The Clever Woman of the Family by Charlotte M. Yonge (the mitten read aloud txt) 📕

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 L3. 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