A MONTH later Dick and Esther met at the stile beside the cross roads;
had there been any one to see them but the birds and summer insects, it
would have been remarked that they met after a different fashion from the
day before. Dick took her in his arms, and their lips were set together
for a long while. Then he held her at arm’s-length, and they looked
straight into each other’s eyes.
‘Esther!’ he said; you should have heard his voice!
‘Dick!’ said she.
‘My darling!’
It was some time before they started for their walk; he kept an arm about
her, and their sides were close together as they walked; the sun, the
birds, the west wind running among the trees, a pressure, a look, the
grasp tightening round a single finger, these things stood them in lieu
of thought and filled their hearts with joy. The path they were
following led them through a wood of pine-trees carpeted with heather and
blue-berry, and upon this pleasant carpet, Dick, not without some
seriousness, made her sit down.
‘Esther!’ he began, ‘there is something you ought to know. You know my
father is a rich man, and you would think, now that we love each other,
we might marry when we pleased. But I fear, darling, we may have long to
wait, and shall want all our courage.’
‘I have courage for anything,’ she said, ‘I have all I want; with you and
my father, I am so well off, and waiting is made so happy, that I could
wait a lifetime and not weary.’
He had a sharp pang at the mention of the Admiral. ‘Hear me out,’ he
continued. ‘I ought to have told you this before; but it is a thought I
shrink from; if it were possible, I should not tell you even now. My
poor father and I are scarce on speaking terms.’
‘Your father,’ she repeated, turning pale.
‘It must sound strange to you; but yet I cannot think I am to blame,’ he
said. ‘I will tell you how it happened.’
‘Oh Dick!’ she said, when she had heard him to an end, ‘how brave you
are, and how proud. Yet I would not be proud with a father. I would
tell him all.’
‘What!’ cried Dick, ‘go in months after, and brag that I had meant to
thrash the man, and then didn’t. And why? Because my father had made a
bigger ass of himself than I supposed. My dear, that’s nonsense.’
She winced at his words and drew away. ‘But when that is all he asks,’
she pleaded. ‘If he only knew that you had felt that impulse, it would
make him so proud and happy. He would see you were his own son after
all, and had the same thoughts and the same chivalry of spirit. And then
you did yourself injustice when you spoke just now. It was because the
editor was weak and poor and excused himself, that you repented your
first determination. Had he been a big red man, with whiskers, you would
have beaten him—you know you would—if Mr. Naseby had been ten times more
committed. Do you think, if you can tell it to me, and I understand at
once, that it would be more difficult to tell it to your own father, or
that he would not be more ready to sympathise with you than I am? And I
love you, Dick; but then he is your father.’
‘My dear,’ said Dick, desperately, ‘you do not understand; you do not
know what it is to be treated with daily want of comprehension and daily
small injustices, through childhood and boyhood and manhood, until you
despair of a hearing, until the thing rides you like a nightmare, until
you almost hate the sight of the man you love, and who’s your father
after all. In short, Esther, you don’t know what it is to have a father,
and that’s what blinds you.’
‘I see,’ she said musingly, ‘you mean that I am fortunate in my father.
But I am not so fortunate after all; you forget, I do not know him; it is
you who know him; he is already more your father than mine.’ And here
she took his hand. Dick’s heart had grown as cold as ice. ‘But I am
sorry for you, too,’ she continued, ‘it must be very sad and lonely.’
‘You misunderstand me,’ said Dick, chokingly. ‘My father is the best man
I know in all this world; he is worth a hundred of me, only he doesn’t
understand me, and he can’t be made to.’
There was a silence for a while. ‘Dick,’ she began again, ‘I am going to
ask a favour, it’s the first since you said you loved me. May I see your
father—see him pass, I mean, where he will not observe me?’
‘Why?’ asked Dick.
‘It is a fancy; you forget, I am romantic about fathers.’
The hint was enough for Dick; he consented with haste, and full of
hang-dog penitence and disgust, took her down by a backway and planted
her in the shrubbery, whence she might see the Squire ride by to dinner.
There they both sat silent, but holding hands, for nearly half an hour.
At last the trotting of a horse sounded in the distance, the park gates
opened with a clang, and then Mr. Naseby appeared, with stooping
shoulders and a heavy, bilious countenance, languidly rising to the trot.
Esther recognised him at once; she had often seen him before, though with
her huge indifference for all that lay outside the circle of her love,
she had never so much as wondered who he was; but now she recognised him,
and found him ten years older, leaden and springless, and stamped by an
abiding sorrow.
‘Oh Dick, Dick!’ she said, and the tears began to shine upon her face as
she hid it in his bosom; his own fell thickly too. They had a sad walk
home, and that night, full of love and good counsel, Dick exerted every
art to please his father, to convince him of his respect and affection,
to heal up this breach of kindness, and reunite two hearts. But alas!
the Squire was sick and peevish; he had been all day glooming over Dick’s
estrangement—for so he put it to himself, and now with growls, cold
words, and the cold shoulder, he beat off all advances, and entrenched
himself in a just resentment.