WHEN the first ice was broken, Rachel became perfectly confidential with her new friends—perfectly confidential—far more so than they, accustomed to the domestic privateness of humble English life, could understand. This poor girl had no restraint upon her for family pride or family honour; no compensation in family sympathy; and her listeners, who had very little skill in the study of character, though one of them had written a novel, were extremely puzzled with a kind of doubleness, perfectly innocent and unconscious, which made Rachel’s thoughts and words at different moments like the words and the thoughts of two different people. At one time she was herself, humble, timid, and content to do anything which any authority bade her do; but in a moment she remembered Louis; and the change was instantaneous—she became proud, stately, obdurate, even defiant. She was no longer herself, but the shadow and representative of her brother; and in this view Rachel resisted and defied every influence, anchoring her own wavering will upon Louis, and refusing, with unreasonable and unreasoning obstinacy, all injunctions and all persuasions coming from those to whom her brother was opposed. She seemed, indeed, to have neither plan nor thought for herself: Louis was her inspiration. She seemed to have been born for no other purpose but to follow, to love, and to serve this brother, who to her was all the world. As she sat on the pretty chintz sofa in that sunny little dressing-room where Agnes and Marian passed the morning, running rapidly over the environs of the Old Wood Lodge, and telling them about their future neighbours, they were amazed and amused to find the total absence of personal opinion, and almost of personal liking, in their new acquaintance. She had but one standard, to which she referred everything, and that was Louis. They saw the very landscape, not as it was, but as it appeared to this wonderful brother. They became acquainted with the village and its inhabitants through the medium of Louis’s favourites and Louis’s aversions. They were young enough and simple enough themselves to be perfectly ready to invest any unknown ideal person with all the gifts of fancy; and Louis immediately leaped forth from the unknown world, a presence and an authority to them both.
“The Rector lives in the Old Wood House,” said Rachel, for the first time pausing, and looking somewhat confused in her rapid summary. “I am sure I do not know what to think—but Louis does not like him. I suppose you will not like him; and yet,”—here a little faint colour came upon the young speaker’s pale face—“sometimes I have fancied he would have been a friend if we had let him; and he is quite sure to like you.”
Saying this, she turned a somewhat wistful look upon Agnes—blushing more perceptibly, but with no sunshine or brightness in her blush. “Yes,” said Rachel slowly, “he will like you—he will do for you; and you,” she added, turning with sudden eagerness to Marian, “you are for Louis—remember! You are not to think of any one else till you see Louis. You never saw any one like him; he is like a prince to look at, and I know he is a great genius. Your sister shall have the Rector, and Louis shall be for you.”
All this Rachel said hurriedly, but with the most perfect gravity, even with a tinge of sadness—grieved, as they could perceive, that her brother did not like the Rector, but making no resistance against a doom so unquestionable as the dislike of Louis: but her timid heart was somehow touched upon the subject; she became thoughtful, and lingered over it with a kind of melancholy pleasure. “Perhaps Louis might come to like him if he was connected with you,” said Rachel meditatively; and the faint colour wavered and flickered on her face, and at last passed away with a low but very audible sigh.
“But they are all Riverses,” she continued, in her usual rapid way. “The Rector of Winterbourne is always a Rivers—it is the family living; and if Lord Winterbourne’s son should die, I suppose Mr Lionel would be the heir. His sister lives with him, quite an old lady: and then there is another Miss Rivers, who lives far off, at Abingford all the way. Did you ever hear of Miss Anastasia? But she does not call herself Miss—only the Honourable Anastasia Rivers. Old Miss Bridget was once her governess. Lord Winterbourne will never permit her to see us; but I almost think Louis would like to be friends with her, only he will not take the trouble. They are not at all friends with her at Winterbourne.”
“Is she a relation?” said Agnes. The girls by this time were so much interested in the family story that they did not notice this admirable reason for the inclination of Louis towards this old lady unknown.
“She is the old lord’s only child,” said Rachel. “The old lord was Lord Winterbourne’s brother, and he died abroad, and no one knew anything about him for a long time before he died. We want very much to hear about him; indeed, I ought not to tell you—but Louis thinks perhaps he knew something about us. Louis will not believe we are Lord Winterbourne’s children; and though we are poor disgraced children any way, and though he hates the very name of Rivers, I think he would almost rather we belonged to the old lord; for he says,” added Rachel with great seriousness, “that one cannot hate one’s father, if he is dead.”
The girls drew back a little, half in horror; but though she spoke in this rebellious fashion, there was no consciousness of wrong in Rachel’s innocent and quiet face.
“And we have so many troubles,” burst forth the poor girl suddenly. “And I sometimes sit and cry all day, and pray to God to be dead. And when anybody is kind to me,” she continued, some sudden remembrance moving her to an outburst of tears, and raising the colour once more upon her colourless cheek, “I am so weak and so foolish, and would do anything they tell me. I do not care, I am sure, what I do—it does not matter to me; but Louis—no, certainly, I will not sing to-night.”
“I wish very much,” said Agnes, with an earnestness and courage which somewhat startled Marian—“I wish very much you could come home with us to our little house in Bellevue.”
“Yes,” said Marian doubtfully; but the younger sister, though she shared the generous impulse, could not help a secret glance at Agnes—an emphatic reminder of Mamma.
“No, I must make no friends,” said Rachel, rising under the inspiration of Louis’s will and injunctions. “It is very kind of you, but I must not do it. Oh, but remember you are to come to Winterbourne, and I will try to bring Louis to see you; and I am sure you know a great deal better, and could talk to him different from me. Do you know,” she continued solemnly, “they never have given me any education at all, except to sing? I have never been taught anything, nor indeed Louis either, which is much worse than me—only he is a great genius, and can teach himself. The Rector wanted to help him; that is why I am always sure, if Louis would let him, he would be a friend.”
And again a faint half-distinguishable blush came upon Rachel’s face. No, it meant nothing, though Agnes and Marian canvassed and interpreted after their own fashion this delicate suffusion; it only meant that the timid gentle heart might have been touched had there been room for more than Louis; but Louis was supreme, and filled up all.