“My dear,” said Mrs. Ray, coming into the parlour, “I must go to Exeter.”
“Today, mamma?”
“No, not today, but on Tuesday. Mr. Goodall says I must understand all about the sale. It is a dreadful trouble.”
But, dreadful as the trouble was, it seemed that Mrs. Ray was not made unhappy by the prospect of the little expedition. She fussed and fretted as ladies do on such occasions, but—as is also common with ladies—the excitement of the journey was, upon the whole, a gratification to her. She asked Rachel to accompany her, and at first pressed her to do so strongly; but such work at the present moment was not in accord with Rachel’s mood, and at last she escaped from it under the plea of expense.
“I think it would be foolish, mamma,” she said. “Now that Dolly has gone you will be run very close; and when Mr. Goodall first spoke of selling the cottages, he said that perhaps you might be without anything from them for a quarter.”
“But he has sold them now, my dear; and there will be the money at once.”
“I don’t see why you should throw away ten and sixpence, mamma,” said Rachel.
And as she spoke in that resolved and masterful tone, her mother, of course, gave up the point. So when the Tuesday morning came, she went with her mother only as far as the station.
“Don’t mind meeting me, because I can’t be sure about the train,” said Mrs. Ray. “But I shall be back tonight, certainly.”
“And I’ll wait tea for you,” said Rachel. Then, when her mother was gone, she walked back to the cottage by herself.
She walked back at once, but took a most devious course. She was determined to avoid the length of the High Street, and she was determined also to avoid Brewery Lane; but she was equally determined to pass through the churchyard. So she walked down from the railway station to the hamlet at the bottom of the hill below the church, and from thence went up by the field-path to the stile. In order to accomplish this she went fully two miles out of her way, and now the sun over her head was very hot. But what was the distance or the heat of the sun to her when her object was to stand for a few moments in that place? Her visit, however, to the spot which was so constantly in her thoughts did her no good. Why had she been so injured? Why had this sacrifice of herself been demanded from her? As she sat for a moment on the stile this was the matter that filled her breast. She had been exalted to the heavens when she first heard her mother speak of Mr. Rowan as an acceptable suitor. She had been filled with joy as though Paradise had been opened to her, when she found herself to be the promised bride of Luke Rowan. Then had come her lover’s letter, and the clergyman’s counsel, and her own reply; and after that the gates of her Paradise had been closed against her! “I wonder whether it’s the same thing to him,” she said to herself. “But I suppose not. I don’t think it can be the same thing or he would come. Wouldn’t I go to him if I were free as he is!” She barely rested in the churchyard, and then walked on between the elms at a quick pace, with a heart sore—sore almost to breaking. She would never have been brought to this condition had not her mother told her that she might love him! Thence came her vexation of spirit. There was the cruelty. All the world knew that this man had been her lover;—all her world knew it. Cherry Tappitt had sung her little witless song about it. Mrs. Tappitt had called at the cottage about it. Mr. Comfort had given his advice about it. Mrs. Cornbury had whispered to her about it out of her pony carriage. Mrs. Sturt had counselled her about it. Mr. Prong had thought it very wrong on her part to love the man. Mr. Sturt had thought it very right, and had offered his assistance. All this would have been as nothing had her lover remained to her. Cherry might have sung till her little throat was tired, and Mr. Prong might have expressed his awe with outspread hands, and have looked as though he expected the skies to fall. Had her Paradise not been closed to her, all this talking would have been a thing of course. But such talking—such widespread knowledge of her condition, with the gates of her Paradise closed against her, was very hard to bear! And who had closed the gates? Her own hands had done it. He, her lover, had not deserted her. He had done for her all that truth and earnestness demanded, and perhaps as much as love required. Men were not so soft as girls, she argued within her own breast. Let a man be ever so true it could not be expected that he should stand by his love after he had been treated with such cold indifference as had been shown in her letter! She would have stood by her love, let his letter have been as cold as it might. But then she was a woman, and her love, once encouraged, had become a necessity to her. A man, she said to herself, would be more proud but less stanch. Of course she would hear no more from him. Of course the gates of her Paradise were shut. Such were her thoughts as she walked home, and such the thoughts over which she sat brooding alone throughout the entire day.
At half-past seven in the evening Mrs. Ray came back home, wearily trudging across the green. She was very weary, for she had now walked above two miles from
