`Insult!' reiterated Mr.Ablewhite.`I know your motive, Miss Verinder, for breaking your promise to my son! I know it as certainly as if you had confessed it in so many words.Your cursed family pride is insulting Godfrey, as it insulted me when I married your aunt.Her family--her beggarly family--turned their backs on her for marrying an honest man, who had made his own place and won his own fortune.I had no ancestors.I wasn't descended from a set of cut-throat scoundrels who lived by robbery and murder.Icouldn't point to the time when the Ablewhites hadn't a shirt to their backs, and couldn't sign their own names.Ha! ha! I wasn't good enough for the Herncastles, when I married.And, now it comes to the pinch, my son isn't good enough for you.I suspected it all along.You have got the Herncastle blood in you, my young lady! I suspected it all along.'
`A very unworthy suspicion,' remarked Mr.Bruff.`I am astonished that you have the courage to acknowledge it.'
Before Mr.Ablewhite could find words to answer in, Rachel spoke in a tone of the most exasperating contempt.
`Surely,' she said to the lawyer, `this is beneath notice.If he can think in that way, let us leave him to think as he pleases.'
From scarlet, Mr.Ablewhite was now becoming purple.He gasped for breath;he looked backwards and forwards from Rachel to Mr.Bruff in such a frenzy of rage with both of them that he didn't know which to attack first.His wife, who had sat impenetrably fanning herself up to this time, began to be alarmed, and attempted, quite uselessly, to quiet him.I had, throughout this distressing interview, felt more than one inward call to interfere with a few earnest words, and had controlled myself under a dread of the possible results, very unworthy of a Christian Englishwoman who looks, not to what is merely prudent, but to what is morally right.At the point at which matters had now arrived, I rose superior to all considerations of mere expediency.If I had contemplated interposing any remonstrance of my own humble devising, I might possibly have still hesitated.But the distressing domestic emergency which now confronted me was most marvellously and beautifully provided for in the Correspondence of Miss Jane Ann Stamper--Letter one thousand and one, on `Peace in Families.' I rose in my modest corner, and I opened my precious book.
`Dear Mr.Ablewhite,' I said, `one word!'
When I first attracted the attention of the company by rising, I could see that he was on the point of saying something rude to me.My sisterly form of address checked him.He stared at me in heathen astonishment.
`As an affectionate well-wisher and friend,' I proceeded, `and as one long accustomed to arouse, convince, prepare, enlighten, and fortify others, permit me to take the most pardonable of all liberties--the liberty of composing your mind.'
He began to recover himself; he was on the point of breaking out--he would have broken out, with anybody else.But my voice (habitually gentle) possesses a high note or so, in emergencies.In this emergency, I felt imperatively called upon to have the higher voice of the two.
I held up my precious book before him; I rapped the open page impressively with my forefinger.`Not my words!' I exclaimed, in a burst of fervent interruption.`Oh, don't suppose that I claim attention for My humble words!
Manna in the wilderness, Mr.Ablewhite! Dew on the parched earth! Words of comfort, words of wisdom, words of love--the blessed, blessed, blessed words of Miss Jane Ann Stamper!'
I was stopped there by a momentary impediment of the breath.Before I could recover myself, this monster in human form shouted out furiously:
`Miss Jane Ann Stamper be--!'
It is impossible for me to write the awful word, which is here represented by a blank.I shrieked as it passed his lips; I flew to my little bag on the side table; I shook out all my tracts; I seized the one particular tract on profane swearing, entitled, `Hush, for Heaven's Sake!'; I handed it to him with an expression of agonized entreaty.He tore it in two, and threw it back at me across the table.The rest of them rose in alarm, not knowing what might happen next.I instantly sat down again in my corner.
There had once been an occasion, under somewhat similar circumstances, when Miss Jane Ann Stamper had been taken by the two shoulders and turned out of a room.I waited, inspired by her spirit, for a repetition of her martyrdom.
But no--it was not to be.His wife was the next person whom he addressed.
`Who--who--who,' he said, stammering with rage, `asked this impudent fanatic into the house? Did you?'
Before Aunt Ablewhite could say a word, Rachel answered for her.
`Miss Clack is here,' she said, `as my guest.'
Those words had a singular effect on Mr.Ablewhite.They suddenly changed him from a man in a state of red-hot anger to a man in a state of icy-cold contempt.It was plain to everybody that Rachel had said something--short and plain as her answer had been--which gave him the upper hand of her at last.
`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.'