The Clever Woman of the Family

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.

CHAPTER XVIII. THE FORLORN HOPE

“She whipped two female ‘prentices to death,  And hid them in the coal-hole.  For her mind  Shaped strictest plans of discipline, sage schemes,  Such as Lycurgus taught.”—Canning and Frere.

The favourite dentist of the neighbourhood dwelt in a grand mansion at St. Norbert’s, and thither were conducted Conrade and Francis, as victims to the symmetry of their mouths. Their mother accompanied them to supply the element of tenderness, Alison that of firmness; and, in fact, Lady Temple was in a state of much greater trepidation than either of her sons, who had been promised five shillings each as the reward of fortitude, and did nothing but discuss what they should buy with it.

They escaped with a reprieve to Conrade, and the loss of one tooth of Francis’s, and when the rewards had been laid out, and presents chosen for all the stay-at-home children, including Rose, Lady Temple became able to think about other matters. The whole party were in a little den at the pastrycook’s; the boys consuming mutton pies, and the ladies ox-tail soup, while waiting to be taken up by the waggonette which had of late been added to the Myrtlewood establishment, when the little lady thus spoke—

“If you don’t object, Miss Williams, we will go to Rachel’s asylum on our way home.”

Miss Williams asked if she had made the appointment.

“No,” said Lady Temple, “but you see I can’t be satisfied about those woodcuts; and that poor woman, Mrs. Kelland, came to me yesterday about my lace shawl, and she is sadly distressed about the little girl. She was not allowed to see her, you know, and she heard such odd things about the place that I told her that I did not wonder she was in trouble, and that I would try to bring the child home, or at any rate see and talk to her.”

“I hope we may be able to see her, but you know Colonel Keith could not get in without making an appointment.”

“I pay for her,” said Lady Temple, “and I cannot bear its going on in this way without some one seeing about it. The Colonel was quite sure those woodcuts were mere fabrications to deceive Rachel; and there must be something very wrong about those people.”

“Did she know that you were going?”

“No; I did not see her before we went. I do not think she will mind it much; and I promised.” Lady Temple faltered a little, but gathered courage the next moment. “And indeed, after what Mrs. Kelland said, I could not sleep while I thought I had been the means of putting any poor child into such hands.”

“Yes,” said Alison, “it is very shocking to leave them there without inquiry, and it is an excellent thing to make the attempt.”

And so the order was given to drive to the asylum, Alison marvelling at the courage which prompted this most unexpected assault upon the fortress that had repulsed two such warriors as Colonel Keith and Mrs. Kelland. But timid and tender as she might be, it was not for nothing that Fanny Temple had been a vice-queen, so much accustomed to be welcomed wherever she penetrated, that the notion of a rebuff never suggested itself.

Coombe rang, and his lady made him let herself and Miss Williams out, so that she was on the step when the rough charwoman opened the door, and made the usual reply that Mr. Mauleverer was not within. Lady Temple answered that it was Mrs. Rawlins, the matron, that she wished to see, and with more audacity than Alison thought her capable of, inserted herself within the doorway, so as to prevent herself from being shut out as the girl took her message. The next moment the girl came back saying, “This way, ma’am,” opened the door of a small dreary, dusty, cold parlour, where she shut them in, and disappeared before a word could be said.

There they remained so long, that in spite of such encouragement as could be derived from peeping over the blinds at Coombe standing sentinel over his two young masters at the carriage window, Lady Temple began to feel some dismay, though no repentance, and with anxious iteration conjured Miss Williams to guess what could be the cause of delay.

“Making ready for our reception,” was Alison’s answer in various forms; and Lady Temple repeated by turns, “I do not like it,” and “it is very unsatisfactory. No, I don’t like it at all,” the at all always growing more emphatic.

The climax was, “Things must be very sad, or they would never take so much preparation. I’ll tell you, Miss Williams,” she added in a low confidential tone; “there are two of us, and the woman cannot be in two places at once. Now, if you go up and see the rooms and all, which I saw long ago, I could stay and talk to the poor children.”

Alison was the more surprised at the simple statecraft of the General’s widow, but it was prompted by the pitiful heart yearning over the mysterious wrongs of the poor little ones.

At last Mrs. Rawlins sailed in, crape, streamers, and all, with the lowest of curtsies and fullest of apologies for having detained her Ladyship, but she had been sending out in pursuit of Mr. Mauleverer, he would be so disappointed! Lady Temple begged to see the children, and especially Lovedy, whom she said she should like to take home for a holiday.

“Why, my lady, you see Mr. Mauleverer is very particular. I hardly know that I could answer it to him to have one of his little darlings out of his sight. It unsettles a child so to be going home, and Lovedy has a bad cold, my lady, and I am afraid it will run through the house. My little Alice is beginning of it.”

However, Lady Temple kept to her desire of seeing Lovedy, and of letting her companion see the rest of the establishment, and they were at last ushered into the room already known to the visitors of the F. U. E. E., where the two children sat as usual in white pinafores, but it struck the ladies that all looked ill, and Lovedy was wrapped in a shawl, and sat cowering in a dull, stupified way, unlike the bright responsive manner for which she had been noted even in her lace-school days. Mary Morris gazed for a moment at Alison with a wistful appealing glance, then, with a start as of fright, put on a sullen stolid look, and kept her eyes on her book. The little Alice, looking very heavy and feverish, leant against her, and Mrs. Rawlins went on talking of the colds, the gruel she had made, and her care for her pupils’ ailments, and Lady Temple listened so graciously that Alison feared she was succumbing to the palaver; and by way of reminder, asked to see the dormitory.

“Oh, yes, ma’am, certainly, though we are rather in confusion,” and she tried to make both ladies precede her, but Lady Temple, for once assuming the uncomprehending nonchalance of a fine lady, seated herself languidly and motioned Alison on. The matron was evidently perplexed, she looked daggers at the children, or Ailie fancied so, but she was forced to follow the governess. Lady Temple breathed more freely, and rose. “My poor child,” she said to Lovedy, “you seem very poorly. Have you any message to your aunt?”

“Please, please!” began Lovedy, with a hoarse sob.

“Lovedy, don’t, don’t be a bad girl, or you know—” interposed the little one, in a warning whisper.

“She is not naughty,” said Lady Temple gently, “only not well.”

“Please, my lady, look,” eagerly, though with a fugitive action of terror, Lovedy cried, unpinning the thin coarse shawl on her neck, and revealing the terrible stripes and weals of recent beating, such as nearly sickened Lady Temple.

“Oh, Lovedy,” entreated Alice, “she’ll take the big stick.”

“She could not do her work,” interposed Mary with furtive eagerness, “she is so poorly, and Missus said she would have the twenty sprigs if she sat up all night.”

“Sprigs!”

“Yes, ma’am, we makes lace more than ever we did to home, day and night; and if we don’t she takes the stick.”

“Oh, Mary,” implored the child, “she said if you said one word.”

“Mary,” said Lady Temple, trembling all over, “where are your bonnets?”

“We haven’t none, ma’am,” returned Mary, “she pawned them. But, oh, ma’am, please take us away. We are used dreadful bad, and no one knows it.”

Lady Temple took Lovedy in one hand, and Mary in the other; then looked at the other little girl, who stood as if petrified. She handed the pair to the astonished Coombe, bidding him put them into the carriage, and let Master Temple go outside, and then faced about to defend the rear, her rustling black silk and velvet filling up the passage, just as Alison and the matron were coming down stairs.

“Mrs. Rawlins,” she said, in her gentle dignity, “I think Lovedy is so poorly that she ought to go home to her aunt to be nursed, and I have taken little Mary that she may not be left behind alone. Please to tell Mr. Mauleverer that I take it all upon myself. The other little girl is not at all to blame, and I hope you will take care of her, for she looks very ill.”

So much for being a Governor’s widow! A woman of thrice Fanny’s energy and capacity would not have effected her purpose so simply, and made the virago in the matron so entirely quail. She swept forth with such a consciousness of power and ease that few could have had assurance enough to gainsay her, but no sooner was she in the carriage than she seized Mary’s hand, exclaiming, “My poor, poor little dear! Francis, dear boy, the wicked people have been beating her! Oh, Miss Williams, look at her poor neck!”

Alison lifting Lovedy on her knee, glanced under the shawl, and saw indeed a sad spectacle, and she felt such a sharpness of bone as proved that there was far from being the proper amount of clothing or of flesh to protect them. Lady Temple looked at Mary’s attenuated hand, and fairly sobbed, “Oh, you have been cruelly treated!”

“Please don’t let her get us,” cried the frightened Mary.

“Never, never, my dear. We are taking you home to your mother.”

Mary Morris was the spokeswoman, and volunteered the exhibition of bruises rather older, but no less severe than those of her companion. All had been inflicted by the woman; Mr. Mauleverer had seldom or never been seen by the children, except Alice, who used often to be called into Mrs. Rawlins’s parlour when he was there, to be played with and petted. A charwoman was occasionally called in, but otherwise the entire work of the house was exacted from the two girls, and they had been besides kept perpetually to their lace pillows, and severely beaten if they failed in the required amount of work; the ample wardrobe with which their patronesses had provided them had been gradually taken from them, and their fare had latterly become exceedingly coarse, and very scanty. It was a sad story, and this last clause evoked from Francis’s pocket a large currant bun, which Mary devoured with a famished appetite, but Lovedy held her portion untasted in her hand, and presently gave it to Mary, saying that her throat was so bad that she could not make use of anything. She had already been wrapped in Lady Temple’s cloak, and Francis was desired to watch for a chemist’s shop that something might be done for her relief, but the region of shops was already left behind, and even the villas were becoming scantier, so that nothing was to be done but to drive on, obtaining from time to time further doleful narratives from Mary, and perceiving more and more how ill and suffering was the other poor child.