Hester · Chapter 42 (2/2)

“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 anyone 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.