Читать книгу: «Rachel Ray», страница 25

"I suppose you never were here before," said Mrs. Cornbury to Rowan.

"Indeed I have," said he. "I always think it such a grand thing that you landed magnates can't keep all your delights to yourself. I dare say I've been here oftener than you have during the last three months."

"That's very likely, seeing that it's my first visit this summer."

"And I've been here a dozen times. I suppose you'll think I'm a villanous trespasser when I tell you that I've bathed in that very house more than once."

"Then you've done more than I ever did; and yet we had it made thinking it would do for ladies. But the water looks so black."

"Ah! I like that, as long as it's a clear black."

"I like bathing where I can see the bright stones like jewels at the bottom. You can never do that in fresh water. It's only in some nook of the sea, where there is no sand, when the wind outside has died away, and when the tide is quiet and at its full. Then one can drop gently in and almost fancy that one belongs to the sea as the mermaids do. I wonder how the idea of mermaids first came?"

"Some one saw a crowd of young women bathing."

"But then how came they to have looking-glasses and fishes' tails?"

"The fishes' tails were taken as granted because they were in the sea, and the looking-glasses because they were women," said Rowan.

"And the one with as much reason as the other. By-the-by, Mr. Rowan, talking of women, and fishes' tails, and looking-glasses, and all other feminine attractions, when did you see Miss Ray last?"

Rowan paused before he answered her, and looking round perceived that he had strayed with Mrs. Cornbury to the furthest end of the meadow, away from their companions. It immediately came across his mind that this was the matter on which Mrs. Cornbury wished to speak to him, and by some combative process he almost resolved that he would not be spoken to on that matter.

"When did I see Miss Ray?" said he, repeating her question. "Two or three days after Mrs. Tappitt's party. I have not seen her since that."

"And why don't you go and see her?" said Mrs. Cornbury.

Now this was asked him in a tone which made it necessary that he should either answer her question or tell her simply that he would not answer it. The questioner's manner was so firm, so eager, so incisive, that the question could not be turned away.

"I am not sure that I am prepared to tell you," said he.

"Ah! but I want you to be prepared," said she; "or rather, perhaps, to tell the truth, I want to drive you to an answer without preparation. Is it not true that you made her an offer, and that she accepted it?"

Rowan thought a moment, and then he answered her, "It is true."

"I should not have asked the question if I had not positively known that such was the case. I have never spoken a word to her about it, and yet I knew it. Her mother told my father."

"Well?"

"And as that is so, why do you not go and see her? I am sure you are not one of those who would play such a trick as that upon such a girl with the mere purpose of amusing yourself."

"Upon no girl would I do so, Mrs. Cornbury."

"I feel sure of it. Therefore why do you not go to her?" They walked along together for a few minutes under the rocks in silence, and then Mrs. Cornbury again repeated her question, "Why do you not go to her?"

"Mrs. Cornbury," he said, "you must not be angry with me if I say that that is a matter which at the present moment I am not willing to discuss."

"Nor must you be angry with me if, as Rachel's friend, I say something further about it. As you do not wish to answer me, I will ask no other question; but at any rate you will be willing to listen to me. Rachel has never spoken to me on this subject – not a word; but I know from others who see her daily that she is very unhappy."

"I am grieved that it should be so."

"Yes, I knew you would be grieved. But how could it be otherwise? A girl, you know, Mr. Rowan, has not other things to occupy her mind as a man has. I think of Rachel Ray that she would have been as happy there at Bragg's End as the day is long, if no offer of love had come in her way. She was not a girl whose head had been filled with romance, and who looked for such things. But for that very reason is she less able to bear the loss of it when the offer has come in her way. I think, perhaps, you hardly know the depth of her character and the strength of her love."

"I think I know that she is constant."

"Then why do you try her so hardly?"

Mrs. Cornbury had promised that she would ask no more questions; but the asking of questions was her easiest mode of saying that which she had to say. And Rowan, though he had declared that he would answer no question, could hardly avoid the necessity of doing so.

"It may be that the trial is the other way."

"I know; – I understand. They made her write a letter to you. It was my father's doing. I will tell you the whole truth. It was my father's doing, and therefore it is that I think myself bound to speak to you. Her mother came to him for advice, and he had heard evil things spoken of you in Baslehurst. You will see that I am very frank with you. And I will take some credit to myself too. I believed such tidings to be altogether false, and I made inquiry which proved that I was right. But my father had given the advice which he thought best. I do not know what Rachel wrote to you, but a girl's letter under such circumstances can hardly do more than express the will of those who guide her. It was sad enough for her to be forced to write such a letter, but it will be sadder still if you cannot be brought to forgive it."

Then she paused, standing under the gray rock and looking up eagerly into his face. But he made her no answer, nor gave her any sign. His heart was very tender at that moment towards Rachel, but there was that in him of the stubbornness of manhood which would not let him make any sign of his tenderness.

"I will not press you to say anything, Mr. Rowan," she continued, "and I am much obliged to you for having listened to me. I've known Rachel Ray for many years, and that must be my excuse."

"No excuse is wanting," he said. "If I do not say anything it is not because I am offended. There are things on which a man should not allow himself to speak without considering them."

"Oh, certainly. Come; shall we go back to them at the bathing-house? They'll think we've lost ourselves."

Thus Mrs. Cornbury said the words which she had desired to speak on Rachel Ray's behalf.

When they reached the Grange there were still two hours left before the time of dressing for dinner should come, and during these hours Luke returned by himself to the Cleeves. He escaped from his host, and retraced his steps, and on reaching the river sat himself down on the margin, and looked into the cool dark running water. Had he been severe to Rachel? He would answer no such question when asked by Mrs. Cornbury, but he was very desirous of answering it to himself. The women at the cottage had doubted him, – Mrs. Ray and her daughter, with perhaps that other daughter of whom he had only heard; and he had resolved that they should see him no more and hear of him no more till there should be no further room for doubt. Then he would show himself again at the cottage, and again ask Rachel to be his wife. There was some manliness in this; but there was also a hardness in his pride which deserved the rebuke which Mrs. Cornbury's words had conveyed to him. He had been severe to Rachel. Lying there, with his full length stretched upon the grass, he acknowledged to himself that he had thought more of his own feelings than of hers. While Mrs. Cornbury had been speaking he could not bring himself to feel that this was the case. But now in his solitude he did acknowledge it. What amount of sin had she committed against him that she should be so punished by him who loved her? He took out her letter from his pocket, and found that her words were loving, though she had not been allowed to put into them that eager, pressing, speaking love which he had desired.

"Spoken ill of me, have they?" said he to himself, as he got up to walk back to the Grange. "Well, that was natural too. What an ass a man is to care for such things as that!"

On that evening and the next morning the Cornburys were very gracious to him; and then he returned to Baslehurst, on the whole well pleased with his visit.

CHAPTER XII.
IN WHICH THE QUESTION OF THE BREWERY IS SETTLED

During the day or two immediately subsequent to the election, Mr. Tappitt found himself to be rather downhearted. The excitement of the contest was over. He was no longer buoyed up by the consoling and almost triumphant assurances of success for himself against his enemy Rowan, which had been administered to him by those with whom he had been acting on behalf of Mr. Hart. He was alone and thoughtful in his counting-house, or else subjected to the pressure of his wife's arguments in his private dwelling. He had never yet been won over to say that he would agree to any proposition, but he knew that he must now form some decision. Rowan would not even wait till the lawsuit should be decided by legal means. If Mr. Tappitt would not consent to one of the three propositions made to him, Rowan would at once commence the building of his new brewery. "He is that sort of man," said Honyman, "that if he puts a brick down nothing in the world will prevent him from going on."

"Of course it won't," said Mrs. Tappitt. "Oh dear, oh dear, T.! if you go on in this way we shall all be ruined; and then people will say that it was my fault, and that I ought to have had you inquired into about your senses."

Tappitt gnashed his teeth and rushed out of the dining-room back into his brewery. Among all those who were around him there was not one to befriend him. Even Worts had turned against him, and had received notice to go with a stern satisfaction which Tappitt had perfectly understood.

Tappitt was in this frame of mind, and was seated on his office stool, with his hat over his eyes, when he was informed by one of the boys about the place that a deputation from the town had come to wait upon him; – so he pulled off his hat, and begged that the deputation might be shown into the counting-house. The deputation consisted of three tradesmen who were desirous of convening a meeting with the view of discussing the petition against Mr. Cornbury's return to Parliament, and they begged that Mr. Tappitt would take the chair. The meeting was to be held at the Dragon, and it was proposed that after the meeting there should be a little dinner. Mr. Tappitt would perhaps consent to take the chair at the dinner also. Mr. Tappitt did consent to both propositions, and when the deputation withdrew, he felt himself to be himself once more. His courage had returned to him, and he would at once rebuke his wife for the impropriety of the words she had addressed to him. He would rebuke his wife, and would then proceed to meet Mr. Sharpit the attorney, at the Dragon, and to take the chair at the meeting. It could not be that a young adventurer such as Rowan could put down an old-established firm, such as his own, or banish from the scene of his labours a man of such standing in the town as himself! It was all the fault of Honyman, – of Honyman who never was firm on any matter. When the meeting should be over he would say a word or two to Sharpit, and see if he could not put the matter into better training.

With a heavy tread, a tread that was intended to mark his determination, he ascended to the drawing-room and from thence to the bed-room above in which Mrs. Tappitt was then seated. She understood the meaning of the footfall, and knew well that it indicated a purpose of marital authority. A woman must have much less of natural wit than had fallen to Mrs. Tappitt's share, who has not learned from the experience of thirty years the meaning of such marital signs and sounds. So she sat herself firmly in her seat, caught hold of the petticoat which she was mending with a stout grasp, and prepared herself for the battle. "Margaret," said he, when he had carefully closed the door behind him, "I have come up to say that I do not intend to dine at home to-day."

"Oh, indeed," said she. "At the Dragon, I suppose then."

"Yes; at the Dragon. I've been asked to take the chair at a popular meeting which is to be held with reference to the late election."

"Take the chair!"

"Yes, my dear, take the chair at the meeting and at the dinner."

"Now, T., don't you make a fool of yourself."

"No, I won't; but Margaret, I must tell you once for all that that is not the way in which I like you to speak to me. Why you should have so much less confidence in my judgment than other people in Baslehurst, I cannot conceive; but – "

"Now, T., look here; as for your taking the chair as you call it, of course you can do it if you like it."

"Of course I can; and I do like it, and I mean to do it. But it isn't only about that I've come to speak to you. You said something to me to-day, before Honyman, that was very improper."

"What I say always is improper, I know."

"I don't suppose you could have intended to insinuate that you thought that I was a lunatic."

"I didn't say so."

"You said something like it."

"No, I didn't, T."

"Yes you did, Margaret."

"If you'll allow me for a moment, T., I'll tell you what I did say, and if you wish it, I'll say it again."

"No; I'd rather not hear it said again."

"But, T., I don't choose to be misunderstood, nor yet misrepresented."

"I haven't misrepresented you."

"But I say you have misrepresented me. If I ain't allowed to speak a word, of course it isn't any use for me to open my mouth. I hope I know what my duty is and I hope I've done it; – both by you, T., and by the children. I know I'm bound to submit, and I hope I have submitted. Very hard it has been sometimes when I've seen things going as they have gone; but I've remembered my duty as a wife, and I've held my tongue when any other woman in England would have spoken out. But there are some things which a woman can't stand and shouldn't; and if I'm to see my girls ruined and left without a roof over their heads, or a bit to eat, or a thing to wear, it shan't be for want of a word from me."

"Didn't they always have plenty to eat?"

"But where is it to come from if you're going to rush openmouthed into the lion's jaws in this way? I've done my duty by you, T., and no man nor yet no woman can say anything to the contrary. And if it was myself only I'd see myself on the brink of starvation before I'd say a word; but I can't see those poor girls brought to beggary without telling you what everybody in Baslehurst is talking about; and I can't see you, T., behaving in such a way and sit by and hold my tongue."

"Behave in what way? Haven't I worked like a horse? Do you mean to tell me that I am to give up my business, and my position, and everything I have in the world, and go away because a young scoundrel comes to Baslehurst and tells me that he wants to have my brewery? I tell you what, Margaret, if you think I'm that sort of man, you don't know me yet."

"I don't know about knowing you, T."

"No; you don't know me."

"If you come to that, I know very well that I have been deceived. I didn't want to speak of it, but now I must. I have been made to believe for these last twenty years that the brewery was all your own, whereas it now turns out that you've only got a share in it, and for aught I can see, by no means the best share. Why wasn't I told all that before?"

"Woman!" shouted Mr. Tappitt.

"Yes; woman indeed! I suppose I am a woman, and therefore I'm to have no voice in anything. Will you answer me one question, if you please? Are you going to that man, Sharpit?"

"Yes, I am."

"Then, Mr. Tappitt, I shall consult my brothers." Mrs. Tappitt's brothers were grocers in Plymouth; men whom Mr. Tappitt had never loved. "They mayn't hold their heads quite as high as you do, – or rather as you used to do when people thought that the establishment was all your own; but such as it is nobody can turn them out of their shop in the Market-place. If you are going to Sharpit, I shall consult them."

"You may consult the devil, if you like it."

"Oh, oh! very well, Mr. Tappitt. It's clear enough that you're not yourself any longer, and that somebody must take up your affairs and manage them for you. If you'll follow my advice you'll stay at home this evening and take a dose of physic and see Dr. Haustus quietly in the morning."

"I shall do nothing of the kind."

"Very well. Of course I can't make you. As yet you're your own master. If you choose to go to this silly meeting and then to drink gin and water and to smoke bad tobacco till all hours at the Dragon, and you in the dangerous state you are at present, I can't help it. I don't suppose that anything I could do now, that is quite immediately, would enable me to put you under fitting restraint."

"Put me where?" Then Mr. Tappitt looked at his wife with a look that was intended to annihilate her, for the time being, – seeing that no words that he could speak had any such effect, – and he hurried out of the room without staying to wash his hands or brush his hair before he went off to preside at the meeting.

Mrs. Tappitt remained where she was for about half an hour and then descended among her daughters.

"Isn't papa going to dine at home?" said Augusta.

"No, my dear; your papa is going to dine with some friends of Mr. Hart's, the candidate who was beaten."

"And has he settled anything about the brewery?" Cherry asked.

"No; not as yet. Your papa is very much troubled about it, and I fear he is not very well. I suppose he must go to this electioneering dinner. When gentlemen take up that sort of thing, they must go on with it. And as they wish your father to preside over the petition, I suppose he he can't very well help himself."

"Is papa going to preside over the petition?" asked Augusta.

"Yes, my dear."

"I hope it won't cost him anything," said Martha. "People say that those petitions do cost a great deal of money."

"It's a very anxious time for me, girls; of course, you must all of you see that. I'm sure when we had our party I didn't think things were going to be as anxious as this, or I wouldn't have had a penny spent in such a way as that. If your papa could bring himself to give up the brewery, everything would be well."

"I do so wish he would," said Cherry, "and let us all go and live at Torquay. I do so hate this nasty dirty old place."

"I shall never live in a house I like so well," said Martha.

"The house is well enough, my dears, and so is the brewery, but it can't be expected that your father should go on working for ever as he does at present. It's too much for his strength; – a great deal too much. I can see it, though I don't suppose any one else can. No one knows, only me, what your father has gone through in that brewery."

"But why doesn't he take Mr. Rowan's offer?" said Cherry.

"Everybody seems to say now that Rowan is ever so rich," said Augusta.

"I suppose papa doesn't like the feeling of being turned out," said Martha.

"He wouldn't be turned out, my dear; not the least in the world," said Mrs. Tappitt. "I don't choose to interfere much myself because, perhaps, I don't understand it; but certainly I should like your papa to retire. I have told him so; but gentlemen sometimes don't like to be told of things."

Mrs. Tappitt could be very severe to her husband, could say to him terrible words if her spirit were put up, as she herself was wont to say. But she understood that it did not become her to speak ill of their father before her girls. Nor would she willingly have been heard by the servants to scold their master. And though she said terrible things she said them with a conviction that they would not have any terrible effect. Tappitt would only take them for what they were worth, and would measure them by the standard which his old experience had taught him to adopt. When a man has been long consuming red pepper, it takes much red pepper to stimulate his palate. Had Mrs. Tappitt merely advised her husband, in proper conjugal phraseology, to relinquish his trade and to retire to Torquay, her advice, she knew, would have had no weight. She was eager on the subject, feeling convinced that this plan of retirement was for the good of the family generally, and therefore she had advocated it with energy. There may be those who think that a wife goes too far in threatening a husband with a commission of lunacy, and frightening him with a prospect of various fatal diseases; but the dose must be adapted to the constitution, and the palate that is accustomed to large quantities of red pepper must have quantities larger than usual whenever some special culinary effect is to be achieved. On the present occasion Mrs. Tappitt went on talking to the girls of their father in language that was quite eulogistic. No threat against the absent brewer passed her mouth, – or theirs. But they all understood each other, and were agreed that everything was to be done to induce papa to accept Mr. Rowan's offer.

"Then," said Cherry, "he'll marry Rachel Ray, and she'll be mistress of the brewery house."

"Never!" said Mrs. Tappitt, very solemnly. "Never! He'll never be such a fool as that."

"Never!" said Augusta. "Never!"

In the mean time the meeting went on at the Dragon. I can't say that Mr. Tappitt was on this occasion called upon to preside over the petition. He was simply invited to take the chair at a meeting of a dozen men at Baslehurst who were brought together by Mr. Sharpit in order that they might be induced by him to recommend Mr. Hart to employ him, Mr. Sharpit, in getting up the petition in question; and in order that there might be some sufficient temptation to these twelve men to gather themselves together, the dinner at the Dragon was added to the meeting. Mr. Tappitt took the chair in the big, uncarpeted, fusty room upstairs, in which masonic meetings were held once a month, and in which the farmers of the neighbourhood dined once a week, on market days. He took the chair and some seven or eight of his townsmen clustered round him. The others had sent word that they would manage to come in time for the dinner. Mr. Sharpit, before he put the brewer in his place of authority, prompted him as to what he was to do, and in the course of a quarter of an hour two resolutions, already prepared by Mr. Sharpit, had been passed unanimously. Mr. Hart was to be told by the assembled people of Baslehurst that he would certainly be seated by a scrutiny, and he was to be advised to commence his proceedings at once. These resolutions were duly committed to paper by one of Mr. Sharpit's clerks, and Mr. Tappitt, before he sat down to dinner, signed a letter to Mr. Hart on behalf of the electors of Baslehurst. When the work of the meeting was completed it still wanted half an hour to dinner, during which the nine electors of Baslehurst sauntered about the yard of the inn, looked into the stables, talked to the landlady at the bar, indulged themselves with gin and bitters, and found the time very heavy on their hands. They were nine decent-looking, middle-aged men, dressed in black not of the newest, in swallow-tailed coats and black trousers, with chimney-pot hats, and red faces; and as they pottered about the premises of the Dragon they seemed to be very little at their ease.

"What's up, Jim?" said one of the postboys to the ostler.

"Sharpit's got 'em all here to get some more money out of that ere Jew gent; – that's about the ticket," said the ostler.

"He's a clever un," said the postboy.

At last the dinner was ready; and the total number of the party having now completed itself, the liberal electors of Baslehurst prepared to enjoy themselves. No bargain had been made on the subject, but it was understood by them all that they would not be asked to pay for their dinner. Sharpit would see to that. He would probably know how to put it into his little bill; and if he failed in that the risk was his own.

But while the body of the liberal electors was peeping into the stables and drinking gin and bitters, Mr. Sharpit and Mr. Tappitt were engaged in a private conference.

"If you come to me," said Sharpit, "of course I must take it up. The etiquette of the profession don't allow me to decline."

"But why should you wish to decline?" said Tappitt, not altogether pleased by Mr. Sharpit's manner.

"Oh, by no means; no. It's just the sort of work I like; – not much to be made by it, but there's injury to be redressed and justice to be done. Only you see poor Honyman hasn't got much of a practice left to him, and I don't want to take his bread out of his mouth."

"But I'm not to be ruined because of that!"

"As I said before, if you bring the business to me I must take it up. I can't help myself, if I would. And if I do take it up I'll see you through it. Everybody who knows me knows that of me."

"I suppose I shall find you at home about ten to-morrow?"

"Yes; I'll be in my office at ten; – only you should think it well over, you know, Mr. Tappitt. I've nothing to say against Mr. Honyman, – not a word. You'll remember that, if you please, if there should be anything about it afterwards. Ah! you're wanted for the chair, Mr. Tappitt. I'll come and sit alongside of you, if you'll allow me."

The dinner itself was decidedly bad, and the company undoubtedly dull. I am inclined to think that every individual there would have dined more comfortably at home. A horrid mess concocted of old gravy, catsup, and bad wine was distributed under the name of soup. Then there came upon the table half a huge hake, – the very worst fish that swims, a fish with which Devonshire is peculiarly invested. Some hard dark brown mysterious balls were handed round, which on being opened with a knife were found to contain sausage-meat, very greasy and by no means cooked through. Even the dura ilia of the liberal electors of Baslehurst declined to make acquaintance with these dainties. After that came the dinner, consisting of a piece of roast beef very raw, and a leg of parboiled mutton, absolutely blue in its state of rawness. When the gory mess was seen which displayed itself on the first incision made into these lumps of meat, the vice-president and one or two of his friends spoke out aloud. That hard and greasy sausage-meat might have been all right for anything they knew to the contrary, and the soup they had swallowed without complaint. But they did know what should be the state of a joint of meat when brought to the table, and therefore they spoke out in their anger. Tappitt himself said nothing that was intended to be carried beyond the waiter, seeing that beer from his own brewery was consumed in the tap of the Dragon; but the vice-president was a hardware dealer with whom the Dragon had but small connection of trade, and he sent terrible messages down to the landlady, threatening her with the Blue Boar, the Mitre, and even with that nasty little pothouse the Chequers. "What is it they expects for their three-and-sixpence?" said the landlady, in her wrath; for it must be understood that Sharpit knew well that he was dealing with one who understood the value of money, and that he did not feel quite sure of passing the dinner in Mr. Hart's bill. Then came a pie with crust an inch thick, which nobody could eat, and a cabinet pudding, so called, full of lumps of suet. I venture to assert that each liberal elector there would have got a better dinner at home, and would have been served with greater comfort; but a public dinner at an inn is the recognized relaxation of a middle-class Englishman in the provinces. Did he not attend such banquets his neighbours would conceive him to be constrained by domestic tyranny. Others go to them, and therefore he goes also. He is bored frightfully by every speech to which he listens. He is driven to the lowest depths of dismay by every speech which he is called upon to make. He is thoroughly disgusted when he is called on to make no speech. He has no point of sympathy with the neighbours between whom he sits. The wine is bad. The hot water is brought to him cold. His seat is hard and crowded. No attempt is made at the pleasures of conversation. He is continually called upon to stand up that he may pretend to drink a toast in honour of some person or institution for which he cares nothing; for the hero of the evening, as to whom he is probably indifferent; for the church, which perhaps he never enters; the army, which he regards as a hotbed of aristocratic insolence; or for the Queen, whom he reveres and loves by reason of his nature as an Englishman, but against whose fulsome praises as repeated to him ad nauseam in the chairman's speech his very soul unconsciously revolts. It is all a bore, trouble, ennui, nastiness, and discomfort. But yet he goes again and again, – because it is the relaxation natural to an Englishman. The Frenchman who sits for three hours tilted on the hind legs of a little chair with his back against the window-sill of the café, with first a cup of coffee before him and then a glass of sugar and water, is perhaps as much to be pitied as regards his immediate misery; but the liquids which he imbibes are not so injurious to him.

Mr. Tappitt with the eleven other liberal electors of Baslehurst went through the ceremony of their dinner in the usual way. They drank the health of the Queen, and of the volunteers of the county because there was present a podgy little grocer who had enrolled himself in the corps and who was thus enabled to make a speech; and then they drank the health of Mr. Hart, whose ultimate return for the borough they pledged themselves to effect. Having done so much for business, and having thus brought to a conclusion the political work of the evening, they adjourned their meeting to a cosy little parlour near the bar, and then they began to be happy. Some few of the number, including the angry vice-president, who sold hardware, took themselves home to their wives. "Mrs. Tongs keeps him sharp enough by the ears," said Sharpit, winking to Tappitt. "Come along, old fellow, and we'll get a drop of something really hot." Tappitt winked back again and shook his head with an affected laugh; but as he did so he thought of Mrs. T. at home, and the terrible words she had spoken to him; – and at the same moment an idea came across him that Mr. Sharpit was a very dangerous companion.