"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--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!"