Rachel Gray Part 17

Rachel did know it, and groaned inwardly. Mrs. Brown saw her agony, and triumphed in the consciousness of her own power. But the very violence of her anger had by this time exhausted it; she felt much calmer, and took a more rational view of things.

"I am a fool to mind what a simpleton like you does," observed Mrs.

Brown, with that disregard of politeness which was one of her attributes; "for, being a simpleton, how can you but do the acts of a simpleton? As to bringing your father here, you must have been mad to think of it; for, if you can't support yourself, how can you support him? However, it's lucky I'm come in time to set all to rights. What's his parish?

Marylebone, ain't it? I shall see the overseer this very day, and manage that for you; and it's just as well," added Mrs. Brown, divesting herself of bonnet and shawl, and proceeding to make herself at home, "that you didn't meddle, in it--a pretty mess you'd have made of it, I'll be bound. Well! and what do you stand dreaming there for? Make me a cup of tea--will you? I am just ready to drop with it all."

As a proof of her a.s.sertion, she sank on the chair next her, took out her pocket-handkerchief, and began fanning herself. But, instead of complying with Mrs. Brown's orders, Rachel Gray stood before that lady motionless and pale. She looked her in the face steadily, and in a firm, clear voice, she deliberately said:

"Mrs. Brown, my father shall never, whilst I live, go to a workhouse."

"What!" screamed Mrs. Brown.

"I say," repeated Rachel, "that my father shall never, whilst G.o.d gives his daughter life, go to a workhouse."

Mrs. Brown was confounded--then she laughed derisively.

"Nonsense, Rachel," she said, "nonsense. Why, I can turn you out, this very instant."

But the threat fell harmless, Rachel was strong in that hour; her cheek had colour, her eye had light, her heart had courage. She looked at the helpless old man, who had drawn this storm on her head, then at Mrs.

Brown, and calmly laying her hand on the shoulder of Thomas Gray, she again looked in Mrs. Brown's face, and silently smiled. Her choice was made--her resolve was taken.

"Will you send him to the workhouse, or not?" imperatively cried Mrs.

Brown.

"No," deliberately replied Rachel.

"Oh! very well, ma'am, very well," echoed Mrs. Brown, laughing bitterly; "please yourself--pray please yourself. So, that is my reward for saving you from beggary, is it? Very well, ma'am; you and your father may pack off together--that's all."

"Be it so," rather solemnly replied Rachel, "be it so. What I leave in this house will, I trust, cancel the debt I owe you. Father," she added, stooping towards him, "lean on my shoulder, and get up. We must go."

With apathy Thomas Gray had heard all that had pa.s.sed, and with apathy, he trembling rose, and complied with Rachel's intimation, and looking in her face, he uttered his usual childish: "Never mind."

But before they reached the door, Mrs. Brown, to the surprise and dismay of Rachel, went into violent hysterics. She was an over-bearing and ill-tempered woman, but her heart was not wholly unkind; and on seeing that Rachel so readily took her at her word, she was overwhelmed with mingled rage and shame. Hastily making her father sit down on the nearest chair, Rachel ran to Mrs. Brown's a.s.sistance. A fit of weeping and bitter reproaches followed the hysterics; and Rachel was convicted of being the most ungrateful creature on the face of the earth. In vain Rachel attempted a justification; Mrs. Brown drowned her in a torrent of speech, and remained the most injured of women.

The scene ended as such scenes ever end. There was a compromise; the victim made every concession, and the triumphant tyrant gained more than her point. In short, that her father might not want the shelter of a roof, Rachel agreed to remain in the house, and Mrs. Brown kindly agreed to come and live in it, and use Rachel as her servant and domestic slave, by which Mrs. Brown, besides keeping her firm hold on Rachel--no slight consideration with one who loved power beyond everything else--effected a considerable saving in her income.

"Oh! my father--my father!" thought Rachel, as she bent over his chair that night, and tears, which he felt not, dropped on his gray hair, "little do you know what I shall have to bear for your sake."

She did not speak aloud, yet he seemed vaguely conscious that something lay on her mind; for he shook his head, and uttered his eternal "Never mind--never mind!"

"And I will not mind--so help me G.o.d!" fervently answered Rachel aloud.

And she did not mind; but, alas! what now was her fate? Ask it not. She had made her sacrifice in the spirit of utter abnegation, and none need count the cost which she never reckoned.

CHAPTER XV.

The same cloud of trouble and sorrow that now darkened the daily life of Rachel Gray, soon gathered over her neighbours and friends. With boding and pain, she watched the coming of a calamity, to them still invisible.

Mr. Jones got up one morning, and felt exactly as usual. He took down his shutters, and no presentiment warned him of the sight that was going to greet his eyes.

The Teapot stood at the corner of a street which had naturally another corner facing it; that corner--let it be angle, if you like, critical reader--had, from time immemorial, been in the possession of a brown, tottering, untenanted house, whose broken parlour windows Mr. Jones had always seen filled with, blank oak shutters, strong enough for security and closing within.

But now, to his dismay, he saw half-a-dozen workmen pulling down the bottom of the house, and leaving the top untouched. His heart gave a great thump in his bosom. "I'm a lost man," he thought, "they're making a shop of it."

And so they were, but what sort of a shop was it to be? That was the question. Jones lost no time; he put down his shutter, thrust his hands in his pocket--his usual resource when he wanted to look unconcerned-- sauntered awhile down the street, talked to some children, and finally came back to the workmen.

"Pulling it down," he said, after looking at them for awhile, "an old rubbis.h.i.+ng concern--ain't it?"

"Pulling it down!" echoed one of the workmen, giving him a contemptuous look, "much you know about it."

"Well, but what is it to be?" asked Jones, looking as simple as he could, "stables?"

"Stables! a shop, stupid!"

"Oh! a shop! Ah! it's to be a shop, is it? And what sort of a shop-- public-house? We want one."

"Better ask Mr. Smithson; the house is his."

"Oh! it's Mr. Smithson's, is it?"

Jones walked away much relieved.

Mr. Smithson had long talked of removing himself and his earthenware to some larger tenement than that which he now occupied; a pleasant neighbour he was not; but anything was better than the fear which had for a moment seized the heart of Richard Jones.

The workmen did not linger over their task, indeed, Mr. Smithson took care that they should not. Night and morning, the whole day long, Jones saw him after them; he watched him through the pots of Scotch marmelade that decorated the front of his shop window, and internally admired the indefatigable zeal Mr. Smithson displayed. Humbly, too, he contrasted it with his own deficiencies in that respect "I ain't got no spirit; that's the fact of it," confessed Mr. Jones in his own heart.

In a comparatively short s.p.a.ce of time, the bricklayers had done their task; they were succeeded by the carpenters, who proved as zealous and as active. And now fear and trembling once more seized the heart of Richard Jones. What were those busy carpenters about? why were they fabricating shelves and drawers? drawers of every size, some small, some large, just such drawers as he had in his shop? He questioned one of their body: what was to be sold in that shop--did he know? The man could not tell, but rather fancied it was to be an oil and colour shop. Then it was not to be Mr. Smithson's own? Oh, no, certainly!

Jones walked away, a prey to the most tormenting anxiety. Was the man right--was he wrong? had he spoken the truth? had he deceived him? Was he, Jones, now that his business was really improving, was he threatened with a rival? Or was this but a false alarm, the phantom of his fears?

what would he not have given to think so! His ease was the more distressing, that he dared unburthen his mind to none, to Mary least of any. She, poor little thing, far from sharing her father's fears, rejoiced in the prospect of a new shop.

"It'll make the street quite gay," she said to her father, "especially if it's a linen-draper's. I wonder if they'll have pretty bonnets."

She tried to obtain information on this interesting point, but failed completely. Suspense is worse than the worst reality. Richard Jones lost appet.i.te and sleep. Slumber, when it came, was accompanied by such fearful nightmare, that waking thoughts, though bitter, were not, at least, so terrible. He could not forget the opposite shop; in the first place, because he saw it every morning with his bodily eyes; in the second, because it ever haunted that inward eye called by Wordsworth 'the bliss of solitude.' How far it proved a bliss to Richard Jones, the reader may imagine.

All this time the shop had been progressing, and now bricklayer, carpenter, glazier, and decorator haying done their work, it was completed and ready for its tenant, who, however, seemed in no hurry to appear. This proved the worst time for Richard Jones. To look at that shop all the day long, and not to be able to make anything of it; to wonder whether it were a friend or an enemy; whether it would give new l.u.s.tre to the street on which he had cast his fortunes, or blast those fortunes in their very birth, was surely no ordinary trial. Well might he grow thin, haggard, and worn.

At length, the crisis came. At the close of November, a dread rumour reached his ears. The shop was to be a grocer's shop, and it was to open a week before Christmas.

That same evening, Mary came home crying, and much agitated. Mrs. Brown, with her usual kindness, had given information.

"Oh, father!" she exclaimed, "Mrs. Brown says it's to be a grocer's shop."

"So I have heard to-day," he replied, a little gloomily. "Never mind, child," he added, attempting to cheer up, and a rueful attempt it turned out, "never mind, I dare-say there's room for two."

He said it, but he knew it was not true; he knew there was room but for one, and that if two came, why, either both must perish after a fierce contest, or one survive and triumph over the ruin of the other's all. He knew it, and groaned at the thought.