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 if for her, which comes to the same thing.'
`Quite the same thing.I shall get the letter, and I will go to Brighton to-morrow.'
`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!