HESTER'S DEBUT.
The judgment passed by Robert Streightley on Hester Gould, when he had
critically examined her bearing under the novel and trying
circumstances of her heiress-ship, was amply borne out by her
subsequent conduct. She was a decided success; and though totally
unknown to the members of the great world in which she had now taken
her place, so that they had no opportunity of comparing her as she was
in the present with what she had been in the past, her simplicity of
manners, her unassuming tranquillity, as free from deprecation as from
assertion, received a tribute of genuine admiration. Miss Gould was as
much alive to the little touch of impertinence in this general
sentiment as she was to its usefulness and agreeability; but she
enjoyed the latter, and did not resent the former.
"They are wonderfully kind and polite, and all that," she said one day
to Lady Henmarsh, while she was entering a long list of new names and
addresses in her visiting-book; "but it amuses me a little to observe
that not one of them can quite conceal her surprise at discovering
that I look and behave like a lady. How I delight in such _naïveté!_
They let me see, without the least disguise, that they expect me to be
vulgar and underbred, but visit me because I am rich and certified by
you."
"It's the way of the world, my dear Hester," said her friend; "and
neither you nor I will change it, be assured."
"I don't want to change it, for my part," said Hester; "it suits me
very well as it is."
This gay colloquy took place shortly after Miss Gould had taken
possession of her handsome and perfectly-appointed house at Palace
Gardens. The programme agreed upon at Middlemeads had been faithfully
carried out, and the intercourse between Portland Place and Palace
Gardens was frequent and affectionate. Miss Gould demeaned herself
towards Robert and his wife with exemplary tact and propriety. Not the
keenest and closest observer could have divined that she possessed a
knowledge of the affairs of the one wholly unshared by the other, and
that she had succeeded, by minute investigation and the art of
inductive reasoning, at an understanding of the means by which the
marriage which had thwarted her plans, and given her the first shock
she had ever experienced of the humiliation of defeat, had been
brought about, almost as clear as that possessed by the principals in
the transaction. The firmness, the indifference, and the decision of
Hester Gould's character had much attraction for Katharine, who found
pleasure and amusement in watching that young lady's method of dealing
with her novel position, and to whose proud nature the coolness and
self-possession of Hester were peculiarly congenial. They were not
confidential with each other; but then, how could they have been so?
Katharine had a secret in her life whose concealment had been of such
immense importance to her that she had taken the one step which
determines a woman's whole existence in order to secure that
concealment. Outside that she had no confidences to bestow. On
Hester's side there was still less frankness in their intercourse; but
she would not have been confidential with Katharine, had there been no
hidden link between them; she had never trusted any one fully. The
nearest approach she had ever made or permitted to a confidential
intimacy had been in Mr. Thacker's case; and she had begun to repent
of even that limited _démarche_ lately, since that gentleman had
hinted at the hopes to which it had given rise.
"I might have found out all he has told me for myself, if I had only
waited," she said in vexed soliloquy; "if I had only had patience, I
need not have wanted him at all, and now there's no saying how
troublesome he may think fit to be."
In this misgiving Hester Gould was entirely mistaken, and her
entertaining it showed that she had not read Mr. Thacker with her
accustomed thoroughness and infallibility. Daniel knew when Miss Gould
refused him, in the matter-of-fact and reasonable fashion she had
done, that she was perfectly in earnest, clearly in the right, and
immutable in her resolution. He had no more notion of annoying her
with a renewal of his addresses than he had of resenting their
rejection. He must have liked her very much, and have seen many
advantages in addition to its pecuniary attractions in the scheme
of such a marriage; for Mr. Daniel Thacker was as little of a
marrying-man as any individual in London, but he was quite incapable
of such a _bêtise_ as persisting in an unwelcome suit, or exhibiting,
indeed of feeling, the slightest offence. Hester Gould was the sort of
woman, being an heiress, whom it would have been pleasant and
advisable to marry; but as such an arrangement was not practicable, he
fell back upon the other and less hazardous alternative--that of
fostering and preserving confidential relations with her. If she was
not to be his wife--and he knew the moment she said "no" that that was
not to be--she should remain his very good friend, in the real meaning
of the term. He believed he had found out what her game had been in
the past (that game she had lost, as it seemed to him, by waiting too
confidently); he acknowledged that he did not know the nature of that
which she meant to play in the future; but if any one was ever to know
it, he would be that person, with her consent or without it. He had
felt at once the change that had come over her after his luckless
proposal; he had discerned her imperfect appreciation of his _savoir
faire_; but he was neither offended nor afraid. He knew he could
safely trust his own manner and time to convince her that he had
accepted her decision as final, that she had no importunity to fear on
his part.
The result had fully justified Mr. Thacker's anticipations, and his
relations with Hester were permanently established on a footing of as
much mutual reliance as was possible to the nature of either, and the
frank interchange of mutual good services. Mr. Thacker was unfeignedly
pleased when he learned from the voice of rumour that the shipowner's
heiress was becoming quite the fashion, and when he perceived by her
brightened expression, her fresher colour, and the added vivacity of
her manner and bearing, that Miss Gould entered with sincere enjoyment
into the pleasures within her reach. A youth of well-concealed
ambition, of self-repression, of toil, had not hardened and deadened
and narrowed her, as it might have done a weaker nature; there was no
active poison of cynicism in her knowledge of the world; and her
coolheadedness, while it secured her from deception, did not err on
the joyless side of utter disbelief. She enjoyed life as a
connoisseur, not as an enthusiast--as an epicure, not as a gourmand;
but she did enjoy it both well and wisely.
Circumstances favoured Miss Gould very decidedly. She was sufficiently
attractive to be admired by men, and not so aggressively beautiful as
to be hated by women. She did not in the least overrate her own
personal charms, or the powers of her mind; but she knew that she was
good-looking and clever enough to be admired in society, independently
of the wealth which had been her passport into it; while other women
would console themselves for her success, and explain it on the
grounds of that wealth solely. She had found herself admitted at once
into the best of the society in which Katharine Guyon had moved before
her marriage, and the circle was constantly expanding. Lady Henmarsh
was more popular as the chaperone of a well-looking and richly-dowered
heiress than as the chaperone of a well-connected beauty with no
money, and a detrimental though pleasant papa. Miss Guyon's remarkably
sensible and commendable marriage had also shed reflected glory upon
Lady Henmarsh; and as the dangerous beauty was dangerous no longer,
but, on the contrary, a decided acquisition, being excessively rich,
and possessing a praiseworthy taste for expensive hospitalities, all
the petty jealousies and envies excited by Miss Guyon were forgiven to
"that dear creature Mrs. Streightley."
Thus the world was to all seeming very fair and bright before the two
young women whom a chance had brought together, to be thenceforth
inextricably intermingled in each other's lives.
It belonged to the well-regulated completeness of Hester Gould's
character, to the firmness of a woman in whom there was nothing
little, however much there might be that was bad, that she never
neglected a friend, never forgot a kindness, never overlooked a former
claim on her consideration or gratitude. She was incapable of the
meanness of disregarding those who had aided her when her lot was one
of poverty and obscurity, and equally incapable of the impertinence of
patronage. She felt gratitude, and she displayed it simply, genuinely,
appropriately, with the true and delicate tact which was one of the
finer features of her character. She had provided for the comfort of
Aunt Lavinia as carefully as for her own in the arrangements of the
handsome house, which the good old lady regarded with mingled
admiration and misgiving. She had explained to her aunt that all the
requirements of the world would be fulfilled by the arrangements into
which she had entered with Lady Henmarsh; that she would never be
expected to do violence to her principles by partaking of the
dangerous and delusive delights to which her niece's novel position
afforded her access; and she gave her _carte-blanche_ for as many
entertainments of the substantial-tea description, which they
particularly affected, as her favourite "ministers" could be prevailed
on to accept. Nor was her attention to her aunt limited to such formal
provisions for her comfort. No pleasure, no hurry, no press of
engagements, none of the flutter of popularity and general request
into which Miss Gould soon fell, ever induced her to neglect the
commonplace but worthy woman who had befriended her youth and shared
her evil days. A portion of every morning was spent with Aunt Lavinia;
and a visit to the quiet spinster preceded invariably the fulfilment
of her evening engagements, over which her aunt would sigh furtively,
and concerning which she reposed many mournful confidences and
misgivings in sundry clerical breasts, without, however, feeling any
distressingly deep conviction of the enormity of her niece's
behaviour. Hester's old school-mistress had not been forgotten. The
modest sum which the labour of half a lifetime had painfully
accumulated, but which had yet some years to gather ere it could
suffice for even such a humble maintenance as the well-nigh worn-out
teacher longed for, was supplemented by the old pupil, to whom Miss
Nickson never "could take;" and Laburnum Lodge, with the inky and
lacerated desks, the dreary fly-blown maps, and the dreadful jangling
rattletrap pianos, was disposed of by private contract. Once every
week Hester Gould's brougham might be seen before the little gate of a
pretty little cottage at Fulham; and Hester's figure, grown graceful
now, and clad in elegant attire, might be recognised seated in the
little parlour-window, as she gave an hour of the time on which
society made insatiable demands to the woman who had done her duty to
the orphan girl for conscience' sake.
She was no less considerate of those to whom her former obligations
were of another kind, and must be redeemed in a different way. Among
their number were the Hampstead Hebrews, Rachel and Rebecca Thacker,
and Ellen Streightley. To the dark-browed sisters of her confidential
friend Miss Gould extended every social advantage within her power to
compass for them. They found their lives wonderfully brightened, and
their ideas much expanded under Hester's influence; and they became
more enthusiastically fond of her than ever.
Ellen Streightley had become less enthusiastic about Katharine since
she had been in town. The constant stir, the fashionable jargon, the
incessant familiar mention of places, and persons, and circumstances,
all foreign to her knowledge, her tastes, and her ideas, troubled and
confused her. The same sort of thing had existed at Middlemeads
indeed, but on a lesser scale; and then Ellen had had Hester to
support her, and she had not felt so insignificant, so lost, as she
felt now, in the ever-shifting, ever-thronging crowd in Portland
Place. Katharine was as kind to her as ever, but she had no time to
occupy herself with her; and the romantic vision of sisterly
confidence, which had made her sojourn at Middlemeads delightful to
Ellen, vanished away before the realism of the tumultuous frivolity of
London life. Ellen had been enchanted with Middlemeads, but the house
in Portland Place alarmed more than it pleased her. She remembered
penitently the warnings of Decimus, who was soon coming back now--a
circumstance which rendered them all the more terrible; she was
chilled by the cool undemonstrative disapproval of her mother, who had
but once entered her son's splendid house; she felt out of her place
there; she was no longer at home with Katharine as she had been at
Middlemeads; here she was only one of her sister-in-law's innumerable
guests. But when Ellen was with Hester Gould she had no such feeling.
Hester was quite unaltered, enjoyed as much leisure, and was as well
disposed to share it with her friend as in the old days. Hester's
house was very handsome, and her establishment was very imposing, and
in all things different from the Brixton villa; but Ellen was not
dazzled and bewildered and put at a disadvantage by this difference,
as she was by that of Katharine's house and manner of living; she did
not feel like a stranger at Palace Gardens. Hester would receive her
as calmly and pleasantly as though no afternoon engagements were in
contemplation; would listen to all her simple, eager, unimpressive
confidences with unwavering patience; would listen even to the
outpourings of the honest missionary, who had a habit of digressing
into sermons in his love-letters; in short, Hester took a sound and
serious interest in Ellen's fate. Miss Gould excessively disliked the
deportation of her friend to foreign, and probably cannibal, parts,
and had given much consideration to the question whether it might not
be possible to restrain the ardour of the Rev. Decimus by the mundane
process of purchasing him a living at home. She had very little doubt
of being able to procure him the advantages of heathen society,
provided he did not insist on black pagans. Down in Staffordshire now,
or in outlying London districts, or among the truly rural population
of Devonshire, he might surely find hideous ignorance, crime, and
brutish unconsciousness of any thing but the lowest instincts of
nature, flourishing as luxuriantly as in the Feejee or the Andaman
Islands. If the police reports spoke truth, there was room for the
evolutions of a whole noble army of martyrs in picturesque and
prosperous England; and Decimus might be quite as useful, while Ellen
would be infinitely more safe. So Hester thought about the matter, and
came to the conclusion--excusable to her ignorance, and deducible from
her experience of the ease with which every thing one wants can be had
for money--that a living in British heathendom might be purchased. She
did not impart her ideas to Robert Streightley, for she had her own
reasons for knowing that he was not in a condition to receive any
proposition involving the expenditure of ready-money with much favour
just then; but she took Mr. Thacker into her confidence; and as that
gentleman's religious persuasion prevented his feeling any scruples
concerning a transaction of the kind, he undertook to buy a living
for Hester's unconscious _protégé_ with as much alacrity and unconcern
as he would have undertaken to hire an opera-box or to match a
carriage-horse. "Remember, if you want a presentation likely to fall
in soon, you can't get one cheap," was his sole demurrer when Miss
Gould explained, with the utmost _näiveté_, the object of her wishes.
"I don't want to get it cheap, Mr. Thacker," replied Miss Gould.
"Provided it's comfortable, and there's enough to do to keep the
pocket-Apostle busy, and it's a wholesome place for Ellen, and not
dangerous in the way of strikes and mill-burnings,--I am content. I
don't think I should like it _too_ rural and picturesque, please,
because the murders in places of that sort are always so very
horrible."
"By Jove! she gives me her directions as if it were a semi-detached
villa with a good croquet-lawn she wanted," said Mr. Thacker, as he
left Hester's presence, having cheerfully undertaken the somewhat
difficult task she had imposed upon him. "There's nothing on earth to
equal the unreasonableness of even the most reasonable woman, and she
certainly is that. Not bad for an unconscious bit of satire either on
Christian notions in general,--would be nuts to some of our people, I
daresay."
The season was at its height, and all London seemed abandoned to the
pursuit of pleasure, almost as completely as the gay capital of France
in its normal condition;--all London, that is to say, except the few
hundreds of thousands who were suffering, dying, bearing all the ills
and miseries of life, unseen and unheard by their more fortunate
brethren, for whom the hour of calamity had not yet sounded. Among the
most fashionable of the fashionable _réunions_ fixed for one brilliant
night in June,--a night on which the fields and trees, the rivers and
the gardens, were bathed in moonlight, and fanned by warm perfumed
air; a night on which all nature was wrapped in a trance of
delight,--was Mrs. Pendarvis's ball. Her ball _par excellence_, be it
observed; for she "opened her rooms" for dancing and music, for
charades and kettledrums, for every conceivable purpose for which
people could be gathered together, a most satisfactory number of times
during the season. But this was a grand, an exceptional occasion,--a
yearly event, which found record in the chronicles of the doings of
the magnates of society, and formed an epoch in the history of each
successive year.
Katharine Streightley and her husband were going to this ball. Miss
Guyon had never missed the grand occasion since she had been "out,"
and its last recurrence had been memorable to her. She remembered it
well as she sat under her maid's hands, and suffered herself to be
attired far more splendidly than usual. She took a secret pleasure
in forcing upon her own attention the contrast between the past and
the present on this night. When her toilet was an accomplished fact,
she stood before her glass and gazed upon her radiant figure, clothed
in the richest white satin, and decorated with the valuable and
quaintly-set diamonds which had been her mother's sole legacy to her,
and a thrill of irrepressible triumph ran through her whole frame. She
felt her own beauty as she had never felt it before; and she
acknowledged that it was very pleasant to have the means of adorning
it so lavishly, of adding so much to its power. Her toilet-table was
covered with cases in which gems of great value and beauty were
nestled away in green-velvet niches, or displayed boastfully upon
backgrounds of satin; but she had left them all undisturbed; her
mother's diamonds should be her only ornaments that night. She desired
her maid to bring more lights, and set them about the room, so as to
show her her own figure in every point of view. The woman obeyed, with
some surprise: this was not like Mrs. Streightley, who, though
inordinately extravagant, was not practically vain, with the kind of
vanity which impresses itself upon the attention of a waiting-woman.
She was looking over her white shoulder at the reflection in the long
glass behind her, and her maid was standing by with a heap of soft
white wrapping drapery on her arm, when Robert knocked at the door of
her dressing-room. She bade him "come in," in a pleasant voice, and he
did so.
"The carriage is waiting. Are you nearly ready?" he said. And then
stopped short, and looked at her, literally dazzled with her exceeding
beauty. Thus he had seen her, a year ago, the first time he had dined
at her father's house, dressed for a ball,--a ball at Mrs. Pendarvis's
too,--a ball he had heard mentioned with a kind of hopeless envy. And
she had gone downstairs to the carriage with him then. How well he
remembered it, how distinctly he saw it all!--the head-dress she had
added to her dinner-array, the white cloak--was this which he took
from the maid and tenderly placed around her the same? he wondered. It
looked like it; but it was another, ten times more costly than Miss
Guyon had ever worn. Again he saw the smile, the bow, from the corner
of the carriage; again he heard Mr. Guyon's, "Don't stand there,
Streightley; come in." And he felt like a man who has formerly seen in
a dream things now passing before his eyes.
He could not speak before her servant; so he trusted to a glance to
tell his wife how beautiful he thought her. He saw immediately that
among the jewels she wore were none of his gifts, and he said, with
some hesitation, "You do not honour my selection much, Katharine.
Would not your bracelet go with your other ornaments, dear?"
A splendid serpent, a glittering mass of brilliants, with emerald eyes
and protruded ruby tongue, lay on the table. He took it up as he
spoke. Katharine looked half-disposed to refuse; then she said gaily:
"Never mind if it does contradict the quaint old roses and crescents;
I'll wear it, Robert. Put it on, please,--there." And she held out her
round white arm.
It was a trifling incident, but it meant a great deal to Robert
Streightley; so much, that when they were seated in the carriage he
thanked her with all the ardour of a lover. He told her he had never
seen her half so beautiful; he reminded her--he who rarely dared to
refer to the past--of the first time he had seen her dressed for a
ball; and told her what a vision of beauty, what an enchantress she
had appeared to him then,--what an unending spell she had cast upon
him. There was no wrath, no bitterness in Katharine's heart that
night, though the remembrances evoked were all of the kind calculated
to provoke them. Time, and the unfailing, persevering love of this
man,--love which she wondered at, and which had begun to touch her
heart,--were working on her proud nature. She listened to him with a
smile, with a faint, beautiful blush. She was glad that she had
pleased him; it was not hard to do so: to wear a gorgeous ornament
like that, and be thanked for it, was not a great sacrifice. To be so
passionately admired by one's own husband was not unpleasant.
Katharine was quite aware that it was not a very common case. Their
carriage fell into the line; the light of many lamps was flitting
about. She threw her cloak off the arm that bore the bracelet, and
admired the splendid jewel, rippling with many-coloured light:
"It is extremely beautiful, Robert," she said. "I like it better than
any of your presents. It was your first, you know:"
He did know; and he also knew that this was the first, the very first
word he had ever heard from his wife's lips which implied any
sentiment concerning the past connected with him. A fresh tide of hope
and joy welled up in his heart; and as she laid her hand lightly in
his, and let it rest there until their turn had come, and the carriage
drew up under the striped awning, surrounded with a gaping crowd of
idlers collected to see the ball-goers, Robert Streightley was happier
than he had ever been in his life before.
Mrs. Pendarvis's house was large, but the fashion and success of a
ball appear to depend on the disregard of proportion between the room
and company; and when it is said that this ball was brilliantly
successful, it becomes unnecessary to state that it was excessively
crowded. Robert and Katharine were detained for some time on the
staircase, but the delay was not tedious; for they encountered a few
scores of their acquaintances, and Robert had the satisfaction, which
in his present happy mood was unmixed, of observing the universal
admiration excited by his lovely wife. At the top of the first flight
of stairs there was a large recess, or rather room, beautifully hung
with muslin and lace, and profusely decorated with flowers and odorous
plants. A few route-seats were placed in this apartment, which was
only a little less crowded than the dancing-rooms and the staircase.
When Robert and Katharine reached this temporary harbour they found
Lady Henmarsh in possession of one of the seats, and were immediately
greeted by her with her accustomed warmth.
"Miss Gould is here, of course?" asked Katharine.
"Yes, she is dancing. How well you are looking, Katharine! I see you
are wearing your diamonds to-night; very becoming indeed; that serpent
is beautiful. You have such taste, Mrs. Streightley."
"Come, Robert, we must really try to make our bow to Mrs. Pendarvis,"
said Katharine rather impatiently; and they proceeded on their journey
to the second floor. There they found Mrs. Pendarvis, and several of
Katharine's habitual partners. In a minute she had joined the throng
in the dancing-room, and Robert was engaged in the double task of
squeezing himself into as small a space as possible along the
doorjamb, and trying to follow his wife's graceful figure through the
distracting evolutions of a valse. When he had succeeded in seeing her
through two or three rounds, he thought he would go down and find Lady
Henmarsh; and he was just moving for the purpose, when a lady and
gentleman came past him from the dancing-room, and the lady stopped
and held out her hand. It was Hester Gould, beautifully dressed, in
the highest spirits, and looking unusually well, even handsome, as
Robert felt instinctively in the moment during which his eyes rested
on her. It was only a moment, however, for they turned to her
companion. The gentleman with whom Miss Gould had been dancing, with
whom she was now going in search of Lady Henmarsh, was Gordon Frere.
Katharine had seen him also. In a whirl of the valse her eyes had met
his, as she and her partner passed him and his. She saw his fair hair,
his blue eyes, the smile she remembered so well; she heard his low
pleasant laugh, and at the same instant he looked at her and she
at him, and they were apart again. Then he led Hester from the
dancing-room, and down to the canopied recess where Lady Henmarsh sat,
and where he remained for some time, laughing and chatting with his
animated and attractive partner. He had seen Katharine; and the result
had been just what he had told Yeldham he knew it would be. He was
ready to acknowledge her as beautiful and fascinating as ever, but he
did not mind seeing her a bit now. He would have been an ass to have
married at all in his circumstances, and she did quite right to make a
good match when she got the chance. She shouldn't have flirted with
him and jilted him as she had done, to be sure; but then women were
all alike, and it hadn't hurt him much after all. He was delighted to
see her looking so well, and to believe that she was very happy; and,
by Jove, he was going to enjoy himself, and not think about love and
marriage until he could afford such luxuries.
Lady Henmarsh had felt an acute pang of fear when she recognised
Gordon Frere; but she soon quieted it by the timely reflection that no
one could prove her share in the transactions of the past, and no one
could unmarry Katharine, or take the money he had made by the marriage
out of cousin Ned's pocket.
"I hope Katharine won't make a fool of herself," she thought, as she
watched her ascend the stairs with her husband, and thought of the
inevitable meeting before her; "but if she is inclined to do it,
nobody can prevent her, and it's no business of mine. What can have
brought the idle young fool back, I wonder? I thought he was safe for
five years at least, and then promotion to Russia, or some equally
desirable place." And when Hester Gould brought Gordon Frere down to
the recess, Lady Henmarsh read in her face that she was pleased with
the young man, and desirous that she should be gracious to him; so, as
Lady Henmarsh found it convenient to further Miss Gould's pleasure
just then to the utmost of her power, she was gracious to Gordon
Frere, congratulated him on his return to London, and gave him to
understand that Sir Timothy would be charmed to see him at Cavendish
Square.
The ball terminated as brilliantly as it had begun; and Katharine was
the gayest of the gay, the brightest of the bright. She stayed very
late, and she danced incessantly. Again and again she found herself
close to Gordon Frere, and once she was so placed that she had to
choose between speaking to him and "cutting him dead." She took
counsel of her pride; she remembered that if, as seemed likely, he was
remaining in London, she must necessarily meet him often, and she
decided on speaking to him. They were on the staircase, she going
down, he coming up, with Hester on his arm,--he had danced several
times with her that night, as Katharine had remarked,--when she bowed
to him, and said,
"How do you do, Mr. Frere? Have you been long in town?"
"A few days only, Mrs. Streightley. I hope Mr. Guyon is well?"
"Quite well, thank you."
Again she bowed, and passed him; and thus they met and parted, who,
when last they met, had parted with the brightest and most blessed
hope which ever gilds life for youth and love.
Robert and Katharine drove home in silence, which each hoped might be
imputed by the other to fatigue. With her remembrance was busy, with
him remorse and shame.