Rachel Ray Part 54

"You can stay if you like," said Tappitt, hardly looking up at the man.

"I know you be a going, Mr. Tappitt," said the man; "and I hear you be a going very handsome like. Gentlefolk such as yeu needn't go on working allays like uz. If so be yeu be a going, Mr. Tappitt, I hope yeu and me'll part friendly. We've been together a sight o'

years;--too great a sight for uz to part unfriendly."

Mr. Tappitt admitted the argument, shook hands with the man, and then of course took him into his immediate confidence with more warmth than he would have done had there been no quarrel between them. And I think he found some comfort in this. He walked about the premises with Worts, telling him much that was true, and some few things that were not strictly accurate. For instance, he said that he had made up his mind to leave the place, whereas that action of decisive resolution which we call making up our minds had perhaps been done by Mrs. Tappitt rather than by him. But Worts took all these a.s.sertions with an air of absolute belief which comforted the brewer. Worts was very wise in his discretion on that day, and threw much oil on the troubled waters; so that Tappitt when he left him bade G.o.d bless him, and expressed a hope that the old place might still thrive for his sake.

"And for your'n too, master," said Worts, "for yeu'll allays have the best egg still. The young master, he'll only be a working for yeu."

There was comfort in this thought; and Tappitt, when he went into his dinner, was able to carry himself like a man.

The tidings which had reached Mrs. Tappitt as to Rowan having been seen on that evening walking on the Cawston road with his face towards Bragg's End were true. On that morning Mr. Honyman had come to him, and his career in life was at once settled for him.

"Mr. Tappitt is quite in time, Mr. Honyman," he had said. "But he would not have been in time this day week unless he had consented to pay for what work had been already done; for I had determined to begin at once."

"The truth is, Mr. Rowan, you step into an uncommon good thing; but Mr. Tappitt is tired of the work, and glad to give it up."

Thus the matter was arranged between them, and before nightfall everybody in Baslehurst knew that Tappitt and Rowan had come to terms, and that Tappitt was to retire upon a pension. There was some little discrepancy as to the amount of Tappitt's annuity, the liberal faction a.s.serting that he was to receive two thousand a year, and those of the other side cutting him down to two hundred.

On the evening of that day--in the cool of the evening--Luke Rowan sauntered down the High Street of Baslehurst, and crossed over Cawston bridge. On the bridge he was all alone, and he stood there for a moment or two leaning upon the parapet looking down upon the little stream beneath the arch. During the day many things had occupied him, and he had hardly as yet made up his mind definitely as to what he would do and what he would say during the hours of the evening. From the moment in which Honyman had announced to him Tappitt's intended resignation he became aware that he certainly should go out to Bragg's End before that day was over. It had been with him a settled thing, a thing settled almost without thought ever since the receipt of Rachel's letter, that he would take this walk to Bragg's End when he should have put his affairs at Baslehurst on some stable footing; but that he would not take that walk before he had so done.

"They say," Rachel had written in her letter, "they say that as the business here about the brewery is so very unsettled, they think it probable that you will not have to come back to Baslehurst any more."

In that had been the offence. They had doubted his stability, and, beyond that, had almost doubted his honesty. He would punish them by taking them at their word till both should be put beyond all question. He knew well that the punishment would fall on Rachel, whereas none of the sin would have been Rachel's sin; but he would not allow himself to be deterred by that consideration.

"It is her letter," he said to himself, "and in that way will I answer her. When I do go there again they will all understand me better."

It had been, too, a matter of pride to him that Mr. Comfort and Mrs.

Butler Cornbury should thus be made to understand him. He would say nothing of himself and his own purposes to any of them. He would speak neither of his own means nor his own stedfastness. But he would prove to them that he was stedfast, and that he had boasted of nothing which he did not possess. When Mrs. Butler Cornbury had spoken to him down by the Cleeves, asking him of his purpose, and struggling to do a kind thing by Rachel, he had resolved at once that he would tell her nothing. She should find him out. He liked her for loving Rachel; but neither to her, nor even to Rachel herself, would he say more till he could show them that the business about the brewery was no longer unsettled.

But up to this moment--this moment in which he was standing on the bridge, he had not determined what he would say to Rachel or to Rachel's mother. He had never relaxed in his purpose of making Rachel his wife since his first visit to the cottage. He was one who, having a fixed resolve, feels certain of their ultimate success in achieving it. He was now going to Bragg's End to claim that which he regarded as his own; but he had not as yet told himself in what terms he would put forward his claim. So he stood upon the bridge thinking.

He stood upon the bridge thinking, but his thoughts would only go backwards, and would do nothing for him as to his future conduct.

He remembered his first walk with her, and the churchyard elms with the setting sun, and the hot dances in Mrs. Tappitt's house; and he remembered them without much of the triumph of a successful lover.

It had been very sweet, but very easy. In so saying to himself he by no means threw blame upon Rachel. Things were easy, he thought, and it was almost a pity that they should be so. As for Rachel, nothing could have been more honest or more to his taste, than her mode of learning to love him. A girl who, while intending to accept him, could yet have feigned indifference, would have disgusted him at once. Nevertheless he could not but wish that there had been some castles for him to storm in his career. Tappitt had made but poor pretence of fighting before he surrendered; and as to Rachel, it had not been in Rachel's nature to make any pretence. He pa.s.sed from the bridge at last without determining what he would say when he reached the cottage, but he did not pa.s.s on till he had been seen by the scrutinizing eyes of Miss Pucker.

"If there ain't young Rowan going out to Bragg's End again!" she said to herself, comforting herself, I fear, or striving to comfort herself, with an inward a.s.sertion that he was not going there for any good. Striving to comfort herself, but not effectually; for though the a.s.sertion was made by herself to herself, yet it was not believed. Though she declared, with well-p.r.o.nounced mental words, that Luke Rowan was going on that path for no good purpose, she felt a wretched conviction at her heart's core that Rachel Ray would be made to triumph over her and her early suspicions by a happy marriage. Nevertheless she carried the tidings up into Baslehurst, and as she repeated it to the grocer's daughters and the baker's wife she shook her head with as much apparent satisfaction as though she really believed that Rachel oscillated between a ruined name and a broken heart.

He walked on very slowly towards Bragg's End, as though he almost dreaded the interview, swinging his stick as was his custom, and keeping his feet on the gra.s.sy edges of the road till he came to the turn which brought him on to the green. When on the green he did not take the highway, but skirted along under Farmer Sturt's hedge, so that he had to pa.s.s by the entrance of the farmyard before he crossed over to the cottage. Here, just inside her own gate, he encountered Mrs. Sturt standing alone. She had been intent on the cares of her poultry-yard till she had espied Luke Rowan; but then she had forgotten chickens and ducks and all, and had given herself up to thoughts of Rachel's happiness in having her lover back again.

"It's he as sure as eggs," she had said to herself when she first saw him; "how mortal slow he do walk, to be sure! If he was coming as joe to me I'd soon shake him into quicker steps than them."

"Oh, Mrs. Sturt!" said he, "I hope you're quite well," and he stopped short at her gate.

"Pretty bobbish, thankee, Mr. Rowan; and how's yourself? Are you going over to the cottage this evening?"

"Who's at home there, Mrs. Sturt?"

"Well, they're all at home; Mrs. Ray, and Rachel, and Mrs. Prime. I doubt whether you know the eldest daughter, Mr. Rowan?"

Luke did not know Mrs. Prime, and by no means wished to spend any of the hours of the present evening in making her acquaintance.

"Is Mrs. Prime there?" he asked.

"'Deed she is, Mr. Rowan. She's come back these last two days."

Thereupon Rowan paused for a moment, having carefully placed himself inside the gate-posts of the farmyard so that he might not be seen by the inmates of the cottage, if haply he had hitherto escaped their eyes.

"Mrs. Sturt," said he, "I wonder whether you'd do me a great favour."

"That depends--" said Mrs. Sturt. "If it's to do any good to any of them over there, I will."

"If I wanted to do harm to any of them I shouldn't come to you."

"Well, I should hope not. Is she and you going to be one, Mr. Rowan?

That's about the whole of it."

"It shan't be my fault if we're not," said Rowan.

"That's spoken honest," said the lady; "and now I'll do anything in my power to bring you together. If you'll just go into my little parlour, I'll bring her to you in five seconds; I will indeed, Mr.

Rowan. You won't mind going through the kitchen for once, will you?"

Luke did not mind going through the kitchen, and immediately found himself shut up in Mrs. Sturt's back parlour, looking out among the mingled roses and cabbages.

Mrs. Sturt walked quickly across the road to the cottage door, and went at once to the open window of the sitting-room. Mrs. Ray was there with a book in her hand,--a serious book, the perusal of which I fear was in some degree due to the presence of her elder daughter; and Mrs. Prime was there with another book, evidently very serious; and Rachel was there too, seated on the sofa, deeply buried in the manipulation of a dress belonging to her mother. Mrs. Sturt was sure at once that they had not seen Luke Rowan as he pa.s.sed inside the farmyard gate, and that they did not suspect that he was near them.

"Oh, Mrs. Sturt, is that you?" said the widow, looking up. "You'll just come in for a minute, won't you?" and Mrs. Ray showed by a suppressed yawn that her attention had not been deeply fixed by that serious book. Rachel looked up, and bade the visitor welcome with a little nod; but it was not a cheery nod as it would have been in old days, before her sorrow had come upon her.

"I'll have the cherries back in her cheeks before the evening's over," said Mrs. Sturt to herself, as she looked at the pale-faced girl. Mrs. Prime also made some little salutation to their neighbour; but she did so with the very smallest expenditure of thoughts or moments. Mrs. Sturt was all very well, but Mrs. Prime had greater work on hand than gossiping with Mrs. Sturt.

"I'll not just come in, thankee, Mrs. Ray; but if it ain't troubling you I want to speak a word to you outside; and a word to Rachel too, if she don't mind coming."

"A word to me!" said Rachel getting up and putting down her dress.

Her thoughts now-a-days were always fixed on the same subject, and it seemed that any special word to her must have reference to that.

Mrs. Ray also got up, leaving her mark in her book. Mrs. Prime went on reading, harder than ever. There was to be some conference of importance from which she could not but feel herself to be excluded in a very special way. Something wicked was surely to be proposed, or she would have been allowed to hear it. She said nothing, but her head was almost shaken by the vehemence with which she read the book in her lap.

Mrs. Sturt retired beyond the precincts of the widow's front garden before she said a word. Rachel had followed her first through the gate, and Mrs. Ray came after with her ap.r.o.n turned over her head.

"What is it, Mrs. Sturt?" said Rachel. "Have you heard anything?"

"Heard anything? Well; I'm always a hearing of something. Do you slip across the green while I speak just one word to your mother.

And Rachel, wait for me at the gate. Mrs. Ray, he's in my little parlour."

"Who? not Luke Rowan?"

"But he is though; that very young man! He's come over to make it up with her. He's told me so with his own mouth. You may be as sure of it as,--as,--as anything. You leave 'em to me, Mrs. Ray; I wouldn't bring them together if it wasn't for good. It's my belief our pet would a' died if he hadn't come back to her--it is then." And Mrs.

Sturt put her ap.r.o.n up to her eyes.

Rachel having paused for a moment, as she looked first at her mother and then at Mrs. Sturt, had done as she was bidden, and had walked quickly across the green. Mrs. Ray, when she heard her neighbour's tidings, stood fixed by dismay and dread, mingled with joy. She had longed for his coming back; but now that he was there, close upon them, intending to do all that she had wished him to do, she was half afraid of him! After all was he not a young man; and might he not, even yet, be a wolf? She was horrorstricken at the idea of sending Rachel over to see a lover, and looked back at the cottage window, towards Mrs. Prime, as though to see whether she was being watched in her iniquity. "Oh, Mrs. Sturt!" she said, "why didn't you give us time to think about it?"

"Give you time! How could I give you time, and he here on the spot?