Hester · Chapter 29 (1/3)

XXIX

Christmas

While all these agitations were going on, it came to be Christmas, with the usual stir and commotion always produced in a large family and connections, by that often troublesome festival. The amount of reality in the rejoicings may be very doubtful, but yet there must be a family gathering, and the different branches of the race must seem to take kindly to it whatever may be their private sentiments. Dickens did wisely in finding his types of Christmas felicity among people to whom an accidental turkey is a benediction from heaven, and the mystery of the pudding has not lost its freshness. In such a family as the Vernons, the turkey and the pudding are unsatisfactory symbols⁠—a return to the rude elements of plenty which were employed by a more primitive age; and though it certainly was an excitement for the Miss Vernon-Ridgways, and Mr. Mildmay Vernon and Mrs. John, to be invited to dinner, it was by no means invariable that their feast improved the harmony of these much separated divisions of the family. It was a very big dinner, and there was no absolute breach of the peace. Catherine sat at the head of the table in a dress which, though very handsome, was by no means one of her best, and without the diamonds in which she appeared on very great occasions. This was kindly intended, in order that she might not make too evident the contrast between her own toilette and that of some of her visitors; but the kindness of the intention was not appreciated.

“We are not considered worth dressing for,” Miss Matilda said, in her sister’s ear, after they had respectively kissed their relative, and, with effusion, wished her a merry Christmas.

“She thinks it better taste to be as shabby as we are,” said the other, which indeed was very true, though no offence was meant.

As for Mrs. John, though she was quite willing to enjoy herself, her mind was kept in a state of nervous anxiety about Hester, who was in the defiant mood with which she always met her cousin. It had been her mother’s desire to dress her plainly in one of the simple dresses made up on the foundation of the “silk slip,” which by this time had been worn out as a ball-dress. These economies were very necessary, and indeed it ought to be said that the ball-dresses could not have been kept up as they were, but for the sacrifice of Mrs. John’s Indian shawl, which, after Hester and the pearls, was the thing in the world which the poor lady held most dear.

Hester had not resisted the substitution of the simpler dress for those carefully preserved clouds of tarlatan which were sacred to the Dancing Teas. But she stood firm to the pearls, and insisted on wearing them. “Unless you will put them on yourself, mamma,” she said.

“I wear them, Hester! Oh, no! They have been in their box all these years, and I have never put them on, you know. I kept them for you. But don’t you think, dear, that just for a family dinner⁠—no one is expected to be fine at a family dinner⁠—”

“Don’t you want Catherine Vernon to see them, mother? If it is so, tell me at once.”

“Don’t I want Catherine Vernon⁠—to see them?” cried Mrs. John, stupefied with astonishment. “I wonder,” she added, regretfully, “what there is between you that makes you lose your good sense, Hester⁠—for you are very sensible in most things, and far cleverer than I ever was⁠—the moment Catherine Vernon’s name is mentioned? I cannot think what it can be.”

“Oh, mother! You are too good⁠—if that is what not being clever means. When I think how you have been allowed to stand in the corner of that room, and nobody taking any notice of you.”

“My dear,” said Mrs. John, mildly, “I did not require to go unless I liked.”

“And now this dinner⁠—a sort of Christmas dole for her relations⁠—like the flannel petticoats to the poor women.”

“We do not require to go unless we like,” said Mrs. John; “but if you will reflect a little, Hester, that is not how a lady should talk.”

It was seldom that the mild little woman said so much. When Hester came up to Catherine, following her mother’s little figure, clothed in a black silk gown which had seen a great deal of service, she read, with an excitement that made her glow, that Catherine’s first glance was upon the pearls.

“You are quite fine,” she said as she went through the Christmas formula, and dropped a formal kiss upon Hester’s reluctant cheek; “you have put on your lovely pearls to do us honour.”

“She is fond of the pearls,” said Mrs. John, who was very watchful to prevent any collision; “they were her grandmother’s, and her great-grandmother’s, Catherine. It is not only for their value that one is fond of things like these.”

“Their value is sometimes the worst thing about them,” said Catherine, feeling that there was a sternness of virtue in what she said which justified her dislike. But Mrs. John stood her ground.

“I don’t think so,” she said simply. “I like them to be worth a great deal, for they are all she will have.”

Hester, thus talked over, stood drawing back, in all her flush of youthful indignation, kept down by the necessities of the occasion. She gave a glance round at the little audience which was enjoying the encounter, the Miss Vernon-Ridgways in the foreground. She caught their keen inquisitive stare, and the mantling of delight upon their faces as they witnessed the little passage of arms; and Mr. Mildmay Vernon craning over their shoulders with his sharp face projected to see what it was, and Mrs. Reginald’s countenance half sympathetic, half-preoccupied (for today for the first time her eldest boy had accompanied her, and she was very anxious lest he should do or say anything that might injure him with Catherine). But the one thing Hester did not catch was Edward’s eyes, which surely, if he had cared for her, ought now to have been raised in kindness. He was outside of the circle, his head turned away, taking no notice. When Mrs. John fell back to give way to Ellen Merridew, who came up rustling and jingling with all her bracelets, Edward still kept apart. He was talking to Harry, to Algernon, to everybody except the two who, Hester felt, wanted the succour of a chivalrous sympathy. But Mrs. John had no feeling of this kind. She felt that she had held her own. She looked with a mild pride upon the group of her neighbours all so eagerly watching for mischief. It was natural, when you think of it, that she should treat the ill-nature of the Miss Vernon-Ridgways with gentle disdain. Poor things! they had neither a daughter nor a necklace of pearls. And as she had not been at the Thés Dansantes, nor seen Edward in any aspect but that he had always borne at the Grange, she felt no anxiety as to his present behaviour. Harry’s was the eye which she sought. She beamed with smiles when he came and stood beside her. Harry was always faithful, whoever might be careless. She looked at him and at Hester with a little sigh; but who could tell what might happen with patience and time?

There was, however, one moment during the evening in which Edward had the opportunity of setting himself right. It was while the departures were going on, while the ladies were being shawled and cloaked. Catherine had not come downstairs, and in the darkness of the further corner of the hall, under cover of the chatter of Ellen and Emma Ashton, the young man ventured upon a hurried whisper⁠—

“Do you despise me or detest me most?” he said in Hester’s ear. She started⁠—what with the sudden proximity, what with the unexpected character of the question.

“I wonder?” she answered coldly. He took the opportunity of wrapping her cloak round her to grasp both her hands in a sudden, almost fierce grasp.

“You could do nothing less: but I cannot be different here. Suspicion produces treachery, don’t you know?” he said, with his face close to her ear. “I cannot be true here. No, don’t say anything. I ought, but I cannot. It is in the air. All of us, everyone except you, we are making believe and finding each other out, yet going on all the same. But it is only for a time,” Edward cried, grasping her hands once more till the pressure was painful, “only for a time!”

Next moment he was standing at the door, impassible, saying good night to everyone, paying no more heed to Hester than if she had been, as indeed she was, the least important of all the Christmas visitors. Ellen, as a married woman and a social power, commanded his attention, and to Emma, as the stranger among so many who knew each other, he was very polite. But Hester got from him the coolest good night. The very servants who stood about, felt a passing wonder that the prettiest person in the company should meet with such scant observation, but explained it by saying to each other that “Mr. Edward, he was the one as kep’ hold of the main chance.”

And Hester went home, angry, yet somewhat soothed. It did not make her less indignant, less wrathful; but it gave an excuse which at least had to be taken into consideration. Before she got home, indeed, she taught herself to lay that offence too to the score of Catherine. She went home packed into the fly with her mother and Emma and the Miss Vernon-Ridgways, all together. Mr. Mildmay Vernon was mounted on the box, and the old white horse had the six people, besides his driver, to drag behind him. He took a great deal of time over the short bit of road, thinking probably that it was as well to take his time over one fare as to put it in the power of his oppressors to send him out with another, or perhaps compel him to kick his heels at the railway station waiting for the last train. The ladies were packed very close inside, but not too close to talk. The sisters immediately plunged into that “criticism of life” which could scarcely be called poetry, in their hands.

“What a blessing it is,” said one, “that we can’t be called upon to eat another Christmas dinner with Catherine for another year.”

“Dear Catherine!” said the other, “she always means so well. It is our own fault if we don’t carry out her intentions.”

“Indeed,” said Mrs. John, “she gave us a very nice dinner, and everything was very comfortable.”

“Dear Mrs. John! you are always so charitable,” said Miss Matilda, “as we all ought to be, I am sure. Did you ever see anything so insufferable as that little Ellen⁠—like a picture out of a fashion-book⁠—giving herself as many airs as if she were at the head of society? I never heard she had any society, except the vulgar young people on the Thursdays. I wonder she doesn’t ask her shop people.”

“Oh, hush, hush!” cried Mrs. John, alarmed.

“Perhaps she does ask the shop people,” said Miss Matilda, “it would be wise of her, for I should not think they’d ever see the colour of their money. The old Merridews can never keep up all that extravagance, and Algy is nothing more than a clerk in his father’s office. It is dreadful to see a young man dragged on to destruction like that.”

“Oh, I hope it is not so bad!” cried Mrs. John. “I am sure if I thought so, I should never let⁠—”

“It is the talk of the town,” said Miss Matilda. “A thing must be very bad before it comes to us, who never hear any gossip.”

“Oh, everybody knows,” said Miss Martha.

It was happy that Hester’s mind was so fully occupied, and that the conversation passed harmlessly over her head. When they reached the Vernonry, Mr. Mildmay Vernon got down from the box where he had been seated wrapped up from head to foot, but which he protested against with a continuous volley of short coughs as he helped the ladies out one after another. He thought in his heart that if one of these strong young women had been put up on the box, who had no rheumatism, it would have been more appropriate.

“I hope you have enjoyed your evening, including your dinner,” he said. “I have made up my mind to rheumatism tomorrow; but what does that matter in comparison with such a delightful entertainment?”

“It was very nice,” said Mrs. John, dubious as to his meaning, as she always was.

“Nice!” he said, with a grimace, “a sort of little heaven on earth!”

“It is wicked to be so satirical,” said one sister, with a laugh; and “Dear Catherine! I am sure she meant everything that was kind,” said the other.

And then there was a little flutter of good nights, the respective doors opening, and lights flashing out into the dark.

This entertainment was followed very shortly after by the larger gathering which Catherine had announced her intention of giving some time before, and to which all Redborough was convoked besides the immediate family. The period between these two parties was the climax of Hester’s hostility to Catherine Vernon. She had never been so actively indignant, so angry, nor so impotent against her old and wealthy cousin as in these wintry days. Catherine was a kind of impersonation of injustice and unkindness to Hester. She felt not only that she herself was oppressed and injured, but that the persecution of which she was the object was of a kind which was most petty and miserable, degrading to the author of it as well as to its victim. The attempt at interference with her movements was not only a kind of meddling most irritating to a high-spirited girl, but it was also the kind of assault which her very pride prevented her from resisting openly. Hester felt that she would have lowered her own pride, and wounded her own self-respect, had she uttered a word of reply or taken any notice of the small and petty attack upon her. The incident of the pearls, though so trifling, excited her almost as much as the other and more important grievance she had against Catherine. That Edward should be so cowed by this woman that he had to conceal his real sentiments, to offend the girl whom he loved, to compromise his own honour and dignity all because of Catherine’s watch upon him, and the subjection in which it held him, was such a miserable thought to Hester, that it was all she could do to restrain herself at all. It is terrible to be compelled to endure one who has harmed those who are dear to you; but to enter her house and preserve a show of peace and good-feeling, though you are aware she is causing the self-debasement of those you love, that is the hardest of all. What should it matter to Edward that Catherine’s eye was upon him? An honourable and fine spirit would not have been influenced by any such oppression. It made Hester’s heart sick to think that he did this consciously, deceived his benefactress, and pretended to obey her when in his heart he loathed his bondage; and to think that she herself should be called upon to sustain this humiliation filled her with shame and rage. But though her heart was bitter against Edward, there was yet a softening in it, an involuntary indulgence, which made her glad to elude the question so far as he was concerned, and to fix upon Catherine, who was the cause of it, with all her force of indignation.