Rachel's Story

Chapter 1

Hello everyone, welcome to the world of Rachel Warren - a pretty 19-year old girl who leads a simple yet happy life among people who (somewhat unconventionally) all love her. She may be the daughter of a parson living in a small village in the English countryside during the Regency days, but Rachel was perfectly content with her lot in life and asked for nothing more. So what is there to make a story about? Well, let's find out!

CHAPTER 1

The summer breeze was playing catch with Rachel’s untied bonnet strings as she ran with abandon in the woods, her feet finding the invisible paths with the ease of old familiarity. “Catch me if you can, Goldie!” she shouted at the little mongrel dog yapping merrily behind her, making it jump in an attempt to snag the lilac ribbon she was waving tantalizingly in its face. Sweeping a stray flower that was lodged in a loose curl, Rachel threw it at her follower who snapped at the unexpected offering ecstatically. Her joyful laughter rippled across the peaceful surroundings in tandem with Goldie’s high-pitched bark, forming a harmony resonating with carefree innocence.

Her footfalls fell surely on the uneven paths that snaked between the trees. Born and brought up in the old Parsonage of Little Hanstead, Rachel had been rushing to the woods surrounding her house since she had been able to walk properly. The trees were the witnesses to her rare fits of temper, the creeks confidants of her secret dreams, and the shy forest creatures all the company she required. These woods were the only place where she could let her spirit roam free of constraints which the Regency society imposed upon young unmarried girls of eighteen.

Slowing her pace as she neared a tiny brook gurgling from a rock, Rachel sat down to appreciate her favorite time of the day. Rachel may not be a fairy-tale heroine who regularly socialized with the birds and beasts around her (that is, any beasts other than Goldie, and an occasional rabbit or so) – but living in a small community with sociable parents left a girl with little time to herself. She was the middle child in a family of five children; her sisters Grace and Lucinda were older than her by seven and six years respectively, and her twin brothers Neil and Stanley were unexpected arrivals who came into the world ten years after her.

Though they were a close-knit family, the great disparity in age between her sisters and her on one hand, and her brothers and her on the other, left Rachel rather short of close companions at most times; a child for the elder ones and a substitute parent for the younger. The other village children made for good playmates in childhood, but they simply could not keep up with her quick mind after a point. Her gregarious nature made her many friends, but Rachel’s real solace was in the world of books, music and trees where she could simply be herself without catering to the world’s views.

Rachel Warren was one of the delights of the neighborhood – a pretty young woman with the aquamarine eyes of her grandfather and the waist-length mahogany curls of her mother, balancing her staunch righteousness with a happy disposition. Slender and lithe, her bookish nature belied the hardy physique derived from regular rambles in the wilderness. Her lack of proper education never deterred her and by the age of fourteen years, she had already exhausted all the books available in the parish and had learnt all the musical instruments which the Church organist and the neighborhood boys could teach her. When her elder sister Lucinda married a university professor from London, an adolescent Rachel spent many delightful evenings browsing in the London bookstores and later debating with her brother-in-law about the critical values of their favourite books under Lucy’s benevolent eyes.

Grace may not be considered to be as fortunate as Lucy in her marriage in a strictly worldly sense, but she had married for love and never repented her choice. Her husband Harvey owned a bakery in a neighboring county which they managed together as equal partners. Though they stayed in a cramped lodge with his three brothers and their own two children, though their financial situation was not always what could be desired, though they might wish for some privacy at times, Grace and Harvey’s mutual devotion transformed even such difficult surroundings into their personal slice of heaven.