_THE VACATION_.
The days went too fast, as the last half of Pitt's vacation passed
away. Ay, there was no holding them, much as Esther tried to make each
one as long as possible. I think Pitt tried too; for he certainly gave
his little friend and playmate all he could of pleasure, and all he
could of himself. Esther shared everything he did, very nearly, that
was not done within his own home. Nothing could have been more
delightful than those days of August and September, if only the vision
of the end of them had not been so near. That vision did not hinder the
enjoyment; it intensified it; every taste of summer and social delight
was made keen with that spice of coming pain; even towards the very
last, nothing could prevent Esther's enjoyment of every moment she and
Pitt spent together. Only to be together was such pleasure. Every word
he spoke was good in her ears; and to her eyes, every feature of his
appearance, and every movement of his person was comely and admirable.
She gave him, in fact, a kind of grave worship, which perhaps nobody
suspected in its degree, because it was not displayed in the manner of
childish effusiveness. Esther was never effusive; her manner was always
quiet, delicate, and dignified, such as a child's can well be. And so
even Pitt himself did not fully know how his little friend regarded
him, though he had sometimes a queer approach to apprehension. It
struck him now and then, the grave, absorbed look of Esther's beautiful
eyes; occasionally he caught a flash of light in them, such as in
nature only comes from heavily-charged clouds. Always she liked to do
what he liked, and gave quick regard to any expressed wish of his;
always listened to him, and watched his doings, and admired his
successes, with the unconditional devotion of an unquestioning faith.
Pitt was half-aware of all this; yet he was at an age when speculation
is apt to be more busy with matters of the head than of the heart; and
besides, he was tolerably well accustomed to the same sort of thing at
home, and took it probably as very natural and quite in order. And he
knew well, and did not forget, that to the little lonely child his
going away would be, even more than it might be to his mother, the loss
of a great deal of brightness out of her daily life. He did even dread
it a little. And as the time drew near, he saw that his fears were
going to be justified.
Esther did not lament or complain; she never, indeed, spoke of his
going at all; but what was much more serious, she grew pale. And when
the last week came, the smile died out of her eyes and from her lips.
No tears were visible; Pitt would almost rather have seen her cry, like
a child, much as with all other men he hated tears; it would have been
better than this preternatural gravity with which the large eyes opened
at him, and the soft mouth refused to give way. She seemed to enter
into everything they were doing with no less interest than usual; she
was not abstracted; rather, Pitt got the impression that she carried
about with her, and brought into everything, the perfect recollection
that he was going away. It began to oppress him.
'I wish I could feel, mother, that you would look a little after that
motherless child,' he said, in a sort of despairing attempt one evening.
'She is not fatherless,' Mrs. Dallas answered composedly.
'No, but a girl wants a mother.'
'She is accustomed to the want now.'
'Mother, it isn't kind of you!'
'How would you have me show kindness?' Mrs. Dallas asked calmly. Now
that Pitt was going away and safe, she could treat the matter without
excitement. 'What would Colonel Gainsborough like me to do for his
daughter, do you think?'
Pitt was silent, and vexed.
'What do you want me to do for her?'
'I'd like you to be a friend to her. She will need one.'
'If her father dies, you mean?'
'If he lives. She will be very lonely when I am gone away.'
'That is because you have accustomed her so much to your company. I
never thought it was wise. She will get over it in a little while.'
Would she? Pitt studied her next day, and much doubted his mother's
assertion. All the months of his last term in college had not been
enough to weaken in the least Esther's love for him. It was real,
honest, genuine love, and of very pure quality; a diamond, he was ready
to think, of the first water. Only a child's love; but Pitt had too
fine a nature himself to despise a child's love; and full as his head
was of novelties, hopes and plans and purposes, there was space in his
heart for a very tender concern about Esther beside.
It came to the last evening, and he was sitting with her on the
verandah. It was rather cool there now; the roses and honeysuckles and
the summer moonshine were gone; the two friends chose to stay there
because they could be alone, and nobody overhear their words. Words for
a little while had ceased to flow. Esther was sitting very still, and
Pitt knew how she was looking; something of the dry despair had come
back to her face which had been in it when he was first moved to busy
himself about her.
'Esther, I shall come back,' he said suddenly, bending down to look in
her face.
'When?' she said, half under her breath. It was not a question; it was
an answer.
'Well, not immediately; but the years pass away fast, don't you know
that?'
'Are you sure you will come back?'
'Why, certainly! if I am alive I will. Why, if I came for nothing else,
I would come to see after you, Queen Esther.'
Esther was silent. Talking was not easy.
'And meanwhile, I shall be busy, and you will be busy. We have both a
great deal to do.'
'You have.'
'And I am sure you have. Now let us consult. What have you got to do,
before we see one an other again?'
'I suppose,' said Esther, 'take care of papa.'
She said it in a quiet, matter-of-course tone, and Pitt started a
little. It was very likely; but it had not just occurred to him before,
how large a part that care might play in the girl's life for some time
to come.
'Does he need so much care?' he asked.
'It isn't real _care_,' said Esther, in the same tone; 'but he likes to
have me about, to do things for him.'
'Queen Esther, aren't you going to carry on your studies for me, all
the same?'
'For you!' said she, lifting her heavy eyes to him. It hurt him to see
how heavy they were; weighted with a great load of sorrow, too mighty
for tears.
'For me, certainly. I expect everything to go on just as if I were here
to look after it. I expect everything to go on so, that when I come
again I may find just what I want to find. You must not disappoint me.'
Esther did not say. She made no answer at all, and after a minute put a
question which was a diversion.
'Where are you going first, Pitt?'
'To Lisbon.'
'Yes, I know that; but when you get to England?'
'London first. You know that is the great English centre?'
'Do you know any people there?'
'Not I. But I have a great-uncle there, living at Kensington. I believe
that is part of London, though really I don't know much about it. I
shall go to see him, of course.'
'Your great-uncle! That is, Mr. Dallas's own uncle?'
'No, my mother's. His name is Strahan.'
'And then you are going to Oxford? Why do you go there? Are not the
colleges in America just as good?'
'I can tell better after I've seen Oxford. But no, Queen Esther; that
is larger and older and richer than any college in America can be;
indeed it is a cluster of colleges--it is a University.'
'Will you study in them all?'
'No,' said Pitt, laughing, 'not exactly! But it is a fine place, by all
accounts--a noble place. And then, you know, we are English, and my
father and mother wish me to be as English as possible. That is
natural.'
'We are English too,' said Esther, sighing.
'Therefore you ought to be glad I am going.'
But Esther's cheek only grew a shade paler.
'Will you keep up your studies, like a good girl?'
'I will try.'
'And send me a drawing now and then, to let me see how you are getting
on?'
She lifted her eyes to him again, for one of those grave, appealing
looks. 'How could I get it to you?'
'Your father will have my address. I shall write to him, and I shall
write to you.'
She made no answer. The things filling her heart were too many for it,
and too strong; there came no tears, but her breathing was laboured;
and her brow was dark with what seemed a mountain of oppression. Pitt
was half-glad that just now there came a call for Esther from the room
behind them. Both went in. The colonel wanted Esther to search in a
repository of papers for a certain English print of some months back.
'Well, my boy,' said he, 'are you off?'
'Just off, sir,' said Pitt, eyeing the little figure that was busy in
the corner among the papers. It gave him more pain than he had thought
to leave it. 'I wish you would come over, colonel. Why shouldn't you?
It would do you good. I mean, when there is peace again upon the high
seas.'
'I shall never leave this place again till I leave all that is
earthly,' Colonel Gainsborough answered.
'May I take the liberty sometimes of writing to you, sir?'
'I should like it very much, William.'
'And if I find anything that would amuse Esther, sir, may I tell her
about it?'
'I have no objection. She will be very much obliged to you. So you are
going? Heaven be with you, my boy. You have lightened many an hour for
me.'
He rose up and shook Pitt's hand, with a warm grasp and a dignified
manner of leave-taking. But when Pitt would have taken Esther's hand,
she brushed past him and went out into the hall. Pitt followed, with
another bow to the colonel, and courteously shutting the door behind
him, wishing the work well over. Esther, however, made no fuss, hardly
any demonstration. She stood there in the hall and gave him her hand
silently, I might say coldly, for the hand was very cold, and her face
was white with suppressed feeling. Pitt grasped the hand and looked at
the face; hesitated; then opened his arms and took her into them and
kissed her. Was she not like a little sister? and was it possible to
let this heartache go without alleviation? No doubt if the colonel had
been present he would not have ventured such a breach of forms; but as
it was Pitt defied forms. He clasped the sorrowing little girl in his
arms and kissed her brow and her cheek and her lips.
'I'm coming back again,' said he. 'See that you have everything all
right for me when I come.'
Then he let her out of his arms and went off without another word. As
he went home, he was ready to smile and shake himself at the warmth of
demonstration into which he had been betrayed. He was not Esther's
brother, and had no particular right to show himself so affectionate.
The colonel would have been, he doubted, less than pleased, and it
would not have happened in his dignified presence. But Esther was a
child, Pitt said to himself, and a very tender child; and he could not
be sorry that he had shown her the feeling was not all on her side.
Perhaps it might comfort the child. It never occurred to him to
reproach himself with showing more than he felt, for he had no
occasion. The feeling he had given expression to was entirely genuine,
and possibly deeper than he knew, although he shook his head,
figuratively, at himself as he went home.
Esther, when the door closed upon Pitt, stood still for some minutes,
in the realization that now it was all over and he was gone. The hall
door was like a grim kind of barrier, behind which the light of her
life had disappeared. It remained so stolidly closed! Pitt's hand did
not open it again; the hand was already at a distance, and would maybe
never push that door open any more. He was gone, and the last day of
that summer vacation was over. The feeling absorbed Esther for a few
minutes and made her as still as a stone. It _did_ comfort her that he
had taken such a kindly leave of her, and at the same time it sealed
the sense of her loss. For he was the only one in the world in whose
heart it was to give her good earnest kisses like that; and he was
away, away! Her father's affection for her was undoubted, nevertheless
it was not his wont to give it that sort of expression. Esther was not
comparing, however, nor reflecting; only filled with the sense of her
loss, which for the moment chilled and stiffened her. She heard her
father's voice calling her, and she went in.
'My dear, you stay too long in the cold. Is William gone?'
'Oh yes, papa.'
'This is not the right paper I want; this is an August paper. I want
the one for the last week in July.'
Esther went and rummaged again among the pile of newspapers,
mechanically, finding it hard to command her attention to such an
indifferent business. She brought the July paper at last.
'Papa, do you think he will ever come back?' she asked, trembling with
pain and the effort not to show it.
'Come back? Who? William Dallas? Why shouldn't he come back? His
parents are here; if he lives, he will return to them, no doubt.'
Esther sat down and said no more. The earth seemed to her dreadfully
empty.