"A lady!" said Mrs. Ray, looking out through the open window. "Oh dear, if here isn't Dorothea!"
Then Rowan shook hands with them both, pressing Rachel's very warmly, close under her mother's eyes; and as he went out of the house into the garden, he passed Mrs. Prime on the walk, and took off his hat to her with great composure.
CHAPTER XII.
RACHEL RAY THINKS "SHE DOES LIKE HIM."
Luke Rowan's appearance at Mrs. Ray's tea-table, as described in the last chapter, took place on Wednesday evening, and it may be remembered that on the morning of that same day Mrs. Prime had been closeted with Mr. Prong in that gentleman's parlour. She had promised to give Mr. Prong an answer to his proposal on Saturday, and had consequently settled herself down steadily to think of all that was good and all that might be evil in such an arrangement as that suggested to her. She wished much for legal advice, but she made up her mind that that was beyond her reach, was beyond her reach as a preliminary assistance. She knew enough of the laws of her country to enable her to be sure that, though she might accept the offer, her own money could be so tied up on her behalf that her husband could not touch the principal of her wealth; but she did not know whether things could be so settled that she might have in her own hands the spending of her income. By three o'clock on that day she thought that she would accept Mr. Prong, if she could be satisfied on that head. Her position as a clergyman's wife,—a minister's wife she called it,—would be unexceptionable. The company of Miss Pucker was distasteful. Solitude was not charming to her. And then, could she not work harder as a married woman than in the position which she now held? and also, could she not so work with increased power and increased perseverance? At three o'clock she had almost made up her mind, but still she was sadly in need of counsel and information. Then it occurred to her that her mother might have some knowledge in this matter. In most respects her mother was not a woman of the world; but it was just possible that in this difficulty her mother might assist her. Her mother might at any rate ask of others, and there was no one else whom she could trust to seek such information for her. And if she did this thing she must tell her mother. It is true that she had quarrelled with them both at Bragg's End; but there are affairs in life which will ride over family quarrels and trample them out, unless they be deeper and of longer standing than that between Mrs. Prime and Mrs. Ray. Therefore it was that she appeared at the cottage at Bragg's End just as Luke Rowan was leaving it.
She had entered upon the green with something of the olive-branch in her spirit, and before she reached the gate had determined that, as far as was within her power, all unkindness should be buried on the present occasion; but when she saw Luke Rowan coming out of her mother's door, she was startled out of all her good feeling. She had taught herself to look on Rowan as the personification of mischief, as the very mischief itself in regard to Rachel. She had lifted up her voice against him. She had left her home and torn herself from her family because it was not compatible with the rigour of her principles that any one known to her should be known to him also! But she had hardly left her mother's house when this most pernicious cause of war was admitted to all the freedom of family intercourse! It almost seemed to her that her mother must be a hypocrite. It was but the other day that Mrs. Ray could not hear Luke Rowan's name mentioned without wholesome horror. But where was that wholesome horror now? On Monday, Mrs. Prime had left the cottage; on Tuesday, Rachel had gone to a ball, expressly to meet the young man! and on Wednesday the young man was drinking tea at Bragg's End cottage! Mrs. Prime would have gone away without speaking a word to her mother or sister, had such retreat been possible.
Stately and solemn was the recognition which she accorded to Luke's salutation, and then she walked on into the house.
"Oh, Dorothea!" said her mother, and there was a tone almost of shame in Mrs. Ray's voice.
"We're so glad to see you, Dolly," said Rachel, and in Rachel's voice there was no tone of shame. It was all just as it should not be!