“Oh, thank you;—not tomorrow, because my sister is coming out from Baslehurst, to spend the evening with us.”
“Well;—on Saturday, then,” said Cherry, persistingly.
But Rachel would make no promise to walk with them on any day. She felt that she must henceforth be divided from the Tappitts. Had not he quarrelled with Mr. Tappitt; and could it be fitting that she should keep up any friendship with the family that was hostile to him? She was also aware that Mrs. Tappitt was among those who were desirous of robbing her of her lover. Mrs. Tappitt was her enemy as Mr. Tappitt was his. She asked herself no question as to that duty of forgiving them the injuries they had done her, but she felt that she was divided from them—from Mr. and Mrs. Tappitt, and also from the girls. And, moreover, in her present strait she wanted no friend. She could not talk to any friend about her lover, and she could not bring herself even to think on any other subject.
“It’s late,” she said, “and I must go home, as mamma will be expecting me.”
Cherry had almost replied that she had not been in so great a hurry once before, when she had stood in the churchyard with another companion; but she thought of Rachel’s reproachful face when her last little joke had been uttered, and she refrained.
“She’s over head and ears in love,” said Cherry to her sister, when Rachel was gone.
“I’m afraid she has been very foolish,” said Martha, seriously.
“I don’t see that she has been foolish at all. He’s a very nice fellow, and as far as I can see he’s just as fond of her as she is of him.”
“But we know what that means with young men,” said Martha, who was sufficiently serious in her way of thinking to hold by that doctrine as to wolves in sheep’s clothing in which Mrs. Ray had been educated.
“But young men do marry—sometimes,” said Cherry.
“But not merely for the sake of a pretty face or a good figure. I believe mamma is right in that, and I don’t think he’ll come back again.”
“If he were my lover I’d have him back,” said Cherry, stoutly;—and so they went away to the brewery.
Rachel on her way home determined that she would write her letter that night. Her mother was to read it when it was written; that was understood to be the agreement between them; but there would be no reason why she should not be alone when she wrote it. She could word it very differently, she thought, if she sat alone over it in her own bedroom, than she could do immediately under her mother’s eye. She could not pause and think and perhaps weep over it, sitting at the parlour table, with her mother in her armchair, close by, watching her. It needed that she should write it with tears, with many struggles, with many baffled attempts to find the words that would be wanted—with her very heart’s blood. It must not be tender. No; she was prepared to omit all tenderness. And it must probably be short;—but if so its very shortness would be another difficulty. As she walked along she could not tell herself with what words she would write it; but she thought that the words would perhaps come to her if she waited long enough for them in the solitude of her own chamber.
She reached home by nine o’clock and sat with her mother for an hour, reading out loud some book on which they were then engaged.
“I think I’ll go to bed now, mamma,” she said.
“You always want to go to bed so soon,” said Mrs. Ray. “I think you are getting tired of reading out loud. That will be very sad for me with my eyes.”
“No, I’m not, mamma, and I’ll go on again for half an hour, if you please; but I thought you liked going to bed at ten.”
The watch was consulted, and as it was not quite ten Rachel did go on for another half-hour, and then she went up to her bedroom.
She sat herself down at her open window and looked out for a while upon the heavens. The summer moon was at its full, so that the green before the cottage was as clear before her as in the day, and she could see over into the gloom of Mr. Sturt’s farmyard across it. She had once watched Rowan as he came over the turf towards the cottage swinging his stick in his hand, and now she gazed on the spot where the Baslehurst road came in as though she expected that his figure might again appear. She looked and looked, thinking of this, till she would hardly have been surprised had that figure really come forth upon the road. But no figure was to be seen, and after awhile she withdrew from the window and sat herself down at the little table. It was very late when she undressed herself and went to her bed, and later still when her eyes, red with many tears, were closed in sleep;—but the letter had been written and was ready for her mother’s inspection. This was the letter as it stood after many struggles in the writing of it—
Bragg’s End,
Thursday, 186—My dear Mr. Rowan,
I am much obliged to you for having written the letter which I received from you the other day, and I should have answered it sooner, only mamma thought it best to see Mr. Comfort first, as he is our clergyman
