Rachel Ray Part 50

"Give my fellow your portmanteau. That's all right. You never were at the Grange, were you? It's the prettiest five miles of a drive in Devons.h.i.+re; but the walk along the river is the prettiest walk in England,--which is saying a great deal more."

"I know the walk well," said Rowan, "though I never was inside the park."

"It isn't much of a park. Indeed there isn't a semblance of a park about it. Grange is just the name for it, as it's an upper-cla.s.s sort of homestead for a gentleman farmer. We've lived there since long before Adam, but we've never made much of a house of it."

"That's just the sort of place that I should like to have myself."

"If you had it you wouldn't be content. You'd want to pull down the house and build a bigger one. It's what I shall do some day, I suppose. But if I do it will never be so pretty again. I suppose that fellow will pet.i.tion; won't he?"

"I should say he would;--though he won't get anything by it."

"He knows his purse is longer than ours, and he'll think to frighten us;--and, by George, he will frighten us too! My father is not a rich man by any means."

"You should stand to your guns now."

"I mean to do so, if I can. My wife's father is made of money."

"What! Mr. Comfort?"

"Yes. He's been blessed with the most surprising number of unmarried uncles and aunts that ever a man had. He's rather fond of me, and likes the idea of my being in Parliament. I think I shall hint to him that he must pay for the idea. Here we are. Will you come and take a turn round the place before dinner?"

Rowan was then taken into the house and introduced to the old squire, who received him with the stiff urbanity of former days.

"You are welcome to the Grange, Mr. Rowan. You'll find us very quiet here; which is more, I believe, than can have been said of Baslehurst these last two or three days. My daughter-in-law is somewhere with the children. She'll be here before dinner. Butler, has that tailor fellow gone back to London yet?"

Butler told his father that the tailor had at least gone away from Baslehurst; and then the two younger men went out and walked about the grounds till dinner time.

It was Mrs. Butler Cornbury who gave soul and spirit to daily life at Cornbury Grange,--who found the salt with which the bread was quickened, and the wine with which the heart was made glad.

Marvellous is the power which can be exercised, almost unconsciously, over a company, or an individual, or even upon a crowd by one person gifted with good temper, good digestion, good intellects, and good looks. A woman so endowed charms not only by the exercise of her own gifts, but she endows those who are near her with a sudden conviction that it is they whose temper, health, talents, and appearance is doing so much for society. Mrs. Butler Cornbury was such a woman as this. The Grange was a popular house. The old squire was not found to be very dull. The young squire was thought to be rather clever. The air of the house was lively and bracing. Men and women did not find the days there to be over long. And Mrs. Butler Cornbury did it all.

Rowan did not see her till he met her in the drawing-room, just before dinner, when he found that two or three other ladies were also staying there. She came up to him when he entered the room, and greeted him as though he were an old friend. All conversation at that moment of course had reference to the election. Thanks were given and congratulations received; and when old Mr. Cornbury shook his head, his daughter-in-law a.s.sured him that there would be nothing to fear.

"I don't know what you call nothing to fear, my dear. I call two thousand pounds a great deal to fear."

"I shouldn't wonder if we don't hear another word about him," said she.

The old man uttered a long sigh. "It seems to me," said he, "that no gentleman ought to stand for a seat in Parliament since these people have been allowed to come up. Purity of election, indeed! It makes me sick. Come along, my dear." Then he gave his arm to one of the young ladies, and toddled into the dining-room.

Mrs. Butler Cornbury said nothing special to Luke Rowan on that evening, but she made the hours very pleasant to him. All those half-morbid ideas as to social difference between himself and his host's family soon vanished. The house was very comfortable, the girls were very pretty, Mrs. Cornbury was very kind, and everything went very well. On the following morning it was nearly ten when they sat down to breakfast, and half the morning before lunch had pa.s.sed away in idle chat before the party bethought itself of what it should do for the day. At last it was agreed that they would all stroll out through the woods up to a special reach of the river which there ran through a ravine of rock, called Cornbury Cleeves. Many in those parts declared that Cornbury Cleeves was the prettiest spot in England. I am not prepared to bear my testimony to the truth of that very wide a.s.sertion. I can only say that I know no prettier spot. The river here was rapid and sparkling; not rapid because driven into small compa.s.s, for its breadth was greater and more regular in its pa.s.sage through the Cleeves than it was either above or below, but rapid from the declivity of its course. On one side the rocks came sheer down to the water, but on the other there was a strip of meadow, or rather a gra.s.sy amphitheatre, for the wall of rocks at the back of it was semi-circular, so as to enclose the field on every side. There might be four or five acres of green meadow here; but the whole was so interspersed with old stunted oak trees and thorns standing alone that the s.p.a.ce looked larger than it was. The rocks on each side were covered here and there with the richest foliage; and the spot might be taken to be a valley from which, as from that of Ra.s.selas, there was no escape. Down close upon the margin of the water a bathing-house had been built, from which a plunge could be taken into six or seven feet of the coolest, darkest, cleanest water that a bather could desire in his heart.

"I suppose you never were here before," said Mrs. Cornbury to Rowan.

"Indeed I have," said he. "I always think it such a grand thing that you landed magnates can't keep all your delights to yourself. I dare say I've been here oftener than you have during the last three months."

"That's very likely, seeing that it's my first visit this summer."

"And I've been here a dozen times. I suppose you'll think I'm a villanous trespa.s.ser when I tell you that I've bathed in that very house more than once."

"Then you've done more than I ever did; and yet we had it made thinking it would do for ladies. But the water looks so black."

"Ah! I like that, as long as it's a clear black."

"I like bathing where I can see the bright stones like jewels at the bottom. You can never do that in fresh water. It's only in some nook of the sea, where there is no sand, when the wind outside has died away, and when the tide is quiet and at its full. Then one can drop gently in and almost fancy that one belongs to the sea as the mermaids do. I wonder how the idea of mermaids first came?"

"Some one saw a crowd of young women bathing."

"But then how came they to have looking-gla.s.ses and fishes' tails?"

"The fishes' tails were taken as granted because they were in the sea, and the looking-gla.s.ses because they were women," said Rowan.

"And the one with as much reason as the other. By-the-by, Mr. Rowan, talking of women, and fishes' tails, and looking-gla.s.ses, and all other feminine attractions, when did you see Miss Ray last?"

Rowan paused before he answered her, and looking round perceived that he had strayed with Mrs. Cornbury to the furthest end of the meadow, away from their companions. It immediately came across his mind that this was the matter on which Mrs. Cornbury wished to speak to him, and by some combative process he almost resolved that he would not be spoken to on that matter.

"When did I see Miss Ray?" said he, repeating her question. "Two or three days after Mrs. Tappitt's party. I have not seen her since that."

"And why don't you go and see her?" said Mrs. Cornbury.

Now this was asked him in a tone which made it necessary that he should either answer her question or tell her simply that he would not answer it. The questioner's manner was so firm, so eager, so incisive, that the question could not be turned away.

"I am not sure that I am prepared to tell you," said he.

"Ah! but I want you to be prepared," said she; "or rather, perhaps, to tell the truth, I want to drive you to an answer without preparation. Is it not true that you made her an offer, and that she accepted it?"

Rowan thought a moment, and then he answered her, "It is true."

"I should not have asked the question if I had not positively known that such was the case. I have never spoken a word to her about it, and yet I knew it. Her mother told my father."

"Well?"

"And as that is so, why do you not go and see her? I am sure you are not one of those who would play such a trick as that upon such a girl with the mere purpose of amusing yourself."

"Upon no girl would I do so, Mrs. Cornbury."

"I feel sure of it. Therefore why do you not go to her?" They walked along together for a few minutes under the rocks in silence, and then Mrs. Cornbury again repeated her question, "Why do you not go to her?"

"Mrs. Cornbury," he said, "you must not be angry with me if I say that that is a matter which at the present moment I am not willing to discuss."

"Nor must you be angry with me if, as Rachel's friend, I say something further about it. As you do not wish to answer me, I will ask no other question; but at any rate you will be willing to listen to me. Rachel has never spoken to me on this subject--not a word; but I know from others who see her daily that she is very unhappy."

"I am grieved that it should be so."

"Yes, I knew you would be grieved. But how could it be otherwise? A girl, you know, Mr. Rowan, has not other things to occupy her mind as a man has. I think of Rachel Ray that she would have been as happy there at Bragg's End as the day is long, if no offer of love had come in her way. She was not a girl whose head had been filled with romance, and who looked for such things. But for that very reason is she less able to bear the loss of it when the offer has come in her way. I think, perhaps, you hardly know the depth of her character and the strength of her love."

"I think I know that she is constant."

"Then why do you try her so hardly?"

Mrs. Cornbury had promised that she would ask no more questions; but the asking of questions was her easiest mode of saying that which she had to say. And Rowan, though he had declared that he would answer no question, could hardly avoid the necessity of doing so.