The Clever Woman of the Family [150]
investigation pushed on by her mother, involving answers and explanations that she alone could make. Mr. Grey rubbed his forehead, and looked freshly annoyed at each revelation of the state of things. It had not been Mauleverer, but Rachel, who had asked subscriptions for the education of the children, he had but acted as her servant, the counterfeit of the woodcuts, which Lady Temple suggested, could not be construed into an offence; and it looked very much as if, thanks to his cleverness, and Rachel's incaution, there was really no case to be made out against him, as if the fox had carried off the bait without even leaving his brush behind him. Sooth to say, the failure was a relief to Rachel, she had thrown so much of her will and entire self into the upholding him, that she could not yet detach herself or sympathize with those gentle souls, the mother and Fanny, in keenly hunting him down. Might he not have been as much deceived in Mrs. Rawlins as herself? At any rate she hoped for time to face the subject, and kneeling on the ground so as to support little Lovedy's sinking head on her shoulder, made the briefest replies in her power when referred to. At last, Grace recollected the morning's affair of Mrs. Rossitur's bills. Mr. Grey looked as if he saw daylight, Grace volunteered to fetch both the account-book and Mrs. Rossitur, and Rachel found the statement being extracted from her of the monthly production of the bills, with the entries in the book, and of her having given the money for their payment. Mr. Grey began to write, and she perceived that he was taking down her deposition. She beckoned Mary to support her poor little companion, and rising to her feet, said, to the horror and consternation of her mother, "Mr. Grey, pray let me speak to you!" He rose at once, and followed her to the hall, where he looked prepared to be kind but firm. "Must this be done to-day?" she said. "Why not?" he answered. "I want time to think about it. The woman has acted like a fiend, and I have not a word to say for her; but I cannot feel that it is fair, after such long and entire trust of this man, to turn on him suddenly without notice." "Do you mean that you will not prosecute?" said Mr. Grey, with a dozen notes of interjection in his voice. "I have not said so. I want time to make up my mind, and to hear what he has to say for himself." "You will hear that at the Bench on Wednesday." "It will not be the same thing." "I should hope not!" "You see," said Rachel, perplexed and grievously wanting time to rally her forces, "I cannot but feel that I have trusted too easily, and perhaps been to blame myself for my implicit confidence, and after that it revolts me to throw the whole blame on another." "If you have been a simpleton, does that make him an honest man?" said Mr. Grey, impatiently. "No," said Rachel, "but--" "What?" "My credulity may have caused his dishonesty," she said, bringing, at last, the words to serve the idea. "Look you here, Rachel," said Mr. Grey, constraining himself to argue patiently with his old friend's daughter; "it does not simply lie between you and him--a silly girl who has let herself be taken in by a sharper. That would be no more than giving a sixpence to a fellow that tells me he lost his arm at Sebastopol when he has got it sewn up in a bag. But you have been getting subscriptions from all the world, making yourself answerable to them for having these children educated, and then, for want of proper superintendence, or the merest rational precaution, leaving them to this barbarous usage. I don't want to be hard upon you, but you are accountable for all this; you have made yourself so, and unless you wish to be regarded as a sharer in the iniquity, the least you can do by way of compensation, is not to make yourself an obstruction to the course of justice." "I don't much care how I am regarded," said Rachel, with subdued tone and sunken head; "I only want to do right, and not act spitefully and vindictively before he has had warning