IN MRS. HARDY'S STORE-ROOM.
Rachel was very young, no doubt, but she was growing rapidly. To all
intents and purposes she was at least five years older when she came
home from Adelonga than she was when she went there; and the process of
development by no means ceased or slackened at that point.
The blossoming of her womanhood had come suddenly, like the blossoming
of the almond trees, in one warm burst of spring; but the inner heart,
that budded in secret, continued to swell and ripen, in spite
of--perhaps because of--the absence of sunshine in her spiritual life.
The physical change in her was noticeable to everybody. Her constitution
was much too sound to be easily injured by mental wear and tear; but her
health was necessarily affected in a greater or less degree,
temporarily, for the better or for the worse, by the more powerful of
those mental emotions to which her body was peculiarly sensitive and
responsive at all times.
So she lost some of her delicate pinky colour, and her large eyes grew
heavy and dreamy, and she looked generally faded and altered, in the
dulness of these empty days. She had no more enthusiasm for Toorak life
and Melbourne dissipations. She went into no raptures over jewels and
dresses, or any pretty things; she had none of the old zest for operas
and balls.
She was quiet, and silent, and preoccupied, moving about the house with
a strange new dignity of manner (resulting from the total absence of
self-consciousness), a sort of weary tolerance, as if she had lived in
it all her life, and was tired of it.
After watching her for a few days, secretly, and in much perplexed
anxiety, Mrs. Reade made up her mind that something was seriously wrong,
and that it was time for her to interfere to set it right. She went to
her mother in the first place for information.
It was eleven o'clock in the morning, and Mrs. Hardy was in her
store-room, counting out the day's allowance of eggs to an aggrieved and
majestic cook.
The little woman stood by silently, watching the transaction with a
smile in her brilliant eyes, thinking to herself what a great mistake it
was, if poor mamma could but see it, to insist on an inflexible morality
and economy in these petty matters; and when it was completed, after a
little acrimonious discussion, she quietly shut the door, and addressed
herself to her own business in her customary straightforward way.
"I want to know what is the matter with Rachel," she began, spreading
her handkerchief on a keg of vinegar, and sitting down on it
deliberately.
Mrs. Hardy mechanically sought repose in the one chair of the apartment,
which stood in front of the little table where she was in the habit of
making out her accounts.
"I'm sure that is more than I can tell you, my dear. What an insolent
woman that is!--if she thinks I am going to let her have the run of my
stores, as Mrs. Robinson did, she is very much mistaken."
"Something is wrong with Rachel," proceeded Mrs. Reade calmly; "and I
want to find out what it is."
Mrs. Hardy made an effort to smooth her ruffled feathers down.
"I think the child must be fretting for Lucilla and the baby, Beatrice.
She and Lucilla were bosom friends, and she just went wild about the
baby--it was quite ridiculous to see her with it. And when she left them
she cried as if she were completely heartbroken; and she has never been
like herself since. I can't think what else ails her--unless she is out
of sorts, and wants some medicine. I did give her some chamomilla
yesterday, but it does not seem to have done her any good."
"No," said Mrs. Reade, with a sudden smile, "I don't think it is a case
for chamomilla. She is not ill; she is unhappy--anyone can see that.
_You_ can see it, can't you?"
"I'm sure no girl has less cause to be unhappy," protested Mrs. Hardy
evasively, in a fretful and anxious tone. "It is very ungrateful of her
if she is."
"But what can have caused it? She was all right when she went to
Adelonga. Something must have happened while she was there. She is not
merely fretting after Lucilla and the baby--oh, no, it is a deeper
matter than that. I am afraid--I really am seriously afraid, by the look
of things--that it has something to do with Mr. Kingston." Her mother,
though silent, was so obtrusively conscious and uneasy that she felt
assured, the moment that she looked at her, of the correctness of her
surmise. "Oh, do tell me what has happened!" she continued, eagerly.
"Something has, I know. It is what I have been dreading all along--with
these tiresome delays! They ought to have been married out of hand, and
then there would have been no trouble."
"If there _is_ anything wrong between them," Mrs. Hardy reluctantly
admitted, "it is--I must say that for Rachel, though she is very trying
with her silly childishness--it is Mr. Kingston's doings."
"Of course," assented Mrs. Reade, promptly.
"It was on the night of the ball. He rather neglected Rachel--the first
time I ever knew him to do it--and he flirted in that foolish way of
his--with Minnie Hale. You know Minnie Hale?--a great, fat, giggling
creature--quite a common, vulgar sort of girl--not in the least _his_
sort, one would have imagined. I don't wonder that Rachel was offended;
I was extremely vexed with him myself, for he did it so
openly--everybody noticed it. It was so bad, really, that the man that
horrid girl was engaged to, Mr. Lessel, broke off with her on account of
it. That will show you. She was a great deal worse than he was, of
course. But he went great lengths. Perhaps he had been taking too much
wine," she sighed, plaintively.
"No," said Mrs. Reade. "He has plenty of faults, but _that_ is not one
of them."
"Rachel was deeply hurt and shocked," Mrs. Hardy proceeded. "Naturally,
for it was not a thing she had been used to, poor child. She took it
very much to heart--so much that she wanted, like Mr. Lessel, to break
off her engagement there and then." Here Mrs. Hardy went into details
of poor Rachel's unsuccessful struggle for deliverance. "But of course I
reasoned with the foolish child," she added conclusively; "I talked her
out of _that_."
Mrs. Reade sat very still, tracing patterns on the floor with the point
of her parasol.
"And did they have a quarrel?" she asked, vaguely. She was evidently
thinking of something else.
"No. There was a coolness, of course, but--oh, no, I am sure they did
not quarrel. He has seemed anxious to make up for it, and she has not
shown any temper or resentment. But things have been uncomfortable if
you can understand--very unsatisfactory and uncomfortable--ever since. I
think she was disappointed in him, and cannot get over it. I have been
hoping that it was all right, and that she was only unsettled and
dispirited about leaving Adelonga. But now you mention it--yes, now I
think of it--I'm afraid she is brooding over that other trouble still.
Foolish child! she lives in a world of romantic ideals, I suppose."
"_Why_ did Mr. Kingston flirt with Minnie Hale?" asked Mrs. Reade,
looking up at her mother impressively.
"Oh, my dear, you know him as well as I do."
"You think he was worn out with being good?"
"He _has_ been good, Beatrice--very good--ever since his engagement."
"Yes, he has. But if he had had a mind to misbehave, I don't think his
duty to Rachel would have stopped him. The fact is, since his engagement
he has never wanted anyone but her. I have watched him closely, and
wonderful as it seems, he has never shown the slightest disposition to
flirt beyond the stage of pretty speeches--not even when she was
away--not even with Sarah Brownlow."
"It is a great pity," sighed Mrs. Hardy. "I wish they were safely
married."
"And at the worst of times," the younger lady proceeded thoughtfully,
regardless of the interjection, "he was fastidious in his choice--he
liked someone who was either pretty or clever, or decidedly attractive
in some way. I never knew him take any notice of a girl of _that_ sort
before."
"There is no accounting for men's tastes, my dear."
"Oh, yes," Mrs. Reade replied promptly; "I know that Minnie Hale is not
_his_ taste. I know he did not go on with her as you say he did, merely
for the pleasure of it to himself. I think it must have been to spite
Rachel."
"Beatrice!"
"Yes, mother--that is what I think. It is the only reasonable motive he
could have had."
"But why on earth should he wish to spite Rachel?"
"That is what I want you to tell me. You were in the house with
them--try and think of all that happened just before the ball. I'm
certain something was wrong between them, to begin with. Perhaps you did
not notice it at the time, but you might remember little
circumstances--" Mrs. Reade broke off, and watched her mother's
disturbed face with bright attentiveness. "_Rachel_ did not flirt with
anybody, did she?"
"Now, my dear, you know the child is incapable of such a thing."
"Oh, I don't mean deliberately, of course. But she might do it
accidentally, with those sentimental eyes of hers. And she _is_ so
charmingly pretty!"
"No, she certainly did not flirt," said Mrs. Hardy; "she has never
given him any uneasiness on that score, pretty as she is, and never
will, I am quite sure. But there was a man----"
"Ah!" sighed Mrs. Reade, laying her parasol across her knees, and
folding her hands resignedly.
"Why do you say 'ah,' Beatrice, before you hear what I am going to tell
you? There was a man there whom Mr. Kingston disliked very much. He gave
himself airs, and they somehow came into collision, and Mr. Kingston was
in rather a bad temper. That was all that went wrong before the ball,
and Rachel had nothing to do with that."
"Do you think so? I am certain she had," the young lady replied
deliberately.
"Well, if you think you know better than I do, who was there to see----"
"Go on, dear mamma. Tell me all about him. Who was he? What was he
like?"
Mrs. Hardy, pocketing her dignity, proceeded to describe Mr. Dalrymple,
with great amplitude of detail, as he had appeared from her point of
view.
The result was a kind of superior Newgate villian, of good birth and
distinguished presence, whom Mrs. Reade regarded with a sinking heart.
"Oh, dear me!" she sighed, blankly, "what a pity! What a grevious pity!"
"I _can't_ see why you should look at it in this way, Beatrice. I tell
you she had little or nothing to say to him, and she only danced with
him once the whole evening. I took care to point out to her the kind of
man he was, and to warn her against him."
"You ought not to have done that."
"My dear, you will allow me to be the best judge of what I ought to do.
She was very good and obedient, and she acted in every way as I wished
her."
"But she liked him, didn't she?" asked Mrs. Reade.
"Yes," Mrs. Hardy admitted, with evident reluctance, "I am afraid she
did like him."
"I am sure she did," said Mrs. Reade, decisively. "And there is more
than liking in the matter, unless I am much mistaken. I have never been
in love myself," she remarked frankly, "but I fancy I know the symptoms
when I see them. I feared from the first that it was something of that
sort that was the matter with her. At any rate--" putting up her hand to
stay the imminent protest on her mother's lips--"at any rate, if he has
not made her love him, he has made her discontented with Mr. Kingston."
"Well, Beatrice," the elder woman exclaimed, with an impatient sigh,
rising from her chair, "if such a thing should be--if such a misfortune
should have happened after all my care--we must only do the best we can
to mend it. Thank goodness he's gone. He is not at all likely to give
her another thought. If he does--" Mrs. Hardy shut her mouth
significantly, and her Roman nostrils dilated.
"You can't help his thinking what he likes," said Mrs. Reade, with a
gleam of mockery in her bright eyes.
"I can help his doing anything further to disturb her. I can see that he
never meets or speaks to her again."
Mrs. Reade continued to smile, looking at her majestic mother with her
bird-like head on one side.
"I hope so," she said. "I'm sure I hope so, if you can do it without her
knowledge. But if you should have to act, whatever you do, don't make
martyrs of them."
"Don't talk nonsense," retorted Mrs. Hardy.