When the last of the guests had driven away, I went back into the inner
hall and found Samuel at the side-table, presiding over the brandy
and soda-water. My lady and Miss Rachel came out of the drawing-room,
followed by the two gentlemen. Mr. Godfrey had some brandy and
soda-water, Mr. Franklin took nothing. He sat down, looking dead tired;
the talking on this birthday occasion had, I suppose, been too much for
him.
My lady, turning round to wish them good-night, looked hard at the
wicked Colonel's legacy shining in her daughter's dress.
"Rachel," she asked, "where are you going to put your Diamond to-night?"
Miss Rachel was in high good spirits, just in that humour for talking
nonsense, and perversely persisting in it as if it was sense, which you
may sometimes have observed in young girls, when they are highly wrought
up, at the end of an exciting day. First, she declared she didn't know
where to put the Diamond. Then she said, "on her dressing-table, of
course, along with her other things." Then she remembered that the
Diamond might take to shining of itself, with its awful moony light
in the dark--and that would terrify her in the dead of night. Then she
bethought herself of an Indian cabinet which stood in her sitting-room;
and instantly made up her mind to put the Indian diamond in the Indian
cabinet, for the purpose of permitting two beautiful native productions
to admire each other. Having let her little flow of nonsense run on as
far as that point, her mother interposed and stopped her.
"My dear! your Indian cabinet has no lock to it," says my lady.
"Good Heavens, mamma!" cried Miss Rachel, "is this an hotel? Are there
thieves in the house?"
Without taking notice of this fantastic way of talking, my lady wished
the gentlemen good-night. She next turned to Miss Rachel, and kissed
her. "Why not let ME keep the Diamond for you to-night?" she asked.
Miss Rachel received that proposal as she might, ten years since, have
received a proposal to part her from a new doll. My lady saw there was
no reasoning with her that night. "Come into my room, Rachel, the first
thing to-morrow morning," she said. "I shall have something to say
to you." With those last words she left us slowly; thinking her own
thoughts, and, to all appearance, not best pleased with the way by which
they were leading her.
Miss Rachel was the next to say good-night. She shook hands first with
Mr. Godfrey, who was standing at the other end of the hall, looking at
a picture. Then she turned back to Mr. Franklin, still sitting weary and
silent in a corner.
What words passed between them I can't say. But standing near the old
oak frame which holds our large looking-glass, I saw her reflected in
it, slyly slipping the locket which Mr. Franklin had given to her, out
of the bosom of her dress, and showing it to him for a moment, with
a smile which certainly meant something out of the common, before she
tripped off to bed. This incident staggered me a little in the reliance
I had previously felt on my own judgment. I began to think that Penelope
might be right about the state of her young lady's affections, after
all.