More briefly Mr. Mauleverer explained that Mary had fallen while playing on the stairs; and with this superficial inspection he must needs content himself, though on making inquiry at the principal shops, he convinced himself that neither Mr. Mauleverer nor the F.U.E.E. were as well known at St. Norbert’s as at Avonmouth. He told Rachel of his expedition, and his interest in her work gratified her, though she would have preferred being his cicerone. She assured him that he must have been very much pleased, especially with the matron.
“She is a handsome woman, and reminds me strongly of a face I saw in India.”
“There are some classes of beauty and character that have a remarkable sameness of feature,” began Rachel.
“Don’t push that theory, for your matron’s likeness was a very handsome Sepoy havildar whom we took at Lucknow, a capital soldier before the mutiny, and then an ineffable ruffian.”
“The mutiny was an infectious frenzy; so that you establish nothing against that cast of countenance.”
Never, indeed, was there more occasion for perseverance in Rachel’s championship. Hitherto Mrs. Kelland had been nailed to her pillow by the exigencies of Lady Keith’s outfit, and she and her minions had toiled unremittingly, without a thought beyond their bobbins, but as soon as the postponed orders were in train, and the cash for the wedding veil and flounces had been transmitted, the good woman treated herself and her daughters to a holiday at St. Norbert’s, without intimating her intention to her patronesses; and the consequence was a formal complaint of her ungrateful and violent language to Mrs. Rawlins on being refused admission to the asylum without authority from Mr. Mauleverer or Miss Curtis.
Rachel, much displeased, went down charged with reproof and representation, but failed to produce the desired effect upon the aunt.
“It was not right,” Mrs. Kelland reiterated, “that the poor lone orphan should not see her that was as good as a mother, when she had no one else to look to. They that kept her from her didn’t do it for no good end.”
“But, Mrs. Kelland, rules are rules.”
“Don’t tell me of no rules, Miss Rachel, as would cut a poor child off from her friends as her mother gave her to on her deathbed. ‘Sally,’ says she, ‘I know you will do a mother’s part by that poor little maid;’ and so I did till I was over persuaded to let her go to that there place.”
“Indeed you have nothing to regret there, Mrs. Kelland; you know, that with the kindest intentions, you could not make the child happy.”
“And why was that, ma’am, but because her mother was a poor creature from town, that had never broke her to her work. I never had the trouble with a girl of my own I had with her. ‘It’s all for your good, Lovedy,’ I says to her, and poor child, maybe she wishes herself back again.”
“I assure you, I always find the children well and happy, and it is very unfair on the matron to be angry with her for being bound by rules, to which she must submit, or she would transgress the regulations under which we have laid her! It is not her choice to exclude you, but her duty.”
“Please, ma’am, was it her duty to be coming out of the house in a ’genta coloured silk dress, and a drab bonnet with a pink feather in it?” said Mrs. Kelland, with a certain air of simplicity, that provoked Rachel to answer sharply—
“You don’t know what you are talking about, Mrs. Kelland.”
“Well, ma’am, it was a very decent woman as told me, an old lady of the name of Drinkwater, as keeps a baker’s shop on the other side of the way, and she never sees bread enough go in for a cat to make use of, let alone three poor hungry children. She says all is not right there, ma’am.”
“Oh, that must be mere gossip and spite at not having the custom. It quite accounts for what she may say, and indeed you brought it all on yourself by not having asked me for a note. You must restrain yourself. What you may say to me is of no importance, but you must not go and attack those who are doing the very best for your niece.”
Rachel made a dignified exit, but before she had gone many steps, she was assailed by tearful Mrs. Morris: “Oh, Miss Rachel, if it would not be displeasing to you, would you give me an order for my child to come home. Ours is a poor place, but I would rather make any shift for us to live than that she should be sent away to some place beyond sea.”
“Some place beyond sea!”
“Yes, ma’am. I beg your pardon, ma’am, but they do say that Mr. Maw-and-liver is a kidnapper, ma’am, and that he gets them poor children to send out to Botany Bay to be wives to the convicts as are transported, Miss Rachel, if you’ll excuse it. They say there’s a whole shipload of them at Plymouth, and I’d rather my poor Mary came to the Union at home than to the like
