The little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love.
--WORDSWORTH: _Tintern Abbey_.
Jermyn did not forget to pay his visit to the minister in Malthouse Yard
that evening. The mingled irritation, dread and defiance which he was
feeling toward Harold Transome in the middle of the day depended on too
many and far-stretching causes to be dissipated by eight o'clock; but
when he left Mr. Lyon's house he was in a state of comparative triumph
in the belief that he, and he alone, was now in possession of facts
which, once grouped together, made a secret that gave him new power over
Harold.
Mr. Lyon, in his need for help from one who had that wisdom of the
serpent which, he argued, is not forbidden, but is only of hard
acquirement to dovelike innocence, had been gradually led to pour out to
the attorney all the reasons which made him desire to know the truth
about the man who called himself Maurice Christian: he had shown all the
precious relics, the locket, the letters, and the marriage certificate.
And Jermyn had comforted him by confidently promising to ascertain,
without scandal or premature betrayals, whether this man were really
Annette's husband, or Maurice Christian Bycliffe.
Jermyn was not rash in making this promise, since he had excellent
reasons for believing that he had already come to a true conclusion on
the subject. But he wished both to know a little more of this man
himself, and to keep Mr. Lyon in ignorance--not a difficult
precaution--in an affair which it cost the minister so much pain to
speak of. An easy opportunity of getting an interview with Christian was
sure to offer itself before long--might even offer itself to-morrow.
Jermyn had seen him more than once, though hitherto without any reason
for observing him with interest; he had heard that Philip Debarry's
courier was often busy in the town, and it seemed specially likely that
he would be seen there when the market was to be agitated by politics,
and the new candidate was to show his paces.
The world of which Treby Magna was the centre was, naturally, curious to
see the young Transome, who had come from the East, was as rich as a
Jew, and called himself a Radical--characteristics all equally vague in
the minds of various excellent ratepayers, who drove to market in their
taxed carts or in their hereditary gigs. Places at convenient windows
had been secured beforehand for a few best bonnets; but, in general, a
Radical candidate excited no ardent feminine partisanship, even among
the Dissenters in Treby, if they were of the prosperous and
long-resident class. Some chapel-going ladies were fond of remembering
that "their family had been Church"; others objected to politics
altogether as having spoiled old neighborliness, and sundered friends
who had kindred views as to cowslip wine and Michaelmas cleaning;
others, of the melancholy sort, said it would be well if people would
think less of reforming Parliament and more of pleasing God.
Irreproachable Dissenting matrons, like Mrs. Muscat, whose youth had
been passed in a short-waisted bodice and tight skirt, had never been
animated by the struggle for liberty, and had a timid suspicion that
religion was desecrated by being applied to the things of this world.
Since Mr. Lyon had been in Malthouse Yard there had been far too much
mixing up of politics with religion; but, at any rate, these ladies had
never yet been to hear speechifying in the market-place, and they were
not going to begin that practice.
Esther, however, had heard some of her feminine acquaintances say that
they intended to sit at the druggist's upper window, and she was
inclined to ask her father if he could think of a suitable place where
she also might see and hear. Two inconsistent motives urged her. She
knew that Felix cared earnestly for public questions, and she supposed
that he held it one of her deficiencies not to care about them: well,
she would try to learn the secret of this ardor, which was so strong in
him that it animated what she thought the dullest form of life. She was
not too stupid to find it out. But this self-correcting motive was
presently displaced by a motive of a different sort. It had been a
pleasant variety in her monotonous days to see a man like Harold
Transome, with a distinguished appearance and polished manners, and she
would like to see him again: he suggested to her that brighter and more
luxurious life on which her imagination dwelt without the painful effort
it required to conceive the mental condition which would place her in
complete sympathy with Felix Holt. It was this less unaccustomed
prompting of which she was chiefly conscious when she awaited her
father's coming down to breakfast. Why, indeed, should she trouble
herself so much about Felix?
Mr. Lyon, more serene now that he had unbosomed his anxieties and
obtained a promise of help, was already swimming so happily in the deep
water of polemics in expectation of Philip Debarry's answer to his
challenge, that, in the occupation of making a few notes lest certain
felicitous inspirations should be wasted, he had forgotten to come down
to breakfast. Esther, suspecting his abstraction, went up to his study,
and found him at his desk looking up with wonder at her interruption.
"Come, father, you have forgotten your breakfast."
"It is true, child, I will come," he said, lingering to make some final
strokes.
"Oh, you naughty father!" said Esther, as he got up from his chair,
"your coat-collar is twisted, your waistcoat is buttoned all wrong, and
you have not brushed your hair. Sit down and let me brush it again as I
did yesterday."
He sat down obediently, while Esther took a towel, which she threw over
his shoulders, and then brushed the thick, long fringe of soft auburn
hair. This very trifling act, which she had brought herself to for the
first time yesterday, meant a great deal in Esther's little history. It
had been her habit to leave the mending of her father's clothes to
Lyddy; she had not liked even to touch his cloth garments; still less
had it seemed a thing she would willingly undertake to correct his
toilette, and use a brush for him. But having once done this, under her
new sense of faulty omission, the affectionateness that was in her
flowed so pleasantly, as she saw how much her father was moved by what
he thought a great act of tenderness, that she quite longed to repeat
it. This morning, as he sat under her hands, his face had such a calm
delight in it that she could not help kissing the top of his bald head;
and afterward, when they were seated at breakfast, she said, merrily--
"Father, I shall make a _petit maître_ of you by-and-by; your hair looks
so pretty and silken when it is well brushed."
"Nay, child, I trust that while I would willingly depart from my evil
habit of a somewhat slovenly forgetfulness in my attire, I shall never
arrive at the opposite extreme. For though there is that in apparel
which pleases the eye, and I deny not that your neat gown and the color
thereof--which is that of certain little flowers that spread themselves
in the hedgerows, and make a blueness there as of the sky when it is
deepened in the water--I deny not, I say, that these minor strivings
after a perfection which is, as it were, an irrecoverable yet haunting
memory, are a good in their proportion. Nevertheless, the brevity of our
life, and the hurry and crush of the great battle with error and sin,
often oblige us to an advised neglect of what is less momentous. This, I
conceive, is the principle on which my friend Felix Holt acts; and I
cannot but think the light comes from the true fount, though it shines
through obstructions."
"You have not seen Mr. Holt since Sunday, have you, father?"
"Yes, he was here yesterday. He sought Mr. Transome, having a matter of
some importance to speak upon with him. And I saw him afterward in the
street, when he agreed that I should call for him this morning before I
go into the market-place. He will have it," Mr. Lyon went on, smiling,
"that I must not walk about in the crowd without him to act as my
special constable."
Esther felt vexed with herself that her heart was suddenly beating with
unusual quickness, and that her last resolution not to trouble herself
about what Felix thought had transformed itself with magic swiftness
into mortification that he evidently avoided coming to the house when
she was there, though he used to come on the slightest occasion. He knew
that she was always at home until the afternoon on market-days: that was
the reason why he would not call for her father. Of course it was
because he attributed such littleness to her that he supposed she would
retain nothing else than a feeling of offence toward him for what he had
said to her. Such distrust of any good in others, such arrogance of
immeasurable superiority, was extremely ungenerous. But presently she
said--
"I should have liked to hear Mr. Transome speak, but I suppose it is too
late to get a place now."
"I am not sure, I would fain have you go if you desire it, my dear,"
said Mr. Lyon, who could not bear to deny Esther any lawful wish. "Walk
with me to Mrs. Holt's, and we will learn from Felix, who will doubtless
already have been out, whether or not he could lead you in safety to
Friend Lambert's."
Esther was glad of the proposal, because, if it answered no other
purpose, it would be an easy way of obliging Felix to see her, and of
showing him that it was not she who cherished offence. But when, later
in the morning, she was walking toward Mrs. Holt's with her father, they
met Mr. Jermyn, who stopped them to ask, in his most affable manner,
whether Miss Lyon intended to hear the candidate, and whether she had
secured a suitable place. And he ended by insisting that his daughters,
who were presently coming in an open carriage, should call for her if
she would permit them. It was impossible to refuse this civility, and
Esther turned back to await the carriage, pleased with the certainty of
hearing and seeing, yet sorry to miss Felix. There was another day for
her to think of him with unsatisfied resentment, mixed with some
longings for a better understanding: and in our spring-time every day
has its hidden growths in the mind, as it has in the earth when the
little folded blades are getting ready to pierce the ground.