These bukes from Miss Curtis were sanatory tracts, which Rachel was constantly bestowing, and which on Sundays Mrs. Kelland spelt through, with her finger under the line, in happy ignorance whether the subject were temporal or spiritual, and feeling herself in the exemplary discharge of a Sunday duty. Moreover, old feudal feeling made Rachel be unmolested when she came down twice a week, opened the door of the blackhole under the stairs, and read aloud something religious, something improving, and a bit of a story, following it up by mental arithmetic and a lesson on objects, which seemed to Mrs. Kelland the most arrant nonsense in the world, and to her well-broken scholars was about as interesting as the humming of a blue-bottle fly; but it was poor Lovedy's one enjoyment, though making such havoc of her work that it was always expiated by extra hours, not on her pillow, but at it.
These visits of Rachel were considered to encourage the Kelland refractoriness, and it was officially intimated that it would be wise to discontinue them, and that "it was thought better" to withdraw from Mrs. Kelland all that direct patronage of her trade, by which the ladies had enabled her to be in some degree independent of the middle-men, who absorbed so much of the profit from the workers. Grace and Rachel, sufficiently old inhabitants to remember the terrible wreck that had left her a struggling widow, felt this a hard, not to say a vindictive decision. They had long been a kind of agents for disposing of her wares at a distance; and, feeling that the woman had received provocation, Grace was not disposed to give her up, while Rachel loudly averred that neither Mr. Touchett nor any of his ladies had any right to interfere, and she should take no notice.
"But," said Grace, "can we run counter to our clergyman's direct wishes?"
"Yes, when he steps out of his province. My dear Grace, you grew up in the days of curatolatry, but it won't do; men are fallible even when they preach in a surplice, and you may be thankful to me that you and Fanny are not both led along in a string in the train of Mr. Touchett's devotees!"
"I wish I knew what was right to do," said Grace, quietly, and she remained wishing it after Rachel had said a great deal more; but the upshot of it was, that one day when Grace and Fanny were walking together on the esplanade, they met Mr. Touchett, and Grace said to him, "We have been thinking it over, and we thought, perhaps, you would not wish us not to give any orders to Mrs. Kelland. I know she has behaved very ill; but I don't see how she is to get on, and she has this child on her hands."
"I know," said Mr. Touchett, "but really it was flagrant."
"Oh," said Lady Temple, gently, "I dare say she didn't mean it, and you could not be hard on a widow."
"Well," said Mr. Touchett, "Miss Brown was very much put out, and-- and--it is a great pity about the child, but I never thought myself that such strong measures would do any good."
"Then you will not object to her being employed?"
"No, not at all. From a distance, it is not the same thing as close at home; it won't be an example."
"Thank you," said Grace; and "I am so glad," said Lady Temple; and Mr. Touchett went on his way, lightened of his fear of having let his zealous coadjutors oppress the hard-working, and far more brightened by the sweet smile of requital, but all the time doubtful whether he had been weak. As to the victory, Rachel only laughed, and said, "If it made Grace more comfortable, it was well, except for that acknowledgment of Mr. Touchett's jurisdiction."
A few days after, Rachel made her appearance in Mackerel Lane, and announced her intention of consulting Ermine Williams under seal of secrecy. "I have an essay that I wish you to judge of before I send it to the 'Traveller.'"
"Indeed!" said Ermine, her colour rising. "Would it not be better--"
"Oh, I know what you mean, but don't scruple on that score. At my age, with a mother like mine, it is simply to avoid teasing and excitement that I am silent."
"I was going to say I was hardly a fair--"
"Because of your different opinions? But those go for nothing. You are a worthy antagonist, and enter into my views as my mother and sister cannot do, even while you oppose them."
"But I don't think I can help you, even if--"
"I don't want help; I only want you to judge of the composition. In fact, I read it to you that I may hear it myself."
Ermine resigned herself.
"'Curatolatry is a species--'"
"I beg your pardon."
"Curatolatry. Ah! I thought that would attract attention."
"But I am afraid the scholars would fall foul of it."
"Why, have not they just made Mariolatry?"
"Yes; but they are very severe on hybrids between Latin and Greek."
"It is not worth while to boggle at trifles when one has an expressive term," said Rachel; "if it turns into English, that is all that is wanted."
"Would it not be rather a pity if it should turn into English? Might it not be hard to brand with a contemptuous name what does more good than harm?"
"That sickly mixture of flirtation and hero worship, with a religious daub as a salve to the conscience."
"Laugh it down, and what do you leave? In Miss Austen's time silly girls ran to balls after militiamen, now, if they run to schools and charities more for the curate's sake than they quite know, is not the alternative better?"
"It is greater humbug," said Rachel. "But I knew you would not agree, at least beforehand, it is appreciation that I want."
Never did Madame de Genlis make a cleverer hit than in the reading of the Genius Phanor's tragedy in the Palace of Truth. Comically absurd as the inconsistency is of transporting the lecture of a Parisian academician into an enchanted palace, full of genii and fairies of the remotest possible connexion with the Arab jinn, the whole is redeemed by the truth to nature of the sole dupe in the Palace of Truth being the author reading his own works. Ermine was thinking of him all the time. She was under none of the constraint of Phanor's auditors, though she carried a perpetual palace of truth about with her; she would not have had either fears or compunctions in criticising, if she could. The paper was in the essay style, between argument and sarcasm, something after the model of the Invalid's Letters; but it was scarcely lightly touched enough, the irony was wormwood, the gravity heavy and sententious, and where there was a just thought or happy hit, it seemed to travel in a road-waggon, and be lost in the rumbling of the wheels. Ermine did not restrain a smile, half of amusement, half of relief, at the self-antidote the paper contained; but the smile passed with the authoress as a tribute to her satire.