Rachel Ray Part 45

Had she been possessed of sufficient power she would now, on this occasion, have preached her sermon again as she had preached it before; but her mother's pa.s.sion had overcome her, and she was unable to express her convictions.

"I hope that she will be better soon," she said.

"I hope she will," said Mrs. Ray.

At this moment Rachel came down from her own room and joined them in the parlour. She came in with that same look of sad composure on her face, as though she were determined to speak nothing of her thoughts to any one, and sat herself down near to her sister. In doing so, however, she caught a glimpse of her mother's face, and saw that she had been crying,--saw, indeed, that she was still crying at that moment.

"Mamma," she said, "what is the matter;--has anything happened?"

"No, dear, nothing;--nothing has happened."

"But you would not cry for nothing. What is it, Dolly?"

"We have been talking," said Dorothea. "Things in this world are not so pleasant in themselves that they can always be spoken of without tears,--either outward tears or inward. People are too apt to think that there is no true significance in their words when they say that this world is a vale of tears."

"All the same. I don't like to see mamma crying like that."

"Don't mind it, Rachel," said Mrs. Ray. "If you will not regard me I shall be better soon."

"I was saying that I thought I would come back to the cottage," said Mrs. Prime; "that is, if mother likes it."

"But that did not make mamma cry."

"There were other things arose out of my saying so." Then Rachel asked no further questions, but sat silent, waiting till her sister should go.

"Of course we shall be very glad to have you back again if it suits you to come," said Mrs. Ray. "I don't think it at all nice that a family should be divided,--that is, as long as they are the same family." Having received so much encouragement with reference to her proposed return, Mrs. Prime took her departure and walked back to Baslehurst.

For some minutes after they had been so left, neither Mrs. Ray nor Rachel spoke. The mother sat rocking herself in her chair, and the daughter remained motionless in the seat which she had taken when she first came into the room. Their faces were not turned to each other, but Rachel was so placed that she could watch her mother without being observed. Every now and again Mrs. Ray would put her hand up to her eyes to squeeze away the tears, and a low gurgling sound would come from her, as though she were striving without success to repress her sobs. She had thought that she would speak to Rachel when Mrs.

Prime was gone,--that she would confess her error in having sent Rowan away, and implore her child to pardon her and to love her once again. It was not, however, that she doubted Rachel's love,--that she feared that Rachel was casting her out from her heart, or that she was learning to hate her. She knew well enough that her child still loved her. It was this,--that her life had become barren to her, cold, and altogether tasteless without those thousand little signs of ever-present affection to which she had been accustomed. If it was to be always thus between them, what would the world be to her for the remainder of her days? She could have borne to part with Rachel, had Rachel married, as in parting with her she would have looked forward to some future return of her girl's caresses; and in such case she would at least have felt that her loss had come from no cessation of the sweet loving nature of their mutual connexion. She would have wept as she gave Rachel over to a husband, but her tears would have been sweet as well as bitter. But there was nothing of sweetness in her tears as she shed them now,--nothing of satisfaction in her sorrow. If she could get Rachel to talk with her freely on the matter, if she could find an opportunity for confessing herself to have been wrong, might it not be that the soft caresses would be restored to her,--caresses that would be soft, though moistened with salt tears? But she feared to speak to her child. She knew that Rachel's face was still hard and stern, and that her voice was not the voice of other days. She knew that her daughter brooded over the injury that had been done to her,--though she knew also that no accusation was made, even in the girl's own bosom, against herself.

She thoroughly understood the state of Rachel's mind, but she was unable to find the words that might serve to soften it.

"I suppose we may as well go to bed," she said at last, giving the matter up, at any rate for that evening.

"Mamma, why were you crying when I came into the room?" said Rachel.

"Was I crying, my dear?"

"You are crying still, mamma. Is it I that make you unhappy?"

Mrs. Ray was anxious to declare that the reverse of that was true,--that it was she who had made the other unhappy; but even now she could not find the words in which to say this. "No," she said; "it isn't you. It isn't anybody. I believe it's true what Mr.

Comfort has told us so often when he's preaching. It's all vanity and vexation. There isn't anything to make anybody happy. I suppose I cry because I'm foolisher than other people. I don't know that anybody is happy. I'm sure Dorothea is not, and I'm sure you ain't."

"I don't want you to be unhappy about me, mamma."

"Of course you don't. I know that. But how can I help it when I see how things have gone? I tried to do for the best, and I have--"

broken my child's heart, Mrs. Ray intended to say; but she failed altogether before she got as far as that, and bursting out into a flood of tears, hid her face in her ap.r.o.n.

Rachel still kept her seat, and her face was still hard and unmoved.

Her mother did not see it; she did not dare to look upon it; but she knew that it was so; she knew her daughter would have been with her, close to her, embracing her, throwing her arms round her, had that face relented. But Rachel still kept her chair, and Mrs. Ray sobbed aloud.

"I wish I could be a comfort to you, mamma," Rachel said after another pause, "but I do not know how. I suppose in time we shall get over this, and things will be as they used to be."

"They'll never be to me as they used to be before he came to Baslehurst," said Mrs. Ray, through her tears.

"At any rate that is not his fault," said Rachel, almost angrily.

"Whoever may have done wrong, no one has a right to say that he has done wrong."

"I'm sure I never said so. It is I that have done wrong," exclaimed Mrs. Ray. "I know it all now, and I wish I'd never asked anybody but just my own heart. I didn't mean to say anything against him, and I don't think it. I'm sure I liked him as I never liked any young man the first time of seeing him, that night he came out here to tea; and I know that what they said against him was all false. So I do."

"What was all false, mamma?"

"About his going away in debt, and being a ne'er-do-well, and about his going away from Baslehurst and not coming back any more.

Everybody has a good word for him now."

"Have they, mamma?" said Rachel. And Mrs. Ray learned in a moment, from the tone of her daughter's voice, that a change had come over her feeling. She asked her little question with something of the softness of her old manner, with something of the longing loving wishfulness which used to make so many of her questions sweet to her mother's ears. "Have they, mamma?"

"Yes they have, and I believe it was those wicked people at the brewery who spread the reports about him. As for owing anybody money, I believe he's got plenty. Of course he has, or how could he have bought our cottages and paid for them all in a minute? And I believe he'll come back and live at Baslehurst; so I do; only--"

"Only what, mamma?"

"If he's not to come back to you I'd rather that he never showed his face here again."

"He won't come to me, mamma. Had he meant it, he would have sent me a message."

"Perhaps he meant that he wouldn't send the message till he came himself," said Mrs. Ray.

But she made the suggestion in a voice so full of conscious doubt that Rachel knew that she did not believe in it herself.

"I don't think he means that, mamma. If he did why should he keep me in doubt? He is very true and very honest, but I think he is very hard. When I wrote to him in that way after accepting the love he had offered me, he was angered, and felt that I was false to him. He is very honest, but I think he must be very hard."

"I can't think that if he loved you he would be so hard as that."

"Men are different from women, I suppose. I feel about him that whatever he might do I should forgive it. But then I feel, also, that he would never do anything for me to forgive."

"I'll never forgive him, never, if he doesn't come back again."

"Don't say that, mamma. You've no right even to be angry with him, because it was we who told him that there was to be no engagement,--after I had promised him."

"I didn't think he'd take you up so at the first word," said Mrs.

Ray;--and then there was again silence for a few minutes.

"Mamma," said Rachel.

"Well, Rachel."

Mrs. Ray was still rocking her chair, and had hardly yet repressed that faint gurgling sound of half-controlled sobs.

"I am so glad to hear you say that you--respect him, and don't believe of him what people have said."