LUKE ROWAN PAYS A SECOND VISIT TO BRAGG'S END.
Early after breakfast on that morning,—that morning on which Tappitt had for a moment thought of braining Luke Rowan with the poker,—Mrs. Ray started from the cottage on her mission into Baslehurst. She was going to see her daughter, Mrs. Prime, at Miss Pucker's lodgings, and felt sure that the object of her visit was to be a further discourse on the danger of admitting that wolf Rowan into the sheepfold at Bragg's End. She would willingly have avoided the conference had she been able to do so, knowing well that Mrs. Prime would get the better of her in words when called upon to talk without having Rachel at her back. And indeed she was not happy in her mind. It had been conceded at the cottage as an understood thing that Rachel was to have this man as her lover; but what, if after all, the man didn't mean to be a lover in the proper sense; and what, if so meaning, he should still turn out to be a lover of a bad sort,—a worldly, good-for-nothing, rakish lover? "I wonder," says the wicked man in the play, "I wonder any man alive would ever rear a daughter!" Mrs. Ray knew nothing of the play, and had she done so, she would not have repeated such a line. But the hardness of the task which Providence had allotted to her struck her very forcibly on this morning. Rachel was dearer to her than aught else in the world. For Rachel's happiness she would have made any sacrifice. In Rachel's presence, and sweet smile, and winning caresses was the chief delight of her existence. Nevertheless, in these days the possession of Rachel was hardly a blessing to her. The responsibility was so great; and, worse than that as regarded her own comfort, the doubts were so numerous; and then, they recurred over and over again, as often as they were settled!
"I'm sure I don't know what she can have to say to me." Mrs. Ray, as she spoke, was tying on her bonnet, and Rachel was standing close to her with her light summer shawl.
"It will be the old story, mamma, I'm afraid; my terrible iniquity and backslidings, because I went to the ball, and because I won't go to Miss Pucker's. She'll want you to say that I shall go, or else be sent to bed without my supper."
"That's nonsense, Rachel. Dorothea knows very well that I can't make you go." Mrs. Ray was wont to become mildly petulant when things went against her.
"But, mamma, you don't want me to go?"
"I don't suppose it's about Miss Pucker at all. It's about that other thing."
"You mean Mr. Rowan."
"Yes, my dear. I'm sure I don't know what's for the best. When she gets me to herself she does say such terrible things to me that it quite puts me in a heat to have to go to her. I don't think anybody ought to say those sort of things to me except a clergyman, or a person's parents, or a schoolmaster, or masters and mistresses, or such like." Rachel thought so too,—thought that at any rate a daughter should not so speak to such a mother as was her mother; but on that subject she said nothing.
"And I don't like going to that Miss Pucker's house," continued Mrs. Ray. "I'm sure I don't want her to come here. I wouldn't go, only I said that I would."