Luke Rowan’s appearance at Mrs Ray’s tea-table, as described in the last chapter, took place on Wednesday evening, and it may be remembered that on the morning of that same day Mrs Prime had been closeted with Mr Prong in that gentleman’s parlour. She had promised to give Mr Prong an answer to his proposal on Saturday, and had consequently settled herself down steadily to think of all that was good and all that might be evil in such an arrangement as that suggested to her. She wished much for legal advice, but she made up her mind that that was beyond her reach, was beyond her reach as a preliminary assistance. She knew enough of the laws of her country to enable her to be sure that, though she might accept the offer, her own money could be so tied up on her behalf that her husband could not touch the principal of her wealth; but she did not know whether things could be so settled that she might have in her own hands the spending of her income. By three o’clock on that day she thought that she would accept Mr Prong, if she could be satisfied on that head. Her position as a clergyman’s wife — a minister’s wife she called it — would be unexceptionable. The company of Miss Pucker was distasteful. Solitude was not charming to her. And then, could she not work harder as a married woman than in the position which she now held? — and also, could she not so work with increased power and increased perseverance? At three o’clock she had almost made up her mind, but still she was sadly in need of counsel and information. Then it occurred to her that her mother might have some knowledge in this matter. In most respects her mother was not a woman of the world; but it was just possible that in this difficulty her mother might assist her. Her mother might at any rate ask of others, and there was no one else whom she could trust to seek such information for her. And if she did this thing she must tell her mother. It is true that she had quarrelled with them both at Bragg’s End; but there are affairs in life which will ride over family quarrels and trample them out, unless they be deeper and of longer standing than that between Mrs Prime and Mrs Ray. Therefore it was that she appeared at the cottage at Bragg’s End just as Luke Rowan was leaving it.
She had entered upon the green with something of the olive-branch in her spirit, and before she reached the gate had determined that, as far as was within her power, all unkindness should be buried on the present occasion; but when she saw Luke Rowan coming out of her mother’s door, she was startled out of all her good feeling. She had taught herself to look on Rowan as the personification of mischief, as the very mischief itself in regard to Rachel. She had lifted up her voice against him. She had left her home and torn herself from her family because it was not compatible with the rigour of her principles that anyone known to her should be known to him also! But she had hardly left her mother’s house when this most pernicious cause of war was admitted to all the freedom of family intercourse! It almost seemed to her that her mother must be a hypocrite. It was but the other day that Mrs Ray could not hear Luke Rowan’s name mentioned without wholesome horror. But where was that wholesome horror now? On Monday, Mrs Prime had left the cottage; on Tuesday, Rachel had gone to a ball, expressly to meet the young man! and on Wednesday the young man was drinking tea at Bragg’s End cottage! Mrs Prime would have gone away without speaking a word to her mother or sister, had such retreat been possible.
Stately and solemn was the recognition which she accorded to Luke’s salutation, and then she walked on into the house.
“Oh, Dorothea!” said her mother, and there was a tone almost of shame in Mrs Ray’s voice.
“We’re so glad to see you, Dolly,” said Rachel, and in Rachel’s voice there was no tone of shame. It was all just as it should not be!
“I did not mean to disturb you, mother, while you were entertaining company.”
Mrs Ray said nothing — nothing at the moment; but Rachel took upon herself to answer her sister. “You wouldn’t have disturbed us at all, even if you had come a little sooner. But you are not too late for tea, if you’ll have some.”
“I’ve taken tea, thank you, two hours ago;” and she spoke as though there were much virtue in the distance of time at which she had eaten and drunk, as compared with the existing rakish and dissipated appearance of her mother’s tea-table. Tea-things about at eight o’clock! It was all of a piece together.
“We are very glad to see you, at any rate,” said Mrs Ray; “I was afraid you would not have come out to us at all.”
“Perhaps it would have been better if I had not come.”
“I don’t see that,” said Rachel. “I think it’s much better. I hate quarrelling, and I hope you’re going to stay now you are here.”
“No, Rachel, I’m not going to stay. Mother, it is impossible I should see that young man walking out of your house in that way without speaking of it; although I’m well aware that my voice here goes for nothing now.”
“That was Mr Luke Rowan,” said Mrs Ray.
“I know very well who it was,” said Mrs Prime, shaking her head. “Rachel will remember that I’ve seen him before.”
“And you’ll be likely to see him again if you stay here, Dolly,” said Rachel. This she said out of pure mischief — that sort of mischief which her sister’s rebuke was sure to engender.
“I dare say,” said Mrs Prime; “whenever he pleases, no doubt. But I shall not see him. If you approve of it, mother, of course I can say nothing further — nothing further than this, that I don’t approve of such things.”
“But what ails him that he shouldn’t be a very good young man?” says Mrs Ray. “And if it was so that he was growing fond of Rachel, why shouldn’t he? And if Rachel was to like him, I don’t see why she shouldn’t like somebody some day as well as other girls.” Mrs Ray had been a little put beside herself or she would hardly have said so much in Rachel’s presence. She had forgotten, probably, that Rachel had not as yet been made acquainted with the nature of Rowan’s proposal.
“Mamma, don’t talk in that way. There’s nothing of that kind,” said Rachel.
“I don’t believe there is,” said Mrs Prime.
“I say there is then,” said Mrs Ray; “and it’s very ill-natured in you, Dorothea, to speak and think in that way of your sister.”
“Oh, very well. I see that I had better go back to Baslehurst at once.”
“So it is, very ill-natured. I can’t bear to have these sort of quarrels; but I must speak out for her. I believe he’s a very good young man, with nothing bad about him at all, and he is welcome to come here whenever he pleases. And as for Rachel, I believe she knows how to mind herself as well as you did when you were her age; only poor Mr Prime was come and gone at that time. And as for his not intending, he came out here just because he did intend, and only to ask my permission. I didn’t at first tell him he might because Rachel was over at the farm getting the cream, and I thought she ought to be consulted first; and if that’s not straightforward and proper, I’m sure I don’t know what is; and he having a business of his own, too, and able to maintain a wife tomorrow! And if a young man isn’t to be allowed to ask leave to see a young woman when he thinks he likes her, I for one don’t know how young people are to get married at all.” Then Mrs Ray sat down, put her apron up to her eyes, and had a great cry.
It was a most eloquent speech, and I cannot say which of her daughters was the most surprised by it. As to Rachel, it must be remembered that very much was communicated to her of which she had hitherto known nothing. Very much indeed, we may say, so much that it was of a nature to alter the whole tone and tenor of her life. This young man of whom she had thought so much, and of whom she had been so much in dread — fearing that her many thoughts of him were becoming dangerous — this young man who had interested her so warmly, had come out to Bragg’s End simply to get her mother’s leave to pay his court to her. And he had done this without saying a word to herself! There was something in this infinitely sweeter to her than would have been any number of pretty speeches from himself. She had hitherto been angry with him, though liking him well; she had been angry with though almost loving him. She had not known why it was so, but the cause had been this — that he had seemed in their intercourse together, to have been deficient in that respect which she had a right to claim. But now all that sin was washed away by such a deed as this. As the meaning of her mother’s words sank into her heart, and as she came to understand her mother’s declaration that Luke Rowan should be welcome to the cottage as her lover, her eyes became full of tears, and the spirit of her animosity against her sister was quenched by the waters of her happiness.
And Mrs Prime was almost equally surprised, but was by no means equally delighted. Had the whole thing fallen out in a different way, she would probably have looked on a marriage with Luke Rowan as good and salutary for her sister. At any rate, seeing that the world is as it is, and that all men cannot be hardworking ministers of the Gospel, nor all women the wives of such or their assistants in godly ministrations, she would not have taken upon herself to oppose such a marriage. But as it was, she had resolved that Luke Rowan was a black sheep; that he was pitch, not to be touched without defilement; that he was, in short, a man to be regarded by religious people as anathema — a thing accursed; and of that idea she was not able to divest herself suddenly. Why had the young man walked about under the churchyard elms at night? Why, if he were not wicked and abandoned, did he wear that jaunty look — that look which was so worldly? And, moreover, he went to balls, and tempted others to do the like! In a word, he was a young man manifestly of that class which was esteemed by Mrs Prime more dangerous than roaring lions. It was not possible that she should give up her opinion merely because this roaring lion had come out to her mother with a plausible story. Upon her at that moment fell the necessity of forming a judgement to which it would be necessary that she should hereafter abide. She must either at once give in her adherence to the Rowan alliance; or else, if she opposed it, she must be prepared to cling to that opposition. She was aware that some such decision was now required, and paused for a moment before she declared herself. But that moment only strengthened her verdict against Rachel’s lover. Could any serious young man have taken off his hat with the flippancy which had marked that action on his part? Would not any serious young man, properly intent on matrimonial prospects, have been subdued at such a moment to a more solemn deportment? Mrs Prime’s verdict was still against him, and that verdict she proceeded to pronounce.
“Oh, very well; then of course I shall interfere no further. I shouldn’t have thought that Rachel’s seeing him twice, in such a way as that, too — hiding under the churchyard trees!”
“I wasn’t hiding,” said Rachel, “and you’ve no business to say so.” Her tears, however, prevented her from fighting her own battle manfully, or with her usual courage.
“It looked very much like it, Rachel, at any rate. I should have thought that mother would have wished you to have known a great deal more about any young man before she encouraged you to regard him in that way, than you can possibly know of Mr Rowan.”
“But how are they to know each other, Dorothea, if they mustn’t see one another?” said Mrs Ray.
“I have no doubt he knows how to dance very cleverly. As Rachel is being taught to live now, that may perhaps be the chief thing necessary.”
This blow did reach poor Mrs Ray, who a week or two since would certainly have agreed with her elder daughter in thinking that dancing ............