Hester rose up too, quickly, with a start of new energy. "I can do anything that you will let me do," she said.
"Come, then." But after a moment Catherine put her hands on the girl's shoulders, and drew her into the light. "You are very young," she said, "not twenty yet, are you? Poor little thing! I was full grown before I was brought to this. But show what metal is in you now. Come with me and bathe your face and put yourself in order. We must have no look of excitement or trouble to bring suspicion. Everything is safe as yet. What? Do you know anything more?"
"I know only—what I said," said Hester. "Harry is very anxious. He came to ask if I knew where—he was. I did not. He said all was wrong, that no one could put things right but he, that——"
"Yes, yes," Catherine said, with a little impatience; she could not bear any repetitions. "I have told Harry to come here at half-past twelve. If we find him, if he comes back with us—here is your work, Hester, to see Harry and dismiss him. If Edward is with us, all will be well. If he comes, if he only comes! Oh God! I will deny nothing. I will oppose nothing, let but honour be saved and his good name! And in that case you will see Harry and send him away. But if he does not come——"
"He will, he will!—for you."
Catherine shook her head; but a faint smile came over her face, a kindling of hope. Surely, surely the old love—the old long-enduring bond, would tell for something. It could not be possible that he would throw everything—love and duty, and honour, and even well-being—all away—when there was still a place of repentance held out to him. She took Hester to her room, where she dressed herself carefully, tying on her bonnet, and drawing out the bows with an elaboration at which the girl looked on wondering. Then they went down stairs where all was now in half light, one lamp burning dimly in the hall. As Catherine drew the heavy door behind her it sent a muffled echo into the air. It was after eleven o'clock. The world was wrapped in a soft darkness more confusing than blacker night: there was not a creature visible on the road. She had not walked, save for her pleasure, in the sunshine just so far as was agreeable, for years, and it was far to go. To Hester this strange walk through the dark was at once novel and terrible. She did not know what interruptions they might meet. She kept close by her companion, who went along with a free and rapid step, as if she had shaken off half her weight of years. Deep down in the recollection of many a woman of whom the world knows no such history will lurk the recollection of such a walk taken in terror and sorrow, to call back some wanderer, to stop some shame. The actors in such scenes never speak of them, though they may be the noblest in their lives. Catherine said something not uncheerful from time to time, keeping up her own courage as well as her companion's. Nobody noticed them as they came within the lighted streets, which were deserted at this late hour, except round the railway station, where Catherine sped along without a pause. The train had not arrived; there were a number of people about upon the platform waiting for it, among them a little group composed of Emma and her trunks, with old Captain Morgan standing like a pillar in the midst of the confused heap. "Wait here and watch," Catherine said, putting Hester into a quiet corner, where the girl stood trembling, gazing at the shifting groups, hardly able to sustain her fatigued and tottering limbs, but following with a kind of fascination the movements of her companion, who seemed to penetrate every knot, to scan every countenance, not a creature there escaping her inspection.
If he had been there, would all this page of history have been changed, and wrong become right again? These strange turns for good or evil, that seem to hang upon the quiver of a balance, are too bewildering for mortal senses. Catherine by that time had no doubt. Had she but found him, quivering with love and strength and passion as she was, she would have saved him still. But he was not there. She made no affectation of secresy. She called the guard to her, and gave him a succinct reason for wishing to find her nephew. "Some news have come for him since he left the house. Find him for me," she said, with a smile, and a half-crown ready. But by and by she came back to the girl in the corner, reproving her with an impatient touch on her shoulder. "Don't look so scared," she said. "What is there to be frightened for?" She took hold of Hester by the arm. She was trembling from head to foot: for by this time she knew that he was not there.
There was still the chance left that he might dart in at the last moment, and it was for this reason that she placed herself by the doorway, her face full in the lamplight, with a smile upon it, her look of expectation frank and cheerful. Then came the deafening clang of the arrival, the confusion and bustle and leave-takings, the little pause full of voices and noises, and then the clang of the train getting under way, the sweep and wind of its going, the emptiness and blackness left behind: all so vulgar and ordinary, yet all tragic sometimes as the most terrible of accessories. She drew Hester aside almost violently, and let the other spectators stream away. Among the first old Captain Morgan stalked forth, tired but contented, noticing nobody. Of all people in the world he would least have recognised these two standing in agitation inconceivable, subduing as they could the heart-throbs that took away their breath. When he had got well on his way the two women came out into the light. They were holding by each other, Hester clasping her companion's arm, and guiding her as she had once guided her mother. A sombre cloud had come over Catherine's face. She had allowed herself to hope, and the second disappointment was almost worse than the first revelation. It was all her self-command could do to prevent her from flinging off from her the girl whose share in all this—what was it? perhaps the whole was her doing, perhaps the suggestion of everything, perhaps, God knows, craft enough to make this final effort to recover the boy a failure. Who could say if Hester had not known from the beginning that the attempt would be fruitless? And the other, too, Harry, whom she had called to her by an impulse which seemed now to have been put into her head by some one, and not to be her own. Harry, too. He would be brought into the secret! Her humiliation would be complete. The boy she had scoffed at, the girl she had disliked, turned into her confidants, and Edward, her own, her heir, her son, the successor she had chosen!—Catherine's heart cried out within her with a mother's passion. In the quiet of the country road she could hold her peace no longer. She drew her arm out of Hester's abruptly.
"No doubt," she said, "no doubt! he was to carry you away, a fine lady like you, with posthorses in a romantic way—not by the vulgar method of a train; and you have deceived me, and lost me my last chance. Edward! Edward! Oh where are you, my boy, my boy?"
Here, had she but known it, poor Catherine's comedy of human nature was complete. Edward, upon whom she called with tragic passion as great as that of a Constance, was just then approaching Emma, in a fierce farce of self-compensation, determined to make the adventure complete, to cut every tie and tear every remnant of the past to pieces. Her laugh of contempt at the poor farce-tragedy would have been supreme had it been any case but her own.
CHAPTER XI.
A NIGHT'S VIGIL.
They had been sitting through all the night, examining everything. Catherine was not a woman to be the slave of passion, even when that was the one delusion of her life. She got over it with a stern and fierce struggle before they reached the gate of the Grange, whither Hester followed her, trembling and half stupefied, unable either to resist or to think of any course of action for herself. Catherine paused at the gate, and looked round her with a curious quivering smile. "Here is where I saw him going away," she said; "here is where I heard the last words from him." She laughed; her heart was throbbing with the wildest suffering. She dashed her hands together with a violence of which she was unaware. "Such words!" she cried. It was scarcely one o'clock, but in summer there is little night, and already the air had begun to whiten with some premonition of day. She held up her face to the sky—an old face, with so many lines in it, suddenly smitten as with a death-blow. Her eyes, under the curve of pain, which makes the eyelids quiver, looked up to the pale skies with what is the last appeal of humanity. For why?—for why?—an honest life, an honourable career, a soul that had shrunk from no labour or pain, a hand that never had been closed to human distress—and repaid with misery at the end! Is there no reason in it when God's creature lifts a face of anguish to His throne, and asks why? She paused on the threshold of her house, which was desolate, and made that mute appeal. It was beyond all words or crying, as it was beyond all reply. The other, who was the companion of her misfortune, stood beside her, looking, not at heaven, but at her. Hester had got far beyond thinking of her own share in it. Fatigue and excitement had brought sensation almost to an end. She was not angry with Catherine, who had thrown her off. Everything was blurred to her in a sense of calamity common and universal, of which Catherine seemed the sign and emblem. She made no interruption in the silence. And it was only when Catherine turned to go in that she was recalled to a recollection of Hester by her side.
"I think—I had better go home—to my mother," the girl said, looking along the road with a dreamy terror. She was afraid of the dark, the solitude, the distance—and yet what was there left to her but to go home, which she seemed to have quitted, to have fled from, with the idea of never returning, years ago. Catherine put out her hand and grasped her. She was far the more vigorous of the two. She could have carried the girl into the house, where she now half led, half dragged her. They found Harry already waiting for them in great bewilderment and distress. He could not account for the entrance of these two together, or for their apparent union—but Catherine gave him no explanation. She made him sit down and tell her at once everything he knew of the state of affairs: and when this was made plain to her, she flew out upon him with a wrath that made Harry shrink.
"Why did you leave everything in one person's hands? Is it not a partner's business to look after his own interests? You have piled all upon one man's shoulders. He has had everything to do. It has been too much for his mind—it has turned his head. If it had been yours, what would have happened to you?"
"I have been saying all that to myself, Aunt Catherine," Harry said, humbly; "but you know I am not clever, and poor Ned——"
She stamped her foot on the floor. "Let me have none of your commiserations," she cried. "There is nothing poor about it at least."
She put Hester down at the table with pen and ink to write for her. She had not said a word of compassion to her; this had been the way she had chosen to express her feeling, whatever it was. When Harry had interposed, begging to be allowed to do it, she had stopped him summarily; and had gone on thus, collecting information, dictating to Hester, examining papers with Harry, asking a hundred questions, till morning was blue in the skies. When she saw by that strange light stealing in, how wan and wretched her two companions looked, Catherine rose from her chair. She was not tired—her colour was as fresh and her eyes as bright as ever, her mind full of impatient energy; but the powers of the others had flagged.
"Go home and rest," she said to Harry. "Have old Rule there to-morrow morning to meet me. I will come to the bank to-morrow—I mean to-day—at eight, before you open. Go home and go to bed."
"Not if I can be of any use to you, Aunt Catherine—or to poor Ned."
Her foot made the same impatient movement upon the carpet. "You can be of no use," she said, "dropping asleep as you are: go and rest; at your age few can do without sleep. And Hester, go too, you can do no more." It was not without a half contempt that she saw the overpowering of their young faculties by that which to her was nothing. There are so many things in which youth has the best of it, that age has a right to its dolorous triumph when that comes. She went down with Harry to the door to let him out, glad of the movement, and stood in the early light for a moment breathing in the fresh air. The birds were all twittering, making their morning thanksgiving, expressing their joy in the new day. Catherine looked out sternly upon the light and gladness in which she had no share. She thought again—should she ever think of anything else?—of the last words she had heard, and of his figure hurrying away in the darkness, deaf to her cry. It was a relief to go in again, even to see the poor little lamp flickering, and the light bursting in at every crevice of the ineffectual shutters. When she reached the room in which they had been at work, Hester, who had answered as far as her faculties could to every call upon her, had dropped back into the great chair in which she had been sitting, and had fallen asleep in utter exhaustion. It was a curious scene. The windows were all closed, and candles upon the table still burning: but the light swept in from above, over the top of the shutters, which were not so high as the glass, and lighted up the room in a strange abstract way like a studio or a prison. In the midst of this pale and colourless illumination Hester's white face, with the blue veins showing in it, in an attitude of utter abandonment and exhaustion, pillowed upon the dark cushions of the chair, was the central point; her hand with the pen in it was still on the table, the candles flickering with a yellow uncertain blaze. Catherine went and stood by her for a moment and looked at her. Tears were upon the girl's long eyelashes, her mouth seemed still quivering, the faint sound of a sob came out of her sleep. She looked younger even than she was, like a child that had cried itself asleep. Catherine looked at her with many a thought. John Vernon's daughter, who had all but ruined her father's house, and had wounded her own pride, if not her heart, in the way women feel most—and bitterer still, Edward's love, she, for whom he had planned to betray her own better claims, for whom he would have deserted her, for whom he had ruined her, this time perhaps without remedy. With a strange bitterness she looked at the young creature thus fatally connected with all the miseries of her life. It was not Hester's fault. The table was covered with proofs of her submission and obedience. If it was true that but for her perhaps Catherine's power would never have been disturbed, it was also true that but for her Catherine might have been ruined irretrievably, she and all she prized most. But this argument did not tell in the mind of the woman who stood gazing at her, so much as the look of utter infantile weariness, the broken sound of the sleeping sob, the glitter upon her eyelashes. She stood for a long time, and Hester never moved. Then she took a shawl and covered the sleeper as tenderly as her mother could have done it, and began to pace softly up and down in that weird clearness. She did not even extinguish the candles, but left them there amid all the disarray of the table, the scattered papers, covered with notes and figures. The young can sleep, but not the old. The romantic interest would be with Hester worn out with wretchedness and weariness; but the heavier burden was her own.
Perhaps had the truth been pursued to its depths it gave a certain satisfaction to Catherine to find herself at last left to contemplate alone that uttermost and profoundest loss which was hers. The girl slept though her heart might be broken; the woman whose last hope he was, whose faith in human nature was wound up in him, who believed in Edward, but on earth in no one else, slept not, rested not, could not forget. She walked from end to end of the room, her hands clasped, her face in all its comely age paled in a moment to the pallor of an old woman. People had said that her colour was like a girl's still: her eye was not dim nor her natural force abated. But over her there had come this chill in a moment. And where was he, the cause of it all? Flying fast across the country somewhere, directing his way, no doubt, to some port where he could get out of England. For what, oh Heaven, for what? Was there any sacrifice she would not have made for him? He might have had his Hester, his own house like the others, if that was what he wanted. There was nothing, nothing she would have grudged him! She would have asked no gratitude, made no conditions. He should have had his freedom, and his love—whatever he wanted. All this swept through her mind as she went to and fro in that blue clearness of the morning which swept down upon her from the skies over all the weariness and disarray of the night. Catherine did not ask herself what she would have said, all things being well, if she had been asked to consent to the effacing of herself, which now it seemed would have been so easy a solution of the problem. It seemed to her now that in love she would have granted all he could ask for, and in pride she certainly would have done it, scorning to ask how he could resign her so easily. Love and pride combined wrung her heart between them now. Up and down, up and down with a soft monotonous motion she walked unsubdued while the others sank. Her old frame felt no weariness, her old heart was yet high. She could no more sink down and acknowledge herself beaten, than she could drop her head and sleep like Hester. With impatience and an energy unbroken she waited for the day.
Catherine's carriage stood outside the bank at eight o'clock in the morning, to the wonder yet admiration of the town. "Old as she is, she's an example to the young ones," the people said: though there were darker rumours, too, that one of the young men had gone wrong, and that it was a sharp and speedy inquiry into this that had brought Catherine into the town without delay. The still closed door was opened to her by Harry, who was pale with his sleepless night and with the anxiety from which he could now find no escape. Behind Harry was old Rule, who came forward with a face like a mute at a funeral, his hands held up, his countenance distorted with grief and sympathy. "Oh, my dear lady!" he cried; "oh, Miss Catherine, has it come to this? Who could suppose that you and I should meet together a second time in this way?"
Catherine made a sudden gesture of impatience. "How do you know what the way is until you hear?" she said. She sat down at the table where she had sat so often. Her old look of command, the energy and life of old, seemed in her face; if it was paled and jaded, the others, who were more shaken still than she, had no eyes to see it. The three were deep in their work before the clerks appeared, one by one, all those who were of any weight in the place, or cared for Vernon's, asking anxiously if anything was known of Mr. Edward. When they were met by the astonishing statement "Miss Vernon is here," the announcement was received in different ways, but with great excitement. "Then all is right," said one; but another shook his head. "All must be very wrong," he said, "or Catherine Vernon would not be here." It was the cashier who uttered these words. He was an old servant of the bank, and had been a junior at the time when old Rule was head clerk and Catherine the soul of everything. After a while he was sent for into the mysterious room towards which the attention of every one was now directed. There old Mr. Merridew was shown in with solemnity on his brows, and various others of the fathers of the town. Even outside there seemed a little excitement about to the anxious spectators within. If it had been market-day there might have been a run on the bank. As it was, there were one or two little groups about, anxiously noting the grave faces of the visitors. All day long they came and went; the great books were all spread about upon the table within, and when the door opened sometimes one anxious face would be seen, sometimes another. One of the younger men passing the door saw Catherine herself explaining and urging something upon the chief of the Bank of England in Redborough, who had joined the conclave. It was clearly then, they all felt, a matter of life and death. Some wine and biscuits were taken in in the middle of the day, but no one went away for luncheon, no one had time or leisure for any such thought. Mr. Pounceby, who was Catherine's solicitor, stayed by her all day long, while the others went and came. The clerks, when their day's work was done, left this secret conclave still sitting. The cashier and the head clerk were detained after the others. The younger men went away with an alarmed sense that Vernon's might never open again.
And this impression was so far justified that the councillors, almost without exception, thought so too. There had been found in Edward's room at the Grange a bundle of papers, securities taken by him from the safe at the bank. The greater part had been abstracted, but the few that were left showed too clearly what methods he had adopted. The bank itself was worth aiding. Its prestige as yet was scarcely touched; but how were these deficiencies to be made up, how was it to be worked without money, and how was its credit to be restored? Catherine had not now the independent fortune which on the former occasion she had thrown into the common stock with proud confidence in Vernon's. It had all been repaid her, but it had remained in the business, and if Vernon's now were to be made an end of, was gone. That did not affect the mind of the proud old woman. She thought nothing of herself or her fortune. She sat unwearied, meeting one man after another, who a week or two ago had been obsequious to her, without wincing, ready to hear all their doubts, to bear the shakings of their heads, their blame of the culpable negligence that had left everything in one man's hand—their denunciations of Edward, the eager advantage they took of that right to find fault and reproach which is put into the hands of every man who is asked to help. Catherine faltered at first, when she found that to save Edward's character, to smooth away his guilt, and make excuses for him was impossible. These angry men would not hear a word of apology. He was a swindler to them and nothing more. "Pardon me, my dear Miss Vernon, but I always thought the confidence you showed in that young fellow excessive." "He should not have been permitted a tithe of the power he had. It was not just to others who were far more deserving." "If you mean me, I was no more to be matched with Edward than a tortoise is with a hare," said Harry. Catherine put out her hand to him under the table and gave his hand such a pressure, delicate as hers was, as almost made the strong young fellow cry out; but at the same time she silenced him with a look, and bore it all. She bore everything—the long hours of contention, of explanation, of censure, of excuse, of anxious pointing out again and again of the strong points in her case. She argued it all out with every individual, and again with every combination of them, when two or three together would return to the old objections, the difficulties they had originally started, and which again and again had been argued away, with no doubt the natural special pleading of all who speak in their own defence. During this continually repeated process Harry would stand behind her with his face of trouble, watching the countenances of the speakers, now and then blurting out something (the reverse of judicious in most cases), shuffling with uneasy feet upon the floor; sometimes, poor fellow, there being nothing else in his power, holding her elbow with the idea of supporting her, kneeling down to put her footstool straight; while old Mr. Rule, sitting at a little distance, equally anxious, equally eager, not of importance enough to speak, would come in with a quavering "Miss Vernon explained all that, sir—" "As Miss Vernon has already said, sir——"
She alone showed little anxiety and no distress. She was as dignified as if she had been entertaining them at her table, as she had done so often. She bore those repetitions of the old objections with composure. She did not get impatient, twisting and turning in her chair like Mr. Rule, or crushing her impatience under foot like Harry. She was like an Indian at the stake: or rather like a prime minister in his place in Parliament. The hundred times repeated argument, the old doubt brought up again, all afresh with shakings of the head, the stolid little compliments to her as a woman so much superior to her sex, her masculine understanding (good lack! wonderful, though not equal to those whom she had convinced over and over again, yet who began again next moment where they had left off), all this she put up with without shrinking. Oh, the dulness of them, the unconvinceableness, the opaque vision, the impotent hearts! But she made no sign that she perceived. She sat still and held her own. She had the best of the argument in logic, but not, alas, in power. Ten mortal hours had struck by the time the last of her visitors hastened away to his dinner, promising to think of it, yet shaking his head. Catherine leant her head upon the back of her high chair and closed her eyes; the tears came to them in the relief of having no more to say. She was so pallid and so worn now that they both rushed to her in silent terror. She opened her eyes with an astonished look. "I hope you do not think I am going to faint; I never faint," she said.
Ten hours! She walked to her carriage with a foot lighter and firmer than that of Harry, upon whose fine physique and troubled soul this day had wrought more havoc than the severest football. She would not allow her old friend and servant to come to the door with her.
"Don't tire yourself," she said. "You have so much to do for us yet. I think we shall pull through."
"God bless you, Miss Catherine," said the old man; "if we pull through it will be your doing."
"What merit is that?" she said quickly. "Why should God bless me for that? It is for myself."
"Oh, my dear lady," cried the old clerk. "I know you better than you do yourself. It is for Vernon's and not for you. And Vernon's means the honest living of many a family. It means——"
"Don't tell me what it means," she cried, putting up her hands. "It means downfall and shame now. It means a broken heart, Mr. Rule."
"No, no," he cried. "No, no, we'll get through. I'll come back if you'll let me, and Mr. Harry will work like a hero."
She gave Harry a strange glance. There was in it a gleam of repugnance, an air of asking pardon. She could not endure the contrast which it was not possible to refrain from making. He, standing by her, so dutiful, so kind, while the other who had ruined her, fled away. She could have struck him with her nervous hand, which now was trembling; she could have made a humble confession to him of the injuries she had done him in her heart. She could bear the old town dignitaries, the men of money, better than this.
"May I go with you?" he said, supporting her with his arm, bending over her with his fair countenance full of trouble and sympathy.
She could have struck him for being so good and true. Why was he true, and the other— Better, better if they had both been alike, both traitors, and left her to bear it by herself.
"No, Harry," she said; "no, Harry, let me be alone."
He kissed her hand, poor boy, with a piteous look, and she felt it wet with a tear. Nor did she misunderstand him. She knew it was for her he was sorry. She knew even that he was the one alone who would stand up for the absent, and excuse him and pity him. All this she knew, and it was intolerable to her, and yet the best and sweetest thing that was in her lot.
CHAPTER XII.
AFTERWARDS.
Hester woke next morning in an unfamiliar room with a consciousness of something strange and terrible that had happened, she could not tell what, that first sensation before memory awakens which is one of the most bitter indications of having entered upon the world of evil. So the guilty pair in Paradise, in the morning of the world, must have woke out of their sleep, and felt, before remembrance came, the sense of ill. She scarcely remembered how she had been transported to that bed. She had slept for sorrow, calamity crushing all her unused faculties, and her first waking sensation was one of trouble and wonder what it was. She had not long to wait before the whole came rushing back upon her mind. She gave a low cry, and all her wounds began to bleed anew—nay, she felt them as for the first time, for last night's terror and commotion and misery were like a dream to her. When she uttered that cry, there was a soft stir in the room, and a little, noiseless figure, and anxious face appeared at her bedside.
"Mother!" Hester cried, with a voice of dismay.
"Yes, my darling, I am here. Catherine was so good as to send for me. She said you had received a great shock. She went out herself very early, so that you need not be afraid of being disturbed, Hester. And what is it, my dear? She would not give me any satisfaction. She said you had behaved very well, and had been the means of giving her valuable information. I am very glad of that anyhow, Hester. I always told you she was kind in the main. If you and she should be better friends after this it would be a great pleasure to me."
There was anxiety in Mrs. John's plaintive face, but it was confined to the fear lest her daughter's health should be affected, and to a little uncertainty whether the relations with Catherine might be improved or injured by this mysterious event, whatever it was.
"She has been very kind, mamma."
"I was sure of it, my dear. Catherine has a way with her that is not very—nice—sometimes. But then we all have some fault. I was to ring for tea as soon as you were awake. That maid, after all, though I have always had a prejudice against her, is kind too, in her way. She has made me most comfortable. I have always observed in my life, Hester, that when you get to know people you so often think better of them than when— That has been my experience. Do you feel able to take some breakfast, dear? or will you get up first? You are to do exactly as you please."
Hester lay still with a little moan, and made no reply. She would have liked to turn her face to the wall, to beg that the light of day might be shut out, that she might be left to make acquaintance with her trouble. But none of these things were possible. Her mother's gentle face shining upon her with so much easy anxiety, and so little conception of anything under the surface, brought her to herself as nothing else could have done. Why should she be troubled with these anguishes that were beyond her? The girl raised herself with that heroism of necessity which is more effectual than mere will. Mrs. John would weep with her, and make up to her with a thousand caresses for the loss of her lover, when she came to understand it; but she would never understand the burden that was on Hester's soul. The girl said to herself that it must be borne silently, that there must be no further betrayal. She begged her mother to leave her a little, while she got up.
"I have had a long sleep. I am quite myself again," she said.
"You look pale," said Mrs. John, kissing her. "You have had a shock, and you have never told me yet what it was. But perhaps, on the whole, the best thing you can do is to get up; breakfast in bed is not very comfortable. I will go and have a good look at Catherine's pretty things in the drawing-room—she has some nice china—and come back in half an hour or so. Don't hurry, my darling, but it is such a lovely morning; it will do you good to have some fresh air."
When Hester was left alone she tried to think, but could not. Scenes came back to her as in a theatre—the meeting at the gate, and all that passed there; Catherine's appearance, and the force with which Edward flung her away from him, and set out into the dark, into the unknown. Why—why had he done it? Was it in a sudden fit of passion, which he had repented of? Was it in the terror of being discovered—and out of that suspicion and opposition, and gloomy distrust which had always been in his mind towards Catherine? And then the railway would rise before her mind—the crowd and noise, and wild unnaturalness of everything, the disappointment which to her at heart was a relief. Had he not gone after all? What if a better thought had struck him? What if, when they all went to the bank, thinking him a traitor, they should find him there, throwing light on everything, putting the wrong right? Hester raised her head again when this thought came into her mind. Was it not after all the most likely, the most natural thought? A man does wrong by temptation, by evil companions, by the leading on of one wrong thing after another; but when he is brought to a pause, when there is a distinct call upon him, when he is made to see beyond dispute what his duty is, is it not natural, certain, that he must do it? So she said to herself. For a moment all the clouds flew away, a warm exhilaration took possession of her. Then there floated up before her eyes another scene—the table round which they had sat in the dead of night; Harry with his troubled face opposite to her; Catherine paramount in her energy and rapidity; she herself putting down upon paper, so quickly that her fingers alone moved and her mind had no share but the most broken and imperfect one, what she was told to write. If he had come back, if he was working now at the re-establishment of everything, could Edward ever forgive them? What matter, what matter, she cried, so long as he set himself right, so long as Vernon's stood by his help and did not fall? From all this it will be seen that nothing of the despair which in reality and in reflection had overwhelmed all the other chief actors in the drama, had touched Hester. To her everything was still possible, and Edward's vindication, Edward's repentance, the chief, the most natural event of all.
"Well, my dear, are you ready?" said Mrs. John. "There is quite a nice breakfast waiting for you down stairs. Catherine's maid (whom I really was unjust to, Hester, for she is a very nice woman when you come to know her) insisted upon making you some chocolate instead of tea: for it would be more sustaining, she said, in case you should not be disposed to eat. I don't know why she should think you would not be disposed to eat. I told her you always liked your breakfast. But come, my dear, come, I am sure you must want something. Did you find the clean things I brought you? Oh I thought you would be better in a nice clean print, instead of that dark thing; but you have put on the old one all the same."
"It is best for me to-day," Hester said.
She thought to herself if it all turned out as she hoped, with what joy she would return to her summer garments in the evening, even if it might be that Edward had broken with her for ever. She thought this almost certain, for had she not turned against him? but this was not the question paramount in her mind. There was but one thing all important, that he should have returned to his post. Mrs. John was greatly surprised at the wisdom of that prevision on the part of Catherine's maid. How could she have foreseen that Hester, a healthy girl, with generally a healthy appetite, would turn away almost with loathing from the dainty food, the pretty tray, the careful provision made for her? She swallowed the chocolate hastily at her mother's entreaty: the very air of the house, those stairs and passages, all flooded with light, which had painted themselves on her recollection in the darkness, filled Hester with a sense of the intolerable. She made haste to get out, to get away, to take her mother home.
"Don't you think it will only be polite to wait till Catherine comes back?" Mrs. John said. "You must remember, dear, that she has been very kind to you; and nothing could be kinder than her note, and sending the carriage for me this morning, and all. I think we ought to wait and thank her for her kindness. She will think it strange that we should go away without a word. Well, if you think it really will be better to come back in the afternoon, Hester—Has Catherine gone out to spend the day? That is quite unusual, surely for her—but however, of course it is not our business. Lean on my arm, my dear. I am sure, as you say, the air will do you good."
The air did not do Hester good: the shade of the holly-tree lying motionless upon the road, the half open gate at which Catherine had appeared in the darkness, the strange intelligence that seemed to be in every bush, as if these inanimate things knew and remembered what had been done and said in secret, seemed to bring conviction, and force back upon her all the scenes she had gone through of which her innocent mother knew nothing. And every inch of the way recalled her own proud, eager thoughts of the night before, the desperation with which she had gone to that meeting, determined upon her protest and refusal, yet never sure that she would ever retrace these steps again. To retrace them now as she was doing, with her mother's gentle talk in her ears, the occasional mild question which it was so easy to elude, the praises of Catherine which her supposed kindness called forth so easily, seemed an incredible thing. Mrs. John enjoyed the walk. It was seldom she went out in the morning, and the excitement of her daughter's absence all night, of Catherine's explanations, of the drawing together of some new and closer bond between Hester and the head of the Vernon society—the most important person of all the kindred—gave her a secret exhilaration. There had not been such a sensation in the Vernonry for months as that which had been caused that morning by the sight of Catherine's well-known brougham, sent for Mrs. John! It might be that in future this would be no rare sight: it might be—but the poor lady scarcely knew how to contain the satisfaction with which she saw the vista opening up before her of Hester's promotion and favour with Catherine. Valuable information! She was proud of what seemed to her like the highest praise. She always knew that her Hester, so much superior as she was to other girls——if Catherine but knew her as she deserved to be known. And then she asked with pleasant expectation—
"What was the information, Hester, that you gave Catherine? I am so glad that you were able to tell her something she didn't know. I was quite in a flutter when I got her note last night; but of course it was perfectly right for you to stay when she wished it. I shall tell her I am so much obliged to her for having taken such good care of you. It gave me quite a fright for the moment, but I soon got over it. And Emma, you know, went away at last by the night train."
Thus Mrs. John diverted her own attention and never pressed a question. But it is impossible to tell how deserted, how silent, how far out of the world and life the little rooms at the Vernonry looked after the agitation of the night. Hester could not rest in them: the summer forenoon seemed a twelve-month long. She could not take up any of her usual occupations. She was afraid to meet any one, to be questioned perhaps more closely than her mother had questioned her. Her heart was away, it was not in this place. In the pauses of Mrs. John's gentle talk she felt her own thoughts thronging upon her almost audibly. It seemed impossible that other people, that even her mother, unsuspicious as she was, should not find her out. And how slow, how slow were those sunshiny minutes, sixty of them in an hour! The time of the early dinner came, and again Hester turned from the food. Mrs. John began to be alarmed. "If it goes on like this I shall have to send for the doctor," she said.
Hester hastened out as soon as the meal was over to escape from her mother's comments. It seemed to her that she recognised some new knowledge in the keen glances of the sisters, and in Mr. Mildmay Vernon's grin as he sat over his newspaper in the summer-house. And she was afraid of the old Morgans, who had more insight. The surroundings of the house altogether were odious to her—unnecessary things that had nothing to do with those real affairs and mysteries of living which were being solved elsewhere. She asked herself wistfully, whether it was not time for her to go back: though if Catherine had not returned, what could she do but cause suspicion if she went to the empty house? To be even in the empty house would be something—it would be so much nearer the scene in which everything was going on. While she stood with her hand curved over her forehead looking out upon the road, with her eyes "busy in the distance shaping things that made her heart beat quick," the old captain came up to her. She thought he was paler than usual, and his eyes were troubled. He had laid his hand on her shoulder before she heard his approach, so absorbed was she in her own thoughts. He took her by the arm in his fatherly way—
"Come with me, Hester, and talk to my old woman," he said.
It was with a great start that she turned to him, trembling with nervousness all unknown to the Hester of yesterday.
"Is she ill?" she cried, scarcely knowing what she said; and then with a vague smile, "I forgot. Emma is gone, and she is missing—"
"It is not Emma we are thinking of. Hester, tell me," said the old man, leading her away with her arm in his, "what is this about Catherine? What has happened? Your mother told us you were there all night, and now to-day——"
"What do they say has happened?" cried Hester with a gasp of suspense.
"I cannot make head nor tail of it. I hear that one of the young men has gone wrong; that Catherine is at the bank; that there are great defalcations; that he went off last night——I can testify," cried Captain Morgan, querulously, "that he did not go away last night, for I was there."
Hester looked up at him with a face from which all colour had fled.
"Is it known who it is? are you sure he has not come back? Oh, I have a feeling," she cried, "a feeling in my heart that he has come back!"
"My child," said the old captain, "you may trust her and me. Whatever it is, it is safe with her and me."
Mrs. Morgan was sitting at the window in her summer place; her placid brow had a cloud upon it, but was not agitated like her husband's.
"Have you come back to us, Hester?" she said. "We thought we had lost you. If you can satisfy his mind with anything you can say, do it, my dear."
"What can I say?" Hester cried. "We are all in great trouble. I don't know which is the greatest, but I cannot tell you secrets that are not mine. Dear Mrs. Morgan, tell the captain so. Whatever I know it is by accident. I think I shall die with anxiety and suspense, but there is nothing I can say."
"My dear, you will not die, you will live to be anxious many another day. Rowley, my old man, you hear the child. We must not ask her another question. Wait, as you have waited many a time before. It is all in the Lord's hands."
The old man was wiping the moisture from his forehead: he had seated himself as soon as he came in, his old limbs were shaking under him. His large, colourless hands shook, holding his handkerchief.
"Mary," he said, "if it is my flesh and blood that has brought this disturbance into the place, that has seduced her boy, and brought down ruin on her house, how am I ever to lift my head again?"
The old lady looked at him with pathetic eyes, in which there was a suffering as acute as his own, softened and made almost bright by the patience and calm that were habitual to her.
"Rowley, we are not thinking of Catherine, we are thinking of ourselves," she said.
And then there was a pause. It seemed to Hester that her own brokenheartedness was a sort of child's passion in comparison. She said humbly—
"Will you tell me what you are afraid of? There is nobody blamed but one. There is not a name spoken of but one. I don't know if that is any comfort to you, Captain Morgan."
"And the one is her boy, the apple of her eye, the only one that she has trusted, her choice out of all the world," the old lady said. "Oh be silent, be silent, my old man! What is your pride to that? I would rather I had a share of the burden—I would like to be suffering with her." The tears stood in the deep wells of those old eyes, which had wept so much. She was past weeping now. "The Lord forgive him and bring him back," she said.
"You mean punish him, you mean give him over to the powers of darkness that he belongs to! What does he deserve, a man that has used a woman like that?"
"I am not asking what he deserves. I will tell you what he would get if he would come back. Pardon!" said the old woman with a sob, instinctively putting out her old soft hands.
"I am not for pardon," said the captain vehemently, his head moving in his agitation, his hands shaking. "I am for every soul bearing its own burden. Here is a woman that has spread prosperity around her. She has been kind, even when she has not been merciful. The grateful and the ungrateful, she has been good to them all. She has been like the sun shining and the rain raining upon both just and unjust. And here is the end of her, stung to her heart by the child of her bosom. For it will be the end of her. She is a grand woman. She won't bear being deceived."
"Do not say that," said Hester; "she is so strong, stronger than any of us—if you had seen her last night!"
"Where could I have seen her last night?" he said quickly; then, with a smile, "that is all you know, you children. Yes, stronger than any one of you, able to do everything. Do you remember the French boy in Browning's ballad, Hester, that could not bear it when his Emperor asked if he were wounded? 'I'm killed, sire!' That is like Catherine. She stands like a tower. I can see her in my mind's eye. She needs no sleep, no rest: but she is killed for all that."
Hester rose to her feet as he spoke in an excitement she could not control.
"I must go," she said. "I must go—I might be wanted."
The old man rose and hobbled out after her. He followed her to the gate.
"I will wait while you get your hat. I am coming with you," he said. "We cannot rest, Hester, neither you nor I."
Mrs. John was dozing in her chair as she generally did in the afternoon. She opened her eyes and said, "Are you going for a walk, dear?" then closed them tranquilly again. The very atmosphere in the brown wainscotted parlour breathed of peace and quiet uncongenial with any such throbbings as those in Hester's heart. She joined the old man, who was waiting for her at the door, and they went on together, saying little. The great window in the Grange where Catherine usually sat commanding the road was vacant. There was a certain deserted air about the place. They knew without a word that Catherine was still out of it.
"It is too far for you to go," Hester said.
Though they had not spoken for a long time they understood each other à demi-mot.
"It is too far for me," said he, "but what does that matter? everything will soon be too far for me. Let me go on while I can."
They walked as far as the bank, where their anxious eyes made out the people lingering about, the air of curiosity and excitement. Old Captain Morgan hobbled up to Mr. Merridew, who was making his way out with a serious face. "You will excuse me for my anxiety, sir," he said, "but will you tell me if Miss Vernon is there, and what is going on?"
"That is an easy question you are asking me," said Mr. Merridew, eying him closely; "certainly Miss Vernon is there."
"I am her near relation," said the old man, "and you are connected with her by marriage."
"I know very well who you are, Captain Morgan: a distinguished officer, though people have not found it out here. If you can lend Miss Vernon substantial help I advise you to do it at once."
Captain Morgan drew back a little: he gave Hester a pathetic glance. They retired slowly with lingering steps from the vicinity of Vernon's. They understood all without knowing anything.
"There is the bitterness of having nothing," said the old captain, "and that man knew it, Hester. I would coin myself if I could, for her, and yet I cannot help her." Neither of them knew about business, nor how men like Mr. Merridew, who had been listening all day long to Catherine's explanations and arguments without being moved, could save the bank still if they would. But they felt in their hearts the dull opposition of his face, the shake of his head, the nature of his advice to one whom he knew to be a poor man, to help her now. "Money is a wonderful thing," said Captain Morgan; "it can do so much and yet so little. If you or I were rich as we are poor, we could make Catherine think for half an hour that she had surmounted everything."
"Why for half an hour, Captain Morgan?" said Hester.
"Because, my dear, at the end of that time Vernon's being safe, there would come back upon her that from which neither heaven nor earth can deliver her."
"Oh, Captain Morgan, do not say so. Cannot Heaven, cannot God, deliver from everything?" cried Hester, with a sense of horror.
"Ay, in a way that He uses always at the end—by death. At least we think death will do that for us; but it is only a guess even then. How otherwise?" said the old man, raising his dim old eyes beneath their heavy lids. "What is done cannot be undone. If the boy were to be touched with compunction too late and come back, even that would not restore the past."
"Why not?" she said, "why not? We could forgive him." It was the first acknowledgment she had made of any share in the catastrophe.
"Forgive him! You speak as if that could change anything! What is your forgiveness? You seem to think it is a thing, not so many words." Then after they had gone a little while in silence the old man burst forth again. "You could forgive him! A man wants not forgiveness, but to make up for his sins. You think it is like giving him a fortune to give him your pardon, as if he could set up again, and make a new beginning upon that. Forgiveness may save a man's soul, but it does not save his honour or his life. You could have him back and let him live upon you, and eat out your hearts with his baseness trying to make it show like virtue. But Catherine is too noble a creature for that," cried the old captain. "Thank God she has never been broken down to that."
This torrent of words overwhelmed Hester; they had turned into the quiet road again, and the girl fell into a low sobbing and weeping as she went. She was too much overstrained to be able to control herself. Yet her heart struggled against this sentence.
"If you love any one is it only while he is good?" she said. "Is it noble to cast him from you because he has gone wrong? Then what is love or faithfulness? Are they nothing—nothing?"
She knew now that he had not come back. Honour had not moved him, nor love, nor any nobler impulse. She could have flung herself upon the earth in her misery. She felt that a touch now would be too much—that she could bear nothing further. And her companion saw that she was beyond the reach of any argument. He was silent, and they moved slowly along together, he tottering on his aged limbs, scarcely able to get along.
"Soon everything will be too far for me," he said with a half-pleased, almost satisfied nodding of his head. It took them a long time to get home, and the old captain was so worn out that he could not rise from his chair again that evening. He and his old wife sat sadly, saying something to each other once in half an hour. They could think of nothing but Catherine. They kept up their broken musing discussion upon her and her fate as the slow summer evening again crept silently by.
But Hester could not rest. She satisfied her mother easily that it was right she should go back to the Grange and find out if she could be of use.
"It is what I was going to suggest, my dear," said Mrs. John. "If Edward Vernon is away, as you say, and nobody with her, she must be lonely. And if there is any trouble besides—though you have never rightly explained to me what it was. No no, dear, I don't mean to say it is your fault. No doubt you have told me, and I have not taken it up. To be sure, Hester, you must go; and though I cannot bear to be without you, yet if Catherine wants you, and she is in trouble, stay. I am sure she would do as much for me," said the simple soul, without any cold breathings of doubt. She went to the gate with Hester, and when she came back could not help giving her neighbours a little sketch of the state of affairs. "My Hester has gone back to the Grange," she said, "she will probably stay there all night. Catherine Vernon wrote me the nicest note to tell me my child had been of so much use to her; that is always gratifying to a mother."
"Of use!" cried the ladies both together. "Gracious goodness, what can be going to happen? Hester of use!" cried one sister. "And to Catherine!" said the other. "Dear Catherine, she tells you so to please you—when probably she is thinking you the greatest bore—"
"She likes something new to experiment upon," said Mr. Mildmay Vernon with a snarl. Mrs. John was much discouraged by this reception of her news. She said—
"You little know my child if you think she will be experimented upon," holding her head high; but when she got indoors she cried a little over their ill-nature. If it had been one of them who had been chosen how different would have been their tone. Had the brougham been sent express for Miss Matilda or Miss Martha, what airs they would have given themselves! and Mrs. John knew that she had given herself no airs: she had not said a word. But she could not be silent about the promotion of her child.
CHAPTER XIII.
AN INTERRUPTION.
Catherine was in her usual chair in the familiar room where she had lived for so many years. These walls had witnessed most of the pleasantnesses and disappointments of her life; within them she had grown into that amused spectatorship of all the pranks of human creatures which it had pleased her to think was her characteristic attitude, indulgent to everybody, seeing through everybody. They had never seen her in the aspect which she bore now, beaten down under the stroke of fate. She was too far gone even to be conscious of the extraordinary irony of life which had made of the one only creature to whom she had been consciously unjust, whom she had considered from her childhood as an enemy, her sole ministrant and sympathiser now. But she was not conscious even of Hester's presence, who, overpowered by a great awe of the suffering which she shared, kept herself in the background, recognising, as so few watchers do, that she was there for the sake of the sorrowful woman whom she watched, and not at all for her own. Catherine lay back in her chair, her head thrown back, her eyelids half closed. She did not move, except now and then to put up her hand and dry the moisture which collected slowly under her eyelids. It could not be called tears. It was that extorted dew of pain which comes when the heart seems pressed and crushed in some giant grasp. She was not thinking, any more than it is inevitable to think as long as life remains. She was only suffering, nothing more. She could not make any head against it. Her last stronghold had fallen. This it is which makes calamity so terrible to the old. She could not get beyond it. There was nothing, nothing in her path but this, blocking it across with a darkness that would never be dispersed. If he had died she would have known she could not remain long behind him, and the gloom would have been but a mist between; but he had not died. The thought of searching for him through the world, of holding out succour to him when he came to need, of forgiving, that last prerogative of love, was scarcely in her nature. It was hers rather to feel that deep impossibility of re-beginning, the misery and pain of any struggle to make the base seem noble, which is as true a sentiment as the other. She could not have done it. To many women it is the highest form of self-abnegation as it is the bitterest lot that can be borne on earth; but to Catherine it would not have been possible. The blow to her was final. There was but one thing—to fight for Vernon's to the last gasp, to ward off disgrace and failure from the name, to keep the ground it had occupied so long, against possibility, against hope; but after that no more—no more. She had borne herself bravely as long as any eye was upon her, betraying nothing; and had sat down to table and tried to eat, with that utter self-mastery which will sustain the life it loathes with sedulous care so long as it is necessary—talking to Hester at intervals, giving Marshall directions as if nothing had happened. She had been first impatient, then satisfied to find the girl there. Her presence was a help in that needful struggle.
Catherine went up stairs after dinner as usual. Nothing was changed; but when she had attained to that shelter, she could do no more. She put back her head and closed her eyes, and gave herself up to the endurance of her death-blow. At the other end of the room Hester sat motionless. A keen-sighted spectator would have seen the outline of her figure in her dark dress, but nothing more. She was watching, forgetting her own share, intent upon the other. Her mind was full of what the old captain had said, "I'm killed, sire." Hester watched with a great awe, wondering if even thus, in the silence, without any more demonstration, a woman might die. She thought in her heart it would be well; but being so young she was afraid. And the silence was so deep, more deep than life could tolerate. She watched eagerly for that sole movement, the lifting of Catherine's hand to dry away the moisture from her eyes.
This stillness was broken suddenly by a loud knocking at the door—a continued volley of knocks, accompanied by the sound of voices outside. Then this sound surged inwards, and hasty steps were heard rushing up stairs. Hester's heart leaped to her mouth. It could not be that he would come back with such a noise and outcry; but yet a sort of frantic hope took possession of her as she rose to her feet. Catherine had raised herself too, and sat with her eyes widely open fixed upon the door. They had not long to wait. The door was flung open, dashing against a cabinet which stood near, with a superfluity of noise and emphasis; and, sweeping away the silence before her, and every possibility of calm, Ellen Merridew burst into the room, her eyes inflamed with crying, her fair countenance streaked with red, her light locks standing up round her face. She was followed by her husband, trying to hold her back, and by Marshall in the rear, eager—under a respectable semblance of attending the hasty visitors—to give accuracy to the floating suspicions of the servants' hall, and find out what it was all about. Ellen rushed in, and gazed about her wildly.
"Where is he?" she cried. "Oh, Aunt Catherine, where is he? You are hiding him, I said you would hide him, whatever he did. Oh, is it nothing to you if he goes and ruins people that never did him any harm?—young people like us that have all our life before us, and a dear baby to be turned out upon the world. Oh, Aunt Catherine, if you have any heart at all, where is he, where is he? I'll have him to justice!" cried Ellen. "I'll not sit under it. I won't—not if he should kill me! I want Edward. Where is Edward? I sha'n't go out of this till you give him up to me. He has ruined us, he has ruined us!" cried the excited creature, bursting into a transport of passionate tears.
There had been a moment of bewildered struggle in Catherine's face; then she rose up with what seemed to the excited new comers her usual composure.
"What does all this mean?" she said, in her quiet voice.
Hester had shut the door upon the servant's curiosity; Ellen crying violently, and poor Algernon, endeavouring vainly to console her, stood between the two, in the centre of the room. It was all that poor young Merridew could do not to weep too.
"I am sure you will forgive her, Miss Vernon," he said, in faltering tones. "We are nearly out of our senses. Oh, don't cry, my dearest; whatever they do they can't part us, and I'll work for you and baby. I'll work till I drop. Miss Vernon, if Edward's here—she doesn't mean any harm. She is just off her head, poor girl! and baby not a month old yet. If you will only let us see him, I'll pledge my word——"
"Algy, hold your tongue!" cried Ellen amidst her sobs, stamping her foot. "Hold your tongue, I tell you. She'll never, never give him up—never till she's forced, I know that. She has always liked that fellow better than the whole of us put together. And we've every one kotoued to him for her sake. He's been the head of everything, though he was nothing but a poor—— And as frightened of her as a dog, and hated her all the time. Oh yes, Aunt Catherine, you may believe me or not, but whenever there was a word about you, Edward was always the worst. Of course we all had our remarks to make, I don't say anything different; but he was always the worst. And now he's gone, and led Algy to his ruin," she cried, with another wild outburst. "We have lost every penny. Do you hear me, Aunt Catherine, do you hear me? We're ruined, with a dear baby not a month old, and I that have never got up my strength. Oh yes, Algy, yes, dear. I know you'll work till you drop. But what good will that do to me, to have you work yourself to death, and to be left a widow at my age, with a baby to support? And, Aunt Catherine, it will all be your fault," cried Ellen. "Yes, it will be your fault. If you hadn't made such a fuss about him, who would have ever trusted him? It was because of you I gave my consent. I said Aunt Catherine will never let him come to harm. And now here it has all come to smash, and me and Algy are ruined. Oh, how can you have the heart? and a dear innocent baby without a word to say for himself! And me at my age—and poor Algy that thought he was making so good a marriage when he got one of the Vernons——"
"Nelly, Nelly, darling!" cried the poor young fellow, "I married you because I loved you, not because you were one of the Vernons."
"And he had a good right to think so," said Ellen pushing away his caressing arm. "And they all thought so—every one; and now they've turned against me, and say I'm extravagant, and that I've ruined him. Oh! me to have ruined him that thought I was making a man of him! Aunt Catherine! Will you let us all be sacrificed, every one, only to keep Edward from harm?"
Catherine Vernon had sunk into her chair, but there was something of the old look of the spectator at a comedy again upon her face. The evening was beginning to fall, and they did not see the almost ghastly colour which had replaced the wonderful complexion of which everybody once spoke.
"Make her sit down, Algernon, and stop this raving," she said. "What has happened? I know nothing of it. If you have any claims upon Vernon's you will be paid with the rest—if we stand, till the last penny, if we fall, to the utmost that can be paid. I cannot say any more."
They both sat down and gazed at her with consternation on their faces; even Ellen's tears dried up as by magic. After she had stopped, they sat staring as if stupefied. Then Ellen got up, and threw herself at Catherine's feet with a cry of wild dismay.
"Aunt Catherine! you don't mean to say that you cannot help us, that you cannot save us? Oh, Aunt Catherine! don't be angry with me. I did not mean to make you angry. I was always silly, you know. You will help us, you will save Algy, you will pay the money, won't you?" She crept close to Catherine, and took her hand and kissed it, looking up piteously, with tears streaming down her face. "You'll do it for me, Aunt Catherine? Oh, though I am silly I am fond of my husband. And he's so good; he's never said it was my fault. And I always knew you would put it right. Aunt Catherine! you will put it right?"
Her voice rose into a shrill, despairing cry; then she dropped down helpless, sobbing and moaning, but still holding by Catherine's hand and her dress, whatever she could grasp at, in a passion of incredulity and despair.
Then Catherine, who had been so stately, sank back into her chair.
"I can't bear any more," she said, "I can't bear any more. For the love of God take her away!"
But it was only the sudden appearance of Harry which put an end to this painful scene. He gathered his sister up in his arms, while her husband was ineffectually intreating and reasoning with her, and carried her out of the room, with a severity and sternness which silenced the young pair.
"Look here," he said, taking them into the deserted library which had been Edward's room, "we are all in the same box. He has ruined her and us all. You, out of your own confounded folly, the rest of us—I can't tell you how. He has ruined her. God—forgive him!" cried Harry, with a long pause, bringing out the last words with a violent effort. "But, look here! The only hope we have of pulling through is in her. They can't let Catherine Vernon be ruined in Redborough. I don't think it's in the heart of man to do it; but if we drive her into her grave, as you've been trying to do——"
"Oh, Harry, how dare you say so! I only went to her—where should I go?—and I thought it would be all right. I thought it was dreadful, but I never believed it, for I know Aunt Catherine——"
"Ellen, hold your tongue, for God's sake! If we kill her, it's all up with us. Hasn't she got enough to bear? I brought a cab when I knew you were here. Take her home, Algy, and keep her quiet, and let's meet and talk over it like men," Harry said, severely.
He had never so asserted himself in all his life before. They hurried her out between them to the cab, much against Ellen's will, who wanted explanations, and to know if it was true that Aunt Catherine couldn't, couldn't if she would; and then told them, sobbing, that if it was so, none of them could afford to pay for a cab, and why, why should ruined people spend a shilling when they had not got it? The cabman heard part of these protestations, and Marshall another part. But on the whole both Algernon and Harry were more occupied with her in her transport, more anxious for its consequences, more tender of her, than if she had been the most self-commanded and heroic woman in the world.
When this tempest of interruption swept away, Catherine was still for a few minutes more. Then she called Hester to her in a voice of exhaustion.
"I think," she said, "it has done me no harm. Anything is better than that which—is always behind. And I must do nothing to hurt myself before to-morrow. Was not Harry there? He may have something to tell me. Let him come and say it to you. You are quick witted, and you will understand; and if it is worth writing, write it down. I will not take any part. I will keep still here. If it rouses me, so much the better. If not, you will listen for me with your young ears, and forget nothing. I must save myself, you see, for to-morrow."
"I will forget nothing," Hester said.
Catherine smiled faintly, with her eyes closed.
"I had thought of making you bring me some wine. There is some Tokay in the cellar; but one always pays for a strong stimulant, and this is the better way. You are young, and you are a Vernon too. Bend your mind to it. Think of nothing but the business in hand."
"I will," said Hester, with solemnity, as if she were pronouncing the words before a judge.
Catherine took hold of her dress when she was going away.
"One thing," she said. "I think you and I have hated each other because we were meant to love each other, child."
"I think I have always done both," said Hester.
The faint sound that broke through the stillness was not like Catherine's laugh. She patted the girl's arm softly with her hand. Their amity was too new to bear caresses.
"Now go and do your work, for your honour and mine," she said.