CONFIDENTIAL.
When the first ice was broken, Rachel became perfectly confidential with
her new friends--_perfectly_ confidential--far more so than they,
accustomed to the domestic privateness of humble English life, could
understand. This poor girl had no restraint upon her for family pride or
family honour; no compensation in family sympathy; and her listeners,
who had very little skill in the study of character, though one of them
had written a novel, were extremely puzzled with a kind of doubleness,
perfectly innocent and unconscious, which made Rachel’s thoughts and
words at different moments like the words and the thoughts of two
different people. At one time she was herself, humble, timid, and
content to do anything which any authority bade her do; but in a moment
she remembered Louis; and the change was instantaneous--she became
proud, stately, obdurate, even defiant. She was no longer herself, but
the shadow and representative of her brother; and in this view Rachel
resisted and defied every influence, anchoring her own wavering will
upon Louis, and refusing, with unreasonable and unreasoning obstinacy,
all injunctions and all persuasions coming from those to whom her
brother was opposed. She seemed, indeed, to have neither plan nor
thought for herself: Louis was her inspiration. _She_ seemed to have
been born for no other purpose but to follow, to love, and to serve this
brother, who to her was all the world. As she sat on the pretty chintz
sofa in that sunny little dressing-room where Agnes and Marian passed
the morning, running rapidly over the environs of the Old Wood Lodge,
and telling them about their future neighbours, they were amazed and
amused to find the total absence of personal opinion, and almost of
personal liking, in their new acquaintance. She had but one standard, to
which she referred everything, and that was Louis. They saw the very
landscape, not as it was, but as it appeared to this wonderful brother.
They became acquainted with the village and its inhabitants through the
medium of Louis’s favourites and Louis’s aversions. They were young
enough and simple enough themselves to be perfectly ready to invest any
unknown ideal person with all the gifts of fancy; and Louis immediately
leaped forth from the unknown world, a presence and an authority to them
both.
“The Rector lives in the Old Wood House,” said Rachel, for the first
time pausing, and looking somewhat confused in her rapid summary. “I am
sure I do not know what to think--but Louis does not like him. I suppose
you will not like him; and yet,”--here a little faint colour came upon
the young speaker’s pale face--“sometimes I have fancied he would have
been a friend if we had let him; and he is quite sure to like you.”
Saying this, she turned a somewhat wistful look upon Agnes--blushing
more perceptibly, but with no sunshine or brightness in her blush.
“Yes,” said Rachel slowly, “he will like you--he will do for you; and
you,” she added, turning with sudden eagerness to Marian, “you are for
Louis--remember! You are not to think of any one else till you see
Louis. You never saw any one like him; he is like a prince to look at,
and I know he is a great genius. Your sister shall have the Rector, and
Louis shall be for you.”
All this Rachel said hurriedly, but with the most perfect gravity, even
with a tinge of sadness--grieved, as they could perceive, that her
brother did not like the Rector, but making no resistance against a doom
so unquestionable as the dislike of Louis: but her timid heart was
somehow touched upon the subject; she became thoughtful, and lingered
over it with a kind of melancholy pleasure. “Perhaps Louis might come
to like him if he was connected with _you_,” said Rachel meditatively;
and the faint colour wavered and flickered on her face, and at last
passed away with a low but very audible sigh.
“But they are all Riverses,” she continued, in her usual rapid way. “The
Rector of Winterbourne is always a Rivers--it is the family living; and
if Lord Winterbourne’s son should die, I suppose Mr Lionel would be the
heir. His sister lives with him, quite an old lady: and then there is
another Miss Rivers, who lives far off, at Abingford all the way. Did
you ever hear of Miss Anastasia? But she does not call herself
Miss--only the Honourable Anastasia Rivers. Old Miss Bridget was once
her governess. Lord Winterbourne will never permit her to see us; but I
almost think Louis would like to be friends with her, only he will not
take the trouble. They are not at all friends with her at Winterbourne.”
“Is she a relation?” said Agnes. The girls by this time were so much
interested in the family story that they did not notice this admirable
reason for the inclination of Louis towards this old lady unknown.
“She is the old lord’s only child,” said Rachel. “The old lord was Lord
Winterbourne’s brother, and he died abroad, and no one knew anything
about him for a long time before he died. We want very much to hear
about him; indeed, I ought not to tell you--but Louis thinks perhaps he
knew something about us. Louis will not believe we are Lord
Winterbourne’s children; and though we are poor disgraced children any
way, and though he hates the very name of Rivers, I think he would
almost rather we belonged to the old lord; for he says,” added Rachel
with great seriousness, “that one cannot hate one’s father, if he is
dead.”
The girls drew back a little, half in horror; but though she spoke in
this rebellious fashion, there was no consciousness of wrong in Rachel’s
innocent and quiet face.
“And we have so many troubles,” burst forth the poor girl suddenly. “And
I sometimes sit and cry all day, and pray to God to be dead. And when
anybody is kind to me,” she continued, some sudden remembrance moving
her to an outburst of tears, and raising the colour once more upon her
colourless cheek, “I am so weak and so foolish, and would do anything
they tell me. _I_ do not care, I am sure, what I do--it does not matter
to me; but Louis--no, certainly, I will not sing to-night.”
“I wish very much,” said Agnes, with an earnestness and courage which
somewhat startled Marian--“I wish very much you could come home with us
to our little house in Bellevue.”
“Yes,” said Marian doubtfully; but the younger sister, though she
shared the generous impulse, could not help a secret glance at Agnes--an
emphatic reminder of Mamma.
“No, I must make no friends,” said Rachel, rising under the inspiration
of Louis’s will and injunctions. “It is very kind of you, but I must not
do it. Oh, but remember you are to come to Winterbourne, and I will try
to bring Louis to see you; and I am sure you know a great deal better,
and could talk to him different from me. Do you know,” she continued
solemnly, “they never have given me any education at all, except to
sing? I have never been taught anything, nor indeed Louis either, which
is much worse than me--only he is a great genius, and can teach himself.
The Rector wanted to help him; that is why I am always sure, if Louis
would let him, he would be a friend.”
And again a faint half-distinguishable blush came upon Rachel’s face.
No, it meant nothing, though Agnes and Marian canvassed and interpreted
after their own fashion this delicate suffusion; it only meant that the
timid gentle heart might have been touched had there been room for more
than Louis; but Louis was supreme, and filled up all.