第23章

As for Mr.Franklin and Miss Rachel, they tortured nothing, I am glad to say.They simply confined themselves to making a mess; and all they spoilt, to do them justice, was the panelling of a door.

Mr.Franklin's universal genius, dabbling in everything, dabbled in what he called `decorative painting.' He had invented, he informed us, a new mixture to moisten paint with, which he described as a `vehicle.'

What it was made of, I don't know.What it did, I can tell you in two words--it stank.Miss Rachel being wild to try her hand at the new process, Mr.Franklin sent to London for the materials; mixed them up, with accompaniment of a smell which made the very dogs sneeze when they came into the room; put an apron and a bib over Miss Rachel's gown, and set her to work decorating her own little sitting-room--called, for want of English to name it in, her `boudoir.' They began with the inside of the door.Mr.Franklin scraped off all the nice varnish with pumice-stone, and made what he described as a surface to work on.Miss Rachel then covered the surface, under his directions and with his help, with patterns and devices--griffins, birds, flowers, cupids, and such like--copied from designs made by a famous Italian painter, whose name escapes me: the one, I mean, who stocked the world with Virgin Maries, and had a sweetheart at the baker's.Viewed as work, this decoration was slow to do, and dirty to deal with.But our young lady and gentleman never seemed to tire of it.When they were not riding, or seeing company, or taking their meals, or piping their songs, there they were with their heads together, as busy as bees, spoiling the door.Who was the poet who said that Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do? If he had occupied my place in the family, and had seen Miss Rachel with her brush, and Mr.Franklin with his vehicle, he could have written nothing truer of either of them than that.

The next date worthy of notice is Sunday the fourth of June.

On that evening we, in the servants' hall, debated a domestic question for the first time, which, like the decoration of the door, has its bearing on something that is still to come.

Seeing the pleasure which Mr.Franklin and Miss Rachel took in each other's society, and noting what a pretty match they were in all personal respects, we naturally speculated on the chance of their putting their heads together with other objects in view besides the ornamenting of a door.Some of us said there would be a wedding in the house before the summer was over.Others (led by me) admitted it was likely enough Miss Rachel might be married; but we doubted (for reasons which will presently appear) whether her bridegroom would be Mr.Franklin Blake.

That Mr.Franklin was in love, on his side, nobody who saw and heard him could doubt.The difficulty was to fathom Miss Rachel.Let me do myself the honour of making you acquainted with her; after which, I will leave you to fathom for yourself--if you can.

My young lady's eighteenth birthday was the birthday now coming on the twenty-first of June.If you happen to like dark women (who, I am informed, have gone out of fashion latterly in the gay world), and if you have no particular prejudice in favour of size, I answer for Miss Rachel as one of the prettiest girls your eyes ever looked on.She was small and slim, but all in fine proportion from top to toe.To see her sit down, to see her get up, and specially to see her walk, was enough to satisfy any man in his senses that the graces of her figure (if you will pardon me the expression) were in her flesh and not in her clothes.Her hair was the blackest I ever saw.Her eyes matched her hair.Her nose was not quite large enough, I admit.Her mouth and chin were (to quote Mr.Franklin)morsels for the gods; and her complexion (on the same undeniable authority)was as warm as the sun itself, with this great advantage over the sun, that it was always in nice order to look at.Add to the foregoing that she carried her head as upright as a dart, in a dashing, spirited, thoroughbred way--that she had a clear voice, with a ring of the right metal in it, and a smile that began very prettily in her eyes before it got to her lips--and there behold the portrait of her, to the best of my painting, as large as life!

And what about her disposition next? Had this charming creature no faults?

She had just as many faults as you have, ma'am--neither more nor less.

To put it seriously, my dear pretty Miss Rachel, possessing a host of graces and attractions, had one defect, which strict impartiality compels me to acknowledge.She was unlike most other girls of her age, in this--that she had ideas of her own, and was stiff-necked enough to set the fashions themselves at defiance, if the fashions didn't suit her views.In trifles, this independence of hers was all well enough; but in matters of importance, it carried her (as my lady thought, and as I thought) too far.She judged for herself, as few women of twice her age judge in general; never asked your advice; never told you beforehand what she was going to do; never came with secrets and confidences to anybody, from her mother downwards.

In little things and great, with people she loved, and people she hated (and she did both with equal heartiness), Miss Rachel always went on a way of her own, sufficient for herself in the joys and sorrows of her life.

Over and over again I have heard my lady say, `Rachel's best friend and Rachel's worst enemy are, one and the other--Rachel herself.'

Add one thing more to this, and I have done.

With all her secrecy, and self-will, there was not so much as the shadow of anything false in her.I never remember her breaking her word; I never remember her saying No, and meaning Yes.I can call to mind, in her childhood, more than one occasion when the good little soul took the blame, and suffered the punishment, for some fault committed by a playfellow whom she loved.