For, though it may be sweeter to love, than to be loved, yet it is hard always to give and never to receive in return; and when Jane died, Rachel knew well enough that all the love she had to receive upon earth, had been given unto her. Like the lost Pleiad, "seen no more below," the bright star of her life had left the sky. It burned in other heavens with more celestial light; but it shone no longer over her path--to cheer, to comfort, to illume.
Mrs. Gray was kind; after her own fashion, she loved Rachel. They had grieved and suffered together from the same sorrows, and kindred griefs can bind the farthest hearts; but beyond this there was no sympathy between them, and Mrs. Gray"s affection, such as it was, was free from a particle of tenderness.
She was not naturally a patient or an amiable woman; and she had endured great and unmerited wrongs from Rachel"s father. Perhaps, she would have been more than human, had she not occasionally reminded her step-daughter of Mr. Thomas Gray"s misdeeds, and now and then taunted her with a "He never cared about you--you know."
Aye--Rachel knew it well enough. She knew that her own father loved her not--that though he had cared little for Jane, not being a tender-hearted man, still that he had cared somewhat, for that younger, and more favoured child. That before he left England, he would occasionally caress her; that when she died, tears had flowed down his stern cheek on hearing the tidings, and that the words had escaped him: "I am sorry I was not there."
All this Rachel knew. Her mind was too n.o.ble, and too firm for jealousy; her heart too pious, and too humble for rebellious sorrow; but yet she found it hard to bear, and very hard to be reminded of it as a reproach and a shame.
Was it not enough that she could not win the affection she most longed for? She was devoted to her step-mother; she had fondly loved her younger sister; but earlier born in her heart than these two loves, deeper, and more solemn, was the love Rachel felt for her father. That instinct of nature, which in him was silent, in her spoke strongly. That share of love which he denied her, she silently added to her own, and united both in one fervent offering. Harshness and indifference had no power to quench a feeling, to which love in kindness had not given birth. She loved because it was her destiny; because, as she once said herself, when speaking of another: "A daughter"s heart clings to her father with boundless charity."
Young as she was when Thomas Gray left his home, Rachel remembered him well. His looks, the very tones of his voice, were present to her. Not once, during the years of his absence, did the thought of her father cease to haunt her heart. When, from the bitter remarks of her step-mother, she learned that he had returned, and where he had taken up his home, she had no peace until she succeeded in obtaining a glimpse of him. Free, as are all the children of the poor, she made her way to the street where he lived, and many a day walked for weary miles in order to pa.s.s by her father"s door. But she never crossed the threshold, never spoke to him, never let him know who she was, until the sad day when she bore to him the news of her sister"s death.
He received her with his usual coldness--in such emotion as he showed, she had no share, like strangers they had met--like strangers they parted. But, though his coldness and her own timidity prevented nearer advances, they did not prevent Rachel from often seeking the remote neighbourhood and gloomy street where her father dwelt.
It was a pleasure, though a sad one, to look on his face, even if she went not near him; and thus it happened, that on this dark night she stood in the sheltering obscurity of the well-known doorway, gazing on the solitary old man, yet venturing not to cross the narrow street.
The wind blew from the east. It was cold and piercing; yet it could not draw Rachel from her vigil of love. Still she looked and lingered, wishing she knew not what; and hoping against hope. Thus she stayed, until Thomas Gray left his work, put up the shutters, then left the house by the private door, and slowly walked away to the nearest public-house.
The shop was once more a blank in the dark street. Rachel looked at the deserted dwelling and sighed; than softly and silently she stole away.
CHAPTER III.
It was late when Rachel reached home. She found her step-mother sitting up for her, rigid, amazed y indignant--so indignant, indeed, that though she rated Rachel soundly for her audacity in presuming to stay out so long without previous leave obtained, she quite forgot to inquire particularly why she had not come home earlier. A series of disasters had been occasioned by Rachel"s absence; Jane and Mary had quarrelled, Mrs.
Gray had been kept an hour waiting for her supper, the beer had naturally become flat and worthless, and whilst Mrs. Gray was sleeping--and how could she help sleeping, being quite faint and exhausted with her long vigil--puss had got up on the table and walked off with Rachel"s polony.
There was a touch of quiet humour in Rachel, and with a demure smile, she internally wondered why it was precisely her polony that had been selected by puss, but aloud she merely declared that she could make an excellent supper on bread and beer. Mrs. Gray, who held the reins of domestic management in their little household, a.s.sured her that she had better, for that nothing else was she going to get; she sat down heroically determined to eat the whole of her polony in order to punish and provoke her step-daughter; but somehow or other the half of that dainty had, before the end of the meal, found its way to the plate of Rachel, who, when she protested against this act of generosity, was imperiously ordered to hold her tongue, which order she did not dare to resist; for if Mrs. Gray"s heart was mellow, her temper was sufficiently tart.
The apprentices had long been gone to bed; as soon as supper was over, Mrs. Gray intimated to Rachel the propriety of following their example.
Rachel ventured to demur meekly.
"I cannot, mother--I have work to finish."
"Then better have sat at home and finished it, than have gone gadding about, and nearly got a pitch plaster on your mouth," grumbled Mrs. Gray, who was a firm believer in pitch plasters, and abductions, and highway robberies, and all sorts of horrors. "Mind you don"t set the house a fire," she added, retiring.
"Why, mother," said Rachel, smiling, "you treat me like a child, and I am twenty-six."
"What about that? when you aint got no more sense than a baby."
Rachel did not venture to dispute, a proposition so distinctly stated.
She remained up, and sat sewing until her work was finished; she then took out from some secret repository a small end of candle, lit it, and extinguished the long candle, by the light of which she had been working.
From her pocket she took a small key; it opened a work-box, whence she drew a shirt collar finely st.i.tched; she worked until her eyes ached, but she heeded it not, until they closed with involuntary fatigue and sleep, and still she would not obey the voice of wearied nature; still she st.i.tched for love, like the poor shirtmaker for bread, until, without previous warning, her candle end suddenly flickered, then expired in its socket, and left her in darkness. Rachel gently opened the window, and partly unclosed the shutter; the moon was riding in the sky above the old house opposite, her pale clear light glided over its brown walls and the quiet street, down into the silent parlour of Rachel. She looked around her, moved at seeing familiar objects under an unusual aspect. In that old chair she had often seen her father sitting; on such a moonlight night as this she and Jane, then already declining, had sat by the window, and looking at that same sky, had talked with youthful fervour of high and eternal things. And now Jane knew the divine secrets she had guessed from afar, and Thomas Gray, alas! was a stranger and an alien in his own home.
"Who knows," thought Rachel, "but he will return some day? Who knows-- who can tell? Life is long, and hope is eternal. Ah! if he should come back, even though he never looked at me, never spoke, blessed, thrice blessed, should ever be held the day..." And a prayer, not framed in words, but in deep feelings, gushed like a pure spring from her inmost heart. But, indeed, when did she not pray? When was G.o.d divided from her thoughts? When did prayer fail to prompt the kind, gentle words that fell from her lips, or to lend its daily grace to a pure and blameless life?
For to her, G.o.d was not what He, alas! is to so many--an unapproachable Deity, to be worshipped from afar, in fear and trembling, or a cold though sublime abstraction. No, Jesus was her friend, her counsellor, her refuge. There was familiarity and tenderness in her very love for Him; and, though she scarcely knew it herself, a deep and fervent sense of His divine humanity of those thirty-three years of earthly life, of toil, of poverty, of trouble, and of sorrow which move our very hearts within us, when we look from Bethlehem to Calvary, from the lowly birth in the Manger to the bitter death on the Cross.
We might ask, were these the pages to raise such questions, why Jesus is not more loved thus--as a friend, and a dear one, rather than as a cold master to be served, not for love, but for wages. But let it rest.
Sufficient is it for us to know that not thus did Rachel Gray love him, but with a love in which humility and tenderness equally blended.
After a meditative pause, she quietly put away her things by moonlight, then again closed shutter and window, and softly stole up to the room which she shared with her step-mother. She soon fell asleep, and dreamed that she had gone to live with her father, who said to her, "Rachel!
Rachel!" So great was her joy, that she awoke. She found her mother already up, and scolding her because she still slept.
"Mother," asked Rachel, leaning up on one elbow, "was it you who called me, Rachel?"
"Why aint I been a calling of you this last hour?" asked Mrs. Gray, with much asperity.
Rachel checked a sigh, and rose.
"Get up Jane--get up Mary," said Mrs. Gray, rapping soundly at the room door of the two apprentices.
"Let them sleep a little longer, poor young things!" implored Rachel.
"No, that I won"t," replied her mother, with great determination, "lazy little creatures."
And to the imminent danger of her own knuckles, she rapped so pertinaciously, that Jane and Mary were unable to feign deafness, and replied, the former acting as spokeswoman, that Mrs. Gray needn"t be making all that noise; for that they heard her, and were getting up. "I thought I"d make them hear me," muttered Mrs. Gray, hobbling down stairs.
There are some beings who lead lives so calm, that when they look back on years, they seem to read the story of a few days; and of these was Rachel Gray. Life for her flowed dull, monotonous and quiet, as that of a nun in her cloister. The story of one day was the story of the next. A few hopes, a few precious thoughts she treasured in her heart; but outwardly, to work, to hear idle gossip, to eat, drink, and sleep, seemed her whole portion, her destiny from mom till night, from birth to the grave.
Like every day pa.s.sed this day. When it grew so dark that she could see no more to work, she put her task by, and softly stole away to a little back room up-stairs.
It was a very small room indeed, with a bed, where the apprentices slept; a chest of drawers, a table, and two chairs:--many a closet is larger.
Its solitary window looked out on the little yard below; low walls, against which grew Rachel"s stocks and wall-flowers, enclosed it. From the next house, there came the laughter and the screams too of children, and of babies; and from a neighbouring forge, a loud, yet not unmusical clanking, with which now and then, blended the rude voices of the men, singing s.n.a.t.c.hes of popular songs. Dimmed by the smoke of the forge, and by the natural heaviness of a London atmosphere, the sky enclosed all; yet, even through the smoke and haze, fair rosy gleams of the setting sun shone in that London sky, and at the zenith there was a s.p.a.ce of pure, ethereal blue--soft, and very far from sinful and suffering earth, where glittered in calm beauty a large and tranquil star.
Rachel sat by the window. She listened to earth: she looked at Heaven.
Her heart swelled with love, and prayer, and tenderness, and hope. Tears of delight filled her eyes; she murmured to herself verses from psalms and hymns--all praising G.o.d, all telling the beauty of G.o.d"s creation.
Oh! pure and beautiful, indeed, would be the story of these your evening musings, if we could lightly tell it here, Rachel Gray.
Reader, if to learn how a fine nature found its way through darkness and mist, and some suffering to the highest, and to the n.o.blest of the delights G.o.d has granted to man--the religious and the intellectual; if, we say, to learn this give you pleasure, you may read on to the end of the chapter; if not, pa.s.s on at once to the next. These pages were not written for you; and even though you should read them, feel and understand them, you never will.
Our life is twofold; and of that double life, which, like all of us, Rachel bore within her, we have as yet said but little. She was now twenty six; a tall, thin, sallow woman, ungraceful, of shy manners, and but little speech; but with a gentle face, a broad forehead, and large brown eyes. By trade, she was a dress-maker, of small pretensions; her father had forsaken her early, and her step-mother had reared her. This much, knew the little world in which moved Rachel Gray, this much, and no more. We may add, that this some little world had, in its wisdom, p.r.o.nounced Rachel Gray a fool.
Her education had been very limited. She knew how to read, and she could write, but neither easily nor well. For though G.o.d had bestowed on her the rare dower of a fine mind, He had not added to it the much more common, though infinitely less precious gift, of a quick intellect. She learned slowly, with great difficulty, with sore pain and trouble. Her teachers, one and all, p.r.o.nounced her dull; her step-mother was ashamed of her, and to her dying day thought Rachel no better than a simpleton.
Rachel felt this keenly; but she had no means of self-defence. She had not the least idea of how she could prove that she was not an idiot. One of the characteristics of childhood and of youth is a painful inability, an entire powerlessness of giving the form of speech to its deepest and most fervent feelings. The infirmity generally dies off with years, perhaps because also dies off the very strength of those feelings; but even as they were to last for ever with Rachel Gray, so was that infirmity destined to endure. Shy, sensitive, and nervous, she was a n.o.ble book, sealed to all save G.o.d.
At eleven, her education, such as it was, was over. Rachel had to work, and earn her bread. She was reared religiously, and hers was a deeply religious nature. The misapplication of religion narrows still more a narrow mind, but religion, taken in its true sense, enlarges a n.o.ble one.
Yet, not without strife, not without suffering, did Rachel make her way.
She was ignorant, and she was alone; how to ask advice she knew not, for she could not explain herself. Sometimes she seemed to see the most sublime truths, plain as in a book; at other times, they floated dark and clouded before her gaze, or vanished in deep obscurity, and left her alone and cast down. She suffered years, until, from her very sufferings, perfect faith was born, and from faith unbounded trust in G.o.d, after which her soul sank in deep and blessed peace.
And now, when rest was won, there came the want for more. Religion is love. Rachel wanted thought, that child of the intellect, as love is the child of the heart. She did not know herself what it was that she needed, until she discovered and possessed it--until she could read a book, a pamphlet, a sc.r.a.p of verse, and brood over it, like a bird over her young, not for hours, not for days, but for weeks--blest in that silent meditation. Her mind was tenacious, but slow; she read few books--many would have disturbed her. Sweeter and pleasanter was it to Rachel to think over what she did read, and to treasure it up in the chambers of her mind, than to fill those chambers with heaps of knowledge. Indeed for knowledge Rachel cared comparatively little. In such as displayed more clearly the glories of G.o.d"s creation she delighted; but man"s learning, man"s science, touched her not. To think was her delight; a silent, solitary, forbidden pleasure, in which Rachel had to indulge by stealth.
For all this time, and especially since the death of her sister, she suffered keenly from home troubles, from a little domestic persecution, painful, pertinacious, and irritating. Mrs. Gray vaguely felt that her daughter was not like other girls, and not knowing that she was in reality very far beyond most; feeling, too, that Rachel was wholly unlike herself, and jealously resenting the fact, she teased her unceasingly, and did her best to interrupt the fits of meditation, which she did not scruple to term "moping." When her mind was most haunted with some fine thought, Rachel had to talk to her step-mother, to listen to her, and to take care not to reply at random; if she failed in any of these obligations, half-an-hour"s lecture was the least penalty she could expect. Dear to her, for this reason; were the few moments of solitude she could call her own; dear to her was that little room, where she could steal away at twilight time and think in peace.
Very unlike her age was this ignorant dress-maker of the nineteenth century. Ask the men and women of the day to read volumes; why, there is not a season but they go through the Herculean labour of swallowing down histories written faster than time flies, novels by the dozen, essays, philosophic and political, books of travels, of science, of statistics, besides the nameless host of reviews, magazines, and papers, daily and weekly. Ask them to study: why, what is there they do not know, from the most futile accomplishment to the most abstruse science? Ask them too, if you like, to enter life, to view it under all its aspects; why, they have travelled over the whole earth; and life, they know from the palace down to the hovel; but bid them think! They stare aghast: it is the task of Sisyphus--the labour of the Danaide; as fast as thought enters their mind, it goes out again. Bid them commune, one day with G.o.d and their own hearts--they reply dejectedly that they cannot; for their intellect is quick and brilliant, but their heart is cold. And thought springs from the heart, and in her heart had Rachel Gray found it.
The task impossible to them was to her easy and delightful. Time wore on; deeper and more exquisite grew what Rachel quaintly termed to herself "the pleasure of thinking." And oh! she thought sometimes, and it was a thought that made her heart b.u.m, "Oh! that people only knew the pleasures of thinking! Oh! if people would only think!" And mom, and noon, and night, and bending over her work, or sitting at peaceful twilight time in the little back room, Rachel thought; and thus she went on through life, between those two fair sisters, Thought and Prayer.