"THE GROUND-WHIRL OF THE PERISHED LEAVES OF HOPE."
Mrs. Reade lost no time in obeying her mother's summons. In two days she
was back in Melbourne, and having given ten minutes to the inspection of
her domestic affairs, and refreshed herself with tea and bread and
butter, she went on to Toorak in the carriage that had brought her from
the station, without even waiting to change her travelling-dress.
At Toorak she found things in a most discouraging and deplorable
condition--as they never would have been, she told herself, had she
remained in town.
Mrs. Hardy, who met her in the hall, and took her to her own room for
elaborate explanations, was herself a most puzzling and unsatisfactory
feature in the case, for she made it evident to her daughter's keen
perception that something more had happened than was accounted for in
her rather disconnected narrative, and that she did not intend to
disclose what it was.
There was a touch of nervous recklessness and defiance in the way she
spoke of Rachel's illness--as if the poor child had crowned a systematic
series of misdemeanours by falling ill on purpose--and of her hearty
regret that she had ever had anything to do with such a perverse and
ungrateful girl, which conveyed to Mrs. Reade the impression that her
cousin had in some way been persecuted, or had at any rate, been
subjected to more heroic treatment than her own judgment and advice had
sanctioned.
Under such circumstances it was, perhaps, natural that her mother should
be somewhat reserved, since to be fully confidential would be to confess
that she had made mistakes; but this sudden reversal of old habits,
occurring at this important crisis in the family fortunes, was a
serious aggravation of the already sufficient difficulties that the
little woman had to deal with.
What complicated her task still further was the discovery that Mr.
Kingston was again a frequent visitor at the house, and a strong
suspicion that he was cognisant of those unauthorised measures--whatever
they were--which she was not to hear of. The only thing she could hope
for was that Rachel would make a clean breast of all her secrets.
"And if she trusts me, I will stand her friend against them all,"
declared the baffled conspirator to herself, as she sat and listened to
her mother's tangled story.
It appeared that Rachel's first signs of illness had become apparent
very soon after the Reades had left town. She began to fade in colour
and to fail in appetite, and grew nervous, flighty, and restless; and,
upon investigation, it was discovered that she had lost the habit of
sleeping as a healthy girl should sleep at night.
The family doctor was called in, who, amongst other remedies prescribed
a return to horse exercise, which, since the breaking-off of her
engagement, had been abandoned; and Mr. Kingston thereupon begged so
earnestly that she would ride Black Agnes again, that she reluctantly
consented to do so to please him.
Mr. Kingston behaved most delicately, it was explained, and did not
force himself upon her in her rides. She always went out with William.
"Always," however, turned out to be only twice, and on both occasions
the carriage had accompanied her with Mr. Kingston in it.
Just before Christmas she refused to ride any more, and she behaved in
the most rude and ill-bred manner to Mr. Kingston. On Christmas Day she
was _very_ aggravating--in what way did not appear--and Mrs. Hardy had
to "speak" to her; and the result was that she flew into a violent
passion, and then had a fit of hysterics, and then fainted dead away,
and did not come round for nearly five minutes.
"I don't recognise Rachel in any of those performances," remarked Mrs.
Reade. "Why did you not send for me then, mother?"
"Because I thought it was nothing but a temporary attack. The weather
was sultry--she was full of whims and fancies. What could you have done
if you had come? And she was better again next day."
"Well?"
"Well, then, when I was doing all I could to nurse and take care of her,
she went out of a warm room one night, and rambled about the garden or
somewhere in a heavy dew, and got her feet wet. Wasn't it _too_ bad? I
could have _shaken_ her when I saw her come in, with a face as white as
ashes, and chilled to her very bones!"
"She caught cold, I suppose?"
"Of course she did. And then she had a touch of fever--what else was to
be expected? Her pulse was very high, and she was excited, and inclined
to be delirious--indeed, we had as much as we could do to manage her. It
did not last long, and it was really nothing but the consequences of her
imprudence, the doctor said--and there was a little low kind of fever
going about just now--and he did not think her constitution was very
strong. He says she will soon be all right, with care; and indeed, the
fever is quite allayed since I wrote to you, and any little danger that
there might have been is over. But she keeps low. She doesn't seem to
gain strength--and no wonder, considering we can't get her to eat
anything. I am glad you have come back; perhaps you will have more
influence with her than I have."
"I suppose I may go up?" Mrs. Reade inquired, after a pause. Her mother
gave her permission readily; it was a great surprise and relief to her
to find herself spared the searching cross-examination which she had
rather uneasily looked forward to.
"You had better put on your bonnet and have a drive," the young lady
proceeded, pausing with her hand on the door. "It will do you good,
after being in the house so much. I don't want the horses taken out, and
they will only scratch holes in the gravel if they stand here doing
nothing. I am not going away till dinner time."
"Thank you, my dear, I think I will," said Mrs. Hardy. Mrs. Reade went
upstairs to Rachel's room, and without knocking, opened the door softly.
It was a bright January afternoon, but the heat of the day was over, and
a sea breeze was springing up. The window was open, and the chintz
curtains softly rustling to and fro. There was a magnificent bouquet on
a table at the foot of the bed; the air was full of the perfume of
roses; a few flies were buzzing over a plate of strawberries set on a
chair at Rachel's side.
The invalid was lying on a sofa, in a white dressing-gown, in an
attitude of extreme languor, asleep. One hand holding a fan had dropped
beside her; the other was under her head. Her dark gold hair was loose
and tumbled, and curling in damp rings on her temples; her face was
flushed and thin; there were hollows and shadows under the tired closed
eyes. She looked as if she had been ill for months.
Mrs. Reade, examining her attentively as she knelt by the sofa, was
deeply shocked and concerned. Never would she have gone away to Adelonga
if she could have foreseen this! And never should the poor little thing
be harried and worried, as she had evidently been, again, if _she_ had
any power to prevent it--no, not though twenty Mr. Kingstons and all
their twenty fortunes were at stake.
A mosquito settled upon the girl's white arm, and the light brush of the
finger that removed it wakened her. She drew a deep breath, and opened
her eyes languidly; then seeing her visitor, she stared at her for a
second in a dazed and startled way; and then to Mrs. Reade's great
embarrassment and distress, she suddenly flung herself into her arms,
and broke into the wildest weeping.
"Now, Rachel! Now, my dearest child----"
But it would have been as hopeless to try and stop the Falls of Niagara
as this tide of passion at the flood; seeing which, Mrs. Reade waited
for the ebb in silence. By the time it came the girl was completely
exhausted; she seemed to have the merest fragment of strength.
"Now," said Beatrice, when she had sponged her face and hands and
otherwise taken steps to revive and soothe her, "now tell me what all
this is about. I know you are in some great trouble, and I have come
home on purpose to help you."
"No one can help me!" Rachel cried, despairingly, tears rushing afresh
into her hot eyes.
"Oh, nonsense. Just tell me what is the matter, and see if I can't. Are
they trying to make you marry Mr. Kingston? Because I can soon send
_him_ about his business."
"No; Mr. Kingston is very kind _now_. He sends me flowers every day. He
does not worry me. He is very considerate and thoughtful. For I think
he--knows."
"Well, and now I want to know. Is it about--someone else? Is it about
Mr. Dalrymple?"
"Who told you?" the girl demanded, with sharp entreaty. "Oh, Beatrice,
what have you heard? Did Mrs. Digby tell you anything about him? Is he
in Queensland? Is he alive? What is he doing?"
Mrs. Reade replied that she had heard nothing of Mr. Dalrymple beyond
the fact that he was believed to be in Queensland, and doing well.
"If he had not been, they must have known," said Rachel. "Oh, my love,
if I could see you for myself just once."
She began to cry again, more bitterly than before, and to wring her
hands. There was a fierce excitement in her grief and despair that for a
moment stunned the little woman who had never known what it was to be in
love.
And then Rachel told all the story of her clandestine engagement, as the
reader already knows it, without any reservations. The _denouement_ was
exactly what Mrs. Reade expected--"And he never came!"
"Poor little thing!" she ejaculated pitifully.
"I was as certain that he would come as that Christmas would come," said
Rachel, reckless in her confessions now that she had begun to open her
heart. "And there _was_ a strange gentleman here, and he was shut up a
long time with Aunt Elizabeth, and I thought it was he--"
"Are you sure it was not he?"
"Quite sure. When he was going away I ran out into the garden and
watched for him; he was an ugly _little_ man. And if it had been Roden,
and he had wanted to see me, _he_ would not have allowed himself to be
sent away."
"That would have depended on mamma; wouldn't it?"
"Oh, no. He would never have let her send him away; and Aunt Elizabeth
says, solemnly, that he never came."
"You told _her_ about him then?" asked Mrs. Reade.
"Beatrice, I was nearly mad--I don't know what I said. She was very
angry--she always hated him. But I did not care--I was too miserable to
care. And I made her _swear_ that he had never come; and now--it is
nearly February--now I know he didn't. I don't want anybody to tell me."
Mrs. Reade put all these revelations into her mental crucible, and in a
few seconds she had the product ready. On presenting it to Rachel,
wrapped up in the gentlest language, it came to this simply--that "it
was always the way with men of that kind."
"He is not like other men," said Rachel. "I do not blame him. I have
thought of it, over and over and over, every night and every day, and I
know why it was. I _ran after him_, Beatrice--I took him before he
offered himself to me--I had only seen him once or twice when I showed
him I loved him, and made him think I wanted him--he did not ask me to
be his wife until I had given myself to him already! I did not think of
it then, but I see it clearly now. I dragged him into it--I gave him no
choice. And now he is away, and he thinks about it, and he knows I am
not enough for him. How should I be enough--_I_ for such a man as that?
Oh, that happy woman, who died in his arms! Oh, how I wish I had been
she!"
"Well," said Mrs. Reade, after a pause, trying to speak cheerfully, but
feeling profoundly disheartened; "you ought not to have had anything to
do with lovers and marriages at your time of life, and you must just
give up thinking of such things until you are older and wiser."
"I shall never give _him_ up," said Rachel quietly; "never, if I live
to be a hundred. I have told Aunt Elizabeth--I told her to tell Mr.
Kingston--that I shall never love any other man. It would be impossible,
after loving him. When I am well I shall ask her to let me go out and be
a governess, and earn my own living. I don't want to be rich, I want to
be poor, like him. And some day, perhaps, I may see him again, and be
able to do something for him--if it isn't till he is an old, old man, I
don't care. If only God lets him live and lets me live, so that we are
both in the world together--I'll take my chance of the rest. But--but,"
and she turned her head from side to side, and began to tremble and cry
in a weak, hysterical abandonment of all self-command, "if I have to
wait for years and years, without a sight of his face or a sound of his
voice, how shall I be able to live? The longing for him will kill me!"
Mrs. Reade went away when her carriage returned, more humble-minded than
she had been in her life. She wanted very much to stay and nurse her
cousin until she was better, but she could not do that, because she
could not trust Ned to keep house and keep sober by himself; so she set
off to see the doctor to get a confidential report of the "case,"
meaning to intimate her suspicions that there was a touch of fever on
the brain, and to gain his sanction to a scheme for removing the invalid
to her own cheerful abode at South Yarra as soon as she became
moderately convalescent.