I N the spring of the year eighteen hundred and forty-nine I was wandering in the East, and had then recently altered the travelling plans which I had laid out some months before, and which I had communicated to my lawyer and my banker in London.
This change made it necessary for me to send one of my servants to obtain my letters and remittances from the English consul in a certain city which was no longer included as one of my resting-places in my new travelling scheme.The man was to join me again at an appointed place and time.An accident, for which he was not responsible, delayed him on his errand.
For a week I and my people waited, encamped on the borders of a desert.
At the end of that time the missing man made his appearance, with the money and the letters, at the entrance of my tent.
`I am afraid I bring you bad news, sir,' he said, and pointed to one of the letters, which had a mourning border round it, and the address on which was in the handwriting of Mr.Bruff.
I know nothing, in a case of this kind, so unendurable as suspense.
The letter with the mourning border was the letter that I opened first.
It informed me that my father was dead, and that I was heir to his great fortune.The wealth which had thus fallen into my hands brought its responsibilities with it, and Mr.Bruff entreated me to lose no time in returning to England.
By daybreak the next morning I was on my way back to my own country.
The picture presented of me, by my old friend Betteredge, at the time of my departure from England, is (as I think) a little overdrawn.He has, in his own quaint way, interpreted seriously one of his young mistress's many satirical references to my foreign education; and has persuaded himself that he actually saw those French, German, and Italian sides to my character, which my lively cousin only professed to discover in jest, and which never had any real existence, except in our good Betteredge's own brain.But, barring this drawback, I am bound to own that he has stated no more than the truth in representing me as wounded to the heart by Rachel's treatment, and as leaving England in the first keenness of suffering caused by the bitterest disappointment of my life.
I went abroad, resolved--if change and absence could help me--to forget her.It is, I am persuaded, no true view of human nature which denies that change and absence do help a man under these circumstances: they force his attention away from the exclusive contemplation of his own sorrow.
I never forgot her; but the pang of remembrance lost its worst bitterness, little by little, as time, distance, and novelty interposed themselves more and more effectually between Rachel and me.
On the other hand, it is no less certain that, with the act of turning homeward, the remedy which had gained its ground so steadily, began now, just as steadily, to drop back.The nearer I draw to the country which she inhabited, and to the prospect of seeing her again, the more irresistibly her influence began to recover its hold on me.On leaving England she was the last person in the world whose name I would have suffered to pass my lips.On returning to England, she was the first person I inquired after, when Mr.Bruff and I met again.
I was informed, of course, of all that had happened in my absence: in other words, of all that has been related here in continuation of Betteredge's narrative--one circumstance only being excepted.Mr.Bruff did not, at that time, feel himself at liberty to inform me of the motives which had privately influenced Rachel and Godfrey Ablewhite in recalling the marriage promise, on either side.I troubled him with no embarrassing questions on this delicate subject.It was relief enough to me, after the jealous disappointment caused by hearing that she had ever contemplated being Godfrey's wife, to know that reflection had convinced her of acting rashly, and that she had effected her own release from her marriage engagement.
Having heard the story of the past, my next inquiries (still inquiries after Rachel!) advanced naturally to the present time.Under whose care had she been placed after leaving Mr.Bruff's house? and where was she living now?
She was living under the care of a widowed sister of the late Sir John Verinder--one Mrs.Merridew--whom her mother's executors had requested to act as guardian, and who had accepted the proposal.They were reported to me as getting on together admirably well, and as being now established, for the season, in Mrs.Merridew's house in Portland Place.
Half an hour after receiving this information, I was on my way to Portland Place--without having had the courage to own it to Mr.Bruff!
The man who answered the door was not sure whether Miss Verinder was at home or not.I sent him upstairs with my card, as the speediest way of setting the question at rest.The man came down again with an impenetrable face, and informed me that Miss Verinder was out.
I might have suspected other people of purposely denying themselves to me.But it was impossible to suspect Rachel.I left word that I would call again at six o'clock that evening.