directed.
Meantime she repaired to Ermine Williams to persuade her to write an
article upon the two pictures, a paper in the lively style in which
Rachel herself could not excel, pointing out the selfishness of wilfully
sentimental illusions. She found Ermine alone, but her usual fate
pursued her in the shape of, first, Lady Temple, then both Colonel and
Captain Keith, and little Rose, who all came in before she had had time
to do more than explain her intentions. Rose had had another fright, and
again the Colonel had been vainly trying to distinguish the bugbear of
her fancy, and she was clinging all the more closely to him because he
was the only person of her aquaintance who did not treat her alarms as
absolutely imaginary.
Rachel held her ground, well pleased to have so many spectators of this
triumphant specimen of the skill of her asylum, and Lady Temple gave
much admiration, declaring that no one ought to wear lace again without
being sure that no one was tortured in making it, and that when she
ordered her new black lace shawl of Mrs. Kelland, it should be on
condition that the poor girls were not kept so very hard at work.
“You will think me looking for another Sepoy likeness,” said the
Colonel, “but I am sure I have met this young lady or her twin sister
somewhere in my travels.”
“It is a satire on conventional pictures,” said Rachel.
“Now, I remember,” he continued. “It was when I was laid up with my
wound at a Dutch boer’s till I could get to Cape Town. My sole
reading was one number of the ‘Illustrated News,’ and I made too good
acquaintance with that lady’s head, to forget her easily.”
“Of course,” said Rachel, “it is a reminiscence of the painting there
represented.”
“What was the date?” asked Alick Keith.
The Colonel was able to give it with some precision.
“You are all against me,” said Rachel, “I see you are perfectly
determined that there shall be something wrong about every performance
of the F. U. E. E.”
“No, don’t say so,” began Fanny, with gentle argument, but Alick Keith
put in with a smile, “It is a satisfaction to Miss Curtis.”
“Athanasius against the world,” she answered.
“Athanasius should take care that his own foot is firm, his position
incontrovertible,” said Ermine.
“Well!”
“Then,” said Ermine, “will you allow these little pictures to be
examined into?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Look here,” and the Colonel lifted on the table a scrap-book that Rose
had been quietly opening on his knee, and which contained an etching of
a child playing with a dog, much resembling the style of the drawing.
“Who did that, my dear?” he asked.
“Mamma had it,” was Rose’s reply; “it was always in my old nursery
scrap-hook.”
“Every one knows,” said Rachel, “that a woodcut is often like an
etching, and an etching like a woodcut. I do not know what you are
driving at.”
“The little dogs and all,” muttered Alick, as Rachel glanced rather
indignantly at Rose and her book so attentively examined by the Colonel.
“I know,” repeated Rachel, “that there is a strong prejudice against Mr.
Mauleverer, and that it is entertained by many whom I should have hoped
to see above such weakness but when I brought these tangible productions
of his system, as evidence of his success, I did not expect to see them
received with a covert distrust, which I own I do not understand. I
perceive now why good works find so much difficulty in prospering.”
“I believe,” said Alick Keith, “that I am to have the honour of dining
at the Homestead on Monday?”
“Yes. The Greys spend the day with us, and it is Emily’s due to have a
good sight of you.”
“Then will you let me in the meantime take my own measures with regard
to these designs. I will not hurt or injure them in any way; they shall
be deposited here in Miss William’s hands, and I promise you that if I
have been able to satisfy myself as to the means of their production,
Simon Skinflint shall become a subscriber to the F. U. E. E. Is it a
bargain?”
“I never made such a bargain,” said Rachel, puzzled.
“Is that a reason for not doing so?”
“I don’t know what you mean to do. Not to molest that poor Mrs. Rawlins.
I will not have that done.”
“Certainly not. All I ask of you is that these works of art should
remain here with Miss Williams, as a safe neutral, and that you should
meet me here on Monday, when I will undertake to convince myself.”
“Not me?” cried Rachel.
“Who would make it part of his terms to convince a lady?”
“You mean to say,” exclaimed Rachel, considerably nettled, “that as a
woman, I am incapable of being rationally convinced!”
“The proverb does not only apply to women,” said Ermine, coming to her
rescue; but Rachel, stung by the arch smile and slight bow of Captain
Keith, continued—“Let the proof be convincing, and I will meet it as
candidly as it is the duty of all reasonable beings to do. Only let me
first know what you mean to prove.”
“The terms are these then, are they not, Miss Williams? I am to come
on Monday, February the 5th, prepared to test whether these designs are
what they profess to be, and Miss Curtis undertakes to be convinced by
that proof, provided it be one that should carry conviction to a clear,
unbiassed mind. I undertake, on the other hand, that if the said proof
should be effectual, a mythical personage called Simon Skinflint shall
become a supporter of the Female Union for Englishwomen’s Employment.”
Ho spoke with his own peculiar slowness and gravity, and Rachel,
uncertain whether he were making game of her or not, looked perplexed,
half on the defence, half gratified. The others were greatly amused, and
a great deal surprised at Alick’s unwonted willingness to take trouble
in the matter. After a few moment’s deliberation, Rachel said, “Well, I
consent, provided that my candour be met by equal candour on the other
side, and you will promise that if this ordeal succeeds, you will lay
aside all prejudice against Mauleverer.”
A little demur as to the reasonableness of this stipulation followed,
but the terms finally were established. Mr. and Mrs. Grey, old family
friends, had long been engaged to spend the ensuing Monday at the
Homestead. The elder daughter, an old intimate of Grace’s, had married
an Indian civil servant, whom Colonel Keith was invited to meet at
luncheon, and Captain Keith at dinner, and Alick was further to sleep
at Gowanbrae. Lady Temple, who was to have been of the party, was called
away, much to her own regret, by an appointment with the dentist of St.
Norbert’s, who was very popular, and proportionately despotic, being
only visible at his own times, after long appointment. She would
therefore be obliged to miss Alick’s ordeal, though as she said, when
Rachel—finding it vain to try to outstay so many—had taken her leave,
“I should much like to see how it will turn out. I do believe that there
is some difference in the colour of the ink in the middle and at the
edge, and if those people are deceiving Rachel, who knows what they may
be doing to the poor children?”
It was exactly what every one was thinking, but it seemed to have fresh
force when it struck the milder and slower imagination, and Lady Temple,
seeing that her observation told upon those around her, became more
impressed with its weight.
“It really is dreadful to have sent those little girls there without any
one knowing what anybody does to them,” she repeated.
“It makes even Alick come out in a new character,” said the Colonel,
turning round on him.
“Why,” returned Alick, “my sister had so much to do with letting the
young lady in for the scrape, that it is just as well to try to get her
out of it. In fact, I think we have all sat with our hands before us
in a shamefully cool manner, till we are all accountable for the
humbuggery.”
“When it comes to your reproaching us with coolness, Captain Keith, the
matter becomes serious,” returned Colin.
“It does become serious,” was the answer; “it is hard that a person
without any natural adviser should have been allowed to run headlong, by
force of her own best qualities, into the hands of a sharper. I do
not see how a man of any proper feeling, can stand by without doing
something to prevent the predicament from becoming any worse.”
“If you can,” said Colonel Keith.
“I verily believe,” said Alick, turning round upon him, “that the worse
it is for her, the more you enjoy it!”
“Quite true,” said Ermine in her mischievous way; “it is a true case of
man’s detestation of clever women! Look here, Alick, we will not have
him here at the great ordeal of the woodcuts. You and I are much more
candid and unprejudiced people, and shall manage her much better.”
“I have no desire to be present,” returned the Colonel; “I have no
satisfaction in seeing my friend Alick baffled. I shall see how they
both appear at luncheon afterwards.”
“How will that be?” asked Fanny, anxiously.
“The lady will be sententious and glorious, and will recommend the F. U.
E. E. more than ever, and Alick will cover the downfall of his crest by
double-edged assents to all her propositions.”
“You will not have that pleasure,” said Alick. “I only go to dinner
there.”
“At any rate,” said the Colonel, “supposing your test takes effect by
some extraordinary chance, don’t take any further steps without letting
me know.”
The inference was drawn that he expected great results, but he continued
to laugh at Alick’s expectations of producing any effect on the Clever
Woman, and the debate of the woodcuts was adjourned to the Monday.
In good time, Rachel made her appearance in Miss Williams’s little
sitting-room. “I am ready to submit to any test that Captain Keith may
require to confute himself,” she said to Ermine; “and I do so the more
readily that with all his mocking language, there is a genuine candour
and honesty beneath that would be quite worth convincing. I believe that
if once persuaded of the injustice of his suspicions he would in
the reaction become a fervent supporter of Mr. Mauleverer and of the
institution; and though I should prefer carrying on our work entirely
through women, yet this interest would be so good a thing for him, that
I should by no means reject his assistance.”
Rachel had, however, long to wait. As she said, Captain Keith was one
of those inborn loiterers who, made punctual by military duty, revenge
themselves by double tardiness in the common affairs of life. Impatience
had nearly made her revoke her good opinion of him, and augur that,
knowing himself vanquished, he had left the field to her, when at last
a sound of wheels was heard, a dog-cart stopped at the door, and Captain
Keith entered with an enormous blue and gold volume under his arm.
“I am sorry to be so late,” he said, “but I have only now succeeded in
procuring my ally.”
“An ally?”
“Yes, in this book. I had to make interest at the Avoncester Library,
before I could take it away with me.” As he spoke he placed the book
desk-fashion on a chair, and turned it so that Ermine might see it; and
she perceived that it was a bound-up volume of the “Illustrated London
News.” Two marks were in it, and he silently parted the leaves at the
first.
It revealed the lace-making beauty in all her rural charms.
“I see,” said Rachel; “it is the same figure, but not the same shaped
picture.”
Without another word, Alick Keith opened the pages at the lace-school;
and here again the figures were identical, though the margin had been
differently finished off.
“I perceive a great resemblance,” again said Rachel, “but none that is
not fully explained by Mr. Mauleverer’s accurate resemblance and desire
to satirize foolish sentiment.”
Alick Keith took up the woodcut. “I should say,” he observed, holding
it up to the light, “that it was unusual to mount a proof engraving so
elaborately on a card.”
“Oh, I see what your distrust is driving at; you suspect the designs of
being pasted on.”
“There is such a test as water,” suggested Alick.
“I should be ashamed to return the proof to its master, bearing traces
of unjust suspicion.”
“If the suspicion you impute to me be unjust, the water will produce no
effect at all.”
“And you engage to retract all your distrust and contempt, if you are
convinced that this engraving is genuine?”
“I do,” he answered steadily.
With irritated magnanimity Rachel dipped her finger into the vase
of flowers on the table, and let a heavy drop of water fall upon the
cottage scene. The centre remained unaltered, and she looked round in
exultation, saying, “There, now I suppose I may wipe it off.”
Neither spoke, and she applied her pocket handkerchief. What came
peeling away under her pressure? It was the soft paper, and as she was
passing the edge of the figure of the girl, she found a large smear
following her finger. The peculiar brown of Indian ink was seen upon her
handkerchief, and when she took it up a narrow hem of white had become
apparent between the girl’s head and its surroundings. Neither spectator
spoke, they scarcely looked at her, when she took another drop from the
vase, and using it more boldly found the pasted figure curling up and
rending under her hand, lines of newspaper type becoming apparent, and
the dark cloud spreading around.
“What does it mean?” was her first exclamation; then suddenly turning on
Ermine, “Well, do you triumph?”
“I am very, very sorry,” said Ermine.
“I do not know that it is come to that yet,” said Rachel, trying to
collect herself. “I may have been pressing too hard for results.” Then
looking at the mangled picture again as they wisely left her to herself,
“But it is a deception! A deception! Oh! he need not have done it! Or,”
with a lightened look and tone of relief, “suppose he did it to see
whether I should find it out?”
“He is hardly on terms with you for that,” said Ermine; while Alick
could not refrain from saying, “Then he would be a more insolent
scoundrel than he has shown himself yet.”
“I know he is not quite a gentleman,” said Rachel, “and nothing else
gives the instinct of the becoming. You have conquered, Captain Keith,
if it be any pleasure to you to have given my trust and hope a cruel
shock.”
“With little satisfaction to myself,” he began to say; but she
continued, “A shock, a shock I say, no more; I do not know what
conclusion I ought to draw. I do not expect you to believe in this
person till he has cleared up the deceit. If it be only a joke in bad
taste, he deserves the distrust that is the penalty for it. If you have
been opening my eyes to a deception, perhaps I shall thank you for it
some day. I must think it over.”
She rose, gathered her papers together, and took her leave gravely,
while Alick, much to Ermine’s satisfaction, showed no elation in his
victory. All he said was, “There is a great deal of dignity in the
strict justice of a mind slow to condemn, or to withdraw the trust once
given.”
“There is,” said Ermine, much pleased with his whole part in the
affair; “there has been full and real candour, not flying into the other
extreme. I am afraid she has a great deal to suffer.”
“It was very wrong to have stood so still when the rascal began his
machinations,” repeated Alick, “Bessie absolutely helping it on! But for
her, the fellow would have had no chance even of acquaintance with her.”
“Your sister hardly deserves blame for that.”
“Not exactly blame; but the responsibility remains,” he replied gravely,
and indeed he was altogether much graver than his wont, entirely free
from irony, and evidently too sorry for Rachel, and feeling himself,
through his sister, too guilty of her entanglement, to have any of that
amused satisfaction that even Colin evidently felt in her discomfiture.
In fact Ermine did not fully enter into Colin’s present tactics; she saw
that he was more than usually excited and interested about the F. U.
E. E., but he had not explained his views to her, and she could only
attribute his desire, to defer the investigation, to a wish that Mr.
Mitchell should have time to return from London, whither he had gone
to conclude his arrangements with Mr. Touchett, leaving the duty in
commission between three delicate winter visitors.
Rachel walked home in a kind of dreamy bewilderment. The first stone in
her castle had been loosened, and her heart was beginning to fail
her, though the tenacity of her will produced a certain incapacity of
believing that she had been absolutely deceived. Her whole fabric was
so compact, and had been so much solidified by her own intensity of
purpose, that any hollowness of foundation was utterly beyond present
credence. She was ready to be affronted with Mauleverer for perilling
all for a bad joke, but wildly impossible as this explanation would have
seemed to others, she preferred taking refuge in it to accepting the
full brunt of the blow upon her cherished hopes.
She had just re-entered the house on her return, when Grace met her,
saying, “Oh, Rachel dear, Mrs. Rossitur is here.”
“I think old servants have a peculiar propensity for turning up when the
house is in a state of turmoil,” returned Rachel.
“I have been walking round the garden with her, and doing my best to
suffice for her entertainment,” said Grace, good-naturedly, “but she
really wants to see you on business. She has a bill for the F. U. E. E.
which she wants you to pay.”
“A bill for the F. U. E. E.?”
“Yes; she makes many apologies for troubling you, but Tom is to be
apprenticed to a grocer, and they want this fifteen pounds to make up
the fee.”
“But I tell you, Grace, there can’t have been fifteen pounds’ worth of
things had in this month, and they were paid on the 1st.”
“She says they have never been paid at all since the 1st of December.”
“I assure you, Grace, it is in the books. I made a point of having all
the accounts brought to me on the 1st of every month, and giving out
the money. I gave out £3. 10s. for the Rossiturs last Friday, the 1st of
February, when Mr. Mauleverer was over here. He said coals were dearer,
and they had to keep more fires.”
“There must be some mistake,” said Grace. “I’ll show you the books. Mr.
Mauleverer keeps one himself, and leaves one with me. Oh, botheration,
there’s the Grey carriage! Well, you go and receive them, and I’ll try
to pacify Mrs. Rossitur, and then come down.”
Neatly kept were these account books of the F. U. E. E,, and sure enough
for every month were entered the sums for coals, wood, and potatoes,
tallying exactly with Mrs. Rossitur’s account, and each month Mr.
Mauleverer’s signature attested the receipt of the sum paid over to
him by Rachel for household expenses. Rachel carried them down to Mrs.
Rossitur, but this evidence utterly failed to convince that worthy
personage that she had ever received a farthing after the 1st of
December. She was profuse in her apologies for troubling Miss Rachel,
and had only been led to do so by the exigencies of her son’s apprentice
fee, and she reposed full confidence in Rachel’s eager assurance that
she should not be a loser, and that in another day the matter should be
investigated.
“And, Miss Rachel,” added the old servant, “you’ll excuse me, but they
do say very odd things of the matron at that place, and I doubt you are
deceived in her. Our lads went to the the-a-ter the other night, and I
checked them well for it; but mother, says they, we had more call to be
there than the governess up to Miss Rachel’s schule in Nichol Street,
dressed out in pink feathers.”
“Well, Mrs. Rossitur, I will make every inquiry, and I do not think you
will find anything wrong. There must be some one about very like Mrs.
Rawlins. I have heard of those pink feathers before, but I know who the
matron is, and all about her! Good-bye. I’ll see you again before you
go, I suppose it won’t be till the seven o’clock train.”
Mrs. Rossitur remained expressing her opinion to the butler that dear
Miss Rachel was too innocent, and then proceeded to lose all past cares
in a happy return to “melting day,” in the regions of her past glories
as cook and housekeeper.
Rachel repaired to her room to cool her glowing cheeks, and repeat to
herself, “A mistake, an error. It must be a blunder! That boy that went
to the theatre may have cheated them! Mrs. Rawlins may have deceived Mr.
Mauleverer. Anything must be true rather than—No, no! such a tissue of
deception is impossible in a man of such sentiments! Persecuted as he
has been, shall appearances make me—me, his only friend—turn against
him? Oh, me! here come the whole posse purring upstairs to take off
their things! I shall be invaded in a moment.”
And in came Grace and the two younger ladies, and Rachel was no more her
own from that moment.