Rachel Ray

at this time was cause of great sorrow to Mrs. Ray. She never smiled. She sought no amusement. She read no books. She spoke but little, and when she did speak her words were hard and cold, and confined almost entirely to household affairs. Her mother knew that she was not ill, because she ate and drank and worked. Even Dorothea must have been satisfied with the amount of needlework which she produced in these days. But though not ill, she was thin and pale, and unlike herself. But perhaps of all the signs which her mother watched so carefully, the signs which tormented her most were those ever-present lines on her daughter’s forehead⁠—lines which Mrs. Ray had now learned to read correctly, and which indicated some settled inward purpose, and an inward resolve that that purpose should become the subject of no outward discussion. Rachel had formerly been everything to her mother;⁠—her friend, her minister, her guide, her great comfort;⁠—the subject on which could be lavished all the soft tenderness of her nature, the loving object to whom could be addressed all the little innocent petulances of her life. But now Mrs. Ray did not dare to be either tender with Rachel, or petulant. She hardly dared to speak to her on subjects that were not indifferent. On this matter of Luke Rowan she did not dare to speak to her. Rachel never upbraided her with words⁠—had never spoken one word of reproach. But every moment of their passing life was an unspoken reproach, so severe and heavy that the poor mother hardly knew how to bear the burden of her fault.

As Mrs. Ray became more afraid of her younger daughter she became less afraid of the elder. This was occasioned partly, no doubt, by the absence of Mrs. Prime from the cottage. When there she only came as a visitor; and no visitor to a house can hold such dominion there as may be held by a domestic tyrant, present at all meals, and claiming an ascendancy in all conversations. But it arose in part also from the overwhelming solicitude which filled Mrs. Ray’s heart from morning to night, as she watched poor Rachel in her misery. Her bowels yearned towards her child, and she longed to give her relief with an excessive longing. Had the man been a very wolf indeed⁠—such were her feelings at present⁠—I think that she would have welcomed him to the cottage. In ordering his repulse she had done a deed of which she had by no means anticipated the consequences, and now she repented in the sackcloth and ashes of a sorrow-stricken spirit. Ah me! what could she do to relieve that oppressed one! So thoroughly did this desire override all others in her breast, that she would snub Mrs. Prime without dreading or even thinking of the consequences. Her only hopes and her only fears at the present moment had reference to Rachel. Had Rachel proposed to her that they should both start off to London and there search for Luke Rowan, I doubt whether she would have had the heart to decline the journey.

In these days Mrs. Prime came to the cottage regularly twice a week⁠—on Wednesdays and Saturdays. On Wednesday she came after tea, and on Saturday she drank tea with her mother. On these occasions much was, of course, said as to the prospect of her marriage with Mr. Prong. Nothing was as yet settled, and Rachel had concluded, in her own mind, that there would be no such wedding. As to Mrs. Ray’s opinion, she, of course, thought there would be a wedding or that there would not, in accordance with the last words spoken by Mrs. Prime to herself on the occasion of that special conversation.

“She’ll never give up her money,” Rachel had said, “and he’ll never marry her unless she does.”

Mrs. Prime at this period acknowledged to her mother that she was not happy.

“I want,” said she, “to do what’s right. But it’s not always easy to find out what is right.”

“That’s very true,” said Mrs. Ray, thinking that there were difficulties in the affairs of other people quite as embarrassing as those of which Mrs. Prime complained.

“He says,” continued the younger widow, “that he wants nothing for himself, but that it is not fitting that a married woman should have a separate income.”

“I think he’s right there,” said Mrs. Ray.

“I quite believe what he says about himself,” said Mrs. Prime. “It is not that he wants my money for the money’s sake, but that he chooses to dictate to me how I shall use it.”

“So he ought if he’s to be your husband,” said Mrs. Ray.

These conversations usually took place in Rachel’s absence. When Mrs. Prime came Rachel would remain long enough to say a word to her, and on the Saturdays would pour out the tea for her and would hand to her the bread and butter with the courtesy due to a visitor; but after that she would take herself to her own bedroom, and only come down when Mrs. Prime had prepared herself for going. At last, on one of these evenings, there came a proposition from Mrs. Prime that she should return to the cottage, and live again with her mother and sister. She had not said that she had absolutely rejected Mr. Prong, but she spoke of her return as though it had become expedient because the cause of her going away had been removed. Very little had been said between her and her mother about Rachel’s love affair, nor was Mrs. Prime inclined to say much about it now; but so much as that she did say. “No doubt it’s all over now about that young man, and therefore, if you like it, I don’t see why I shouldn’t come back.”

“I don’t at all know about it’s being all over,” said Mrs. Ray, in a hurried quick tone, and as she spoke she blushed with emotion.

“But I suppose