"I am glad to see you," she said. "Drusilla, I have been in the habit of
speaking very foolishly and very rudely to you, on former occasions. I
beg your pardon. I hope you will forgive me."
My face, I suppose, betrayed the astonishment I felt at this. She
coloured up for a moment, and then proceeded to explain herself.
"In my poor mother's lifetime," she went on, "her friends were not
always my friends, too. Now I have lost her, my heart turns for comfort
to the people she liked. She liked you. Try to be friends with me,
Drusilla, if you can."
To any rightly-constituted mind, the motive thus acknowledged was simply
shocking. Here in Christian England was a young woman in a state of
bereavement, with so little idea of where to look for true comfort, that
she actually expected to find it among her mother's friends! Here was
a relative of mine, awakened to a sense of her shortcomings towards
others, under the influence, not of conviction and duty, but of
sentiment and impulse! Most deplorable to think of--but, still,
suggestive of something hopeful, to a person of my experience in plying
the good work. There could be no harm, I thought, in ascertaining
the extent of the change which the loss of her mother had wrought in
Rachel's character. I decided, as a useful test, to probe her on the
subject of her marriage-engagement to Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite.
Having first met her advances with all possible cordiality, I sat by her
on the sofa, at her own request. We discussed family affairs and future
plans--always excepting that one future plan which was to end in
her marriage. Try as I might to turn the conversation that way,
she resolutely declined to take the hint. Any open reference to the
question, on my part, would have been premature at this early stage of
our reconciliation. Besides, I had discovered all I wanted to know. She
was no longer the reckless, defiant creature whom I had heard and seen,
on the occasion of my martyrdom in Montagu Square. This was, of itself,
enough to encourage me to take her future conversion in hand--beginning
with a few words of earnest warning directed against the hasty formation
of the marriage tie, and so getting on to higher things. Looking at her,
now, with this new interest--and calling to mind the headlong suddenness
with which she had met Mr. Godfrey's matrimonial views--I felt the
solemn duty of interfering with a fervour which assured me that I should
achieve no common results. Rapidity of proceeding was, as I believed,
of importance in this case. I went back at once to the question of the
servants wanted for the furnished house.
"Where is the list, dear?"
Rachel produced it.