The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (10 ebook reader .TXT) 📕

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!

“Godfrey was very much vexed, Drusilla, not to be able to come with us,” said my Aunt Ablewhite. “There was something in the way which kept him in town. Mr. Bruff volunteered to take his place, and make a holiday of it till Monday morning. By the by, Mr. Bruff, I’m ordered to take exercise, and I don’t like it. That,” added Aunt Ablewhite, pointing out of window to an invalid going by in a chair on wheels, drawn by a man, “is my idea of exercise. If it’s air you want, you get it in your chair. And if it’s fatigue you want, I am sure it’s fatigue enough to look at the man.”

Rachel stood silent, at a window by herself, with her eyes fixed on the sea.

“Tired, love?” I inquired.

“No. Only a little out of spirits,” she answered. “I have often seen the sea, on our Yorkshire coast, with that light on it. And I was thinking, Drusilla, of the days that can never come again.”

Mr. Bruff remained to dinner, and stayed through the evening. The more I saw of him, the more certain I felt that he had some private end to serve in coming to Brighton. I watched him carefully. He maintained the same appearance of ease, and talked the same godless gossip, hour after hour, until it was time to take leave. As he shook hands with Rachel, I caught his hard and cunning eyes resting on her for a moment with a peculiar interest and attention. She was plainly concerned in the object that he had in view. He said nothing out of the common to her or to anyone on leaving. He invited himself to luncheon the next day, and then he went away to his hotel.

It was impossible the next morning to get my Aunt Ablewhite out of her dressing-gown in time for church. Her invalid daughter (suffering from nothing, in my opinion, but incurable laziness, inherited from her mother) announced that she meant to remain in bed for the day. Rachel and I went alone together to church. A magnificent sermon was preached by my gifted friend on the heathen indifference of the world to the sinfulness of little sins. For more than an hour his eloquence (assisted by his glorious voice) thundered through the sacred edifice. I said to Rachel, when we came out, “Has it found its way to your heart, dear?” And she answered, “No; it has only made my head ache.” This might have been discouraging to some people; but, once embarked on a career of manifest usefulness, nothing discourages me.

We found Aunt Ablewhite and Mr. Bruff at luncheon. When Rachel declined eating anything, and gave as a reason for it that she was suffering from a headache, the lawyer’s cunning instantly saw, and seized, the chance that she had given him.

“There is only one remedy for a headache,” said this horrible old man. “A walk, Miss Rachel, is the thing to cure you. I am entirely at your service, if you will honour me by accepting my arm.”

“With the greatest pleasure. A walk is the very thing I was longing for.”

“It’s past two,” I gently suggested. “And the afternoon service, Rachel, begins at three.”

“How can you expect me to go to church again,” she asked, petulantly, “with such a headache as mine?”

Mr. Bruff officiously opened the door for her. In another minute more they were both out of the house. I don’t know when I have felt the solemn duty of interfering so strongly as I felt it at that moment. But what was to be done? Nothing was to be done but to interfere at the first opportunity, later in the day.

On my return from the afternoon service I found that they had just got back. One look at them told me that the lawyer had said what he wanted to say. I had never before seen Rachel so silent and so thoughtful. I had never before seen Mr. Bruff pay her such devoted attention, and look at her with such marked respect. He had (or pretended that he had) an engagement to dinner that day⁠—and he took an early leave of us all; intending to go back to London by the first train the next morning.

“Are you sure of your own resolution?” he said to Rachel at the door.

“Quite sure,” she answered⁠—and so they parted.

The moment his back was turned, Rachel withdrew to her own room. She never appeared at dinner. Her maid (the person with the cap-ribbons) was sent downstairs to announce that her headache had returned. I ran up to her and made all sorts of sisterly offers through the door. It was locked, and she kept it locked. Plenty of obstructive material to work on here! I felt greatly cheered and stimulated by her locking the door.

When her cup of tea went up to her the next morning, I followed it in. I sat by her bedside and said a few earnest words. She listened with languid civility. I noticed my serious friend’s precious publications huddled together on a table in a corner. Had she chanced to look into them?⁠—I asked. Yes⁠—and they had not interested her. Would she allow me to read a few passages of the deepest interest, which had probably escaped her eye? No, not now⁠—she had other things to think of. She gave these answers, with her attention apparently absorbed in folding and refolding the frilling on her nightgown. It was plainly necessary to rouse her by some reference to those worldly interests which she still had at heart.

“Do you know, love,” I said, “I had an odd fancy, yesterday, about Mr. Bruff? I thought, when I saw you after your walk with him, that