WARNING.
"I think, if you will let me, I will send down Emma for a little fresh
air and to make your acquaintance, grandmother. She is rather of the
butterfly order of girls, but there is no harm in her. And as it is
likely that I shall have a good deal to do with the Vernons----"
"What do you want with the Vernons? Why should you have a good deal to
do with them?" asked Captain Morgan, hastily, and it must be added
rather testily, for the old man's usually placid humour had been
disturbed of late.
"In the most legitimate way," said Ashton. "You can't wish me, now that
I am just launched in business, to shut my eyes to my own advantage. It
will be for their advantage too. They are going to be customers of mine.
When you have a man's money to invest you have a good deal to do with
him. I shall have to come and go in all likelihood often."
"Your customers--and their money to invest--what do mean by that? I hope
you haven't taken advantage of my relationship with Catherine Vernon to
draw in those boys of hers----"
"Grandfather," said Roland, with an _air digne_ which it was impossible
not to respect, "if you think a little you will see how injurious your
words are. I cannot for a moment suppose you mean them. Catherine
Vernon's boys, as you call them, are nearly as old, and I suppose as
capable of judging what is for their advantage, as I am. If they choose
to entrust me with their business, is there any reason why I should
refuse it? I am glad to get everything I can."
"Yes, sir, there is a reason," said Captain Morgan. "I know what
speculation is. I know what happens when a hot-headed young fellow gets
a little bit of success, and the gambling fever gets into his veins.
Edward Vernon is just the sort of fellow to fall a victim. He is a
morose, ill-tempered, bilious being----"
"Stop," said Roland; "have a little consideration, sir. There is no
question of any victim."
"You are just a monomaniac, Rowley, my old man," said Mrs. Morgan.
"I know everything you can say," said the old captain. "All that jargon
about watching the market, and keeping a cool head, and running no
unnecessary risks--I know it all. You think you can turn over your
money, as you call it, always to your advantage, and keep risk at arm's
length."
"I do not say so much as that; but risk may be reduced to a minimum, and
profit be the rule, when one gives one's mind to it--which it is my
business to do."
"Oh, I know everything you can say," said the old man. "Give your mind
to it! Give your mind to an honest trade, that's my advice to you. What
is it at the best but making money out of the follies of your
fellow-creatures? They take a panic and you buy from them, to their
certain loss, and then they take a freak of enthusiasm and you sell to
them, to their certain loss. Somebody must always lose in order that you
should gain. It is a devilish trade--I said so when I heard you had gone
into it; but for God's sake, Roland Ashton, keep that for the outside
world, and don't bring ruin and misery here."
"What can I say?" said the young man. He rose up from the table where he
had been taking his last meal with the old people. He kept his temper
beautifully, Mrs. Morgan thought, with great pride in him. He grew pale
and a little excited, as was natural, but never forgot his respect for
his grandfather, who, besides that venerable relationship, was an old
man. "What can I say? To tell you that I consider my profession an
honourable one would be superfluous, for you can't imagine I should have
taken it up had I thought otherwise."
"Rowley, my old man," said Mrs. Morgan, "you are just as hot-headed as
when you were a boy. But, Roland, you must remember that we have
suffered from it; and everybody says when you begin to gamble in
business, it is worse than any other kind of gambling."
"When you begin; but there is no need ever to begin, that I can see."
"And then, my dear--I am not taking up your grandfather's view, but just
telling you what he means--then, my dear, Catherine Vernon has been very
kind to him and me. She is fond of us, I really believe. She trusts us,
which to her great hurt, poor thing, she does to few----"
"Catherine Vernon is a noble character. She has a fine nature. She has a
scorn of meanness and everything that is little----"
The old lady shook her head, "That is true," she said; "but it is her
misfortune, poor thing, that she gets her amusement out of all that, and
she believes in few. You must not, Roland," she said, laying her hand
upon his arm, "you must not, my dear lad--Oh, listen to what my old man
says! You must not be the means of leading into imprudence or danger any
one she is fond of--she that has been so kind to him and to me!"
The old hand was heavy on his arm, bending him down towards her with an
imperative clasp, and this sudden appeal was so unexpected from the
placid old woman, who seemed to have outgrown all impassioned feeling
and lived only to soothe and reconcile opposing influences, that both
the young man and the old were impressed by it. Roland Ashton stooped,
and kissed his grandmother's forehead. He had a great power in him of
response to every call of emotion.
"Dear old mother," he said, "if I were a villain and meant harm, I don't
see how I could carry on with it after that. But I want you to believe
that I am not a villain," he said, with a half-laugh of feeling.
Old Captain Morgan was so touched by the scene that in the weakness of
old age and the unexpectedness of this interposition the tears stood in
his eyes.
"When you do put your shoulder to the wheel, Mary," he said, with a
half-laugh too, and holding out a hand to Roland, with whom for the
first time he found himself in perfect sympathy, "you do it like a hero.
I'll add nothing to what she has said, my boy. Even at the risk of
losing a profit, or failing in a stroke of business, respect the house
that has sheltered your family. That's what we both say."
"And I have answered, sir," said Roland, "that even if I were bent on
mischief I could not persist after such an appeal--and I am not bent on
mischief," he added, this time with a smile; and so fell into easy
conversation about his sister, and the good it would do her to pay the
old people a visit. "I am out all day, and she is left to herself. It is
dull for her in a little house at Kilburn, all alone--though she says
she likes it," he went on, glad, as indeed they all were, to get down to
a milder level of conversation.
The old captain had not taken kindly to the idea of having Emma; but
after the moment of sympathetic emotion which they had all passed
through, there was no rejecting so very reasonable a petition. And on
the whole, looking back upon it, now that the young man's portmanteau
stood packed in the hall, and he himself was on the eve of departure,
even the captain could not deny that there had been on the whole more
pleasure in Roland's visit than he had at all expected. However he might
modify the account of his own sensations, it had certainly been
agreeable to meet a young fellow of his own blood, his descendant, a man
among the many women with whom he was surrounded, and one who, even when
they disagreed, could support his opinions, and was at least
intelligent, whatever else. He had received him with unfeigned
reluctance, almost forgetting who his mother was in bitter and strong
realisation that he was his father's son and bore his father's name. But
personal encounter had so softened everything, that though Roland
actually resembled his objectionable father, the captain parted from him
with regret. And, after all, why should not Emma come? She was a girl,
which in itself softened everything (notwithstanding that the captain
had recognised as a distinct element in Roland's favour that he was a
man, and so a most desirable interruption to the flood of womankind--but
nobody is bound to be consistent in these matters). It was good of her
brother, as soon as he was afloat in the world, to take upon himself the
responsibility of providing for Emma, and on the whole the captain,
always ready to be kind, saw no reason for refusing to be kind to this
lonely girl because she was of his own flesh and blood. He drew much
closer to his grandson during these last few hours than he had done yet.
He went out with him to make his adieux to Mrs. John and her daughter.
And Hester came forward to give them her hand with that little
enlargement about the eyes, which was a sure sign of some emotion in her
mind. She had seen a great deal of Roland, and his going away gave her a
pang which she scarcely explained to herself. It was so much life
subtracted from the scanty circle. She too, like Edward, felt that she
wanted air, and the departure of one who had brought so much that was
new into her restricted existence was a loss--that was all. She had
assured herself so half-a-dozen times this morning--therefore no doubt
it was true. As for Roland, it was not in him to part from such a girl
without an attempt at least to intensify this effect. He drew her
towards the window, apart from the others, to watch, as he said, for the
coming of the slow old fly from Redborough which was to convey him away.
"My sister is coming," he said, "and I hope you will be friends. I will
instruct her to bring in my name on every possible occasion, that you
may not altogether forget me."
"There is no likelihood that we shall forget you; we see so few people
here."
"And you call that a consolatory reason! I shall see thousands of
people, but I shall not forget _you_." It was Roland's way to use no
name. He said _you_ as if there was nobody but yourself who owned that
pronoun, with an inference that in thinking of the woman before him,
whoever she might be, he, in his heart, identified her from all women.
Hester was embarrassed by his eyes and his tone, but not displeased. He
had pleased her from the first. There is a soft and genial interest
excited in the breasts of women by such a man, at which everybody smiles
and which few acknowledge, yet which is not the less dangerous for that.
It rouses a prepossession in his favour, whatever may come of it
afterwards; and he had done his best to fill up all his spare moments,
when he was not doing something else, in Hester's company. It would be
vain to say that this homage had not been sweet, and it had been
entertaining, which is so great a matter. It had opened out a new world
to her, and expanded all her horizon. With his going all these new
outlets into life would be closed again. She felt a certain terror of
the place without Roland. He had imported into the air an excitement, an
expectation. The prospect of seeing him was a prospect full of novelty
and interest, and even when he did not come, there had always been that
expectation to brighten the dimness. Now there could be no expectation,
not even a disappointment; and Hester's eyes were large, and had a
clearness of emotion in them. She might have cried--indeed, it seemed
very likely that she had cried at the thought of his going away, and
would cry again.
"Though I don't know," he added, leaning against the recess of the
window, and so shutting her in where she stood looking out, "why I
should leave so many thoughts here, for I don't suppose they will do me
any good. They tell me that your mind will be too fully, and, alas, too
pleasantly occupied. Yes, I say alas! and alas again! I am not glad you
will be so pleasantly occupied. I had rather you were dull a little,
that you might have time now and then to remember me."
"You are talking a great deal of nonsense, Mr. Ashton--but that is your
way. And how am I to be so pleasantly occupied? I am glad to hear it,
but I certainly did not know. What is going to happen?"
"Is this hypocrisy, or is it kindness to spare me? Or is it----? They
tell me that I ought to--congratulate you," said Roland with a sigh.
"Congratulate me? On what? I suppose," said Hester, growing red, "there
is only one thing upon which girls are congratulated: and that does not
exist in my case."
"May I believe you?" he said, putting his hands together with a
supplicating gesture, "may I put faith in you? But it seemed on such
good authority. Your cousin Edward----"
"Did Edward tell you so?" Hester grew so red that the flush scorched
her. She was angry and mortified and excited. Her interest changed, in a
moment, from the faint interest which she had felt in the handsome young
deceiver before her, to a feeling more strong and deeply rooted, half
made out of repulsion, half bitter, half injured, yet more powerful in
attraction than any other sentiment of her mind. Roland was ill-pleased
that he was superseded by this other feeling. It was a sensation quite
unusual to him, and he did not like it. "He had no right to say so,"
said Hester; "he knew it was not true."
"All is fair in love and war," said Roland; "perhaps he wished it to
be--not true."
"I do not know what he wishes, and I do not care!" Hester cried, after a
pause, with a passion which did not carry out her words. "He has never
been a friend to me," she said hastily. "He might have helped me, he
might have been kind--not that I want his help or any one's," cried the
girl, her passion growing as she went on. Then she came to a dead stop,
and gave Roland a rapid look, to see how much he had divined of her real
feelings. "But he need not have said what was not true," she added in a
subdued tone.
"I forgive him," said Roland, "because it is not true. If it had been
true it would not have been so easy to forgive. I am coming back again,
and I should have seen you--changed. It was too much. Now I can look
forward with unmingled pleasure. It is one's first duty, don't you
think, to minister to the pleasure of one's grandparents? they are old;
one ought to come often, as often as duty will permit."
Hester looked up to him with a little surprise, the transition was so
sudden; and, to tell the truth, the tumult in her own mind was not so
entirely subdued that she could bestow her full attention upon Roland's
_double entendre_.
He laughed. "One would think, by your look, that you did not share my
fine sense of duty," he said; "but you must not frown upon it. I am
coming soon, very soon, again. A fortnight ago the place was only a name
to me; but now it is a name that I shall remember for ever," he added
with fervour.
Hester looked at him this time with a smile upon her mouth. She had
recovered herself and come back to the diversion of his presence, the
amusement and novelty he had brought. A half sense of the exaggeration
and sentimental nonsense of his speech was in her smile; and he was more
or less conscious of it too. When their eyes met they both laughed; and
yet she was not displeased, nor he untouched by some reality of feeling.
The exaggeration was humorous, and the sentiment not altogether untrue.
"Do you say that always when you leave a place?" Hester said.
"Very often," he acknowledged; and they both laughed again, which, to
her at least, was very welcome, as she had been doubly on the verge of
tears--for anger and for regret. "But seldom as I do now," he added,
"you may believe me. The old people are better and kinder than I had
dreamt of; it does one good to be near them; and then I have helped
myself on in the world by this visit, but that you will not care for.
And then----"
Here Roland broke off abruptly, and gazed, as his fashion was, as
feeling the impotence of words to convey all that the heart would say.
It was very shortly after this that the white horse which drew the old
fly from Redborough--the horse which was supposed to have been chosen
for this quality, that it could be seen a long way off to console the
souls of those who felt it could never arrive in time--was seen upon the
road, and the last moment had visibly come. Not the less for the
commotion and tumult or other feelings through which her heart had gone,
did Hester acknowledge the emotions which belonged to this leave-taking.
The depth and sadness of Roland's eyes--those expressive eyes which said
so many things, the pathos of his mouth, the lingering clasp in which he
held her hand, all affected her. There was a magic about him which the
girl did not resist, though she was conscious of the other side of it,
the faint mixture of the fictitious which did not impair its charm. She
stood and watched him from the low window of the parlour which looked
that way, while the fly was being laden, with a blank countenance. She
felt the corners of her mouth droop, her eyes widen, her face grow
longer. It was as if all the novelty, the variety, the pleasure of life
were going away. It was a dull afternoon, which was at once congenial as
suiting the circumstances and oppressive as enhancing the gloom. She
watched the portmanteau put in as if she had been watching a funeral.
When Roland stepped in after his grandfather, who in the softness of the
moment had offered, to the great surprise of everybody, to accompany him
to the station, Hester still looked on with melancholy gravity. She was
almost on a level with them where she stood looking out; her mother all
smiles, kissing her hand beside her. "I wish you would show a little
interest, Hester," Mrs. John said. "You might at least wave your hand.
If it were only for the old captain's sake whom you always profess to be
so fond of." Roland at this moment leant out of the window of the fly
and took off his hat to her for the last time. Mrs. John thought it was
barbarous to take no notice. She redoubled her own friendly salutations;
but Hester stood like a statue, forcing a faint ghost of a smile, but
not moving a finger. She stood thus watching them long after they had
driven away, till they had almost disappeared in the smoke of
Redborough. She saw the fly stop at the Grange and Miss Catherine come
out to the door to take leave of him: and then the slow vehicle
disappeared altogether. The sky seemed to lean down almost touching the
ground; the stagnant afternoon air had not a breath to move it. Hester
said to herself that nothing more would happen now. She knew the
afternoon atmosphere, the approach of tea, the scent of it in the air,
the less ethereal bread-and-butter, and then the long dull evening. It
seemed endless to look forward, as if it never would be night. And Mrs.
John, as soon as the fly was out of sight, had drawn her chair towards
the fire and begun to talk. "I am sure I am very sorry he has gone,"
Mrs. John said. "I did not think I should have liked him at first, but I
declare I like him very much now. How long is it since he came, Hester?
Only a fortnight! I should have said three weeks at least. I think it
was quite unnatural of the captain to talk of him as he did, for I am
sure he is a very nice young man. Where are you going? not I hope for
one of your long walks: for the night closes in very early now, and it
will soon be time for tea."
"Don't you think, mamma," said Hester, somewhat hypocritically, "that it
would be kind to go in and keep Mrs. Morgan company a little, as she
will be quite alone?"
"That is always your way as soon as I show any inclination for a little
talk," said her mother provoked, not without reason. Then she softened,
being at heart the most good-natured of women. "Perhaps you are right,"
she said, "the old lady will be lonely. Give her my love, and say I
should have come to see her myself, but that--" Mrs. John paused for a
reason, "but that I am afraid for my neuralgia," she added triumphantly.
"You know how bad it was the other day."
Thus sanctioned Hester threw her grey "cloud" round her, and ran round
to console Mrs. Morgan, while her mother arranged herself comfortably
with a footstool, a book upon the table beside her, and her knitting,
but with a furtive inclination towards an afternoon nap, which the
greyness of the day, the early failing light in the dark wainscoted
parlour, and the absence of all movement about her, naturally inclined
her to. Mrs. John was at the age when we are very much ashamed of the
afternoon nap, and she was well provided with semblances of occupation
in case any one should come. But Mrs. Morgan was far beyond any such
simple deceit. Eighty has vast advantages in this way. When she felt
disposed to doze a little she was quite pleased, almost proud of the
achievement. She had indeed a book on the table with her spectacles
carefully folded into it, but she did not require any occupation.
"I had a kind of feeling that you would come, my pet," she said as
Hester appeared. "When I want you very much I think some kind little
angel must go and tap you on the shoulder, for you always come."
"The captain would say it is a brain-wave," said Hester.
"The captain says a great deal of nonsense, my dear," said the old lady
with a smile, "but think of him going with Roland to the station! He has
been vanquished, quite vanquished--which is a great pleasure to me. And
Emma is coming. I hope she will not wear out the good impression----"
"Is she not so--nice?" Hester asked.
The old lady looked her favourite intently in the face. She saw the too
great clearness of Hester's eyes, and that her mouth was not smiling,
but drawn downward; and a vague dread filled her mind. She was full of
love and charity, but she was full of insight too; and though she loved
Roland, she did not think it would be to the advantage of Hester to love
him.
"Roland is very nice," she said. "Poor boy, perhaps that is his
temptation. It is his nature to please whomsoever he comes across. It is
a beautiful kind of nature; but I am not sure that it is not very
dangerous both for himself--and others."
It was fortunate that Hester did not divine what her friend meant.
"Dangerous--to please?" she said, with a little curiosity. She liked
Roland so much, that even from the lips of those who had more right to
him than she had, she did not like to hear blame.
"To wish to please--everybody," said the old lady. "My poor lad! that is
his temptation. Your grandfather, if he were here--my dear, I beg your
pardon. I have got into the way of saying it: as if my old man was your
grandfather too."
"I like it," Hester said, with the only gleam of her usual frank and
radiant smile which Mrs. Morgan had yet seen. But this made the old lady
only more afraid.
"There is nobody he could be more fatherly to," she said. "What I meant
was that if he were here, he would have something ready out of a book,
as you and he are always going on with your poetries; but I never was a
poetry woman, as you know. Life is all my learning. And I have seen
people that have had plenty of heart, Hester, if they had given it fair
play--but frittered it away on one and another, trying to give a piece
to each, making each believe that she (for it is mostly upon women that
the spell works) was the one above all others. But you are so young, my
darling; you will not know what I mean."
A faint, uneasy colour, came on Hester's face.
"I think I know what you mean," she said. "I understand how you should
think so of Mr. Ashton. You don't see so well as you did, dear Mrs.
Morgan, when you have not got your spectacles on. If you did, you would
see that when he talks like _that_, he is ready to laugh all the time."
"Is that so, my love? Then I am very glad to hear you say so," cried the
old lady. But she knew very well that her supposed want of sight was a
delusion, and that Hester knew it was only for reading that she ever
used her spectacles. She felt, however, all the more that her warning
had been taken, and that it was unnecessary to proceed further. "You are
young and sweet," she said, "my dear: but the best thing still is that
you have sense. Oh, what it is to have sense! it is the best blessing in
life."
Hester made no reply to this praise. Her heart was beating more quickly
than usual. What she had said was quite true: but all the time, though
he had been ready to laugh, and though she had been ready to laugh, she
was aware that there was something more. The tone of banter had not been
all. The sense of something humorous, under those high-flown phrases,
had not exhausted them. She was intended to laugh, indeed, if they did
not secure another sentiment; but the first aim, and perhaps the last
aim, of the insidious Roland, had been to secure this other sentiment.
Hester did not enter into these distinctions, but she felt them; and
when she thus put forward Mrs. Morgan's failing sight, it was with a
natural casuistry which she knew would be partially seen through, and
yet would have its effect. This made her feel that there was no reply to
be made to the praise of her "sense," which the old lady had given. Was
it her cunning that the old lady meant to praise? There was a little
silence, and the subject of Roland was put aside, not perhaps quite to
the satisfaction of either; but there was nothing more that could be
said.
And presently the old captain came back, groaning a little over his long
walk.
"Why do you never remind me," he said, "what an old fool I am? To drive
in that jingling affair, and to walk back--two miles if it is a
yard--well, then, a mile and a half. My dear, what was half a mile when
you and I were young is two miles now, and not an inch less; but I have
seen him off the premises. And now, Hester, we shall have our talks
again, and our walks again, without any interruption----"
"Do not speak so fast, Rowley. There is Emma coming; and Hester will
like a girl to talk with, and to walk with, better than an old fellow
like you."
"That old woman insults me," said the captain. "She thinks I am as old
as she is--but Hester, you and I know better. You are looking anxious,
my child. Do you think we are a frivolous old pair talking as we ought
not--two old fools upon the brink of the grave?"
"Captain Morgan! I, to have such a thought! And what should I do without
you?" cried Hester, in quick alarm. This brought the big tears to her
eyes, and perhaps she was glad, for various causes, to have a perfectly
honest and comprehensible cause in the midst of her agitation, for those
tears.
"This was brought to my mind very clearly to-day," said the old captain.
"When I saw that young fellow go off, a man in full career of his life,
and thought of his parents swept away, the mother whom you know I loved,
Mary, as dearly as a man ever loves his child, and the father whom I
hated, both so much younger than we are, and both gone for years; and
here are we still living, as if we had been forgotten somehow. We just
go on in our usual, from day to day, and it seems quite natural; but
when you think of all of them--gone--and we two still here----"
"We are not forgotten," said the old lady, in her easy chair, smiling
upon him, folding those old hands which were now laid up from labour,
hands that had worked hard in their day. "We have some purpose to serve
yet, or we would not be here."
"I suppose so--I suppose so," said the old man, with a sigh; and then he
struck his stick upon the floor, and cried out, "but not, God forbid it,
as the instruments of evil to the house that has sheltered us, Mary! My
heart misgives me. I would like at least, before anything comes of it,
that we should be out of the way, you and I."
"You were always a man of little faith," his wife said. "Why should you
go out of your way to meet the evil, that by God's good grace will never
come? It will never come; we have not been preserved for that. You would
as soon teach me Job's lesson as to believe that, my old man."
"What was Job's lesson? It was, 'Though He slay me, yet will I trust in
Him,'" Captain Morgan said.
"Oh, my Rowley!" cried the old lady, "I was wrong to say you were of
little faith! It is you that are the faithful one, and not me. I am just
nothing beside you, as I have always been."
The old captain took his wife's old hands in his, and gave her a kiss
upon her faded cheek, and they smiled upon each other, the two who had
been one for nearly sixty years. Meanwhile, Hester sitting by, looked on
with large eyes of wonder and almost affright. She did not know what it
meant. She could not divine what it could be that made them differ, yet
made them agree. What harm could they do to the house that sheltered
them, two old, good, peaceful people, who were kind to everybody? She
gazed at them with her wondering young eyes, and did what she could to
fathom the mystery: then retired from it, thinking it perhaps some
little fad of the old people, which she had no knowledge of, nor means
of understanding. The best people, Hester thought, when they grew old
take strange notions into their heads, and trouble themselves about
nothing; and of course they missed Roland. She broke in upon them in
that moment of feeling, as soon as she dared speak for wonder, making an
effort to amuse them, and bring them back to their usual ways; and that
effort was not in vain.