Rachel Vinrace

“ A fascinating, lovable child had Rachel Frost ever been: she was a fascinating, lovable girl. Modest, affectionate, generous, everybody liked Rachel; she had not an enemy, so far as was known, in all Deerham. Her father was nothing but a labourer on the Verner estate; but in mind and conduct he was superior to his station; an upright, conscientious, and, in some degree, a proud man: her mother had been dead several years. Rachel was proud too, in her way; proud and sensitive.
Rachel, dressed in her bonnet and shawl, passed out of the house by the front entrance. ”

“ Verner. The evening rays fell upon her exquisite face, with its soft dark eyes and its changing colour; they fell upon her silk dress, a relic of Mrs. Verner’s,—but it had not crimson stripes across it; upon her lace collar, upon the little edge of lace at her wrists. Nature had certainly intended Rachel for a lady, with her graceful form, her charming manners, and her delicate hands. ”

“ John laughed: he knew his mother did not believe him.
“The truth is, mother, I began teasing Rachel about her admirer, Luke. It made her angry.”
“What absurdity!” exclaimed Mrs. Verner, testily, to Rachel. “My opinion is, you would have done well to encourage Luke. He was steady and respectable, and old Roy must have saved plenty of money.”
Rachel burst into tears.
“What now!” cried Mrs. Verner. “Not a word can anybody say to you lately, Rachel, but you must begin to cry as if you were heart-broken. What has come to you, child? Is anything the matter with you?” ”

“ Our life is twofold; and of that double life, which, like all of us, Rachel bore within her, we have as yet said but little. She was now twenty six; a tall, thin, sallow woman, ungraceful, of shy manners, and but little speech; but with a gentle face, a broad forehead, and large brown eyes. By trade, she was a dress-maker, of small pretensions; her father had forsaken her early, and her step-mother had reared her. This much, knew the little world in which moved Rachel Gray, this much, and no more. We may add, that this some little world had, in its wisdom, pronounced Rachel Gray a fool. ”

“ This alone ought to have been sufficient to heal the breach between the tutor and the pupil; any woman with the least spark of generosity, in the position of Rachel towards Samson, would have taken the first step towards a reconciliation. Rachel, as will be seen directly, was perfectly conscious of what she ought to do under the circumstances; she was too great an actress not to have studied the finer feelings of the human heart, and yet she did not do it. ”

“ West. “Young women do not get thrown into ponds without some cause; and I should think few ever gave less cause for maltreatment of any kind than she. It appears most strange to me with whom she could have been quarrelling—if indeed it was Rachel that was quarrelling.”
“It is all strange together,” cried Lionel Verner. “What took Rachel that way at all, by night-time?” ”

“ The author of La Vendéene has not only wished to write a drama, but also to bring forward a little girl, a child of barely fifteen, called Rachel. This child is no phenomenon, and will never, thank goodness, be a prodigy. Mademoiselle Rachel acts with much feeling, enthusiasm, and intelligence, but with very little skill. She intuitively understands the part given to her; she has no need of lessons or counsel from anyone. ”

“ Venables sat with folded hands.
"This is too good of you!" cried Rachel, greeting her in a manner redeemed from hypocrisy by a touch of irresistible irony. "You know my inexperience, and you have come to tell me things, have you not? You could not have come at a better time. How do you fit in twenty-six people at one table? I wanted to have two at each end, and it can't be done!"
Mrs. Venables suppressed a smile suggestive of some unconscious humor in these remarks, but sat more upright than ever in her chair, with a hard light in the bright brown eyes that stared serenely into Rachel's own. ”

“ What ridiculous language you do use, Rachel! Well, I’m no prophet, but I see very distinctly what is going to happen. This little brown baby will be living here night and day. You’re not happy unless some child is trailing along in your rear.
Rachel (Mischievously) : Now, Ma dear, whose a hypocrite? What? I suppose you don’t like children! I can tell you one thing, though, it won’t be my fault if he isn’t here night and day. Oh, I wish he were all mine, every bit of him! Ma dear, do you suppose that “she woman” he calls mother would let him come up here until it is time for him to go to bed? ”

“ A short silence followed.
“How delightful it must be to feel well and strong!” said Rachel at length. “I can’t help often thinking of Miss Lingard. It’s always Miss Lingard comes up to me when I think of such things. Oh! ain’t she beautiful and strong, Mr. Wingfold?—and sits on her horse as straight as a rush! It does one good to see her. Just fancy me on a great tall horse! ”

“ Mademoiselle Rachel, quite bewildered, says the fatal word "toujours" no matter how. M. Samson thinks he discovers the intonation suggested by father Félix, and becomes indignant.
"You are an ungrateful pupil. You are indebted to me for success, and this is how you behave. I've done with you; adieu!"
Mademoiselle Rachel, dismayed at having offended her professor, without whose assistance she can do nothing, says "toujours" as he wishes. There is no mistaking her this time, and father Félix, in his turn, flies into a passion.
"You unnatural child! you rebellious daughter!" ”

“ Now weariness, illness, and regrets for the art she was obliged for a time to forsake, were likely to discourage her. "But be strong and hopeful! Give yourself up to that Eastern sun and warm breezes which will restore you, happy and inspired, to those who love you, and to the great art of Tragedy, which has no future but in Rachel."
"À revoir, chère et tendre mère," she wrote to her anxious, heart-broken mother from Malta, on her way to Egypt, "ne fais aucun canevas de drame pendant mon absence." ”

“ Rachel Winthrop sighed as she watched these proceedings and hushed her baby to sleep, in the small, yet comfortable rush-bottomed rocker, which was such a luxury in early Utah days. She admired and loved her husband's youngest sister, with all the strength of her affectionate soul; and she yearned with the tenderness of a mother over that indifferent, self-centered, yet handsome and sensible young person.
"I don't wonder that men admire you, Dianthy," she said, at last. "You're a fine looking girl." ”

“ Oh, if you are going to blush, how am I to tell whether you are looking well or not?"
"I am not going to blush," said Rachel; "and I am quite well. I never was better. The country air is doing me ever so much good."
"I am not so sure of that," rejoined Mr. Kingston, rather gravely, stroking her soft cheek. "You look fagged, as if you had been knocking about too much. I didn't like your going to those rubbishy little races—I told Thornley so. Have you been sitting up late at night?"
"No—I have been doing nothing," pleaded Rachel; "I am really as well as possible. How is the house getting on?" ”

“ She laughs shyly and jumping up, begins to hum. She opens the window at the rear of the room and then commences to thread the sewing-machine. She hums happily the whole time. A light rapping is heard at the outer door. Rachel listens. It stops, and begins again. There is something insistent, and yet hopeless in the sound. Rachel looking puzzled, goes out into the vestibule.... The door closes. Rachel, a black woman, poorly dressed, and a little ugly, black child come in. There is the stoniness of despair in the woman’s face. ”

“ I have made up my mind to enjoy life as much as I possibly can before I return. Away, dull care! Forward! march to the roll of drums, and, like the clown in the pantomime, make three somersaults backwards, with a 'Here I am again!' I love you, and embrace you hurriedly, for I am off to act Camille." Though only a Frenchwoman by adoption, Rachel had much in common with that changeable, volatile race, registering like a barometer every variation in the social or political horizon. ”

“ This society, which later exaggerated her faults and accused her unjustly of many things, only chose at the beginning of her career to see perfection in every act, and a heart above all the evil sentiments and violent passions which she knew so well how to portray. The success which Mademoiselle Rachel obtained in the drawing-rooms of the great, the favour full of tenderness which she knew how to win from distinguished women of the world, can only be explained by the rare qualities—I do not say of the actress, but of a young girl who was spirituelle, amiable, and always mistress of herself. ”

“ The light was fast going, but the deep glow of the western sky answered the paler gold of the new-made stubble and the ranged stooks, while between rose the dark and splendid masses of the woods.
Rachel stood looking at the scene, possessed by a pleasure which in her was always an ardour. She felt nothing by halves. The pulse of life beat in her still with an energy, a passion, that astonished herself. She was full of eagerness for her new work and for success in it, full of desires, too, for vague, half-seen things, things she had missed so Far—her own fault. ”

“ For, though it may be sweeter to love, than to be loved, yet it is hard always to give and never to receive in return; and when Jane died, Rachel knew well enough that all the love she had to receive upon earth, had been given unto her. Like the lost Pleiad, "seen no more below," the bright star of her life had left the sky. It burned in other heavens with more celestial light; but it shone no longer over her path—to cheer, to comfort, to illume.
Mrs. Gray was kind; after her own fashion, she loved Rachel. ”

“ And he looked straight at her, as one only looks at one's neighbor at table when one is saying or hearing something out of the common; he turned half round, and he looked in Rachel's face with the smile of an artist with a masterpiece in his eye. It was an inevitable moment, come at last when least expected; instinct, however, had prepared Rachel, just one moment before; and after all she could stare coldly on his enthusiasm, without a start or a tremor to betray the pose. ”

“ She darted in and out, among wheels and horses, with reckless audacity; and once, to the infinite wrath of a fat liveried coachman, she suspended herself—she was rather short—from the aristocratic reins he held, and boldly attempted to turn the heads of his horses. On week days, Madame Rose stayed in her cellar, and knitted. It was this part of her life which Rachel knew, and it was the most beautiful; for this little, laughed-at being, who lived upon charity, was, herself, all charity. Never yet, for five years that Rachel had watched her, had she seen Madame Rose alone in her cellar. ”

“ Mars and Talma could not endure these journeys far from their beloved Paris. "I am only a rustic Célimène in the provinces," the former used to declare; whilst Talma averred, "I feel like a contraband hero; my royal robes are but a farmer's coat, my sceptre but a black-thorn stick, my imperial crown adorns my bent and unimpassioned head, like an old grey hat fit to scare the birds at fruit-time."
The spirit of wandering was, however, born in Rachel. She never felt the depressing effects of an uncultured audience, and her genius never suffered from the deteriorating effects of acting to them. ”

“ In vain, thinking of her tyrant, Rachel said to herself, "I forgive that woman—I forgive her freely." She felt that she did not; that anger against this pitiless tormentor of her life smouldered in her heart like the red coal living beneath pale ashes; and Rachel was startled, and justly, to feel that so strange and unusual an emotion, anger against another, had found place in her bosom, and that though she bade it go, it stayed, and would not depart.
To be gentle is not to be passionless. The spirit of Rachel had been early subdued, too much subdued for her happiness ”

“ Only an actress with all the experience and vicissitudes of a varied career behind her could hope to grasp such a conception. But here we see a half-developed child, with none of the requisites, either voice, walk, or bearing, put forward to act a part in which lust, energy, and violence rule supreme. . . . This delicate girl, this puny overtasked frame, this undeveloped bosom, this troubled tone, could these suffice to represent the stalwart lioness whom we call Roxane? Mademoiselle Rachel appeared, and in an instant the house felt she was unequal to the task. ”

“ After the great drama comes the vaudeville. In the inn at the top of Montanvert a party of real Parisians, quite hot from the passage de l'Opéra, was stopping. A large man, probably a stockbroker, habitué of the Variétés or the Café Anglais; three young women, whose travelling dresses were copied with the greatest exactness from the Journal des Modes; and two young collegians, travelling evidently to finish their education. One of the ladies thought she recognised me. "How like Rachel she is!" "But it is Rachel herself!" answered one of the collegians. "I saw her quite lately in Phèdre. ”

“ Before leaving, she went up to her other's chair, he was not now quite so helpless as at first, and did not require her constant presence or assistance; though he still did not know her.
"I shall try and not be too long away," said Rachel in a low voice.
"Never mind," he muttered, shaking his head, "never mind."
"There's a precious old fool for you!" said Mrs. Brown laughing coarsely.
A flush of pain crossed Rachel's cheek, but to have replied, would have been to draw down a storm on her head; she silently left the house.
She found Mary feverish, restless, and full of projects. ”