As To Touching Pitch
Before the wedding old Mr. Caldigate arranged with his son that he would
give up to the young married people the house at Folking, and indeed the
entire management of the property. 'I have made up my mind about it,'
said the squire, who at this time was living with his son on happy
terms. 'I have never been adapted for the life of a country gentleman,'
he continued, 'though I have endeavoured to make the best of it, and
have in a certain way come to love the old place. But I don't care about
wheat nor yet about bullocks;--and a country house should always have a
mistress.' And so it was settled. Mr. Caldigate took for himself a house
in Cambridge, whither he proposed to remove nothing but himself and his
books, and promised to have Folking ready for his son and his son's
bride on their return from their wedding tour. In all this Robert Bolton
and the old squire acted together, the brother thinking that the
position would suit his sister well. But others among the Boltons,--Mrs
Daniel, the London people, and even Mrs. Robert herself,--had thought
that the 'young people' had better be further away from the influences
or annoyances of Puritan Grange. Robert, however, had declared that it
would be absurd to yield to the temper, and prejudice, and fury--as he
called it--of his father's wife. When this discussion was going on she
had absolutely quarrelled with the attorney, and the attorney had made
up his mind that she should be--ignored. And then, too, as Robert
explained, it must be for the husband and not for the wife to choose
where they would live. Folking was, or at any rate would be, his own, by
right of inheritance, and it was not to be thought of that a man should
be driven away from his natural duties and from the enjoyment of his
natural privileges by the mad humours of a fanatic female. In all this
old Mr. Bolton was hardly consulted; but there was no reason why he
should express an opinion. He was giving his daughter absolutely no
fortune; nor had he even vouchsafed to declare what money should be
coming to her at his death. John Caldigate had positively refused to say
a word on the subject;--had refused even when instigated to do so by
Hester's brother. 'It shall be just as he pleases,' Caldigate had said.
'I told your father that I was not looking after his daughter with any
view to money, and I will be as good as my word.' Robert had told her
father that something should be arranged;--but the old man had put it
off from day to day, and nothing had been arranged. And so it came to
pass that he was excluded almost from having an opinion as to his
daughter's future life.
It was understood that the marriage trip should be continued for some
months. Caldigate was fettered by no business that required an early
return. He had worked hard for five years, and felt that he had earned a
holiday. And Hester naturally was well disposed to be absent for as long
a time as would suit her husband. Time, and time alone, might perhaps
soften her mother's heart. They went to Italy, and stayed during the
winter months in Rome, and then, when the fine weather came, they
returned across the Alps, and lingered about among the playgrounds of
Europe, visiting Switzerland, the Tyrol, and the Pyrenees, and returning
home to Cambridgeshire at the close of the following September.
And then there was a reason for the return. It would be well that the
coming heir to the Folking estate should be born at Folking. Whether an
heir, or only an insignificant girl, it would be well that the child
should be born amidst the comforts of home; and so they came back. When
they reached the station at Cambridge the squire was there to receive
them, as were also Robert Bolton and his wife. 'I am already in my new
house,' said the old man,--'but I mean to go out with you for to-day and
to-morrow, and just stay till you are comfortably fixed.'
'I never see her myself,' said Robert, in answer to a whispered inquiry
from his sister. 'Or it would be more correct to say she will never see
me. But I hear from the others that she speaks of you constantly.'
'She has written to me of course. But she never mentions John. In
writing back I have always sent his love, and have endeavoured to show
that I would not recognise any quarrel.'
'If I were you,' said Robert, 'I would not take him with me when I
went.' Then the three Caldigates were taken off to Folking.
A week passed by and then arrived the day on which it had been arranged
that Hester was to go to Chesterton and see her mother. There had been
numerous letters, and at last the matter was settled between Caldigate
and old Mr. Bolton at the bank. 'I think you had better let her come
alone,' the old man had said when Caldigate asked whether he might be
allowed to accompany his wife. 'Mrs. Bolton has not been well since her
daughter's marriage and has felt the desolation of her position very
much. She is weak and nervous, and I think you had better let Hester
come alone.' Had Caldigate known his mother-in-law better he would not
have suggested a visit from himself. No one who did know her would have
looked forward to see her old hatred eradicated by an absence of nine
months. Hester therefore went into Cambridge alone, and was taken up to
the house by her father. As she entered the iron gates she felt almost
as though she were going into the presence of one who was an enemy to
herself. And yet when she saw her mother, she rushed at once into the
poor woman's arms. 'Oh, mamma, dear mamma, dearest mamma! My own, own,
own mamma!'
Mrs. Bolton was sitting by the open window of a small breakfast parlour
which looked into the garden, and had before her on her little table her
knitting and a volume of sermons. 'So you have come back, Hester,' she
said after a short pause. She had risen at first to receive her
daughter, and had returned her child's caresses, but had then reseated
herself quickly, as though anxious not to evince any strong feeling on
the occasion.
'Yes, mamma, I have come back. We have been so happy!'
'I am glad you have been happy. Such joys are short-lived; but, still--'
'He has been so good to me, mamma!'
Good! What was the meaning of the word good? She doubted the goodness of
such goodness as his. Do not they who are tempted by the pleasures of
the world always praise the good-nature and kindness of them by whom
they are tempted? There are meanings to the word good which are so
opposed one to another! 'A husband is, I suppose, generally kind to his
wife, at any rate for a little time,' she said.
'Oh, mamma, I do so wish you knew him!' The woman turned her face round,
away from her daughter, and assumed that look of hard, determined
impregnable obstinacy with which Hester had been well acquainted all
her life. But the young wife had come there with a purpose, not strong
perhaps, in actual hope, but resolute even against hope to do her best.
There must be an enduring misery to her unless she could bring her
mother into some friendly relation with her husband, and she had
calculated that the softness produced by her return would give a better
chance for this than she might find at any more protracted time. But
Mrs. Bolton had also made her calculations and had come to her
determination. She turned her head away therefore, and sat quite silent,
with the old stubborn look of resolved purpose.
'Mamma, you will let him come to you now?'
'No.'
'Not your own Hester's husband?'
'No.'
'Are we to be divided for ever?'
'Did I not tell you before,--when you were going? Shall I lie, and say
that I love him? I will not touch pitch, lest I be defiled.'
'Mamma, he is my husband. You shall not call him pitch. He is my very
own. Mamma, mamma!--recall the word that you have said.'
The woman felt that it had to be recalled in some degree. 'I said
nothing of him, Hester. I call that pitch which I believe to be wrong,
and if I swerve but a hair's-breadth wittingly towards what I believe to
be evil, then I shall be touching pitch and then I shall be defiled. I
did not say that he was pitch. Judge not and ye shall not be judged.'
But if ever judgment was pronounced, and a verdict given, and penalties
awarded, such was done now in regard to John Caldigate.
'But, mamma, why will it be doing evil to be gracious to your daughter's
husband?'
The woman had an answer to this appeal very clearly set forth in her
mind though she was unable to produce it clearly in words. When the
marriage had been first discussed she had opposed it with all her
power, because she had believed the man to be wicked. He was
unregenerate;--and when she had put it to her husband and to the
Nicholases and to the Daniels to see whether such was not the case, they
had not contradicted her. It was acknowledged that he was such a one as
Robert,--a worldly man all round. And then he was worse than Robert,
having been a spendthrift, a gambler, and, if the rumours which had
reached them were true, given to the company of loose women. She had
striven with all her might that such a one should not be allowed to take
her daughter from her, and had striven in vain. He had succeeded;--but
his character was not changed by his success. Did she not know him to be
chaff that must be separated by the wind from the corn and then consumed
in the fire? His character was not altered because that human being whom
she loved the best in all the world had fallen into his power. He was
not the less chaff,--the less likely to be burned. That her daughter
should become chaff also,--ah, there was the agony of it! If instead of
taking the husband and wife together she could even now separate
them,--would it not be her duty to do so? Of all duties would it not be
the first? Let the misery here be what it might, what was that to
eternal misery or to eternal bliss? When therefore she was asked whether
she would be doing evil were she to be gracious to her own son-in-law,
she was quite, quite sure that any such civility would be a sin. The man
was pitch,--though she had been coerced by the exigencies of a worldly
courtesy to deny that she had intended to say so. He was pitch to her,
and she declared to herself that were she to touch him she would be
defiled. But she knew not in what language to explain all this. 'What you
call graciousness, Hester, is an obligation of which religion knows
nothing,' she said after a pause.
'I don't know why it shouldn't. Are we to be divided, mamma, because of
religion?'
'If you were alone----'
'But I am not alone. Oh, mamma, mamma, do you not know that I am going
to become a mother?'
'My child!'
'And you will not be with me, because you think that you and John differ
as to religious forms.'
'Forms!' she said. 'Forms! Is the spirit there? By their fruits ye shall
know them. I ask you yourself whether his life as you have seen it is
such as I should think conformable with the Word of God?'
'Whose life is so?'
'But an effort may be made. Do not let us palter with each other,
Hester! There are the sheep,--and there are the goats! Of which is he?
According to the teaching of your early years, in which flock would he
be found if account were taken now?'
There was something so terrible in this that the young wife who was thus
called upon to denounce her husband separated herself by some steps from
her mother, retreating back to a chair in which she seated herself. 'Do
you remember, mamma, the words you said just now? Judge not and ye shall
not be judged.'
'Nor do I judge.'
'And how does it go on? Forgive and ye shall be forgiven.'
'Neither do I judge, nor can I forgive.' This she said, putting all her
emphasis on the pronoun, and thereby declaring her own humility. 'But
the great truths of my religion are dear to me. I will not trust myself
in the way of sinners, because by some worldly alliance to which I
myself was no consenting party, I have been brought into worldly contact
with them. I at any rate will be firm. I say to you now no more than I
said, ah, so many times, when it was still possible that my words should
not be vain. They were vain. But not on that account am I to be
changed. I will not be wound like a skein of silk round your little
finger.' That was it. Was she to give way in everything because they had
been successful among them in carrying out this marriage in opposition
to her judgment? Was she to assent that this man be treated as a sheep
because he had prevailed against her, while she was so well aware that
he would still have been a goat to them all had he not prevailed? She at
any rate was sincere. She was consistent. She would be true to her
principles even at the expense of all her natural yearnings. Of what use
to her would be her religious convictions if she were to give them up
just because her heart-strings were torn and agonised? The man was a
goat though he were ten times told her child's husband. So she looked
again away into the garden and resolved that she would not yield in a
single point.
'Good-bye, mamma,' said Hester, rising from her chair, and coming up to
her mother.
'Good-bye, Hester. God bless you, my child!'
'You will not come to me to Folking?'
'No. I will not go to Folking.'
'I may come to you here?'
'Oh yes;--as often as you will, and for as long as you will.'
'I cannot stay away from home without him, you know,' said the young
wife.
'As often as you will, and for as long as you will,' the mother said
again, repeating the words with emphasis. 'Would I could have you here
as I used to do, so as to look after every want and administer to every
wish. My fingers shall work for your baby, and my prayers shall be said
for him and for you, morning and night. I am not changed, Hester. I am
still and ever shall be, while I am spared, your own loving mother.' So
they parted, and Hester was driven back to Folking.
In forming our opinion as to others we are daily brought into
difficulty by doubting how much we should allow to their convictions,
and how far we are justified in condemning those who do not accede to
our own. Mrs. Bolton believed every word that she said. There was no
touch of hypocrisy about her. Could she without sting of conscience have
gone off to Folking and ate of her son-in-law's bread and drank of his
cup, and sat in his presence, no mother living would have enjoyed more
thoroughly the delight of waiting upon and caressing and bending over
her child. She denied herself all this with an agony of spirit, groaning
not only over their earthly separation, thinking not only of her
daughter's present dangers, but tormented also by reflections as to
dangers and possible separations in another world. But she knew she was
right. She knew at least that were she to act otherwise there would be
upon her conscience the weight of sin. She did not know that the
convictions on which she rested with such confidence had come in truth
from her injured pride,--had settled themselves in her mind because
she had been beaten in her endeavours to prevent her daughter's
marriage. She was not aware that she regarded John Caldigate as a
goat,--as one who beyond all doubt was a goat,--simply because John
Caldigate had had his way, while she had been debarred from hers. Such
no doubt was the case. And yet who can deny her praise for fidelity to
her own convictions? When we read of those who have massacred and
tortured their opponents in religion, have boiled alive the unfortunates
who have differed from themselves as to the meaning of an unintelligible
word or two, have vigorously torn the entrails out of those who have
been pious with a piety different from their own, how shall we dare to
say that they should be punished for their fidelity? Mrs. Bolton spent
much of that afternoon with her knees on the hard boards,--thinking that
a hassock would have taken something from the sanctity of the
action,--wrestling for her child in prayer. And she told herself that
her prayer had been heard. She got up more than ever assured that she
must not touch pitch lest she should be defiled. Let us pray for what we
will with earnestness,--though it be for the destruction of half of a
world,--we are sure to think that our prayers have been heard.