But the world rarely gives us credit for good motives. It was currently reported that Thomas Gray was a wealthy man, and that if Rachel Gray did not let him go to the workhouse, she knew why. "As if she couldn't let him go, and keep his money too," indignantly exclaimed Jane, when she heard this slander; and, as discretion was not Jane's virtue, she repeated all to Rachel Gray. Poor Rachel coloured slightly. It seemed strange, and somewhat hard too, that her conduct should be judged thus. But the flush passed from her pale face, and the momentary emotion from her heart. "Let the world think, and say what it likes," she thought, "I need not, and I will not care."
Not long after Rachel brought home her father, Jane left her. The time of her apprenticeship was out; besides, she was going to marry. She showed more emotion on their parting, than might have been expected from her.
"God bless you. Miss Gray," she said several times; "God bless you—you are a good one, whatever the world may think."
The praise was qualified, and, perhaps, Rachel felt it to be so, for she smiled; but she took it as Jane meant it—kindly. Amity and peace marked their separation.
Rachel now remained alone with her father and Mary. The young girl was not observant. She saw but a quiet woman, and a helpless old man, with grey hair, and stern features blank of meaning, who sat the whole day long by the fire-side, waited on by his patient daughter. Sometimes, indeed, when Rachel Gray attended on her father with more than usual tenderness, when she lingered near his chair, looking wistfully in his face, or with timid and tender hand gently smoothed away his whitened hair from his rugged brow, sometimes, then, Mary looked and wondered, and felt vaguely moved, but she was too childish to know why.
And, indeed, the story of Rachel's life at this time cannot be told. It was beautiful; but its beauty was not of earth, and to earthly glance cannot be revealed. It lay, a divine secret, between her heart and God.
This peace was not destined to last Rachel and her father sat alone one morning in the parlour, when Mrs. Brown, who had found the street door ajar, burst in without preliminary warning. She was scarlet, and looked in a towering passion.
"You audacious creatur," she screamed; "you audacious hussey, how dare you bring that man in this house—in my house! How dare you?"
"He is my father," said Rachel, confounded, both at the accusation, and at the unexpected appearance of Mrs. Brown.
The reply exasperated Mrs. Brown. She had never felt any extraordinary friendship or affection for her deceased cousin; but she had always entertained a very acute sense of her cousin's wrongs, and had accordingly honoured Thomas Gray with no small share of hatred and vituperation, and that Rachel should not feel as she did on the subject, or should presume to remember that the sinner was her father, was, in Mrs. Brown's eyes, an offence of the deepest dye. She gave her feelings free vent. She was a vulgar woman, and had a flow of vulgar eloquence at her command. She overwhelmed Rachel and Thomas Gray with sarcasm, scorn and abuse, and Rachel answered not one word, but heard her out, still as a statue, and pale as death. Mrs. Brown, too, was pale, but it was with wrath.