WHAT TOOK PLACE AT BRAGG'S END FARM.
When Mrs. Tappitt had settled within her own mind that the brewery
should be abandoned to Rowan, she was by no means, therefore, ready
to assent that Rachel Ray should become the mistress of the brewery
house. "Never," she had exclaimed when Cherry had suggested such a
result; "never!" And Augusta had echoed the protestation, "Never,
never!" I will not say that she would have allowed her husband to
remain in his business in order that she might thus exclude Rachel
from such promotion, but she could not bring herself to believe that
Luke Rowan would be so fatuous, so ignorant of his own interests, so
deluded, as to marry that girl from Bragg's End! It is thus that the
Mrs. Tappitts of the world regard other women's daughters when they
have undergone any disappointment as to their own. She had no reason
for wishing well to Rowan, and would not have cared if he had taken
to his bosom a harpy in marriage; but she could not endure to hear of
the success of the girl whose attractions had foiled her own little
plan. "I don't believe that the man can ever be such a fool as that!"
she said again to Augusta, when on the evening of the day following
Tappitt's abdication, a rumour reached the brewery that Luke Rowan
had been seen walking out upon the Cawston road.
Mr. Honyman, in accordance with his instructions, called at the
brewery on that morning, and was received by Mr. Tappitt with a
sullen and almost savage submission. Mrs. T. had endeavoured to catch
him first, but in that she had failed; she did, however, manage to
see the attorney as he came out from her husband.
"It's all settled," said Honyman; "and I'll see Rowan myself before
half an hour is over."
"I'm sure it's a great blessing, Mr. Honyman," said the lady,--not on
that occasion assuming any of the glory to herself.
"It was the only thing for him," said Mr. Honyman;--"that is if he
didn't like to take the young man in as acting partner."
"That wouldn't have done at all," said Mrs. T. And then the lawyer
went his way.
In the mean time Tappitt sat sullen and wretched in the
counting-house. Such moments occur in the lives of most of
us,--moments in which the real work of life is brought to an
end,--and they cannot but be sad. It is very well to talk of ease and
dignity; but ease of spirit comes from action only, and the world's
dignity is given to those who do the world's work. Let no man put his
neck from out of the collar till in truth he can no longer draw the
weight attached to it. Tappitt had now got rid of his collar, and he
sat very wretched in his brewery counting-house.
"Be I to go, sir?"
Tappitt in his meditation was interrupted by these words, spoken
not in a rough voice, and looking up he saw Worts standing in the
counting-house before him. Worts had voted for Butler Cornbury,
whereas, had he voted for Mr. Hart, Mr. Hart would have been
returned; and, upon that, Worts, as a rebellious subject, had
received notice to quit the premises. Now his time was out, and he
came to ask whether he was to leave the scene of his forty years of
work. But what would be the use of sending Worts away even if the
wish to punish his contumacy still remained? In another week Worts
would be brought back again in triumph, and would tread those brewery
floors with the step almost of a master, while he, Tappitt, could
tread them only as a stranger, if he were allowed to tread them at
all.
"You can stay if you like," said Tappitt, hardly looking up at the
man.
"I know you be a going, Mr. Tappitt," said the man; "and I hear you
be a going very handsome like. Gentlefolk such as yeu needn't go on
working allays like uz. If so be yeu be a going, Mr. Tappitt, I hope
yeu and me'll part friendly. We've been together a sight o'
years;--too great a sight for uz to part unfriendly."
Mr. Tappitt admitted the argument, shook hands with the man, and then
of course took him into his immediate confidence with more warmth
than he would have done had there been no quarrel between them. And
I think he found some comfort in this. He walked about the premises
with Worts, telling him much that was true, and some few things that
were not strictly accurate. For instance, he said that he had made
up his mind to leave the place, whereas that action of decisive
resolution which we call making up our minds had perhaps been done by
Mrs. Tappitt rather than by him. But Worts took all these assertions
with an air of absolute belief which comforted the brewer. Worts was
very wise in his discretion on that day, and threw much oil on the
troubled waters; so that Tappitt when he left him bade God bless him,
and expressed a hope that the old place might still thrive for his
sake.
"And for your'n too, master," said Worts, "for yeu'll allays have the
best egg still. The young master, he'll only be a working for yeu."
There was comfort in this thought; and Tappitt, when he went into his
dinner, was able to carry himself like a man.
The tidings which had reached Mrs. Tappitt as to Rowan having been
seen on that evening walking on the Cawston road with his face
towards Bragg's End were true. On that morning Mr. Honyman had come
to him, and his career in life was at once settled for him.
"Mr. Tappitt is quite in time, Mr. Honyman," he had said. "But he
would not have been in time this day week unless he had consented
to pay for what work had been already done; for I had determined to
begin at once."
"The truth is, Mr. Rowan, you step into an uncommon good thing; but
Mr. Tappitt is tired of the work, and glad to give it up."
Thus the matter was arranged between them, and before nightfall
everybody in Baslehurst knew that Tappitt and Rowan had come to
terms, and that Tappitt was to retire upon a pension. There was some
little discrepancy as to the amount of Tappitt's annuity, the liberal
faction asserting that he was to receive two thousand a year, and
those of the other side cutting him down to two hundred.
On the evening of that day--in the cool of the evening--Luke Rowan
sauntered down the High Street of Baslehurst, and crossed over
Cawston bridge. On the bridge he was all alone, and he stood there
for a moment or two leaning upon the parapet looking down upon the
little stream beneath the arch. During the day many things had
occupied him, and he had hardly as yet made up his mind definitely
as to what he would do and what he would say during the hours of
the evening. From the moment in which Honyman had announced to him
Tappitt's intended resignation he became aware that he certainly
should go out to Bragg's End before that day was over. It had been
with him a settled thing, a thing settled almost without thought ever
since the receipt of Rachel's letter, that he would take this walk to
Bragg's End when he should have put his affairs at Baslehurst on some
stable footing; but that he would not take that walk before he had so
done.
"They say," Rachel had written in her letter, "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."
In that had been the offence. They had doubted his stability, and,
beyond that, had almost doubted his honesty. He would punish them
by taking them at their word till both should be put beyond all
question. He knew well that the punishment would fall on Rachel,
whereas none of the sin would have been Rachel's sin; but he would
not allow himself to be deterred by that consideration.
"It is her letter," he said to himself, "and in that way will I
answer her. When I do go there again they will all understand me
better."
It had been, too, a matter of pride to him that Mr. Comfort and Mrs.
Butler Cornbury should thus be made to understand him. He would say
nothing of himself and his own purposes to any of them. He would
speak neither of his own means nor his own stedfastness. But he
would prove to them that he was stedfast, and that he had boasted
of nothing which he did not possess. When Mrs. Butler Cornbury had
spoken to him down by the Cleeves, asking him of his purpose, and
struggling to do a kind thing by Rachel, he had resolved at once that
he would tell her nothing. She should find him out. He liked her for
loving Rachel; but neither to her, nor even to Rachel herself, would
he say more till he could show them that the business about the
brewery was no longer unsettled.
But up to this moment--this moment in which he was standing on the
bridge, he had not determined what he would say to Rachel or to
Rachel's mother. He had never relaxed in his purpose of making Rachel
his wife since his first visit to the cottage. He was one who, having
a fixed resolve, feels certain of their ultimate success in achieving
it. He was now going to Bragg's End to claim that which he regarded
as his own; but he had not as yet told himself in what terms he would
put forward his claim. So he stood upon the bridge thinking.
He stood upon the bridge thinking, but his thoughts would only go
backwards, and would do nothing for him as to his future conduct.
He remembered his first walk with her, and the churchyard elms with
the setting sun, and the hot dances in Mrs. Tappitt's house; and he
remembered them without much of the triumph of a successful lover.
It had been very sweet, but very easy. In so saying to himself he by
no means threw blame upon Rachel. Things were easy, he thought, and
it was almost a pity that they should be so. As for Rachel, nothing
could have been more honest or more to his taste, than her mode of
learning to love him. A girl who, while intending to accept him,
could yet have feigned indifference, would have disgusted him at
once. Nevertheless he could not but wish that there had been some
castles for him to storm in his career. Tappitt had made but poor
pretence of fighting before he surrendered; and as to Rachel, it had
not been in Rachel's nature to make any pretence. He passed from the
bridge at last without determining what he would say when he reached
the cottage, but he did not pass on till he had been seen by the
scrutinizing eyes of Miss Pucker.
"If there ain't young Rowan going out to Bragg's End again!" she
said to herself, comforting herself, I fear, or striving to comfort
herself, with an inward assertion that he was not going there for
any good. Striving to comfort herself, but not effectually; for
though the assertion was made by herself to herself, yet it was not
believed. Though she declared, with well-pronounced mental words,
that Luke Rowan was going on that path for no good purpose, she felt
a wretched conviction at her heart's core that Rachel Ray would
be made to triumph over her and her early suspicions by a happy
marriage. Nevertheless she carried the tidings up into Baslehurst,
and as she repeated it to the grocer's daughters and the baker's wife
she shook her head with as much apparent satisfaction as though she
really believed that Rachel oscillated between a ruined name and a
broken heart.
He walked on very slowly towards Bragg's End, as though he almost
dreaded the interview, swinging his stick as was his custom, and
keeping his feet on the grassy edges of the road till he came to the
turn which brought him on to the green. When on the green he did not
take the highway, but skirted along under Farmer Sturt's hedge, so
that he had to pass by the entrance of the farmyard before he crossed
over to the cottage. Here, just inside her own gate, he encountered
Mrs. Sturt standing alone. She had been intent on the cares of
her poultry-yard till she had espied Luke Rowan; but then she had
forgotten chickens and ducks and all, and had given herself up to
thoughts of Rachel's happiness in having her lover back again.
"It's he as sure as eggs," she had said to herself when she first saw
him; "how mortal slow he do walk, to be sure! If he was coming as joe
to me I'd soon shake him into quicker steps than them."
"Oh, Mrs. Sturt!" said he, "I hope you're quite well," and he stopped
short at her gate.
"Pretty bobbish, thankee, Mr. Rowan; and how's yourself? Are you
going over to the cottage this evening?"
"Who's at home there, Mrs. Sturt?"
"Well, they're all at home; Mrs. Ray, and Rachel, and Mrs. Prime. I
doubt whether you know the eldest daughter, Mr. Rowan?"
Luke did not know Mrs. Prime, and by no means wished to spend any of
the hours of the present evening in making her acquaintance.
"Is Mrs. Prime there?" he asked.
"'Deed she is, Mr. Rowan. She's come back these last two days."
Thereupon Rowan paused for a moment, having carefully placed himself
inside the gate-posts of the farmyard so that he might not be seen by
the inmates of the cottage, if haply he had hitherto escaped their
eyes.
"Mrs. Sturt," said he, "I wonder whether you'd do me a great favour."
"That depends--" said Mrs. Sturt. "If it's to do any good to any of
them over there, I will."
"If I wanted to do harm to any of them I shouldn't come to you."
"Well, I should hope not. Is she and you going to be one, Mr. Rowan?
That's about the whole of it."
"It shan't be my fault if we're not," said Rowan.
"That's spoken honest," said the lady; "and now I'll do anything in
my power to bring you together. If you'll just go into my little
parlour, I'll bring her to you in five seconds; I will indeed, Mr.
Rowan. You won't mind going through the kitchen for once, will you?"
Luke did not mind going through the kitchen, and immediately found
himself shut up in Mrs. Sturt's back parlour, looking out among the
mingled roses and cabbages.
Mrs. Sturt walked quickly across the road to the cottage door, and
went at once to the open window of the sitting-room. Mrs. Ray was
there with a book in her hand,--a serious book, the perusal of which
I fear was in some degree due to the presence of her elder daughter;
and Mrs. Prime was there with another book, evidently very serious;
and Rachel was there too, seated on the sofa, deeply buried in the
manipulation of a dress belonging to her mother. Mrs. Sturt was sure
at once that they had not seen Luke Rowan as he passed inside the
farmyard gate, and that they did not suspect that he was near them.
"Oh, Mrs. Sturt, is that you?" said the widow, looking up. "You'll
just come in for a minute, won't you?" and Mrs. Ray showed by a
suppressed yawn that her attention had not been deeply fixed by that
serious book. Rachel looked up, and bade the visitor welcome with a
little nod; but it was not a cheery nod as it would have been in old
days, before her sorrow had come upon her.
"I'll have the cherries back in her cheeks before the evening's
over," said Mrs. Sturt to herself, as she looked at the pale-faced
girl. Mrs. Prime also made some little salutation to their neighbour;
but she did so with the very smallest expenditure of thoughts or
moments. Mrs. Sturt was all very well, but Mrs. Prime had greater
work on hand than gossiping with Mrs. Sturt.
"I'll not just come in, thankee, Mrs. Ray; but if it ain't troubling
you I want to speak a word to you outside; and a word to Rachel too,
if she don't mind coming."
"A word to me!" said Rachel getting up and putting down her dress.
Her thoughts now-a-days were always fixed on the same subject, and
it seemed that any special word to her must have reference to that.
Mrs. Ray also got up, leaving her mark in her book. Mrs. Prime went
on reading, harder than ever. There was to be some conference of
importance from which she could not but feel herself to be excluded
in a very special way. Something wicked was surely to be proposed,
or she would have been allowed to hear it. She said nothing, but her
head was almost shaken by the vehemence with which she read the book
in her lap.
Mrs. Sturt retired beyond the precincts of the widow's front garden
before she said a word. Rachel had followed her first through the
gate, and Mrs. Ray came after with her apron turned over her head.
"What is it, Mrs. Sturt?" said Rachel. "Have you heard anything?"
"Heard anything? Well; I'm always a hearing of something. Do you
slip across the green while I speak just one word to your mother.
And Rachel, wait for me at the gate. Mrs. Ray, he's in my little
parlour."
"Who? not Luke Rowan?"
"But he is though; that very young man! He's come over to make it up
with her. He's told me so with his own mouth. You may be as sure of
it as,--as,--as anything. You leave 'em to me, Mrs. Ray; I wouldn't
bring them together if it wasn't for good. It's my belief our pet
would a' died if he hadn't come back to her--it is then." And Mrs.
Sturt put her apron up to her eyes.
Rachel having paused for a moment, as she looked first at her mother
and then at Mrs. Sturt, had done as she was bidden, and had walked
quickly across the green. Mrs. Ray, when she heard her neighbour's
tidings, stood fixed by dismay and dread, mingled with joy. She had
longed for his coming back; but now that he was there, close upon
them, intending to do all that she had wished him to do, she was half
afraid of him! After all was he not a young man; and might he not,
even yet, be a wolf? She was horrorstricken at the idea of sending
Rachel over to see a lover, and looked back at the cottage window,
towards Mrs. Prime, as though to see whether she was being watched
in her iniquity. "Oh, Mrs. Sturt!" she said, "why didn't you give us
time to think about it?"
"Give you time! How could I give you time, and he here on the spot?
There's been too much time to my thinking. When young folk are
agreeable and the old folk are agreeable too, there can't be too
little time. Come along over and we'll talk of it in the kitchen
while they talks in the parlour. He'd a' been in there among you all
only for Mrs. Prime. She is so dour like for a young man to have to
say anything before her, of the likes of that. That's why I took him
into our place."
They overtook Rachel at the house door and they all went through
together into the great kitchen. "Oh, Rachel!" said Mrs. Ray. "Oh,
dear!"
"What is it, mamma?" said Rachel. Then looking into her mother's
face, she guessed the truth. "Mamma," she said, "he's here! Mr. Rowan
is here!" And she took hold of her mother's arm, as though to support
herself.
"And that's just the truth," said Mrs. Sturt, triumphantly. "He's
through there in the little parlour, and you must just go to him, my
dear, and hear what he's got to say to you."
"Oh, mamma!" said Rachel.
"I suppose you must do what she tells you," said Mrs. Ray.
"Of course she must," said Mrs. Sturt.
"Mamma, you must go to him," said Rachel.
"That won't do at all," said Mrs. Sturt.
"And why has he come here?" said Rachel.
"Ah! I wonder why," said Mrs. Sturt. "I wonder why any young man
should come on such an errand! But it won't do to leave him there
standing in my parlour by himself, so do you come along with me."
So saying Mrs. Sturt took Rachel by the arm to lead her away. Mrs.
Ray in this great emergency was perfectly helpless. She could simply
look at her daughter with imploring, loving eyes, and stand quivering
in doubt against the dresser. Mrs. Sturt had very decided views on
the matter. She had put Luke Rowan into the parlour with a promise
that she would bring Rachel to him there, and she was not going to
break her word through any mock delicacy. The two young people liked
one another, and they should have this opportunity of saying so in
each other's hearing. So she took Rachel by the arm, and opening the
door of the parlour led her into the room. "Mr. Rowan," she said,
"when you and Miss Rachel have had your say out, you'll find me and
her mamma in the kitchen." Then she closed the door and left them
alone.
Rachel, when first summoned out of the cottage, had felt at once
that Mrs. Sturt's visit must have reference to Luke Rowan. Indeed
everything with her in her present moods had some reference to
him,--some reference though it might be ever so remote. But now
before she had time to form a thought, she was told that he was there
in the same house with her, and that she was taken to him in order
that she might hear his words and speak her own. It was very sudden;
and for the space of a few moments she would have fled away from Mrs.
Sturt's kitchen had such flight been possible. Since Rowan had gone
from her there had been times in which she would have fled to him, in
which she would have journeyed alone any distance so that she might
tell him of her love, and ask whether she had got any right to hope
for his. But all that seemed to be changed. Though her mother was
there with her and her friend, she feared that this seeking of her
lover was hardly maidenly. Should he not have come to her,--every
foot of the way to her feet, and there have spoken if he had aught to
say, before she had been called on to make any sign? Would he like
her for thus going to him? But then she had no chance of escape. She
found herself in Mrs. Sturt's kitchen under her mother's sanction,
before she had been able to form any purpose; and then an idea did
come to her, even at that moment, that poor Luke would have had a
hard task of it in her sister's presence. When she was first told
that he was there in the farm-house parlour, her courage left her and
she dreaded the encounter; but she was able to collect her thoughts
as she passed out of the kitchen, and across the passage, and when
she followed Mrs. Sturt into the room she had again acquired the
power to carry herself as a woman having a soul of her own.
"Rachel!" Rowan said, stepping up to her and tendering his hand to
her. "I have come to answer your letter in person."
"I knew," she said, "when I wrote it, that my letter did not deserve
any answer. I did not expect an answer."
"But am I wrong now to bring you one in person? I have thought so
much of seeing you again! Will you not say a word of welcome to me?"
"I am glad to see you, Mr. Rowan."
"Mr. Rowan! Nay; if it is to be Mr. Rowan I may as well go back to
Baslehurst. It has come to that, that it must be Luke now, or there
must be no naming of names between us. You chided me once when I
called you Rachel."
"You called me so once, sir, when I should have chided you and did
not. I remember it well. You were very wrong, and I was very
foolish."
"But I may call you Rachel now?" Then, when she did not answer him at
the moment, he asked the question again in that imperious way which
was common with him. "May I not call you now as I please? If it be
not so my coming here is useless. Come, Rachel, say one word to me
boldly. Do you love me well enough to be my wife?"
She was standing at the open window, looking away from him, while he
remained at a little distance from her as though he would not come
close to her till he had exacted from her some positive assurance
of her love as a penance for the fault committed by her letter. He
certainly was not a soft lover, nor by any means inclined to abate
his own privileges. He paused a moment as though he thought that his
last question must elicit a plain reply. But no reply to it came. She
still looked away from him through the window, as though resolved
that she would not speak till his mood should have become more
tender.
"You said something in your letter," he continued, "about my affairs
here in Baslehurst being unsettled. I would not show myself here
again till that matter was arranged."
"It was not I," she said, turning sharply round upon him. "It was not
I who thought that."
"It was in your letter, Rachel."
"Do you know so little of a girl like me as to suppose that what was
written there came from me, myself? Did I not tell you that I said
what I was told to say? Did I not explain to you that mamma had gone
to Mr. Comfort? Did you not know that all that had come from him?"
"I only know that I read it in your letter to me,--the only letter
you had ever written to me."
"You are unfair to me, Mr. Rowan. You know that you are unfair."
"Call me Luke," he said. "Call me by my own name."
"Luke," she said, "you are unfair to me."
"Then by heavens it shall be for the last time. May things in this
world and the next go well with me as I am fair to you for the
future!" So saying he came up close to her, and took her at once in
his arms.
"Luke, Luke; don't. You frighten me; indeed you do."
"You shall give me a fair open kiss, honestly, before I leave
you,--in truth you shall. If you love me, and wish to be my wife,
and intend me to understand that you and I are now pledged to each
other beyond the power of any person to separate us by his advice,
or any mother by her fears, give me a bold, honest kiss, and I will
understand that it means all that."
Still she hesitated for a moment, turning her face away from him
while he held her by the waist. She hesitated while she was weighing
the meaning of his words, and taking them home to herself as her
own. Then she turned her neck towards him, still holding back her
head till her face was immediately under his own, and after another
moment's pause she gave him her pledge as he had asked it. Mrs.
Sturt's words had come true, and the cherries had returned to her
cheek.
"My own Rachel! And now tell me one thing: are you happy?"
"So happy!"
"My own one!"
"But, Luke,--I have been wretched;--so wretched! I thought you would
never come back to me."
"And did that make you wretched?"
"Ah!--did it? What do you think yourself? When I wrote that letter
to you I knew I had no right to expect that you would think of me
again."
"But how could I help thinking of you when I loved you?"
"And then when mamma saw you in Exeter, and you sent me no word of
message!"
"I was determined to send none till this business was finished."
"Ah! that was cruel. But you did not understand. I suppose no man can
understand. I couldn't have believed it myself till--till after you
had gone away. It seemed as though all the sun had deserted us, and
that everything was cold and dark."
They stood at the open window looking out upon the roses and cabbages
till the patience of Mrs. Sturt and of Mrs. Ray was exhausted. What
they said, beyond so much of their words as I have repeated, need not
be told. But when a low half-abashed knock at the door interrupted
them, Luke thought that they had hardly been there long enough to
settle the preliminaries of the affair which had brought him to
Bragg's End.
"May we come in?" said Mrs. Sturt very timidly.
"Oh, mamma, mamma!" said Rachel, and she hid her face upon her
mother's shoulder.