Ignorant of such subjects at the best, her brain was devoid of force
even to reason out her own conjectures, or to decide what must be
impossible. She felt compelled to keep all to herself; to alarm her
mother was out of the question, when Mrs. Curtis was distressed and
shaken enough already, and to have told Grace would only have brought
her soothing promises of sharing the burthen--exactly what she did not
want--and would have led to the fact being known to the family man of
business, Mr. Cox, the very last person to whom Rachel wished to confess
the proceeding. It was not so much the humiliation of owning to him such
a fatal act of piracy upon his province, as because she believed him to
have been the cause that the poor had all this time been cheated of the
full value of the estate. He had complacently consulted the welfare
of the Curtis family, by charging them with the rent of the fields as
ordinary grass land, and it had never dawned on him that it would be
only just to increase the rent. Rachel had found him an antagonist to
every scheme she had hatched, ever since she was fifteen years old, her
mother obeyed him with implicit faith, and it was certain that if the
question were once in his hands, he would regard it as his duty to save
the Curtis funds, and let the charity sink or swim. And he was the only
person out of the house whom Rachel had seen.
As soon as--or rather before--she could bear it, the first day that her
presence was supposed not to be perilous to others, she was obliged to
have an interview with him, to enable him to prepare the case for
the quarter sessions. Nothing could be much worse for her nerves and
spirits, but even the mother was absolutely convinced of the necessity,
and Rachel was forced to tax her enfeebled powers to enable her to give
accurate details of her relations with Mauleverer, and enable him to
judge of the form of the indictment. Once or twice she almost sunk back
from the exceeding distastefulness of the task, but she found herself
urged on, and when she even asked what would happen if she were not well
enough to appear, she was gravely told that she must be--it would be
very serious if she did not make a great effort, and even her mother
shook her head, looked unhappy, but confirmed the admonition. A little
revenge or hatred would have been a great help to her, but she could not
feel them as impulses. If it had been the woman, she could have gladly
aided in visiting such cruelty upon her, but this had not been directly
chargeable upon Mauleverer; and though Rachel felt acutely that he had
bitterly abused her confidence, she drooped too much to feel the spirit
of retort. The notion of being confronted with him before all the world
at Avoncester, and being made to bring about his punishment, was simply
dreadful to her, but when she murmured some word of this to her mother,
Mrs. Curtis fairly started, and said quite fiercely, "My dear, don't let
me hear you say any such thing. He is a very wicked man, and you ought
to be glad to have him punished!"