Mrs. Ray, who had not quite understood the pantomime, and whose eye had not caught the words relating to marriage, saw however that the column indicated contained the report of a speech made by Luke Rowan, and she began it at the beginning and read it throughout. Luke had identified himself with the paper, and therefore received from it almost more than justice. His words were given at very full length, and for some ten minutes she was reading before she came to the words which Mrs. Sturt had hoped would be so delightful.
“What is it, mamma?” Rachel asked.
“A speech, my dear, made at the election.”
“And who made it, mamma?”
Mrs. Ray hesitated for a moment before she answered, thereby letting Rachel know full well who made the speech before the word was spoken. But at last she did speak the word—“Mr. Rowan, my dear.”
“Oh!” said Rachel; she longed to get hold of the newspaper, but she would utter no word expressive of such longing. Since that evening on which she had been bidden to look at the clouds she had regarded Luke as a special hero, cleverer than other men around her, as a man born to achieve things and make himself known. It was not astonishing to her that a speech of his should be reported at length in the newspaper. He was a man certain to rise, to make speeches, and to be reported. So she thought of him; and so thinking had almost wished that it were not so. Could she expect that such a one would stoop to her? or that if he did so that she could be fit for him? He had now perceived that himself, and therefore had taken her at her word, and had left her. Had he been more like other men around her;—more homely, less prone to rise, with less about him of fire and genius, she might have won him and kept him. The prize would not have been so precious; but still, she thought, it might have been sufficient for her heart. A young man who could find printers and publishers to report his words in that way, on the first moment of his coming among them, would he turn aside from his path to look after her? Would he not bring with him some grand lady down from London as his wife?
“Dear me!” said Mrs. Ray, quite startled. “Oh, dear! What do you think he says?”
“What does he say, mamma?”
“Well, I don’t know. Perhaps he mayn’t mean it. I don’t think I ought to have spoken of it.”
“If it’s in the newspaper I suppose I should have heard of it, unless you sent it back without letting me see it.”
“She said we were to keep it, and it’s because of that, I’m sure. She was always the most good-natured woman in the world. I don’t know what we should have done if we hadn’t found such a neighbour as Mrs. Sturt.”
“But what is it, mamma, that you are speaking of in the newspapers?”
“Mr. Rowan says—Oh, dear! I wish I’d let you come to it yourself. How very odd that he should get up and say that kind of thing in public before all the people. He says;—but anyway I know he means it because he’s so honest. And after all if he means it, it doesn’t much matter where he says it. Handsome is that handsome does. There, my dear; I don’t know how to tell it you, so you had better read it yourself.”
Rachel with eager hands took the paper, and began the speech as her mother had done, and read it through. She read it through till she came to those words, and then she put the paper down beside her. “I understand what you mean, mamma, and what Mrs. Sturt meant; but Mr. Rowan did not mean that.”
“What did he mean, my dear?”
“He meant them to understand that he intended to become a man of Baslehurst like one of themselves.”
“But then why did he talk about finding a wife there?”
“He wouldn’t have said that, mamma, if he had meant anything particular. If anything of that sort had been at all in his mind, it would have kept him from saying what he did say.”
“But didn’t he mean that he intended to marry a Baslehurst lady?”
“He meant it in that sort of way in which men do mean such things. It was his way to make them think well of him. But don’t let us talk any more about it,
