“If mother thinks it right,” exclaimed Mrs. Prime, “that you should be standing alone with a young man after nightfall in the churchyard, then I have done. In that case I will say no more. But I must tell her, and I must tell you also, that if it is to be so, I cannot remain at the cottage any longer.”
“Oh, Dorothea!” said Mrs. Ray.
“Indeed, mother, I cannot. If Rachel is not hindered from such meetings by her own sense of what is right, she must be hindered by the authority of those older than herself.”
“Hindered—hindered from what?” said Rachel, who felt that her tears were coming, but struggled hard to retain them. “Mamma, I have done nothing that was wrong. Mamma, you will believe me, will you not?”
Mrs. Ray did not know what to say. She strove to believe both of them, though the words of one were directly at variance with the words of the other.
“Do you mean to claim it as your right,” said Mrs. Prime, “to be standing out there alone at any hour of the night, with any young man that you please? If so, you cannot be my sister.”
“I do not want to be your sister if you think such hard things,” said Rachel, whose tears now could no longer be restrained. Honi soit qui mal y pense. She did not, at the moment, remember the words to speak them, but they contain exactly the purport of her thought. And now, having become conscious of her own weakness by reason of these tears which would overwhelm her, she determined that she would say nothing further till she pleaded her cause before her mother alone. How could she describe before her sister the way in which that interview at the churchyard stile had been brought about? But she could kneel at her mother’s feet and tell her everything;—she thought, at least, that she could tell her mother everything. She occupied generally the same bedroom as her sister; but, on certain occasions—if her mother was unwell or the like—she would sleep in her mother’s room. “Mamma,” she said, “you will let me sleep with you tonight. I will go now, and when you come I will tell you everything. Good night to you, Dolly.”
“Good night, Rachel;” and the voice of Mrs. Prime, as she bade her sister adieu for the evening, sounded as the voice of the ravens.
The two widows sat in silence for a while, each waiting for the other to speak. Then Mrs. Prime got up and folded her shawl very carefully, and carefully put her bonnet and gloves down upon it. It was her habit to be very careful with her clothes, but in her anger she had almost thrown them upon the little sofa. “Will you have anything before you go to bed, Dorothea?” said Mrs. Ray. “Nothing, thank you,” said Mrs. Prime; and her voice was very like the voice of the ravens. Then Mrs. Ray began to think it possible that she might escape away to Rachel without any further words. “I am very tired,” she said, “and I think I will go, Dorothea.”
“Mother,” said Mrs. Prime, “something must be done about this.”
“Yes, my dear; she will talk to me tonight, and tell it me all.”
“But will she tell you the truth?”
“She never told me a falsehood yet, Dorothea. I’m sure she didn’t know that the young man was to be here. You know if he did come back from Exeter before he said he would she couldn’t help it.”
“And do you mean that she couldn’t help being with him there—all alone? Mother, what would you think of any other girl of whom you heard such a thing?”
Mrs. Ray shuddered; and then some thought, some shadow perhaps of a remembrance, flitted across her mind, which seemed to have the effect of palliating her child’s iniquity. “Suppose—” she said. “Suppose what?” said Mrs. Prime, sternly. But Mrs. Ray did not dare to go on with her supposition. She did not dare to suggest that Mr. Rowan might perhaps be a very proper young man, and that the two young people might be growing fond of each other in a proper sort of way. She hardly believed in any such propriety herself, and she knew that her daughter would scout it to the winds. “Suppose what?” said Mrs. Prime again, more sternly than before. “If the other girls left her and went away to the brewery, perhaps she could not have helped it,” said Mrs. Ray.
“But she was not walking with him. Her face was not turned towards home even. They were standing together under the trees, and, judging from the time at which I got home, they must have remained together for nearly half an hour afterwards. And this with a perfect stranger, mother—a man whose name she had never mentioned to us till she was told how Miss Pucker had seen them together! You cannot suppose that I want to make her out worse than she is. She is your child, and my sister; and we are bound together for weal or for woe.”
“You talked about going away and leaving us,” said Mrs. Ray, speaking in soreness rather than in anger.
“So I did; and so I must, unless something be done. It could not be right that I should remain here, seeing such things, if my voice is not allowed to be heard. But though I did go, she would still be my sister. I should still share the sorrow—and the shame.”
“Oh, Dorothea, do not say such words.”
“But they must
