She was standing at the open window, looking away from him, while he remained at a little distance from her as though he would not come close to her till he had exacted from her some positive assurance of her love as a penance for the fault committed by her letter. He certainly was not a soft lover, nor by any means inclined to abate his own privileges. He paused a moment as though he thought that his last question must elicit a plain reply. But no reply to it came. She still looked away from him through the window, as though resolved that she would not speak till his mood should have become more tender.
“You said something in your letter,” he continued, “about my affairs here in Baslehurst being unsettled. I would not show myself here again till that matter was arranged.”
“It was not I,” she said, turning sharply round upon him. “It was not I who thought that.”
“It was in your letter, Rachel.”
“Do you know so little of a girl like me as to suppose that what was written there came from me, myself? Did I not tell you that I said what I was told to say? Did I not explain to you that mamma had gone to Mr. Comfort? Did you not know that all that had come from him?”
“I only know that I read it in your letter to me—the only letter you had ever written to me.”
“You are unfair to me, Mr. Rowan. You know that you are unfair.”
“Call me Luke,” he said. “Call me by my own name.”
“Luke,” she said, “you are unfair to me.”
“Then by heavens it shall be for the last time. May things in this world and the next go well with me as I am fair to you for the future!” So saying he came up close to her, and took her at once in his arms.
“Luke, Luke; don’t. You frighten me; indeed you do.”
“You shall give me a fair open kiss, honestly, before I leave you—in truth you shall. If you love me, and wish to be my wife, and intend me to understand that you and I are now pledged to each other beyond the power of any person to separate us by his advice, or any mother by her fears, give me a bold, honest kiss, and I will understand that it means all that.”
Still she hesitated for a moment, turning her face away from him while he held her by the waist. She hesitated while she was weighing the meaning of his words, and taking them home to herself as her own. Then she turned her neck towards him, still holding back her head till her face was immediately under his own, and after another moment’s pause she gave him her pledge as he had asked it. Mrs. Sturt’s words had come true, and the cherries had returned to her cheek.
“My own Rachel! And now tell me one thing: are you happy?”
“So happy!”
“My own one!”
“But, Luke—I have been wretched;—so wretched! I thought you would never come back to me.”
“And did that make you wretched?”
“Ah!—did it? What do you think yourself? When I wrote that letter to you I knew I had no right to expect that you would think of me again.”
“But how could I help thinking of you when I loved you?”
“And then when mamma saw you in Exeter, and you sent me no word of message!”
“I was determined to send none till this business was finished.”
“Ah! that was cruel. But you did not understand. I suppose no man can understand. I couldn’t have believed it myself till—till after you had gone away. It seemed as though all the sun had deserted us, and that everything was cold and dark.”
They stood at the open window looking out upon the roses and cabbages till the patience of Mrs. Sturt and of Mrs. Ray was exhausted. What they said, beyond so much of their words as I have repeated, need not be told. But when a low half-abashed knock at the door interrupted them, Luke thought that they had hardly been there long enough to settle the preliminaries of the affair which had brought him to Bragg’s End.
“May we come in?” said Mrs. Sturt very timidly.
“Oh, mamma, mamma!” said Rachel, and she hid her face upon her mother’s shoulder.
XXIX
Mrs. Prime Reads Her Recantation
Above an hour had passed after the interruption mentioned at the end of the last chapter before Mrs. Ray and Rachel crossed back from the farmhouse to the cottage, and when they went they went alone. During that hour they had been sitting in Mrs. Sturt’s parlour; and when at last they got up to go they did not press Luke Rowan to go with them. Mrs. Prime was at the cottage, and it was necessary that everything should be explained to her before she was asked to give her hand to her future brother-in-law. The farmer had come in and had joked his joke, and Mrs. Sturt had clacked over them as though they were a brood of chickens of her own hatching; and Mrs. Ray had smiled and cried, and sobbed and laughed till she had become almost hysterical. Then she had jumped up from her seat, saying, “Oh, dear, what will Dorothea think has become of us?” After that Rachel insisted upon going, and the mother and daughter returned across the green, leaving Luke at the farmhouse, ready to take his departure as soon as Mrs. Ray and Rachel should have safely reached their home.
“I knew thee was minded steadfast to take
