NINETEEN.
Such were the scenes and the people among whom Hester Vernon grew up.
Her first _désillusionment_ in respect to Cousin Ellen, who for one
bright and brief moment seemed about to bring glory to her young
existence, was very poignant and bitter: but by the time Hester was
nineteen she had ceased to remember that there had been so sharp a sting
in it, and no longer felt it possible that Ellen, with all her finery,
could at any moment have affected her with any particular sentiment.
These years made a great deal of difference in Hester. She was at the
same time younger and older at nineteen than at fourteen. She was less
self-confident, less sure of her own powers to conduct everything, from
her mother--the most easily guided of all subject intelligences in the
old days--upwards to all human circumstances, and even to life itself,
which it had seemed perfectly simple to the girl that she should shape
at her own pleasure. By degrees, as she grew older, she found the
futility of all these certainties. Her mother, who was so easily guided,
slid back again just as easily out of the groove into which her child
had, as she thought, fixed her, and circumstances defied her altogether,
taking their own way, altogether uninfluenced by her wishes. Mrs. John
Vernon was like the "knotless thread" of the Scotch proverb. Nothing
could be more easy than to convince her, to impress her ductile mind
with the sense of this or that duty; but, on the other hand, nothing
could be more easy than to undo next moment all that had been done, and
turn the facile will in a new direction. Between this soft and yielding
foundation of her life upon which she could find no firm footing, and
the rock of Catherine Vernon who remained quite immovable and
uninfluenced by her, coming no nearer as the years went on, yet hemming
in her steps and lessening her freedom, the conditions of existence
seemed all against the high-spirited, ambitious, active-minded and
impatient girl, with her warm affections, and quick intelligence, and
hasty disposition. The people immediately about were calculated to make
her despise her fellow-creatures altogether: the discontented dependents
who received everything without a touch of human feeling, without
gratitude or kindness, and the always half-contemptuous patroness who
gave with not much more virtue, with a disdainful magnanimity, asking
nothing from her pensioners but that they would amuse her with their
follies--made up a circle such as might have crushed the goodness out of
any young mind. Even had she herself begun with any enthusiasm for
Catherine, the situation would have been less terrible; but as this,
unfortunately, had not been the case, the poor girl was delivered over
to the contemplation of one of the worst problems in human nature
without shield or safeguard, or any refuge to creep into. Fortunately
her youth, and the familiarity which deadens all impression, kept her,
as it keeps men in general, from a conscious and naked encounter with
those facts which are fatal to all higher views or natural charities.
She had in her, however, by nature only too strong a tendency to despise
her neighbours, and the Miss Vernon-Ridgways and Mr. Mildmay Vernon were
exactly of the order of beings which a young adventurer upon life
naturally treats with disdain.
But Hester had something worse in her life than even this feeling of
contempt for the people about her, bad as that is. She had the
additional pang of knowing that habit and temper often made her a
partaker of the odious sentiments which she loathed. Sometimes she would
be drawn into the talk of the women who misrepresented their dear
Catherine all day long, and sneered bitterly at the very bounty that
supplied their wants. Sometimes she would join involuntarily in the
worse malignity of the man to whom Catherine Vernon gave everything that
was good in his life, and who attributed every bad motive to her. And as
if that was not enough, Hester sinned with Catherine too, and saw the
ridicule and the meanness of these miserable pensioners with a touch of
the same cynicism which was the elder woman's great defect, but was
unpardonable in the younger, to whom there should as yet have been no
loss of the ideal. The rage with which she would contemplate herself
when she yielded to the first temptation and launched at Cousin
Catherine in a moment of passion one of those arrows which were
manufactured in the Vernonry, the deep disgust which would fill her when
she felt herself, like Catherine, contemplating the world from a
pinnacle of irony, chill but smiling, swept her young spirit like
tempests. To grow at all in the midst of such gales and whirlwinds was
something. It was not to be expected that she could grow otherwise than
contorted with the blasts. She came to the flower and bloom of existence
with a heart made to believe and trust, yet warped to almost all around,
and finding no spot of honest standing-ground on which to trust herself.
Sometimes the young creature would raise her head dismayed from one of
the books in which life is so different from what she found it, and ask
herself whether books were all lies, or whether there was not to be
found somewhere an existence which was true? Sometimes she would stop
short in the midst of the Church services, or when she said her prayers,
to demand whether it was all false, and these things invented only to
make life bearable? Was it worth living? she would ask sometimes, with
more reason than the essayists. She could do nothing she wanted in it.
Her _cours_ had all melted into thin air; if it had been possible to get
the consent of her authorities to the work she had once felt herself so
capable of, she was now capable of it no longer. Her mother, obstinate
in nothing else, had been obstinate in this, that her poor husband's
daughter should not dishonour his name (alack the day!) by becoming a
teacher--a teacher! like the poor governesses for whom he had felt so
much contempt; and Catherine Vernon, the last auxiliary whom Mrs. John
expected, had supported her with a decision which put all struggles out
of the question. Catherine indeed had explained herself on the occasion
with a force which had almost brought her within the range of Hester's
sympathies, notwithstanding that the decision was against herself. "I am
here," Miss Vernon had said, "to take care of our family. The bank, and
the money it brings in, are not for me alone. I am ready to supply all
that is wanted, as reason directs, and I cannot give my sanction to any
members of the family descending out of the position in which, by the
hard work of our forefathers, they were born. Women have never worked
for their living in our family, and, so far as I can help it, they never
shall."
"You did yourself, Cousin Catherine," said Hester, who stood forth to
learn her fate, looking up with those large eyes, eager and penetrating,
of which Miss Vernon still stood in a certain awe.
"That was different. I did not stoop down to paltry work. I took a place
which--others had abandoned. I was wanted to save the family, and thank
Heaven I could do it. For that, if you were up to it, and occasion
required, you should have my permission to do anything. Keep the books,
or sweep the floors, what would it matter!"
"It would matter nothing to me," cried Hester, clasping her nervous
hands together; and then it was that for a moment these two, the old
woman and the young woman, made of the same metal, with the same defects
and virtues, looked each other in the eyes, and almost understood each
other.
Almost, but, alas! not quite: Catherine's prejudices against Mrs. John's
daughter, and her adverse experiences of mankind and womankind,
especially among the Vernons, intervened, and brought her down suddenly
from that high and serious ground upon which Hester had been capable of
understanding her. She turned away with one of those laughs, which still
brought over the girl, in her sensitive youthfulness, a blush which was
like a blaze of angry shame.
"No chance, I hope, of needing that a second time: nor of turning for
succour to you, my poor girl."
It was not unkindly said, especially the latter part of the sentence,
though it ended in another laugh. But Hester, who did not know the
circumstances, was quite unaware what that laugh meant. She did not know
that it was not only Catherine Vernon's personal force and genius, but
Catherine Vernon's money, which had saved the bank. In the latter point
of view, of course, no succour could have been had from Hester; and it
was the impossibility of this which made Miss Vernon laugh. But Hester
thought it was her readiness, her devotion, her power of doing
everything that mortal woman had ever done before her, which was
doubted, and the sense that she was neither believed in nor understood
swept in a wave of bitterness through her heart. She was taken for a
mere schoolgirl, well-meaning perhaps--perhaps not even that:
incapable--she who felt herself running over with capacity and strength,
running to waste. But she said nothing more. She retired, carried
further away from Catherine in the recoil, from the manner of the
approach to comprehending her which she felt she had made. And after
that arrest of all her plans, Hester had ceased to struggle. In a little
while she was no longer capable of the _cours_ to which she had looked
so eagerly. She did not know anything else that she could do. She was
obliged to eat the bread of dependence, feeling herself like all the
rest, to the very heart ungrateful, turning against the hand that
bestowed it. There was a little of Mrs. John's income left, enough,
Hester thought, to live upon in another place, where she might have been
free to eke out this little. But at nineteen she was wiser than at
fourteen, and knew that to risk her mother's comfort, or to throw the
element of uncertainty again into her life, would be at once
unpardonable and impossible. She had to yield, as most women have to do.
She had to consent to be bound by other people's rules, and to put her
hand to nothing that was unbecoming a Vernon, a member of the reigning
family. Small earnings by means of sketches, or china painting, would
have been as obnoxious to Catherine Vernon's rule as the _cours_: and of
what use would they have been? It was not a little money that Hester
wanted, but work of which something good might come. She yielded
altogether, proudly, without another word. The arrangement of the little
household, the needlework, and the housekeeping, were nothing to her
young capabilities; but she desisted from the attempt to make something
better of herself, with an indignant yet sorrowful pride. Sometime
Catherine might find out what it was she had rejected. This was the
forlorn and bitter hope in her heart.
The only element of comfort which Hester found at this dark period of
her life was in the other side of the Heronry in the two despised
households, which the Miss Vernon-Ridgways and Mr. Mildmay Vernon
declared to be "not of our class." Mr. Reginald Vernon's boys were
always in mischief; and Hester, who had something of the boy in her,
took to them with genuine fellow-feeling, and after a while began to
help them in their lessons (though she knew nothing herself) with great
effect. She knew nothing herself; but a clear head, even without much
information, will easily make a path through the middle of a schoolboy's
lessons, which, notwithstanding his Latin, he could not have found out
for himself. And Hester was "a dab at figures," the boys said, and found
out their sums in a way which was little short of miraculous. And there
was a little sister who called forth all the tender parts of Hester's
nature, who had been a baby on her first appearance at the Vernonry, and
to whom the girl would gladly have made herself nurse and governess, and
everything that girl could be. Little Katie was as fond of Hester as of
her mother, and this was a wonderful solace to the heart of the girl,
who was a woman every inch of her, though she was so much of a boy.
Altogether the atmosphere was better on that side of the establishment,
the windows looked on the Common, and the air was fresh and large. And
Mrs. Reginald, if she would have cared for it, which was doubtful, had
no time for gossip. She did not pretend to be fond of Catherine, but she
was respectful and grateful, a new feeling altogether to Hester. She was
busy all day long, always doing something, making clothes, mending
stockings, responding to all the thousand appeals of a set of healthy,
noisy children. The house was not so orderly as it might be, and its
aspect very different from that of the refined gentility on the other
side; but the atmosphere was better, though sometimes there was a
flavour of boots in it, and in the afternoon of tea. It was considered
"just like the girl," that she should thus take to Mrs. Reginald, who
had been a poor clergyman's daughter, and was a Vernon only by marriage.
It showed what kind of stuff she was made of.
"You should not let her spend her time there--a mere nursery-maid of a
woman. To think that your daughter should have such tastes! But you
should not let her, dear Mrs. John," the sisters said.
"_I_ let her!" cried Mrs. John, throwing up her hands; "I would not for
the world say a word against my own child, but Hester is more than I can
pretend to manage. She always was more than I could manage. Her poor
papa was the only one that could do anything with her."
It was hard upon the girl when her own mother gave her up; but this too
was in Hester's day's work; and she learned to smile at it, a little
disdainfully, as Catherine Vernon did; though she was so little hardened
in this way that her lips would quiver in the middle of her smile.
The chief resource which Hester found on the other side of the Vernonry
was, however, still more objectionable to the feelings of the genteel
portion of the little community, since it was in the other little house
that she found it, in the society of the old people who were not Vernons
at all, but who quite unjustifiably as they all felt, being only her
mother's relations, were kept there by Catherine Vernon, on the money of
the family, the money which was hers only in trust for the benefit of
her relations. They grudged Captain Morgan his home, they grudged him
his peaceful looks, they grudged him the visits which Catherine was
supposed to pay oftener to him than to any one else in the Vernonry. It
is true that the Miss Vernon-Ridgways professed to find Catherine's
visits anything but desirable.
"Dear Catherine!" they said, "what a pity she has so little manner! When
she is absent one can recollect all her good qualities, how kind she
really is, you know, at bottom, and what a thing it is for her to have
us here, and how lonely she would be, with her ways, if she had not us
to fall back upon. But when she is present, really you know it is a
struggle! Her manner is so against the poor, dear! One is glad to see
her go, to think, _that_ is over; it will be some time before she can
come again; for she really is much better, _far_ better, than she
appears, poor dear Catherine!"
This was how they spoke of her: while Mr. Mildmay shrugged his thin old
shoulders. "Catherine, poor thing, has too much the air of coming to see
if our houses are clean and our dinners simple enough," he said.
Even Mrs. John chimed in to the general chorus, though in her heart she
was glad to see Catherine, or any one. But they were all annoyed that
she should go so often to those old Morgans. They kept an account of her
calls, though they made believe to dislike them, and when the carriage
was heard on the road (they could all distinguish the sound it made from
that of any other carriage), they all calculated eagerly at what house
she was due next. And when, instead of coming in at the open gate, which
the old gardener made haste to open for her, as if he had known her
secrets and was aware of her coming, she stayed outside, and drew up at
the Morgans, nobody could imagine what a commotion there was. The
sisters rushed in at once to Mrs. John, who had a window round the
corner, and watched to see if it was really true, and how long Catherine
stayed. They made remarks on the little old gentleman, with his white
head, when he came out to put her into the carriage.
"What hypocrites some people are," they cried. "We are always as civil
as ever we can be, and I hope dear Catherine, poor thing, _always_ feels
that she is welcome. But to make believe that we have enjoyed it is more
than Martha or I am equal to." They watched until the fat horses had
turned round and Catherine's bonnet was no longer distinguishable. "That
is the third time in a month, to my certain knowledge," Miss Matilda
would say.
"Be thankful, my dear ladies, that it is on old Morgan, not on you, that
she bestows her favours," Mr. Mildmay would remark.
Mrs. John was not always sure that she liked this irruption into her
house. But she too watched with a little pique, and said that Catherine
had a strange taste.
"Oh, taste; dear Catherine! she has no _taste_! Her worst enemy never
accused of her _that_," the other ladies cried.
And when it was known that these old Morgans, the captain and his wife
whom Catherine Vernon distinguished in this way, had gained the heart of
Hester, the excitement in the Vernonry was tremendous. Mr. Mildmay
Vernon, though he was generally very polite to her, turned upon his
heel, when the fact was made known to him, with angry contempt.
"I draw the line at the Morgans," he said. Much might be forgiven to the
young girl, the only youthful creature (except Mrs. Reginald's boys,
whom he detested) among them, but not this.
The sisters did not, alas, pass it over so briefly. They themselves had
never taken any notice of the old couple. The utmost they had done had
been to give the old captain a nod, as they did to the tradesmen, when
he took off his hat to them. Mrs. Morgan, who never went out, did not
come in their way, fortunately for her. So strange was this departure on
Hester's part from all the traditions of the place that, to do them
justice, they would not believe in her iniquity until the fullest proof
had been secured. But after she had been seen about half a dozen times,
at least, seated in the round window which commanded the road, and was
the old gentleman's delight, and even, strange girl, without any sense
of shame, had made herself visible to everybody walking with him on the
edge of the Common, and standing talking to him at his door, there was
no further possibility of doubt on the subject. The only thing that
could be thought was to cut Hester, which was done accordingly by all
the garden front, even her own mother being wound up by much
exhortation, as for the advantage of her daughter's soul, to maintain a
studied silence to the culprit by way of bringing her to her senses. But
it may be supposed that Mrs. John did not hold out long. A more
effectual means of punishment than this was invented by Mr. Mildmay
Vernon, who declared that it was a very clever way of currying favour
with Catherine, and that he only wondered it had never been adopted
before. This, indeed, touched Hester to the quick: but it did not detach
her from her friends. The objects of all this enmity were two very
simple old people without any pretension at all, who were very willing
to live peaceably with all men. Captain Morgan was an old sea-captain,
with all the simplicity of homely wisdom which so often characterises
his class; and his wife a gentle old woman, entirely devoted to him,
and, by this time, not capable of much more than to keep the record of
all his distinctions and to assert his goodness. It was he who helped
her down stairs every day to the chimney corner in winter, and in summer
to the large chair in the window, from which she could see everything
that went on in the road, all the people that passed, and the few events
that happened. A conviction that little Ted, Mrs. Reginald's third boy,
would be run over, and an alarmed watch for that incident, were the only
things that disturbed her placid existence: and that she could not
accompany him on his walks was her only regret.
"He dearly loves somebody to walk with," she said: "except when he was
at sea, my dear, I've gone everywhere with him: and he misses me sadly.
Take a little turn with the captain, my dear."
And when Hester did that which so horrified the other neighbours, old
Mrs. Morgan looked out after them from the window and saw the tall slim
girl walking by the side of the stooping old man, with a pure delight
that brought the tears to her eyes. When you are over eighty it does not
take much to make you cry. Hester, who was the subject of continual
assault in every other place, was adored and applauded in this little
parlour, where they thought her more beautiful, and good, and clever,
than ever girl had been before. The old captain, who was screwed and
twisted with rheumatism, and stooped with age, held himself almost
straight when his young companion started with him upon his daily walk.
"When a young lady goes with me," he said, "I must remember my manners.
An old fellow gets careless when he's left to himself."
And he told Hester stories of all the many-chaptered past, of the long
historic distances, which he could remember like yesterday, and which
seemed endless, like an eternity, to her wondering eyes. He had been in
some of the old sea-fights of the heroic days--at Trafalgar, though not
in Nelson's ship; and he liked nothing better than to fight his battles
over again. But it was not these warlike recollections so much as the
scraps of his more peaceful experience which entranced the young
listener. She liked to hear him tell how he had "got hold" of a foolish
young middy or an able seaman who was "going to the bad," or how he had
subdued a threatening mutiny, and calmed an excitement; and of the many,
many who had fallen around him, while he kept on--fallen in death
sometimes, fallen more sadly in other ways. A whole world seemed to open
round Hester as he talked--a world more serious, more large, than this,
in which there were only the paltry events of the day and her foolish
little troubles. In Captain Morgan's world there were great storms and
fights; there were dangers and struggles, and death lurking round every
corner. She used to listen breathless, wondering at the difference--for
what danger was there, what chance of mortal peril or temptation, here?
In that other universe the lives of hundreds of people would sometimes
hang upon the decision and promptitude, the cool head and ready resource
of one. Why was not Hester born in that day? Why was not she a man? But
she did not sufficiently realise that when the men were going through
these perils, the mothers and sisters were trembling at home, able to do
no more than she could. After these walks and talks, she would go in
with the captain to pour out his tea, while Mrs. Morgan, in her big
chair, restrained herself and would not cry for pleasure as she was so
fain to do.
"Oh, my dear, it was a good wind that blew you here," the old lady said.
"The trouble it has been to me not to be able to go about with him!
Indoors we are the best companions still; but he always liked his walk,
and it is dreadful not to be able to go out with him. But he is happy
when he has a young companion like you."
Thus they made a princess of Hester, and attributed to her every
beautiful quality under the sun. When a girl is not used to enthusiasm
at home, it does her good to have somebody believe in her and admire all
she is doing. And this was what made her strong to bear all the jibes of
the fine people, and even that detestable suggestion that she meant to
curry favour with Catherine. Even the sting of this did not move her to
give up her old captain and her humbler friends.