Rachel Gray Part 13

"I tell you 'taint a bit of use, and that you're not going to go up,"

said the deep, emphatic tones of Jane.

"Et je vous dis que je veux monter, moi!" obstinately exclaimed the shrill French voice of Madame Rose.

Jane, who was not patient, now apparently resorted to that last argument of kings and nations, physical force, to remove the intruder, for there was the sound of a scuffle on the staircase, but if she had strength on her side, Madame Rose had agility, and though somewhat ruffled and out of breath, she victoriously burst into Rachel's room.

"Take care, Miss, take care," screamed Jane, rus.h.i.+ng up after her, "the French madwoman has got in, and I couldn't keep her out."

"Don't be afraid, Jane," said Rachel, as the alarmed apprentice made her appearance at the door, "I am very glad to see Madame Rose. I tell you she will not hurt me, and that I am glad to see her," she added, as Jane stared grimly at the intruder.

She spoke so positively, that the apprentice retired, but not without emphatically intimating that she should be within call if Miss Gray wanted her.

Rachel was too ill to speak much; but Madame Rose spared her the trouble by taking that task on herself; indeed, she seemed willing to take a great deal on herself, and listless as Rachel was, she perceived with surprise that Madame Rose was in some measure taking possession of her sick room. She inquired after Mimi. Madame Rose shook her head, produced a square pocket-handkerchief, applied it to her eyes, then turned them up, till the whites alone were visible; in short, she plainly intimated that Mimi had gone to her last home; after which she promptly dried her tears, and, partly by speech, partly by pantomime, she informed Rachel that the apprentices were too busy sewing to be able to attend on her, and that she--Madame Rose--would undertake that care. Rachel was too ill and languid to resist; and Jane and Mary, though they resented the intrusion of the foreigner, were unable to eject her, for, by possession, which is acknowledged to be nine-tenths of the law, Madame Rose made her claim good, until the enemy had abandoned all idea of resistance.

And a devoted nurse she made, ever attentive, ever vigilant. For three months did Rachel see, in her darkened room, the active little figure of the Frenchwoman, either moving briskly about, or sitting erect in her chair, knitting a.s.siduously, occasionally relieved, it is true, by Jane and Mary. She saw it when she lay in the trance of fever and pain, unable to move or speak; in her few moments of languid relief, it was still there, and it became so linked, in her mind, with her sick room, that, when she awoke one day free from fever, the delightful sensation that pain was gone from her, like the weary dream of a troubled night fled in the morning, blended with a sense of surprise and annoyance at missing the nod and the smile of Madame Rose.

Rachel looked around her wondering, and in looking, she caught sight of the portly and vulgar figure of Mrs. Brown; she saw her with some surprise, for she knew that that lady entertained a strong horror of a sick room.

"It's only me!" said Mrs. Brown, nodding at her. "You are all right now, my girl."

"I feel much better, indeed," replied Rachel

"Of course you do; the fever is all gone, otherwise you should not see me here, I promise you," added Mrs. Brown, with another nod, and a knowing wink.

"And Madame Rose," said Rachel, "where is Madame Rose?"

"Law! don't trouble your mind about her. Keep quiet, will you?"

Mrs. Brown spoke impatiently. Rachel felt too weak to dispute her authority, but when Jane came up, she again inquired after Madame Rose.

Jane drily said it was all right, and that Miss Gray was to keep quiet; and more than this she would not say.

The fever had left Rachel. She was now cured, and rapidly got better; but still, she did not see Madame Rose, and was favoured with more of Mrs.

Brown's company than she liked. At length she one day positively exacted an explanation from Jane, who reluctantly gave it.

"Law bless you, Miss!" she said, '"tain't worth talking about. Mrs. Brown can't abide the little Frenchwoman; and so, one day when she went out, she locked the door, and wouldn't let Mary open it; and when Madame Rose rang and rapped, Mrs. Brown put her head out of the window, and railed at her, until she fairly scared her away from the place."

"But what brought Mrs. Brown here?" asked Rachel, who had heard her with much surprise.

Jane looked embarra.s.sed, but was spared the trouble of replying by the voice of Mrs. Brown, who imperatively summoned her downstairs. She immediately complied, and left Rachel alone. A mild sun shone in through the open window on the sick girl; she had that day got up, for the first time, and sat in a chair with a book on her knees. But she could not read: she felt too happy, blest in that delightful sense of returning health which long sickness renders so sweet. Her whole soul overflowed with joy, thankfulness, and prayer, and for once the shadow of sad or subduing thoughts fell not on her joy.

"Well, my girl, and how are you to-day?" said the rough voice of Mrs.

Brown, who entered without the ceremony of knocking.

Rachel quietly replied that she felt well--almost quite well.

"Of course you do. I knew I'd bring you round," said Mrs. Brown. "La bless you! all their coddling was just killing you. So I told Jane, all along, but she wouldn't believe me. 'La bless you, girl!' I said to her, 'I do it willingly, but ifs only just a wasting of my money,' says I."

"Your money, Mrs. Brown?" interrupted Rachel, with a start.

"Why, of course, my money. Whose else? Didn't you know of it?"

"Indeed, I did not," replied Rachel, confounded.

"La! what a m.u.f.f the girl is!" good-humouredly observed Mrs. Brown. "And where did you think, stupid, that the money you have been nursed with these three months came from? Why, from my pocket, of course; twenty pound three-and-six, besides a quarter's rent, and another running on."

Rachel was dismayed at the amount of the debt. When and how should she be able to pay so large a sum? Still, rallying from her first feeling of surprise and dismay, she attempted to express to Mrs. Brown her grat.i.tude for the a.s.sistance so generously yielded, and her hope of being able to repay it some day; but Mrs. Brown would not hear her.

"Nonsense, Rachel," she said, "I ain't a-done more than I ought to have done for my cousin's step-daughter. And to whom should Jane, when she wanted money, have come, but to me? And as to paying me, bless you!

there's no hurry, Rachel. I can afford, thank Heaven, to lend twenty pound, and not miss it."

This was kindness--such Rachel felt it to be; but, alas! she also felt that these was on her, from that day, the badge of obligation and servitude. She was still too weak to work; she had, dining her long illness, lost the best part of her customers; until her full recovery, she was, perforce, cast on Mrs. Brown for a.s.sistance, and, of all persons, Mrs. Brown was the last not to take advantage of such a state of things. Mrs. Brown came when she liked, said what she liked, and did what she liked in Rachel's house. But, indeed, it was not Rachel's house--it was Mrs. Brown's. Rachel was there on sufferance; the very bed on which she slept was Mrs. Brown's; the very chair on which she sat was Mrs.

Brown's. So Mrs. Brown felt, and made every one feel, Rachel included.

The effects of her rule were soon apparent. Every article of furniture changed its place; every household nook was carefully examined and improved, and every luckless individual who entertained a lingering kindness for Rachel Gray, was affronted, and effectually banished from the house, from irascible Madame Rose down to peaceful Mr. Jones.

Rachel carried patience to a fault; through her whole life, she had been taught to suffer and endure silently, and now, burdened with the sense of her debt and obligation, she knew not how to resist the domestic tyranny of this new tormentor. The easiest course was to submit. To Rachel it seemed that such, in common grat.i.tude, was her duty; and, accordingly, she submitted. But this was a time of probation and trial: as such she ever looked back to it, in after life. To Jane, her patience seemed amazing, and scarcely commendable.

"I wonder you can bear with the old creetur, that I do," she said, emphatically.

"Mrs. Brown means kindly," said Rachel, "and she has been a kind friend to me, when I had no other friend. I may well hare a little patience."

"A little patience!" echoed Jane, indignantly, "a little patience! when she's always at you."

But Rachel would hear no more on the subject. If she bore with Mrs.

Brown, it was not to murmur at her behind her back. Yet she was not so insensible to what she endured, but that she felt it a positive relief when Mrs. Brown went and paid one of her nieces a visit in the country, and for a few weeks delivered the house of her presence. Internally, Rachel accused herself of ingrat.i.tude because she felt glad. "It's very wrong of me, I know," she remorsefully thought, "but I feel as if I could not help it."

Her health was now restored. She had found some work to do; with time she knew she should be able to pay Mrs. Brown. Her mind recovered its habitual tone; old thoughts, old feelings, laid by during the hour of trial and sickness, but never forsaken, returned to her now, and time, as it pa.s.sed on, matured a great thought in her heart.

"Who knows," she often asked herself, in her waking dreams, "who knows if the hour is not come at last? My father cannot always turn his face from me. Love me at once he cannot; but why should he not with time?" Yet it was not at once that Rachel acted on these thoughts. Never since he had received her so coldly, had she crossed her father's threshold; but often, in the evening, she had walked up and down before his door, looking at him through the shop window with sad and earnest eyes, never seeking for more than that stolen glance, though still with the persistency of a fond heart, she looked forward to a happier future.

And thus she lingered until one morning, when she rose, nerved her heart, and went out; calmly resolved to bear as others, to act.

She went to her father's house. She found him st.u.r.dy and stern, planing with the vigour of a man in the prime of life. His brow became clouded, as he saw and recognized his daughter's pale face and shrinking figure.

Still he bade her come in, for she stood on the threshold timidly waiting for a welcome; and his ungraciousness was limited to the cold question of what had brought her.

"I am come to see you, father," was her mild reply. And as to this Thomas Gray said nothing, Rachel added: "My mother is dead."

"I know it, and have known it these three months," he drily answered.

"She died very happy," resumed Rachel, "and before she died, she desired me to come and tell you that she sincerely forgave you all past unkindness."

A frown knit the rugged brow of Thomas Gray. His late wife had had a sharp temper of her own; and perhaps he thought himself as much sinned against as sinning. But he made no comment.

"Father," said Rachel, speaking from her very heart, and looking earnestly in his face, "may I come and live with you?"

Thomas Gray looked steadily at his daughter, and did not reply. But Rachel, resolved not to be easily disheartened, persisted none the less.

"Father," she resumed, and her voice faltered with the depth of her emotion, "pray let me. I know you do not care much for me. I dare say you are right, that I am not worth much; but still I might be useful to you.

A burden I certainly should not be; and in sickness, in age, I think, I hope, father, you would like to have your daughter near you.