Rachel and Maurice and other tales

Chapter I

Last summer a newly-married couple looked out for a quiet and picturesque place in which to spend the summer months. Their choice fell on Lea Hall, a pretty house on the borders of Dartmoor, of which the owner lived abroad, and which he therefore desired to let. The Newtons were North-country people, and Devonshire was new ground to them. They were full of interest and curiosity concerning the neighbourhood, eager to make acquaintance with the famous moor, to climb the strange tors, in short to investigate all the points of interest in the country they had come to inhabit for a while. But the weather was wet, as it so often is in the west of England, and their arrival was greeted by that heavy Devonian downpour which keeps all but the half-aquatic natives indoors. It did not occur to the newly-arrived couple as a possible proceeding to go out walking in such weather.

They were simple enough to think that they had better " wait until it cleared." Meanwhile there was enough in the house itself to afford them subject for amusement and occupation. Mr. Newton inspected the pictures and studied the books in the well-filled library, whilst his wife specu lated on the habits and manners of the owners. In the fly-leaves of many handsome books were written the names of Rachel and Maurice, with a date. The dates varied much ; the earliest was written in a round childish hand : " To Rachel from Maurice, on her birthday thirteen." The last was " To Maurice, from his loving Rachel," and the word "loving" had been scratched through as if with an angry dash, ending in a large blot produced possibly by a tear falling on the ink ; and there was a photograph on the wall of one of the bedrooms, representing a boy on a pony and a girl holding the bridle rein.

Under it was written, " Rachel and Maurice Melville." Who were Rachel and Maurice ? The proprietor and his sister, Mrs. Newton thought. They must have loved each other more dearly than even an only brother and sister often do. There were so many little things about — paper-knives, blotting-cases — in which the initials " R." and " M." were intertwined. Whoever they were, they were a loving couple, and so had always been from infancy, and there was no trace of any other love, of any person dear to Maurice Melville other than Rachel. In order to elucidate the mystery, recourse was had to the old housekeeper, who confessed to having lived at Lea even in the old Squire's time ; but she eyed the new-comers, who were not Devonshire folks, a little askance. Minnie Newton, however, was an insinuating little person, and after some perseverance, succeeded in ingratiating herself with the old servant.

" It was the Squire's grandson that you last lived with, did you say ? " she began, cautiously. " Yes, ma'am." " What a pity that he does not care to live here ! " " There's a many things is a pity." " He prefers Italy I think I heard — has been a great deal abroad." " That's not so strange, seeing that he's half foreign himself, and married to a foreign wife they du say." " You did not know Mrs. Melville, then ? " " Mrs. Melville, yes ! Bless her heart ! I knew her well, since her was Miss Rachel I knew her — poor lady ! " " Oh, then Rachel was not his sister ! " " Sister, no ! She was his cousin ; but 'twas long before they thought to marry; they'd grown up to gether, so it did not come natural just at first; but when she was mistress here it was the old place once more. Her knew us, bless her !

Her knew what us expected and what us couldn't abide. There never was a word between her and me. Poor lady ! " The old woman sighed heavily. "I see," said Mrs. Newton; "she died and he married again, was that it ? " "You've not got the right end of it, not quits, ma'am," returned the old woman drily ; " but I've my work to do, and no time to stand talking, with your leave." Thare was evidently no more to be got out of the housekeeper. The weather actually did clear up the next day. The Newtons seized the opportunity to take a long ramble, and on their return found the cards of the family at the vicarage. " Melville again ! " they exclaimed in astonishment. " What are all these Melvilles to one another ? " The housekeeper was kind enough to explain that Mr. Melville down to the vicarage was own brother to the old Squire.

The visit was speedily returned, and the visitors were shown into the drawing-room, where, however, Mrs. Melville was not. The maid apologized, had thought her mistress was in, but as she was never far off she would go and seek her. The windows of the pleasant room opened on to the garden, a bright sheltered oasis in the midst of the bleak wild moor, shut in by weird tors that surrounded it on all sides. No one was to be seen in the garden ; but some one was approaching it along the moorland path. She passed through the garden gate and came towards the open window : a tall gaunt woman, dressed in black. Mrs. Newton rose as she approached and went to meet her. " Mrs. Melville ? " she said, interrogatively. "I am not Mrs. Melville," replied the lady; "but my aunt will presently be in. Pray sit down."

" You are some relation of the owner of Lea ? " began Mr. Newton. " Yes ; cousin." " You should induce your cousin to come back again. He is unworthy of such a beautiful place. Do they always live in Italy ? " " I know nothing about them." She seemed a stiff, ungracious woman, and the conversation languished until the Vicar's wife, a sweet-looking old lady, came into the room, seeming disturbed and with a flush on her soft cheeks. " I am so sorry I have kept you waiting," she said. " There was a mistake. Oh, Rachel, my dear, do not let us keep you, I know you are busy. — You will excuse my niece ? " she added, as the gaunt woman rose and left the room, and then she went on quite breathlessly with a hurried string of questions. What did they think of Dartmoor ? Were they not disappointed with the weather? — etc. etc.

" That was a charming old lady," observed Mr. Newton, putting up his umbrella to shelter his wife from the returning drizzle as they walked back across the moor; "but what a stiff, dull, stupid woman that niece seems ! I never saw such a wooden face, and her eyes might have been made of glass for all the expression in them." " Yes ; they are dead eyes," replied the wife shivering. " They are ; and her whole appearance was what the Scotch call ' thrawn ' — that is, a body compelled to go about without its spirit." " Yes ; and I think that she really is thrawn, for that was Rachel. Did you not hear Mrs. Melville call her so ? and though her body is here, her spirit is with Maurice, wherever and whatever Maurice may be. She knows nothing about him. Ah, poor woman ! Could the time ever come, love, when I should declare that I knew nothing about you and look like that ?

" By and by the Newtons came to know the story of Rachel and Maurice, and to know it to its end ; but although the main facts were too strange and striking for the imagination to improve upon, the garbled details they heard were incorrect and in sufficient enough. I have a fancy to tell it as it came about, right through.

Chapter II

Maurice Melville, son of the Vicar's nephew and possessor of the family estate, was, partly by birth, and wholly by inclination, an Italian. His mother had belonged to a good Neapolitan family, with whom his father had become intimate when travelling with a tutor. They had been married very young, and both died young at Naples. There had been Maurice's early home, and there he had left his heart. When he was twelve years old his parents both died of a fever, and he had then been brought to his English grandfather, who had no love of foreigners, and thought to make a thorough good Englishman of him, as he expressed it ; but he failed. Maurice yearned after his old home, with its beautiful bay and its sunny sky and its soft language, and as soon as the death of the old Squire made him his own master, he announced his intention of return ing to Italy for a time.

This resolution surprised nobody, but it was deplored, and there were surmises that he would return with an Italian wife, if he returned at all, and did not expatriate himself as his father had done, and that the Melvilles of Lea would be Englishmen no more. Why did he not marry his cousin Rachel, the orphan daughter of the youngest brother ? It was just like that girl not to see her opportunities. She was handsome ; but she would never marry, with that stiff ungracious manner. It was ten years since Rachel had come to inhabit the vicarage, a silent, apathetic little girl in whom, as the neighbours remarked, no one could take much interest. But what could be expected from the child of that unlucky Robert Melville, with whom everything always went wrong, and who had ended by marrying beneath him ?

Nobody exactly knew whom, though a respectable person, no doubt. The sympathy was all for that other orphan, the heir to Lea, who arrived so shortly afterwards, crying for " Mamma and Babbo and Napoli," to the old Squire's dire perplexity and distress. " We shall never make a man of him ! " he declared, looking with mingled dismay and pity on the boy so fantastically dressed in velvet, with his flaxen curls still uncropped, with his pathetic black eyes, so unlike the cold blue ones of all the Melvilles, full of tears, who could speak but a few broken words of English, and lamented himself in Italian all day long ; but the ladies of the neighbourhood voted him a darling. They petted and kissed him and tried to soothe his clamorous grief. He would not be soothed , however, until the Vicar's wife said — " Let us see what the other little orphan can do for him," and brought him Rachel.

He was curled up in a deep arm-chair sobbing, with his long curls tumbling about his face. " Mamma ! Mamma mia," he cried. " Oh, that everlasting wail ! " said the rou_rh old Squire, turning impatiently away. " I don't know what to do with the poor little mammy's pet, I'm sure. I should have thought poor Maurice might have tried to make more of a man of him, might have taught him English anyhow. What shall we do with him, Anne ? " " Leave the two together," whispered Mrs. Melville, taking the Squire's arm and leading him into the garden, where he gathered all his best roses for her, being very fond of his sister-in-law. Meantime Rachel stood beside Maurice, quite silent and immovable a long time, till his paroxysm had worn itself out, and he shook his curls from his face and gazed at her out of his reddened, tear dimmed eyes.

Her face did not express anything, but her mute patience was eloquent. He touched her black frock. " Have you lost your mamma ? " he asked. " Yes," said Rachel. Her lip and eyelids quivered, a very little ; but Maurice saw it. He threw his arms round her neck and kissed her. " E insupportabile ! non e vero . " he cried. Rachel understood that he meant " unbearable," and replied very low — " We have to bear it." Then they took hands and walked out together. From that time forth they were companions and friends, only it was always Maurice who talked, Rachel who listened. The Squire did not find his grandson so hopeless a case as he had expected. When his curls were cropped, and he was clothed in the regulation Eton costume, he seemed a manly boy enough. Though slightly made, he was well-built and active, could row and swim and ride, and was by no means want ing in spirit.

When he had soundly thrashed the stable-boy for riding his pony without leave, and better still, when he had a hand-to-hand fight with the son of a neighbour, older than himself, who had called him " Signor Stiletto," the Squire felt quite happy about him and sent him forthwith to Eton, thence to Oxford, at both of which places he held his own, in learning and in sport. At Oxford he made so many friends and became so popular, that the Squire paid his debts, which were not few, with scarcely a murmur, and the remark that " young men will be young men, and since he has not grown up a young woman, as seemed likely at first, I'll put up with him." It was always a case of putting up with him. They had not much in common, but they had a true regard for one another, so bore and forbore. Maurice stifled his home-sickness, and his yawns at the dull ness of the old place.

The Squire paid his bills and allowed him to be lazy and write verses, so long as he rode well to hounds. Now the old man was dead, and he had left no death-bed injunctions, no provisions or restrictions in his will. Such post-mortem tyranny was against his principles.

Chapter III

So you are really going, Maurice ? " " Why, 3-es, Rachel. You can't expect me to spend my life in this hole, can you ? " " No ; I suppose not," she said, with a sigh. " I must — but girls are different." " Walking in the lanes with you, and reading Dante with your uncle in the evenings are charming occupations no doubt ; but at my age one begins to want something a little more exciting ; and besides, you have never any of you understood how fond I am of Italy, where I was born — all you phlegmatic folks ! " and the speaker made a dash with his cane at the hawthorn in the hedge, damaging ruthlessly the poor pretty thing. He had a handsome discontented face that would have been called fretful in a child. The girl's was not happy either, nor contented, but it was more quiet and more firm. She was fully as tall as he was, more strongly built, for he was very slight, and she was handsome in what some people would have called a wooden way.

She was upright, and straight, and stiff. A brunette with blue eyes, whilst her companion was a blonde (if such a term can be applied to a man) with black ones. The blue eyes were deep-set and concentrated, the black, prominent and roving. A large collie followed the pair along the narrow Devonshire lane, with its high, straggling, flower-laden hedges. " Have you made any plans ? " pursued Rachel. " No, not exactly ; that is — not any very definite ones." " You never do." " Ah, well, but I shall be off pretty soon ; and if I can't let the house you will see about it, won't you ? " " Yes. Come here, Rollo ! " The command was imperious, and the dog, who had been putting his nose in a friendly manner into Maurice's hand, came to his mistress's side with his tail between his legs. " It is just like you, Rachel !

" exclaimed Maurice, with a little irritation ; " the poor dog, being yours, is not to look at any one else." " Of course not, he is my dog. I never ask for your dog's caresses and wouldn't take them." " What a nice life you'll lead your husband, if you ever marry ; I doubt if you would let him look at his grandmother." " I don't think Ishould," Rachel admitted frankly ; " so perhaps it is lucky that he does not exist and never will." " No. I suppose you never will marry ; yet when one comes to think of it, you're handsome, Rachel. One sees girls without half your good looks flirting away and getting a lot of fellows round them ; but you, nobody ever pays the least attention to you — daren't, I suppose. You are so — so — uncompromising," and he surveyed her in a puzzled, meditative manner.

She flushed deeply, and bent down to caress the dog. " It is so," she said, and she said it bitterly. " My uncle once said, when I provoked him, that not even my own mother could have loved me." " Come, that's strong. What had you done ? Beaten him at chess ? Contradicted one of his best stories ? " " The last I think. I can't let falsehood pass for truth in order that he may make a point, but in fair ness to him I must let you know the end of the speech, that not ev&a the devil could help respecting me." Maurice laughed. " So like the uncle," he observed ; " he's the soul of epigram." They were now out of the lane on to a breezy down, whence more than one tor with its stone crowned summit gave a bizarre distinction to the Devonian landscape, and presently they arrived at the gate of a granite building, standing amidst a sombre plantation of firs.

They walked in silence up the long drive, and then in at the open door to a cheerful hall, where a handsome old gentleman sat reading, and a pretty old lady knitting. The old gentleman scarcely lifted his head, but the old lady looked up with a pleasant smile, and said, " Come and warm yourselves, dears — it's damp and chilly out this evening, is it not ? " " Time to get ready for dinner," said the old gentle man, glancing at the clock on the mantelpiece. " That is for ladies ; but here, Maurice, explain your illustrious countryman's meaning if you know how." His finger traced the words in the book he was studying, and his quick eyes sought the younger man's face interrogatively. " My illustrious countryman is often too much for me," observed Maurice, "but I will try." Leaving the gentlemen to their Dante, the ladies went up-stairsto dress as suggested, and when the gong sounded, as handsome and distinguished-looking a party sat down to dinner in the old Dartmoor vicarage as could be seen in all the country round.

The Vicar was a well-made man, slight, but wiry, with a quantity of beautifully fine white hair, which stood upright on his head, and shone like silver ; his aquiline, thin-lipped face was perfect in feature, and lit up by dark-blue eyes, of the same colour as Rachel's, that sparkled with vivacity. The Vicar's wife was a lovely old lady, without a harsh line about her any where, and a delicately fair complexion. One of those women whose great charm consists in being plusfemme que les autres, who never could have wished to be a man, and whom even Mr. Mill would not have desired to see sitting in Parliament. One imagined her the mother — grandmother now, perhaps, of many children, but she had none belonging to her. The two opposite were no kith or kin of hers, but she loved Maurice dearly, and Rachel sometimes felt with a pang, " If she does not love me, it really must be because no one can, except a dog."

They talked of Maurice's journey. " It is one way of entering upon your duties as a country squire," the Vicar observed, in his short dry way. " He will perform them all the better for seeing a little of the world," Mrs. Melville said. "He won't see anything that will enlighten him on the subject of otter-hounds." " Is keeping otter-hounds the whole and sole duty of a Devonshire squire ? " asked Maurice. " Pretty nearly, as it is generally understood. No, my boy, I don't quarrel with you about that. You're an Italian, if ever there was one, and I don't blame you for shirking a life you are perfectly unfit for ; but I can't undertake to look after your affairs. Let your house to some one who can, and be off as soon as you like after that." C Maurice moved impatiently. " I think I know some one," Rachel began.

" I dare say you do," interposed the Vicar sharply. "You manage my business and your aunt's and the parish's, and I've no doubt you'd manage the Prime Minister's, if he would let you; but Maurice should look after his own." The young people both flushed, and Mrs. Melville began nervously — " Rachel does not — that is, Maurice would, I am sure — " when an unexpected diversion was created by a small slight young man stumbling breathlessly into the room. " So sorry to interrupt you in this way ; but old Parker is dying." " And he wants to say his prayers to me, does he ? Won't you do as well ? " said the Vicar to the curate. " I fear not, or I would not have troubled you indeed ; but you know his adoration for you. I thought as the last wish of a dying man I could not refuse, even at the risk of inconvenience, to let you know."

" Will he let me finish my dinner, do you think ? " Rachel flashed a pair of scornful eyes upon her uncle, and the old lady said gently — " I would go at once, my dear." The Vicar rose at this, for when his wife rebuked him ever so gently he knew that he was a sinner. " Come on, Hicks ! " he said. " Have you dined, Mr. Hicks ? " asked Mrs. Melville. " Oh, yes ; that is, I mean — not exactly, it doesn't matter," stammered the poor curate. " Do pray sit down and have something. My love, you do not require Mr. Hicks, surely, to escort you to old Parker's." " Why no — no, to be sure ; the fact is that Hicks is so much more than my right hand at all clerical duties, I'm apt to forget than I can do anything of the kind without him." "You can do it so much better," murmured Mr. Hicks — adding under his breath, " when you will."

The Vicar reluctantly departed, and poor Mr. Hicks, though famished enough, was so overwhelmed with confusion at having to eat whilst the others looked on, that he could scarcely enjoy the unusually good cheer that he swallowed down, casting furtive glances at Rachel the while. Mrs. Melville therefore motioned to her niece and withdrew, in the hope that Maurice's sole society would put the curate at his ease. The ladies adjourned to the drawing-room, and there, according to custom, Rachel challenged her uncle's wife to a game of backgammon. Rollo came and lay at her feet. She put out her hand to caress him, thinking, " The dumb beasts can love me." I am not sure whether amongst the dumb beasts she did not include the pink-eyed curate down-stairs, who dared not so much as venture upon " paying attention," but who did not attempt to conceal the fact that he worshipped the ground she trod on.

The young men soon came up. They had little in common, and were both impatient to join the ladies ; Maurice because the curate bored him, and Mr. Hicks that he might glance furtively at Rachel from under his white eye-lashes. Mr. Melville returned before very long. He had been just in time. There had been a scene which distressed him, and scenes which distressed him always made him cross. " Well, did you beat your aunt ? " he asked of Rachel, alluding to the backgammon. "Yes, as usual," said Mrs. Melville, with a little sigh, for the clear woman shared the weakness of so many old people, who cannot well bear to lose at their favourite game. " Rachel is down upon every blot so ! " she added, in a rather injured tone. "Why are you, Rachel?" asked Mr. Melville sharply. " Because it is the game, and I should consider any cheating at it most disrespectful to my aunt."

Mr. Melville gave a slight, impatient shrug. Rachel looked as much injured as Mrs. Melville. Maurice laughed. ■' Miss Melville's admirable conscientiousness — " began the curate, but became so overwhelmed at the sound of his own voice that he could not proceed, even in defence of his adored one. " — Would fit her to sit in the Supreme Court of Judicature," finished up the Vicar. " I think I'll go to bed," said Rachel. " Good-night, Aunt Anne ; I am sorry I annoyed you." The Vicar darted an angry quick glance at Rachel, as his wife said — " I hope I am not such a foolish old woman as to be annoyed about a game." She said it gently, and gave her niece a tender kiss, but the flush of annoyance deepened upon her face. " Can one forgive such a blunderer as that girl ! " said the Vicar, after the ladies had retired.

" I don't think it's blundering," said Maurice ; " it's an exaggerated conscientiousness which is, in its way, admirable." " Most admirable," murmured Mr. Hicks.

Chapter IV

The years which had elapsed since Rachel came to inhabit the vicarage had not made her more popular. Girls who did but a quarter of her work in the parish were more liked by the poor, and far less handsome girls were feted by the rich, and found admirers in plenty. It was remarked of her that she was a good girl, but stolid. She loved no one, and therefore no one could love her. This was not true. Rachel had a large heart, and loved many people. For Maurice she would willingly have died; but no one, not Maurice himself, although he was very well aware of his own attractions, guessed this. He looked upon her only in the light of a useful, even devoted, but not demonstrative sister. Her wooden face never betrayed the secrets of her heart ; her metallic voice knew no inflections. She was repellent, not from pride, not from shyness, and least of all, as was generally supposed, from want of feeling.

It was because the power of expression, and to a certain extent of perception, had been denied her. She was spiritually deaf, dumb, and blind, so lived in isolation. She had not always lived so. Rachel had once had a mother who possessed the key to that locked up heart, and had taken it with her to the grave. But of that mother she never spoke. There was a joyful light in Maurice's eyes when he went down to the vicarage to take his leave. " Good-bye, Rachel ! Look after the old place whilst I am away ! " " I will. Good-bye, Maurice," was all that passed between the cousins ; but Rachel looked a little dull that evening, as Mrs. Melville remarked. " We shall all miss Maurice," said the old lady. "Yes, Aunt Anne; I suppose so." They played their game at backgammon and Mrs. Melville won. " I don't know whether it was on purpose, but you have been a little less hard on my blots, Rachel," she observed.

" It was not on purpose, it was stupidity," said Rachel. " Has she taken a hint at last and learnt to tell a few white lies ? " the Vicar wondered. Rollo put his nose into her lap and looked up at her with his almost human eyes ; as she bent down to caress him, the room suddenly seemed to be spinning round and round. She thought some one was talking, but it sounded very far off; then the voice grew angry. " Are you asleep, Rachel ? " asked the Vicar, sharply. She started. " I think I must have been for a minute. I did not hear what you said." " It's that clothing-club ! " said Aunt Anne. " You do too much parish work. You had better go to bed, my dear." " Yes, I am sorry I was stupid. What was it you said, Uncle Melville ? " " Never mind ; you are more than half asleep. There's your candle."

Rachel got up-stairs somehow, but after that she remembered no more, for she had fallen in a swoon upon the floor. She said nothing about it, and was in her place at the breakfast-table the next morning as usual.

Chapter V

Meantime Maurice was speeding along to his beloved mother country impatient of every delay. He would stop nowhere on the way, there would be time for sight-seeing afterwards. Oh, no doubt he ought to see Paris, Milan, Rome, the Rhine, he acknowledged to officious friends and fellow-travellers. By and by, by and by, — but he must first go home, home, the home where the parents who had idolized him were buried — the mother with the black liquid eyes like his own, the father from whom he had inherited his flaxen hair. How well he remembered the sad day when he was torn from their newly-made graves, from that bright sky, from that loveliest of all bays where he had bathed and boated all the summer days. So he speeded on day and night in the express till at last weird Vesuvius came into sight with its column of vapour showing lurid against the evening sky.