HESTER
A STORY OF CONTEMPORARY LIFE
BY
MRS. OLIPHANT
"A springy motion in her gait,
A rising step, did indicate
Of pride and joy no common rate
That flush'd her spirit:
I know not by what name beside
I shall it call: if 'twas not pride,
It was a joy to that allied
She did inherit.
* * * * *
She was trained in Nature's school,
Nature had blest her.
A waking eye, a prying mind,
A heart that stirs, is hard to bind:
A hawk's keen sight ye cannot blind,
Ye could not Hester."
CHARLES LAMB.
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. I
London
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1883
The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved
LONDON
R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR,
BREAD STREET HILL.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. VERNON'S.
CHAPTER II. MISS CATHERINE.
CHAPTER III. THE VERNONRY.
CHAPTER IV. A FIRST MEETING.
CHAPTER V. NEXT MORNING.
CHAPTER VI. NEIGHBOURS AND RELATIONS.
CHAPTER VII. SETTLING DOWN.
CHAPTER VIII. NINETEEN.
CHAPTER IX. RECOLLECTIONS.
CHAPTER X. A LOVER.
CHAPTER XI. MOTHER AND DAUGHTER.
CHAPTER XII. AN INDIGNANT SPECTATOR.
CHAPTER XIII. CATHERINE'S OPINION.
CHAPTER XIV. HARRY'S VIEW.
CHAPTER XV. WHAT EDWARD THOUGHT.
CHAPTER XVI. WALKS AND TALKS.
HESTER.
HESTER.
CHAPTER I.
VERNON'S.
The Banking House of the Vernons was known through all the Home Counties
as only second to the Bank of England in stability and strength. That is
to say, the people who knew about such matters, the business people, the
professional classes, and those who considered themselves to be
acquainted with the world, allowed that it ought to be considered
second: but this opinion was not shared by the greater proportion of its
clients, the shopkeepers in Redborough and the adjacent towns, the
farmers of a wide district, and all the smaller people whose many united
littles make up so much wealth. To them Vernon's bank was the emblem of
stability, the impersonation of solid and substantial wealth. It had
risen to its height of fame under John Vernon, the grandfather of the
present head of the firm, though it had existed for two or three
generations before him. But John Vernon was one of those men in whose
hands everything turns to gold. What the special gift is which
determines this it is difficult to tell, but there can be little doubt
that it is a special gift, just as it is a particular genius which
produces a fine picture or a fine poem. There were wiser men than he,
and there were men as steady to their work and as constantly in their
place, ready for all the claims of business, but not one other in whose
hands everything prospered in the same superlative way. His investments
always answered, his ships always came home, and under his influence the
very cellars of the banking-house, according to the popular imagination,
filled with gold. At one period of his career a panic seized the entire
district, and there was a run upon the bank, by which it was evident
anybody else must, nay, ought, to have been ruined; but John Vernon was
not ruined. It was understood afterwards that he himself allowed that he
did not understand how he had escaped, and nobody else could understand
it: but he did escape, and as a natural consequence became stronger and
richer, and more universally credited than ever. His son after him had
not the same genius for money, but at least he had the genius for
keeping what he had got, which is next best.
Edward Vernon, however, was not so fortunate in his family as in his
affairs. He had two sons, one of whom died young, leaving a little
daughter to be brought up by her grandfather; the other "went wrong."
Oh, never-ending family tragedy, never ending, still beginning, the
darkest anguish that exists in the world! The younger son went wrong,
and died also in his father's lifetime, leaving a helpless little family
of children, and a poor wife stupefied with trouble. She did her best,
poor soul, to bring up her boy to ways the very opposite of those in
which his father had stumbled and fallen, and it was supposed that he
would marry his cousin Catherine Vernon, and thus unite once more all
the money and prestige of the house. He too was John Vernon, and
resembled the golden great-grandfather, and great things were hoped of
him. He entered the bank in old Mr. Vernon's time, and gave every
promise of being a worthy successor as long as the senior partner, the
head of the house, lived. But when the old gentleman died and John
Vernon became in his turn the head of the house, there very soon
appeared signs of change. In the first place the marriage with his
cousin never came to pass; things had seemed to promise fairly so long
as the grandfather with whom she lived was alive. But after, there was
an immediate cooling of sentiment. Whose fault this was nobody knew. She
said nothing on the subject even to her dearest friends; nor did he say
anything; but he laughed and waved aside all questions as a man who
"could an if he would"----. His mother, for her part, said a great deal.
She ran between them like an excited hen, shaking her tail-feathers and
cackling violently. What did they mean by it? What was it for? She asked
her son how he could forget that if Catherine's money went out of the
business it would make the most extraordinary difference? and she bade
Catherine remember that it would be almost dishonest to enrich another
family with money which the Vernons had toiled for. Catherine, who was
not by any means an ordinary girl, smiled upon her, perhaps a little
sadly, and entered into no explanations. But her son, as was natural,
scoffed at his mother. "What should you know about the business?" he
said. Poor Mrs. Vernon thought she had heard enough of it to understand
it, or at least to understand the intentions of those who understood it.
But what is the use of a mother's remonstrances? The new generation will
please itself and take its way. She scolded and wept for years after,
poor soul, in vain, and yet could never learn that it was in vain, but
began anew day after day weeping, entreating, remonstrating, falling
into nervous crises of passion a hundred and a hundred times over. How
much better for her to have held her tongue! but how could she help it?
She was not of that placid and patient nature which can be wise. And
gradually things began to go badly with John. He married a young lady
belonging to a county family, but with no money to keep up her
pretensions. He had his stables full of horses and his house full of
company. "What is it all to come to?" cried his poor, anxious, angry,
disappointed, despairing mother, seeking opportunities to have a few
words with him, to speak to him seriously, to remind him of his duty. To
be sure she did a great deal more harm than good. She drew many a blow
upon herself which she might have escaped had she been content to allow
that his life had passed far beyond her guidance; but the poor lady
would not be taught. And it was quite true what John Vernon said. It
would take a long time, he told her, before a few horses and pleasant
company would affect Vernon's bank. As the head of that establishment he
was expected to be hospitable, and keep almost open house; the country
which trusted in him knew he could afford it. The Redborough people went
further, and liked to see the confidence with which he spent his money.
What could that do to Vernon's? He had never lived up to his income yet,
he believed. So he told his mother, who was never satisfied, and went on
till the day of her death always seeking a few words with him--an
opportunity of speaking seriously to her son. Poor mother! nothing went
very well with her; perhaps she was not clever either at managing her
children or her money. The partisans of the Vernons said so at least;
they said so of all the wives that were not Vernons, but interlopers,
always working harm. They said so also of Mrs. John, and there his
mother thought they were not far wrong. But none of her children turned
out very satisfactorily; the girls married badly; Edward, her younger
son, went into the Church, and never was more than a vicar, and their
money matters would not go right. Certainly she was not a fortunate
woman. But she died, happily for her, before anything material happened
to realise her alarms in respect to John.
It is astonishing how money grows when it is in the way of growing--when
it has got the genuine impulse and rolls every kindred atom near it,
according to some occult law of attraction, into itself. But just as
wonderfully as money grows does it melt away when the other--the
contrary process--has begun. John Vernon was quite right in saying that
the bank justified, nay, almost demanded, a certain amount of
expenditure from its chief partner. And he was more, much more, than its
chief partner. Catherine, though she was as deeply interested in it as
himself, took no responsibility whatever--how should she, a girl who
knew as much about money as her pony did? She took less interest,
indeed, than in ordinary circumstances she would have done, for there
was certainly something, whatever it might be, which had interrupted the
natural intercourse between the two cousins. They were not at ease with
each other like brother and sister, as everything suggested they ought
to have been--not sufficiently at ease to consider their mutual
interests together, as partners ought to have done. This, one of them at
least thought, would have been ridiculous in any case. When his lawyers
asked what Catherine thought on this or that subject, he laughed in
their faces.
"What should she think? What should she know? Of course she leaves all
that to me," he said. "How can a girl understand banking business?"
But this did not satisfy the respectable firm of solicitors who advised
the banker.
"Miss Vernon is not a girl any longer," said Mr. Pounce, who was its
head; upon which John Vernon laughed, one of those offensive laughs with
which a coarse-minded man waves the banner of his sex over an unmarried
woman.
"No," he said, "Catherine's growing an old maid. She must look alive if
she means to get a husband."
Mr. Pounce was not a sentimentalist, and no doubt laughed sometimes too
at the unfortunate women who had thus failed in the object of their
life; but he respected Miss Vernon, and he was very doubtful of her
cousin.
"Husband or no husband, I think she ought to be consulted," he said.
"Oh, I will take Catherine in my own hands," was the cousin's reply.
And thus life went on, very gay, fast, amusing, and expensive on one
side; very quiet and uneventful on the other. John Vernon built himself
a grand new house, in which there were all the latest improvements and
scientific luxuries, which the most expensive upholsterers filled with
the most costly furniture, and for which the skilfullest gardeners all
but created ready-made trees and shrubberies. He filled it with fine
company--names which the clerks at the bank felt were a credit to the
establishment, and which the townsfolk looked upon with admiring awe:
and there was nothing in the county to equal Mrs. John Vernon's dresses
and diamonds. What is all that to a great bank, gathering money every
hour?--nothing! Even Mr. Pounce acknowledged this. Personal
extravagance, as long as it is merely hospitality and show, must go a
very long way indeed before it touches the great revenue of such a
business. It was not the diamonds nor the feasts that they were afraid
of. But to be lavish with money is a dangerous fault with a man who is a
business man. It is a very common sin, but there is nothing more
perilous. In Manchester or Liverpool, where they turn over a fortune
every day, perhaps this large habit of sowing money about does not
matter. People there are accustomed to going up and down. Bankruptcy,
even, does not mean the end of the world in these regions. But a banker
in a country town, who has all the money of a district in his hands,
should not get into this reckless way. His clients are pleased--up to a
certain limit. But when once the first whisper of suspicion has been
roused it flies fast, and the panic with which rural depositors rush
upon a bank which has awakened the ghost of an apprehension, is even
more cruel and unreflecting than other panics. It went on a long time,
and where it was that the first suggestion came from, nobody ever knew.
Probably it did not come from any one--it was in the air, it struck two
people, all at once, talking to each other, and the electricity of the
contact found a single syllable of utterance. When that was done, all
was done. Everybody had been waiting for this involuntary signal; and
when it came, it flew like lightning through all Redborough, and out
into the roads and lanes--to distant farmhouses, into the rectories and
vicarages, even to the labourer's cottage. "It's said as Vernon's bank's
a-going to break," the ploughmen in the fields said to each other. It
did not matter much to them; and perhaps they were not sorry that the
farmer, who grew fat (they thought) on their toil, should feel that he
was also human. The farmers had something of the same feeling in respect
to their landlords, but could not indulge it for the furious terror that
took possession of themselves. Vernon's bank! Safer than the Bank of
England, was what they had all said exultingly. Very few of them had
sufficient command of themselves to wait now and inquire into it and see
how far the panic was well founded. To wait would have been to leave the
chance of salvation to other men.
Mrs. John Vernon was considered very refined and elegant according to
the language of the day, a young lady with many accomplishments. But it
was the fashion of the time to be unpractical just as it is the fashion
of our time that women should understand business and be ready for any
emergency. To wear your hair in a high loose knot on the top of your
head, with ringlets straying down your cheek, and across the always
uncovered whiteness of your shoulders, and to sing the songs of Mr.
Haynes Bayley, "Oh no, we never mention her," or "The Soldier's
Tear"--could anything be more entirely inconsistent with business
habits? Mrs. John would have considered it a slight to the delicacy of
her mind to have been supposed to know anything about the bank; and when
the head clerk demanded an audience at an unseasonable hour one summer
evening she was entirely taken aback.
"Me! do you mean that it is me Mr. Rule wants to see?" she asked of the
servant in consternation.
"He did ask for master, ma'am," said the man, "but as master's from home
he said he must see my lady. He looks very flustered. I'll say that for
him," he added.
To be sure William had heard the whisper in the air, and was more or
less gratified that Mr. Rule should be flustered; but as for his lady,
she saw no connection whatever between Mr. Rule's excitement and
herself.
"I do not see what good I can do him, William; and it's not an hour at
which I ever receive people. I am sure I don't know what he can want
with me."
"It's business, I think, ma'am," said the servant, with a little
eagerness. He wanted immensely himself to know what it was, and it did
not occur to him as possible that his mistress, so much more interested
than he, should be without anxiety or concern.
"Business!" said Mrs. John, "what do I know about business? However,"
she added, "if he is so desirous, perhaps you had better show him up.
Your master is always pleased when I pay a little attention to the
clerks. He says it does good."
"Yes, ma'am," said William.
Being a reasonable human creature he was touched in spite of himself by
the extraordinary sight of this poor, fine lady, sitting in her short
sleeves on the edge of the volcano, and knowing nothing about it. It was
too bad of master, William thought, if so be---- To leave the poor lady
entirely in the dark so that she did not know no more than a baby what
the clerk could want with her. William speculated, too, on his own
circumstances as he went down stairs. If so be---- It was a good place, and
he would be sorry to lose it. But he remembered that somebody had said
the Sandersons were looking out for a butler.
"Mrs. Vernon will see you, sir," he said in the midst of these thoughts;
and Mr. Rule followed him eagerly up stairs.
But what could Mrs. John do? Her dress was spotted muslin, as most
dresses were in those days; it was cut rather low on the shoulders,
though she was not dressed for company. She had pretty little ringlets
falling upon her cheeks, and short sleeves, and a band round her waist
with a shining clasp. She was considered brilliant in conversation, and
sang, "We met, 'twas in a crowd," and the songs previously mentioned,
with so much feeling that people had been known to weep as they
listened. The clerk had heard of all these accomplishments, and as he
hurried in, his eye was caught by the harp in its corner, which was also
one of the fashions of the time. He could not help being a little
overawed by it, notwithstanding his dreadful anxiety. Poor lady! the
thought passed through his mind as similar thoughts had passed through
William's--Would all this be sold away from her? White muslin dresses
with low necks have the advantage that they quite seem to separate their
wearers from everyday life. We have no doubt that the dying out of
chivalry, and the way in which women nowadays insist on doing their own
business, and most likely other people's too, is in great part to be put
down to high dresses and long sleeves. In these habiliments a lady looks
not so very much different from other people. She feels herself free to
go into common life. But Mrs. John sat there helpless, ignorant, quite
composed and easy in her mind, with pretty feet in sandalled slippers
peeping from under her dress. Mr. Rule had time for all this distressed,
regretful sympathy before he could stammer out in a hurry his anxious
question--or rather his hope--that Mr. Vernon would be home
to-morrow--early?
"I am sure I don't know," said Mrs. John. "It would be scarcely worth
his while to go away if he was to be back so soon. He said perhaps
to-morrow, but more likely next week."
"Next week!" cried Mr. Rule; "then he may just as well stay away
altogether; it will then be too late."
"Dear me!" said Mrs. John, politely, willing to show an interest; but
she did not know what more to say.
"Perhaps you know where he is, ma'am?" said the anxious clerk: for this
was the time when people said ma'am. "We might send an express after
him. If he were here, things might still be tided over. Excuse me, Mrs.
Vernon, but if you can give me any information----"
"Dear me," said Mrs. John, "my husband was going to London, I think. Is
it about business, or anything I may know?"
"All the world will know to-morrow," cried the agitated clerk, "unless
you can give me some assistance. I don't like to trouble a lady, but
what can I do? Mrs. Vernon, to-morrow is market day, and as sure as that
day comes if he is not here to make some provision for it, we shall have
a run on the bank."
"A run on the bank!" said Mrs. John, dismayed. "What does that mean?"
"It means that we shall have to pay every note that is presented us in
gold: and that everybody will rush upon us with our notes in their
hands: and all the people who have deposit accounts will withdraw their
money. It means Ruin," said Mr. Rule, very much flustered indeed, wiping
the perspiration from his brow. He had an account himself, and a
considerable sum to his credit. Oh, the fool he had been to let it lie
there instead of investing it! but then, he had been waiting for a good
investment, and in the meantime, Vernon's was as safe, safer than the
Bank of England. He had believed that till to-day.
Mrs. John sat looking at him with bewildered eyes.
"I don't understand," she said. "The bank of course is for that, isn't
it? I never understand how you do it," she added, with a little of the
sprightliness for which she was distinguished. "It has always been a
mystery to me what good it can do you to take all the trouble of paying
people's bills for them, and locking up their money, and having all that
responsibility; but I cannot deny that it seems to answer," she
concluded with a little simper.
The harassed clerk looked at her with a pity that was almost tragic. If
she had not been so handsome and so fine, and surrounded with all these
luxuries, it is very likely he would have been impatient, and considered
her a fool.
He replied gently--
"I dare say, ma'am, it is difficult for you to form an idea of business;
but I am almost forgetting, sitting talking to you, how dreadfully
serious it is. If I knew where Mr. Vernon was, I would send a
post-chaise directly. We are lost if he is not here. They will say--God
knows what they may not say. For God's sake, ma'am, tell me how I am to
find him?"
"Indeed, Mr. Rule, I am very, very sorry. If I had known! but I rather
encouraged him to go. He was looking so poorly. He was going to town, I
am sure--first: and then perhaps to Bath: or he might go across to
France. He has been talking of that. France--yes, I suggested it. He has
never been on the Continent. But now I think of it, I don't think he
will go there, for he said he might be home to-morrow--though more
likely next week."
"It seems very vague," said Mr. Rule, looking at her with a steady look
that began to show a gleam of suspicion; but this was entirely out of
place. Mrs. John answered lightly without any perception even of what he
could mean.
"Oh yes, it was vague! it is so much better not to be tied down. I told
him he ought to take me; but it was settled in a hurry, he was feeling
so poorly."
"Then he has forsaken us!" cried the clerk in a terrible voice, which
shook even her obtuse perceptions. She gazed at him with a little glow
of anger.
"Forsaken you! Dear me, surely a little holiday never can matter. Why,
the servants could go on without me for a time. It would never come into
Mr. Vernon's head that you could not manage by yourselves even for a
single day."
The clerk did not answer; it was all such a terrible muddle of ignorance
and innocence, and perhaps of deep and deliberate guilt. But anyhow,
there was the result beyond all uncertainty. The bank must come down.
Vernon's, which it had taken the work of generations to build up;
Vernon's, which was safer than the Bank of England. Mr. Rule had been a
clerk there, man and boy, for about twenty years. He had been one of old
Mr. Vernon's staff. He had a pride in the bank as if it had been his
own. To give up Vernon's to destruction seemed more than giving himself
up. But what could the clerks do without the principal? A lieutenant may
fight his ship if the captain fails, or a subaltern replace his leader,
but what can the clerks do without the head of the establishment? And he
had no authority to act even if he had known how to act; and every two
or three minutes there would come across him a poignant recollection of
his own deposit. Oh, the Alnaschar hopes he had built upon that little
fortune, the ways in which it was to serve him! He tried honestly,
however, to put it away from his mind.
"We could have done well enough on an ordinary occasion," he said, "and
Mr. Vernon generally settles everything before he goes; but I thought he
was only absent for the day. Mrs. Vernon," he cried, suddenly, "can't
you help us? can't you help us? It will be ruin for you too."
She stared at him for a moment without speaking, and then--
"You make me quite wretched. I don't understand. I have only a little
money in the house. Would that do any good?" she said.
"How much have you?" said the clerk in his trouble.
She ran to a pretty ornamental desk and opened it nervously.
"I dare say there may be about twenty pounds," she said.
He laughed loudly, harshly, a laugh that seemed to echo through the
large, unoccupied room.
"If it were twenty thousand it might do something," he said.
"Sir!" said Mrs. John Vernon, standing in a fine attitude of displeasure
by her desk, holding it open with one hand. She looked like a picture by
Sir Thomas Lawrence, her scarf, for she wore a scarf, hanging half off
her pretty white shoulders, caught upon one equally white arm, her
ringlets waving on her cheek. His laugh was rude, and then he was only a
clerk. She was all angry scorn from the high knot of brown hair on the
top of her head to the point of her sandalled shoe.
Poor Mr. Rule was as penitent as man could be. He was shocked beyond
measure by his own brutality. He had forgotten himself--and before a
lady! He made the most abject apologies.
"But my interest in the bank will, I hope, be some excuse. I feel half
distracted," he said; and he added, as he backed out at the door with
painful bows, "Perhaps, ma'am, if you can think of any means of
communicating with Mr. Vernon, you would let me know; or I will call
later, if we could send an express; nothing is too much for the chance
of having him back to-morrow."
"Well," said the lady, "you are strange managers, I must say, that
cannot get on without my husband one day."
"It is not that, ma'am; it is not that."
"I don't know what it is. I begin to think it is only making a fuss,"
Mrs. John said.