Hester · Chapter 23 (2/2)

“Would you rather have it in your power to insult me always?” said Hester. Her lip began to quiver a little. What an odious thing it is to be a woman, to be always ready, when you would rather not, when you want to show yourself most strong and angry, to cry! She clenched her hands tightly to keep herself down. “I am no cinder-wench, Mr. Edward Vernon,” she said. “I have given you no reason to call me so. It is a pitiful thing for a man to notice a girl’s dress. If I am dressed poorly, I am not ashamed of it. It is not a sin to be poor.”

“Hester! a girl of your sense to be so foolish! How could I mean that? What I meant was, that you have come out glorious, like the moon from the clouds. Nothing could be sweeter than that little house-frock you used to wear out on the Common. I liked it better than all the finery. But tonight you are like a young princess. Why did I say Cinderella? Heaven knows; just because I was dazzled and bewildered, and because you are a princess; and the pleasure of seeing you made my head go round. Have I made my peace? Well then, there’s a darling, turn round and let me see you, that I may see all the finery, and everything that makes you so lovely, in detail.”

“You may have made it a little better,” said Hester; “but why do you go on talking like that? I am neither lovely nor a darling; and you shall not say so⁠—you! that would not see me if this, instead of being Ellen’s house, were the Grange.”

“You have me at your mercy there,” said Edward. “I confess you have me at your mercy, there.”

Upon which Hester melted a little, and, perceiving the abashed look which he had put on, began to falter, and presently found herself guilty of the commonplace expedient of asking if he did not think it a pretty scene.

“Oh, very pretty,” said Edward; “that is to say, I don’t know anything about it. I looked for one individual when I came in, and as, as soon as I found her, she began to bully me violently, I feel a little muddled, and I don’t know what to think. Give me a little time.”

By this time, as was natural, Hester began to think herself a monster of folly and unkindness, and to feel that she was ready to sink through the floor with shame.

“I did not mean to be cross,” she said. “I thought⁠—that is, I had been looking⁠—that is⁠—”

Here she stopped, feeling herself get deeper and deeper into difficulty. Her countenance changed from the girlish freshness of complexion, which everybody admired, into a burning red; her eyelids unable to keep up, her heart beating as if it would burst through silk slip, and tarlatan bouillonée, and all⁠—

“Come, let us have this dance. I like the music,” said Edward, drawing her hand suddenly through his arm.

“But I am engaged.”

“Oh, never mind, if you are engaged. You were engaged to me before ever you came,” he said, lightly, and drew her into the whirl. Hester was at the age (in society), when, to throw over a partner, looks like the guiltiest treachery. She could not take any pleasure in the dance, for thought of it.

“I must go and ask his pardon. I am sure I am very sorry. I did not intend to be so false; and there he is, poor man, not dancing.”

These words Hester said breathless over the shoulder of the enterprising intruder, who had carried her off under the victim’s eyes.

“Poor man!” Edward echoed, with a laugh. “I am glad he has nobody to dance with. What right had he to engage you? and you regret him; and you don’t want me.”

Here Hester rebuked her cousin.

“You have no right to say so. I might want⁠—I mean I might like very well to dance with you when you condescended to ask me; but not to be run away with, without a word, and made to do a false thing. False things are what I hate.”

“You say that with such meaning. You must be thinking of more than a dance. Am I one of the false things you hate?”

“I do not hate you,” said Hester, as they came to a pause, looking doubtfully into his face; “but I do not think you are very true.”

“You mean I don’t blurt out everything I mean, and am capable now and then of keeping something to myself. I can keep my own counsel⁠—not like that fellow there,” Edward permitted himself to say: which was a mistake; for Hester looked up and saw the gaze of honest Harry dwelling upon her with some regret, and much tenderness, and was touched at once with sympathy and indignation.

“If you mean Harry, no one could ever doubt him,” said Hester, in the warmth of her compunction. “If he is your friend, he is always your friend. He is not afraid of what anyone says.”

“Ah, Hester, you are always harping on that string,” said Edward. “I know what you mean; but can’t you understand the position I am in, and understand me? Don’t you know I am in bondage? I cannot say my soul is my own. I dare not think nor feel but as I am told. If I were to follow my own heart without disguise, I think it would be my ruin. We will not name any names, but you know. And I know what you think about that big stupid there, but you are mistaken. It is not that his heart is more true. It is that he has not brains enough to see what is liked and what is not liked. He is not even sympathetic enough. He does what he likes, and never considers if it is good for him or not.”

“Sympathetic!” cried Hester. “He is sympathetic with me. When he sees me lonely and neglected he comes and stands beside me. If he cannot do more, he does do that. I don’t pretend to say that he is very amusing,” she continued, with a laugh, “but he does what he can. He stands by me. Oh! failing other things that are better, I like that. Rather than being sympathetic with Catherine, I like him to sympathise with me.”

“There is no question of names,” said Edward. “We must not get personal. But I am glad you find Harry amusing. I never heard that he was so before. He is standing by Ellen now; that’s what he’s here for. They will come to grief, these young people. They are beginning a great deal too fast. You know young Merridew, or old Merridew either, can never keep up this. Ellen ought to know better. But Harry will have scope for this great accomplishment that you appreciate so highly. He will have to stand by his sister.”

“And he will,” Hester said.

She scarcely thought of the dancing, so much did this conversation⁠—so unlike a conversation to be carried on in the whirl of a waltz⁠—occupy her. It occurred to her now, as breath failed her, to remember how in all the accounts of a first ball she had ever read, the heroine had felt all other sentiments melt away in the rapturous pleasure of dancing with the man of her heart. Novels were all Hester’s experience. She remembered this, and it gave her a half comic, half miserable sensation to realise that she was not thinking about the dancing at all. She was carrying on her duel with Edward. There was always a warm sense of gratification in that⁠—a stirring up of all her faculties. She liked to go on carrying it a step further, defying and puzzling him, and wondering on his side how much he meant, how much that he left to be inferred, was true. The heroine in a novel is generally the point of everybody’s admiration in the ballroom, and to look at the perfection of the waltz which she and her lover enjoy so deeply, the whole assemblage stands still. But nothing of this kind occurred in Hester’s case. As she had so little experience, the chances are that she was by no means the best dancer in the room, and certainly Edward was not the other best. Their waltz was the means of carrying on the discussion which to both was the most attractive possibility. When she realised this, Hester was a little amused, but likewise a good deal disappointed. She felt a disagreeable limit thus placed to her power to enjoy.

“Come into the conservatory,” Edward said. “Don’t you think you have had enough? Oh, it is your first ball. I suppose you like it; but I am beginning to lose my relish for those sort of affairs.”

“You are not so old that you should give up dancing, Cousin Edward.”

“Old! No, I hope I am not old yet, and I don’t intend to give up dancing; but I like to walk here better⁠—with you. I like to talk better⁠—with you. I like to see your face, Hester, and see how it changes from kindness to wrath, from friendship to indignation, from a patient sense that I am endurable, to a violent consciousness⁠—Come and sit here.”

“You seem to think I never do anything but think of you: and that is the greatest mistake,” Hester said.

Upon which he laughed. The place he had led her to was only partially lighted. There were many other groups scattered about among the plants and stands of flowers. Flirtation was openly recognised in this youthful house as one of the portions of the evening’s entertainment, and large provision made for it. There was nobody to notice with whom it was that Edward was amusing himself, and he felt fully disposed to take advantage of his opportunities. He laughed at Hester’s indignant disclosures. “If you did not think a little about me, dear, you would not notice so distinctly my course of conduct in other places, you could not be sure that it was much more agreeable to me, instead of standing by your side and trying to be as amusing as Harry, to lead down Mrs. Houseman and old Lady Kearney to supper or to tea.”

“My mother should go out of the room before either of them,” cried Hester. “Do you know who she is? Sir John Westwood is her cousin: a duke’s daughter once married into her family⁠—”

“I quite understand you and agree with you, Hester. It is nothing that she is a perfect little gentlewoman, and has far better manners than any of us; but because she is a cousin to a heavy baronet, who is not good enough to tie her shoe⁠—”

“Edward!” The girl was so startled she could not believe her ears.

“Oh, I know very well what I am saying. You don’t know me, that is all. You think I am a natural snob, when I am only a snob by circumstances. You yourself, Hester, do you really think your mother should stand upon her cousin and upon Lady Ethelinda (or whatever was her name), her great-grandmother, and not upon herself far better than either? I can’t imagine you think that.”

Hester was surprised and silenced for the moment. She had been so often reminded of the noble grandmother and the baronet cousin, and so hard put to it to find a ground of superiority on which her pride could take refuge, that this sudden appeal to her better judgment bewildered her. She was startled to find those advantages which were indisputable, and to which everybody deferred in theory, so boldly undervalued; but yet the manner of doing it made her heart beat with pleasure. Yes; people thought her dear little mother silly, and Hester was aware that she was not clever. Sometimes, in the depths of her own soul, she had chafed, as children will, at the poor lady’s dullness and slowness of comprehension; but she was a perfect little gentlewoman. And he saw it! He felt in his heart that she was above them all⁠—not because of Lady Ethelinda (she was Lady Sarah in reality) and Sir John, but herself.

“I did not know you were a Radical,” she said. She knew nothing about Radicals, though instinctively in her heart she agreed with them. “I thought you cared for family and that sort of thing.”

“Do you?”

Hester paused. She flung higher her young head, which was proud with life and a sense of power unknown. “I should like to be a king’s daughter,” she said, “or a great soldier’s or a great statesman’s. I should like my name to mean something. I should like people to say, when they hear it, that is⁠—”

“But you don’t care much about Sir John?⁠—that is what I thought. I am no Radical; I am all for decorum and established order and church and state. How could you doubt that? But, by the way, there is a person whom neither of us like, who certainly has the kind of rank you prize. Don’t you know who I mean, Hester? When a stranger comes to Redborough, there is one name he is sure to hear. If she were a duchess she could not be better known. To be her relation carries a certain weight. We were always a leading family in the place, I suppose. But why are we, for instance, so much better than the Merridews and all the rest of the respectable people? She has something to do with it, I can’t deny, though I don’t like her any more than you.”

“Edward,” cried Hester breathlessly, “about that we ought to understand each other. I have no reason to like Catherine. Yes, I will say her name; why shouldn’t I? She has not liked me. I was only a child, and if I was saucy she might have forgiven me, all these years. But she has taken the trouble on the contrary to humiliate me, to make me feel that I am nobody, which was unworthy. But you: she has been kind to you. She has been more than kind⁠—she has loved you. I have seen it in her eyes. She thinks that nobody is worth thinking of in comparison with you. If⁠—if⁠—who shall I say?⁠—if Sir Walter Scott came here, or Mr. Tennyson, she would rather have you. And yet, you that ought to be so grateful, that ought to love her back, that ought to be proud⁠—oh, I should if I were you. If she were fond of me I should be proud. I hate all those wretched people who take from her hand, and then sneer and snarl at her, like dogs⁠—no, not like dogs: dogs are far nobler⁠—like cats; that is better.”

Hester’s eyes were shining with eloquence and ardour; the little movement of her head so proud, so animated, so full of visionary passion, threw back and gave a certain freedom to the hair which her mother called auburn. Her whole figure was full of that force and meaning which is above beauty. Edward looked at her with smiling admiration. If his conscience was touched, or his temper at least, he did not show it.

“Do you call me a cat?” he said.

“Oh, I am not in fun. I am as earnest as ever I can be. It is wicked, it is miserable, and I cannot understand you. All the others are as nothing in comparison with you.”

He grew a little pale under this accusation; he would not meet it directly. “But you know,” he said, “why she hates you. It is for your mother’s sake.”

“My mother!” cried Hester astonished. “But no one could hate my mother.” The suggestion took away her breath.

“It is true, all the same. I thought you did not know. She was to have married John Vernon, your father, and he preferred⁠—that is the whole account of it; then he got into trouble, and she had her revenge.”

“Did she ruin my father?” said Hester in a low whisper of horror.

“I⁠—don’t know if it went so far as that,” Edward said.

A hesitation was in his speech. It was scarcely compunction, but doubt, lest a statement of this kind, so easily to be contradicted, might be injudicious on his part⁠—but then, who would speak to Hester on such a subject? And her mother was a little fool, and, most likely, did not know, or would be sure to mistake, the circumstances.

“Don’t let us talk of that: it is so long past,” he said; “and here is a wretch, a scoundrel, coming up with his eye fixed upon you as if he was a partner. How I loathe all your partners, Hester! Mind, the rest of the dances are for me. I shall watch for you as soon as you have shaken that fellow off.”

But Hester did not care for the dances that followed. She went through them indifferently, faithful to the partners who had presented themselves before he came on the scene; and, indeed, the conversation in the conservatory had not drawn her nearer to Edward. It had given her a great deal to think of. She had not time in the whirl and fluster of this gaiety to think it all out.