"Yes, my dear, but perhaps--don't you think it might be remarked as if
you chose to keep out of sight?"
"Oh, very well."
Rachel followed her mother down, sustained by one hope, that Captain
Keith would be there. No; the Deanery did not greatly patronize the
barracks; there was not much chance of any gentleman under forty,
except, perhaps, in the evening. And at present the dean himself and
one canon were the entire gentleman element among some dozen ladies.
Everybody knew that the cause of delay was the trial of the cruel
matron, and added to the account of Rachel's iniquities their famished
and weary state of expectation, the good Dean gyrating among the groups,
trying to make conversation, which every one felt too fretful and
too hungry to sustain with spirit. Rachel sat it out, trying to talk
whenever she saw her mother's anxious eyes upon her, but failing in
finding anything to say, and much doubting whether her neighbours liked
talking to her.
At last gentlemen began to appear in twos and threes, and each made some
confidence to the womankind that first absorbed him, but no one came in
Rachel's way, and the girl beside her became too unfeignedly curious to
support even the semblance of conversation, but listened for scraps of
intelligence. Something was flying about respecting "a gentleman
who came down by the train," and something about "Lady Temple" and
"admirable," and the young lady seized the first opportunity of
deserting Rachel, and plunging into the melee. Rachel sat on, sick with
suspense, feeling utterly unable to quit her seat. Still they waited,
the whole of the party were not arrived, and here was the curfew
ringing, and that at the Deanery, which always felt injured if it were
seven o'clock before people were in the dining-room! Grace must be
upstairs dressing, but to reach her was impossible!
At last Mr. Grey was announced, and he had mercy upon Rachel; he came up
to her as soon as he could without making her remarkable, and told her
the cause of his delay had been the necessity of committing Mauleverer
upon an accusation by a relation of Colonel Keith, of very extensive
frauds upon Miss Williams's brother. Rachel's illness and the caution
of the Williamses had prevented her from being fully aware of the
complication of their affairs with her own, and she became paler and
paler, as she listened to the partial explanation, though she was hardly
able as yet to understand it.
"The woman?" she asked.
"Sentenced to a year's imprisonment with hard labour, and let me tell
you, Rachel, you had a most narrow escape there! If that army doctor had
not come in time to see the child alive, they could not have chosen
but have an inquest, and no mortal can tell what might have been the
decision about your homoeopathy. You might have been looking forward to
a worse business than this at the next assizes."