‘Oh?’ he said. ‘Miss Clack is here as your guest—in my house?’
It was Rachel’s turn to lose her temper at that. Her colour rose, and her eyes brightened fiercely. She turned to the lawyer, and, pointing to Mr. Ablewhite, asked haughtily, ‘What does he mean?’
Mr. Bruff interfered for the third time.
‘You appear to forget,’ he said, addressing Mr. Ablewhite, ‘that you took this house as Miss Verinder’s guardian, for Miss Verinder’s use.’
‘Not quite so fast,’ interposed Mr. Ablewhite. ‘I have a last word to say, which I should have said some time since, if this—’ He looked my way, pondering what abominable name he should call me—’if this Rampant Spinster had not interrupted us. I beg to inform you, sir, that, if my son is not good enough to be Miss Verinder’s husband, I cannot presume to consider his father good enough to be Miss Verinder’s guardian. Understand, if you please, that I refuse to accept the position which is offered to me by Lady Verinder’s will. In your legal phrase, I decline to act. This house has necessarily been hired in my name. I take the entire responsibility of it on my shoulders. It is my house. I can keep it, or let it, just as I please. I have no wish to hurry Miss Verinder. On the contrary, I beg her to remove her guest and her luggage, at her own entire convenience.’ He made a low bow, and walked out of the room.
That was Mr. Ablewhite’s revenge on Rachel, for refusing to marry his son!
The instant the door closed, Aunt Ablewhite exhibited a phenomenon which silenced us all. She became endowed with energy enough to cross the room!
‘My dear,’ she said, taking Rachel by the hand, ‘I should be ashamed of my husband, if I didn’t know that it is his temper which has spoken to you, and not himself. You,’ continued Aunt Ablewhite, turning on me in my corner with another endowment of energy, in her looks this time instead of her limbs—’you are the mischievous person who irritated him. I hope I shall never see you or your tracts again.’ She went back to Rachel and kissed her. ‘I beg your pardon, my dear,’ she said, ‘in my husband’s name. What can I do for you?’
Consistently perverse in everything—capricious and unreasonable in all the actions of her life—Rachel melted into tears at those commonplace words, and returned her aunt’s kiss in silence.
‘If I may be permitted to answer for Miss Verinder,’ said Mr. Bruff, ‘might I ask you, Mrs. Ablewhite, to send Penelope down with her mistress’s bonnet and shawl. Leave us ten minutes together,’ he added, in a lower tone, ‘and you may rely on my setting matters right, to your satisfaction as well as to Rachel’s.’
The trust of the family in this man was something wonderful to see. Without a word more, on her side, Aunt Ablewhite left the room.
‘Ah’ said Mr. Bruff, looking after her. ‘The Herncastle blood has its drawbacks, I admit. But there is something in good breeding after all!’
Having made that purely worldly remark, he looked hard at my corner, as if he expected me to go. My interest in Rachel—an infinitely higher interest than his—riveted me to my chair.
Mr. Bruff gave it up, exactly as he had given it up at Aunt Verinder’s, in Montagu Square. He led Rachel to a chair by the window, and spoke to her there.
‘My dear young lady,’ he said, ‘Mr. Ablewhite’s conduct has naturally shocked you, and taken you by surprise. If it was worth while to contest the question with such a man, we might soon show him that he is not to have things all his own way. But it isn’t worth while. You were quite right in what you said just now; he is beneath our notice.’
He stopped, and looked round at my corner. I sat there quite immovable, with my tracts at my elbow, and with Miss Jane Ann Stamper on my lap.
‘You know,’ he resumed, turning back again to Rachel, ‘that it was part of your poor mother’s fine nature always to see the best of the people about her, and never the worst. She named her brother-in-law your guardian because she believed in him, and because she thought it would please her sister. I had never liked Mr. Ablewhite myself, and I induced your mother to let me insert a clause in the will, empowering her executors, in certain events, to consult with me about the appointment of a new guardian. One of those events has happened to-day; and I find myself in a position to end all these dry business details, I hope agreeably, with a message from my wife. Will you honour Mrs. Bruff by becoming her guest? And will you remain under my roof, and be one of my family, until we wise people have laid our heads together, and have settled what is to be done next?’
At those words, I rose to interfere. Mr. Bruff had done exactly what I had dreaded he would do, when he asked Mrs. Ablewhite for Rachel’s bonnet and shawl.
Before I could interpose a word, Rachel had accepted his invitation in the warmest terms. If I suffered the arrangement thus made between them to be carried out—if she once passed the threshold of Mr. Bruff’s door—farewell to the fondest hope of my life, the hope of bringing my lost sheep back to the fold! The bare idea of such a calamity as this quite overwhelmed me. I cast the miserable trammels of worldly discretion to the winds, and spoke with the fervour that filled me, in the words that came first.
‘Stop!’ I said—’stop! I must be heard. Mr. Bruff! you are not related to her, and I am. I invite her—I summon the executors to appoint me guardian. Rachel, dearest Rachel, I offer you my modest home; come to London by the next train, love, and share it with me!’
Mr. Bruff said nothing. Rachel looked at me with a cruel astonishment which she made no effort to conceal.
‘You are very kind, Drusilla,’ she said. ‘I shall hope to visit you whenever I happen to be in London. But I have accepted Mr. Bruff’s invitation, and I think it will be best, for the present, if I remain under Mr. Bruff’s care.’
‘Oh, don’t say so!’ I pleaded. ‘I can’t part with you, Rachel,—I can’t part with you!’
I tried to fold her in my arms. But she drew back. My fervour did not communicate itself; it only alarmed her.
‘Surely,’ she said, ‘this is a very unnecessary display of agitation? I don’t understand it.’
‘No more do I,’ said Mr. Bruff.
Their hardness—their hideous, worldly hardness—revolted me.
‘Oh, Rachel! Rachel!’ I burst out. ‘Haven’t you seen yet, that my heart yearns to make a Christian of you? Has no inner voice told you that I am trying to do for you, what I was trying to do for your dear mother when death snatched her out of my hands?’
Rachel advanced a step nearer, and looked at me very strangely.
‘I don’t understand your reference to my mother,’ she said. ‘Miss Clack, will you have the goodness to explain yourself?’
Before I could answer, Mr. Bruff came forward, and offering his arm to Rachel, tried to lead her out of the room.
‘You had better not pursue the subject, my dear,’ he said. ‘And Miss Clack had better not explain herself.’
If I had been a stock or a stone, such an interference as this must have roused me into testifying to the truth. I put Mr. Bruff aside indignantly with my own hand, and, in solemn and suitable language, I stated the view with which sound doctrine does not scruple to regard the awful calamity of dying unprepared.
Rachel started back from me—I blush to write it—with a scream of horror.
‘Come away!’ she said to Mr. Bruff. ‘Come away, for God’s sake, before that woman can say any more! Oh, think of my poor mother’s harmless, useful, beautiful life! You were at the funeral, Mr. Bruff; you saw how everybody loved her; you saw the poor helpless people crying at her grave over the loss of their best friend. And that wretch stands there, and tries to make me doubt that my mother, who was an angel on earth, is an angel in heaven now! Don’t stop to talk about it! Come away! It stifles me to breathe the same air with her! It frightens me to feel that we are in the same room together!’
Deaf to all remonstrance, she ran to the door.
At the same moment, her maid entered with her bonnet and shawl. She huddled them on anyhow. ‘Pack my things,’ she said, ‘and bring them to Mr. Bruff’s.’ I attempted to approach her—I was shocked and grieved, but, it is needless to say, not offended. I only wished to say to her, ‘May your hard heart be softened! I freely forgive you!’ She pulled down her veil, and tore her shawl away from my hand, and, hurrying out, shut the door in my face. I bore the insult with my customary fortitude. I remember it now with my customary superiority to all feeling of offence.