Rachel Ray Part 21

"I have no doubt he knows how to dance very cleverly. As Rachel is being taught to live now, that may perhaps be the chief thing necessary."

This blow did reach poor Mrs. Ray, who a week or two since would certainly have agreed with her elder daughter in thinking that dancing was sinful. Into this difficulty, however, she had been brought by Mr. Comfort's advice. "But what else can she know of him?"

continued Mrs. Prime. "He is able to maintain a wife you say,--and is that all that is necessary to consider in the choice of a husband, or is that the chief thing? Oh, mother, you should think of your responsibility at such a time as this. It may be very pleasant for Rachel to have this young man as her lover, very pleasant while it lasts. But what--what--what?" Then Mrs. Prime was so much oppressed by the black weight of her own thoughts, that she was unable further to express them.

"I do think about it," said Mrs. Ray. "I think about it more than anything else."

"And have you concluded that in this way you can best secure Rachel's welfare? Oh, mother!"

"He always goes to church on Sundays," said Rachel. "I don't know why you are to make him out so bad." This she said with her eyes fixed upon her mother, for it seemed to her that her mother was almost about to yield.

A good deal might be said in excuse for Mrs. Prime. She was not only acting for the best in accordance with her own lights, but the doctrine which she now preached was the doctrine which had been held by the inhabitants of the cottage at Bragg's End. The fault, if fault there was, had been in the teaching under which had lived both Mrs.

Prime and her mother. In their desire to live in accordance with that teaching, they had agreed to regard all the outer world, that is all the world except their world, as wicked and dangerous. They had never conceived that in forming this judgment they were deficient in charity; nor, indeed, were they conscious that they had formed any such judgment. In works of charity they had striven to be abundant, but had taken simply the Dorcas view of that virtue. The younger and more energetic woman had become sour in her temper under the _regime_ of this life, while the elder and weaker had retained her own sweetness partly because of her weakness. But who can say that either of them were other than good women,--good according to such lights as had been lit for their guidance? But now the younger was stanch to her old lessons while the elder was leaving them. The elder was leaving them, not by force of her own reason, but under the necessity of coming in contact with the world which was brought upon her by the vitality and instincts of her younger child. This difficulty she had sought to master, once and for ever, by a reference to her clergyman.

What had been the result of that reference the reader already knows.

"Mother," said Mrs. Prime, very solemnly, "is this young man such a one as you would have chosen for Rachel's husband six months ago?"

"I never wished to choose any man for her husband," said Mrs. Ray. "I don't think you ought to talk to me in that way, Dorothea."

"I don't know in what other way to talk to you. I cannot be indifferent on such a subject as this. When you tell me, and that before Rachel herself, that you have given this young man leave to come and see her whenever he pleases."

"I never said anything of the kind, Dorothea."

"Did you not, mother? I am sure I understood you so."

"I said he had come to ask leave, and that I should be glad to see him when he did come, but I didn't say anything of having told him so. I didn't tell him anything of the kind; did I, Rachel? But I know he will come, and I don't see why he shouldn't. And if he does, I can't turn him out. He took his tea here quite like a steady young man. He drank three large cups; and if, as Rachel says, he always goes to church regularly, I don't know why we are to judge him and say that he's anything out of the way."

"I have not judged him, mother."

Then Rachel spoke out, and we may say that it was needful that she should do so. This offering of her heart had been discussed in her presence in a manner that had been very painful to her, though the persons discussing it had been her own mother and her own sister. But in truth she had been so much affected by what had been said, there had been so much in it that was first joyful and then painful to her, that she had not hitherto been able to repress her emotions so as to acquire the power of much speech. But she had struggled, and now so far succeeded as to be able to come to her mother's support.

"I don't know, mamma, why anybody should judge him yet; and as to what he has said to me, I'm sure no one has a right to judge him unkindly. Dolly has been very angry with me because she saw me speaking to him in the churchyard, and has said that I was--hiding."

"I meant that he was hiding."

"Neither of us were hiding, and it was an unkind word, not like a sister. I have never had to hide from anybody. And as for--for--for liking Mr. Rowan after such words as that, I will not say anything about it to anybody, except to mamma. If he were to ask me to be--his wife, I don't know what answer I should make,--not yet. But I shall never listen to any one while mamma lives, if she wishes me not."

Then she turned to her mother, and Mrs. Ray, who had before been driven to doubt by Mrs. Prime's words, now again became strong in her resolution to cherish Rachel's lover.

"I don't believe she'll ever do anything to make me think that I oughtn't to have trusted her," said Mrs. Ray, embracing Rachel and speaking with her own eyes full of tears.

It now seemed to Mrs. Prime that there was nothing left for her but to go. In her eagerness about her sister's affairs, she had for a while forgotten her own; and now, as she again remembered the cause that had brought her on the present occasion to Bragg's End, she felt that she must return without accomplis.h.i.+ng her object. After having said so much in reprobation of her sister's love-affair, it was hardly possible that she should tell the tale of her own. And yet her need was urgent. She had pledged herself to give Mr. p.r.o.ng an answer on Friday, and she could hardly bring herself to accept that gentleman's offer without first communicating with her mother on the subject. Any such communication at the present moment was quite out of the question.

"Perhaps it would be better that I should go and leave you," she said. "If I can do no good, I certainly don't want to do any harm. I wish that Rachel would have taken to what I think a better course of life."

"Why, what have I done?" said Rachel, turning round sharply.

"I mean about the Dorcas meetings."

"I don't like the women there;--that's why I haven't gone."

"I believe them to be good, praiseworthy, G.o.dly women. But it is useless to talk about that now. Good-night, Rachel," and she gave her hand coldly to her sister. "Good-night, mother; I wish I could see you alone to-morrow."

"Come here for your dinner," said Mrs. Ray.

"No;--but if you would come to me in the morning I should take it kindly." This Mrs. Ray promised to do, and then Mrs. Prime walked back to Baslehurst.

Rachel, when her sister was gone, felt that there was much to be said between her and her mother. Mrs. Ray herself was so inconsequent in her mental workings, so shandy-pated if I may say so, that it did not occur to her that an entirely new view of Luke Rowan's purposes had been exposed to Rachel during this visit of Mrs. Prime's, or that anything had been said, which made a further explanation necessary.

She had, as it were, authorized Rachel to regard Rowan as her lover, and yet was not aware that she had done so. But Rachel had remembered every word. She had resolved that she would permit herself to form no special intimacy with Luke Rowan without her mother's leave; but she was also beginning to resolve that with her mother's leave, such intimacy would be very pleasant. Of this she was quite sure within her own heart,--that it should not be abandoned at her sister's instigation.

"Mamma," she said, "I did not know that he had spoken to you in that way."

"In what way, Rachel?" Mrs. Ray's voice was not quite pleasant. Now that Mrs. Prime was gone, she would have been glad to have had the dangerous subject abandoned for a while.

"That he had asked you to let him come here, and that he had said that about me."

"He did then,--while you were away at Mrs. Sturt's."

"And what answer did you give him?"

"I didn't give him any answer. You came back, and I'm sure I was very glad that you did, for I shouldn't have known what to say to him."

"But what was it that he did say, mamma?--that is, if you don't think it wrong to tell me."

"I hardly know; but I don't suppose it can be wrong, for no young man could have spoken nicer; and it made me happy to hear him,--so it did, for the moment."

"Oh, mamma, do tell me!" and Rachel kneeled down before her.

"Well;--he said you were the nicest girl he had ever seen."

"Did he, mamma?" And the girl clung closer to her mother as she heard the pleasant words.

"But I oughtn't to tell you such nonsense as that; and then he said that he wanted to come out here and see you, and--and--and--; it is simply this, that he meant to ask you to be his sweetheart, if I would let him."

"And what did you say, mamma?"

"I couldn't say anything because you came back."

"But you told Dolly that you would be glad to see him whenever he might choose to come here."

"Did I?"

"Yes; you said he was welcome to come whenever he pleased, and that you believed him to be a very good young man."

"And so I do. Why should he be anything else?"

"I don't say that he's anything else; but, mamma--"

"Well, my dear."