Ada Cambridge

“ Reade considered—and she did not at all mind saying so.
"A lover who is unfaithful does the deadliest dishonour that is possible to love, in my opinion," said she, with her customary air of decision. "To break any pledge is bad enough, but to break that pledge ought to disqualify a man from ever again calling himself a man."
"I do not think there should be any pledges in love, either given or asked for," said Rachel softly. "Love is not a thing to be tied and bound. ”

“ Hardy's evening had been triumphant and prosperous—if she had not torn her best lace, and torn it in consequence of Rachel's carelessness—she would probably have received the girl's touching confidence as a tender mother should. As it was, she felt that after all her fatigues and worries, this was really too much.
"What nonsense are you talking, child?" she exclaimed angrily. "Is it any fault of Mr. Kingston's if Miss Hale behaves like an idiot? She is nothing but a vulgar flirt, and he knows it as well as you do—only it is his way to be attentive to all women." ”

“ As if one could have everything all at once in this world. You girls think of nothing but yourselves. You don't take into account that it might be worth while to make somebody else happy."
"How could I make him happy unless I loved him, Beatrice?"
"Oh, don't talk about it. You have pleased yourself, I suppose, and he must do the best he can. He is terribly miserable as he is, poor fellow; but I daresay he'll get over it."
"Is he miserable now?" inquired Rachel anxiously. ”

“ Let me stay with you—I shall be quite happy to stay with you and Uncle Hardy, if you'll only let me!"
"You are dreaming," replied her aunt, giving her a slight shake in the extremity of her dismay and mortification; "you talk like a baby. Do you think a man is to be taken up one day [89] and thrown away the next? And it is worse than that to jilt a man—and Mr. Kingston of all people—after being engaged to him for months, as you have been, and after leading him into all sorts of preparations and expense. The bare idea is monstrous! ”

“ Reade proceeded calmly, building this comfortable theory upon the conviction that Mr. Dalrymple, in spite of his persistence in calling at Toorak, was not the kind of man to remain faithful to a ball-room fancy, nor to undertake anything so expensive and so respectable as matrimony under the most favourable conjunction of circumstances; and feeling sure that Rachel, with her clinging, impulsive nature, finding her desires frustrated in this direction, would be under an imperious necessity to seek—or, at any rate, to accept—support elsewhere. ”

“ Vows, if I understand you rightly, are immoral; and the dictates of nature should be obeyed. Nature is uncommonly likely to dictate to man who is not in love with his wife that there might possibly exist a more desirable woman."
"I don't know how to explain myself," said Rachel, who felt herself in a distressing entanglement, and yet was conscious that her principles were being utterly misconstrued; "but I know that that—what you allude to—would be an impossibility."
[284]
"Well, I daresay it would," said Mrs. Reade, after a pause. ”

“ Indeed, provided the element of debt were absent, she thought it might in Roden Dalrymple's company, "far from the madding crowd," in the lonely wilds of Queensland, be rather pleasant than otherwise; for it would mean the delight of working for and helping one another, and a blessed freedom from interruption and restraint in the enjoyment of that wonderful married life which would be theirs.
"But I should like to know what made you take to me," he went on, in the immemorial fashion, stroking her soft face. ”

“ Reade, with a sudden smile, "I don't think it is a case for chamomilla. She is not ill; she is unhappy—anyone can see that. You can see it, can't you?"
"I'm sure no girl has less cause to be unhappy," protested Mrs. Hardy [117] evasively, in a fretful and anxious tone. "It is very ungrateful of her if she is."
"But what can have caused it? She was all right when she went to Adelonga. Something must have happened while she was there. She is not merely fretting after Lucilla and the baby—oh, no, it is a deeper matter than that. ”

“ Reade, after a pause, trying to speak cheerfully, but feeling profoundly disheartened; "you ought not to have had anything to do with lovers and marriages at your time of life, and you must just give up thinking of such things until you are older and wiser."
"I shall never give him up," said [266] Rachel quietly; "never, if I live to be a hundred. I have told Aunt Elizabeth—I told her to tell Mr. Kingston—that I shall never love any other man. It would be impossible, after loving him. When I am well I shall ask her to let me go out and be a governess, and earn my own living. ”

“ Dalrymple aside, Rachel. Suppose you were yourself married, not to him, but to someone you did not particularly care for?"
"That could never be," the girl replied quickly.
"Oh, I don't know. It was very nearly being, I may take leave to remind you. None of us can forsee what will happen, and 'never' is a ridiculous word for a child like you to use. You will not live an old maid for fifty or sixty years because you are disappointed in [285] a lover whom you have known for a few days—don't you believe it." ”

“ Reade, watching the effect of her prescription day by day, thought things were going on very nicely, and took great credit to herself. She could plainly perceive that the disturbing element in the family arrangements was no trifling ball-room fancy; but she had great faith in the girl's youth and gentle character, and in the efficacy of judicious treatment, and it seemed to her that her faith had not been misplaced.
At any rate, she justified her reputation [140] as a clever woman by the tact she displayed in the management of her self-imposed task. ”

“ And it was no matter of choice with me—you know that, too."
"A man who made shipwreck of his fortunes for another woman almost before you were born——"
"Hush!" interrupted Rachel. "I have no rights in your past, and I don't want any. This present is mine, and that is enough for me."
"A battered old vagabond——"
"No," she persisted; "I won't allow you to call yourself a vagabond. It is bad enough to hear other people do it."
"After seeing him under what one would be inclined to consider, well, anything but favourable auspices—for how many days, Rachel?" ”

“ Laura wrote to say that the Toorak House, if it had any respect for itself, must immediately get rid of its pierglasses, its whitewash, and its aniline colours; and poor Mrs. Hardy, who had ever walked with the complacent dignity of a priestess and oracle in the sacred regions of household art, was too much excited and disturbed by the humiliating discovery that she was old-fashioned and behind the times, and by her agonising desire to recover her proper position, to pay the customary attention even to Rachel's business. ”

“ I never knew him take any notice of a girl of that sort before."
"There is no accounting for men's tastes, my dear."
"Oh, yes," Mrs. Reade replied promptly; "I know that Minnie Hale is not his taste. I know he did not go on with her as you say he did, merely for the pleasure of it to himself. I think it must have been to spite Rachel."
"Beatrice!"
"Yes, mother—that is what I think. It is the only reasonable motive he could have had."
"But why on earth should he wish to spite Rachel?" ”

“ It is a great disappointment to you not to go, isn't it? At first I thought I would not tell you anything about it."
"Ah, but I am glad you told me," said Rachel; "for I must send a message [238] to Lucilla to thank her. She knows how I loved to be at Adelonga—I think it is the sweetest place in the wide world."
"I wish I could take you," said Mrs. Reade; "but——"
"Oh, no, Beatrice, I cannot go, I know. Indeed, I would rather not. I would rather stay with Aunt Elizabeth, and go on with my lessons."
Mrs. Reade was considerably astonished and disconcerted by this evidently genuine sentiment. ”

“ Mr. Dalrymple explained, when, having taken her out of her hole and dusted her skirts with his handkerchief, he led her through the labyrinth of walls into the open moonlight, and they paused, hand in hand, for a few last words. "We have an immense deal to do up there, and Gordon wants me. I must look after getting things together for you too. There is not even a roof for your head [185] yet. But I can't bear to leave town without knowing first how matters are likely to go with you."
"If you should be obliged to do that—if I cannot see you again," said Rachel, "when will you come back?" ”

“ Excuse me a few minutes, Kingston."
"Certainly," replied Mr. Kingston. And then he went out.
"How stupid they are!" cried poor Rachel to herself, almost stamping her foot with vexation. But there was no help for it. The affianced couple were once more left to themselves—as affianced [13] couples should be, and should like to be—in the pleasant firelight and no less pleasant twilight shadows that were filling the quiet room.
Mr. Kingston rose, took his reluctant sweetheart's hand, and led her back to the sofa by the hearth. ”

“ However, the day was fine, and the drive was lovely. As she was carried along, with the soft air blowing in her face, full of the delicious fragrance of golden wattle, Rachel ceased to cry—becoming calm, and pensive, and pretty again—and took to meditation; wondering, for the most part, what Queensland was like, and how it was she could ever have thought Melbourne, as [97] a place of residence, preferable to the bush. ”

“ It is nature that tells us to do the one as well as the other; and nature should be obeyed, Roden says."
Mrs. Reade made no comment upon this, but thought to herself that it was a remarkably wise provision of nature—under the circumstances—that her devotee was endowed with the courage of his convictions.
"It is very hard for me now, but it is the truest kindness and gentleness on his part," the girl went on, with a tremor in her quiet voice. "He knows we understand each other better than any one else can do. ”

“ And yet what else could he do?
"Tell me," he said presently, stroking her silky head as it lay on his breast, "tell me what is the worst that can happen to you, Rachel?"
"The worst," sighed Rachel, "will be hearing Aunt Elizabeth tell me that I have repaid all her generosity and kindness to me with ingratitude and treachery."
"That will be very bad. But you will have to try and make her understand the real right and justice of it, love. She must see it, unless she is stone blind. She can't expect us to outrage all the laws of nature to suit [176] her narrow schemes. ”

“ CHAPTER X. MRS. READE'S ADVICE.
RACHEL was not a heroine. She was simply a sweet and interesting girl; except that she was unusually pretty, by no means above the ordinary level of nice girls. She was better than a great many that we are acquainted with, no doubt, but she was not so good as some.
And she had, as has been already indicated, that fault which, of all [192] faults, perhaps, is most common to girls, whether nice or otherwise—that amiable weakness that is more disastrous in its consequences than many a downright vice—she was, if not quite a coward, cowardly. ”

“ It was your comfort and happiness I was thinking of."
"I only want to be with you," she said, [179] under her breath. "I don't care where—I don't care how."
"Really, Rachel?"
"Really, indeed."
"You are so young! Think what a number of years you have before you, in all probability. If you should lose the colour out of your life too soon, if you should have to drudge—but I won't let you drudge," he added, with a sudden touch of fierceness, "I will take care of you, and you shall have all you want. ”

“ Clearly, the first thing to do was to dispose of ambiguities between themselves.
"Come into the conservatory," he said, in a quick under tone, when five silent, delicious minutes had passed; "I want to say something to you before these people begin to spread all over the place again."
But even as he spoke, as if a spell had been broken, the light and rapture died suddenly out of her face, her limbs relaxed, her airy footsteps faltered, she seemed to melt away in his arms. ”

“ Reade.
"Beatrice, I was nearly mad—I don't know what I said. She was very angry—she always hated him. But I did not care—I was too miserable to [264] care. And I made her swear that he had never come; and now—it is nearly February—now I know he didn't. I don't want anybody to tell me."
Mrs. Reade put all these revelations into her mental crucible, and in a few seconds she had the product ready. On presenting it to Rachel, wrapped up in the gentlest language, it came to this simply—that "it was always the way with men of that kind."
"He is not like other men," said Rachel. "I do not blame him. ”

“ Reade.
"Yes," Mrs. Hardy admitted, with evident reluctance, "I am afraid she did like him."
"I am sure she did," said Mrs. [128] Reade, decisively. "And there is more than liking in the matter, unless I am much mistaken. I have never been in love myself," she remarked frankly, "but I fancy I know the symptoms when I see them. I feared from the first that it was something of that sort that was the matter with her. At any rate—" putting up her hand to stay the imminent protest on her mother's lips—"at any rate, if he has not made her love him, he has made her discontented with Mr. Kingston." ”

“ Thornley's invitation, sent a telegram to her nearest post-town, to tell her he would start for Adelonga on the following day, and await at the inn where he left the railway the buggy she was kind enough to say should be sent to meet him.
There was much amusement at [2] Adelonga over this unwonted promptitude on the part of an idle and self-indulgent man, who had never been known to hurry himself, or to go into the country willingly; and Rachel was teased in fun and congratulated in earnest on the strong hold she had gained upon his erewhile erratic affections. ”

“ She tried to smile and joke, in a considerate and well-bred manner; she rallied him upon his misconduct in the matter of Miss Hale, which had evidently been at the bottom of all the mischief, gently pointing out to him that a sensitive nature like Rachel's, and a tender heart that loved and trusted him, could not be played with, [203] even in the conventional fashion, with impunity. ”