Mr. Jones gave the fire another poke. In the burning coals he saw a pleasing vision rise. He saw his shop full of customers; he served with slow dignity, assisted by a "tight, brisk young fellow," busy as a bee, active as a deer, for it was Saturday night, and the fair maids and matrons of the vicinity were all impatient. Then from Saturday it was Sunday; the shop was closed, the street was silent. Young Thomson was brushing his coat in the yard and whistling; Mary was upstairs dressing; another five minutes, and she comes down in straw bonnet lined with pink, clean printed muslin frock, mousseline-de-laine shawl, brown boots and blue parasol. The happy father saw them going off together with delighted eyes and brimful heart Then other visions follow; one of a wedding breakfast at which Mr. Jones sings a song, and another of half a dozen grandchildren, all tugging at his skirts, whilst he solemnly rocks the baby, and as solemnly informs the infant: "that he had done as much for its mother once."
Peace be with such dreams whenever they come to the poor man's hearth!
A little surprised at not seeing Mary as usual on the following morning, and thinking she might be unwell, Rachel Gray sent Jane to enquire. Jane soon returned, her face brimful of news.
"Well," said Rachel, "how is Mary?"
"Law bless you Miss, Mary's well enough."
"Why did she not come then?"
"She does not like dress-making no more."
And Jane sat down, and took up her work, and became deeply absorbed in a sleeve trimming. Rachel reddened and looked pained. She liked Mary; the pale, sickly child reminded her strongly of her own lost sister, and though she could allow for the natural tartness with which Jane had no doubt fulfilled her errand, yet she knew that Jane was true, and that as she represented it, the matter must be.
For a while she suspended her work, sadly wondering at the causeless ingratitude of a child whom she had treated with uniform kindness and indulgence, then she tried to dismiss the matter from her mind; but she could not do so, and when dusk came round, her first act, as soon as she laid by her work, was to slip out unperceived—for Mrs. Gray, highly indignant with Mr. Jones and his daughter, would certainly have opposed her—and go as far as the Teapot.
Mr. Jones was serving a customer. He did not recognize Rachel as she entered the shop, and hastily called out:
"Mary—Mary come and serve the lady."
"It's only me, Mr. Jones," timidly said Rachel.
"Walk in, Miss Gray," he replied, slightly embarrassed, "walk in, you'll find Mary in the back parlour, very glad to see you, Miss Gray."
Much more sulky than glad looked Mary, but of this Rachel took no notice; she sat down by the side of the young girl, and, as if nothing had occurred, spoke of the Teapot and its prospects. To which discourse Mary gave replies pertinaciously sullen.
"Mary!" at length said Rachel, "why did you not come to work to day, were you unwell?"
This simple question obtaining no reply, Rachel repeated it; still Mary remained silent, but when a third time Rachel gently said: "Mary what was it ailed you?"
Mary began to cry.
"Well, well, what's the matter?" exclaimed her father looking in, "you ain't been scolding my little Mary have you. Miss Gray?"
"I!" said Rachel, "no, Mr. Jones, I only asked her why she did not come this morning?"
"Because I would not let her," he replied, almost sharply, "dress-making don't agree with my Mary, Miss Gray, and you know I told you from the first, that if her health wouldn't allow it, she was not to stay."
And a customer calling him back to the shop, he left the parlour threshold. Rachel rose.
"Good-night, Mary," she gently said; "if you feel stronger, and more able to work, you may come back to me."
Mary did not reply.
"Good-night, Mr. Jones," said Rachel, passing through the shop.
"Good-night, Miss Gray," he replied, formally. "My best respects to Mrs.Gray, if you please."
When people have done an insolent and ungrateful thing, they generally try to persuade themselves that it was a spirited, independent sort of thing; and so now endeavoured to think Richard Jones and his daughter— but in vain. To both still came the thought: "Was this the return to make to Rachel Gray for all her kindness?"
The conscience of Mr. Jones, little used to such reflections, made him feel extremely uneasy; and if that of Mary was not quite so sensitive, the dull routine of the paternal home added much force to the conclusion "that she had much better have stayed with Miss Gray." Mary was too childish, and had ever been too much indulged to care for consistency. At the close of a week, she therefore declared that she wished to go back to Miss Gray, and did not know why her father had taken her away.
"I—I—my dear!" said Richard Jones, confounded at the accusation, "you said getting up early made your side ache."
"So it did; but I could have got up late, and gone all the same, only you wouldn't let me; you kept me here to mind the shop. I hate the shop. Teapot and all!" added Mary, busting into tears.
Jones hung down his head—then shook it
"Oh! my little Mary—my little Mary!" he exclaimed, ruefully; and he felt as if he could hare cried himself, to see the strange perversity of this spoiled child, "who turned upon him," as he internally phrased it, and actually upbraided him with his over-indulgence.
A wiser father would never have thus indulged a pettish daughter, and never have humbled himself as, to please his little Mary, Richard Jones now did. That same day, he went round to Rachel Gray's; he had hoped that she might be alone in the little parlour; but no, there sat, as if to increase his mortification, Mrs. Gray, stiff and stern, and Jane smiling grimly. Rachel alone was the same as usual. Jones scratched his head, coughed, and looked foolish; but at length he came out with it:
"Would Miss Gray take back his daughter, whose health a week's rest had much improved—much improved," he added, looking at Rachel doubtfully.
Mrs. Gray drew herself up to utter a stern "No," but for once the mildRachel checked and contradicted her mother, and said:
"Yes, Mr. Jones, with great pleasure. You may send her to-day, if you like. She has missed us, and we have missed her."
"Thank you, Miss Gray—thank you," said Jones, hurriedly rising to leave.
"Give Mary my kind love," whispered Rachel, as she let him out.
But Jones had not heard her. Very slowly, and with his hands in his pockets, he walked down the street. He had not grown tired of Mary's company; why had Mary grown tired of his? "It's natural, I suppose," he thought, "it's natural;" and when he entered the shop, where Mary sat sulking behind the counter, and he told her that she might go back to Miss Gray's, and when he saw her face light up with pleasure, he forgot that, though natural, it was not pleasant.
"You may go to-day," he added, smiling.
At once, Mary flew upstairs to her room. In less than five minutes, she was down again, and merely nodding to her father as she passed through the shop, off she went, with the light, happy step of youth.
"It's natural," he thought again, "it's very natural," but he sighed.
Mrs. Gray took in high dudgeon the consent her daughter had given to the return of Mary Jones. She scarcely looked at that young lady the whole day, and when she was gone, and Jane had retired to her little room, and mother and daughter sat together, Rachel got a lecture.
"You have no spirit," indignantly said Mrs. Gray. "What! after the little hussy behaving so shamefully, you take her back for the asking!"
"She is but a child," gently observed Rachel.
"But her father ain't a child, is he?"
Rachel smiled.
"Indeed, mother, he is not much better," she replied.
"I tell you, that you ain't got a bit of spirit," angrily resumed Mrs. Gray. "The little imperent hussy! to think of playing her tricks here! And do you think I'm agoing to stand that?" added Mrs. Gray, warming with her subject; "no, that I ain't! See if I don't turn her out of doors to-morrow morning."
"Oh! mother, mother, do not!" cried Rachel, alarmed at the threat; "think that she is but a child, after all. And, oh, mother!" she added with a sigh, "have you never noticed how like she is to what our own little Jane once was?"
Mrs. Gray remained mute. She looked back in the past for the image of her lost child. She saw a pale face, with blue eyes and fair hair, like Mary's. Never before had the resemblance struck her; when it came, it acted with overpowering force on a nature which, though rugged, and stern, and embittered by age and sorrows, was neither cold nor forgetful.
One solitary love, but ardent and impassioned, had Sarah Gray known, in her life of three-score and ten—the love of a harsh, but devoted mother for an only child. For that child's sake had its father, whom she had married more for prudential reasons than for motives of affection, become dear to her heart. He was the father of her Jane. For that child's sake, had she, without repining, borne the burden of Rachel. Rachel was the sister of her Jane. Never should Rachel want, whilst she had heart and hands to work, and earn her a bit of bread.
But when this much-loved child, after ripening to early youth, withered and dropped from the tree of life; when she was laid to sleep in a premature grave, all trace of the holy and beautiful tenderness which gives its grace to womanhood, seemed to pass away from the bereaved mother's heart. She became more harsh, more morose than she had ever been, and had it been worth the world's while to note or record it, of her too it might have been said, as it was of England's childless King, "that from one sad day she smiled no more." And now, when she heard Rachel, when in her mind she compared the living with the dead, strength, pride, fortitude forsook her, her stern features worked, her aged bosom heaved, passionate tears flowed down her wrinkled cheek.
"Oh! my darling—my lost darling!" she cried, in broken accents, "would I could have died for thee! would thou wert here to-day! would my old bones filled thy young grave!"
And she threw her apron over her face, and moaned with bitterness and anguish.
"Mother, dear mother, do not, pray do not!" cried Rachel, distressed and alarmed at so unusual a burst of emotion. After a while, Mrs. Gray unveiled her face. It was pale and agitated; but her tears had ceased. For years they had not flowed, and until her dying day, they flowed no more.
"Rachel," she said, looking in her step-daughter's face, "I forgive you. You have nearly broken my heart. Let Mary come, stay, and go; but talk to me no more of the dead. Rachel, when my darling died," here her pale lips quivered, "know that I rebelled against the Lord—know that I did not give her up willingly, but only after such agony of mind and heart as a mother goes through when she sees the child she has borne, reared, cherished, fondled, lying a pale, cold bit of earth before her! And, therefore, I say, talk no more to me about the dead, lest my rebellious heart should rise again, and cry out to its Maker: 'Oh God! oh God! why didst thou take her from me!'"
Mrs. Gray rose to leave the room. On the threshold, she turned back to say in a low, sad voice:
"The child may come to-morrow, Rachel."
Mrs. Gray had never cared about Mary Jones; she had always thought her what she was indeed—a sickly and peevish child. But now her heart yearned towards the young girl, she herself would have been loth to confess why. Mary took it as a matter of course, Jane wondered, Rachel well knew what had wrought such a change; but she said nothing, and watched silently.
In softened tones, Mrs. Gray now addressed the young girl. If Rachel ventured to chide Mary, though ever so slightly, her step-mother sharply checked her. "Let the child alone," were her mildest words. As to Jane or Mrs. Brown, they both soon learned that Mary Jones was not to be looked at with impunity. Mrs. Gray wondered at them, she did, for teazing the poor little thing. In short, Mary was exalted to the post of favourite to the ruling powers, and she filled it with dignity and consequence.
But the watchful eye of Rachel Gray noted other signs. She saw with silent uneasiness, the fading eye, the faltering step, the weakness daily increasing of her step-mother; and she felt with secret sorrow that she was soon to lose this harsh, yet not unloving or unloved companion of her quiet life.
Mrs. Gray complained one day of feeling weak and ailing. She felt worse the next day, and still worse on the third. And thus, day by day, she slowly declined without hope of recovery. Mrs. Gray had a strong, though narrow mind, and a courageous heart. She heard the doctor's sentence calmly and firmly; and virtues which she had neglected in life, graced and adorned her last hours and her dying bed. Meek and patient she bore suffering and disease without repining or complaint, and granted herself but one indulgence: the sight and presence of Mary.
The young girl was kinder and more attentive to her old friend than might have been expected from her pettish, indulged nature. She took a sort of pride in keeping Mrs. Gray company, in seeing to Mrs. Gray, as she called it Her little vanity was gratified in having the once redoubtable Mrs. Gray now wholly in her hands, and in some sort a helpless dependent on her good-will and kindness. It may be, too, that she found a not unworthy satisfaction in feeling and proving to the little world around her, that she also was a person of weight and consequence.
But her childish kindness availed not. The time of Mrs. Gray had come; she too was to depart from a world where toil and few joys, and some heavy sorrows had been her portion. Mary and Rachel were alone with her in that hour.
Mary was busy about the room. Rachel sat by her mother's bed. Pale and languid, Mrs. Gray turned to her step-daughter, and gathering her remaining strength to speak, she said feebly: "My poor Rachel, I am afraid I have often teazed and tormented you. It was all temper; but I never meant it unkindly—never indeed. And then, you see, Rachel," she added, true to her old spirit of patronizing and misunderstanding her step-daughter, "Your not being exactly like others provoked me at times; but I know it shouldn't—it wasn't fair to you, poor girl! for of course you couldn't help it."
And Rachel, true to her spirit of humble submission, only smiled, and kissed her mother's wasted cheek, and said, meekly: "Do not think of it, dear mother—do not; you were not to blame."
And she did not murmur, even in her heart. She did not find it hard that to the end she should be slighted, and held as one of little worth.
A little while after this, Mrs. Gray spoke again. "Where is Mary?" she said.
"And here I am, Mrs. Gray," said Mary, coming up to her on the other side of the bed.
Mrs. Gray smiled, and stretched out her trembling hands, until they met and clasped those of the young girl. Then, with her fading eyes fixed on Mary's face, she said to Rachel:
"Rachel, tell your father that I forgive him, will you?"
"Yes, mother," replied Rachel, in a low tone.
"Rachel," she said again, and her weak voice rose, "Rachel, you have been a good and a faithful daughter to me—may the Lord bless you!"
Tears streamed down Rachel's face on hearing those few words that paid her for many a bitter hour; but her mother saw them not, still her look sought Mary.
"In Thy hands, Lord, I commend my spirit," she murmured, and with her look still fastened on little Mary's pale face, she died.
Sad and empty seemed the house to Rachel Gray when her mother was gone. She missed her chiding voice, her step, heavy with age, her very scolding, which long habit had made light to bear.
The solitude and liberty once so dear and so hardly won, now became painful and oppressive; but Rachel was not long troubled with either.
We are told that "he whom He loveth He chasteneth;" and Rachel was not unloved, for she, too, was to have her share of affliction. Spite her sickly aspect, she enjoyed good health, and, therefore, when she rose one morning, shortly after her mother's death, and felt unusually languid and unwell, Rachel was more surprised than alarmed.
"La, Miss! how poorly you do look!" exclaimed Jane, laying down her work with concern.
"I do not feel very well," replied Rachel, calmly, "but I do not feel very ill, either," she added, smiling.
Her looks belied her words; vainly she endeavoured to work; by the united entreaties of Jane and Mary, she was at length persuaded to go up to her room. She laid down on her bed, and tried to sleep, but could not; she thought of her step-mother, so harsh, yet so kind in her very harshness; of her father, so cold and unloving; of her silent, lonely life, and its narrow cares and narrow duties, above which smiled so heavenly a hope, burning like a clear star above a dark and rugged valley; and with these thoughts and feelings, heightening them to intensity, blended the heat and languor of growing fever.
When Mary came up to know if Rachel Gray wanted anything, she found her so ill that she could scarcely answer her question. She grew rapidly worse. The medical man who was called in, pronounced her disease a slow fever, not dangerous, but wasting.
"Then there is nothing for it but patience," resignedly said Rachel, "I fear I shall be the cause of trouble to those around me, but the will of God be done."
"La, Miss! we'll take care of you," zealously said Jane, "shan't we,Mary?"
"Of course we will," as zealously replied the young girl.
Rachel smiled at their earnestness; but their zeal was destined to be thrown in the shade by that of a third individual. On the fourth day of her illness, Rachel was awakened from a heavy sleep into which she had fallen, by the sound of angry though subdued voices on the staircase.
"I tell you 'taint a bit of use, and that you're not going to go up," said the deep, emphatic tones of Jane.
"Et je vous dis que je veux monter, moi!" obstinately exclaimed the shrill French voice of Madame Rose.
Jane, who was not patient, now apparently resorted to that last argument of kings and nations, physical force, to remove the intruder, for there was the sound of a scuffle on the staircase, but if she had strength on her side, Madame Rose had agility, and though somewhat ruffled and out of breath, she victoriously burst into Rachel's room.
"Take care, Miss, take care," screamed Jane, rushing up after her, "theFrench madwoman has got in, and I couldn't keep her out."
"Don't be afraid, Jane," said Rachel, as the alarmed apprentice made her appearance at the door, "I am very glad to see Madame Rose. I tell you she will not hurt me, and that I am glad to see her," she added, as Jane stared grimly at the intruder.
She spoke so positively, that the apprentice retired, but not without emphatically intimating that she should be within call if Miss Gray wanted her.
Rachel was too ill to speak much; but Madame Rose spared her the trouble by taking that task on herself; indeed, she seemed willing to take a great deal on herself, and listless as Rachel was, she perceived with surprise that Madame Rose was in some measure taking possession of her sick room. She inquired after Mimi. Madame Rose shook her head, produced a square pocket-handkerchief, applied it to her eyes, then turned them up, till the whites alone were visible; in short, she plainly intimated that Mimi had gone to her last home; after which she promptly dried her tears, and, partly by speech, partly by pantomime, she informed Rachel that the apprentices were too busy sewing to be able to attend on her, and that she—Madame Rose—would undertake that care. Rachel was too ill and languid to resist; and Jane and Mary, though they resented the intrusion of the foreigner, were unable to eject her, for, by possession, which is acknowledged to be nine-tenths of the law, Madame Rose made her claim good, until the enemy had abandoned all idea of resistance.
And a devoted nurse she made, ever attentive, ever vigilant. For three months did Rachel see, in her darkened room, the active little figure of the Frenchwoman, either moving briskly about, or sitting erect in her chair, knitting assiduously, occasionally relieved, it is true, by Jane and Mary. She saw it when she lay in the trance of fever and pain, unable to move or speak; in her few moments of languid relief, it was still there, and it became so linked, in her mind, with her sick room, that, when she awoke one day free from fever, the delightful sensation that pain was gone from her, like the weary dream of a troubled night fled in the morning, blended with a sense of surprise and annoyance at missing the nod and the smile of Madame Rose.
Rachel looked around her wondering, and in looking, she caught sight of the portly and vulgar figure of Mrs. Brown; she saw her with some surprise, for she knew that that lady entertained a strong horror of a sick room.
"It's only me!" said Mrs. Brown, nodding at her. "You are all right now, my girl."
"I feel much better, indeed," replied Rachel
"Of course you do; the fever is all gone, otherwise you should not see me here, I promise you," added Mrs. Brown, with another nod, and a knowing wink.
"And Madame Rose," said Rachel, "where is Madame Rose?"
"Law! don't trouble your mind about her. Keep quiet, will you?"
Mrs. Brown spoke impatiently. Rachel felt too weak to dispute her authority, but when Jane came up, she again inquired after Madame Rose. Jane drily said it was all right, and that Miss Gray was to keep quiet; and more than this she would not say.
The fever had left Rachel. She was now cured, and rapidly got better; but still, she did not see Madame Rose, and was favoured with more of Mrs. Brown's company than she liked. At length she one day positively exacted an explanation from Jane, who reluctantly gave it.
"Law bless you, Miss!" she said, '"tain't worth talking about. Mrs. Brown can't abide the little Frenchwoman; and so, one day when she went out, she locked the door, and wouldn't let Mary open it; and when Madame Rose rang and rapped, Mrs. Brown put her head out of the window, and railed at her, until she fairly scared her away from the place."
"But what brought Mrs. Brown here?" asked Rachel, who had heard her with much surprise.
Jane looked embarrassed, but was spared the trouble of replying by the voice of Mrs. Brown, who imperatively summoned her downstairs. She immediately complied, and left Rachel alone. A mild sun shone in through the open window on the sick girl; she had that day got up, for the first time, and sat in a chair with a book on her knees. But she could not read: she felt too happy, blest in that delightful sense of returning health which long sickness renders so sweet. Her whole soul overflowed with joy, thankfulness, and prayer, and for once the shadow of sad or subduing thoughts fell not on her joy.
"Well, my girl, and how are you to-day?" said the rough voice of Mrs.Brown, who entered without the ceremony of knocking.
Rachel quietly replied that she felt well—almost quite well.
"Of course you do. I knew I'd bring you round," said Mrs. Brown. "La bless you! all their coddling was just killing you. So I told Jane, all along, but she wouldn't believe me. 'La bless you, girl!' I said to her, 'I do it willingly, but ifs only just a wasting of my money,' says I."
"Your money, Mrs. Brown?" interrupted Rachel, with a start.
"Why, of course, my money. Whose else? Didn't you know of it?"
"Indeed, I did not," replied Rachel, confounded.
"La! what a muff the girl is!" good-humouredly observed Mrs. Brown. "And where did you think, stupid, that the money you have been nursed with these three months came from? Why, from my pocket, of course; twenty pound three-and-six, besides a quarter's rent, and another running on."
Rachel was dismayed at the amount of the debt. When and how should she be able to pay so large a sum? Still, rallying from her first feeling of surprise and dismay, she attempted to express to Mrs. Brown her gratitude for the assistance so generously yielded, and her hope of being able to repay it some day; but Mrs. Brown would not hear her.
"Nonsense, Rachel," she said, "I ain't a-done more than I ought to have done for my cousin's step-daughter. And to whom should Jane, when she wanted money, have come, but to me? And as to paying me, bless you! there's no hurry, Rachel. I can afford, thank Heaven, to lend twenty pound, and not miss it."
This was kindness—such Rachel felt it to be; but, alas! she also felt that these was on her, from that day, the badge of obligation and servitude. She was still too weak to work; she had, dining her long illness, lost the best part of her customers; until her full recovery, she was, perforce, cast on Mrs. Brown for assistance, and, of all persons, Mrs. Brown was the last not to take advantage of such a state of things. Mrs. Brown came when she liked, said what she liked, and did what she liked in Rachel's house. But, indeed, it was not Rachel's house—it was Mrs. Brown's. Rachel was there on sufferance; the very bed on which she slept was Mrs. Brown's; the very chair on which she sat was Mrs. Brown's. So Mrs. Brown felt, and made every one feel, Rachel included.
The effects of her rule were soon apparent. Every article of furniture changed its place; every household nook was carefully examined and improved, and every luckless individual who entertained a lingering kindness for Rachel Gray, was affronted, and effectually banished from the house, from irascible Madame Rose down to peaceful Mr. Jones.
Rachel carried patience to a fault; through her whole life, she had been taught to suffer and endure silently, and now, burdened with the sense of her debt and obligation, she knew not how to resist the domestic tyranny of this new tormentor. The easiest course was to submit. To Rachel it seemed that such, in common gratitude, was her duty; and, accordingly, she submitted. But this was a time of probation and trial: as such she ever looked back to it, in after life. To Jane, her patience seemed amazing, and scarcely commendable.
"I wonder you can bear with the old creetur, that I do," she said, emphatically.
"Mrs. Brown means kindly," said Rachel, "and she has been a kind friend to me, when I had no other friend. I may well hare a little patience."
"A little patience!" echoed Jane, indignantly, "a little patience! when she's always at you."
But Rachel would hear no more on the subject. If she bore with Mrs. Brown, it was not to murmur at her behind her back. Yet she was not so insensible to what she endured, but that she felt it a positive relief when Mrs. Brown went and paid one of her nieces a visit in the country, and for a few weeks delivered the house of her presence. Internally, Rachel accused herself of ingratitude because she felt glad. "It's very wrong of me, I know," she remorsefully thought, "but I feel as if I could not help it."
Her health was now restored. She had found some work to do; with time she knew she should be able to pay Mrs. Brown. Her mind recovered its habitual tone; old thoughts, old feelings, laid by during the hour of trial and sickness, but never forsaken, returned to her now, and time, as it passed on, matured a great thought in her heart.
"Who knows," she often asked herself, in her waking dreams, "who knows if the hour is not come at last? My father cannot always turn his face from me. Love me at once he cannot; but why should he not with time?" Yet it was not at once that Rachel acted on these thoughts. Never since he had received her so coldly, had she crossed her father's threshold; but often, in the evening, she had walked up and down before his door, looking at him through the shop window with sad and earnest eyes, never seeking for more than that stolen glance, though still with the persistency of a fond heart, she looked forward to a happier future.
And thus she lingered until one morning, when she rose, nerved her heart, and went out; calmly resolved to bear as others, to act.
She went to her father's house. She found him sturdy and stern, planing with the vigour of a man in the prime of life. His brow became clouded, as he saw and recognized his daughter's pale face and shrinking figure. Still he bade her come in, for she stood on the threshold timidly waiting for a welcome; and his ungraciousness was limited to the cold question of what had brought her.
"I am come to see you, father," was her mild reply. And as to this ThomasGray said nothing, Rachel added: "My mother is dead."
"I know it, and have known it these three months," he drily answered.
"She died very happy," resumed Rachel, "and before she died, she desired me to come and tell you that she sincerely forgave you all past unkindness."
A frown knit the rugged brow of Thomas Gray. His late wife had had a sharp temper of her own; and perhaps he thought himself as much sinned against as sinning. But he made no comment.
"Father," said Rachel, speaking from her very heart, and looking earnestly in his face, "may I come and live with you?"
Thomas Gray looked steadily at his daughter, and did not reply. But Rachel, resolved not to be easily disheartened, persisted none the less. "Father," she resumed, and her voice faltered with the depth of her emotion, "pray let me. I know you do not care much for me. I dare say you are right, that I am not worth much; but still I might be useful to you. A burden I certainly should not be; and in sickness, in age, I think, I hope, father, you would like to have your daughter near you.
"I am now your only child," she added, after a moment's pause; "the only living thing of your blood, not one relative have I in this wide world; and you, father, you too are alone. Let me come to live with you. Pray let me! If my presence is irksome to you," added Rachel, gazing wistfully in his face, as both hope and courage began to fail her, "I shall keep out of the way. Indeed, indeed," she added with tears in her eyes, "I shall."
He had heard her out very quietly, and very quietly he replied: "Rachel, what did I go to America for?"
Rachel, rather bewildered with the question, faltered that she did not know.
"And what did I come to live here for?" he continued.
Rachel did not answer; but there was a sad foreboding in her heart.
"To be alone," he resumed; and he spoke with some sternness, "to be alone." And he went back to his planing.
With tears which he saw not, Rachel looked at the stern, selfish old man, whom she called her father. The sentence which he had uttered, rung in her heart; but she did not venture to dispute its justice. Her simple pleading had been heard and rejected. More than she had said, she could not say; and it did not occur to her to urge a second time the homely eloquence which had so signally failed when first spoken. But she made bold to prefer a timid and humble petition. "Might she come to see him?"
"What for?" he bluntly asked.
"To see how you are, father," replied poor Rachel.
"How I am," he echoed, with a suspicious gathering of the brow, "and why shouldn't I be well, just tell me that?"
"It might please Providence to afflict you with sickness," began Rachel.
"Sickness, sickness," he interrupted; indignantly, "I tell you, woman, I never was sick in my life. Is there the sign of illness, or of disease upon me?"
"No, indeed, father, there is not."
"And could you find a man of my age half so healthy, and so strong as I am—just tell me that?" he rather defiantly asked.
Poor Rachel was literal as truth. Instead of eluding a reply, she simply said: "I have seen stronger men than you, father."
"Oh I you have—have you!" he ejaculated eyeing her with very little favour.
And though Rachel was not unconscious of her offence, she added: "And strong or weak, father, are we not all in the hands of God?"
From beneath his bushy grey eyebrows, Thomas Gray looked askance at his daughter; but love often rises to a fearlessness that makes it heroic, and Rachel, not daunted, resumed: "Father," she said, earnestly, "you do not want me now; I know and see it, but if ever you should—and that time may come, pray, father, pray send for me."
"Want you? and what should I want you for?" asked Thomas Gray.
"I cannot tell, I do not know; but you might want me. Remember, that if you do, you have but to send for me. I am willing, ever willing."
He looked at her as she stood there before him, a pale, sallow, sickly girl, then he laughed disdainfully, and impatiently motioned her away, as if his temper were chafed at her continued presence. Rachel felt, indeed, that her visit had been sufficiently long, and not wishing to close on herself the possibility of return—for she had one of those quietly pertinacious natures that never give up hope—she calmly bade her father good-bye. Without looking at her, he muttered an unintelligible reply. Rachel left the shop, and returned to her quiet street and solitary home.
Yet solitary she did not find it. True, Jane was out on some errand or other, but Mary was alone in the parlour. She sat with her work on her lap, crying as if her heart would break.
In vain she tried to hide or check her tears; Rachel saw Mary's grief, and forgetting at once her own troubles, she kindly sat down by the young girl, and asked what ailed her.
At first, Mary would not speak, then suddenly she threw her arms around Rachel's neck, and with a fresh burst of tears, she exclaimed: "Oh! dear, dear Miss Gray! I am so miserable."
"What for, child?" asked Rachel astonished.
"He's gone—he's gone!" sobbed Mary.
"Who is gone, my dear?"
Mary hung down her head. But Rachel pressed her so kindly to speak, that her heart opened, and with many a hesitating pause, and many a qualifying comment, Mary Jones related to her kind-hearted listener a little story, which, lest the reader should not prove so indulgent, or so patient as Rachel Gray, we will relate in language plainer and more brief.
Time had worn on: nine months in all had passed away since the opening of the Teapot.
We must be quite frank: Mr. Jones had not always made the one pound ten a week dear profit; and of course this affected all his calculations: the ten per cent for increase of gain included. There had been weeks when he had not realized more than one pound, others when he made ten shillings, ay and there had been weeks when all he could do—if he did do so—was to make both ends meet. It was odd; but it was so. Mr. Jones was at first much startled; but, he soon learned to reconcile himself to it.
"It stands to reason," he philosophically observed to Mary, "it's business, you see, it's business." The words explained all.
Another drawback was that the front room which was worth five shillings a week, as his landlord had proved to Mr. Jones in their very first conversation, and for which Mr. Jones had therefore allowed—on the faith of his landlord's word—thirteen pounds a year in his accounts— never let at all. This was the first intimation Mr. Jones received of the practical business truth, that it is necessary to allow for losses.
He had almost given up all thoughts of letting this unfortunate room, and indeed the bill had had time to turn shabby and yellow in the shop window, when one morning a young man entered the shop and in a cool deliberate tone said: "Room to let?"
"Yes, Sir," replied Jones rather impressed by his brief manner.
"Back or front?"
"Front, Sir, front. Capital room, Sir!"
"Terms?"
"Five shillings a-week, Sir. A room worth six shillings, anywhere else. Like to see it, Sir? Mary—Mary, dear, just mind the shop awhile, will you?"
Mary came grumbling at being disturbed, whilst her father hastened upstairs before the stranger, and throwing the window open, showed him a very dusty room, not over and above well furnished.
"Capital room. Sir!" said Mr. Jones, winking shrewdly; "real Brussels carpet; portrait of Her Majesty above the mantel-piece; and that bed, Sir —just feel that bed, Sir," he added, giving it a vigorous poke, by way of proving its softness; "very cheerful look-out, too; the railroad just hard by—see all the trains passing."
Without much minding these advantages, the stranger cast a quick look round the room, then said in his curt way: "Take four shillings for it? Yes. Well then, I'll come to-night."
And without giving Mr. Jones time to reply, he walked downstairs, and walked out through the shop.
"Well, father, have you let the room?" asked Mary, when her father came down, still bewildered by the young man's strange and abrupt manner.
"Well, child," he replied, "I suppose I may say I have, for the young man is coming to-night."
"What's his name?" promptly asked Mary.
"I'm blest if I know; he never told me, nor gave me time to ask."
"But, father, you don't mean to say you let the room to him, without knowing his name?"
"But I didn't let the room to him," said Mr. Jones; "it was he took it."
"Well, that's queer!" said Mary.
"Queer! I call it more than queer!" exclaimed the grocer, now turning indignant at the treatment he had received; "but he shan't sleep in it, though, till I've got his references, I can tell him."
The words were scarcely out of his mouth, when into the shop again walked the stranger.
"My name is Joseph Saunders," he said, briefly, "and if you want to know more, apply to Mr. Smithson, number thirteen, in the alley hard by. He'll give you all the particulars."
Having delivered which piece of information, he once more vanished. Well, there was nothing to say to this; and Mr. Jones, who had an inquisitive temper, was preparing to dart off to Mr. Smithson's, who did indeed live hard by, when Mr. Joseph Saunders once more appeared.
"P'r'aps you'd like the first week," he said; and without waiting for a reply, he laid four shillings down on the counter, and again disappeared —this time to return no more. Mary was very much struck.
"He looks quite superior," she said, "quite. Saunders—Joseph Saunders! what a nice name."
"That's all very well," replied her father, sweeping the four shillings into the till, "but I must have a word or two to say with Mr. Smithson— for all that his name is Joseph Saunders."
He took his hat, and walked out to seek Mr. Smithson, an old and stiff dealer in earthenware, who lived within a stone's-throw of the Teapot. The day was fine, and Mr. Smithson was airing his pans and dishes, and setting them along the pavement, like traps for the feet of unwary passengers.
"Good-morning to you," began Jones, in a conciliating tone.
"Good-morning!" replied, or rather, grunted Mr. Smithson, without taking the trouble to look up.
"I have just come round to inquire about a young man—his name is JosephSaunders. Do you know him?"
"S'pose I do?" answered Mr. Smithson too cautious to commit himself.
"Well then, s'pose you do—you can tell me something about him, can't you?"
"What for?" drily asked the earthenware dealer.
"What for!" exclaimed Mr. Jones, beginning to lose his temper, "why, because he's taken my front room, and I want to know what sort of a chap he is, and because, too, he has referred me to you—that's what for."
"Well, then," said Mr. Smithson, "I'll just tell you this: first, he'll pay his rent; second, he'll give no trouble; third, that's all."
With which Mr. Smithson, who had for a moment looked up, and paused in his occupation, returned to his earthenware.
"And what does he do?" asked Mr. Jones, not satisfied with this brief account.
"If you was to stay here from now till to-morrow morning," surlily replied Mr. Smithson, "you'd know no more from me."
Mr. Jones whistled, and walked off, with his hands in his pockets. He had been guilty of the unpardonable sin of not purchasing a shilling's worth of Mr. Smithson's goods since he had come to the neighbourhood, and of course Mr. Smithson felt aggrieved.
"Well, father," eagerly exclaimed Mary, as soon as she saw her father; "who is he? What is he? What does he do? Is he married—"
"Bless the girl!" interrupted Mr. Jones, "how am I to know all that? He'll pay his rent, and he's respectable, and more don't concern us; and it's time for you to go to Miss Gray, ain't it?"
With which limited information Mary had, perforce, to remain satisfied.
The new lodger proved to be what Mr. Jones graphically termed "a very buttoned-up sort of chap;" a tall, dark, silent, and reserved man, who paid his rent every week, went out early every morning, came home at ten every night, and vanished every Sunday.
We have already hinted that Mr. Jones had a spice of curiosity; this mystery teazed him, and by dint of waylaying his guest both early and late, he succeeded in ascertaining that he had recently left his situation in a large house in the city, and that he was in search of another. No more did Mr. Joseph Saunders choose to communicate; but this was enough.
For some time, the poor grocer had had a strong suspicion that he was not a very good business man; that he wanted something; energy, daring, he knew not what, but something he was sure it was.
"Now," he thought, "if I could secure such a young fellow as that; it would be a capital thing for me, and in time not a bad one for him. For suppose, that he becomes a Co., and marries Mary, why the house is his, that's all. Now I should like to know what man in the city will say to him: 'Saunders, I'll make a Co. of you, and you shall have my daughter.'"
Fully impressed with the importance of the proposal he had to make, Mr. Jones accordingly walked up one morning to his lodger's room; and after a gentle knock, obtained admittance. But scarcely had he entered the room, scarcely cast a look around him, when his heart failed him, Joseph Saunders was packing up.
"Going, Sir?" faintly said Jones.
"Why yes!" replied the young man, "I have found a situation, and so I am off naturally. My week is up to-morrow, I believe, but not having given notice, I shall pay for next, of course."
He thrust his hand in his pocket as he spoke. Poor Mr. Jones was too much hurt with his disappointment to care about the four shillings.
"Pray don't mention it," he said hurriedly, "your time's up to-morrow, and so there's an end of it all." Which words applied to the end of his hopes, more than anything else.
Mr. Saunders gave him a look of slight surprise, but said quietly: "No, no, Mr. Jones, what's fair is fair. I gave no notice, and so here are your four shillings." He laid them on the table as he spoke; and resumed his packing.
He forgot to ask what had brought Mr. Jones up to his room, and Mr. Jones no longer anxious to tell him, pocketed his four shillings and withdrew hastily, under pretence that he was wanted in the shop.
Mr. Jones had not acted in all this without consulting his daughter; she had tacitly approved his plans, and when he had imprudently allowed her to see how he thought those plans likely to end by a matrimonial alliance between herself and young Saunders, a faint blush had come over the poor little thing's sallow face, and stooping to shun her father's kind eye, she pretended to pick up a needle that had not fallen. And now she was waiting, below, for it was early yet, and she had not gone to Miss Gray's —she was waiting to know the result of her father's conference with Mr. Saunders. No wonder that he came down somewhat slowly, and not a little crest-fallen. All he said was: "He's got a new situation," and whistling by way of showing his utter unconcern, he entered the shop, where a dirty child with its chin resting on the counter, was waiting to be served.
Mary too had had her dreams, innocent dreams, made up of the shadow of love, and of the substance of girlish vanity. The poor child felt this blow, the first her little life had known, and childishly began to cry. Her eyes were red when she went to work, but she sat in shadow, and Jane, who seldom honoured Miss Jones with her notice, saw nothing. Rachel Gray was too much absorbed in her own thoughts to heed what passed around her.
It was only on her return, that finding Mary in tears, she drew from her the little tale of her hope and disappointment. It is not an easy task to console, even the lightest sorrow, for it is not easy to feel sympathy. Yet little as her grave mind, and earnest heart could understand the troubles of Mary Jones, little as she could feel in reality for the childish fancy to which they owed their birth, Rachel felt for the young girl's grief, such as it was, and by sympathy and mild reasoning, she soothed Mary, and sent her home partly consoled.
Of course, Mr. Saunders was gone—he had left too without any adieu or message. Mary's vanity was as much hurt as her heart.
Mr. Jones was not habitually a man of keen perceptions, but love is ever quick. It cut him to the heart to see his little Mary so woebegone. He looked at her wistfully, tried to check a sigh, and said as brightly as he could:
"Cheer up, Mary; law bless you girl, well have lots of lodgers yet; and as to that Saunders, I don't so much care about it, now he's gone. He was a clever fellow, but he hadn't got no capital, and as to taking a Co. without capital, why none but a good-natured easy fellow like me would dream of such a thing now a days; but, as I said, we'll have lots of lodgers—lots of lodgers."
"We never had but that one all them nine months," said Mary with some asperity.
"They're all a coming," said her father gaily, "They're all a coming."
And he said it in such droll fashion, and winked so knowingly that, do what she could, Mary could not but laugh.
Mary was gone; Jane, had come in but to go up to her room. Rachel sat alone in the little parlour, reading by candle-light.
And did she read, indeed! Alas no! Her will fixed her eyes on the page, but her mind received not the impressions it conveyed. The sentences were vague and broken as images in a dream; the words had no meaning. Outwardly, calm as ever did Rachel seem, but there was a strange sorrow— a strange tumult in her heart.
That day the hope of years had been wrecked, that day she had offered herself, and been finally rejected. In vain she said to herself: "I must submit—it is the will of God, I must submit." A voice within her ever seemed to say: "Father, Father why hast thou forsaken me!" until, at length, Rachel felt as if she could bear no more.
Sorrows endured in silence are ever doubly felt. The nature of Rachel Gray was silent; she had never asked for sympathy; she had early been taught to expect and accept in its stead, its bitter step-sister Ridicule. Derided, laughed at, she had learned to dread that the look of a human being should catch a glimpse of her sorrows. If her little troubles were thus treated—how would her heavier griefs fare?
And now no more than ever did Rachel trouble any with her burden. Why should she? Who, what was she that others should care whether or not her father loved her! That he did not sufficiently, condemned her to solitude. The pitying eye of God might, indeed, look down upon her with tenderness and love, but from her brethren Rachel expected nothing.
And thus it was that, on this night, after consoling the idle sorrows of an indulged child, Rachel, sitting in solitude, found the weight of her own grief almost intolerable. Like all shy and nervous persons, she was deeply excitable. Anger she knew not; but emotions as vehement, though more pure, could trouble her heart. And now she was moved, and deeply moved, by a sense of injustice and of wrong. Her father wronged her— perhaps he knew it not; but he wronged her. "God Almighty had not given him a child, she felt, to treat it thus, with mingled dislike and contempt Were there none to receive his slights and his scorn, but his own daughter?"
She rose, and walked up and down the room with some agitation. Then came calmer and gentler thoughts, moving her heart until her tears flowed freely. Had she not failed that day—had she not been too cold in her entreaties, too easily daunted by the first rejection? Had she but allowed her father to see the love, deep and fervent, which burned in his daughter's heart—he would not, he could not so coldly have repelled and cast her from him.
"And why not try again?" murmured an inner voice; "the kingdom of Heaven is taken by storm—and what is the kingdom of Heaven, but the realm of love?"
At first, this seemed a thought so wild, that Rachel drew back from it in alarm, as from an abyss yawning at her feet. But even as our looks soon become familiar with images of the wildest danger, so the thought returned; and she shrank not back from it. Besides, what had she to lose? Nothing! With a sort of despair, she resolved to go and seek Thomas Gray, and attempt once more to move him. "If he rejects me now," she added, inwardly, "I shall submit, and trouble him no more."
The hour was not late; besides, in her present mood, the timid Rachel felt above fear. She was soon dressed—soon on her road. This time neither annoyance nor evil befell her. She passed like a shadow through crowds, and like a shadow was unheeded. The night was dark and dreary; a keen wind whistled along the streets—but for either cold or darkness Rachel cared not. Her thoughts flowed full and free in her brain; for once, she felt that she could speak; and a joyful presentiment in her heart told her that she would, and should be heard—and not in vain.
Absorbed in those thoughts, Rachel scarcely knew what speed she had made, until, with the mechanical impulse of habit, she found herself stopping before the second hand ironmonger's shop. Wakening as from a dream, and smiling at herself, she went on. Rachel had expected to find the shop of Thomas Gray closed, and himself absent; but the light that burned from his dwelling, and shed its glow on the opposite houses, made her heart beat with joy and hope. Timidly, she looked in through the glass panes; the shop was vacant; her father was, no doubt, in the back parlour. Rachel entered; the door-bell rang. She paused on the threshold, expecting to see him appear from within, nerving herself to bear his cold look, and severe aspect; but he came not He was either up-stairs, or in some other part of the house, or next door with a neighbour.
There was a chair in the shop; Rachel took it, sat down, and waited—how long, she herself never knew; for seconds seemed hours, and all true consciousness of time had left her. At length, she wondered; then she feared—why was her father's house so silent and so deserted? She went to the door, and looked down the street. It was still and lonely; every house was shot up; and even from the neighbouring thoroughfare, all sounds of motion and life seemed gone.
Suddenly Rachel remembered the little public-house to which her father had once sent her. She had often seen him going to it in the evening; perhaps he was there now. In the shadow of the houses, she glided up to the tavern door—it stood half open—she cautiously looked in; and standing, as she did in the gloom of the street, she could do so unseen. The landlord sat dozing in the bar—not a soul was with him. Rachel glanced at the clock above his head; it marked a quarter to twelve. Dismayed and alarmed, she returned to her father's house. It so chanced, that as she walked on the opposite side of the narrow street, a circumstance that had before escaped her notice, now struck her. In the room above the shop of Thomas Gray, there burned a light. She stopped short, and looked at it with a beating heart. She felt sure her father was there.
Rachel re-entered the shop, and again sat down, resolved to be patient; but her nervous restlessness soon became intolerable. Seized with an indefinite fear, she rose, took the light, and entered the parlour: it was vacant. Passing under a low door which she found ajar, she went up a dark staircase. It ended with a narrow landing, and a solitary door; she knocked, and got no reply; she tried it, it yielded to her hand, and opened; but Rachel did not cross the threshold; she paused upon it, awe-struck at the sight she saw. The room was a small one, poorly famished, with a low and narrow bed, a table and a few chairs. On the mantle-shelf burned a tallow light, dim and lurid for want of snuffing; its dull glow fell on the motionless figure of Thomas Gray. He sat straight and stiff in a wooden chair, with a hand resting on each arm. His face was ghastly pale, and rigid as death; his eyes stared on the blank wall before him, and seemed void of sight.
"My father is dead," thought Rachel. She entered the room and went up to him. But when she laid her hand on his arm, a slight convulsive motion showed her that he still lived. Ay, he lived, of that living death, which is worse than the true. Paralysis had fallen upon him without warning. Like a thief in the night it had come; and in a few brief seconds it had laid low the proud man's strength. Of that strength he had boasted in the morning; twelve hours had not gone round—where was it now?
Rachel did not lose her presence of mind. How she went out, found a doctor, and brought him back, she never exactly knew; but she did it.
The medical man looked at Thomas Gray, then at Rachel.
"You are his daughter," he said, kindly.
"Yes, sir, I am."
"Well, then, my poor girl, I am very sorry for you—very sorry. Your father may live years but I can hold out no prospect of recovery."
"None, sir?" faltered Rachel, looking wistfully in his face.
"Not the least. Better I should tell you so at once, than deceive you."
But Rachel would not—could not believe him. The sentence was too hard, too pitiless to be true.
"Father, father! do you know me?" she cried.
He stared vacantly in her face. Did he know her? Perhaps he did. Who can tell how far the spirit lived in that dead body? But if know her he did, gone was the time when he could hold intercourse with that long slighted, and now bitterly avenged daughter.
In vain she clung weeping around his neck, in vain she called on him to reply. He merely looked at her in the same vacant way, and said childishly, "Never mind."
"But you know me—you know me, father!" said Rachel.
Again, he looked at her vacantly, and still the only words he uttered were, "Never mind."
"His mind is gone for ever," said the doctor.
Rachel did not answer. She clasped her hands, and looked with wistful sadness on the old man's blank face. With a pang she felt and saw that now, indeed, her dream was over—that never, never upon earth, should she win that long hoped-for treasure—her father's love.
In the grey of the morning, Rachel brought her father to the humble little home which he had voluntarily forsaken years before.
Thomas Gray was not merely a paralyzed and helpless old man, he was also destitute. Little more than what sufficed to cover his current expenses did Rachel find in his dwelling; his furniture was old and worthless; and the good-will of the business scarcely paid the arrears of rent.
But the world rarely gives us credit for good motives. It was currently reported that Thomas Gray was a wealthy man, and that if Rachel Gray did not let him go to the workhouse, she knew why. "As if she couldn't let him go, and keep his money too," indignantly exclaimed Jane, when she heard this slander; and, as discretion was not Jane's virtue, she repeated all to Rachel Gray. Poor Rachel coloured slightly. It seemed strange, and somewhat hard too, that her conduct should be judged thus. But the flush passed from her pale face, and the momentary emotion from her heart. "Let the world think, and say what it likes," she thought, "I need not, and I will not care."
Not long after Rachel brought home her father, Jane left her. The time of her apprenticeship was out; besides, she was going to marry. She showed more emotion on their parting, than might have been expected from her.
"God bless you. Miss Gray," she said several times; "God bless you—you are a good one, whatever the world may think."
The praise was qualified, and, perhaps, Rachel felt it to be so, for she smiled; but she took it as Jane meant it—kindly. Amity and peace marked their separation.
Rachel now remained alone with her father and Mary. The young girl was not observant. She saw but a quiet woman, and a helpless old man, with grey hair, and stern features blank of meaning, who sat the whole day long by the fire-side, waited on by his patient daughter. Sometimes, indeed, when Rachel Gray attended on her father with more than usual tenderness, when she lingered near his chair, looking wistfully in his face, or with timid and tender hand gently smoothed away his whitened hair from his rugged brow, sometimes, then, Mary looked and wondered, and felt vaguely moved, but she was too childish to know why.
And, indeed, the story of Rachel's life at this time cannot be told. It was beautiful; but its beauty was not of earth, and to earthly glance cannot be revealed. It lay, a divine secret, between her heart and God.
This peace was not destined to last Rachel and her father sat alone one morning in the parlour, when Mrs. Brown, who had found the street door ajar, burst in without preliminary warning. She was scarlet, and looked in a towering passion.
"You audacious creatur," she screamed; "you audacious hussey, how dare you bring that man in this house—in my house! How dare you?"
"He is my father," said Rachel, confounded, both at the accusation, and at the unexpected appearance of Mrs. Brown.
The reply exasperated Mrs. Brown. She had never felt any extraordinary friendship or affection for her deceased cousin; but she had always entertained a very acute sense of her cousin's wrongs, and had accordingly honoured Thomas Gray with no small share of hatred and vituperation, and that Rachel should not feel as she did on the subject, or should presume to remember that the sinner was her father, was, in Mrs. Brown's eyes, an offence of the deepest dye. She gave her feelings free vent. She was a vulgar woman, and had a flow of vulgar eloquence at her command. She overwhelmed Rachel and Thomas Gray with sarcasm, scorn and abuse, and Rachel answered not one word, but heard her out, still as a statue, and pale as death. Mrs. Brown, too, was pale, but it was with wrath.
"Do you know," she added, trembling from head to foot with that passion, "do you know that I could turn you out on the streets, you and your beggarly father—do you know that?"
Rachel did know it, and groaned inwardly. Mrs. Brown saw her agony, and triumphed in the consciousness of her own power. But the very violence of her anger had by this time exhausted it; she felt much calmer, and took a more rational view of things.
"I am a fool to mind what a simpleton like you does," observed Mrs. Brown, with that disregard of politeness which was one of her attributes; "for, being a simpleton, how can you but do the acts of a simpleton? As to bringing your father here, you must have been mad to think of it; for, if you can't support yourself, how can you support him? However, it's lucky I'm come in time to set all to rights. What's his parish? Marylebone, ain't it? I shall see the overseer this very day, and manage that for you; and it's just as well," added Mrs. Brown, divesting herself of bonnet and shawl, and proceeding to make herself at home, "that you didn't meddle, in it—a pretty mess you'd have made of it, I'll be bound. Well! and what do you stand dreaming there for? Make me a cup of tea—will you? I am just ready to drop with it all."
As a proof of her assertion, she sank on the chair next her, took out her pocket-handkerchief, and began fanning herself. But, instead of complying with Mrs. Brown's orders, Rachel Gray stood before that lady motionless and pale. She looked her in the face steadily, and in a firm, clear voice, she deliberately said:
"Mrs. Brown, my father shall never, whilst I live, go to a workhouse."
"What!" screamed Mrs. Brown.
"I say," repeated Rachel, "that my father shall never, whilst God gives his daughter life, go to a workhouse."
Mrs. Brown was confounded—then she laughed derisively.
"Nonsense, Rachel," she said, "nonsense. Why, I can turn you out, this very instant."
But the threat fell harmless, Rachel was strong in that hour; her cheek had colour, her eye had light, her heart had courage. She looked at the helpless old man, who had drawn this storm on her head, then at Mrs. Brown, and calmly laying her hand on the shoulder of Thomas Gray, she again looked in Mrs. Brown's face, and silently smiled. Her choice was made—her resolve was taken.
"Will you send him to the workhouse, or not?" imperatively cried Mrs.Brown.
"No," deliberately replied Rachel.
"Oh! very well, ma'am, very well," echoed Mrs. Brown, laughing bitterly; "please yourself—pray please yourself. So, that is my reward for saving you from beggary, is it? Very well, ma'am; you and your father may pack off together—that's all."
"Be it so," rather solemnly replied Rachel, "be it so. What I leave in this house will, I trust, cancel the debt I owe you. Father," she added, stooping towards him, "lean on my shoulder, and get up. We must go."
With apathy Thomas Gray had heard all that had passed, and with apathy, he trembling rose, and complied with Rachel's intimation, and looking in her face, he uttered his usual childish: "Never mind."
But before they reached the door, Mrs. Brown, to the surprise and dismay of Rachel, went into violent hysterics. She was an over-bearing and ill-tempered woman, but her heart was not wholly unkind; and on seeing that Rachel so readily took her at her word, she was overwhelmed with mingled rage and shame. Hastily making her father sit down on the nearest chair, Rachel ran to Mrs. Brown's assistance. A fit of weeping and bitter reproaches followed the hysterics; and Rachel was convicted of being the most ungrateful creature on the face of the earth. In vain Rachel attempted a justification; Mrs. Brown drowned her in a torrent of speech, and remained the most injured of women.
The scene ended as such scenes ever end. There was a compromise; the victim made every concession, and the triumphant tyrant gained more than her point. In short, that her father might not want the shelter of a roof, Rachel agreed to remain in the house, and Mrs. Brown kindly agreed to come and live in it, and use Rachel as her servant and domestic slave, by which Mrs. Brown, besides keeping her firm hold on Rachel—no slight consideration with one who loved power beyond everything else—effected a considerable saving in her income.
"Oh! my father—my father!" thought Rachel, as she bent over his chair that night, and tears, which he felt not, dropped on his gray hair, "little do you know what I shall have to bear for your sake."
She did not speak aloud, yet he seemed vaguely conscious that something lay on her mind; for he shook his head, and uttered his eternal "Never mind—never mind!"
"And I will not mind—so help me God!" fervently answered Rachel aloud.
And she did not mind; but, alas! what now was her fate? Ask it not. She had made her sacrifice in the spirit of utter abnegation, and none need count the cost which she never reckoned.
The same cloud of trouble and sorrow that now darkened the daily life of Rachel Gray, soon gathered over her neighbours and friends. With boding and pain, she watched the coming of a calamity, to them still invisible.
Mr. Jones got up one morning, and felt exactly as usual. He took down his shutters, and no presentiment warned him of the sight that was going to greet his eyes.
The Teapot stood at the corner of a street which had naturally another corner facing it; that corner—let it be angle, if you like, critical reader—had, from time immemorial, been in the possession of a brown, tottering, untenanted house, whose broken parlour windows Mr. Jones had always seen filled with, blank oak shutters, strong enough for security and closing within.
But now, to his dismay, he saw half-a-dozen workmen pulling down the bottom of the house, and leaving the top untouched. His heart gave a great thump in his bosom. "I'm a lost man," he thought, "they're making a shop of it."
And so they were, but what sort of a shop was it to be? That was the question. Jones lost no time; he put down his shutter, thrust his hands in his pocket—his usual resource when he wanted to look unconcerned— sauntered awhile down the street, talked to some children, and finally came back to the workmen.