"Great Heaven! Sir--oh! oh!--is there nothing left?"
He shook his head despondingly. The murder was out now; there was no need of any more questioning--no case could be simpler. We were not worth a shilling!
If in my vain and godless days the doctor at my bedside had suddenly told me that I must die before midnight, I could not have been more bewildered. Without knowing what I did, I turned and walked to the window, on which the rain was thundering, and rolling down in rivers. I heard nothing--my ears were stunned.
We were ruined! What must the discovery have been to poor mamma? She saw all the monstrous past--the delirium was dissipated. An abyss was between her and her former life. In the moment of social death, all that she was leaving had become almost grotesque, incredibly ghastly. Here in a moment was something worse than poverty, worse even than death.
During papa's life the possibility of those vague vexations known as "difficulties" and "embarrassments," might have occurred to me, but that I should ever have found myself in the plight in which I now stood had never entered my imagination.
Suppose, on a fine evening, a ship, with a crash like a cannon, tears open her planks on a hidden rock, and the water gushes and whirls above the knees, the waists, the throats of the polite people round the tea-table in the state-cabin, without so much as time interposed to say God bless us! between the warning and the catastrophe, and you have our case!
Young ladies, you live in a vague and pleasant dream. Gaslight in your hall and lobbies, wax lights, fires, decorous servants, flowers, spirited horses, millinery, soups and wines, are products of nature, and come of themselves. There is, nevertheless, such a thing as poverty, as there is such a thing as death. We hold them both as doctrines, and, of course, devoutly believe in them, but when either lays its cold hand on your shoulder, and you look it in the face, you are as much appalled as if you had never heard its name before.
Carelessness, indolence, a pleasurable supineness, without any other grievous fault or enormous mistake, had, little by little, prepared all for the catastrophe. Mamma was very ill that night. In the morning Mr. Forrester came again. Mamma could not see him; but I had a long interview with him. He was very kind. I will tell you, in a few words, the upshot of our conference.