CHAPTER XIX. THE BETROTHAL.
It was not till she was alone that the girl realized the situation. She put her hand over her eyes—the hand that still tingled with the light pressure of his touch.
What had happened? Had Willy asked her to become his wife? And had she seemed to say No?
The sound of his voice was still lingering on her ears; it was a low broken murmur, such as might have fallen to a sob.
Had she, then, refused? That could not be. She was but a poor homeless girl, with nothing to recommend her to such a man as he was. Yet she knew—she had heard—that he loved her, and would one day ask her to be his wife. She had thought that day was far distant. She had never realized that it would be now. Why had he not given her time to think? If Ralph knew what she had done!
For an hour or two Rotha went about the house with a look of bewilderment in her eyes.
Willy came back soon afterwards, and helped her to wheel his mother in her chair to her place by the hearth. He had regained his wonted composure, and spoke to her as if nothing unusual had occurred. Perhaps it had been something like a dream, all this that haunted her. Willy was speaking cheerfully enough. Just then her father came into the kitchen, and slunk away silently to a seat in the remotest corner of the wide ingle. Willy went out almost immediately. Everything was in a maze. Could it be that she had seemed to say No?
Rotha was rudely awakened from her trance by the entrance at this moment of the parson of the chapel on the Raise. The present was the first visit the Reverend Nicholas Stevens had paid since the day of the funeral. He had heard of the latest disaster which had befallen the family at the Moss. He had also learned something of the paralytic seizure which the disaster had occasioned. He could not any longer put away the solemn duty of visitation. To take the comfort of his presence, to give the light of his countenance to the smitten, was a part of his sacred function. These accidents were among the sore trials incident to a cure of souls. The Reverend Nicholas had brushed himself spick-and-span that morning, and, taking up his gold-headed cane, had walked the two miles to Shoulthwaite.
Rotha was tying the ribbons of Mrs. Ray's white cap under her chin as the vicar entered. She took up a chair for him, and placed it near the invalid. But he did not sit immediately. His eye traversed the kitchen at a glance. He saw Mrs. Ray propped up with her pillows, and looking vacantly about her, but his attention seemed to be riveted on Sim, who sat uneasily on the bench, apparently trying to escape the concentrated gaze.
“What have we here?” he said in a cold and strident voice. “The man Simeon Stagg? Is he here too?”
The moment before Rotha had gone into the dairy adjoining, and, coming back, she was handing a bowl of milk to her father. Sim clutched at the dish with nervous fingers.
The Reverend Nicholas walked with measured paces towards where he sat. Then he paused, and stood a yard or two behind Sim, whose eyes were still averted.
“I was told you had made your habitation on the hillside; a fitting home, no doubt, for one unfit to house with his fellows.”
Sim's hand trembled violently, and he set the bowl of milk on the floor beside him. Rotha was standing a yard or two apart, her breast heaving.
“Have you left it for good, pray?” There was the suspicion of a sneer in the tone with which the question was asked.
“Yes, he has left it for good,” said Rotha, catching her breath.
Sim had dropped his head on his hand, his elbow resting on his knee.
“More's the shame, perhaps; who knows but it may have been the best place for shame to hide in!”
Sim got up, and turning about, with his eyes still fixed on the ground, he hurried out of the house.
“You've driven him away again—do you know that?” said Rotha, regaining her voice, and looking fall into the vicar's face, her eyes aflame.
“If so, I have done well, young woman.” Then surveying her with a look of lofty condescension, he added, “And what is your business here?”
“To nurse Mrs. Ray; that is part of it.”
“Even so? And were you asked to come?”
“Surely.”
“By whom?”
“Ralph, her son.”
“Small respect he could have had for you, young woman.”
“Tell me what you mean, sir,” said the girl, with a glance of mingled pride and defiance.
“Tell you what I mean, young woman! Have you, then, no modesty? Has that followed the shame of the hang-dog vagrant who has just left us?”
“Not another word about him! If you have anything to say about me, say it, sir.”
“What!—the father dead! the mother stricken into unconsciousness—two sons—and you a young woman—was there no matron in the parish, that a young woman must come here?”
Rotha's color, that had tinged her cheeks, mounted to her eyes and descended to her neck. The prudery that was itself a sin had penetrated the armor of her innocence. Without another word, she turned and left the kitchen.
“Well, Widow Ray,” she heard his reverence say, in an altered tone, as he faced the invalid. She listened for no more.
Her trance was over now, and rude indeed had been the awakening. Perhaps, after all, she had no business in this house—perhaps the vicar was right. Yet that could not be. She thought of Mrs. Ray smitten down and dependent upon those about her for help in every simple office of life, and she thought of the promise she had made to Ralph. “Promise me,” he had said, “that you will stay in the old home as long as mother lives.” And she had promised; her pledged word was registered in heaven.
But then, again, perhaps Ralph had not foreseen that his mother might live for years in her present state. No doubt he thought her near to death. He could not have intended that she should live long in his brother's house.
Yet he had so intended. “He will ask you to be his wife, Rotha,” Ralph had said, “but he can't do so yet.”
This brought her memory back to the earlier events of the morning. Willy Ray had already asked her to become his wife. And what had she done on her part? Had she not seemed to say No?
Willy was far above her. It was true enough that she was a poor homeless girl, without lands, without anything but the hands she worked with. Willy was now a statesman, and he was something of a scholar too. Yes, he was in every way far above her. Were there not others who might love him? Yet Ralph had seemed to wish her to become his brother's wife, and what Ralph had said would be best, must of course be so.
She could not bring herself to leave Shoulthwaite—that was clear enough to her bewildered sense. Nor could she remain on the present terms of relation—that, also, was but too clear. If Ralph were at home, how different everything would be! He would lead her with a word out of this distressing maze.
When Willy Ray parted from Rotha after he had told her of his love, he felt that the sunshine had gone out of his life forever. He had been living for weeks and months in a paradise that was not his own. Why he had loved this girl he could hardly say. She was—every one knew it—the daughter of a poor tailor, and he was the poorest and meanest creature in the country round about.
The young man could not help telling himself that he might have looked to marry the daughter of the largest statesman in a radius of miles.
But then, the girl herself was a noble creature—none could question it. Rude, perhaps, in some ways, without other learning than the hard usage of life had given her; yet she was a fine soul, as deep as the tarn on the mountain-top, and as pure and clear.
And he had fancied she loved him. No disaster had quite overshadowed the bright hope of that surmise. Yet had she not loved Ralph instead? Perhaps the girl herself did not realize that in reality the love of his brother had taken hold of her. Did Ralph himself love the girl? That could not be, or he should have guessed the truth the night they spoke together. Still, it might be that Ralph loved her after all.
By the following morning Rotha had decided that her duty at this crisis lay one way only, and that way she must take. Ralph had said it would be well for her to become Willy's wife, and she had promised him never to leave the Moss while his mother lived. She would do as he had said.
Willy had asked her for a sign, and she must give hint, one—a sign that she was willing to say “Yes” if he spoke again to-day as he had spoken yesterday.
Having once settled this point, her spirits experienced a complete elevation. What should the sign be? Rotha walked to the neuk window and stood to think, her hand on the wheel and her eyes towards the south. What, then, should the sign be?
It was by no means easy to hit on a sign that would show him at a glance that her mind was made up; that, however she may have wavered in her purpose yesterday, her resolve was fixed to-day. She stood long and thought of many plans, but none harmonized with her mood.
“Why should I not tell him—just in a word?” Often as she put if to herself so, she shrank from the ordeal involved.
No, she must hit on a sign, but she began to despair of lighting on a fitting one. Then she shifted her gaze from the landscape through the window, and turned to where Mrs. Ray sat in her chair close by. How vague and vacant was the look in those dear eyes! how mute hung the lips that were wont to say, “God bless you!” how motionless lay the fingers that once spun with the old wheel so deftly!
The old spinning-wheel—here it was, and Rotha's right hand still rested upon it. Ah! the wheel—surely that was, the sign she wanted.
She would sit and spin—yes, she could spin, too, though it was long since she had done so—she would sit in his mother's chair—the one his mother used to sit in when she spun—and perhaps he would understand from that sign that she would try to take his mother's place if he wished her so to do.
Quick, let it be done at once. He usually came up to the house at this time of the morning.
She looked at the clock. He would be here soon, she thought; he might be coming now.
And Willy Ray was, in truth, only a few yards from the house at the moment. He had been up on to the hills that morning. He had been there on a similar errand several mornings before, and had never told himself frankly what that errand really was. Returning homewards on this occasion, he had revolved afresh the subject that lay nearest to his heart.
If Ralph really loved the girl—but how should he know the truth as to that, unless Rotha knew it? If the girl loved his brother, he could relinquish her. He was conscious of no pang of what was called jealousy in this matter. An idol that he had worshipped seemed to be shattered—that was all.
If he saw that Rotha loved Ralph, he must give up forever his one dream of happiness—and there an end.
It was in this mood that he opened the kitchen door, just as Rotha had put her foot on the treadle and taken the flax in her hand.
There the girl sat, side by side with his mother, spinning at the wheel which within his recollection no hand but one had touched. How fresh and fair the young face looked, tinged, as it was at this moment, too, with a conscious blush!
Rotha had tried to lift her eyes as Willy entered. She intended to meet his glance with a smile. She wished to catch the significance of his expression. But the lids were heavier than lead that kept her gaze fixed on the “rock” and flax below her.
She felt that after a step or two he had stood still in front of her. She knew that her face was crimson. Her eyes, too, were growing dim.
“Rotha, my darling!” She heard no more.
The spinning-wheel had been pushed hastily aside. She was on her feet, and Willy's arms were about her.