tenants and laborers. She took food with her most of the time, but she did so only as an excuse to visit the children and the elderly people. She had never felt quite as comfortable in the few houses that had neither. She felt frivolous and useless when confronted solely with working people. She felt that she was keeping them from their work.
But she grew to love more than ever the older people, those whose working days were past. They were mostly lonely people with a great deal to say and almost no audience to whom to say it. Rachel became their audience as she had to a lesser extent before. Not just out of a sense of politeness or charity-she loved to hear their stories of the past, accounts of their almost heroic efforts to earn a living, to bring up a large family, and to maintain a dignity in the face of hardship. She always enjoyed especially their reminiscences of her grandparents and their family, who had lived at Oakland fairly frequently through the years.
Following her success with Mrs. Perkins, she suggested to several of these old people that she might read to them, and all were delighted at the notion of Lady Rachel Palmer reading from books just for them. She was soon in the habit of carrying around a Bible and a copy of
She tried reading to the children and indeed found that they were enthralled at first and for short periods of time. She soon learned, though, that she could hold their attention much more easily by telling a story. She used the same book,
The added attraction of these mornings was the hope of meeting David Gower, though Rachel tried not to admit the thought to herself. And finally he did come upon her one morning, sitting on the rather dusty grass outside one cottage telling four rapt children the adventures of Christian at Vanity Fair. She did not even see him approach and would not have realized he was standing behind her if the children had not begun giggling more than was normal at her exaggerated gestures and spirited imitations of the characters in the story. She looked behind her eventually and joined in the laughter.
'This particular rendition of the story is not for the ears of anyone past the age of twelve, sir,' she said primly.
'A pity, Lady Rachel,' he said with a grin. 'It sounds vastly more entertaining than Mr. Bunyan's version. Do you realize that the picture of Vanity Fair you were creating resembles Bond Street to an uncanny degree?'
But his attention was caught before Rachel could answer, by a small child who was pulling persistently on the leg of his breeches.
'Reverend,' the child said as soon as he looked down and smiled, 'look.' She held up a child's silk-lined basket, capable of holding perhaps two eggs.
David touched her tangled curls. 'Very pretty, sweetheart,' he said. 'Are you going to help our mam with the carrying?'
'It's mine,' she said, big-eyed.
'You brought the basket for Patty?' David asked later as he sat in the gig beside Rachel. She had offered to drive him back to the vicarage.
'It was just something I had as a child,' she said. 'It was of no earthly use to me now.'
'You amaze me,' he said, sitting sideways on the seat and watching her profile. 'You are a very good and sensitive person, Rachel.'
She did not immediately answer. 'I don't think I am flattered,' she said quietly then. 'I do not believe you know me very well at all. You find it amazing that I can occasionally think of someone other than Rachel Palmer?'
'I did not mean my words to sound insulting,' he said. 'Pardon me. It is just that I knew you first in London, and you did there give the impression that your life was given over entirely to the love of gaiety and frivolity. And I don't believe I can be wholly blamed for forming that impression. You seem to go out of your way to hide the more serious and tender side of your nature.'
'Perhaps both impressions of me are true,' she said. 'People are not simple beings, you know. You cannot hang a single label on a person and think that you know him. Even you are not as uncomplicated as you appear, are you? You seem all calm gentleness, all dedication to a calling that most gentlemen would find irksome in the extreme. But there is a more impulsive, more passionate David, is there not? I have seen him.'
He sat looking at her for a whole minute before replying. 'How have I come to upset you?' he asked. 'I did not mean to, Rachel. I merely meant to comment on how touched I have been with your kindness to your father's people.'
'You are condescending to me,' she said. 'How would you feel if I were to tell you how kind I think your treatment of your parishioners? You would think me presumptuous. It is your duty to behave so, you would say. Well, perhaps it is my duty too, David. I do not need to be patted on the back and told what a good girl I am being. I have not been visiting these people in order to look good or to feel pious. I have been going because they are my friends and I derive great enjoyment from being with them. You see, I am still just the pleasure-seeking Lady Rachel Palmer at heart. You were quite right, David. I would be entirely incapable of sharing your life.'
'Rachel!' He leaned forward and put one hand firmly over hers. He eased the horse's ribbons out of her hands and drew the horse to a halt. He laid the ribbons down and placed one booted foot over them. 'You are upset. I am truly sorry, and yet I do not know quite for what I apologize. I do not know how I have offended you.'
Rachel looked down at her hands clenching and unclenching themselves in her lap. 'I don't think it will work,' she said. 'Risking loving you, I mean. I can't do it, David.'
'Can't love me?' he asked quietly.
'I can't take the risk,' she corrected him. 'I have tried. I have tried thinking of you as Algie's cousin, as the vicar here, my vicar. I have tried admiring you for the way you live your faith and the way you project it at church. I have tried to think of you as my friend, and I have genuinely wanted to cooperate with you on making life richer for the children and the elderly. I have tried.'
'And?' he prompted at last. His voice was toneless.
She shook her head. 'It is too late,' she said. 'It is too late, that is all. I can convince myself all the time when I do not see you. And then I see you, and I know that it is too late.'
David said nothing. He continued to watch her profile, bent low now over her hands.
'I just want to know something,' she said. 'I must know. You said yourself that we must not set barriers between us. Let there be no barrier now. Tell me in what way you love me. If you love me at all.'
'I want to lie,' he said reluctantly at last. 'It would be so much easier to lie. But it is never right to do so, is it? Pain is not thereby averted. I love you as you love me, Rachel. With the whole of my being.'
Rachel closed her eyes for a moment before turning her head and looking at him. There were no tears, but her eyes were full of pain.
'And there is no hope for us, is there?' she asked. 'Even if I were quite free, you would not marry me.'
He shook his head. His face was very pale.
'Because I am Lady Rachel Palmer, daughter of the Earl of Edgeley, and a wealthy heiress. Because I am used to a life of luxury and frivolity. Because I would find it impossible to settle to life in a drab vicarage with a man who gives away freely the little substance that he has. Because ultimately I would be a millstone about his neck.' Her voice was bitter.
'Yes,' he said gently.
'Should not I be the one to make that decision?' she asked.
He shook his head. 'No,' he said.
'Because I am too foolish to make a wise choice?' she asked. 'Because I need the wisdom of a man to make my decisions for me?'
'Because love is blind,' he said. 'Because your love for me seems at present to be the only thing that matters in life. Because I know that if I took you away to my chosen life, I would be taking you from the gaiety and the activities that make you the delightful person you are. I have to say no because I love you, Rachel.'
'Oh, no,' she said vehemently. 'You are going against your own philosophy, David. I thought you believed that only love could see. I thought love said yes, not no. I thought love took risks.' She laughed suddenly. 'One thing I never expected to do during my lifetime was beg any man to marry me. And now I have done it twice. Just a short while ago I begged Algie. I thought I might be safe if I married him. I thought I might be safe from you.'
