Another fortnight went by, and still nothing further was heard at Bragg’s End from Luke Rowan. Much was heard of him in Baslehurst. It was soon known by everybody that he had bought the cottages; and there was a widely-spread and well-credited rumour that he was going to commence the necessary buildings for a new brewhouse at once. Nor were these tidings received by Baslehurst with all that horror — with that loud clamour of indignation — which Tappitt conceived to be due to them. Baslehurst, I should say, as a whole, received the tidings with applause. Why should not Bungall’s nephew carry on a brewery of his own? Especially why should he not, if he were resolved to brew good beer? Very censorious remarks about the Tappitt beer were to be heard in all bar-rooms, and were re-echoed with vehemence in the kitchens of the Baslehurst aristocracy.

“It ain’t beer,” said Dr Harford’s cook, who had come from the midland counties, and knew what good beer was. “It’s a nasty muddle of stuff, not fit for any Christian who has to earn her victuals over a kitchen fire.”

It came to pass speedily that Luke Rowan was expected to build a new brewery, and that the event of the first brick was looked for with anxious expectation. And that false report which had spread itself through Baslehurst respecting him and his debts had taken itself off. It had been banished by a contrary report; and there now existed in Baslehurst a very general belief that Rowan was a man of means — of very considerable means — a man of substantial capital, whom to have settled in the town would be very beneficial to the community. That false statement as to the bill at Griggs’s had been sifted, and the truth made known — and somewhat to the disgrace of the Tappitt faction. The only article supplied by Griggs to Rowan’s order had been the champagne consumed at Tappitt’s supper, and for this Rowan had paid ready money within a week of the transaction. It was Mrs Cornbury who discovered all this, and who employed means for making the truth known in Baslehurst. This truth also became known at last to Mrs Ray — but of what avail was it then? She had desired her daughter to treat the young man as a wolf, and as a wolf he had been hounded off from her little sheep-cot. She heard now that he was expected back at Baslehurst — that he was a wealthy man; that he was thought well of in the town; that he was going to do great things. With what better possible husband could any young woman have been blessed? And yet she had turned him away from her cottage as though he had been a wolf!

It was from Mrs Sturt that Mrs Ray first learned the truth. Mr Sturt was a tenant on the Cornbury estate, and Mrs Sturt was of course well known to Mrs Cornbury. That lady, when she had sifted to the bottom the story of Griggs’s bill, and had assured herself that Rowan was by no means minded to surrender his interest in Baslehurst, determined that the truth should be made known to Mrs Ray. But she was not willing to call on Mrs Ray herself, nor did she wish to present herself before Rachel at the cottage, unless she could bring with her some more substantial comfort than could be afforded by simple evidence as to Rowan’s good character. She therefore took herself to Mrs Sturt, and discussed the matter with her.

“I suppose she does care about him,” said Mrs Cornbury, sitting in Mrs Sturt’s little parlour that opened out upon the kitchen garden. Mrs Sturt was also seated, leaning on the corner of the table, with the sleeves of her gown tucked up, ready for work when the Squire’s lady should be gone, but very willing to postpone her work as long as the Squire’s lady would stay and gossip with her.

“Oh! that she do, Mrs Butler — in her heart of hearts. If I know anything of true love, she do love that young man.”

“And he did offer to her? There can be no doubt about that, I suppose.”

“Not a doubt on earth, Mrs Butler. She never told me so outright — nor yet didn’t her mother — but if he didn’t, I’ll give my head for a cream cheese. Laws love you, Mrs Butler, I know what’s what well enough. I know when a girl’s wild and flighty, and thinks of things as she oughtn’t — and I know when she’s proper behaved, and gives a young man encouragement only when it becomes her.”

“Of course you do, Mrs Sturt.”

“It isn’t for me, Mrs Butler, to say anything against your papa. Nobody can have more respect for their clergyman than Sturt has and I; and before it was all settled like, Sturt never had a word with Mr Comfort about tithes; but, Mrs Butler, I think your papa was wrong here. As far as I can learn, it was he that told Mrs Ray that this young man wasn’t all that he should be.”

“Papa meant it for the best. There were strange things said about him, you know.”

“I never believes one word of what I hears, and never will. People are such liars; bean’t they, Mrs Butler? And I didn’t believe a word again him. He’s as fine a young man as you’d wish to see in a hundred years, and of course that goes a long way with a young woman. Well, Mrs Butler, I’ll tell Mrs Ray what you say, but I’m afeard it’s too late; I’m afeard it is. He’s of a stubborn sort, I think. He’s one of them that says, ‘If you will not when you may, when you will you shall have nay”.”

Mrs Cornbury still entertained hope that the stubbornness of the stubborn man might be overcome; but as to that she said nothing to Mrs Sturt.

Mrs Sturt, with what friendly tact she possessed, made her communication to Mrs Ray, but it may be doubted whether more harm than good was not thus done. “And he didn’t owe a shilling then?” asked Mrs Ray.

“Not a shilling,” said Mrs Sturt.

“And he is going to come back to Baslehurst about this brewery business?”

“There’s not a doubt in life about that,” answered Mrs Sturt. If these tidings could have come in time they would have been very salutary; but what was Mrs Ray to do with them now? She felt that she could not honestly withhold them from Rachel; and yet she knew not how to tell them without adding to Rachel’s misery. It was very improbable that Rachel should hear anything about Rowan from other lips than her own. It was clear that Mrs Sturt did not intend to speak to her, and also clear that Mrs Sturt expected that Mrs Ray would do so.

Rachel’s demeanour at this time was cause of great sorrow to Mrs Ray. She never smiled. She sought no amusement. She read no books. She spoke but little, and when she did speak her words were hard and cold, and confined almost entirely to household affairs. Her mother knew that she was not ill, because she ate and drank and worked. Even Dorothea must have been satisfied with the amount of needlework which she produced in these days. But though not ill, she was thin and pale, and unlike herself. But perhaps of all the signs which her mother watched so carefully, the signs which tormented her most were those everpresent lines on her daughter’s forehead — lines which Mrs Ray had now learned to read correctly, and which indicated some settled inward purpose, and an inward resolve that that purpose should become the subject of no outward discussion. Rachel had formerly been everything to her mother — her friend, her minister, her guide, her great comfort — the subject on which could be lavished all the soft tenderness of her nature, the loving object to whom could be addressed all the little innocent petulances of her life. But now Mrs Ray did not dare to be either tender with Rachel, or petulant. She hardly dared to speak to her on subjects that were not indifferent. On this matter of Luke Rowan she did not dare to speak to her. Rachel never upbraided her with words — had never spoken one word of reproach. But every moment of their passing life was an unspoken reproach, so severe and heavy that the poor mother hardly knew how to bear the burden of her fault.

As Mrs Ray became more afraid of her younger daughter she became less afraid of the elder. This was occasioned partly, no doubt, by the absence of Mrs Prime from the cottage. When there she only came as a visitor; and no visitor to a house can hold such dominion there as may be held by a domestic tyrant, present at all meals, and claiming an ascendancy in all conversations. But it arose in part also from the overwhelming solicitude which filled Mrs Ray’s heart from morning to night, as she watched poor Rachel in her misery. Her bowels yearned towards her child, and she longed to give her relief with an excessive longing. Had the man been a very wolf indeed — such were her feelings at present — I think that she would have welcomed him to the cottage. In ordering his repulse she had done a deed of which she had by no means anticipated the consequences, and now she repented in the sackcloth and ashes of a sorrow-stricken spirit. Ah me! what could she do to relieve that oppressed one! So thoroughly did this desire override all others in her breast, that she would snub Mrs Prime without dreading or even thinking of the consequences. Her only hopes and her only fears at the present moment had reference to Rachel. Had Rachel proposed to her that they should both start off to London and there search for Luke Rowan, I doubt whether she would have had the heart to decline the journey.

In these days Mrs Prime came to the cottage regularly twice a week — on Wednesdays and Saturdays. On Wednesdays she came after tea, and on Saturday she drank tea with her mother. On these occasions much was, of course, said as to the prospect of her marriage with Mr Prong. Nothing was as yet settled, and Rachel had concluded, in her own mind, that there would be no such wedding. As to Mrs Ray’s opinion, she, of course, thought there would be a wedding or that there would not, in accordance with the last words spoken by Mrs Prime to herself on the occasion of that special conversation.

“She’ll never give up her money,” Rachel had said, “and he’ll never marry her unless she does.”

Mrs Prime at this period acknowledged to her mother that she was not happy.

“I want”, said she, “to do what’s right. But it’s not always easy to find out what is right.”

“That’s very true,” said Mrs Ray, thinking that there were difficulties in the affairs of other people quite as embarrassing as those of which Mrs Prime complained.

“He says”, continued the younger widow, “that he wants nothing for himself, but that it is not fitting that a married woman should have a separate income.”

“I think he’s right there,” said Mrs Ray.

“I quite believe what he says about himself,” said Mrs Prime. “It is not that he wants my money for the money’s sake, but that he chooses to dictate to me how I shall use it.”

“So he ought if he’s to be your husband,” said Mrs Ray.

These conversations usually took place in Rachel’s absence. When Mrs Prime came Rachel would remain long enough to say a word to her, and on the Saturdays would pour out the tea for her and would hand to her the bread-and-butter with the courtesy due to a visitor; but after that she would take herself to her own bedroom, and only come down when Mrs Prime had prepared herself for going. At last, on one of these evenings, there came a proposition from Mrs Prime, that she should return to the cottage, and live again with her mother and sister. She had not said that she had absolutely rejected Mr Prong, but she spoke of her return as though it had become expedient because the cause of her going away had been removed. Very little had been said between her and her mother about Rachel’s love affair, nor was Mrs Prime inclined to say much about it now; but so much as that she did say: “No doubt it’s all over now about that young man, and therefore, if you like it. I don’t see why I shouldn’t come back.”

“I don’t at all know about it’s being all over,” said Mrs Ray, in a hurried quick tone, and as she spoke she blushed with emotion.

“But I suppose it is, mother. From all that I can hear he isn’t thinking of her; and I don’t suppose he ever did much.”

“I don’t know what he’s thinking about, Dorothea; and I ain’t sure that there’s any good talking about it. Besides, if you’re going to have Mr Prong at last —”

“If I did, mother, it needn’t prevent my coming here for a month or two first. It wouldn’t be quite yet certainly — if at all. And I thought that perhaps, if I am going to settle myself in that way, you’d be glad that we should be altogether again for a little while.”

“So I should, Dorothea — of course. I have never wanted to be divided from my children. Your going away was your own doing, not mine. I’m sure it made me so wretched I didn’t know what to do at the time. Only other things have come since, that have pretty nearly put all that out of my mind.”

“But you can’t think I was wrong to go when I felt it to be right.”

“I don’t know how that may be,” said Mrs Ray. “If you thought it right to go I suppose you were right to go; but perhaps you shouldn’t have had such thoughts.”

“Well, mother, we won’t go back to that.”

“No; we won’t, if you please.”

“This at any rate is certain, that Rachel, in departing from our usual ways of life, has brought great unhappiness upon herself. I’m afraid she is thinking of this young man now more than she ought to do.”

“Of course she is thinking of him. Why should she not think of him?”

“Why, mother! Surely it cannot be good that any a girl should think of a man who thinks nothing of her!”

Then Mrs Ray spoke out — as perhaps she had never spoken before.

“What right have you to say that he thinks nothing of her? Who can tell? He did think of her — as honestly as any man ever thought of the woman he wished to mate with. He came to her fairly, and asked her to be his wife. What can any man do more by a girl than that? And she didn’t say a word to him to encourage him till those she had a right to look to had encouraged him too. So she didn’t. And I don’t believe any woman ever had a child that behaved better, or truer, or more maidenly than she has done. And I was a fool, and worse than a fool, when I allowed anyone to have an evil thought of her for a moment.

“Do you mean me, mother?”

“I don’t mean anybody except myself; so I don’t.” Mrs Ray as she spoke was weeping bitterly, and rubbing the tears from her red eyes with her apron. “I’ve behaved like a fool to her — worse than a fool — and I’ve broken her heart. Not think of him! How’s a girl not to think of a man day and night when she loves him better than herself? Think of him! She’ll think of him till she’s in her grave. She’ll think of him till she’s past all other thinking. I hate such cruelty, and I hate myself for having been cruel. I shall never forg............