Rachel Gray Part 14

"I am now your only child," she added, after a moment's pause; "the only living thing of your blood, not one relative have I in this wide world; and you, father, you too are alone. Let me come to live with you. Pray let me! If my presence is irksome to you," added Rachel, gazing wistfully in his face, as both hope and courage began to fail her, "I shall keep out of the way. Indeed, indeed," she added with tears in her eyes, "I shall."

He had heard her out very quietly, and very quietly he replied: "Rachel, what did I go to America for?"

Rachel, rather bewildered with the question, faltered that she did not know.

"And what did I come to live here for?" he continued.

Rachel did not answer; but there was a sad foreboding in her heart.

"To be alone," he resumed; and he spoke with some sternness, "to be alone." And he went back to his planing.

With tears which he saw not, Rachel looked at the stern, selfish old man, whom she called her father. The sentence which he had uttered, rung in her heart; but she did not venture to dispute its justice. Her simple pleading had been heard and rejected. More than she had said, she could not say; and it did not occur to her to urge a second time the homely eloquence which had so signally failed when first spoken. But she made bold to prefer a timid and humble pet.i.tion. "Might she come to see him?"

"What for?" he bluntly asked.

"To see how you are, father," replied poor Rachel.

"How I am," he echoed, with a suspicious gathering of the brow, "and why shouldn't I be well, just tell me that?"

"It might please Providence to afflict you with sickness," began Rachel.

"Sickness, sickness," he interrupted; indignantly, "I tell you, woman, I never was sick in my life. Is there the sign of illness, or of disease upon me?"

"No, indeed, father, there is not."

"And could you find a man of my age half so healthy, and so strong as I am--just tell me that?" he rather defiantly asked.

Poor Rachel was literal as truth. Instead of eluding a reply, she simply said: "I have seen stronger men than you, father."

"Oh I you have--have you!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed eyeing her with very little favour.

And though Rachel was not unconscious of her offence, she added: "And strong or weak, father, are we not all in the hands of G.o.d?"

From beneath his bushy grey eyebrows, Thomas Gray looked askance at his daughter; but love often rises to a fearlessness that makes it heroic, and Rachel, not daunted, resumed: "Father," she said, earnestly, "you do not want me now; I know and see it, but if ever you should--and that time may come, pray, father, pray send for me."

"Want you? and what should I want you for?" asked Thomas Gray.

"I cannot tell, I do not know; but you might want me. Remember, that if you do, you have but to send for me. I am willing, ever willing."

He looked at her as she stood there before him, a pale, sallow, sickly girl, then he laughed disdainfully, and impatiently motioned her away, as if his temper were chafed at her continued presence. Rachel felt, indeed, that her visit had been sufficiently long, and not wis.h.i.+ng to close on herself the possibility of return--for she had one of those quietly pertinacious natures that never give up hope--she calmly bade her father good-bye. Without looking at her, he muttered an unintelligible reply.

Rachel left the shop, and returned to her quiet street and solitary home.

Yet solitary she did not find it. True, Jane was out on some errand or other, but Mary was alone in the parlour. She sat with her work on her lap, crying as if her heart would break.

In vain she tried to hide or check her tears; Rachel saw Mary's grief, and forgetting at once her own troubles, she kindly sat down by the young girl, and asked what ailed her.

At first, Mary would not speak, then suddenly she threw her arms around Rachel's neck, and with a fresh burst of tears, she exclaimed: "Oh! dear, dear Miss Gray! I am so miserable."

"What for, child?" asked Rachel astonished.

"He's gone--he's gone!" sobbed Mary.

"Who is gone, my dear?"

Mary hung down her head. But Rachel pressed her so kindly to speak, that her heart opened, and with many a hesitating pause, and many a qualifying comment, Mary Jones related to her kind-hearted listener a little story, which, lest the reader should not prove so indulgent, or so patient as Rachel Gray, we will relate in language plainer and more brief.

CHAPTER XII.

Time had worn on: nine months in all had pa.s.sed away since the opening of the Teapot.

We must be quite frank: Mr. Jones had not always made the one pound ten a week dear profit; and of course this affected all his calculations: the ten per cent for increase of gain included. There had been weeks when he had not realized more than one pound, others when he made ten s.h.i.+llings, ay and there had been weeks when all he could do--if he did do so--was to make both ends meet. It was odd; but it was so. Mr. Jones was at first much startled; but, he soon learned to reconcile himself to it.

"It stands to reason," he philosophically observed to Mary, "it's business, you see, it's business." The words explained all.

Another drawback was that the front room which was worth five s.h.i.+llings a week, as his landlord had proved to Mr. Jones in their very first conversation, and for which Mr. Jones had therefore allowed--on the faith of his landlord's word--thirteen pounds a year in his accounts-- never let at all. This was the first intimation Mr. Jones received of the practical business truth, that it is necessary to allow for losses.

He had almost given up all thoughts of letting this unfortunate room, and indeed the bill had had time to turn shabby and yellow in the shop window, when one morning a young man entered the shop and in a cool deliberate tone said: "Room to let?"

"Yes, Sir," replied Jones rather impressed by his brief manner.

"Back or front?"

"Front, Sir, front. Capital room, Sir!"

"Terms?"

"Five s.h.i.+llings a-week, Sir. A room worth six s.h.i.+llings, anywhere else.

Like to see it, Sir? Mary--Mary, dear, just mind the shop awhile, will you?"

Mary came grumbling at being disturbed, whilst her father hastened upstairs before the stranger, and throwing the window open, showed him a very dusty room, not over and above well furnished.

"Capital room. Sir!" said Mr. Jones, winking shrewdly; "real Brussels carpet; portrait of Her Majesty above the mantel-piece; and that bed, Sir --just feel that bed, Sir," he added, giving it a vigorous poke, by way of proving its softness; "very cheerful look-out, too; the railroad just hard by--see all the trains pa.s.sing."

Without much minding these advantages, the stranger cast a quick look round the room, then said in his curt way: "Take four s.h.i.+llings for it?

Yes. Well then, I'll come to-night."

And without giving Mr. Jones time to reply, he walked downstairs, and walked out through the shop.

"Well, father, have you let the room?" asked Mary, when her father came down, still bewildered by the young man's strange and abrupt manner.

"Well, child," he replied, "I suppose I may say I have, for the young man is coming to-night."

"What's his name?" promptly asked Mary.

"I'm blest if I know; he never told me, nor gave me time to ask."

"But, father, you don't mean to say you let the room to him, without knowing his name?"