We
did not love her, but she was associated with us by the closest ties
that can subsist between lawyer and client. Had anything happened to
Miss Blake, we should, in the event of her death, have gone in a body to
her funeral, and felt a want in our lives for ever after.
But Miss Blake had not the slightest intention of dying: we were not
afraid of that calamity. The only thing we really did dread was that
some day she might insist upon laying the blame of River Hall remaining
uninhabited on our shoulders, and demand that Mr. Craven should pay her
the rent out of his own pocket.
We knew if she took that, or any other pecuniary matter, seriously in
hand, she would carry it through; and, between jest and earnest, we were
wont to speculate whether, in the end, it might not prove cheaper to our
firm if Mr. Craven were to farm that place, and pay Miss Blake's niece
an annuity of say one hundred a year.
Ultimately we decided that it would, but that such a scheme was
impracticable, because Miss Blake would always think we were making a
fortune out of River Hall, and give us no peace till she had a share of
the profit.
For a time, Miss Blake--after unfastening her bonnet-strings, and taking
out her brooch and throwing back her shawl--sat fanning herself with a
dilapidated glove, and saying, "Oh dear! oh dear! what is to become of
me I cannot imagine.
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