The Clever Woman of the Family

“Thanks, thanks! The doubt is terrible, for I know worry about it would distract my mother.”

“I do not imagine,” he said, “that much worse consequences than worry could ensue. But there are none more trying.”

“Oh not none!”

“Do not let worry about this increase other ills,” he said, kindly, “do not think about this again till you hear from me.”

“Is that possible?”

“I should not have thought so, if I had not watched my uncle cast off troubles about his eye-sight and the keeping his living.”

“Ah! but those were not of his own making.”

“‘There is a sparkle even in the darkest water.’ That was a saying of his,” said Alick, looking anxiously at her pale cheek and down-cast eye.

“Not when they are turbid.”

“They will clear,” he said, and smiled with a look of encouraging hope that again cheered her in spite of herself. “Meantime remember that in any way I can help you, it will be the greatest favour—” he checked himself as he observed the exceeding languor and lassitude apparent in her whole person, and only said, “My sister is too much at the bottom of it for me not to feel it the greatest kindness to me to let me try to be of the slightest use. I believe I had better go now,” as he rose and looked at her wistfully; “you are too much tired to talk.”

“I believe I am,” she said, almost reluctantly, “but thank you, this has done me good.”

“And you are really getting better?”

“Yes, I believe so. Perhaps I may feel it when this terrible day is over.”

What a comfort it would be, she said to herself, when he was gone, if we had but a near relation like him, who would act for the mother, instead of our being delivered up, bound hand and foot, to Mr. Cox. It would have been refreshing to have kept him now, if I could have done it without talking; it really seemed to keep the horrible thoughts in abeyance, to hear that wonderfully gentle tone! And how kind and soft the look was! I do feel stronger for it! Will it really be better after next week? Alas! that will have undone nothing.

Yet even this perception of a possibility of hope that there would be relief after the ordeal, was new to Rachel; and it soon gave way to that trying feature of illness, the insurmountable dread of the mere physical fatigue. The Dean of Avoncester, a kind old friend of Mrs. Curtis, had insisted on the mother and daughters coming to sleep at the Deanery, on the Tuesday night, and remaining till the day after the trial; but Rachel’s imagination was not even as yet equal to the endurance of the long drive, far less of the formality of a visit. Lady Temple was likewise asked to the Deanery, but Conrade was still too ill for her to think of leaving him for more than the few needful hours of the trial; nor had Alison been able to do more than pay an occasional visit at her sister’s window to exchange reports, and so absorbed was she in her boys and their mother, that it was quite an effort of recollection to keep up to Ermine’s accounts of Colonel Keith’s doings.

It was on the Monday afternoon, the first time she had ventured into the room, taking advantage of Rose having condescended to go out with the Temple nursery establishment, when she found Ermine’s transparent face all alive with expectation. “He may come any time now,” she said; “his coming to-day or to-morrow was to depend on his getting his business done on Saturday or not.”

And in a few minutes’ time the well-known knock was heard, and Ermine, with a look half arch half gay, surprised her sister by rising with the aid of the arm of her chair, and adjusting a crutch that had been leaning against it.

“Why Ermine! you could not bear the jarring of that crutch—”

“Five or six years ago, Ailie, when I was a much poorer creature,” then as the door opened, “I would make you a curtsey, Colonel Keith, but I am afraid I can’t quite do that,” though still she moved nearer to meet him, but perhaps there was a look of helplessness which made her exultation piteous, for he responded with an exclamation of alarm, put out his arm to support her, and did not relax a frown of anxiety till he had placed her safe in her chair again, while she laughed perhaps a little less freely, and said, “See what it is to have had to shift for oneself!”

“You met me with your eyes the first time, Ermine, and I never missed anything.”

“Well, I think it is hard not to have been more congratulated on my great achievement! I thought I should have had at least as much credit as Widdrington, my favourite hero and model.”

“When you have an arm to support you it may be all very well, and I shall never stand it without.” Then, as Ermine subsided, unprepared with a reply, “Well, Ailie, how are your boys?”

“Both much better, Francis nearly well.”

“You have had a terrible time! And their mother?”

“Dearer and sweeter than ever,” said Alison, with her voice trembling; “no one who has not seen her now can guess half what she is!”

“I hope she has not missed me. If this matter had not been so pressing, I could not have stayed away.”

“The one message she always gave me was, that you were not to think of coming home; and, indeed, those dear boys were so good, that we managed very well without you.”

“Yes, I had faith in your discipline, and I think that matters are in train against Edward comes. Of course there is no letter, or you would have told me.”

“He will be coming himself,” said Ermine, resolved against again expressing a doubt; while Alison added that he hated letter-writing.

“Nothing could be more satisfactory than Beauchamp’s letter,” added Colin. “He was so thoroughly convinced, that he immediately began to believe that he had trusted Edward all along, and had only been overruled.”

“I dare say,” said Ermine, laughing; “I can quite fancy honest Harry completely persuaded that he was Edward’s champion, while Maddox was turning him round his finger.”

“And such is his good faith, that I hope he will make Edward believe the same! I told you of his sending his love to you, and of his hopes that you would some day come and see the old place. He made his wife quite cordial.”

Alison did not feel herself obliged to accept the message, and Ermine could freely say, “Poor Harry! I should like to see him again! He would be exactly the same, I dare say. And how does the old place look?”

“Just what I do not want you to see. They have found out that the Rectory is unhealthy, and stuck up a new bald house on the top of the hill; and the Hall is new furnished in colours that set one’s teeth on edge. Nothing is like itself but Harry, and he only when you get him off duty—without his wife! I was glad to get away to Belfast.”

“And there, judging from Julia’s letter, they must have nearly devoured you.”

“They were very hospitable. Your sister is not so very unlike you, Ermine?”

“Oh, Colin!” exclaimed Alison, with an indignation of which she became ashamed, and added, by way of making it better, “Perhaps not so very.”

“She was very gracious to me,” said Colin, smiling, “and we had much pleasant talk of you.”

“Yes,” said Ermine, “it will be a great pleasure to poor Julia to be allowed to take us up again, and you thought the doctor sufficiently convinced.”

“More satisfactorily so than Harry, for he reasoned out the matter, and seems to me to have gone more by his impression that a man could not be so imprudent as Edward in good faith than by Maddox’s representation.”

“That is true,” said Alison, “he held out till Edward refused to come home, and then nothing would make him listen to a word on his behalf.”

“And it will be so again,” thought Ermine, with a throb at her heart. Then she asked, “Did you see whether there was a letter for you at home?”

“Yes, I looked in, and found only this, which I have only glanced at, from Bessie.”

“From Paris?”

“Yes, they come home immediately after Easter. ‘Your brother is resolved I should be presented, and submit to the whole season in style; after which he says I may judge for myself.’ What people will do for pretty young wives! Poor Mary’s most brilliant season was a winter at Edinburgh; and it must be his doing more than hers, for she goes on: ‘Is it not very hard to be precluded all this time from playing the chieftainess in the halls of my forefathers? I shall have to run down to your Gowanbrae to refresh myself, and see what you are all about, for I cannot get the fragment of a letter from Alick; and I met an Avoncestrian the other day, who told me that the whole county was in a state of excitement about the F. U. etc.; that every one believed that the fascinating landscape-painter was on the high road to winning one of the joint-heiresses; but that Lady Temple—the most incredible part of the story—had blown up the whole affair, made her way into the penetralia of the asylum, and rescued two female ‘prentices, so nearly whipped to death that it took an infinitesimal quantity of Rachel’s homoeopathy to demolish one entirely, and that the virtuous public was highly indignant that there was no inquest nor trial for manslaughter; but that it was certain that Rachel had been extremely ill ever since. Poor Rachel, there must be some grain of truth in all this, but one would like to be able to contradict it. I wrote to ask Alick the rights of the story, but he has not vouchsafed me a line of reply; and I should take it as very kind in you to let me know whether he is in the land of the living or gone to Edinburgh—as I hear is to be the lot of the Highlanders—or pining for the uncroquetable lawn, to which I always told him he had an eye.’”

“She may think herself lucky he has not answered,” said Ermine; “he has always been rather unreasonably angry with her for making the introduction.”

“That is the reason he has not,” added Alison, “for he is certainly not far off. He has been over almost every day to inquire, and played German tactics all Saturday afternoon with Francis to our great relief. But I have stayed away long enough.”

“I will walk back with you, Ailie. I must see the good little heroine of the most incredible part of the story.”

Lady Temple looked a good deal paler than when he had last seen her, and her eyelids still showed that they had long arrears of sleep to make up; but she came down with outstretched hands and a sunny smile. “They are so much better, and I am so glad you were not at home in the worst of it.”

“And I am sorry to have deserted you.”

“Oh, no, no, it was much better that you should be away. We should all have wanted you, and that would have been dangerous, and dear, dear Miss Williams did all that could be done. Do you know, it taught me that you were right when you told me I ought never to rest till the boys learnt to obey, for obedience’ sake, at a word. It showed what a bad mother I am, for I am sure if dear Conrade had been like what he was last year, even she could not have saved him,” said Fanny, her eyes full of tears.

Then came her details, to which he listened, as ever, like the brotherly friend he was, and there was a good deal said about restoring the little ones, who were still at Gowanbrae, to which he would by no means as yet consent, though Fanny owned herself to have time now to pine for her Stephana, and to “hear how dismal it is to have a silent nursery.”

“Yes, it has been a fearful time. We little guessed how much risk you ran when you went to the rescue.”

“Dear Con, when he thought—when we thought he could not get better, said I was not to mind that, and I don’t,” said Fanny. “I thought it was right, and though I did not know this would come of it, yet you see God has been very merciful, and brought both of my boys out of this dreadful illness, and I dare say it will do them good all their lives now it is over. I am sure it will to me, for I shall always be more thankful.”

“Everything does you good,” he said.

“And another thing,” she added, eagerly, “it has made me know that dear Miss Williams so much better. She was so good, so wonderfully good, to come away from her sister to us. I thought she was quite gone the first day, and that I was alone with my poor Francie, and presently there she was by my side, giving me strength and hope by her very look. I want to have her for good, I want to make her my sister! She would teach the boys still, for nobody else could make them good, but if ever her sister could spare her, she must never go away again.”

“You had better see what she says,” replied the Colonel, with suppressed emotion.

That night, when Conrade and Francis were both fast asleep, their mother and their governess sat over the fire together, languid but happy, and told out their hearts to one another—told out more than Alison had ever put into words even to Ermine, for her heart was softer and more unreserved now than ever it had been since her sister’s accident had crushed her youth. There was thenceforth a bond between her and Lady Temple that gave the young widow the strong-hearted, sympathizing, sisterly friend she had looked for in Rachel, and that filled up those yearnings of the affection that had at first made Alison feel that Colin’s return made the world dreary to her. Her life had a purpose, though that purpose was not Ermine! But where were Edward and his letter?

CHAPTER XXI. THE QUARTER SESSIONS

“Is it so nominated in the bond?”—Merchant of Venice.

Malgre her disinclination, Rachel had reached the point of recovery in which the fresh air and change of scene of the drive to Avoncester could not fail to act as restoratives, and the first evening with the Dean and his gentle old sister was refreshing and comfortable to her spirits.

It was in the afternoon of the ensuing day that Mr. Grey came to tell her that her presence would soon be required, and both her mother and sister drove to the court with her. Poor Mrs. Curtis, too anxious to go away, yet too nervous to go into court, chose, in spite of all Mr. Grey’s advice, to remain in the carriage with the blinds closed, far too miserable for Grace to leave her.

Rachel, though very white, called up a heroic smile, and declared that she should get on very well. Her spirit had risen to the occasion, so as to brace her nerves to go becomingly through what was inevitable; and she replied with a ready “yes,” to Mr. Grey’s repetition of the advice for ever dinned into her ears, not to say a word more than needful, feeling indeed little disposed to utter anything that she could avoid.

She emerged from the dark passage into full view of faces which were far more familiar than she could have wished. She would have greatly preferred appearing before a judge, robed, wigged, and a stranger, to coming thus before a country gentleman, slightly known to herself, but an old friend of her father, and looking only like his ordinary self.

All the world indeed was curious to see the encounter between Rachel Curtis and her impostor, and every one who had contributed so much as a dozen stamps to the F. U. E. E. felt as if under a personal wrong and grievance, while many hoped to detect other elements of excitement, so that though all did not overtly stare at the witness, not even the most considerate could resist the impulse to glance at her reception of the bow with which he greeted her entrance.

She bent her head instinctively, but there was no change of colour on her cheek. Her faculties were concentrated, and her resolute will had closed all avenues to sensations that might impair her powers; she would not give way either to shame and remorse for herself, or to pity or indignation against the prisoner; she would attend only to the accuracy of the testimony that was required of her as an expiation of her credulous incaution; but such was the tension of her nerves, that, impassive as she looked, she heard every cough, every rustle of paper; each voice that addressed her seemed to cut her ears like a knife; and the chair that was given to her after the administration of the oath was indeed much needed.

She was examined upon her arrangement that the prisoner should provide for the asylum at St. Herbert’s, and on her monthly payment to him of the sums entered in the account-book. In some cases she knew he had shown her the bills unreceipted; in others, he had simply made the charge in the book, and she had given to him the amount that he estimated as requisite for the materials for wood-engraving. So far she felt satisfied that she was making herself distinctly understood, but the prisoner, acting as his own counsel, now turned to her and asked the question she had expected and was prepared for, whether she could refer to any written agreement.

“No; it was a viva voce agreement.”

Could she mention what passed at the time of making the arrangement that she had stated as existing between himself and her?

“I described my plans, and you consented.”

An answer at which some of the audience could have smiled, so well did it accord with her habits. The prisoner again insisted on her defining the mode of his becoming bound to the agreement. Rachel took time for consideration, and Alison Williams, sitting between Lady Temple and Colonel Keith, felt dizzy with anxiety for the answer. It came at last.

“I do not remember the exact words; but you acquiesced in the appearance of your name as secretary and treasurer.”

The prospectus was here brought forward, and Mauleverer asked her to define the duties he had been supposed to undertake in the character in which he had there figured. It of course came out that she had been her own treasurer, only entrusting the nominal one with the amount required for current expenses, and again, in reply to his deferential questions, she was obliged to acknowledge that he had never in so many words declared the sums entered in the book to have been actually paid, and not merely estimates for monthly expenditure to be paid to the tradesmen at the usual seasons.

“I understood that they were paid,” said Rachel, with some resentment.

“Will you oblige me by mentioning on what that understanding was founded?” said the prisoner, blandly.

There was a pause. Rachel knew she must say something; but memory utterly failed to recall any definite assurance that these debts had been discharged. Time passed, all eyes were upon her, there was a dire necessity of reply, and though perfectly conscious of the weakness and folly of her utterance, she could only falter forth, “I thought so.” The being the Clever Woman of the family, only rendered her the more sensible both of the utter futility of her answer, and of the effect it must be producing.

Alison hung her head, and frowned in absolute shame and despair, already perceiving how matters must go, and feeling as if the hope of her brother’s vindication were slipping away—reft from her by Rachel’s folly. Colin gave an indignant sigh, and whispering to her, “Come out when Lady Temple does, I will meet you,” he made his way out of court.

There had been a moment’s pause after Rachel’s “I thought so,” and then the chairman spoke to the counsel for the prosecution. “Mr. Murray, can you carry the case any further by other witnesses? At present I see no case to go to the jury. You will see that the witness not only does not set up any case of embezzlement, but rather loads to an inference in the contrary direction.”

“No, sir,” was the answer; “I am afraid that I can add nothing to the case already presented to you.”

Upon this, the chairman said,—

“Gentlemen of the Jury,—The case for the prosecution does not sustain the indictment or require me to call on the prisoner for his defence, and it is your duty to find him not guilty. You will observe that we are not trying a civil action, in respect of the large sum which he has received from the young lady, and for which he is still accountable to her; nor by acquitting him are you pronouncing that he has not shown himself a man of very questionable honesty, but only that the evidence will not bring him within the grasp of the criminal law, as guilty of embezzlement under the statute, and this because of the looseness of the arrange ments, that had been implied instead of expressed. It is exceedingly to be regretted that with the best intentions and kindest purposes, want of caution and experience on her part should have enabled the prisoner thus to secure himself from the possibility of a conviction; but there can be no doubt that the evidence before us is such as to leave no alternative but a verdict of not guilty.”

The very tenderness and consideration of the grey-haired Sir Edward Morden’s tone were more crushing to Rachel than severe animadversions on her folly would have been from a stranger. Here was she, the Clever Woman of the family, shown in open court to have been so egregious a dupe that the deceiver could not even be punished, but must go scot-free, leaving all her wrongs unredressed! To her excited, morbid apprehension, magnified by past self-sufficiency, it was as though all eyes were looking in triumph at that object of general scorn and aversion, a woman who had stepped out of her place. She turned with a longing to rush into darkness and retirement when she was called to return to her mother, and even had she still been present, little would she have recked that when the jury had, without many moments’ delay, returned a verdict of “Not Guilty,” the prisoner received a strong, stem reprimand from Sir Edward, to whom he replied with a bow that had in it more of triumph than of acceptance.

Burning tears of disappointment were upon Alison’s cheek, the old hopeless blank was returning, and her brother might come back in vain, to find his enemy beyond his reach. Here was an end alike of his restoration and of Ermine’s happiness!

“Oh!” whispered Lady Temple, “is it not horrid? Is nothing to be done to that dreadful man? I always thought people came here to do justice. I shall never like Sir Edward Morden again! But, oh! what can that be? Where is the Colonel?”

It was a loud, frightful roar and yell, a sound of concentrated fury that, once heard, could never be forgotten. It was from the crowd outside, many of them from Avonmouth, and all frantic with indignation at the cruelty that had been perpetrated upon the helpless children. Their groans and execrations were pursuing the prison van, from which Maria Hatherton was at that moment making her exit, and so fearful was the outcry that penetrated the court, that Fanny trembled with recollections of Indian horrors, looked wistfully for her protector the Colonel, and murmured fears that her aunt must have been very much terrified.

At that moment, however, a summons came for Lady Temple, as this was the case in which she was to bear witness. Alison followed, and was no sooner past the spectators, who gladly made way, than she found her arm drawn into Colonel Keith’s. “Is he come?” she asked. “No,” was rather signed than spoken. “Oh, Colin!” she sighed, but still there was no reply, only she was dragged on, downstairs and along dark passages, into a room furnished with a table, chairs, pens, ink, and paper, and lighted with gas, which revealed to her not only Mr. Grey, but one who, though eight years had made him stouter, redder, and rougher, had one of the moat familiar faces of her youthful days. Her senses almost reeled with her as he held out his hand, saying heartily, “Well, Ailie, how are you? and how is Ermine? Where can this brother of yours be?”

“Harry! Mr. Beauchamp! You here!” she exclaimed, in the extremity of amazement.

“Here is Colin seeming to think that something may be done towards nailing this scoundrel for the present, so I am come at his call. We shall have the fellow in a moment.” And then, by way of getting rid of embarrassment, he began talking to Mr. Grey about the County Hall, and the room, which Mr. Grey explained to be that of the clerk of the peace, lent for this occasion while the usual justice room was occupied, Alison heard all as in a dream, and presently Mauleverer entered, as usual spruce, artist-like, and self-possessed, and was accosted by Harry Beauchamp, “Good evening, Mr. Maddox, I am sorry to trouble you.”

“I hope there is no misunderstanding, sir,” was the reply. “I have not the pleasure of knowing for whom you take me.”

Without regarding this reply, however, Mr. Beauchamp requested Mr. Grey to take his deposition, stating his own belief in the identity of the person before him with Richard Maddox, whom he charged with having delivered to him a letter falsely purporting to come from Edward Williams, demanding three hundred pounds, which upon this he had delivered to the accused, to be forwarded to the said Mr. Williams.