The Clever Woman of the Family [11]
applied herself to her wood carving, and virtually retired from the discussion. "One sister is a great invalid," said Grace, "quite a cripple, and the other goes out as a daily governess. They are a clergyman's daughters, and once were very well off, but they lost everything through some speculation of their brother. I believe he fled the country under some terrible suspicion of dishonesty; and though no one thought they had anything to do with it, their friends dropped them because they would not give him up, nor believe him guilty, and a little girl of his lives with them." "Poor things!" exclaimed Lady Temple. "I should very much like to employ this one. How very sad." "Mrs. Grey told me that her children had never done so well with any one," said Mrs. Curtis. "She wanted to engage Miss Williams permanently, but could not induce her to leave her sister, or even to remove her to London, on account of her health." "Do you know her, Grace?" asked Fanny. "I have called once or twice, and have been very much pleased with the sick sister; but Rachel does not fancy that set, you see. I meet the other at the Sunday school, I like her looks and manner very much, and she is always at the early service before her work." "Just like a little mauve book!" muttered Rachel. Fanny absolutely stared. "You go, don't you, Rachel? How we used to wish for it!" "You have wished and we have tried," said Rachel, with a sigh. "Yes, Rachel," said Grace; "but with all drawbacks, all disappointments in ourselves, it is a great blessing. We would not be without it." "I could not be satisfied in relinquishing it voluntarily," said Rachel, "but I am necessarily one of the idle. Were I one of the occupied, laborare est orare would satisfy me, and that poor governess ought to feel the same. Think of the physical reaction of body on mind, and tell me if you could have the barbarity of depriving that poor jaded thing of an hour's sleep, giving her an additional walk, fasting, in all weathers, and preparing her to be savage with the children." "Perhaps it refreshes her, and hinders her from being cross." "Maybe she thinks so; but if she have either sense or ear, nothing would so predispose her to be cross as the squeaking of Mr. Touchett's penny-whistle choir." "Poor Mr. Touchett," sighed Mrs. Curtis; "I wish he would not make such ambitious attempts." "But you like the choral service," said Fanny, feeling as if everything had turned round. "When all the men of a regiment chant together you cannot think how grand it is, almost finer than the cathedral." "Yes, where you can do it," said Rachel, "but not where you can't." "I wish you would not talk about it," said Grace. "I must, or Fanny will not understand the state of parties at Avonmouth." "Parties! Oh, I hope not." "My dear child, party spirit is another word for vitality. So you thought the church we sighed for had made the place all we sighed to see it, and ourselves too. Oh! Fanny is this what you have been across the world for?" "What is wrong?" asked Fanny, alarmed. "Do you remember our axiom? Build your church, and the rest will take care of itself. You remember our scraping and begging, and how that good Mr. Davison helped us out and brought the endowment up to the needful point for consecration, on condition the incumbency was given to him. He held it just a year, and was rich, and could help out his bad health with a curate. But first he went to Madeira, and then he died, and there we are, a perpetual curacy of ?0 a year, no resident gentry but ourselves, a fluctuating population mostly sick, our poor demoralized by them, and either crazed by dissent, or heathenized by their former distance from church. Who would take us? No more Mr. Davisons! There was no more novelty, and too much smartness to invite self-devotion. So we were driven from pillar to post till we settled down into this Mr. Touchett, as good a being as ever lived, working as hard as any two, and sparing neither himself nor any one else." Fanny looked