Consideration like an angel came
And whipped the offending Adam out of her;
Leaving her body as a paradise
To envelope and contain celestial spirits.
--SHAKESPEARE: _Henry V_.
The next morning, after much prayer for the needful strength and wisdom,
Mr. Lyon came down stairs with the resolution that another day should
not pass without the fulfillment of the task he had laid on himself: but
what hour he should choose for this solemn disclosure to Esther must
depend on their mutual occupations. Perhaps he must defer it till they
sat up alone together, after Lyddy was gone to bed. But at breakfast
Esther said--
"To-day is a holiday, father. My pupils are all going to Duffield to see
the wild beasts. What have you got to do to-day? Come, you are eating no
breakfast. Oh, Lyddy, Lyddy, the eggs are hard again. I wish you would
not read Alleyne's 'Alarm' before breakfast; it makes you cry and forget
the eggs."
"They _are_ hard, and that's the truth; but there's hearts as are
harder, Miss Esther," said Lyddy.
"I think not," said Esther. "This is leathery enough for the heart of
the most obdurate Jew. Pray give it little Zachary for a football."
"Dear, dear, don't you be so light, miss. We may all be dead before
night."
"You speak out of season, my good Lyddy," said Mr. Lyon, wearily;
"depart into the kitchen."
"What have you got to do to-day, father?" persisted Esther. "I have a
holiday."
Mr. Lyon felt as if this were a fresh summons not to delay. "I have
something of great moment to do, my dear; and since you are not
otherwise demanded, I will ask you to come and sit with me up-stairs."
Esther wondered what there could be on her father's mind more pressing
than his morning studies.
Soon she knew. Motionless, but mentally stirred as she had never been
before, Esther listened to her mother's story, and to the outpouring of
her step-father's long-pent-up experience. The rays of the morning sun
which fell athwart the books, the sense of the beginning day had
deepened the solemnity more than night would have done. All knowledge
which alters our lives penetrates us more when it comes in the early
morning: the day that has to be travelled with something new and perhaps
forever sad in its light, is an image of the life that spreads beyond.
But at night the time of rest is near.
Mr. Lyon regarded his narrative as a confession--as a revelation to this
beloved child of his own miserable weakness and error. But to her it
seemed a revelation of another sort: her mind seemed suddenly enlarged
by a vision of passion and struggle, of delight and renunciation, in the
lot of beings who had hitherto been a dull enigma to her. And in the act
of unfolding to her that he was not her real father, but had only
striven to cherish her as a father, had only longed to be loved as a
father, the odd, way-worn, unworldly man became the object of a new
sympathy in which Esther exulted. Perhaps this knowledge would have been
less powerful within her, but for the mental preparation that had come
during the last two months from her acquaintance with Felix Holt, which
had taught her to doubt the infallibility of her own standard, and
raised a presentiment of moral depths that were hidden from her.
Esther had taken her place opposite to her father, and had not moved
even her clasped hands while he was speaking. But after the long
outpouring in which he seemed to lose the sense of everything but the
memories he was giving utterance to, he paused a little while, and then
said timidly--
"This is a late retrieval of a long error, Esther. I make not excuses
for myself, for we ought to strive that our affections be rooted in the
truth. Nevertheless you----"
Esther had risen, and had glided on to the wooden stool on a level with
her father's chair, where he was accustomed to lay books. She wanted to
speak, but the flood-gates could not be opened for words alone. She
threw her arms round the old man's neck and sobbed out with a passionate
cry, "Father, father! forgive me if I have not loved you enough. I
will--I will!"
The old man's little delicate frame was shaken by a surprise and joy
that was almost painful in their intensity. He had been going to ask
forgiveness of her who asked it for herself. In that moment of supreme
complex emotion one ray of the minister's joy was the thought, "Surely
the work of grace is begun in her--surely here is a heart that the Lord
hath touched."
They sat so, enclasped in silence, while Esther relieved her full heart.
When she raised her head, she sat quite still for a minute or two
looking fixedly before her, and keeping one little hand in the
minister's. Presently she looked at him and said--
"Then you lived like a workingman, father; you were very, very poor. Yet
my mother had been used to luxury, She was well born--she was a lady?"
"It is true, my dear; it was a poor life that I could give her."
Mr. Lyon answered in utter dimness as to the course Esther's mind was
taking. He had anticipated before his disclosure, from his long-standing
discernment of tendencies in her which were often the cause of silent
grief to him, that the discovery likely to have the keenest interest for
her would be that her parents had a higher rank than that of the poor
Dissenting preacher; but she had shown that other and better
sensibilities were predominant. He rebuked himself now for a hasty and
shallow judgment concerning the child's inner life, and waited for new
clearness.
"But that must be the best life, father," said Esther, suddenly rising,
with a flush across her paleness, and standing with her head thrown a
little backward, as if some illumination had given her a new decision.
"That must be the best life."
"What life, my dear child?"
"Why, that where one bears and does everything because of some great and
strong feeling--so that this and that in one's circumstances don't
signify."
"Yea, verily; but the feeling that should be thus supreme is devotedness
to the Divine Will."
Esther did not speak; her father's words did not fit on to the
impressions wrought in her by what he had told her. She sat down again,
and said, more quietly--
"Mamma did not speak much of my--first father?"
"Not much, dear. She said he was beautiful to the eye, and good and
generous; and that his family was of those who had been long privileged
among their fellows. But now I will deliver to you the letters, which,
together with the ring and locket, are the only visible memorials she
retained of him."
Mr. Lyon reached and delivered to Esther the box containing the relics.
"Take them, and examine them in privacy, my dear. And that I may no more
err by concealment, I will tell you some late occurrences that bear on
these memorials, though to my present apprehension doubtfully and
confusedly."
He then narrated to Esther all that had passed between himself and
Christian. The possibility--to which Mr. Lyon's alarms had pointed--that
her real father might still be living, was a new shock. She could not
speak about it to her present father, but it was registered in silence
as a painful addition to the uncertainties which she suddenly saw
hanging over her life.
"I have little confidence in this man's allegations," Mr. Lyon ended. "I
confess his presence and speech are to me as the jarring of metal. He
bears the stamp of one who has never conceived aught of more sanctity
than the lust of the eye and the pride of life. He hints at some
possible inheritance for you, and denounces mysteriously the devices of
Mr. Jermyn. All this may or may not have a true foundation. But it is
not my part to move in this matter save on a clear showing."
"Certainly not, father," said Esther, eagerly. A little while ago, these
problematic prospects might have set her dreaming pleasantly; but now,
for some reasons that she could not have put distinctly into words, they
affected her with dread.