For the space of half-an-hour perhaps she felt that it would be good to be married to somebody—to anybody—who would love and take care of her, and make the servants treat her with proper respect; and a mere chance enabled Mr. Kingston to take advantage of that accident.
Looking back afterwards she never could understand how it was that she had felt disposed to re-accept him; but the causes were as distinct as causes usually are. Badly-made tea, and the want of a fire in dull weather are, amongst the multifarious factors of human destiny, greatly underrated.
Having said the fatal "yes"—or, rather, having failed at the proper moment to say "no," which Mr. Kingston justly took to mean the same thing—Rachel was allowed no more opportunities for what her aunt called "shilly-shallying."
The day of the marriage was fixed at once, and the preparations for her trousseau simultaneously set on foot.
The girl had hardly come to realise the extraordinary thing that she had done when she found herself being measured for all sorts of wearing apparel, and consulted about the arrangements for her honeymoon tour. Then she set herself to do her duty in the state of life to which she imagined herself "called," with a kind of hopeless resignation. She recognised the fact that this second mistake was not revocable like the first; and therefore she understood that it was not to be considered a mistake.
All her life and energy now had to be dedicated to the task of making it justifiable to her own conscience and in the eyes of all men.
And so she was sweet and gentle to her affianced husband, promising him that, though she could not love him first and best, if he was content to have her as she was (and he assured her he was quite content), she would do all in her power to prove herself a good and true wife to him; and she was tractable and obedient in the hands of her aunt, and ready to fall in with all the arrangements that were made for her.
But, as the wedding-day drew near, the dread of it showed itself to Mrs. Reade, if to no one else, in the dumb eloquence of the sensitive, truth-telling face. That little person who had such a talent for managing, stood aside at this crisis, and did not intermeddle with the strange course of events.
In none of the affairs that she had promoted and directed and brought to successful terminations, had she taken such a deep and painful interest as she now felt in this, which she had been powerless to control; but, for the first time in her life, she was afraid to speak to her young cousin of the thoughts that both their minds were full of, lest she might be called upon to advise where she found it was impossible to decide what was for the best, and only waited helplessly upon Fate, like an ordinary incapable woman.
On the night before the wedding—a soft, bright, early autumn night—Rachel gave her a distinct intimation if she had wanted it, that the marriage however it might turn out eventually, was by no means undertaken as marriages should be.