And now that I have begun I hardly know how to write what I have to say. Mr. Comfort and mamma have determined that there must be nothing fixed as an engagement between us, and that for the present, at least, I may not correspond with you. This will be my first and last letter. As that will be so, of course I shall not expect you to write any more, and I know that you will be very angry. But if you understood all my feelings I think that perhaps you would not be very, very angry. I know it is true that when you asked me that question, I nodded my head as you say in your letter. If I had sworn the twenty oaths of which you speak they would not, as you say, have bound me tighter. But neither could bind me to anything against mamma’s will. I thought that you were very generous to come to me as you did;—oh, so generous! I don’t know why you should have looked to such a one as me to be your wife. But I would have done my best to make you happy, had I been able to do as I suppose you then wished me. But you well know that a man is very different from a girl, and of course I must do as mamma wishes.
They say that as the business here about the brewery is so very unsettled they think it probable that you will not have to come back to Baslehurst any more; and that as our acquaintance has been so very short, it is not reasonable to suppose that you will care much about me after a little while. Perhaps it is not reasonable, and after this I shall have no right to be angry with you if you forget me. I don’t think you will quite forget me; but I shall never expect or even hope to see you again.
Twice in writing her letter Rachel cut out this latter assertion, but at last, sobbing in despair, she restored the words. What right would she have to hope that he would come to her, after she had taken upon herself to break that promise which had been conveyed to him, when she bent her head over his arm?
I shall not forget you, and I will always be your friend, as you said I should be. Being friends is very different to anything else, and nobody can say that I may not do that.
I will always remember what you showed me in the clouds; and, indeed, I went there this very evening to see if I could see another arm. But there was nothing there, and I have taken that as an omen that you will not come back to Baslehurst.—
“To me,” had been the words as she had first written them; but there was tenderness in those words, and she found it necessary to alter them.
I will now say goodbye to you, for I have told you all that I have to tell. Mamma desires that I will remember her to you kindly.
May God bless you and protect you always!
In the morning she took down the letter in her hand and gave it to her mother. Mrs. Ray read it very slowly and demurred over it at sundry places. She especially demurred at that word about the omen, and even declared that it ought to be expunged. But Rachel was very stern and held her ground. She had put into the letter, she said, all that she had been bidden to say. Such a word from herself to one who had been so dear to her must be allowed to her.
The letter was not altered and was taken away by the postman that evening.
XXI
Mrs. Ray Goes to Exeter, and Meets a Friend
Six weeks passed over them at Bragg’s End, and nothing was heard of Luke Rowan. Rachel’s letter, a copy of which was given in our last chapter, was duly sent away by the postman, but no answer to it came to Bragg’s End. It must, however, be acknowledged that it not only required no answer, but that it even refused to be answered. Rachel had told her lover that he was not to correspond with her, and that she certainly would not write to him again. Having so said, she had no right to expect an answer; and she protested over and over again that she did expect none. But still she would watch, as she thought unseen, for the postman’s coming; and her heart would sink within her as the man would pass the gate without calling. “He has taken me at my word,” she said to herself very bitterly. “I deserve nothing else from him; but—but—but—” In those days she was ever silent and stern. She did all that her mother bade her, but she did little or nothing from love. There were no more banquets, with clotted cream brought over from Mrs. Sturt’s. She would speak a word or two now and then to Mrs. Sturt, who understood the whole case perfectly; but such words were spoken on chance occasions, for Rachel now never went over to the farm. Farmer Sturt’s assistance had been offered to her; but what could the farmer do for her in such trouble as hers?
During the whole of these six weeks she did her household duties; but gradually she became slower in them and still more slow, and her mother knew that her disappointment was becoming the source of permanent misery. Rachel never said that
