Rachel Ray Part 27

"Perhaps it is as well that she should be away just at present," said Mrs. Rowan, firmly but mildly.

"Quite as well," said Mrs. Tappitt, as firmly, but less mildly.

"Because we wish to say a few words to you, Mrs. Ray," said Mrs.

Rowan.

"That is what has brought us out so early," said Mrs. Tappitt. It was only half-past two now, and company visiting was never done at Baslehurst till after three. "We want to say a few words to you, Mrs.

Ray, about a very serious matter. I'm sure you know how glad I've always been to see Rachel with my girls, and I had her at our party the other night, you know. It isn't likely therefore that I should be disposed to say anything unkind about her."

"At any rate not to me, I hope," said Mrs. Ray.

"Not to anybody. Indeed I'm not given to say unkind things about people. No one in Baslehurst would give me that character. But the fact is, Mrs. Ray--"

"Perhaps, Mrs. Tappitt, you'll allow me," said Mrs. Rowan. "He's my son."

"Oh, yes, certainly;--that is, if you wish it," said Mrs. Tappitt, drawing herself up in her chair; "but I thought that perhaps, as I knew Miss Ray so well--"

"If you don't mind, Mrs. Tappitt--" and Mrs. Rowan, as she again took the words out of her friend's mouth, smiled upon her with a smile of great efficacy.

"Oh, dear, certainly not," said Mrs. Tappitt, acknowledging by her concession the superiority of Mrs. Rowan's nature.

"I believe you are aware, Mrs. Ray," said Mrs. Rowan, "that Mr. Luke Rowan is my son."

"Yes, I'm aware of that."

"And I'm afraid you must be aware also that there have been some,--some,--some talkings as it were, between him and your daughter."

"Oh, yes. The truth is, ma'am, that he has offered himself to my girl, and that she has accepted him. Whether it's for good or for bad, the open truth is the best, Mrs. Tappitt."

"Truth is truth," said Mrs. Tappitt; "and deception is not truth."

"I didn't think it had gone anything so far as that," said Mrs.

Rowan,--who at the moment, perhaps, forgot that deception is not truth; "and in saying that he has actually offered himself, you may perhaps,--without meaning it, of course,--be attributing a more positive significance to his word than he has intended."

"G.o.d forbid!" said Mrs. Ray very solemnly. "That would be a very sad thing for my poor girl. But I think, Mrs. Rowan, you had better ask him. If he says he didn't intend it, of course there will be an end of it, as far as Rachel is concerned."

"I can't ask him just at present," said Mrs. Rowan, "because he has gone up to London. He went away yesterday afternoon, and there's no saying when he may be in Baslehurst again."

"If ever--," said Mrs. Tappitt, very solemnly. "Perhaps he has not told you, Mrs. Ray, that that partnership between him and Mr. T. is all over."

"He did tell us that there had been words between him and Mr.

Tappitt."

"Words indeed!" said Mrs. Tappitt.

"And therefore it isn't so easy to ask him," said Mrs. Rowan, ignoring Mrs. Tappitt and the partnership. "But of course, Mrs. Ray, our object in this matter must be the same. We both wish to see our children happy and respectable." Mrs. Rowan, as she said this, put great emphasis on the last word.

"As to my girl, I've no fear whatever but what she'll be respectable," said Mrs. Ray, with more heat than Mrs. Tappitt had thought her to possess.

"No doubt; no doubt. But what I'm coming to is this, Mrs. Ray; here has this boy of mine been behaving foolishly to your daughter, as young men will do. It may be that he has really said something to her of the kind you suppose--"

"Said something to her! Why, ma'am, he came out here and asked my permission to pay his addresses to her, which I didn't answer because just at that moment Rachel came in from Farmer Sturt's opposite--"

"Farmer Sturt's!" said Mrs. Tappitt to Mrs. Rowan, in an under voice and nodding her head. Whereupon Mrs. Rowan nodded her head also. One of the great accusations made against Mrs. Ray had been that she lived on the Farmer Sturt level, and not on the Tappitt level;--much less on the Rowan level.

"Yes,--from Farmer Sturt's," continued Mrs. Ray, not at all understanding this by-play. "So I didn't give him any answer at all."

"You wouldn't encourage him," said Mrs. Rowan.

"I don't know about that; but at any rate he encouraged himself, for he came again the next morning when I was in Baslehurst."

"I hope Miss Rachel didn't know he was coming in your absence," said Mrs. Rowan.

"It would look so sly;--wouldn't it?" said Mrs. Tappitt.

"No, she didn't, and she isn't sly at all. If she had known anything she would have told me. I know what my girl is, Mrs. Rowan, and I can depend on her." Mrs. Ray's courage was up, and she was inclined to fight bravely, but she was sadly impeded by tears, which she now found it impossible to control.

"I'm sure it isn't my wish to distress you," said Mrs. Rowan.

"It does distress me very much, then, for anybody to say that Rachel is sly."

"I said I hoped she wasn't sly," said Mrs. Tappitt.

"I heard what you said," continued Mrs. Ray; "and I don't see why you should be speaking against Rachel in that way. The young man isn't your son."

"No," said Mrs. Tappitt, "indeed he's not;--nor yet he ain't Mr.

Tappitt's partner."

"Nor wishes to be," said Mrs. Rowan, with a toss of her head. It was a thousand pities that Mrs. Ray had not her wits enough about her to have fanned into a fire of battle the embers which glowed hot between her two enemies. Had she done so they might probably have been made to consume each other,--to her great comfort. "Nor wishes to be!"

Then Mrs. Rowan paused a moment, and Mrs. Tappitt a.s.sumed a smile which was intended to indicate incredulity. "But Mrs. Ray," continued Mrs. Rowan, "that is neither here nor there. Luke Rowan is my son, and I certainly have a right to speak. Such a marriage as this would be very imprudent on his part, and very disagreeable to me. From the way in which things have turned out it's not likely that he'll settle himself at Baslehurst."

"The most unlikely thing in the world," said Mrs. Tappitt. "I don't suppose he'll ever show himself in Baslehurst again."

"As for showing himself, Mrs. Tappitt, my son will never be ashamed of showing himself anywhere."

"But he won't have any call to come to Baslehurst, Mrs. Rowan. That's what I mean."

"If he's a gentleman of his word, as I take him to be," said Mrs.

Ray, "he'll have a great call to show himself. He never can have intended to come out here, and speak to her in that way, and ask her to marry him, and then never to come back and see her any more! I wouldn't believe it of him, not though his own mother said it!"

"I don't say anything," said Mrs. Rowan, who felt that her position was one of some difficulty. "But we all do know that in affairs of that kind young men do allow themselves to go great lengths. And the greater lengths they go, Mrs. Ray, the more particular the young ladies ought to be."

"But what's a young lady to do? How's she to know whether a young man is in earnest, or whether he's only going lengths, as you call it?" Mrs. Ray's eyes were still moist with tears; and, I grieve to say that though, as far as immediate words are concerned, she was fighting Rachel's battle not badly, still the blows of the enemy were taking effect upon her. She was beginning to wish that Luke Rowan had never been seen, or his name heard, at Bragg's End.

"I think it's quite understood in the world," said Mrs. Rowan, "that a young lady is not to take a gentleman at his first word."

"Oh, quite," said Mrs. Tappitt.

"We've all of us daughters," said Mrs. Rowan.