“Their blossoms if you please,” laughed Ermine. “We have not seen their fruits yet.”
“And I shall take care the fruits are not nipped with the blight of suspicion,” said Rachel, good-humouredly.
However, after driving Ermine home, and seeing her lifted out and carried into the house by her sister, Rachel did send the carriage back by the groom and betake herself to Villars’s shop, where she asked for a sight of the Clergy List. The name of Mauleverer caught her eye, but only one instance of it appeared, and he was a cathedral canon, his presentation dated in , the time at which, judging from appearances, the object of her search might have been born; besides, he rejoiced in the simple name of Thomas. But Rachel’s search was brought to an abrupt conclusion by the issue of Mr. Mauleverer himself from the reading-room within the shop. He bowed and passed by, but Rachel for the life of her could not hinder a burning colour from spreading to the very tips of her ears; so certain did she feel that she was insulting him by her researches, and that he perceived them. She felt absolutely ashamed to see him the next day, and even in her dreams was revolving speeches that might prove that though cautious and clear-sighted, she was neither suspicious nor narrow-minded.
He came when some morning visitors were at the Homestead, prosy neighbours whose calls were always a penance to Rachel, and the butler, either from the manner of the inquiry or not regarding him as drawing-room company, put him into the dining-room and announced, “Mr. Mauleverer to see Miss Rachel.” Up jumped Miss Rachel, with “You’ll excuse me, it is on business;” and went off highly satisfied that “the mother” was hindered by politeness from making any attempt at chaperonage either personally or through Grace, so unnecessary at her age, for since Colonel Keith’s departure, Rachel’s age had begun to grow on her again. She held out her hand as if to atone for her search, but she found at once that it had been remarked.
“You were doing me the honour to look for my name in the Clergy List, Miss Curtis,” he said.
“Yes, one is apt—,” faltered Rachel, decidedly out of countenance.
“I quite appreciate the motive. It is exactly in accord with Miss Curtis’s prudence and good sense. I should wish to be fully explicit before any arrangements are made. I am unhappily not in orders, Miss Curtis. I know your liberality will regard the cause with leniency.”
“Indeed,” said Rachel, sufficiently restored to recall one of her premeditated reassurances. “I can fully appreciate any reluctance to become stringently bound to dogmatic enunciations, before the full powers of the intellect have examined into them.”
“You have expressed it exactly, Miss Curtis. Without denying an iota of them, I may be allowed to regret that our formularies are too technical for a thoughtful mind in the present age.”
“Many have found it so,” returned Rachel, thoughtfully, “who only needed patience to permit their convictions to ripen. Then I understand you, it was a rejection on negative not positive grounds?”
“Precisely; I do not murmur, but it has been the blight of my life.”
“And yet,” said Rachel, consolingly, “it may enable you to work with more freedom.”
“Since you encourage me to believe so, Miss Curtis, I will hope it, but I have met with much suspicion.”
“I can well believe it,” said Rachel; “even some of the most superior persons refuse to lay their hands to any task unless they are certified of the religious opinions of their coadjutors, which seems to me like a mason’s refusing to work at a wall with a man who liked Greek architecture when he preferred Gothic!”
If Rachel had been talking to Ermine she might have been asked whether the dissimilarity might not be in the foundations, or in the tempering of the mortar, but Mr. Mauleverer only commended her liberal spirit, and she thought it high time to turn from this subject to the immediate one in hand. He had wished to discuss the plan with her, he said, before drawing it up, and in effect she had cogitated so much upon it that her ideas came forth with more than her usual fluency and sententiousness. The scheme was that an asylum should be opened under the superintendence of Mr. Mauleverer himself, in which young girls might be placed to learn handicrafts that might secure their livelihood, in especial, perhaps, wood engraving and printing. It might even be possible, in time, to render the whole self-supporting, suppose by the publication of a little illustrated periodical, the materials for which might be supplied by those interested in the institution.
If anything could add to Rachel’s delight it was this last proposition. In all truth and candour, the relief to the victims to lace-making was her primary object, far before all besides, and the longing desire of her heart for years seemed about to be fulfilled; but a domestic magazine, an outlet to all the essays on curatocult, on helplessness, on female folly, and female rights, was a development of the plan beyond her wildest hopes! No dull editor to hamper, reject or curtail! She should be as happy, and as well able to expand as the Invalid herself.
Mr. Mauleverer had brought a large packet of letters with him, in all manner of hands. There were some testimonials from a German university, and letters from German professors in a compromise between English and German hand, looking impossible to read, also the neat writing and thin wavy water-marked paper of American professors and philanthropists in high commendation of his ability and his scheme, and a few others that he said were of too private a nature to do more than show Miss Curtis in confidence, but on which she recognised some distinguished names of persons interested in Social Science. She
