Hester · Chapter 29 (2/3)

From Hester’s point of view there was indeed little to be said for this woman, who, to so many in the place, was the very impersonation of active benevolence and goodness⁠—a tyrant who seized upon the very soul of the young man whom she favoured most, and whose prying and vigilant observation forced him to deception, and made him true to himself only when he was out of her sight⁠—a woman, who while she gave with one hand closed a grasp of iron upon the people obliged to her with the other, and would prescribe their very dress if she could. Oh, how true it must be after all, the picture of the tyrannical, narrow despot, exacting, remorseless, descending to the lowest details, which a woman, when endued with irresponsible power, was understood to make! Hester had rebelled as a girl does against every such injurious picture of women; but it occurred to her now that it must all be true. No doubt it was unsafe to trust such a creature with any kind of authority. She would not be content with less than absolute sway. She would let no charity nor ruth, nor the hearts of others, nor their wishes, stand in her way. She would crush a young life with no more compunction than a savage. Thus Hester took refuge from questions more trying⁠—from the aspect of Edward which within these last few days had become more and more important to her. Her whole being seemed to be flowing towards him with a current which she felt herself unable to restrain. She did not any longer ask herself questions about his love. She tried not to ask any questions about him at all. In her secret consciousness there was a distrust of him, and disapproval and fear, which had never been breathed into any ear⁠—scarcely even into her own. Indeed, Hester was her own only confidant. All the things which occupied her were uncommunicable. She had grown a woman, everything that happened was now more important to her than in earlier days. And now there had come a crisis in her fate, and it was not she who held the key of the problem, nor her lover, nor any legitimate authority⁠—but Catherine! Catherine controlled her future and all its issues through him. Catherine could have stopped all further development for both, she could have checked their love ruthlessly, and made an end of their happiness. The girl began to feel that there was something in the presence of this woman, in her influence, in her very name, that was insupportable. That impulse of flight which always presents itself to the impatient spirit came upon her strongly. Why should not she and her mother shake themselves free from the imbroglio⁠—go away anywhere, it did not matter where, and get peace, at least, and a life free of agitations and complications? Away from the Vernons she would be free to work as she pleased, and so make up for the aid that Catherine gave⁠—away from them there would be no more question of love and hate, love afraid to declare itself, hate veiled beneath the aspect of benevolence.

Hester had very little to do at home. She had not even books to read. She had unbounded time to think; even her visits to her old friends, the captain and his wife, had grown less frequent since Emma came, for Emma’s monologues were not amusing to Hester’s excited mind, and the captain and Mrs. Morgan had both yielded to their granddaughter’s irrepressible talent of speech. Hester was more at home in consequence, more alone, less subject to wholesome distractions and interruptions. She would think and think the whole evening through. The Thés Dansantes began to fill her with a sort of sickening, of weariness, and disgust. She felt as if she too, like Emma, had gone to get her “chance” there, and was, like Emma, hung up in degrading suspense until he should speak. The rage with her position, the scorn of herself with which this filled her, is indescribable. She would burst forth into wild laughter after one of Emma’s calculations, often repeated, about Reginald Merridew; then hide her face in her hands to conceal the burning blush⁠—the bitter consciousness that her own circumstances were not much different. The self-ridicule was more painful still than the self-disgust. She shed no tears over the question, but the laughter was a great deal more bitter than any tears.

Mrs. John was as unconscious of this struggle as if it had gone on in Kamschatka and not under her own eye, in her own parlour, and the bedroom that opened into hers. She was not one of the women who divine. She understood what was told her, and not always that⁠—never anything more than was told her. She thought her child was not looking well, but then, she had a cold; and there is nothing more oppressive than a cold. The first thing that really startled her was Hester’s determination not to go to Mrs. Merridew’s party on the first Thursday that occurred after Christmas, which was to be a particularly brilliant one. This struck her mother with consternation.

“Do you think your cold is so bad as that? I would not wish you to do anything imprudent, but I have often heard girls say that a ball was the very best thing for a cold. If you were to nurse up this evening, and have your breakfast in bed, I can’t help thinking you would feel quite yourself tomorrow, my darling,” Mrs. John said.

“It is not my cold,” said Hester; and then she reflected that it was a pity to throw aside so excellent a plea. “At least it is not altogether my cold.”

“Oh, I know how oppressed one feels, just good for nothing; but, my love, you would feel sorry after. It is a pity to give in. You shall have a foot-bath tonight with some mustard in it, and a hot drink. And you must not get up till midday. You’ll feel a great deal better after that.”

“I don’t want to go⁠—I am tired of them,” Hester said, her impatience getting the better of her, “once a week is a great deal too often. I am sick of the very name of dancing.”

“My love!” cried her mother in consternation. Then she came behind her and gave her a soft little kiss. “I think I shall give you quinine, for I am sure you’re low,” she said, “and you must be bright and well, and looking your best for Catherine’s great party, which is next week.”

“I don’t⁠—” cried Hester, then stopped short, for she had not the heart to give her mother a double wound by declaring she would not go to Catherine’s party. One such blow was enough at a time.

The astonishment with which her nonappearance at Mrs. Merridew’s was regarded by all the connection was unbounded. The discovery that Hester was not going, filled the Miss Ridgways with excitement. What could be the cause?

“I suppose there has been a quarrel,” the sisters said. “Ellen is a little minx; but still she is a true Vernon, and won’t stand any such airs as that girl gives herself. Her mother and she are insupportable, with their pearls and their pretences.”

“Roman pearls,” said Mr. Mildmay Vernon, “and Brummagem pretences.”

So they discussed the question. When Hester went in next day to Captain Morgan’s, not without a little curiosity to hear from Emma what had been said of her absence: “I am glad you have recovered,” Mrs. Morgan said, kissing her, and looking into her face with an air of reproach and a shake of the head.

“It is not like you to give in for a cold,” the old captain added; but fortunately for Hester all explanation on her part, and all remonstrance on theirs, was cut short by the persevering deliberate voice which now was the principal circumstance in the old people’s house.

“I assure you Ellen was very much astonished, Hester. She looked at me as if she could not believe her eyes. And they all looked at me as if it was my fault. How could it be my fault? I didn’t give you your cold. I think there were more people than usual. We had Sir Roger de Coverley, you know, because it was Christmas. I danced it with young Mr. Norris, who has just come into his fortune, you know. He is very nice. He asked me for four dances, but I only gave him three. Don’t you think I was right, grandmamma? That is the worst of Ellen’s parties, that there are no old chaperons with experience, that could advise you on a point like that. Two waltzes and then the Sir Roger, which is a sort of extra you know, and doesn’t count. I don’t think there could be anything wrong in that.”

“You should not give in, Hester,” said the old captain. “That is not like you. What is a cold at your age! You should always stand to your colours, and hold your⁠—”

“Oh, I said to everybody, Hester had such a bad cold,” said Emma. “I said that her nose was red and that it quite affected her voice. So it does. You don’t notice it so much when she flames up like that. I wonder how you can blush in that way, Hester. It is the difference of complexion, I suppose. I always keep the same. It is nice in some ways, for however hot it is you can be sure you are not a figure; but in other respects I should like to change colour like that. It makes you look interesting. People think you are so sensitive, and that sort of thing, when it’s only just complexion. Harry Vernon was more grumphy than ever because you were not there, always standing about beside Ellen and looking after her, which, considering she’s married, is a great deal more than any brother ought to take upon him. I am sure if Roland did, I should not know what to think. But then Ellen is an only sister, which makes a great difference, and I am the youngest. Reginald Merridew was in such a way! I was engaged for almost every dance before he came. I quite enjoyed it. I filled up my card as soon as I could, just to give him a lesson. Men should be kept in their proper places. I never thought you showed half a spirit letting Edward Vernon carry you off just as he pleased.”

“My dear,” said old Mrs. Morgan, making an endeavour to strike in, “we have not seen half so much of you lately as we like to do. My old man misses you on his walk. Do go and take a walk with him, as your cold is better.”

“Oh, don’t send her away when I just want to talk over everything,” said Emma. “You never think what young people like. I am sure you are very kind and nice, grandmamma, I always say so. Whatever anyone may think, I always maintain that you have been very nice and kind to me: and kept me such a time⁠—when I dare say you are tired of me. But you don’t remember what young people like. Of course Hester wants to hear who was there, and how everyone was looking, and who danced with who, and all that. There are always a hundred things that we have to say to each other. Come up with me to my room, Hester, and then we shan’t bore grandmamma and grandpapa. I have such a lot to tell you. Ellen had such a lovely new dress, old gold and black. It sounds much too old for her, but it wasn’t a bit. It was quite a change among all the whites and pinks. I just went in my grenadine. I don’t pretend to cope with the rich girls, you know. If the men want to dance with rich dresses they must just leave me alone. I am always straightforward. I say, ‘Don’t ask me unless you are sure you don’t mind.’ But I suppose they like my dancing or something, for I always have my card full. Sir Roger de Coverley was really fun. We were all dancing, it seemed about a mile going down the middle. It is such a pity you weren’t there. Edward Vernon danced it with⁠—I really forget who he danced it with⁠—one of the Miss Bradleys or Mary Wargrave, or one of that set. Are you really going out with grandpapa? That is awfully self-denying of you, to please the old gentleman. And it is so cold. Grandmamma, I do think you shouldn’t let her go.”

“She can hear your report another time⁠—indeed she has heard a great deal of it already,” said old Mrs. Morgan. “You don’t lose any time, Emma. But, Hester, if you are afraid⁠—”

“Oh, I shouldn’t go on any account,” cried Emma, “with a bad cold. But then I have such dreadful colds when I do have them. I am obliged to go to bed. I never get my nose red like Hester’s, nor lose my voice⁠—but I get such a cough. I am so thankful I have not had one here. It gives everybody so much trouble when you get ill on a visit, and you lose all the good of the visit, and might just as well be at home. There is grandpapa calling. I should just let him call if it was me. Well, Hester, if you will go, I can’t help it. Come in again if you are not afraid of the evening air, and you shall hear all the rest; or if you’ll have me at tea time, perhaps that will be best. I’ll go to you⁠—”

The old captain sighed as he went out. Emma was, as it were, left speaking, standing on the step of the door addressing Hester, as she followed her old friend out into the dusky afternoon of one of those black days that conclude the year. Very black days they were on this occasion, not so cold as December often is, without snow or any of the harsher signs of winter, but also without sun or any of the exhilarating sharpness of the frost. Everything was dry, but dark, the skies leaden, the very Common showing less green. The captain went on before with a woollen comforter wrapped in many folds about his throat, and woollen mittens on the hands which grasped his stick with so much energy. He struck it against the ground as if he had been striking someone as he hurried away.

“I think that girl will be the death of us,” he said: then repented of his sharp utterance. “I told you I thought you were a spiritual grandchild, Hester. What the child of our child whom we lost, who never had a child, would have been. And you have spoiled us for the other thing⁠—the grandchild of common life.”

“It is a long time since we have been out together,” said Hester, as the old man put his other hand in its large mitten within her slender arm.

“And you have been in the meantime getting into some of the muddles,” he said. “It was kind of my old wife to hand you over to me, Hester. We all think our own experience the best. She would like to have had you to herself, to find out all about it, and give you the help of her old lights; but instead of that she was self-denying, and handed you over to me. And now let me hear what it is, and see if the old ship’s lantern will do you any good.”

“Am I in any muddles?” said Hester. “I don’t know⁠—perhaps there is nothing to tell. It is so hard to divide one thing from another.”

“So it is; but when it is divided it is easier to manage,” said the old captain. He paused a little to give her time to speak: but as she did not do so he resumed on an indifferent subject, that the girl’s confidence might not be forced. “I am always glad when the old year is over. You will say I am an old fool for that, as my days are so few. But the first of January is a great deal gayer than the first of December, though they may be exactly like each other. When you can say there will be spring this year⁠—”

“Captain Morgan,” said Hester, who had been taking advantage of the pause without paying any attention to what he said, “Catherine Vernon is angry because I wear my mother’s pearls. How should that be?”

“You must be mistaken, my dear,” said the old captain promptly. “She has her faults, but Catherine is never paltry, Hester. That cannot be.”

“Either you are very much mistaken about her, or I am much mistaken about her,” Hester said.

The old man looked at her with a smile on his face.

“I don’t say anything against that. And which of us is most likely to be right?” he asked. “I knew her before you were born.”

“Oh, before I was born! Does that tell you anything about her conduct to me? Once I was not, but now I am; and somebody quite distinct from other people.”

“Very distinct!” Captain Morgan said.