Mrs. Maldon said, cajolingly, flatteringly—
"My dear, do be your sensible self and listen to me."
It then occurred to Rachel that during the last day or so (the period seemed infinitely longer) she had been losing, not her common sense, but her immediate command of that faculty, of which she was, privately, very proud. And she braced her being, reaching up towards her own conception of herself, towards the old invulnerable Rachel Louisa Fleckring. At any cost she must keep her reputation for common sense with Mrs. Maldon.
And so she set a watch on her gestures, and moderated her voice, secretly yielding to the benevolence of the old lady, and said, in the tone of a wise and kind woman of the world and an incarnation of profound sagacity—
"What do I see of Mr. Fores, Mrs. Maldon? I see nothing of Mr. Fores, or hardly. I'm your lady help, and he's your nephew—at least, he's your great-nephew, and it's your house he comes to. I can't help being in the house, can I? If you're thinking about last night, well, Mr. Fores called to see how you were getting on, and I was just going out to do some shopping. He walked down with me. I suppose I needn't tell you I didn't ask him to walk down with me. He asked me. I couldn't hardly say no, could I? And there were some parcels and he walked back with me."
She felt so wise and so clever and the narrative seemed so entirely natural, proper, and inevitable that she was tempted to continue—
"And supposing we did go into a cinematograph for a minute or two—what then?"
But she had no courage for the confession. As a wise woman she perceived the advisability of letting well alone. Moreover, she hated confessions, remorse, and gnashing of teeth.
And Mrs. Maldon regarded her worldly and mature air, with its touch of polite condescension, as both comic and tragic, and thought sadly of all the girl would have to go through before the air of mature worldliness which she was now affecting could become natural to her.
"My dear," said Mrs. Maldon, "I have perfect confidence in you." It was not quite true, because Rachel's protest as to Mr. Batchgrew, seeming to point to strange concealed incidents, had most certainly impaired the perfection of Mrs. Maiden's confidence in Rachel.