The girl who, under the influence of these words, had gradually risen
in anger and heightened in colour, answered, raising her lustrous black
eyes for the moment, and clenching her hand upon the folds it had been
puckering up, 'I'd die sooner!' Miss Wade, still standing at her side holding her hand, looked quietly
round and said with a smile, 'Gentlemen! What do you do upon that?'
Poor Mr Meagles's inexpressible consternation in hearing his motives and
actions so perverted, had prevented him from interposing any word until
now; but now he regained the power of speech.
'Tattycoram,' said he, 'for I'll call you by that name still, my good
girl, conscious that I meant nothing but kindness when I gave it to you,
and conscious that you know it--'
'I don't!' said she, looking up again, and almost rending herself with
the same busy hand. 'No, not now, perhaps,' said Mr Meagles; 'not with that lady's eyes so
intent upon you, Tattycoram,' she glanced at them for a moment, 'and
that power over you, which we see she exercises; not now, perhaps, but
at another time.
Tattycoram, I'll not ask that lady whether she believes
what she has said, even in the anger and ill blood in which I and my
friend here equally know she has spoken, though she subdues herself,
with a determination that any one who has once seen her is not likely
to forget. I'll not ask you, with your remembrance of my house and all
belonging to it, whether you believe it. I'll only say that you have
no profession to make to me or mine, and no forgiveness to entreat;
and that all in the world that I ask you to do, is, to count
five-and-twenty, Tattycoram.' She looked at him for an instant, and then said frowningly, 'I won't.
Miss Wade, take me away, please.'
The contention that raged within her had no softening in it now; it
was wholly between passionate defiance and stubborn defiance. Her rich
colour, her quick blood, her rapid breath, were all setting themselves
against the opportunity of retracing their steps. 'I won't. I won't.
I won't!' she repeated in a low, thick voice. 'I'd be torn to pieces
first. I'd tear myself to pieces first!'
Miss Wade, who had released her hold, laid her hand protectingly on the
girl's neck for a moment, and then said, looking round with her former
smile and speaking exactly in her former tone, 'Gentlemen! What do you
do upon that?'
'Oh, Tattycoram, Tattycoram!' cried Mr Meagles, adjuring her besides
with an earnest hand. 'Hear that lady's voice, look at that lady's face,
consider what is in that lady's heart, and think what a future lies
before you. My child, whatever you may think, that lady's influence
over you--astonishing to us, and I should hardly go too far in saying
terrible to us to see--is founded in passion fiercer than yours, and
temper more violent than yours. What can you two be together? What can
come of it?' 'I am alone here, gentlemen,' observed Miss Wade, with no change of
voice or manner. 'Say anything you will.'