‘Boil soup in the coppers; bake loaves in the furnaces? It makes you look at me perilously—and a perilous game you would find it, most likely to swallow this place and all the rest. Why, you, who had the making of a man of business in you, might reflect that you can’t annihilate property without damage to other folks.’
‘I did not reflect,’ said Robert, gravely; ‘the matter never occurred to me.’
‘What is the result of your reflection now?’
‘Nothing at all,’ was the somewhat impatient reply. ‘I trust never to have to consider. Get it out of my hands at any sacrifice, so as it may do the least harm to others. Had I no other objection to that business, I should have no choice.’
‘Your cloth? Well, that’s a pity, for I see how it could be mitigated, so as to satisfy your scruples;’ and Mervyn, whose head could work when it was not necessary, detailed a scheme for gradually contracting the most objectionable traffic, and adopting another branch of the trade.
‘Excellent,’ said Robert, assenting with delight at each pause. ‘You will carry it out.’
‘I? I’m only a reprobate distiller.’
There it ended, and Robert must have patience.
The guardian, Mr. Crabbe, came as soon as his gout would permit, and hemmed and grunted in reply to the strange narrative into which he had come to inquire. Acting was as yet impossible; Mervyn was forbidden to transact business, and Bertha was far too ill for the removal of the young ladies to be attempted. Miss Fennimore did indeed formally give in her resignation of her situation, but she was too necessary as a nurse for the time of her departure to be fixed, and Mr. Crabbe was unable to settle anything definitively. He found Robert—who previously had spurred him to strong measures—bent on persuading him to lenity, and especially on keeping Phœbe with Mervyn; and after a day and night of perplexity, the old gentleman took his leave, promising to come again on Bertha’s recovery, and to pacify the two elder sisters by representing the condition of Beauchamp, and that for the present the Incumbent of St. Matthew’s and Miss Charlecote might be considered as sufficient guardians for the inmates. ‘Or if their Ladyships thought otherwise,’ he said, with a twinkle in his eye, ‘why did they not come down themselves?’
Mervyn made a gesture of horror, but all knew that there was little danger. Augusta was always ‘so low’ at the sight of illness, and unless Phœbe had been the patient out of sight, Juliana would not have brought her husband; obvious as would have been the coming of an elder sister when the sickness of the younger dragged on so slowly and wearily.