Rachel Gray Part 24

His own home was a wreck, the prey of creditors, who found but little there, yet sufficient, for their claims were few, to save him from disgrace. Rachel Gray gave him the room where his child once had slept, where he had come in to look at her in her sleep, and fondly bent over her pillow: he burst into tears as he entered it; and those tears relieved him, and did him good.

At the end of two days he rallied from his torpor; he awoke, he remembered he was a man born to work, to earn his daily bread, and bear the burden of life.

He went out one morning, and looked for employment. Something he found to do; but what it was he told not Rachel. When she gently asked, he shook his head and smiled bitterly.

"It don't matter. Miss Gray," he said; "it don't matter."

No doubt it was some miserable, poorly paid task. Yet he only spoke the truth, when he said it mattered little. He lived and laboured, like thousands; but he cared not for to-day, and thought not of to-morrow; the Time of Promise and of Hope had for ever departed. What though he should feel want, so long as he could pay his weekly rent to Rachel Gray, he cared not. There is an end to all things; and as for his old age, should he grow old, had he not the parish and the workhouse? And so Richard Jones could drag on through life, of all hopes, save the heavenly hope, forsaken.

But Heaven chose to chastise and humble still further, this already chastised and sorely humbled man. He fell ill, and remained for weeks on his sick bed, a burden cast on the slender means of Rachel Gray. In vain he begged and prayed to be sent to the workhouse or some hospital; Rachel would not hear of it. She kept him, she attended on him with all the devotedness of a daughter; between him and her father she divided her time. Earnestly Jones prayed for death: the boon was not granted; he recovered.

They sat together and alone one evening in the quiet little parlour-- alone, for Thomas Gray was no one, when there came a knock at the door, and the visitor admitted by Rachel, proved to be Joseph Saunders.

"Mr. Jones is within," hesitatingly said Rachel

"And I just want to speak to him," briefly replied Saunders, "so that's lucky."

He walked into the parlour as he spoke; Rachel followed, wondering what was to be the issue. On seeing his enemy, poor Jones reddened slightly but the flush soon died away, and in a meek, subdued voice, he was the first to say "good evening."

"Sorry to hear you have been ill," said Saunders sitting down, "but you are coming round, ain't you?"

"I am much better," was the quiet reply.

"Got anything to do?" bluntly asked Saunders.

"Nothing as yet," answered Jones with a subdued groan, for he thought of Rachel, so poor herself, and the burden he was to her.

"Well then, Mr. Jones; just listen to me!" said Saunders, drawing his chair near, "I know you have a grudge against me."

"You have ruined me," said Jones.

"Pshaw, man, 'twas all fair, all in the way of business," exclaimed Saunders a little impatiently.

"You have ruined me," said Jones again; "but I forgive you, I have long ago forgiven you, and the shadow of a grudge against you, or living man, I have not, thank G.o.d!"

"That's all right enough," emphatically said Saunders; "still, Mr. Jones, you say I have ruined you. It isn't the first time either that you have said so, and with some people, I may as well tell you it has injured me."

"I am sorry if it has," meekly said Jones.

"And I don't care a b.u.t.ton," frankly declared Saunders, "but as I was saying, that's your belief, your impression; and to be sure it's true enough in one sense, but then, Mr. Jones, you should not look at your side of the question only. Mr. Smithson meant to set up a grocer's shop long before you opened yours; he spoke to me about it, and if I had only agreed then, it was done; you came, to be sure, but what of that? the street was as free to us as to you; that I lodged in your house was an accident; I did not know when I took your room that I should supplant you some day. I did not know Smithson had still kept that idea in his head, and that finding no situation I should be glad to consent at last. Well, I did consent, and I did compete with you, and knocked you over, as it were, but Mr. Jones, would not another have done it? And was it not all honourable, fair play?"

"Well, I suppose it was," sadly replied Jones, "and since it was a settled thing that I was to be a ruined man, I suppose I ought not to care who did it."

"Come, that's talking sense," said Saunders, with a nod of approbation, "and now, Mr. Jones, we'll come to business, for I need not tell you nor Miss Gray either, that I did not come in here to rip up old sores. You must know that the young fellow who used to serve in my shop has taken himself off, he's going to Australia, he says, but that's neither here nor there; I have a regard for you, Mr. Jones, and having injured you without malice, I should like to do you a good turn of my own free will; and then there's my wife, who was quite cut up when she heard you had lost your little daughter, and who has such a regard for Miss Gray, but that's neither here nor there; the long and short of it is, will you serve in my shop, and have a good berth and moderate wages, and perhaps an increase if the business prospers?"

Poor Richard Jones! This was the end of all his dreams, his schemes, his anger, his threatened revenge! And yet, strange to say, he felt it very little. Every strong and living feeling lay buried in a grave. His soul was as a thing dead within him; his pride had crumbled into dust, as Mary would have said: his spirit was gone.

The humiliation of accepting Joseph Saunders proposal,--and, however strange, it was certainly well and kindly meant--Richard Jones did not consider. He looked at the advantages, and found them manifest; there lay the means of paying Rachel, of covering his few debts, and of securing to his wearied life the last and dearly-bought boon of repose. Awhile he reflected, then said aloud: "I shall be very glad of it, lam very much obliged to you, Mr. Saunders."

"Well, then, it's done," said Mr. Saunders, rising, "good night, Jones, cheer up, old fellow. Good night, Miss Gray; Jane sends her love, you know. Sorry the old gentleman's no better." And away he departed, very well satisfied with the success of his errand.

"Oh! Mr. Jones!" exclaimed Rachel, when she returned to the parlour.

"Don't mention it," he said with a faint smile, "I don't mind it, Miss Gray."

"But could you not have stayed here?" she asked.

"And be a burden upon you I that's what I have done too long, Miss Gray."

"But until you found employment elsewhere, you might have remained."

"His house is as good as any; his bread is not more bitter than another's," replied Jones, in a subdued voice, "besides, now that my Mary is gone, what need I care, Miss Gray?" And as he saw that her eyes were dim, he added: "You need not pity me, Miss Gray, the bitterness of my trouble is, and has long been over. My Mary is not dead for me. She is, and ever will be, living for her old father, until the day of meeting.

And whilst I am waiting for that day, you do not think I care about what befalls me."

CHAPTER XXII.

Once more Rachel was alone. Once more solitude and the silence of the quiet street, shrouded her in.

A new life now began for Rachel Gray. Like a plant long bent by adverse winds, she slowly recovered elasticity of spirit, and lightness of heart.

What she might have been, but for the gloom of her youth, Rachel never was; but as the dark cloud, which had long hung over her, rolled away, as she could move, speak, eat, and think unquestioned in her little home, a gleam of sunshine, pale but pure, shone over her life with that late-won liberty. Her speech became more free, her smile was more frequent, her whole manner more open and cheerful.

Rachel lived, however, both by taste and by long habit, in great retirement, and saw but few people. Indeed, almost her only visitors were Richard Jones and Madame Rose. The little Frenchwoman now and then dropped in, looked piteously at Thomas Gray, shrugged her shoulders, nodded, winked, and did everything to make herself understood, but talk English; and Rachel listened to her, and laughed gaily at the strange speech and strange ways of her little friend.

Richard Jones was a still more frequent visitor. He came to receive, not to give sympathy. The society of Rachel Gray was to him a want of his life, for to her alone he could talk of Mary; he spoke and she listened, and in listening gave the best and truest consolation. Now and then, not often, for Rachel felt and knew that such language frequently repeated wearies the ear of weak humanity, she ventured to soothe his grief with such ailments as she could think of. And her favorite one, one which she often applied to herself and her own troubles was: "We receive blessings from the hand of G.o.d, shall we not also take sorrow when it pleases Him to inflict it?"

"Very true. Miss Gray, very true," humbly a.s.sented Richard Jones.

Of his present position he never spoke, unless when questioned by Rachel, and when he did so, it was to say that "Saunders and his wife were very kind to him, very kind. And I am quite happy, Miss Gray," he would add, "quite happy."

And thus like a hidden stream flowed on the life of Rachel Gray, silent, peaceful and very still. It slept in the shadow of the old grey street, in the quiet shelter of a quiet home, within the narrow circle of plain duties. Prayer, Love, Meditation and Thought graced it daily. It was humble and lowly in the eyes of man; beautiful and lovely in the sight of G.o.d.

And thus quiet and happy years had pa.s.sed away, and nothing had arrested their monotonous flow.

It was evening, Rachel and her father were alone in the little parlour.

Thomas Gray was still a childish old man, bereft of knowledge and of sense. Yet now, as Rachel helped him to his chair, and settled him in it, something, a sort of light seemed to her to pa.s.s athwart the old man's face, and linger in his dull eyes.

"Father!" she cried, "do you know me?"

In speech he answered not, but it seemed to her that in his look she read conscious kindness. She pressed his hand, and it appeared to press hers in return; she laid her cheek to his, and it did not seem lifeless or cold. Then, again she withdrew from him and said:

"Father, do you know me?"

He looked at her searchingly and was long silent: at length he spoke, and in a low but distinct voice, said: "Rachel."

In a transport of joy, Rachel sank at his feet and sobbing clasped her arms around him.