"I saw her with a bruised eye," said the Colonel's unexpected voice in a
pause. "How was that?"
"Please, sir, Mrs. Rawlins hit me with her fist because I had only done
seven sprigs. She knocked me down, and I did not come to for ever so
long."
And not only this, and the like sad narratives, but each child bore the
marks in corroboration of the words, which were more reluctant and more
hoarse from Lovedy, but even more effective. Rachel doubted no more
after the piteous sight of those scarred shoulders, and the pinched
feeble face; but one thing was plain, namely, that Mr. Mauleverer had
no share in the cruelties. Even such severities as had been perpetrated
while he was in the house, had, Mary thought, been protested against by
him, but she had seldom seen him, he paid all his visits in the little
parlour, and took no notice of the children except to prepare the
tableau for public inspection. Mr. Grey, looking at his notes, said that
there was full evidence to justify issuing a summons against the woman
for assaulting the children, and proceeded to ask her name. Then while
there was a question whether her Christian name was known, the Colonel
again said, "I believe her name to be Maria Hatherton. Miss Williams has
recognised her as a servant who once lived in her family, and who came
from her father's parish at Beauchamp."
Alison on inquiry corroborated the statement, and the charge was made
against Maria Rawlins, alias Hatherton. The depositions were read over
to the children, and signed by them; with very trembling fingers by
poor little Lovedy, and Mr. Grey said he would send a policeman with the
summons early next day.
"But, Mr. Grey," burst out Mrs. Curtis, "you don't mean that you are not
going to do anything to that man! Why he has been worse than the woman!
It was he that entrapped the poor children, and my poor Rachel here,
with his stories of magazines and illustrations, and I don't know what
all!"
"Very true, Mrs. Curtis," said the magistrate, "but where's the charge
against him?"
It may be conceived how pleasant it was to the clever woman of the
family to hear her mother declaiming on the arts by which she had been
duped by this adventurer, appealing continually to Grace and Fanny,
and sometimes to herself, and all before Mr. Grey, on whose old-world
prejudices she had bestowed much more antagonism than he had thought
it worth while to bestow on her new lights. Yet, at the moment, this
operation of being written down an ass, was less acutely painful to
her than the perception that was simultaneously growing on her of the
miserable condition of poor little Lovedy, whose burning hand she held,
and whose gasping breath she heard, as the child rested feebly in the
chair in which she had been placed. Rachel had nothing vindictive or
selfish in her mood, and her longing was, above all, to get away, and
minister to the poor child's present sufferings; but she found herself
hemmed in, and pinned down by the investigation pushed on by her mother,
involving answers and explanations that she alone could make.