Hester. Volume 3 of 3

"I assure you," she said, "I am quite capable of walking. You know I have always been accustomed to exercise."

"Ah yes," said the sisters, "you were brought up sensibly, dear Catherine, not spoiled darlings as we were. We have never quite got over it, though we should have known better long ago, if experience was all: no one can tell how we miss our carriage; and when we see you on foot, who can command every ease, it quite wounds our feelings," said Miss Martha, coming in at the end in a little provocation by herself.

"It is very kind of you: but it does not at all hurt my feelings. This is a fine day for a walk, and I hope you are enjoying yours, as I do," said Catherine, with her laughing look.

They both shook their heads.

"We do what we have to do, and I hope we don't complain. But I declare I feel hurt that you should have been at the Heronry and not paid us a visit. I wish not to be jealous. You were no doubt talking things over with Mrs. John?"

"I know nothing that there is to talk over with Mrs. John," said Catherine, tartly. "I was visiting my old uncle, which is a duty I never like to neglect."

"Oh!" said one sister, and "Ah!" said the other. Then they cried eagerly each to each, "I knew it was a vile story. Of course we have been misinformed."

"What was there to be misinformed about?" said Catherine; then as she looked from one to another, a sensation of coming trouble shot across her. "And what," she added with a smile not so easy as the former one, "am I supposed to have to say to Mrs. John?"

"Oh, it was all an accident of course," said Miss Matilda. "But you might tell Catherine all the same. It is best that people should know; and then they know what steps to take," said Miss Martha. "To be sure Catherine would know what steps to take," Matilda added again.

"This may all be very amusing," said Catherine, "but as I don't know the word of the puzzle, I don't see the joke, you know. One would think something had happened in which I was concerned."

"I am not sure if you would think anything had happened. Oh yes, I am sure we thought so last night," cried the sisters one after another. "You see the least little thing looks important when you are going to bed – after eleven o'clock at night."

"What was this great event?" said Catherine, with a certain sternness in her tone.

There was a great flutter of nods and looks between the sisters. They came close to her, one on either side, and Miss Matilda, always the boldest, put a hand to Catherine's elbow by way of supporting her if support were needed.

"Dear Catherine, do turn back with us to our little place! it is close by, and we can give you an easy chair and a cup of tea. You will bear it better there than here."

"Did you say bear it better?"

"Oh! did I say it —bear it – Martha? I am sure I don't know. I think I said hear it, Catherine. Oh! for Heaven's sake don't look so stern. Perhaps you will think nothing of it – "

Catherine gave her foot a stamp upon the ground. She said —

"Tell me at once what you have got to tell," in a voice which was almost threatening. They looked at each other again, and then Miss Matilda began —

"I don't want to get any one into trouble, I am sure," she said in a faltering but eager voice. "It frightened us so – that was the thing. It frightened us about you. I said to Martha, 'Dear Catherine must be ill; nothing less than that would bring him here at such an hour.' You see the voices roused us just as we were going to bed. Mrs. John's door was locked, for I had heard her do it; she always does it herself, and, judging by her usual hours, she must have been in bed – when we heard voices at the gate: oh, I was not surprised at that. Sometimes it is old Captain Morgan himself, who I am sure, with every respect for him, ought not to be out of doors at such hours; sometimes the young gentleman, the grandson – I don't remember his name; or it used to be Harry Vernon in his time. We all know that girl; we needn't say anything more on that subject. I merely remarked, 'There she is at the gate again.' And Martha said – "

"Oh, I said, 'Fiddlesticks, she is at the ball; it must be one of the maids.' I am so unsuspicious," said Miss Martha.

"And then we listened as you may suppose. There was just a little corner of the window open. Of course if it had been one of the maids I should have thought it my duty – Catherine, you are getting quite tired."

"I freely confess, yes – of your story. What do I care for your maids and their lovers? You can settle these surely without me."

"Oh, if you will only wait a little! Very soon we could hear that it was, if you please, Miss Hester's voice, and she was inviting some one in. Oh, pressing him – almost forcing him. Shouldn't you say so Martha? like the woman in the Pilgrim's Progress."

"Yes, just like that kind of woman. Won't you come in, just for a moment – just to rest a bit," said Martha, changing her voice into a sort of squeak of the most unseductive kind. "And he resisted as long as he could; but she would take no denial. You can't expect a young man to say 'No' if a girl puts herself at his feet like that. So he yielded at last, poor young fellow. We didn't blame him a bit, did we, Martha?"

"Oh, not a bit! poor young man, with such a creature as that laying herself out – "

"And who was this whom you are so sorry for?" Catherine said.

As if she did not know! She had been rather glad of all the delays and longueurs of the tale, and marched along through it, glad to make them out of breath, almost hoping to be at her own door before the crisis; but in this she did not succeed. She did not look at them even, but kept her eyes upon the path with steady indifference.

"Dear Catherine! – but you won't blame him, poor young fellow! It was your own Edward, that dear boy – "

Prepared as she was, the name gave her a shock, as perhaps Miss Matilda, still holding her elbow, felt; but if so, it was only for a moment. "Edward!" she said with a laugh. "You mean Harry, I suppose? Edward was at home and busy, occupying himself in a very different sort of way."

At this the sisters interchanged glances again, and shook their heads in unison. "Ah, Catherine, that is just how you are deceived. We know Harry Vernon's voice very well. It was Edward."

Catherine turned upon them with a countenance perfectly cloudless, a laugh upon her lips. "When I tell you," she said, "that he was in my own house! he could not, I think, be in two places at once – my house, his house – it is all the same. He was at home – " she added after a moment, in a deeper tone, "and with me."

"Oh! with you!" The sisters broke off with sudden fright, not venturing to persevere. So sudden a check quenched Miss Matilda's lively genius altogether. It was her sister, the practical member, who added with a spasmodic gasp, "Oh, of course, Catherine, if he was with you – "

"Yes, of course he was with me; he is only too attentive. I could wish he took a little more amusement. So your fine story is at an end, you see. If it had been any one else I might have thought it my duty to inquire into it; but as I can prove it not to be Edward – not that I see much harm in it if it had been Edward," she added, turning upon the accusers again. "I am not fond of Hester Vernon, but she is his cousin all the same."

"Oh, no harm! oh, I never thought so," cried the gossips, alarmed and faltering. "It was only just – it was merely – it frightened us, thinking that dear Catherine must be ill, or something happened – "

"Did you think then that your dear Catherine, if she were ill, would send for Hester Vernon? – as her prime favourite, I suppose, and the one that loved her best among all those who – "

Catherine paused; the native magnanimity in her, beneath all the pettiness which her laughing cynicism had taught her, would not insult even these heartless women by a reminder in so many words of their dependence. It cost her all her strength to stand up erect before them, and put off their assault. They had got at her heart, but they should never know it. She stood ample and serene between the two slim shabby figures and smiled defiance. Never were talebearers more completely discomfited. They turned upon each other with mutual reproaches in the confusion of the moment. "You need not have made such a fuss, Matilda." "I told you, Martha, you oughtn't to be so confident about a voice."

"Come," said Catherine, "we had better say nothing more about it; evidently there has been a mistake. Hester, who ought to be more careful if she is to live at the Vernonry, must have another admirer with whose voice you are not acquainted. But it is unwise to form conclusions on no better ground than the sound of a voice, and perhaps not very charitable or kind of you, so much older than she is, to tell anything that is uncomfortable about that girl, who is no favourite of mine already, to me. Don't you think you would do better if you warned her, or her mother?" Catherine's countenance was so calm, her eyes so commanding, that the Miss Vernon-Ridgways, altogether defeated in their malicious intention, which was chiefly to wound herself, felt their knees tremble under them, and were genuinely awe-stricken for perhaps the first time in their lives.

"Oh, as for that – it was not Hester we were thinking of – it was you," they faltered between them, "that you might not allow – or be exposed – " Their words got incoherent and ran away to nothing, into breaks and frightened lapses. And when Catherine, opening her eyes still wider, said, "For me! to warn me!" and laughed them to scorn, Matilda, who being the most forward was at the same time the most sensitive, was so overcome by anger and alarm and mortification that she began to cry for sheer despite, and felt in her inmost heart that she hated the woman who could humiliate her so.

"You were kindly afraid that I should be tired a few minutes ago: and standing does tire me, though I like a walk," Catherine said. "I will say good-bye now. Perhaps you meant it kindly; and if so, I'll thank you too – all the more as it's a mistake – for that is the best of it," she said with a laugh, waving her hand: and leaving them, walked on homewards with an alert and energetic step. But it would have been balm to their feelings if they had been able to see how very little like laughter was her face when she had once turned her back upon them. There was nobody to observe her along that quiet road. The nursemaids with their children had all turned townwards some time ago. There was not a soul between her and the gate of the Grange. Catherine's face lengthened and darkened as if by a sudden effect of years; the sanguine life and confidence and force went out of it. She looked an old woman in that moment, as indeed she had a right to do, but did not, nature interposing for her aid. She said to herself that she would not think, would not ask herself what it meant until she should get home, and could feel the shelter of her own walls about her. She wanted shelter and privacy before she faced the fact which had been dimly shadowing before her, but never in this form. She was a very resolute woman, and had not come so far in life without having to confront and overcome many things that looked terrible enough at the first glance. But never since those early days which were so far off that they were half forgotten had she been called upon to face those troubles which sap the strength out of heart and will, the disappointments and bitterness brought upon us by those we love. She had few of these sufferings for what seems the saddest reason, that she had nobody to love. But it was not so sad as it appears. She had a number of people whom she loved well enough to be delighted by their prosperities, and overcast by their troubles. She had all the advantages of affection without being so closely knit to any as to have its drawbacks too. But this easy position changed when she became, so to speak, the mother of Edward Vernon. It was not the doing of providence, it was her own doing. She had taken it upon herself, and for years past she had said to herself that the boy had made her know, as she had never known before, what happiness was. But now here was, swinging round slowly, revealing itself to her in glimpses, the reverse of the medal, the other side of the picture. Was he deceiving her? She had taken up his defence boldly, not caring what she said: but she had believed what she heard all the same, and had known it to be true. Was this why he had not cared to see her, to bid her good-night, before he came out to have that meeting with Hester – like a shopgirl and shopboy, she said to herself, her lip quivering with passion, vexation, derision, all bound together by the pain that produced them – at the gate? The commonplace character of the meeting, the look of petty intrigue in it, humbled her pride in her boy. If they had met at Ellen's dance, or in any legitimate way, she thought it would not have mortified her so much – but like a lady's maid and a footman, like Jane the scullery-girl and her young man! She laughed to herself at the thought, but the laugh was more painful than tears.

By and by, however, Catherine came to take a little comfort out of the fact that Edward had not come to bid her good-night. Not considering for a moment that any incident of all this might be accidental, though everything was so, she concluded that his heart had failed him, that he had felt himself incapable of the treachery of kissing her cheek in the usual tender way when about to do a thing which he knew would be so displeasing to her. When this occurred to Catherine the whole aspect of the matter changed: her features relaxed, her colour came back. This, no doubt, was how it had been. The girl had met him at Ellen's folly – how truly a folly had never been proved till now: and she was pretty and clever. Catherine was too proud to deny her her natural advantages; and men were fools, as was well known – the best of them, the wisest of them! – where women were concerned. She had led him into some engagement, some light wager perhaps, some defiance of what he would venture to do. And Edward had been silly enough to be led away. She did not want him to be too wise. If he was silly, it was no more than everybody else had been before him. But he, dear boy, true boy, having involved himself in a piece of folly, had shown that high respect to her, that he would rather let her suppose he had forgotten and neglected her, than come to her with the usual greeting when he knew he was doing something which would seem treachery to Catherine. Thus she, who for the first moment had known no wish but that of pushing homeward and hiding her sudden downfall within her own house where nobody could intrude upon her, had so triumphantly explained all that trouble away before she got home, that she entered the Grange radiant, with no sense of having a downfall to hide. The casuistry of love is more skilful than any device of philosophy. She explained everything to herself. She wondered that she had not read it in his face all the evening. She felt that it had been there, if she had only had eyes to see. A foolish talk carried a trifle too far – a bold girl, not bad, no, not bad – that was not necessary, and Catherine would be just – pleased to get a little triumph when she could over the other side: and a foolish promise, not intended, had drawn him, perhaps against his will. By this subtle demonstration – which no faculty less keen than that of love could have made – Catherine proved, to her full satisfaction, the fundamental truth in him which no little trumpery deceit (of a kind so innocent as this!) could undermine. All this fine fabric was raised on the most insignificant foundation of fact. But what did that matter? it was enough. And if Catherine had been told that Edward's forgetfulness of the good-night had been accidental, and that his meeting with Hester was accidental, and that no incident of the night had been planned beforehand, she would have simply and flatly denied the possibility. She knew better; and she preferred the matter as it stood.

The dinner-party was an insignificant affair to her after this. She did full justice to it, and to Roland Ashton, the chief guest, the man whom she delighted to honour, and for whose pleasure and profit the best people in Redborough were called together. He was already known to many of them, and it was Catherine's pleasure to make her relationship and interest in the young visitor clear. But her mind was eager to get through the commonplace courtesies of the evening – to come to the moment when Edward and she should meet alone. She could not pass her discovery over without note. She would tell him what she had heard, and what she had divined. She would give him the tender warning which such an affection as hers had a right to offer. If it was more than a passing flirtation (which she did not believe), to beg him to reconsider it; if his heart should be touched (which Heaven forbid! but the thought made her smile, it was so profoundly unlikely), to intreat him to reflect, and see how little satisfaction could come to him from such intercourse. She went over and over again the interview that was to come – so often, indeed, that she exhausted it, and when the moment did come, did not remember half of what she intended to say. It came, indeed, in a way entirely contrary to that she had imagined. After the party had dispersed, Edward took Roland into his room to smoke with him – which she ought to have recollected he was in the habit of doing – and then, what was more disappointing still, went out with him to accompany him part of the way. She was going down stairs to Edward's room, that she might get these explanations off her mind without a moment's delay, and was taken entirely by surprise when she heard the door close, and two voices continuing outside.

"Has Mr. Edward gone out?" she asked, with a trembling she could scarcely control, of the butler, when he came up to put out the lights.

"I was to say, ma'am, as he'd be back in half an hour," said the man.

Catherine sent her maid to bed, and kept her particular lamp burning on her little table, waiting there in the dimness of the large deserted room, hearing every crackle and rustle of the night. It seemed to her far more than half an hour before she heard Edward's key in the door; but she was resolved not to be balked now. She had no idea, poor lady, that he thought her suspicious, inquisitive, and watchful, making domiciliary visits in order to find him out in something, which was very far from Catherine's disposition. She went down accordingly to lose no time, and met him in the hall. He was astonished to see her, as was natural enough; and she had an uneasy tremor upon her, which was natural too, but which looked like cold. He was full of apologies for having kept her up.

"If I had known you would have waited for me, Aunt Catherine – "

"You did not say good-night to me last night, Edward. I did not like that to happen two nights running. I will go into your room, not to hurry you up stairs."

"I can't think how that happened," he said, following her into the cosy room, with its red curtains and cheerful fire, and all the conveniences and prettiness she had accumulated for him there. "I had been thinking hard, and my mind was full of balance-sheets and figures. I entirely forgot I had not seen you."

She turned round upon him, taking his arm between her hands, and looking with a tender smile into his face.

"No, my dear boy, I know better than that. You had a reason – which shows me how well I have divined you, and how true you are, Edward. I have been told where – you went to last night."

This startled him greatly for the moment. He looked at her with an alarmed expression: but seeing no anger in her face, said quickly —

"That was all quite accidental, Aunt Catherine. You don't think I went there on purpose, do you?" without shrinking at all from her eyes.

"Yes, Edward, I thought you did. Perhaps I was wrong. I thought there might have been some silly bargain – some promise made without thought: and that you felt a little treacherous – that is a harsh word – deceitful – that is worse – to me, and would not come back and kiss me when you might be supposed to be going against me. I forgave you entirely, Edward, for that good thought."

He was a little touched in spite of himself.

"You are very good, Aunt Catherine – far better to me than I deserve; but, as a matter of fact, it was all purely accidental. I had been very busy, and felt feverish and sleepless. I went out to have a turn in the moonlight: chance took me that way. There was light in Mrs. John's window. They heard my steps, and looked out in great surprise, and asked me to come in. I could scarcely satisfy her," he said, with an embarrassed little laugh, "that you were not ill, and had not sent for her to nurse you. It was as good as a play," he went on, still laughing, followed in every word by her anxious eyes, "to see poor Mrs. John's struggle between politeness and sleep. She was very sleepy, poor little woman! but dreadfully polite. You may suppose I was surprised enough to find myself there."

"Yes," she said, still holding him, still reading his face with her anxious eyes, but feeling the ground cut from under her feet. She was a little breathless with anxiety and excitement. "I wonder – that you did not tell me of it – this morning."

"Dear Aunt Catherine," he said, "pardon me, but you have a little prejudice, you know, against these people. And it was so entirely accidental. You might have thought, had I told you, that it had been done on purpose."

"Did I ever doubt what you said to me, Edward?"

"No," he said, taking her hands in his tenderly, as she thought; and indeed the action was not without real tenderness, for his heart was touched. "No," he said, smiling, "but yet you would have had a little doubt – a little wonder whether it was really so."

"And it was really so?" she said, looking into his face, "really – really – no little shadow of a wish for – a little provocation, a little talk, a little fun if you like, Edward? Oh, no, I have no prejudice. I should know it was quite natural. And you mean that there was nothing at all, nothing of this – a mere accident, nothing more?"

He kissed her cheek, and he laughed at her in a filial way.

"Didn't I tell you, Aunt Catherine? You believe me – oh, yes; but then you ask me if really – really I am saying what is true? Really – really as often as you like; it was accident, and nothing more."

This was how all the eloquent things which Catherine had prepared to say were never said. She went up to bed pleased and happy, yet not so pleased as if he had confessed her version of the story to be the true one. She did not doubt his word – oh no, no – but yet – the other version looked more true to nature. She could have understood it better that way.

CHAPTER VI.

IN THE LABYRINTH

After these events there seemed a lull, in which nothing more seemed to happen. Though time is so short, and our modern pace of living, we flatter ourselves, so much more rapid than of old, how few after all are the periods in which things happen, and with what long stretches of vacant days between! Hester could hardly explain to herself how it was that Edward Vernon's sudden evening visit, so unexpected, so unprecedented, had made an entire revolution in her life. There had been no mutual confessions of love, no proposal, no acceptance such as are supposed to be necessary. There was nothing to confide to her mother, had it been possible to take any one into that strait union of two suddenly become one. The effect bewildered her entirely, and she could not tell how it had been produced; but yet it was so. They had been on the eve of this, she felt, for years, and the first time that they met, in a moment of complete freedom, their souls flowed together, flowed into one. Perhaps he had not meant it when he came. The dim parlour and the sleepy mother, trying hard to be polite, quite unconscious how unnecessary her presence was; the young man, with his eager eyes, scarcely keeping himself in – came before her like a curious picture a hundred times in a day: and then the sudden sweep of the torrent after it, the almost involuntary, impetuous, unalterable junction of these two hearts and lives. But the shock even of happiness when it comes so suddenly is great; and Hester was not sure even that she was happy. He seemed to have led her to the edge of some labyrinth, without freedom to leave it, or to advance into its mysteries. There was a clue, indeed, but it was lying in loose coils at her feet, and who could tell if it ever could be sufficiently straightened, sufficiently tightened, to give any real guidance? There was no habit of meeting in their lives, no way of seeing each other even, without attracting suspicion. He sent her a letter next morning, full of love, and of ecstatic realisation that she was his, and that in all his difficulties he was sure of her sympathy, but it was understood that he was not to make such a breach of all his habits as to come to see her; and Hester was too proud to break through hers, as she had done that one morning in order to see him. So that everything remained a secret between them, and save for the sudden understanding into which they had leaped, the sort of betrothal which both took for granted, there was no difference in their outward lives; which was a state of things infinitely painful to the girl who lived her usual daily life with her mother and her friends in a state of guilty abstraction, thinking of him all the time, and feeling herself a domestic traitor. She felt that it was but the shell of her that remained, following mechanically the usual occupations, talking from the lips outward, absorbed in a long perpetual reverie of new consciousness, new hopes and fears. That secret world had need to have been bright to make up to her for the sense of guilt and treachery with which she entered into it: and it was not bright. The air was dark and tremulous as in that sad valley, sad yet sweet, which, in Dante, lies outside of hell. She never could tell at what moment some dark unknown shape of calamity might appear through its twilight coming towards them; for Edward had been driven to her by anxiety and trouble, and the sense of a burden which he could not bear alone. What was it? He did not tell her in his letter. The other little notes he wrote were but appeals to her sympathy – petitions to her to love him, to think of him. Ah! Hester thought to herself, no fear of that – but how? What was she to think? in what way was her imagination to follow him, groping dimly amid scenes she did not understand? His secret was as a germ of fire in her heart – which by times blazed up into hot flames, devouring her with all the anguish of that thirst to know which is one of the tortures of uneasy love. What was it that troubled him so, that alarmed him so, that might ruin and overwhelm him – that might make him fly, which was the most mysterious hint of all? But to all these questions she got no satisfaction. For the first few days she had a little furtive outlet to her anxiety in questioning Roland, which she did with a vague sense of treachery to Edward, as if she were endeavouring to surprise his secrets by a back way, but very little perception of the false impression which her interest in his communications was making upon Roland, who himself became day by day more ready to believe that marriage might become a possible venture, and that the decision of it rested chiefly with himself. He knew no other reason why she should question him than interest in himself, and it was with a grateful zeal that he attempted to gratify a curiosity which was so legitimate, yet so unusual. He explained his trade with that pleasure which the wisest of men feel in talking about themselves, and never divined that her rapid mind passed everything through one narrow test, i. e. whether it was possible that it could concern Edward. She did not even remark the attendrissement with which he received her questions, with eyes that said volumes. These eyes overflowed with pleasure and sentiment as he made his little disquisitions.