Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/26

18 business between you and Luke,” he said, lowering his voice. “What’s the rights of it?”

“Between me and Luke?” she repeated, turning upon the bailiff an eye that had some scorn in it, and stopping now of her own accord. “There is no business whatever between me and Luke. There never has been. What do you mean?”

“Chut!” cried the bailiff. “Don’t I know that he has followed your steps everywhere like a shadder; that he has been ready to kiss the very ground you trod on? And right mad I have been with him for it. You can’t deny that he has been after you, wanting you to be his wife.”

“I do not wish to deny it,” she replied. “You and the whole world are quite welcome to know all that has passed between me and Luke. He asked to be allowed to come here to see me; to ‘court’ me, he phrased it; which I distinctly declined. Then he took to follow me about. He did not molest me, he was not rude—I do not wish to make it out worse than it was—but it is not pleasant, Mr. Roy, to be followed whenever you may take a walk, let the distance kept be ever so great. Especially by one you dislike.”

“What is there to dislike in Luke?” interrupted the bailiff.

“Perhaps I ought to have said by one you do not like,” she resumed. “To like Luke, in the way he wished, was impossible for me, and I told him so from the first. When I found that he followed my steps I spoke to him again, and threatened that, if it were persisted in, I should acquaint Mr. Verner. I told him, once for all, that I could not like him, and never would have him. That is all that has ever passed between me and Luke.”

“Well, your hard-heartedness has done for him, Rachel Frost. It has drove him away from his native home, and sent him, a exile, to rough it in foreign lands. You may fix upon one as won’t do for you and be your slave as Luke would. He could have kept you well.”

“I heard he had gone to London,” she remarked.

“London!” returned the bailiff, slightingly. “That’s only the first halt on the journey. And you have drove him to it!”

“I can’t help it,” she replied. “I had no natural liking for him, and I could not force it. I don’t believe he has gone away for that trifling reason, Mr. Roy. If he has, he must be very foolish.”

“Yes, he is foolish,” muttered the bailiff to himself as he strode away. “He’s a idiot, that’s what he is! and so be all men that loses their wits a sighing after a girl. Vain, deceitful, fickle creatures, the girls be when they’re young; but once let them get a hold on you, your ring on their finger, and they turn into vixenish, snarling women! Hags! Luke’s a sight best off without her.”

Rachel Frost proceeded in-doors. The door of the steward’s room stood open, and she turned into it, fancying it was empty. Down on a chair sat she, a marked change coming over her air and manner. Her bright colour had faded, her hands hung down listless; and there was an expression on her face, of care, of perplexity. Suddenly she lifted her hands and struck her temples, with a gesture that looked very like despair.

“What ails you, Rachel?”

The question came from Frederick Massingbird, who had been standing at the window behind the high desk, unobserved by Rachel. Violently startled, she sprang up from her seat, her face a glowing crimson, muttering some disjointed words, to the effect that she did not know anybody was there.

“What were you and Roy discussing so eagerly in the yard?” continued Frederick Massingbird. But the words had scarcely escaped his lips, when the housekeeper, Mrs. Tynn, entered the room. She had a mottled face and mottled arms, her sleeves just now being turned up to the elbow.

“It was nothing particular, Mr. Frederick,” replied Rachel.

“Roy is gone, is he not?” he continued to Rachel.

“Yes, sir.”

“Rachel,” interposed the housekeeper, “are those things not ready yet, in the laundry?”

“Not quite. In a quarter of an hour, they say.”

The housekeeper, with a word of impatience at the laundry’s delay, went out and crossed the yard towards it. Frederick Massingbird turned again to Rachel.

“Roy seemed to be grumbling at you.”

“He accused me of being the cause of his son’s going away. He thinks I ought to have noticed him.”

Frederick Massingbird made no reply. He raised his finger and gently rubbed it round and round the mark upon his cheek: a habit he had acquired when a child, and they could not entirely break him off it. He was seven-and-twenty years of age now, but he was sure to begin rubbing that mark unconsciously, if in deep thought. Rachel resumed, her tone a covert one, as if the subject on which she was about to speak, might not be breathed, even to the walls.

“Roy hinted that his son was going to foreign lands. I did not choose to let him see that I knew anything, so remarked that I had heard he was gone to London. ‘London!’ he answered: ‘that was only the first halting-place on the journey! ”

“Did he give any hint about John?”

“Not a word,” replied Rachel. “He would not be likely to do that.”

“No. Roy can keep counsel, whatever other virtues he may run short of. Suppose you had joined your fortunes to sighing Luke’s, Rachel, and gone out with him to grow rich together?” added Frederick Massingbird, in a tone which could be taken for either jest or earnest.

She evidently took it as the latter, and it appeared to call up an angry spirit. She was vexed almost to tears. Frederick Massingbird detected it.

“Silly Rachel!” he said with a smile. “Do you suppose I should really counsel your throwing yourself away upon Luke Roy?—Rachel,” he continued, as the housekeeper again made her appearance, “you must bring up the things as