HESTER IN POSSESSION.
Time went on, and Robert Streightley received no fresh intelligence to
guide him to the one object for which he now cared to live. The
terrible disappointment of the hopes inspired by the only suggestion
he had received had utterly prostrated him; and now, even the revived
conviction that news of her _must_ come in some way, that though he
might never see her again, this cloud of absolute ignorance of her
fate must drift away--had yielded to the slow influence of the passing
days. Charles Yeldham had succeeded in inducing him to be calm and
quiet; in convincing him that no means of discovering what he wanted
to find out should be neglected; and that the best way to insure
success was to allow some time to elapse, after which Katharine's
precautions would probably relax of themselves. Robert knew his
friend's zeal and fidelity; and in his depressed state of mind, and
weakened condition of bodily health, he was obliged, and thankful, to
rest in that knowledge, and security, not indeed from his sorrow, but
from exertion on his own part. He had once more begun to tax his
intellectual energies by application to business; and the former
habits of his life were regaining their dominion over him. He had
resumed his residence in his mother's house at Brixton, without the
smallest regret for the luxurious abode he had quitted. He had
regarded all the surroundings of the brief period of display and
luxury which had succeeded to his marriage with perfect indifference
on his own account, and now he forgot them. He was to all outward
appearance, in habits and tastes, the same man who had gone City-wards
from the same house, year after year, before the brilliant
interruption; the difference was unseen, undiscernible by any eyes but
those of the Father of Spirits.
It is probable that at this time Mrs. Streightley was as happy as she
had ever been in all her blameless but uninteresting life. She did not
care much about public repute, except in the sense of the impugnment
of commercial honesty; and as Robert's character stood as high as
ever, in spite of his pecuniary disasters, she cared not at all that
the world should talk about his domestic affairs. The world which did
so talk was not her world. Brixton and Clapham, the Pratts and the
Perkinses, the "connection," and the ministers thereof, said little
about the separation between her son and his beautiful "high-flying"
wife, and that little had a consolatory tendency; for these good
people seemed to think Robert's eternal prospects improved by the
occurrence, and it was no part of their creed to trouble themselves
about those of Katharine. The old lady had her son with her again; the
former routine was resumed: if Robert was unhappy, he did not show it;
and she could not understand how he could fret after a woman who had
never been a wife to him,--"not what I call a wife, at least," she
would say, on the very rare occasions when she mentioned the matter.
She was a good woman in her way; but she essentially belonged to the
narrow-minded order of human beings, and was quite incapable of
realising the fact that though she had seen nothing to like, and
little even to admire, in Katharine, her son had seen in her all the
value and the glory of life to him, and was living, under her kind,
motherly, but unobservant eyes, a broken-hearted man.
Ellen, whose weakness of character rendered her amiability and her
enthusiasm almost valueless, had begun to forget Katharine. She had
been charmed by her beauty and kindness, but she had always felt a
little restrained, a little puzzled by her; and as she had never
thought of applying such intellect as she possessed to the solution of
the puzzle, it had remained, to make her uncomfortable. From the first
Katharine's flight had been a silent subject between her brother and
her; and by degrees Ellen had ceased to think of it much, and the
image of her sister-in-law had become faint in her memory. Besides,
the Rev. Decimus had always decidedly disapproved of her; and he had
improved the occasion, entirely to his own satisfaction, and very
nearly to Ellen's conviction, by his eloquent exposition of the
dangers of riches, the snares of fashion, the undesirableness of
beauty, and the enormity of self-will. The reverend gentleman, who was
a good creature in his small way, had one or two defects of character,
not altogether unknown in his class. He was uncharitable in his
judgments, and implacable--piously so, of course, and with the utmost
deprecation of such a sentiment--in his resentments. Robert's marriage
had been distasteful to his brother-in-law elect from every point of
view, personal and professional; and he had never been able to
perceive the slightest concession to his influence on the part of
Katharine; indeed he felt perfectly certain that on the few occasions
of their meeting she had never remembered his existence, after giving
him the prescribed bow or word of recognition. If he could have
believed that Mrs. Streightley had disliked or feared him or his
doctrines, he would have been far less bitter against her than he
really, though secretly, was;--for he mourned over her in the true
unctuous style of self-exaltation, and depreciation of the sinner,
familiar to "professors" of his sort;--he would then have been enabled
to _poser en martyre_, a sufferer of contumely for conscience' sake;
and great would have been his reward in Brixton and Clapham circles,
where Katharine was utterly unknown, except as an object of holy
detraction and affected pity, in the days of her pride and prosperity.
But no such resource was open to Mr. Dutton; he knew perfectly well
that Mrs. Streightley had never thought of him, had never formed any
opinion about him at all; that he had simply been completely
indifferent to her. Strange are the complications of human nature, the
self-delusions of the best among us. Here was a really good man,
disinterested, zealous, perfectly sincere; a man indifferent to wealth
(except for missionary purposes), and with whom Ellen Streightley
outweighed in attraction the whole of womankind; a man to whom the
smallest, the most transient infidelity, either as lover or husband,
would have been as impossible as picking a pocket or forging a
bill--filled with resentment because a woman, a rich and beautiful
woman, had shown herself politely oblivious of him. And he a clergyman
too! Ah, there was the rub--the egotism of the good creature was a
divided egotism, after all; he could not understand feminine
indifference to the cloth! His experiences were partly Polynesian, and
partly Claphamite, and he judged, as he lived, according to his
lights.
When the Rev. Decimus, then, spoke of Katharine with solemn horror, as
an utterly lost sheep, and without the slightest suggestion that it
was any body's business to follow her into the wilderness and bring
her back, Ellen listened to him with her usual adoring respect, and
made no protest. As her future husband, and a clergyman _in esse_,
Decimus was doubly a law to her; and obedience was as deep-seated in
Ellen's nature as revolt is in that of some women. Her curiosity
respecting the cause of Katharine's flight, the "cause of complaint"
against her brother which Robert had assigned, without explaining,
remained in her mind long after her sorrow and her affection for the
lost sheep had subsided. There was not the least probability that it
would ever be gratified; and she began to take the view of the matter
insinuated by Mr. Dutton, though he had not the smallest grounds for
such a conjecture, and was innocent of intentional slander in the
suggestion. "Rely upon it, Ellen," he had said, "Robert's generosity
leads him to shelter his unhappy wife from additional disgrace, by
assuming the blame of this wretched business himself. I daresay he
made some discovery concerning her former life--the life of a
worldling and an unbeliever, my dearest, has no doubt always
disgraceful secrets in it--and this is the result. Your brother is
very generous, and I am sure capable of such a sacrifice."
This was quite a new idea to Ellen, and it took some time to absorb;
but at length she said, with a little air of wisdom:
"Well, but, Decimus, in that case he would know where she is, and all
about her."
"And how do you know that he does not know? He never says a word on
the subject, does he? I think I understood from you that he never
mentioned her since he came back to live here."
"O no, never; not to mamma even, or to old Alice. He has never once
pronounced her name. My reason for thinking he does not know any thing
about her is because Hester says she feels sure he does not, and that
he and his friends--friends we know nothing about--are making every
effort to find out where she is."
"Mrs. Frere is always right, to be sure; but in this case, I think,
she would be certain to know it positively, if such were the case.
Frere would know it--he is so great a friend and ally of Robert--and
he would tell her. No, no, Ellen; on this point I stick to my own
opinion." Which was, indeed, the reverend gentleman's habit in all
matters wherein he differed from his fellow-creatures.
Mr. Dutton's dislike of Katharine Streightley was only exceeded by his
regard for Hester Frere. This sentiment, like all his sentiments, was
entirely disinterested, and had sprung into existence long before
Hester had taken any active interest in his affairs. According to her
usual wise custom, Miss Gould had made herself agreeable to her
friend's lover before she was in a position which enabled her to
patronise him; and he had conceived a genuine liking for her, into
which the element of gratitude was now introduced. Hester had brought
her common-sense, her unfailing tact, and her powers of deferential
persuasion to bear upon Ellen's betrothed respecting the missionary
question; and as she understood the good little man's weaknesses as
well as she understood his narrow sincerity and stupid zeal, she came
out of the discussion with entire success. Mr. Dutton was brought to
recognise the force of the reasoning which maintained that English
savages are as well worth saving as Polynesian savages, and that the
labour implied in the task is at least as arduous, and considerably
more repulsive. Hester had her own notions as to his fitness for
either task; but she kept them to herself, being supremely indifferent
to the spiritual welfare of the world on either side of the Equator.
"I daresay his parishioners won't swallow his doctrines," she said to
herself contentedly; "but then neither will they swallow his wife."
And she derived very great satisfaction from the promptitude and skill
with which Mr. Thacker had executed the commission intrusted to him,
before the great absorbing interest of this woman's life had arisen,
to overpower every other. A living had been found in a situation which
almost realised the conditions prescribed by Hester, and the marriage
of Ellen and Decimus was to take place immediately.
To this, as to most other external circumstances, Robert was
indifferent; he had lost his interest in such things now: his only
feeling about it was regret that he could not give his sister a large
dowry, as he had once hoped to do. He had been consulted in a formal
way by both Decimus and Ellen, and he had agreed to all their plans;
then, his duty being done, he turned away again, and fed upon his
sorrow in silence,--in a silence growing submissive, full of
repentance and humility. His sin had found him out, and the
chastisement was heavy upon him; but Robert was discerning more and
more clearly that the hand which was dealing it was God's hand, and he
was learning to kiss the rod. Very, very slowly were these lessons
learned: the progress of the human soul in the school of the wisdom
which is not of this world, is never rapid; but neither is it ever
arrested, turned aside, or ineffectual.
The long winter, the bright spring, the gay summer had twice come and
gone, since that November day which had witnessed Katharine's flight,
and the rich tints of autumn were upon the beautiful beechwoods of
Middlemeads. The place that was to know her no more, never again to be
adorned by her graceful presence or enlivened by her beauty, was, to
all outward appearance, not a whit the worse for the privation. It was
still splendid, still luxurious, still gay; still the home of youth
and beauty, of fashion and frivolity. It was Hester Frere's home now;
and Gordon was master of the house from which the woman whom he had
loved and lost had turned resolutely away, to be lost in utter
obscurity. He thought of this at times with keen pain; for a change
had passed upon him too, and he was more serious than he had been;
which seriousness his wife marked, and, assigning to it as a primary
cause one which was but secondary, bitterly resented. Gordon had
learned with displeasure as well as astonishment that his wife was the
possessor of Middlemeads; the "profitable investment" had no charms
for him to counterbalance the unpleasantness and what he felt to be
the difficulty of such a position. But what could he do? His wife's
friendship with the Streightleys was no reason why she should not live
at Middlemeads, since it was evident that not one of those concerned
had any notion that her living there was any offence to that
friendship. The real reason against it was confined to his knowledge,
and must not be imparted to his wife. Had he arbitrarily crossed her
wishes, he would have been gratuitously unkind, and that it was not in
Gordon's nature to be; and so he went to Middlemeads against his will,
and remained there, deriving very moderate pleasure from the abode,
and feeling that the coldness and restraint which had sprung up
between him and Hester since the occasion of their conversation about
Katharine were inexplicably increased by the possession of the place.
Since that memorable night Katharine's name had never been spoken
between them. Hester knew that her husband and Robert Streightley were
much more intimate than they had previously been; and this knowledge
fed the jealous passion which devoured her. "They meet to talk of her,
these two men whom she took from me," she would think; and her
once-powerful and well-trained common-sense failed to come to her aid
here, when her need was at its utmost. She would have been desperately
angry had she known that Gordon had told Robert his objection to
living at Middlemeads, and that it was Robert who had quieted his
scruples.
"Don't mind about me, Frere," Robert had said. "What does it matter to
me? I could never see the place again, you know; and it makes no
difference to me who lives there. Hester always liked it, I remember;
and I am glad to think she has it now. I am indeed, Frere; I am, upon
my honour."
And he was. All this was only a trifle, a secondary point of delicacy,
a nothing; it had no influence upon his fate, it did not wound his
feelings; the calamity that had come upon him left him no
sensitiveness to spare for minor suffering. He never saw Hester now;
but that was accident, not design: he had not the remotest notion that
she had any meaning in his life beyond the trifling meaning she had
always had; he never thought of her at all, indeed. When she was in
town Ellen was much with her, he knew; and he also knew that she had
procured the living whose charms had diverted Decimus from those of
black heathendom; he knew that Ellen was to pass some time with her at
Middlemeads in the autumn; but that was all. It had occurred to him to
wonder a little how Ellen would feel at Middlemeads without Katharine.
But Robert knew his sister; and he smiled at the passing thought, and
at himself.
So Hester was in possession. The dream she had dreamed had become a
reality. She was mistress of Middlemeads, owner of the home of her
unconscious enemy, and of the possessions which had belonged to the
man who had preferred another before her. More than this, she was the
wife of the man her enemy had loved--still loved, perhaps: she had no
clue to Katharine's thoughts, no power to read the change which time
had wrought in her. Was ever revenge so safe, so sure as hers? was
ever revenge so complete? And it had not compromised her in the least:
she was all the richer in money, and none the poorer in friends; she
could talk of Mrs. Streightley with polite pity, and if by any
extraordinary chance the fugitive should ever again come to the
surface of society, she could even meet her, unsuspected, unrebuked.
Truly her success had been marvellous, her good fortune and her good
management unsurpassed; and her secret was so entirely her own. A
little impetuousness, the least loss of self-control, and she might
have betrayed herself to Thacker. (Hester was quite unconscious of the
tone in which she had spoken in the church-porch on the occasion of
Robert's marriage.) But she had never lost her self-control; and he
knew nothing. Supposing him to suspect, what matter? she dreaded not
suspicion, but knowledge.
Hester was happy, then. Happy in her wealth, her popularity, her
authority, in her success and prosperity. Happy, as she sat with Lady
Henmarsh, who was clad in the deepest and glossiest of widow's weeds,
having been disembarrassed of Sir Timothy by the kind hand of death
early in the preceding spring, and was now enjoying Hester's
hospitality, which she proposed to enjoy as fully and for as long a
period as possible. The scene suggested happiness. The two ladies were
seated at the large French window of the room which the former
mistress of Middlemeads had occupied as a dressing-room, and which was
furnished in a style at once sumptuous and tasteful; yet it was not
furnished as in Katharine's time. The conservatory, with the fountain
and the marble floor, the aviary, and the flight of marble steps by
which the Italian garden was to be reached, were there, but the
"Lady-Kilmantan" hangings and furniture, the subject of Mrs.
Stanbourne's remonstrance with Katharine, had disappeared. Hester,
consistent even in the novel defects she was acquiring, had sent all
these things to Ellen's future home. She would dissociate herself as
far as possible from Katharine,--her private rooms should bear no
trace of her; but she would make a judicious use of articles of
property, notwithstanding Gordon noticed the alteration, and gave his
wife offence by doing so.
"Didn't you like the blue-and-silver things in your dressing-room,
Hester? I thought them very pretty."
"No," she answered shortly; "blue is horribly unbecoming to me. I have
not a faultless fair complexion, you know."
"I didn't know complexion had any influence on the choice of
furniture," said Gordon, smiling, and quite unconscious of the
feelings his careless remark had excited.
"Didn't you? No, I don't suppose men understand those things. Read the
Duchesse d'Abrantes, and you'll be wiser."
The obnoxious blue-and-silver had been replaced by the freshest and
prettiest of chintzes; and the apartment, if less splendid, was even
more elegant and inviting. Traces of Hester's intellectual tastes were
to be seen about it; and Hester herself was no insignificant ornament.
The development of her beauty had been steadily going on, and now the
new mistress of Middlemeads need not have greatly feared competition
with the former. With all the accessories of wealth and refinement
around her, Hester Frere was a beautiful woman to the most critical
eye--more beautiful indeed to the critical than to the careless; for
hers was the beauty of form and expression, the accuracy of feature
and symmetry of form, the correct loveliness which is less sympathetic
but more satisfying than the lighter, more brilliant, and more
striking kinds of beauty.
"And you actually had Mr. Thacker's sisters down here for a month,
Hester? How very good of you! Were they very dreadful?"
Hester smiled. "You forget," she said, "that I lived all my life among
similar people, and am of them. You can't expect me to admit that they
are dreadful."
"O, I know all that; you need not talk like that to me, Hester, or
pretend that you ever were like the Thacker girls. They are like human
peonies. I shall never forget Rebecca's parasol, with a pink-coral
handle, and her opera-cloak with amber buttons."
"They are very fond of bright colours and jewelry, certainly. I don't
dispute that, or hope to correct it; but they are old friends, and I
am very constant to them."
"So you are to all friends, Hester, and in that wonderfully unlike
most women of the world; and you know the world as well as any one, I
think. But talking of old friends and constancy, what about that silly
girl Streightley's sister, that Katharine, and you too, Hester, bored
one to death with last year?"
"She is coming to me shortly, to stay with me while Gordon goes to the
Scotch moors; and I shall keep her until we go to town. Then she is to
be married early in the winter."
"Indeed!" said Lady Henmarsh in a dissatisfied tone, which referred to
the earlier portion of the reply. "I wonder her brother likes her
coming here; it must be rather awkward for her, and for him too."
"O no, I think not," replied Hester quickly, and with a slight change
of colour. "She does not mind, I am sure."
"That's well," said Lady Henmarsh. "Do you see much of poor
Streightley? I have not heard of him for an age. I never can get over
his unfeeling conduct to poor Ned Guyon. I know all about it, you
know; for Ned wrote me every thing--refusing him money when he was on
the brink of ruin; horrid, wasn't it? So I really know nothing of him.
I suppose, nothing has been heard of that unfortunate mad woman?"
"Mad woman! Why do you call Mrs. Streightley a mad woman, Lady
Henmarsh?" asked Hester with surprise.
Lady Henmarsh was rather confused. She felt she must make some reply,
and she did not know exactly how to make a judicious one, for she had
forgotten for a moment the strange complication in the position of the
woman she was speaking of, and that of the woman she was speaking to.
"Well, really," she answered awkwardly, "you have only to look round
you and out of window for an answer. No sane woman would run away from
such a home as this, I presume."
"But she could not have remained here," said Hester; "Mr.
Streightley's affairs were embarrassed before she went away."
"Yes; but then she did not know it," said Lady Henmarsh. "I suspected
always that she knew nothing about her husband's affairs; and
Streightley admitted that she did not. No, no, worse luck for him; he
declares that it was his own fault that she left him; and I know
Katharine well. She has, as her poor father used to say, 'a devil of a
temper;' and she is as proud as Lucifer, and gave me an immense deal
of trouble; but I am perfectly sure, if she had known the truth, and
the trouble Streightley was in, she would have forgiven him."
"Forgiven him what, Lady Henmarsh? Do you know?--did he ever tell
you?"
"No, never. He only said he was to blame--that she had a cause of
complaint against him;--you know exactly what he said. However, she is
the chief sufferer by her folly, and it is no concern of ours."
Hester was a remarkably keen observer, even where she was much less
interested than, since her fatal revelation of her jealousy to Gordon
Frere, she had been about every thing which concerned Katharine; and
her quick observation now revealed to her that Lady Henmarsh knew more
than she was willing to tell, and was very anxious to conceal her
knowledge. She did not allow her discovery to appear; and soon after
the two ladies separated to dress for dinner.
An hour later Mrs. Frere stood at one of the windows of the long
drawing-room, gazing thoughtfully out with eyes that took no heed of
the objects they saw. She was beautifully dressed in sheeny satin and
soft rich lace; she looked proud, composed, and beautiful; and the
thoughts she was thinking were these:
"She will know sooner or later that misfortunes have come on him, and
she will return. Then Gordon will see her again, when the little love
he ever gave me is dead; when he has become her husband's friend; when
there is no confidence between him and me--and _she_ has been the
means of its withdrawal. Yes, it was she, not myself, not my betrayal
of my feelings--how could I help that? how could any wretched creature
like me avoid that?--it was _she!_ he is always thinking of her. What
is his friendship for Robert but love of her? I know he works for him;
he goes to him whenever he goes to town; and ah, how often he goes! He
does not like this place--I can see it--because it ought to be
hers--forsooth, ought to be hers! and bought with my money. But he
does not care for my money, and he does not care for me. _I
wish--I wish I was dead!_"
You see Hester's success had been complete; and the mistress of
Middlemeads, reigning in her rival's stead, must needs be perfectly
happy.