The Moonstone
which appeared to have so strangely intimidated the fresh-coloured
young footman. Had my aunt sent me my promised legacy? and had it taken
the form of cast-off clothes, or worn-out silver spoons, or
unfashionable jewellery, or anything of that sort? Prepared to accept
all, and to resent nothing, I opened the parcel—and what met my view?
The twelve precious publications which I had scattered through the
house, on the previous day; all returned to me by the doctor’s orders!
Well might the youthful Samuel shrink when he brought his parcel into
my room! Well might he run when he had performed his miserable errand!
As to my aunt’s letter, it simply amounted, poor soul, to this—that she
dare not disobey her medical man.
What was to be done now? With my training and my principles, I never
had a moment’s doubt.
Once self-supported by conscience, once embarked on a career of
manifest usefulness, the true Christian never yields. Neither public
nor private influences produce the slightest effect on us, when we have
once got our mission. Taxation may be the consequence of a mission;
riots may be the consequence of a mission; wars may be the consequence
of a mission: we go on with our work, irrespective of every human
consideration which moves the world outside us. We are above reason; we
are beyond ridicule; we see with nobody’s eyes, we hear with nobody’s
ears, we feel with nobody’s hearts, but our own. Glorious, glorious
privilege! And how is it earned? Ah, my friends, you may spare
yourselves the useless inquiry! We are the only people who can earn
it—for we are the only people who are always right.
In the case of my misguided aunt, the form which pious perseverance was
next to take revealed itself to me plainly enough.
Preparation by clerical friends had failed, owing to Lady Verinder’s
own reluctance. Preparation by books had failed, owing to the doctor’s
infidel obstinacy. So be it! What was the next thing to try? The next
thing to try was—Preparation by Little Notes. In other words, the books
themselves having been sent back, select extracts from the books,
copied by different hands, and all addressed as letters to my aunt,
were, some to be sent by post, and some to be distributed about the
house on the plan I had adopted on the previous day. As letters they
would excite no suspicion; as letters they would be opened—and, once
opened, might be read. Some of them I wrote myself. “Dear aunt, may I
ask your attention to a few lines?” &c. “Dear aunt, I was reading last
night, and I chanced on the following passage,” &c. Other letters were
written for me by my valued fellow-workers, the sisterhood at the
Mothers’-Small-Clothes. “Dear madam, pardon the interest taken in you
by a true, though humble, friend.” “Dear madam, may a serious person
surprise you by saying a few cheering words?” Using these and other
similar forms of courteous appeal, we reintroduced all my precious
passages under a form which not even the doctor’s watchful materialism
could suspect. Before the shades of evening had closed around us, I had
a dozen awakening letters for my aunt, instead of a dozen awakening
books. Six I made immediate arrangements for sending through the post,
and six I kept in my pocket for personal distribution in the house the
next day.
Soon after two o’clock I was again on the field of pious conflict,
addressing more kind inquiries to Samuel at Lady Verinder’s door.
My aunt had had a bad night. She was again in the room in which I had
witnessed her Will, resting on the sofa, and trying to get a little
sleep.
I said I would wait in the library, on the chance of seeing her. In the
fervour of my zeal to distribute the letters, it never occurred to me
to inquire about Rachel. The house was quiet, and it was past the hour
at which the musical performance began. I took it for granted that she
and her party of pleasure-seekers (Mr. Godfrey, alas! included) were
all at the concert, and eagerly devoted myself to my good work, while
time and opportunity were still at my own disposal.
My aunt’s correspondence of the morning—including the six awakening
letters which I had posted overnight—was lying unopened on the library
table. She had evidently not felt herself equal to dealing with a large
mass of letters—and she might be daunted by the number of them, if she
entered the library later in the day. I put one of my second set of six
letters on the chimney-piece by itself; leaving it to attract her
curiosity, by means of its solitary position, apart from the rest. A
second letter I put purposely on the floor in the breakfast-room. The
first servant who went in after me would conclude that my aunt had
dropped it, and would be specially careful to restore it to her. The
field thus sown on the basement story, I ran lightly upstairs to
scatter my mercies next over the drawing-room floor.
Just as I entered the front room, I heard a double knock at the
street-door—a soft, fluttering, considerate little knock. Before I
could think of slipping back to the library (in which I was supposed to
be waiting), the active young footman was in the hall, answering the
door. It mattered little, as I thought. In my aunt’s state of health,
visitors in general were not admitted. To my horror and amazement, the
performer of the soft little knock proved to be an exception to general
rules. Samuel’s voice below me (after apparently answering some
questions which I did not hear) said, unmistakably, “Upstairs, if you
please, sir.” The next moment I heard footsteps—a man’s
footsteps—approaching the drawing-room floor. Who could this favoured
male visitor possibly be? Almost as soon as I asked myself the
question, the answer occurred to me. Who _could_ it be but the doctor?
In the case of any other visitor, I should have allowed myself to be
discovered in the drawing-room. There would have been nothing out of
the common in my having got tired of the library, and having gone
upstairs for a change. But my own self-respect stood in the way of my
meeting the person who had insulted me by sending me back my books. I
slipped into the little third room, which I have mentioned as
communicating with the back drawing-room, and dropped the curtains
which closed the open doorway. If I only waited there for a minute or
two, the usual result in such cases would take place. That is to say,
the doctor would be conducted to his patient’s room.
I waited a minute or two, and more than a minute or two. I heard the
visitor walking restlessly backwards and forwards. I also heard him
talking to himself. I even thought I recognised the voice. Had I made a
mistake? Was it not the doctor, but somebody else? Mr. Bruff, for
instance? No! an unerring instinct told me it was not Mr. Bruff.
Whoever he was, he was still talking to himself. I parted the heavy
curtains the least little morsel in the world, and listened.
The words I heard were, “I’ll do it today!” And the voice that spoke
them was Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite’s.
CHAPTER V
My hand dropped from the curtain. But don’t suppose—oh, don’t
suppose—that the dreadful embarrassment of my situation was the
uppermost idea in my mind! So fervent still was the sisterly interest I
felt in Mr. Godfrey, that I never stopped to ask myself why he was not
at the concert. No! I thought only of the words—the startling
words—which had just fallen from his lips. He would do it today. He had
said, in a tone of terrible resolution, he would do it today. What, oh
what, would he do? Something even more deplorably unworthy of him than
what he had done already? Would he apostatise from the faith? Would he
abandon us at the Mothers’-Small-Clothes? Had we seen the last of his
angelic smile in the committee-room? Had we heard the last of his
unrivalled eloquence at Exeter Hall? I was so wrought up by the bare
idea of such awful eventualities as these in connection with such a
man, that I believe I should have rushed from my place of concealment,
and implored him in the name of all the Ladies’ Committees in London to
explain himself—when I suddenly heard another voice in the room. It
penetrated through the curtains; it was loud, it was bold, it was
wanting in every female charm. The voice of Rachel Verinder.
“Why have you come up here, Godfrey?” she asked. “Why didn’t you go
into the library?”
He laughed softly, and answered, “Miss Clack is in the library.”
“Clack in the library!” She instantly seated herself on the ottoman in
the back drawing-room. “You are quite right, Godfrey. We had much
better stop here.”
I had been in a burning fever, a moment since, and in some doubt what
to do next. I became extremely cold now, and felt no doubt whatever. To
show myself, after what I had heard, was impossible. To retreat—except
into the fireplace—was equally out of the question. A martyrdom was
before me. In justice to myself, I noiselessly arranged the curtains so
that I could both see and hear. And then I met my martyrdom, with the
spirit of a primitive Christian.
“Don’t sit on the ottoman,” the young lady proceeded. “Bring a chair,
Godfrey. I like people to be opposite to me when I talk to them.”
He took the nearest seat. It was a low chair. He was very tall, and
many sizes too large for it. I never saw his legs to such disadvantage
before.
“Well?” she went on. “What did you say to them?”
“Just what you said, dear Rachel, to me.”
“That mamma was not at all well today? And that I didn’t quite like
leaving her to go to the concert?”
“Those were the words. They were grieved to lose you at the concert,
but they quite understood. All sent their love; and all expressed a
cheering belief that Lady Verinder’s indisposition would soon pass
away.”
“_You_ don’t think it’s serious, do you, Godfrey?”
“Far from it! In a few days, I feel quite sure, all will be well
again.”
“I think so, too. I was a little frightened at first, but I think so
too. It was very kind to go and make my excuses for me to people who
are almost strangers to you. But why not have gone with them to the
concert? It seems very hard that you should miss the music too.”
“Don’t say that, Rachel! If you only knew how much happier I am—here,
with you!”
He clasped his hands, and looked at her. In the position which he
occupied, when he did that, he turned my way. Can words describe how I
sickened when I noticed exactly the same pathetic expression on his
face, which had charmed me when he was pleading for destitute millions
of his fellow-creatures on the platform at Exeter Hall!
“It’s hard to get over one’s bad habits, Godfrey. But do try to get
over the habit of paying compliments—do, to please me.”
“I never paid _you_ a compliment, Rachel, in my life. Successful love
may sometimes use the language of flattery, I admit. But hopeless love,
dearest, always speaks the truth.”
He drew his chair close, and took her hand, when he said “hopeless
love.” There was a momentary silence. He, who thrilled everybody, had
doubtless thrilled _her_. I thought I now understood the words which
had dropped from him when he was alone in the drawing-room, “I’ll do it
today.” Alas! the most rigid propriety could hardly have failed to
discover that he was doing it now.
“Have you forgotten what we agreed on, Godfrey, when you spoke to me in
the country? We agreed that we were to be cousins, and nothing more.”
“I break the agreement, Rachel, every time I see you.”
“Then don’t see me.”
“Quite useless! I break the agreement every time I think of you. Oh,
Rachel! how kindly you told me, only the other day, that my place in
your estimation was a higher place than it had ever been yet! Am I mad
to build the hopes I do on those dear words? Am I mad to dream of some
future day when your heart may soften to me? Don’t tell me so, if I am!