Part 4 (1/2)

It is just as if I had told you--you always know, you always understand.”

”Yes,” said Lady Gore, ”I think I understand. And you know,” she added after a moment, ”that I never want you to tell me more than you wish to tell. Only, very often”--and she tried to choose her words with anxious care, that not one of them might mean more, less, or other than she intended, ”it sometimes helps younger people, if they talk to people who are older. You see, the mere fact of having been in the world longer, brings one something like more wisdom, one can judge of the proportion of things somehow, nothing seems quite so surprising, so extraordinary--or so impossible,” she added with a faint smile, with the intuition of the point that Rachel had arrived at. And Rachel was ready to take perfectly for granted that she should have been so followed. Her absolute reliance on the wise and tender confidante by her side, the habit of placing her first and referring everything to her was stronger unconsciously to herself, than even the natural desire of her age to hug the secret she was carrying, to keep it jealously from any eyes but her own.

”Of course, of course, I know that,” she said without looking up, ”and my first thought always is that I will tell you. In fact,” she went on with a little laugh, ”I never know what I think myself until I have told you, and heard what it sounds like when I am saying it to you, and seen what you look like when you listen--only----” she stopped again.

”Darling,” said Lady Gore, ”never feel that you must tell me a word more than you wish to say.”

”Well,” said Rachel hesitating, ”the only thing is that to-day I must--perhaps--you would know something about it presently in any case....” And she stopped again.

”Presently? why?” said Lady Gore. Rachel made no answer.

”Is Mr. Rendel coming here to-day?” said Lady Gore, trying to speak in her ordinary voice.

”Yes,” said Rachel, ”he is coming to see you.”

”I shall be very glad to see him,” said Lady Gore. ”I always am.”

”I know, yes,” said Rachel. Then with a sudden effort, ”It is no use, mother, I must tell you; you must know first.” Then she paused again.

”This morning we went out in the boat----” she stopped.

”Yes,” said Lady Gore, ”and Sir Charles Miniver was unfortunately too old to go with you--or fortunately, perhaps?”

”I am not sure which,” said Rachel. ”I am not sure,” she repeated slowly.

”Rachel, did Francis Rendel....”

”Yes,” said Rachel, ”he asked me to marry him.”

Lady Gore laid her hand on her daughter's. ”What did you say to him?”

Rachel looked up quickly. ”Surely you know. I told him it would be impossible.”

”Impossible?” her mother repeated.

”Of course, impossible,” Rachel said. ”We needn't discuss it, mother dear,” she went on with an effort. ”You know I could not go away from you; you could not do without me. You could not, could you?” she went on imploringly. ”I should be dreadfully saddened if you could.”

”I should have to do without you,” Lady Gore said. ”I could not let you give up your happiness to mine.”

”It would not be giving up my happiness to stay with you, you know that quite well,” Rachel said. ”On the contrary, I simply could not be happy if I felt that you needed me and that I had left you.”

”Rachel, do you care for him?”

”Do I, I wonder?” Rachel said, half thinking aloud and letting herself go as one does who, having overcome the first difficulty of speech, welcomes the rapturous belief of pouring out her heart to the right listener. ”I believe,” she said, ”that I care for him as much as I could for any one, in that way, but”--and she shook her head--”I know all the time that you come first, and that you always, always will.”

”Oh, but that is not right,” said Lady Gore. ”That is not natural.”

”Not natural,” Rachel said, ”that I should care for my mother most?”

”No,” Lady Gore said, ”not in the long run. Of course,” she went on with a smile, ”to say a thing is not 'natural' is simply begging the question, and sounds as if one were dismissing a very complicated problem with a commonplace formula, but it has truth in it all the same.

It is difficult enough to fas.h.i.+on existence in the right way, even with the help of others, but to do it single-handed is a task few people are qualified to achieve. I am quite sure that a woman has more chance of happiness if she marries than if she remains alone. It is right that people should renew their stock of affection, should see that their hold on the world, on life, is renewed, should feel that fresh claims, for that is a part, and a great part, of happiness, are ready at hand when the old ones disappear. All this is what means happiness, and you know that the one thing I want in the world is that you should be happy. I was thinking to-day,” she went on, with a slight tremor in her voice, ”that if I were quite sure that your life were happily settled, that you were beginning one of your own not wholly dependent on those behind you, I should not mind very much if mine were to come to an end.”