Chapter Chapter 30 · Chapter VII

The foregoing correspondence will sufficiently explain why no choice is

left to me but to pass over Lady Verinder’s death with the simple

announcement of the fact which ends my fifth chapter.

Keeping myself for the future strictly within the limits of my own

personal experience, I have next to relate that a month elapsed from

the time of my aunt’s decease before Rachel Verinder and I met again.

That meeting was the occasion of my spending a few days under the same

roof with her. In the course of my visit, something happened, relative

to her marriage-engagement with Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite, which is

important enough to require special notice in these pages. When this

last of many painful family circumstances has been disclosed, my task

will be completed; for I shall then have told all that I know, as an

actual (and most unwilling) witness of events.

My aunt’s remains were removed from London, and were buried in the

little cemetery attached to the church in her own park. I was invited

to the funeral with the rest of the family. But it was impossible (with

my religious views) to rouse myself in a few days only from the shock

which this death had caused me. I was informed, moreover, that the

rector of Frizinghall was to read the service. Having myself in past

times seen this clerical castaway making one of the players at Lady

Verinder’s whist-table, I doubt, even if I had been fit to travel,

whether I should have felt justified in attending the ceremony.

Lady Verinder’s death left her daughter under the care of her

brother-in-law, Mr. Ablewhite the elder. He was appointed guardian by

the will, until his niece married, or came of age. Under these

circumstances, Mr. Godfrey informed his father, I suppose, of the new

relation in which he stood towards Rachel. At any rate, in ten days

from my aunt’s death, the secret of the marriage-engagement was no

secret at all within the circle of the family, and the grand question

for Mr. Ablewhite senior—another confirmed castaway!—was how to make

himself and his authority most agreeable to the wealthy young lady who

was going to marry his son.

Rachel gave him some trouble at the outset, about the choice of a place

in which she could be prevailed upon to reside. The house in Montagu

Square was associated with the calamity of her mother’s death. The

house in Yorkshire was associated with the scandalous affair of the

lost Moonstone. Her guardian’s own residence at Frizinghall was open to

neither of these objections. But Rachel’s presence in it, after her

recent bereavement, operated as a check on the gaieties of her cousins,

the Miss Ablewhites—and she herself requested that her visit might be

deferred to a more favourable opportunity. It ended in a proposal,

emanating from old Mr. Ablewhite, to try a furnished house at Brighton.

His wife, an invalid daughter, and Rachel were to inhabit it together,

and were to expect him to join them later in the season. They would see

no society but a few old friends, and they would have his son Godfrey,

travelling backwards and forwards by the London train, always at their

disposal.

I describe this aimless flitting about from one place of residence to

another—this insatiate restlessness of body and appalling stagnation of

soul—merely with the view to arriving at results. The event which

(under Providence) proved to be the means of bringing Rachel Verinder

and myself together again, was no other than the hiring of the house at

Brighton.

My Aunt Ablewhite is a large, silent, fair-complexioned woman, with one

noteworthy point in her character. From the hour of her birth she has

never been known to do anything for herself. She has gone through life,

accepting everybody’s help, and adopting everybody’s opinions. A more

hopeless person, in a spiritual point of view, I have never met

with—there is absolutely, in this perplexing case, no obstructive

material to work upon. Aunt Ablewhite would listen to the Grand Lama of

Thibet exactly as she listens to Me, and would reflect his views quite

as readily as she reflects mine. She found the furnished house at

Brighton by stopping at an hotel in London, composing herself on a

sofa, and sending for her son. She discovered the necessary servants by

breakfasting in bed one morning (still at the hotel), and giving her

maid a holiday on condition that the girl “would begin enjoying herself

by fetching Miss Clack.” I found her placidly fanning herself in her

dressing-gown at eleven o’clock. “Drusilla, dear, I want some servants.

You are so clever—please get them for me.” I looked round the untidy

room. The church-bells were going for a week-day service; they

suggested a word of affectionate remonstrance on my part. “Oh, aunt!” I

said sadly. “Is _this_ worthy of a Christian Englishwoman? Is the

passage from time to eternity to be made in _this_ manner?” My aunt

answered, “I’ll put on my gown, Drusilla, if you will be kind enough to

help me.” What was to be said after that? I have done wonders with

murderesses—I have never advanced an inch with Aunt Ablewhite. “Where

is the list,” I asked, “of the servants whom you require?” My aunt

shook her head; she hadn’t even energy enough to keep the list. “Rachel

has got it, dear,” she said, “in the next room.” I went into the next

room, and so saw Rachel again for the first time since we had parted in

Montagu Square.

She looked pitiably small and thin in her deep mourning. If I attached

any serious importance to such a perishable trifle as personal

appearance, I might be inclined to add that hers was one of those

unfortunate complexions which always suffer when not relieved by a

border of white next the skin. But what are our complexions and our

looks? Hindrances and pitfalls, dear girls, which beset us on our way

to higher things! Greatly to my surprise, Rachel rose when I entered

the room, and came forward to meet me with outstretched hand.

“I am glad to see you,” she said. “Drusilla, I have been in the habit

of speaking very foolishly and very rudely to you, on former occasions.

I beg your pardon. I hope you will forgive me.”

My face, I suppose, betrayed the astonishment I felt at this. She

coloured up for a moment, and then proceeded to explain herself.

“In my poor mother’s lifetime,” she went on, “her friends were not

always my friends, too. Now I have lost her, my heart turns for comfort

to the people she liked. She liked you. Try to be friends with me,

Drusilla, if you can.”

To any rightly-constituted mind, the motive thus acknowledged was

simply shocking. Here in Christian England was a young woman in a state

of bereavement, with so little idea of where to look for true comfort,

that she actually expected to find it among her mother’s friends! Here

was a relative of mine, awakened to a sense of her shortcomings towards

others, under the influence, not of conviction and duty, but of

sentiment and impulse! Most deplorable to think of—but, still,

suggestive of something hopeful, to a person of my experience in plying

the good work. There could be no harm, I thought, in ascertaining the

extent of the change which the loss of her mother had wrought in

Rachel’s character. I decided, as a useful test, to probe her on the

subject of her marriage-engagement to Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite.

Having first met her advances with all possible cordiality, I sat by

her on the sofa, at her own request. We discussed family affairs and

future plans—always excepting that one future plan which was to end in

her marriage. Try as I might to turn the conversation that way, she

resolutely declined to take the hint. Any open reference to the

question, on my part, would have been premature at this early stage of

our reconciliation. Besides, I had discovered all I wanted to know. She

was no longer the reckless, defiant creature whom I had heard and seen,

on the occasion of my martyrdom in Montagu Square. This was, of itself,

enough to encourage me to take her future conversion in hand—beginning

with a few words of earnest warning directed against the hasty

formation of the marriage tie, and so getting on to higher things.

Looking at her, now, with this new interest—and calling to mind the

headlong suddenness with which she had met Mr. Godfrey’s matrimonial

views—I felt the solemn duty of interfering with a fervour which

assured me that I should achieve no common results. Rapidity of

proceeding was, as I believed, of importance in this case. I went back

at once to the question of the servants wanted for the furnished house.

“Where is the list, dear?”

Rachel produced it.

“Cook, kitchen-maid, housemaid, and footman,” I read. “My dear Rachel,

these servants are only wanted for a term—the term during which your

guardian has taken the house. We shall have great difficulty in finding

persons of character and capacity to accept a temporary engagement of

that sort, if we try in London. Has the house in Brighton been found

yet?”

“Yes. Godfrey has taken it; and persons in the house wanted him to hire

them as servants. He thought they would hardly do for us, and came back

having settled nothing.”

“And you have no experience yourself in these matters, Rachel?”

“None whatever.”

“And Aunt Ablewhite won’t exert herself?”

“No, poor dear. Don’t blame her, Drusilla. I think she is the only

really happy woman I have ever met with.”

“There are degrees in happiness, darling. We must have a little talk,

some day, on that subject. In the meantime I will undertake to meet the

difficulty about the servants. Your aunt will write a letter to the

people of the house——”

“She will sign a letter, if I write it for her, which comes to the same

thing.”

“Quite the same thing. I shall get the letter, and I will go to

Brighton tomorrow.”

“How extremely kind of you! We will join you as soon as you are ready

for us. And you will stay, I hope, as _my_ guest. Brighton is so

lively; you are sure to enjoy it.”

In those words the invitation was given, and the glorious prospect of

interference was opened before me.

It was then the middle of the week. By Saturday afternoon the house was

ready for them. In that short interval I had sifted, not the characters

only, but the religious views as well, of all the disengaged servants

who applied to me, and had succeeded in making a selection which my

conscience approved. I also discovered, and called on two serious

friends of mine, residents in the town, to whom I knew I could confide

the pious object which had brought me to Brighton. One of them—a

clerical friend—kindly helped me to take sittings for our little party

in the church in which he himself ministered. The other—a single lady,

like myself—placed the resources of her library (composed throughout of

precious publications) entirely at my disposal. I borrowed half-a-dozen

works, all carefully chosen with a view to Rachel. When these had been

judiciously distributed in the various rooms she would be likely to

occupy, I considered that my preparations were complete. Sound doctrine

in the servants who waited on her; sound doctrine in the minister who

preached to her; sound doctrine in the books that lay on her table—such

was the treble welcome which my zeal had prepared for the motherless

girl! A heavenly composure filled my mind, on that Saturday afternoon,

as I sat at the window waiting the arrival of my relatives. The giddy

throng passed and repassed before my eyes. Alas! how many of them felt

my exquisite sense of duty done? An awful question. Let us not pursue

it.

Between six and seven the travellers arrived. To my indescribable

surprise, they were escorted, not by Mr. Godfrey (as I had

anticipated), but by the lawyer, Mr. Bruff.

“How do you do, Miss Clack?” he said. “I mean to stay this time.”

That reference to the occasion on which I had obliged him to postpone

his business to mine, when we were both visiting in Montagu Square,

satisfied me that the old worldling had come to Brighton with some

object of his own in view. I had prepared quite a little Paradise for

my beloved Rachel—and here was the Serpent already!

“Godfrey was very much vexed, Drusilla, not to be able to come with

us,” said my Aunt Ablewhite. “There was something in the way which kept

him in town. Mr. Bruff volunteered to take his place, and make a

holiday of it till Monday morning. By-the-bye, Mr. Bruff, I’m ordered

to take exercise, and I don’t like it. That,” added Aunt Ablewhite,

pointing out of window to an invalid going by in a chair on wheels,

drawn by a man, “is my idea of exercise. If it’s air you want, you get

it in your chair. And if it’s fatigue you want, I am sure it’s fatigue

enough to look at the man.”

Rachel stood silent, at a window by herself, with her eyes fixed on the

sea.

“Tired, love?” I inquired.

“No. Only a little out of spirits,” she answered. “I have often seen

the sea, on our Yorkshire coast, with that light on it. And I was

thinking, Drusilla, of the days that can never come again.”

Mr. Bruff remained to dinner, and stayed through the evening. The more

I saw of him, the more certain I felt that he had some private end to

serve in coming to Brighton. I watched him carefully. He maintained the

same appearance of ease, and talked the same godless gossip, hour after

hour, until it was time to take leave. As he shook hands with Rachel, I

caught his hard and cunning eyes resting on her for a moment with a

peculiar interest and attention. She was plainly concerned in the

object that he had in view. He said nothing out of the common to her or

to anyone on leaving. He invited himself to luncheon the next day, and

then he went away to his hotel.

It was impossible the next morning to get my Aunt Ablewhite out of her

dressing-gown in time for church. Her invalid daughter (suffering from

nothing, in my opinion, but incurable laziness, inherited from her

mother) announced that she meant to remain in bed for the day. Rachel

and I went alone together to church. A magnificent sermon was preached

by my gifted friend on the heathen indifference of the world to the

sinfulness of little sins. For more than an hour his eloquence

(assisted by his glorious voice) thundered through the sacred edifice.

I said to Rachel, when we came out, “Has it found its way to your

heart, dear?” And she answered, “No; it has only made my head ache.”

This might have been discouraging to some people; but, once embarked on

a career of manifest usefulness, nothing discourages Me.

We found Aunt Ablewhite and Mr. Bruff at luncheon. When Rachel declined

eating anything, and gave as a reason for it that she was suffering

from a headache, the lawyer’s cunning instantly saw, and seized, the

chance that she had given him.

“There is only one remedy for a headache,” said this horrible old man.

“A walk, Miss Rachel, is the thing to cure you. I am entirely at your

service, if you will honour me by accepting my arm.”

“With the greatest pleasure. A walk is the very thing I was longing

for.”

“It’s past two,” I gently suggested. “And the afternoon service,

Rachel, begins at three.”

“How can you expect me to go to church again,” she asked, petulantly,

“with such a headache as mine?”

Mr. Bruff officiously opened the door for her. In another minute more

they were both out of the house. I don’t know when I have felt the

solemn duty of interfering so strongly as I felt it at that moment. But

what was to be done? Nothing was to be done but to interfere at the

first opportunity, later in the day.

On my return from the afternoon service I found that they had just got

back. One look at them told me that the lawyer had said what he wanted

to say. I had never before seen Rachel so silent and so thoughtful. I

had never before seen Mr. Bruff pay her such devoted attention, and

look at her with such marked respect. He had (or pretended that he had)

an engagement to dinner that day—and he took an early leave of us all;

intending to go back to London by the first train the next morning.

“Are you sure of your own resolution?” he said to Rachel at the door.

“Quite sure,” she answered—and so they parted.

The moment his back was turned, Rachel withdrew to her own room. She

never appeared at dinner. Her maid (the person with the cap-ribbons)

was sent downstairs to announce that her headache had returned. I ran

up to her and made all sorts of sisterly offers through the door. It

was locked, and she kept it locked. Plenty of obstructive material to

work on here! I felt greatly cheered and stimulated by her locking the

door.

When her cup of tea went up to her the next morning, I followed it in.

I sat by her bedside and said a few earnest words. She listened with

languid civility. I noticed my serious friend’s precious publications

huddled together on a table in a corner. Had she chanced to look into

them?—I asked. Yes—and they had not interested her. Would she allow me

to read a few passages of the deepest interest, which had probably

escaped her eye? No, not now—she had other things to think of. She gave

these answers, with her attention apparently absorbed in folding and

refolding the frilling on her nightgown. It was plainly necessary to

rouse her by some reference to those worldly interests which she still

had at heart.

“Do you know, love,” I said, “I had an odd fancy, yesterday, about Mr.

Bruff? I thought, when I saw you after your walk with him, that he had

been telling you some bad news.”

Her fingers dropped from the frilling of her nightgown, and her fierce

black eyes flashed at me.

“Quite the contrary!” she said. “It was news I was interested in

hearing—and I am deeply indebted to Mr. Bruff for telling me of it.”

“Yes?” I said, in a tone of gentle interest.

Her fingers went back to the frilling, and she turned her head sullenly

away from me. I had been met in this manner, in the course of plying

the good work, hundreds of times. She merely stimulated me to try

again. In my dauntless zeal for her welfare, I ran the great risk, and

openly alluded to her marriage engagement.

“News you were interested in hearing?” I repeated. “I suppose, my dear

Rachel, that must be news of Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite?”

She started up in the bed, and turned deadly pale. It was evidently on

the tip of her tongue to retort on me with the unbridled insolence of

former times. She checked herself—laid her head back on the

pillow—considered a minute—and then answered in these remarkable words:

“_I shall never marry Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite._”

It was my turn to start at that.

“What can you possibly mean?” I exclaimed. “The marriage is considered

by the whole family as a settled thing!”

“Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite is expected here today,” she said doggedly.

“Wait till he comes—and you will see.”

“But my dear Rachel——”

She rang the bell at the head of her bed. The person with the

cap-ribbons appeared.

“Penelope! my bath.”

Let me give her her due. In the state of my feelings at that moment, I

do sincerely believe that she had hit on the only possible way of

forcing me to leave the room.

By the mere worldly mind my position towards Rachel might have been

viewed as presenting difficulties of no ordinary kind. I had reckoned

on leading her to higher things by means of a little earnest

exhortation on the subject of her marriage. And now, if she was to be

believed, no such event as her marriage was to take place at all. But

ah, my friends! a working Christian of my experience (with an

evangelising prospect before her) takes broader views than these.

Supposing Rachel really broke off the marriage, on which the

Ablewhites, father and son, counted as a settled thing, what would be

the result? It could only end, if she held firm, in an exchanging of

hard words and bitter accusations on both sides. And what would be the

effect on Rachel when the stormy interview was over? A salutary moral

depression would be the effect. Her pride would be exhausted, her

stubbornness would be exhausted, by the resolute resistance which it

was in her character to make under the circumstances. She would turn

for sympathy to the nearest person who had sympathy to offer. And I was

that nearest person—brimful of comfort, charged to overflowing with

seasonable and reviving words. Never had the evangelising prospect

looked brighter, to _my_ eyes, than it looked now.

She came down to breakfast, but she ate nothing, and hardly uttered a

word.

After breakfast she wandered listlessly from room to room—then suddenly

roused herself, and opened the piano. The music she selected to play

was of the most scandalously profane sort, associated with performances

on the stage which it curdles one’s blood to think of. It would have

been premature to interfere with her at such a time as this. I

privately ascertained the hour at which Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite was

expected, and then I escaped the music by leaving the house.

Being out alone, I took the opportunity of calling upon my two resident

friends. It was an indescribable luxury to find myself indulging in

earnest conversation with serious persons. Infinitely encouraged and

refreshed, I turned my steps back again to the house, in excellent time

to await the arrival of our expected visitor. I entered the

dining-room, always empty at that hour of the day, and found myself

face to face with Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite!

He made no attempt to fly the place. Quite the contrary. He advanced to

meet me with the utmost eagerness.

“Dear Miss Clack, I have been only waiting to see _you!_ Chance set me

free of my London engagements today sooner than I had expected, and I

have got here, in consequence, earlier than my appointed time.”

Not the slightest embarrassment encumbered his explanation, though this

was his first meeting with me after the scene in Montagu Square. He was

not aware, it is true, of my having been a witness of that scene. But

he knew, on the other hand, that my attendances at the Mothers’

Small-Clothes, and my relations with friends attached to other

charities, must have informed me of his shameless neglect of his Ladies

and of his Poor. And yet there he was before me, in full possession of

his charming voice and his irresistible smile!

“Have you seen Rachel yet?” I asked.

He sighed gently, and took me by the hand. I should certainly have

snatched my hand away, if the manner in which he gave his answer had

not paralysed me with astonishment.

“I have seen Rachel,” he said with perfect tranquillity. “You are

aware, dear friend, that she was engaged to me? Well, she has taken a

sudden resolution to break the engagement. Reflection has convinced her

that she will best consult her welfare and mine by retracting a rash

promise, and leaving me free to make some happier choice elsewhere.

That is the only reason she will give, and the only answer she will

make to every question that I can ask of her.”

“What have you done on your side?” I inquired. “Have you submitted?”

“Yes,” he said with the most unruffled composure, “I have submitted.”

His conduct, under the circumstances, was so utterly inconceivable,

that I stood bewildered with my hand in his. It is a piece of rudeness

to stare at anybody, and it is an act of indelicacy to stare at a

gentleman. I committed both those improprieties. And I said, as if in a

dream, “What does it mean?”

“Permit me to tell you,” he replied. “And suppose we sit down?”

He led me to a chair. I have an indistinct remembrance that he was very

affectionate. I don’t think he put his arm round my waist to support

me—but I am not sure. I was quite helpless, and his ways with ladies

were very endearing. At any rate, we sat down. I can answer for that,

if I can answer for nothing more.