Rachel Ray Part 55

There's been too much time to my thinking. When young folk are agreeable and the old folk are agreeable too, there can't be too little time. Come along over and we'll talk of it in the kitchen while they talks in the parlour. He'd a' been in there among you all only for Mrs. Prime. She is so dour like for a young man to have to say anything before her, of the likes of that. That's why I took him into our place."

They overtook Rachel at the house door and they all went through together into the great kitchen. "Oh, Rachel!" said Mrs. Ray. "Oh, dear!"

"What is it, mamma?" said Rachel. Then looking into her mother's face, she guessed the truth. "Mamma," she said, "he's here! Mr. Rowan is here!" And she took hold of her mother's arm, as though to support herself.

"And that's just the truth," said Mrs. Sturt, triumphantly. "He's through there in the little parlour, and you must just go to him, my dear, and hear what he's got to say to you."

"Oh, mamma!" said Rachel.

"I suppose you must do what she tells you," said Mrs. Ray.

"Of course she must," said Mrs. Sturt.

"Mamma, you must go to him," said Rachel.

"That won't do at all," said Mrs. Sturt.

"And why has he come here?" said Rachel.

"Ah! I wonder why," said Mrs. Sturt. "I wonder why any young man should come on such an errand! But it won't do to leave him there standing in my parlour by himself, so do you come along with me."

So saying Mrs. Sturt took Rachel by the arm to lead her away. Mrs.

Ray in this great emergency was perfectly helpless. She could simply look at her daughter with imploring, loving eyes, and stand quivering in doubt against the dresser. Mrs. Sturt had very decided views on the matter. She had put Luke Rowan into the parlour with a promise that she would bring Rachel to him there, and she was not going to break her word through any mock delicacy. The two young people liked one another, and they should have this opportunity of saying so in each other's hearing. So she took Rachel by the arm, and opening the door of the parlour led her into the room. "Mr. Rowan," she said, "when you and Miss Rachel have had your say out, you'll find me and her mamma in the kitchen." Then she closed the door and left them alone.

Rachel, when first summoned out of the cottage, had felt at once that Mrs. Sturt's visit must have reference to Luke Rowan. Indeed everything with her in her present moods had some reference to him,--some reference though it might be ever so remote. But now before she had time to form a thought, she was told that he was there in the same house with her, and that she was taken to him in order that she might hear his words and speak her own. It was very sudden; and for the s.p.a.ce of a few moments she would have fled away from Mrs.

Sturt's kitchen had such flight been possible. Since Rowan had gone from her there had been times in which she would have fled to him, in which she would have journeyed alone any distance so that she might tell him of her love, and ask whether she had got any right to hope for his. But all that seemed to be changed. Though her mother was there with her and her friend, she feared that this seeking of her lover was hardly maidenly. Should he not have come to her,--every foot of the way to her feet, and there have spoken if he had aught to say, before she had been called on to make any sign? Would he like her for thus going to him? But then she had no chance of escape. She found herself in Mrs. Sturt's kitchen under her mother's sanction, before she had been able to form any purpose; and then an idea did come to her, even at that moment, that poor Luke would have had a hard task of it in her sister's presence. When she was first told that he was there in the farm-house parlour, her courage left her and she dreaded the encounter; but she was able to collect her thoughts as she pa.s.sed out of the kitchen, and across the pa.s.sage, and when she followed Mrs. Sturt into the room she had again acquired the power to carry herself as a woman having a soul of her own.

"Rachel!" Rowan said, stepping up to her and tendering his hand to her. "I have come to answer your letter in person."

"I knew," she said, "when I wrote it, that my letter did not deserve any answer. I did not expect an answer."

"But am I wrong now to bring you one in person? I have thought so much of seeing you again! Will you not say a word of welcome to me?"

"I am glad to see you, Mr. Rowan."

"Mr. Rowan! Nay; if it is to be Mr. Rowan I may as well go back to Baslehurst. It has come to that, that it must be Luke now, or there must be no naming of names between us. You chided me once when I called you Rachel."

"You called me so once, sir, when I should have chided you and did not. I remember it well. You were very wrong, and I was very foolish."

"But I may call you Rachel now?" Then, when she did not answer him at the moment, he asked the question again in that imperious way which was common with him. "May I not call you now as I please? If it be not so my coming here is useless. Come, Rachel, say one word to me boldly. Do you love me well enough to be my wife?"

She was standing at the open window, looking away from him, while he remained at a little distance from her as though he would not come close to her till he had exacted from her some positive a.s.surance of her love as a penance for the fault committed by her letter. He certainly was not a soft lover, nor by any means inclined to abate his own privileges. He paused a moment as though he thought that his last question must elicit a plain reply. But no reply to it came. She still looked away from him through the window, as though resolved that she would not speak till his mood should have become more tender.

"You said something in your letter," he continued, "about my affairs here in Baslehurst being unsettled. I would not show myself here again till that matter was arranged."

"It was not I," she said, turning sharply round upon him. "It was not I who thought that."

"It was in your letter, Rachel."

"Do you know so little of a girl like me as to suppose that what was written there came from me, myself? Did I not tell you that I said what I was told to say? Did I not explain to you that mamma had gone to Mr. Comfort? Did you not know that all that had come from him?"

"I only know that I read it in your letter to me,--the only letter you had ever written to me."

"You are unfair to me, Mr. Rowan. You know that you are unfair."

"Call me Luke," he said. "Call me by my own name."

"Luke," she said, "you are unfair to me."

"Then by heavens it shall be for the last time. May things in this world and the next go well with me as I am fair to you for the future!" So saying he came up close to her, and took her at once in his arms.

"Luke, Luke; don't. You frighten me; indeed you do."

"You shall give me a fair open kiss, honestly, before I leave you,--in truth you shall. If you love me, and wish to be my wife, and intend me to understand that you and I are now pledged to each other beyond the power of any person to separate us by his advice, or any mother by her fears, give me a bold, honest kiss, and I will understand that it means all that."

Still she hesitated for a moment, turning her face away from him while he held her by the waist. She hesitated while she was weighing the meaning of his words, and taking them home to herself as her own. Then she turned her neck towards him, still holding back her head till her face was immediately under his own, and after another moment's pause she gave him her pledge as he had asked it. Mrs.

Sturt's words had come true, and the cherries had returned to her cheek.

"My own Rachel! And now tell me one thing: are you happy?"

"So happy!"

"My own one!"

"But, Luke,--I have been wretched;--so wretched! I thought you would never come back to me."

"And did that make you wretched?"

"Ah!--did it? What do you think yourself? When I wrote that letter to you I knew I had no right to expect that you would think of me again."

"But how could I help thinking of you when I loved you?"

"And then when mamma saw you in Exeter, and you sent me no word of message!"

"I was determined to send none till this business was finished."

"Ah! that was cruel. But you did not understand. I suppose no man can understand. I couldn't have believed it myself till--till after you had gone away. It seemed as though all the sun had deserted us, and that everything was cold and dark."

They stood at the open window looking out upon the roses and cabbages till the patience of Mrs. Sturt and of Mrs. Ray was exhausted. What they said, beyond so much of their words as I have repeated, need not be told. But when a low half-abashed knock at the door interrupted them, Luke thought that they had hardly been there long enough to settle the preliminaries of the affair which had brought him to Bragg's End.

"May we come in?" said Mrs. Sturt very timidly.

"Oh, mamma, mamma!" said Rachel, and she hid her face upon her mother's shoulder.

CHAPTER XIV.