CHAPTER VIII.
NINETEEN.
Such were the scenes and the people among whom Hester Vernon grew up. Her first désillusionment in respect to Cousin Ellen, who for one bright and brief moment seemed about to bring glory to her young existence, was very poignant and bitter: but by the time Hester was nineteen she had ceased to remember that there had been so sharp a sting in it, and no longer felt it possible that Ellen, with all her finery, could at any moment have affected her with any particular sentiment. These years made a great deal of difference in Hester. She was at the same time younger and older at nineteen than at fourteen. She was less self-confident, less sure of her own powers to conduct everything, from her mother—the most easily guided of all subject intelligences in the old days—upwards to all human circumstances, and even to life itself, which it had seemed perfectly simple to the girl that she should shape at her own pleasure. By degrees, as she grew older, she found the futility of all these certainties. Her mother, who was so easily guided, slid back again just as easily out of the groove into which her child had, as she thought, fixed her, and circumstances defied her altogether, taking their own way, altogether uninfluenced by her wishes. Mrs. John Vernon was like the "knotless thread" of the Scotch proverb. Nothing could be more easy than to convince her, to impress her ductile mind with the sense of this or that duty; but, on the other hand, nothing could be more easy than to undo next moment all that had been done, and turn the facile will in a new direction. Between this soft and yielding foundation of her life upon which she could find no firm footing, and the rock of Catherine Vernon who remained quite immovable and uninfluenced by her, coming no nearer as the years went on, yet hemming in her steps and lessening her freedom, the conditions of existence seemed all against the high-spirited, ambitious, active-minded and impatient girl, with her warm affections, and quick intelligence, and hasty disposition. The people immediately about were calculated to make her despise her fellow-creatures altogether: the discontented dependents who received everything without a touch of human feeling, without gratitude or kindness, and the always half-contemptuous patroness who gave with not much more virtue, with a disdainful magnanimity, asking nothing from her pensioners but that they would amuse her with their follies—made up a circle such as might have crushed the goodness out of any young mind. Even had she herself begun with any enthusiasm for Catherine, the situation would have been less terrible; but as this, unfortunately, had not been the case, the poor girl was delivered over to the contemplation of one of the worst problems in human nature without shield or safeguard, or any refuge to creep into. Fortunately her youth, and the familiarity which deadens all impression, kept her, as it keeps men in general, from a conscious and naked encounter with those facts which are fatal to all higher views or natural charities. She had in her, however, by nature only too strong a tendency to despise her neighbours, and the Miss Vernon-Ridgways and Mr. Mildmay Vernon were exactly of the order of beings which a young adventurer upon life naturally treats with disdain.
But Hester had something worse in her life than even this feeling of contempt for the people about her, bad as that is. She had the additional pang of knowing that habit and temper often made her a partaker of the odious sentiments which she loathed. Sometimes she would be drawn into the talk of the women who misrepresented their dear Catherine all day long, and sneered bitterly at the very bounty that supplied their wants. Sometimes she would join involuntarily in the worse malignity of the man to whom Catherine Vernon gave everything that was good in his life, and who attributed every bad motive to her. And as if that was not enough, Hester sinned with Catherine too, and saw the ridicule and the meanness of these miserable pensioners with a touch of the same cynicism which was the elder woman's great defect, but was unpardonable in the younger, to whom there should as yet have been no loss of the ideal. The rage with which she would contemplate herself when she yielded to the first temptation and launched at Cousin Catherine in a moment of passion one of those arrows which were manufactured in the Vernonry, the deep disgust which would fill her when she felt herself, like Catherine, contemplating the world from a pinnacle of irony, chill but smiling, swept her young spirit like tempests. To grow at all in the midst of such gales and whirlwinds was something. It was not to be expected that she could grow otherwise than contorted with the blasts. She came to the flower and bloom of existence with a heart made to believe and trust, yet warped to almost all around, and finding no spot of honest standing-ground on which to trust herself. Sometimes the young creature would raise her head dismayed from one of the books in which life is so different from what she found it, and ask herself whether books were all lies, or whether there was not to be found somewhere an existence which was true? Sometimes she would stop short in the midst of the Church services, or when she said her prayers, to demand whether it was all false, and these things invented only to make life bearable? Was it worth living? she would ask sometimes, with more reason than the essayists. She could do nothing she wanted in it. Her cours had all melted into thin air; if it had been possible to get the consent of her authorities to the work she had once felt herself so capable of, she was now capable of it no longer. Her mother, obstinate in nothing else, had been obstinate in this, that her poor husband's daughter should not dishonour his name (alack the day!) by becoming a teacher—a teacher! like the poor governesses for whom he had felt so much contempt; and Catherine Vernon, the last auxiliary whom Mrs. John expected, had supported her with a decision which put all struggles out of the question. Catherine indeed had explained herself on the occasion with a force which had almost brought her within the range of Hester's sympathies, notwithstanding that the decision was against herself. "I am here," Miss Vernon had said, "to take care of our family. The bank, and the money it brings in, are not for me alone. I am ready to supply all that is wanted, as reason directs, and I cannot give my sanction to any members of the family descending out of the position in which, by the hard work of our forefathers, they were born. Women have never worked for their living in our family, and, so far as I can help it, they never shall."
"You did yourself, Cousin Catherine," said Hester, who stood forth to learn her fate, looking up with those large eyes, eager and penetrating, of which Miss Vernon still stood in a certain awe.
"That was different. I did not stoop down to paltry work. I took a place which—others had abandoned. I was wanted to save the family, and thank Heaven I could do it. For that, if you were up to it, and occasion required, you should have my permission to do anything. Keep the books, or sweep the floors, what would it matter!"
"It would matter nothing to me," cried Hester, clasping her nervous hands together; and then it was that for a moment these two, the old woman and the young woman, made of the same metal, with the same defects and virtues, looked each other in the eyes, and almost understood each other.
Almost, but, alas! not quite: Catherine's prejudices against Mrs. John's daughter, and her adverse experiences of mankind and womankind, especially among the Vernons, intervened, and brought her down suddenly from that high and serious ground upon which Hester had been capable of understanding her. She turned away with one of those laughs, which still brought over the girl, in her sensitive youthfulness, a blush which was like a blaze of angry shame.
"No chance, I hope, of needing that a second time: nor of turning for succour to you, my poor girl."
It was not unkindly said, especially the latter part of the sentence, though it ended in another laugh. But Hester, who did not know the circumstances, was quite unaware what that laugh meant. She did not know that it was not only Catherine Vernon's personal force and genius, but Catherine Vernon's money, which had saved the bank. In the latter point of view, of course, no succour could have been had from Hester; and it was the impossibility of this which made Miss Vernon laugh. But Hester thought it was her readiness, her devotion, her power of doing everything that mortal woman had ever done before her, which was doubted, and the sense that she was neither believed in nor understood swept in a wave of bitterness through her heart. She was taken for a mere schoolgirl, well-meaning perhaps—perhaps not even that: incapable—she who felt herself running over with capacity and strength, running to waste. But she said nothing more. She retired, carried further away from Catherine in the recoil, from the manner of the approach to comprehending her which she felt she had made. And after that arrest of all her plans, Hester had ceased to struggle. In a little while she was no longer capable of the cours to which she had looked so eagerly. She did not know anything else that she could do. She was obliged to eat the bread of dependence, feeling herself like all the rest, to the very heart ungrateful, turning against the hand that bestowed it. There was a little of Mrs. John's income left, enough, Hester thought, to live upon in another place, where she might have been free to eke out this little. But at nineteen she was wiser than at fourteen, and knew that to risk her mother's comfort, or to throw the element of uncertainty again into her life, would be at once unpardonable and impossible. She had to yield, as most women have to do. She had to consent to be bound by other people's rules, and to put her hand to nothing that was unbecoming a Vernon, a member of the reigning family. Small earnings by means of sketches, or china painting, would have been as obnoxious to Catherine Vernon's rule as the cours: and of what use would they have been? It was not a little money that Hester wanted, but work of which something good might come. She yielded altogether, proudly, without another word. The arrangement of the little household, the needlework, and the housekeeping, were nothing to her young capabilities; but she desisted from the attempt to make something better of herself, with an indignant yet sorrowful pride. Sometime Catherine might find out what it was she had rejected. This was the forlorn and bitter hope in her heart.
The only element of comfort which Hester found at this dark period of her life was in the other side of the Heronry in the two despised households, which the Miss Vernon-Ridgways and Mr. Mildmay Vernon declared to be "not of our class." Mr. Reginald Vernon's boys were always in mischief; and Hester, who had something of the boy in her, took to them with genuine fellow-feeling, and after a while began to help them in their lessons (though she knew nothing herself) with great effect. She knew nothing herself; but a clear head, even without much information, will easily make a path through the middle of a schoolboy's lessons, which, notwithstanding his Latin, he could not have found out for himself. And Hester was "a dab at figures," the boys said, and found out their sums in a way which was little short of miraculous. And there was a little sister who called forth all the tender parts of Hester's nature, who had been a baby on her first appearance at the Vernonry, and to whom the girl would gladly have made herself nurse and governess, and everything that girl could be. Little Katie was as fond of Hester as of her mother, and this was a wonderful solace to the heart of the girl, who was a woman every inch of her, though she was so much of a boy. Altogether the atmosphere was better on that side of the establishment, the windows looked on the Common, and the air was fresh and large. And Mrs. Reginald, if she would have cared for it, which was doubtful, had no time for gossip. She did not pretend to be fond of Catherine, but she was respectful and grateful, a new feeling altogether to Hester. She was busy all day long, always doing something, making clothes, mending stockings, responding to all the thousand appeals of a set of healthy, noisy children. The house was not so orderly as it might be, and its aspect very different from that of the refined gentility on the other side; but the atmosphere was better, though sometimes there was a flavour of boots in it, and in the afternoon of tea. It was considered "just like the girl," that she should thus take to Mrs. Reginald, who had been a poor clergyman's daughter, and was a Vernon only by marriage. It showed what kind of stuff she was made of.
"You should not let her spend her time there—a mere nursery-maid of a woman. To think that your daughter should have such tastes! But you should not let her, dear Mrs. John," the sisters said.
"I let her!" cried Mrs. John, throwing up her hands; "I would not for the world say a word against my own child, but Hester is more than I can pretend to manage. She always was more than I could manage. Her poor papa was the only one that could do anything with her."
It was hard upon the girl when her own mother gave her up; but this too was in Hester's day's work; and she learned to smile at it, a little disdainfully, as Catherine Vernon did; though she was so little hardened in this way that her lips would quiver in the middle of her smile.
The chief resource which Hester found on the other side of the Vernonry was, however, still more objectionable to the feelings of the genteel portion of the little community, since it was in the other little house that she found it, in the society of the old people who were not Vernons at all, but who quite unjustifiably as they all felt, being only her mother's relations, were kept there by Catherine Vernon, on the money of the family, the money which was hers only in trust for the benefit of her relations. They grudged Captain Morgan his home, they grudged him his peaceful looks, they grudged him the visits which Catherine was supposed to pay oftener to him than to any one else in the Vernonry. It is true that the Miss Vernon-Ridgways professed to find Catherine's visits anything but desirable.
"Dear Catherine!" they said, "what a pity she has so little manner! When she is absent one can recollect all her good qualities, how kind she really is, you know, at bottom, and what a thing it is for her to have us here, and how lonely she would be, with her ways, if she had not us to fall back upon. But when she is present, really you know it is a struggle! Her manner is so against the poor, dear! One is glad to see her go, to think, that is over; it will be some time before she can come again; for she really is much better, far better, than she appears, poor dear Catherine!"
This was how they spoke of her: while Mr. Mildmay shrugged his thin old shoulders. "Catherine, poor thing, has too much the air of coming to see if our houses are clean and our dinners simple enough," he said.
Even Mrs. John chimed in to the general chorus, though in her heart she was glad to see Catherine, or any one. But they were all annoyed that she should go so often to those old Morgans. They kept an account of her calls, though they made believe to dislike them, and when the carriage was heard on the road (they could all distinguish the sound it made from that of any other carriage), they all calculated eagerly at what house she was due next. And when, instead of coming in at the open gate, which the old gardener made haste to open for her, as if he had known her secrets and was aware of her coming, she stayed outside, and drew up at the Morgans, nobody could imagine what a commotion there was. The sisters rushed in at once to Mrs. John, who had a window round the corner, and watched to see if it was really true, and how long Catherine stayed. They made remarks on the little old gentleman, with his white head, when he came out to put her into the carriage.
"What hypocrites some people are," they cried. "We are always as civil as ever we can be, and I hope dear Catherine, poor thing, always feels that she is welcome. But to make believe that we have enjoyed it is more than Martha or I am equal to." They watched until the fat horses had turned round and Catherine's bonnet was no longer distinguishable. "That is the third time in a month, to my certain knowledge," Miss Matilda would say.
"Be thankful, my dear ladies, that it is on old Morgan, not on you, that she bestows her favours," Mr. Mildmay would remark.
Mrs. John was not always sure that she liked this irruption into her house. But she too watched with a little pique, and said that Catherine had a strange taste.
"Oh, taste; dear Catherine! she has no taste! Her worst enemy never accused of her that," the other ladies cried.
And when it was known that these old Morgans, the captain and his wife whom Catherine Vernon distinguished in this way, had gained the heart of Hester, the excitement in the Vernonry was tremendous. Mr. Mildmay Vernon, though he was generally very polite to her, turned upon his heel, when the fact was made known to him, with angry contempt.
"I draw the line at the Morgans," he said. Much might be forgiven to the young girl, the only youthful creature (except Mrs. Reginald's boys, whom he detested) among them, but not this.
The sisters did not, alas, pass it over so briefly. They themselves had never taken any notice of the old couple. The utmost they had done had been to give the old captain a nod, as they did to the tradesmen, when he took off his hat to them. Mrs. Morgan, who never went out, did not come in their way, fortunately for her. So strange was this departure on Hester's part from all the traditions of the place that, to do them justice, they would not believe in her iniquity until the fullest proof had been secured. But after she had been seen about half a dozen times, at least, seated in the round window which commanded the road, and was the old gentleman's delight, and even, strange girl, without any sense of shame, had made herself visible to everybody walking with him on the edge of the Common, and standing talking to him at his door, there was no further possibility of doubt on the subject. The only thing that could be thought was to cut Hester, which was done accordingly by all the garden front, even her own mother being wound up by much exhortation, as for the advantage of her daughter's soul, to maintain a studied silence to the culprit by way of bringing her to her senses. But it may be supposed that Mrs. John did not hold out long. A more effectual means of punishment than this was invented by Mr. Mildmay Vernon, who declared that it was a very clever way of currying favour with Catherine, and that he only wondered it had never been adopted before. This, indeed, touched Hester to the quick: but it did not detach her from her friends. The objects of all this enmity were two very simple old people without any pretension at all, who were very willing to live peaceably with all men. Captain Morgan was an old sea-captain, with all the simplicity of homely wisdom which so often characterises his class; and his wife a gentle old woman, entirely devoted to him, and, by this time, not capable of much more than to keep the record of all his distinctions and to assert his goodness. It was he who helped her down stairs every day to the chimney corner in winter, and in summer to the large chair in the window, from which she could see everything that went on in the road, all the people that passed, and the few events that happened. A conviction that little Ted, Mrs. Reginald's third boy, would be run over, and an alarmed watch for that incident, were the only things that disturbed her placid existence: and that she could not accompany him on his walks was her only regret.
"He dearly loves somebody to walk with," she said: "except when he was at sea, my dear, I've gone everywhere with him: and he misses me sadly. Take a little turn with the captain, my dear."
And when Hester did that which so horrified the other neighbours, old Mrs. Morgan looked out after them from the window and saw the tall slim girl walking by the side of the stooping old man, with a pure delight that brought the tears to her eyes. When you are over eighty it does not take much to make you cry. Hester, who was the subject of continual assault in every other place, was adored and applauded in this little parlour, where they thought her more beautiful, and good, and clever, than ever girl had been before. The old captain, who was screwed and twisted with rheumatism, and stooped with age, held himself almost straight when his young companion started with him upon his daily walk.
"When a young lady goes with me," he said, "I must remember my manners. An old fellow gets careless when he's left to himself."
And he told Hester stories of all the many-chaptered past, of the long historic distances, which he could remember like yesterday, and which seemed endless, like an eternity, to her wondering eyes. He had been in some of the old sea-fights of the heroic days—at Trafalgar, though not in Nelson's ship; and he liked nothing better than to fight his battles over again. But it was not these warlike recollections so much as the scraps of his more peaceful experience which entranced the young listener. She liked to hear him tell how he had "got hold" of a foolish young middy or an able seaman who was "going to the bad," or how he had subdued a threatening mutiny, and calmed an excitement; and of the many, many who had fallen around him, while he kept on—fallen in death sometimes, fallen more sadly in other ways. A whole world seemed to open round Hester as he talked—a world more serious, more large, than this, in which there were only the paltry events of the day and her foolish little troubles. In Captain Morgan's world there were great storms and fights; there were dangers and struggles, and death lurking round every corner. She used to listen breathless, wondering at the difference—for what danger was there, what chance of mortal peril or temptation, here? In that other universe the lives of hundreds of people would sometimes hang upon the decision and promptitude, the cool head and ready resource of one. Why was not Hester born in that day? Why was not she a man? But she did not sufficiently realise that when the men were going through these perils, the mothers and sisters were trembling at home, able to do no more than she could. After these walks and talks, she would go in with the captain to pour out his tea, while Mrs. Morgan, in her big chair, restrained herself and would not cry for pleasure as she was so fain to do.
"Oh, my dear, it was a good wind that blew you here," the old lady said. "The trouble it has been to me not to be able to go about with him! Indoors we are the best companions still; but he always liked his walk, and it is dreadful not to be able to go out with him. But he is happy when he has a young companion like you."
Thus they made a princess of Hester, and attributed to her every beautiful quality under the sun. When a girl is not used to enthusiasm at home, it does her good to have somebody believe in her and admire all she is doing. And this was what made her strong to bear all the jibes of the fine people, and even that detestable suggestion that she meant to curry favour with Catherine. Even the sting of this did not move her to give up her old captain and her humbler friends.
CHAPTER IX.
RECOLLECTIONS.
"If you will not think me an old croaker, ma'am, I would say that you retired from work too soon. That was always my opinion. I said it at the time, and I say it again. To give up before your time is flying in the face of Providence."
"I know you are fond of a fine preacher, Mr. Rule," said Catherine Vernon; "don't you remember what the Scotch Chalmers said, that our lives were like the work of creation, and that the last ten years was the Sabbath—for rest?"
"We are not under the Jewish dispensation," said the old clerk, as if that settled the question.
Catherine laughed. She was seated near old Mrs. Morgan in the round window, her carriage waiting outside. Mr. Rule, who was a neighbour, having retired upon a handsome pension and occupying a handsome house, had come in to call upon the old couple, and these two, so long associated in labour and anxiety, had begun, as was natural, to talk on a subject which the others with difficulty followed—the bank. Mrs. Morgan never did anything save sit contentedly in her chair with her hands clasped, but the captain sat by the table working away at one of his models of ships. He was very fond of making these small craft, which were admirably rigged and built like miniature men-of-war. This one was for Alick Vernon, the middle boy of Mrs. Reginald's three. In the background, half hidden by the curtains and by the captain's seat, Hester had taken refuge in a deep elbow-chair, and was reading. She did not want to hide herself, but she had no desire to be seen, and kept in the background of her own will. Catherine Vernon never took any special notice of her, and Hester was too proud either to show that she felt this, or to make any attempt to mend matters. She had risen up on her cousin's entrance, and touched her hand coldly, then sank back into her former place, and whether any one remembered that she was there at all she did not know.
"If one works till sixty, one does very well," Miss Vernon said.
"You did not think that applicable to me, ma'am," said the clerk. "You would not let me give up till I was near seventy."
"For the sake of the bank—for the sake of the young men. Where would they have been without a guide?"
"Ah!" said old Rule, shaking his head, "there is no guide like the chief. They might turn upon me, and laugh in my face, and tell me I am old-fashioned; but they could not say that to you."
"Well, well! the young men fortunately have gone on very well, and have shown no need of a guide."
To this there was no reply, but a little pause pregnant of meaning. The thrill of the significance in it roused Hester altogether from her book: she had not been reading much to begin with, and now all her faculties were awakened. She understood no reason for it, but she understood it. Not so Catherine, however, who took no notice, as so often happens to the person chiefly concerned.
"Thirty years is a long spell," she said. "I was at it late and early, and did not do so badly, though I am only a woman."
"Women—when they do take to business—are sometimes better then men," said the clerk, with an accent almost of awe.
"That is natural," said old Captain Morgan over his boat, without raising his head. "For why?—it is not the common women, but those of the noble kind, that ever think of trying: so of course they go further and do better than the common men."
"I don't think that is a compliment," said Catherine, "though it sounds a little like one. You have a turn for those sort of sayings, Uncle Morgan, which seem very sweet, but have a bitter wrapped up in them."
"Nay, he never was bitter, Catherine," said the old lady. "He knows what he is talking of. He means no harm to the common women—for his wife is one of them."
"We will not inquire too closely what he means," said Catherine Vernon with a smile. "Anyhow it is very sweet to be able to retire while one has still command of all one's faculties, and see the young ones come in. Of course one does not expect to live for ever. We are all in the Sunday period of our lives, all of us here."
"Not I," said the old clerk, "with respect be it spoken: I have had my Sunday and am ready to begin again, if there should be any need of me."
"Which there is not, thank God," she said heartily. And again there ensued that little pause. Was it possible she did not observe it? No one echoed the sentiment, no one even murmured the little nothings with which a stillness, which has a meaning, is generally filled up by some benevolent bystander. What did it mean? Hester asked herself. But Catherine took no notice. All had gone so well with her. She was not afraid of evil tidings. Her affection for the young men, her relations and successors, was calm enough to secure her from the anxious prescience of love. She took her life and all that was connected with her, with that serene and boundless faith which is the privilege of the untried soul. Catherine would have resented beyond everything else the imputation that her life was without experience. She had gone through a great deal, she thought. The evening long ago, when she had been told that the credit of the Vernons was at stake, and had roused herself to redeem it, had been the highest crisis and turning-point of existence to her. What had happened since had been little in comparison. She had not known what anxiety meant in the deepest sense of the word, and what had happened before was so long over, that, though she recollected every incident of that early time, it was apart from all her after-life, and never influenced her practical thoughts. She did not pay any attention to that pause which might have awakened her suspicions. There was no foundation in her for suspicion to build upon. She was so sure of all connected with her, and of herself, the first necessity of all.
"I will never forget," said old Mr. Rule, after a pause, "that night, when I had to go and warn you that all was lost unless you would help. What a night it was! I recollect now the light on Wilton Street; the sunset shining in the Grange windows as I rushed through the shrubbery. You were a young lady then, Miss Vernon, and I could not tell whether you would do it or not. Mrs. John, poor thing, that I went to first, was never very wise——"
Here a sudden fit of coughing on the part of the captain, and a stirring of Hester in the background, showed the old clerk his mistake.
"I beg your pardon, Miss Hester," he cried, "I was just going to tell something of your mother that would please you. When I told her we wanted money, she ran to her desk and got out all she had. It was twenty pounds," said the old clerk with a little laugh; "twenty pounds, when we wanted twice as many thousands! But what did that matter? Some people have laughed when I have told that story, and some have been nearer crying."
He was an old man, and tears and laughter get mixed up at that age; he was nearly crying himself at the end.
Hester's heart gave a bound of mingled pleasure and pain. Perhaps even she had never done justice to her simple-hearted mother. She sat bolt upright in her chair, listening with all her might. Catherine Vernon seemed to retire from the principal place she had hitherto held in the conversation, and Hester came forward in her stead. She looked at the old clerk steadily.
"You speak," she said, "of ladies only. Where was my father?" holding Rule with her eye, so that he could not escape.
"Your father!" he faltered, his very lips quivering with surprise and consternation.
"I don't know why we should bring up all these old stories to-night," said Catherine, suddenly, "nor what led us to introduce the subject. Let bygones be bygones, Mr. Rule. We old fogeys have our little talks together, and tell over our old adventures to amuse ourselves for want of something better; but that is what the young ones never understand."
"Do you wish me to go away, Cousin Catherine?" said Hester with her usual pale defiance, rising up with the book in her arms.
"Oh no, not I. It does not matter in the least whether you stay or go. I can remember, Uncle Morgan, when the same sort of thing I am now saying to Hester you used to say to me: and it does not seem so very long ago either. Now we are all old together, and not much difference between us," she said with a little laugh. It still gave her a certain amusement to think that she was old like these old people, and yet it was true; for though sixty-five and eighty-five are very different, nobody can doubt that sixty-five is old. It was still strange, almost ludicrous, to Catherine, that it should be so.
"I am of all ages," said the old captain, "for I can remember all. I'll sail my boat with Alick to-morrow, and enjoy it like a small boy (it's a capital little boat, and will sail, I can tell you, Catherine, if you took any interest in it), and then I shall walk on the Common with a young lady, and talk of poetry and love."
"Fie, captain!" said his old wife; "but he does not mean all that nonsense, Hester."
"If love is nonsense, and poetry, she and I will go to the stake for them," said the captain. "We'll take a longer walk to-night, my dear, to prove to that old woman how wrong she is."
"I can't wish you a pleasanter thing, captain—and now I must be going," said old Rule, inconsequently.
Catherine, who had been sitting thoughtful since the moment when she interfered, all unthanked and misunderstood, to save Hester, rose when the old clerk did, and went out before him, with her rich black silk gown sweeping and rustling. The presence of the elder people made her look blooming, and capable, and young. The old couple watched her from their window, as Rule, gratified and beaming, put her into the carriage.
"She looks young enough to do as much again," said Captain Morgan, standing in the window with his gum-bottle in his hands, with which he was working.
"Oh, captain!" said his wife, "but where's the money?" shaking her old head.
Hester behind peered out between these two aged heads, pale with interest, and antagonism, and attraction. She could never think of any one else when Catherine was near, though all her instincts were in arms against her. The words that passed between the old people were as a foreign tongue to her. She had not the slightest perception what they meant.
Meantime Catherine spoke a warning word to her former prime minister, who had abdicated later than herself.
"You were very near giving that child a heartache," she said. "Take care not to say anything before her. She need never know that her father deserted his post. The creature has a quick sense of honour, and it might wound her."
"She is not like his daughter," said the clerk, "nor that poor lady's either. She is one of the pure old Vernon stock."
"Do you think so?" said Catherine, indifferently. "I rather dislike her than otherwise; but I would not do the child any harm." And then the fat horses put themselves in motion, and she gave a smile and a bow to all her retainers and worshippers—and the Miss Vernon-Ridgways drew away from Mrs. John's window, where as usual they had been watching Catherine, as she, amid all these visible signs of her wealth and sovereignty, disappeared from their eyes.
"I suppose, Captain Morgan," said Hester that evening, when she walked out with him as usual, "that Cousin Catherine was young once?"
It seemed an absurd question, but it was put with the utmost gravity; and Hester knew what she meant, as perhaps the reader will too.
"About your age, my dear," the captain said, promptly, "and not at all unlike you."
"Like me!"
"You think you are very different now, but there is not much more difference than that of years. She was the same kind of girl as you are—masterful—very sure that her own way was the right one—obstinate as a mule in her mind, but not so difficult to move by the heart."
"Am I all that?" said Hester, wondering; "not in some things, for I am never sure that I am right—or any one else—except you, perhaps. No, it is the other way, quite the other way! I am very sure that I am wrong, and every one else—except you."
"A large rule and a small exception," said the old man; "but it is the same thing. Catherine was rich and had everything her own way. You are—in the midst of a poor community where we can have nothing our own way. And at your age you can't discriminate any more than she could at hers."
"Then does it come to this, that money is everything?" asked the disciple with some bitterness, but without, as may be supposed, the slightest intention of accepting the master's teaching on this point.
Captain Morgan made no reply. What he said was—
"I should like to interest you in Catherine, my dear; all that happened, you know, before we came here, while we were busy with our own life, my wife and I; but I have put this and that together since. Catherine was, as people say, crossed in love, notwithstanding her wealth and all her qualities. So far as I can make out, the man preferred a woman that could not hold the candle to her; not so pretty, not so clever, altogether inferior. That must be rather a blow to a woman!"
"A blow! What sort of a woman would she be that cared for a man who did not care for her?"
This somewhat inarticulate sentiment Hester delivered with an indignant blush and flashing eyes.
"That is all very fine, my dear; but you are too clear-headed to be taken in by it," said the captain. "A woman might not show it, perhaps. I have no reason to suppose that Catherine showed it. But you must remember that a woman is not a woman in the abstract, but Catherine or Hester as the case may be, and liable to everything that humanity is liable to; and she would be a poor creature indeed if she were incapable of falling in love generously, as a man is supposed to do."
"I don't know what you mean by generously!"
"Ah, but you do—none better. Something however occurred after, much worse than his preference of another woman. The man turned out to be an unworthy man."
Hester had been following every word with breathless interest. She grew quite pale, her lips dropped apart, her eyes blazed out of the whiteness of her face upon her old instructor. He went on without taking note of this change,
"I should think for my part that there cannot be any such blow as that. Don't you remember we agreed it was the secret of all Hamlet's tragedy? It is the tragedy of the world, my dear. I told the old woman we were going to talk of love and poetry. You see I was right."
"But—Catherine?"
Hester was, as became a girl, far too much interested in the individual case to be able to stray to the abstract, and in fact she had only assented to her mentor's theory in respect to Hamlet, not having begun such investigations for herself.
"Ay, Catherine. Well, that is just what happened to her, my dear. The man first showed that he had no appreciation of herself, which we will allow must have wounded her; and then after, when that was all over, proved himself unworthy, dishonourable—in short, what the young men call a cad."
"Who was he?" asked Hester, in a low and awe-stricken tone.
Then Captain Morgan turned to look at her, apparently with some alarm; but his fears were quieted by her face. She had evidently no clue to who it was.
"I never knew the man," he said quickly. "One has no wish to know anything about him. The interesting person is the woman in such a case. Here, Hester, you must be the teacher. Tell me, what would that discovery do to a girl, a daring, masterful spirit like you?"
"Oh, captain, I am not daring or masterful," cried the girl clasping her hands; "don't you know it is cruel to call me so—I that can do nothing, that am only like a straw tossing on the water, carried the way I would not. If I were masterful, I would go away from here. I would do something for myself."
"All that is no answer to my question," the old captain said.
Hester was used to follow his leading at a touch. There was a kind of mesmerism in the effect he had upon her.
"I cannot tell," she said in a low and hurried voice. "I don't see: it would turn all the world wrong. It would—— But," she added, collecting herself, "she would throw him away from her like a dead thing. He would be dead. She would think of him no more. Unworthy! One shakes one's self free—one is done with that!"
"Look again," said the old man, with a half smile, shaking his head.
"I don't wish to look again. Is not that enough? I suppose it would make her very unhappy. She would struggle, she would try to find excuses. Oh, Captain Morgan, don't press me so! I suppose everything would turn round and round. There would seem nothing to stand on, nothing to look up to, the skies would all whirl and the solid ground. It makes my head swim to think of it," the girl cried, covering her eyes with her hands.
"That was how it was with Catherine, so far as I know. She had to exert herself to save the bank, and that saved her."
"Had he anything to do with the bank?" she asked quickly.
"My dear, I tell you I was not here at the time," said the wary old man. "I had no knowledge of the circumstances. I never wish to know who he was, lest perhaps I should fail in charity towards him. It is Catherine I want you to think of. The bank troubles came afterwards, and she had to get up and put her shoulder to the wheel, which saved her. But do you think the world ever looked the same after? Hamlet would never have discovered what traitors those young courtiers were, if his mother had not turned out a fraud, and his love a delusion—at least that is my opinion. The wonder is, he did not misdoubt Horatio too. That is what I should have done if it had been me. But there is the good of genius, Hester; the Master who knew everything knew better. Catherine had a sort of honest Horatio in old Rule, and she had that work to do, which was the best thing for her. But you may be sure the world was all dissolving views, and nothing solid in it for years to come."
Hester, after the shock of the realisation which had been forced upon her, as to what the result of such a calamity would be, felt exhausted and sick at heart, as if all her strength had been worn out.
"Why did you want me to know this?" she said at last. "I see no signs of it in her. She looks so triumphant, as if nothing had ever happened or could happen. She sees through everybody and laughs at them, as if all their lies could never touch her. Oh, she sees very well how they lie, but is never angry, only laughs; is that the way to make one love her? And she does not know the false from the true," the girl cried with an access of indignation. "She considers us all the same."
"No—no—no—no," said the old man, patting her arm, but he did not press her any further. He had said as much as he wanted to say. They went further than usual over the Common as he had threatened to his wife, and as they returned the old captain owned himself fatigued and took Hester's arm. "You must be my great-grandchild in the spirit," he said. "We had a little girl once, my wife and I. I have often fancied her grown up and married and having children in her turn. Oh, I am a great dreamer and an old fool. You remember Elia's dream children, and then Tennyson, though he was not old enough to know anything about it, making the unborn faces shine beside the never-lighted fire. These poets make fools of us all, Hester. They know everything without any way to know it. I fancy you are one of little Mary's grandchildren. She must be as old as Catherine Vernon, though age, we may suppose, doesn't count where she is."
"You never told me about her."
"There was nothing to tell," he said cheerfully. "Her mother cries still if you speak of little Mary, but not I. It would have been a great thing for us if we could have kept her, but she would have married I suppose, and her husband might not have pleased me. I have thought of that. She would have been taken in probably, and brought us some man I could not put up with, though the children might have been an addition. I dare say she would have turned out a soft, innocent creature, taken in all round, something like your mother, Hester. You are tempted to despise that, you clever ones, but it is a great mistake."
"Oh, Captain Morgan, mother is taken in, as you say, because she thinks everybody true—but she is true always."
"Always!" said the old man with fervour, "and far happier because she does not find it out. My wife is the same. It is such souls as these that keep the world steady. We should all tumble to pieces if the race was made up of people like Catherine Vernon and you."
"I wish you would not say Catherine Vernon and me!" said Hester passionately; "there is no likeness, none at all—none at all!"
But the old captain only laughed, and turned her attention to the sunset, which was lighting up all the western sky. The pines stood up against it like rigid black shadows, cut out against the golden light which was belted with flaming lines of crimson. Overhead the sky ascended in varying tints of daffodil and faint ethereal greenness up to the deep yet bright summer blue. The last gleams caught the yellow gorse upon the Common and turned every blossom into gold, and all the peaks of the Vernonry rose black against the radiance of the west.
"I wonder if the people up there have any hand in it?" said the old man. "I should like to think so. The old landscape painters, perhaps, that never had such colours to work with before. But in that case there would be nothing for me to do," he added with a laugh, "unless it was some small post about the gunneries. I was always fond of my guns."
To Hester this light suggestion, and the laugh with which it was accompanied, sounded profane. She shrank from anything which could take away the awe and mystery from death, just as the old man, who was so near the threshold, liked to familiarise himself with the thought of going over it, and still finding himself a recognisable creature there.
CHAPTER X.
A LOVER.
It was about this time that Hester became aware of a circumstance the most important that could possibly happen in a young woman's life. There had been no opportunity for her to become acquainted with the emulations and rivalship of other girls. Girls there were none about the Vernonry, nor did they abound in the neighbourhood, in the class from which alone her mother's visitors were chosen. Mrs. John, it has been said, belonged to a county family, a fact of which she was as proud as it is natural and becoming a woman should be. She did not altogether frown upon the few callers from the town who thought it only their duty to Miss Vernon, the most hospitable entertainer in the neighbourhood, to take a little notice of the pensioners, as the poor ladies at the Vernonry were called; but she did not encourage these benevolent visitors. "They are all ladies, and as good as any of us," Mrs. Redfern had been heard to say, who was the mayor's lady, and considered herself a leader of society; and it was a beautiful sight to see Mrs. John, in her old-fashioned dark room and simplest black gown, receiving with kind condescension, and endeavouring to set at her ease, this very fine lady, who considered herself to be paying the poor widow a quite undeserved honour. Mrs. John returned cards only in acknowledgment of Mrs. Redfern's visit, and there the acquaintance ended. So that Hester lost altogether the opportunity of knowing how ordinary girls looked and talked, and what was the object of their ambition. She had not even, which may surprise some people, come to any conclusion whatever in respect to her own personal appearance. Sometimes indeed, it cannot be denied, she had looked up in the midst of a novel, where all the young persons in whom the reader was supposed to take any interest were beautiful, and asked herself vaguely, with a blush, feeling ashamed of the question, whether she was pretty. But partly she was ashamed to give the time necessary to the solution of the problem, and partly she had not the data upon which to form her conclusions. There was a beautiful girl in Redborough in a humble position, upon whose claims everybody was agreed, but she was a queenly creature, with dark hair and blue eyes, and features of the most exquisite regularity, to whom Hester could not flatter herself that she bore the slightest resemblance. Nor was she like Ellen Vernon, with her lovely fairness, her look of wax and confectionary. Hester was not ethereal at all. There was no smallness about her, though she was slim as became her age. "The springy motion in her gait," the swift, light step which never tired, were beautiful in their way, and so was the eager outlook in her eyes, which seemed to contract and expand according to the degree of interest with which outside subjects moved them; but all this rather as exponents of the mind within than as merely physical features. Her hair had never grown long, not much longer indeed than was just necessary to twist into the knot behind which proved her to be grown up, and it remained full of curl and ready to break the smoothness of outline then thought necessary, on the smallest provocation. Her complexion was very variable, sometimes radiant with flutters of sudden colour, sometimes relapsing into a rose-tinted whiteness, more white than pale. Her features were not much to brag of; it was the play of prompt feeling in her face, the interest, the indignation, the pity, the perpetual change and vicissitude, that made it attractive, and on this point of course Hester could not judge. Seeing that her mouth was too large, and her nose too short, and her eyebrows too marked, she concluded that she was not pretty, and regretted it, though in her circumstances it mattered very little; her friends liked her just as well, whether or not; and she was never likely to produce the effect which the heroines in novels—even though comparatively plain—did produce. So she decided, with a little shame to think that she could have been disturbed about the matter, that it was not worth going into it further. All the same it is a pity, for the sake of young readers, that all the girls in novels, with so very rare exceptions—and Jane Eyre, if not pretty, probably was less plain than she thought, and certainly was agaçante, which is much more effective—should be beautiful and should have so much admiration and conquest. The girls who read are apt to wonder how it is that they have not the same fortune. Hester, for her part, had a fine scorn of feminine victories in this sort; they had never come within the possibilities of her lot. She never went to balls, nor met in society gangs of suitors contending for her smile; she did not believe in such things, and she thought she despised them.
It was in the very midst of this scepticism that she suddenly became aware of certain facts which, as we have said, were of the kind generally supposed to be most important in a young woman's life. Harry Vernon had been for some time alone in the splendour of the White House; Ellen, who had inflicted so deep a wound upon Hester's inexperienced girlhood, had married the previous summer, and in the lack of young ladies worthy to swell her train on that occasion, had selected Hester as one of her bridesmaids. Hester had never forgiven her frivolous kinswoman for that first disenchantment of her youth, but her mother, upon whom her exclusion from society and from all opportunities of distinguishing herself there weighed heavily, had insisted on the acceptance of the invitation, and Hester had figured accordingly in a white muslin frock, much too simple to match the toilette of the other bridesmaids in the pageant, greatly to her own disquiet. She was the only Vernon in it, and thus had been specially put forward, and Ellen, altogether unconscious of previous offence, had exhausted herself in demonstrations of affection to her young relative. It was she whom Harry led out in the morning's procession, and he had, in the intervals of his duty to his guests, come back again and again to her side. Hester, all inexperienced and unknowing, had paid little attention to these early indications. She did not identify him with his sister's guilt towards her. He was a weak, good-natured, genial fellow, and no more. If Harry did anything wrong, no doubt it was because of being led astray. In himself he wished nothing but good to any one. He was not clever, he was steady and stolid, and went through both work and pleasure without much discrimination as to which was which, carrying on both in the same way. When he began to come to the Vernonry evening after evening, Hester paid little attention to him. She would go out to walk with old Captain Morgan in the very face of the young visitor whose "intentions" all the community considered to be of such importance. Hester never thought of his "intentions." She had none herself in which he was anyhow involved. She was perfectly friendly when they met, but she did not care whether they ever met or not, and repulsed him as much as steady indifference can repulse an obstinate and not very clear-sighted young man. But this was not saying much. Harry knew as well as any one that his suit was a wonderful chance for his distant cousin; that Hester had no right to look for such good fortune as that of being the object of his affections. He knew that he was bringing in his hand everything a girl need wish for. And so far as Hester's course of action was concerned, though he was much irritated by it sometimes, he still felt that it was what she had a right to employ in the circumstances. It "drew a fellow on;" she was right to do what she could to obtain this so desirable consummation. He could not find fault with her even when he was angry. Had she been too ready to meet him, he felt that he would himself have despised what was so easily won. But her coyness, her apparent indifference, her walking out to the old captain from her lover, all helped to rivet his chains. It was excellent policy, and he took it as such; it drew a fellow on.
And it would be impossible to describe the interest of the Vernonry in this new development. Harry made his appearance first when they were all outside enjoying the beauty of the summer evening, Mr. Mildmay Vernon occupying that bench in front of the verandah, which was the most desirable place in the evening, being just clear of the low sunbeams which came into your eyes through the trunks of the pines, penetrating like golden arrows. Mrs. John herself was watering the plants in the verandah, which were a little exhausted by the long, scorching day, and wanted refreshment. The Miss Vernon-Ridgways were walking about with their long sashes extended and their large sleeves flying, the one eagerly talking from a few paces behind her, to the other. Their conversation was on the well-worn subject of "some people who never knew their own place," and was aimed at the tranquil gentleman on the bench, who when he had secured his own comfort, which was the first thing to be thought of, rather prided himself upon never interfering with his neighbours. When Harry Vernon appeared, there was a universal stir. The sisters made a little flight round him, gazing at him. "I do believe it is Harry. Is it Harry?" they said. Mr. Mildmay Vernon put down his paper in the midst of a paragraph, and came forward with his most genial air. "I hope this is a visit only. I hope there is nothing wrong," he said.
"Wrong! what should be wrong?" said Harry, turning his fair countenance wonderingly upon the group. "It's a lovely evening, and I wanted a walk," he added, with a little reddening of that too fair face; "and besides, I've got a message from Ellen to Mrs. John——"
"Dear Ellen! How is Ellen? When is she coming home?" cried Miss Matilda. "When you write to her, give her our love. But I suppose she is too happy to care about anybody's love save one person's. Marriage will improve Ellen—marriage will steady her. She used to be a little forgetful, perhaps. Ah! marriage will do her a great deal of good. She had everything too much her own way."
"But she is missed. It would be pretty to see her again—forgetting," said Mr. Mildmay, "that she had ever set eyes on you before."
"Ah, dear Ellen! We should not have known her without her little ways!"
Now Harry was fond of his sister.
"I'll thank you to leave Ellen alone," he said, brusquely. "I dare say we've all got our little ways. I had something to say to Mrs. John if you'll let me pass, please."
"Politeness is characteristic of our family," said Miss Matilda, drawing her skirts closely round her, and standing ostentatiously, though she was not very near him, out of his way.
Mrs. John stood looking on in the verandah with the watering-can in her hand, not hearing much of what they said, but feeling that it was uncivil, and putting on a little deprecating, anxious smile—
"Come in," she said, "come in. The parlour, I think, is almost cooler than the garden after this hot day. Shall I make you a cup of tea?"
"These pensioners of Aunt Catherine's are odious people," said Harry. "It was you and Hester I came to see."
"You must not speak of them so—they would not like it," said Mrs. John, not thinking that she herself might be spoken of in the same way, though rather pleased at the bottom of her heart that Harry should make a distinction between them. He threw himself down in a chair, which creaked under his weight, and looked very large and mannish in the little feminine room—rather, indeed, it must be allowed, out of place there.
"I wonder how you can get on in such a poky little place," he said. "I should like to see you in handsome big rooms; it would seem much more natural."
Mrs. John smiled again, a deprecating, half-apologetic smile.
"Oh, I am very glad to be here. I did not expect ever to have to live in such a poor place when I married, it is true; but people's minds change with their circumstances. I am glad to have it——"
"You oughtn't to—you should have been provided for in a different way. Ah, Hester! I am so glad to see you," Harry said, rising with some commotion to his feet. He took Hester's hand and held it for a moment. "I thought I'd come and tell you about Ellen," he said, with a blush.
"Hester," said her mother, giving her a little meaning look, of which she did not understand the signification, "you must give Mr. Harry a cup of tea."
And there he sat, to her great oppression, for an hour at least. He did not even tell them about Ellen. He said nothing in particular—nothing which it was necessary to say. Hester, who had intended to go out with her old captain, felt herself bound by politeness and her mother's warning looks. She did not know what these looks meant, but they held her fast. There was not very much conversation. He said a few things over and over, which made it difficult to change the subject; and it was mostly Mrs. John who replied, and who rather liked, also, to repeat the same sentiment. Hester poured out the tea, and when the moment came for that, lighted the candles, and sat down in the background and took her work. She was not very fond of work, but it was better than doing nothing at all. When she took that seat which was beyond his point of vision, Harry turned his chair round so as to face her, and took up one of the candles and arranged it for her, that she might see to work. "You should have a lamp," he said. "I have a nice little lamp at home just the thing for you; you must let me send it." What a long time he sat, and how anxious he was to make himself agreeable! After that he came three or four times in succession. Mrs. John began to look for him, brightening up as the hour of his visit approached; and the neighbours kept up a watch which it was impossible to mistake. "If he comes to-night again I shall know what to think," Miss Matilda said. But when he came that night he met Hester at the gate in her out-door apparel. Harry's countenance fell.
"Oh, you are surely not going out," he said, "not just when I come? You couldn't be so unkind."
"I have been unkind to Captain Morgan very often," said Hester. "I must not neglect him to-night," and she passed him quickly with a little bow and smile. It made Harry very angry, but still he felt that it drew a fellow on.
On one of these occasions, when Hester eluded him in this way, Harry spoke his mind to Mrs. John.
"I'm very lonely up there by myself," he said, "and I have nobody to please but myself. Ellen used to interfere and keep me in order, as she said; but now she's got somebody else to look after. I've thought a great deal of Hester for years back. That time when we came to see you first, you know, when Ellen made so many advances and forgot all about them—that was her way. She's not a bad sort when you get safe hold of her—but it's her way. Well, from that time I've thought of Hester, though I never liked to say a word as long as Ellen was there."
"Oh, Mr. Harry," said Mrs. John, who was fluttered and flattered as if a proposal were being made to herself. "She was only a child in those days."
"I know; but she isn't a child now. If she'll have me—and I can't see why she shouldn't have me—we might all make each other very comfortable. I'm not frightened of a mother-in-law as so many fellows are. I believe that's all bosh. I shouldn't wish to part you more than for the honeymoon, you know. There is plenty of room for you in the White House, and it would be always nice for her to have you there, when I happened to be engaged. I think we should hit it off very well together. And as for money—I know she has no money—I should never think twice about that. Of course it would be to my own advantage to make as good settlements as possible, which is always a good thing in business when one never knows what may happen. We might have to consult Aunt Catherine just at first, for she always keeps a hold on the funds——"
"And there's Hester to consult—that is the most important," said Mrs. John.
"To be sure, that's the most important; but I can't see why she should object," said Harry. "Why, she has never seen any one, has she? I am the only man that has paid any attention to her. At Ellen's wedding there were one or two, and that was only once in a way. I don't say she likes me, but she can't like any one else, can she? for she has never seen anybody."
"Not that I know of," said Mrs. John; "but, Mr. Harry, girls are so fanciful. You cannot be sure of them in that way. They may have some ideal in their heads, though they have never met any one——"
"Eh?" said Harry, making a large mouthful of the word, and opening wide those blue eyes of his with the light lashes. And, indeed, he did not know much about that sort of thing. He returned to the question without paying any attention to this strange piece of nonsense. "There's nobody about but the old gentlemen, and Ned at Aunt Catherine's. Sometimes I've felt a little suspicious of Ned. Does he come and see you often? He is a great fellow for books and that sort of thing."
"Mr. Edward Vernon," said Mrs. John, a little stiffly, "never comes here. Hester, I believe has met him at the Grange or elsewhere; but he never comes here. I scarcely know him, neither of course does she."
"Then," said Harry, taking no notice of the offence in her tone, but bringing down his hand vehemently upon his knee, "if it isn't Ned, there is no one she can have seen, and the field is all clear for me."
"That is very true," said Hester's mother, but her tone was doubtful. "At the same time," she continued, "perhaps it would be well to let me talk to her a little first, Mr. Harry, just to see, before you said anything."
"If she doesn't want to have me, I don't wish to force her to have me," said Harry, his pride taking alarm.
"Force—oh, Mr. Harry, do you think I would force my child? And indeed I couldn't;" cried Mrs. John, shaking her head. "She is far, far stronger than I."
"She would be the cleverest of us all," said Harry admiringly. "I believe she is as clever as Aunt Catherine. I dare say she might even find out dodges in the bank, like Aunt Catherine did. Perhaps on the whole it might be better if you would sound her a bit, eh? and find out what she is up to. What she thinks of me, for instance," said Harry, nodding half with modesty, half with vanity. "Yes, I should like that. I should like to be pretty sure before I committed myself. A man doesn't like to make a fool of himself for nothing," the young man said.
Mrs. John thought it was quite natural. And indeed all her feelings were enlisted on Harry's side, who expressed himself so beautifully. What better could happen to Hester than to be thus uplifted to the heights of luxury and wealth, the White House, and everything else that heart could desire, with a nice husband, so good-looking, so tall, so fair, and so anxious to be kind to her mother? Her imagination, not her strong point on ordinary occasions, was strong enough on this, to jump at all the advantages of the match with a rapidity which would not have disgraced Hester herself. To see her child the mistress of the White House was the very height of Mrs. John's ambition. She did not feel that the world held anything more desirable. Her mind made a hurried rush through the rooms, all so familiar to her, and which Harry, no doubt, would re-model in preparation for his bride. With what pride and happiness would she see her child at the head of the table, where she herself had once sat! It would be a return more triumphant than any return in her own person. And yet she would be there too, the happy spectator, the witness of it all. She saw in her mind's eye, the wedding, the beautiful clothes, the phaeton, and the high-stepping horses, and perhaps a pony carriage which Hester herself would drive. All this in a moment, while Harry was telling her that he would like to be pretty sure before he committed himself. Perhaps it was not a lofty sentiment, but she felt it to be quite natural. A man with so much to bestow had a right to see his way before him, and then for Hester's own sake it was far better that she should not be taken by surprise. She was a perverse girl, and if the young man walked straight up to her without warning, and asked her to marry him, the chances were that she would refuse. That was not a risk to be run when so much was at stake.
"If you will leave it in my hands, I think you will have no cause to regret it," she said, nodding her head at him with the softest maternal smile. "You may be sure you will have my good wishes."
They were both quite affected when he took his leave.
"I feel sure we should hit it off together," Harry said, warmly grasping her hand; and the water stood in her eyes. She could almost have given him a kiss as he stood before her, a little flushed and agitated with his self-revelation. Indeed, she would have done so but for that doubt about Hester. What would Hester say? That was the one point upon which doubt existed, and unfortunately it was the most important of all. There could not be the least uncertainty as to the many advantages of the match; money, comfort, good position, good connection, everything that can be wished for in marriage, and with no personal defects to be glossed over by these advantages, but a fine young man, a husband any girl might be proud of. Elation and gladness filled Mrs. John's heart, when she contemplated that side of the question; but when she turned to the other a chill came over her, a cloud that swallowed up the sunshine. What would Hester say? Oh the perverseness of girls that never know what is good for them! If it had been somebody quite ineligible, somebody without a penny, the chances were that Hester would have had no doubt on the subject. Mrs. John could not remain still after this momentous conversation. She went from one window to another, looking out, watching for her daughter's return. She had been vexed that Hester should have been so uncivil as to go away for no better reason than to walk with old Captain Morgan when Harry was coming, but she felt now that this contradictoriness on the girl's part had been providential. How full her head was with thoughts and plans how to speak, and what to say, with artful approaches to the subject, and innocent wiles by which to divert all suspicion, and lead Hester unawares towards that goal! She trotted up stairs and down, from one window to another, framing dialogue after dialogue in her mind. She was astonished by her own powers as she did so. If she ever had been so clever in reality as she was in this sudden crisis of imagination, she felt that it might have made a difference in her whole life. And one thing Mrs. John had the wisdom and goodness to do in the midst of her excitement, she kept within her own house, and did not so much as venture down to the verandah, where she might have been seen from outside, and pounced upon by the eager watchers, brimful of curiosity, who wanted to know what it all meant. Miss Matilda Vernon-Ridgway, as has been intimated, had been conscious of an internal admonition that something critical, something decisive, something throwing a distinct light upon the "intentions" of young Harry would happen this night. And Mrs. John knew herself, and was aware that she never would be able to stand against the questionings of these curious spectators. Her only safety was in keeping out of their way. Thus not only her imaginations, but her moral faculties, her power of self-control and self-denial, were strengthened by the occurrences of this momentous evening. She had not felt so important before since Hester was born.