WHAT EDWARD THOUGHT.
The day after this interview, which had excited everybody, and which,
not only Mrs. John, but the chorus of attentive neighbours had felt in
their hearts to be of the most critical importance, Hester had, as
happened sometimes, a commission from her mother--or rather, as she was
the active housekeeper and agent in all their business, a necessity of
her own, which took her into Redborough. Mrs. John had been brought up
in the age when girls were supposed to be charming and delightful in
proportion as they were helpless, and her residence abroad had confirmed
her in the idea that it was not becoming, or indeed possible, to permit
a young woman "of our class" to go anywhere alone. But what was it
possible for the poor lady to do! She could not herself walk into
Redborough, a distance which was nothing in the estimation of the young
and energetic. All that Mrs. John was capable of, was to bemoan herself,
to wring her hands, and complain how dreadfully things were changed, how
incapable she herself would have been of going anywhere
unaccompanied--all which galled, almost beyond endurance, the high
spirit of Hester, whose proud consciousness of perfect capacity to guard
herself wherever she choose to go, was yet so much embittered by the
tradition of her mother's prejudice, that her expeditions, harmless as
they were, always appeared to her as a sort of confession of lowliness
and poverty, and defiance of the world's opinion. Thus she moved swift
and proud about the streets, looking neither to the right hand nor the
left, with a half-shame, half-scorn of her unprotectedness, which
mingled oddly with her indignant contempt of the idea of wanting
protection at all. No messenger ever went so quickly, or returned so
soon as Hester, under this double inspiration. She skimmed along with
"that springy motion in her gait," as straight and as light as an arrow;
and before the chorus of the Vernonry had finished communicating to each
other the exciting fact that Mrs. John had once more permitted _that_
girl to go into town by herself, and asking each other what she could
expect was to come of such proceedings--Hester would walk back into the
midst of their conclave with such a consciousness of all their
whisperings in the large eyes with which she contemplated them as she
passed to her mother's door, as suddenly hushed and almost abashed the
eager gossips.
"She can't have been in Redborough," Miss Matilda would say breathless
when the girl disappeared. "Nobody could go so quickly as that. She has
never been there at all. Dear Mrs. John, how she is taken in! She must
have had some appointment, some rendezvous, there can't be any doubt of
it."
"You know best, ladies, how such things are managed," Mr. Mildmay Vernon
would say with his acid smile, which was like a doubled-edged weapon,
and cut every way.
This was the usual course of affairs. But on this particular day she did
not surprise them in their animadversions by her rapid return. She was
as long as an ordinary mortal. It was already afternoon when she set
out, and the early autumn twilight had almost begun when she returned
home. The weather was no longer warm enough to permit of those hostile
meetings in the summer-house where the Vernonry disputed and
fraternised. They were all indoors, looking out--Miss Matilda seated in
her window, with her work-table displayed, Mr. Mildmay making himself
uncomfortable at the only angle of his which commanded the gate, to
watch for the girl's return. If Harry accompanied her back the community
felt that this would be certain evidence as to what had happened; but
they were still full of hope that Harry had not been such a fool. It
strung up their nerves to the highest pitch of suspense to have to wait
so long, especially as it was evident that Mrs. John too was exceedingly
nervous about her daughter's delay. She was seen to go out, at least
twice, with a shawl over her cap, to look out along the road, and twice
to return disappointed. What was she anxious about? Very good cause she
had to be anxious with a girl like _that_, wandering no one could tell
where about the streets! And where could she be? and whom could she be
with? Of course things could not go on like this; it must come to light
sooner or later; for the credit of the family it ought not to be allowed
to go on. This was what the chorus said.
In the meantime Hester had done her business as quickly as usual, but on
her return she had found herself waylaid. Edward, with whom her
intercourse had been so broken, who had established himself on the
footing of a confidential friend on the first day of her arrival, and at
intervals when they had met by chance since then, had spoken and looked
as if this _entente cordiale_ had never been disturbed--Edward was
lingering upon the edge of the Common on this particular afternoon on
his way home apparently, though it was early. It would be difficult to
explain Hester's feelings towards him. He piqued her curiosity and her
interest beyond any one of the limited circle with which the girl had to
do. There were times when her indignation at the contrast between his
fraternal and almost tender accost on their accidental meetings, and the
way in which he held himself aloof on more public occasions, was
uncontrollable; but yet there rarely occurred any of these public
occasions without a meaning look, a word said in an undertone which
conveyed to Hester a curious sense of secret intimacy, of having more to
do with Edward's life than any of the fine people among whom he was so
much more visibly familiar. She was young enough to have her imagination
excited, and kept in a state of tantalised interest by these tactics,
and also to be indignant by any suggestion that this mode of treatment
was not honourable on his part. Not honourable! The idea would have
roused Hester into proud indignation. What was he to her that it should
matter how he behaved? His blowing hot and cold, his holding off and on,
which a moralist would have condemned summarily, which the gossips would
have delighted in commenting upon, what was it to her? But it amused her
in the meantime with a constant curiosity and frequent pique, exercising
over her imagination something of the same effect which her own
waywardness had upon Harry, when he declared that it drew a fellow on.
When she got out of the streets, and saw before her walking slowly, as
if waiting for some one, the figure of this tantalising and uncertain
personage, there was a slight quickening of Hester's pulses and flutter
at her heart. He had never done anything of this kind before, and she
had a feeling that he had not waited for her for nothing, but that some
further revelation must be at hand.
"I saw you from my office-window," he said. "I never saw any one walk
like you. I know you at once at any distance, even in a crowd. Do you
dislike so much walking alone?"
"Why should I?" she asked quickly. "I always walk alone."
"That is no answer. One may hate many things one has to do habitually.
Your walk says that you dislike it. It says, Here am I, who ought to be
guarded like a princess; but I am poor, I have no escort of honour; yet
here I walk, a whole retinue, a body-guard to myself."
Hester's colour changed from pale to red, and from red to pale, with
mingled indignation and pleasure. It occurred to her, against her will,
that Harry might have seen her pass for years without learning anything
from her gait.
"I have to be my own body-guard, it is true," she said; "but why should
I want one at all? It is folly to suppose a girl requires protection
wherever she goes. Protection! who would harm me?" she cried, lighting
up with an almost angry glow.
"I for one should not like to try," said Edward, looking at her, with a
look which was habitual to him when they were alone. What did it mean? A
sort of contemplative regretful admiration as of a man who would like to
say a great deal more than he dared say--a sort of, "if I might," "if I
could," with an element of impatience and almost anger in the regret.
There was a pause, and then he resumed suddenly, and without any
preface, "So it is Harry--who is to be the man?"
"Harry!" Hester gasped, suddenly stopping short, as she had a way of
doing when anything vexed or disturbed her. The rapidity of the attack
took away her breath. Then she added, as most people, and certainly
every girl naturally would add, "I don't know what you mean."
"Who else?" said Edward, calmly. "He has his freedom and he knows how to
use it. And I approve him, for my part. I am of the same opinion. It
should be I, if I were he."
It seemed to Hester that all the blood in her rushed to her throbbing
cheeks and aching forehead. She stamped her foot on the ground.
"Is it of me you dare to speak so?" she cried. "Oh, I understand you!
When one has been brought up among the Vernons, one knows what things
mean. You venture to tell me that Harry is the man!--who else?--but that
you would have been so had you been free--the man," cried the girl with
blazing eyes, that smote him with lightnings not of a harmless kind, "to
pick up out of the dust--me!--like something on the roadside."
"You are very eloquent, my little cousin," said Edward, "not that there
is very much in what you say; but your looks and gesture are as fine as
ever I saw. After all though, is it called for? When I say that Harry is
the man, I do not suppose either that he is worthy of you, or that you
think so; but you are a girl, what can you do? They would not let you
work, and if you could work, nothing but daily bread would come of it.
And, my dear Hester, you want a great deal more than daily bread. You
want triumph, power; you want to be as you are by nature, somebody. Oh,
yes," he said, going on quietly, waving his hand to avert the angry
interruption which was on her lips; "believe me it is so, even if you
don't know it. And how can you do this, save by marrying? It does not
make anything worse to recognise its real character. You must do this by
marrying. Harry is the first man who offers. If you were to wait a
little longer you might do better; but you do not feel that you can
wait. I do not blame you. I should do the same were I you."
All this was said very quietly, the speaker going on by her side with
his eyes turned to the ground, swinging his stick in a meditative way.
The soft measure of his voice, with little pauses as if to mark the
cadence, exercised a sort of spell upon the girl, who with passion in
all her veins, and a suffocating sense of growing rage, which made her
almost powerless, and took away words in the very heat of her need for
them--moved on too against her will, feeling that she could express
herself only by tones of fury if she attempted to express herself at
all.
"Money does it all," said Edward, in the same meditative way. "I am
supposed to have as much as he has, but I am tied to an old woman's
apron, and would lose everything were I to venture like he. Why should
he be free and I a slave? I know no reason. Caprice--chance, made it so.
He might have been taken in at the Grange, and I at the White House.
Then I should have been the man, and he been nowhere. It is just so in
life. Nothing but money can set it right. Money does. You can believe in
Providence when you have money. I shall get it some day; but so far as
this goes, I shall be too late. For you, there are compensations," he
said, giving a little glance at her. "You will find him very
manageable--more manageable than many who would have suited you
better--than myself for instance. I should not have been docile at
all--even to you--but he will be. You can do what you please with him;
there is compensation in all----"
"Cousin Edward," said Hester, suddenly finding her voice, "you told me
just now that I disliked to walk alone, that I was poor and had no
body-guard. I said, who would harm me? but you have proved that it was
true, and I a fool. I did want a body-guard, some one to see that I was
not insulted, to protect me, on a quiet country road, from--from--"
"Yes? from--whom? an unsuccessful suitor: a man that always has a right
to be insulting," cried Edward with a sort of laugh, "to relieve his
mind. True! to be sure all these things are true. It is quite right that
a girl needs protection. Men are stronger than she is, and they will
insult her if it is in their power, if not in one way then in another.
The weak will always go to the wall. If there is nobody to take care of
you, and nobody to punish me for it, of course I shall treat you badly.
If I am not any worse than my neighbours I don't pretend to be any
better. Do you think I should have waited for you to-night if I had not
wanted to insult you? because you were alone and unprotected and
unfriended," he said, with a sort of snarl at her, turning upon her with
a fierce sneer on his face.
Hester was struck with a horror which stopped her indignation in full
career. "Oh," she cried, "how can you make yourself out to be so
ignoble, so ungenerous! even when you say it I cannot believe it; to
insult me cannot be what you mean."
"Why not?" he said, looking at her, "you can't do anything to me. For
your own sake you will tell nobody that Edward Vernon met you and--said
anything that he ought not to have said. Besides, if you wished to ruin
me with _her_," he waved his hand towards the Grange as he spoke, "in
the first place she would not believe you, in the second place if it
came to that I should not much mind. It would be emancipation anyhow; I
should be no longer a slave bound to follow a woman, in chains. If I
lost in one way, I should gain in another. But I am safe with you," he
said with another laugh; "I am free to irritate you, to outrage you as
much as I please; you will not complain: and in that case why should not
I take it out of you?" he cried, turning fiercely upon her.
Hester was too much startled to retain the violent indignation and
offence of her first impulse. She was overwhelmed with pity and horror.
"Cousin Edward," she said, "you do not mean all that. You did not come
here to insult me. You must have had some other thought. You must be
very unhappy somehow, and troubled, and distressed to speak as you are
doing now. It comes out of yourself, it is not anything about me."
"Oh, yes, it is something about you," he said with a laugh. Then after a
pause, "But you have some insight all the same. No. I'll tell you what
it is; it is money, money, Hester--that is what we all want. If you had
it you would no more marry Harry than old Rule; if I had it----And the
thing clear is that I must have it," said Edward, breaking off abruptly.
"I can't wait."
Hester went home very much bewildered, outraged by all he said, yet more
sorry than angry. He had not made any reply to her appeal for his
confidence, yet she knew that she was right--that it was out of a
troubled and miserable heart that he had spoken, not merely out of
wounded feeling on the subject of herself. She did not know whether he
understood what she said to him on the subject of Harry, or if that
penetrated his mind at all; but she went home at once more miserable and
more interested than she thought she had ever been in her life. Had not
she too drawn some conclusion of the same kind from her own experiences,
from the atmosphere of the Vernonry so full of ingratitude, unkindness,
and all uncharitableness? She came very slowly home, and took no notice
of the way in which Mildmay Vernon squinted at her from his corner, and
the Miss Ridgways waved their hands from the window. Harry then had not
come home with her. "I knew he was not such a fool," the male observer
said to himself, and the sisters laughed and talked in quite an outburst
of gaiety for some time after. "Harry Vernon think of _that_ girl! of
course he did not. Who would? so ill brought up, with such manners, and
hair that is nearly red," they said.