Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand
Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore
Alone upon the threshold of my door
Of individual life, I shall command
The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand
Serenely in the sunshine as before
Without the sense of that which I forbore--
Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land
Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine
With pulses that beat double. What I do
And what I dream include thee, as the wine
Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue
God for myself, He hears that name of thine,
And sees within my eyes the tears of two.
--MRS. BROWNING.
Felix Holt, seated at his work without his pupils, who had asked for a
holiday with a notion that the wooden booths promised some sort of show,
noticed about eleven o'clock that the noises which reached him from the
main street were getting more and more tumultuous. He had long seen bad
auguries for this election, but, like all people who dread the prophetic
wisdom that ends in desiring the fulfillment of its own evil
forebodings, he had checked himself with remembering that, though many
conditions were possible which might bring on violence, there were just
as many which might avert it. There would, perhaps, be no other mischief
than what he was already certain of. With these thoughts he sat down
quietly to his work, meaning not to vex his soul by going to look on at
things he would fain have made different if he could. But he was of a
fiber that vibrated too strongly to the life around him to shut himself
away in quiet, even from suffering and irremediable wrong. As the noises
grew louder, and wrought more and more strongly on his imagination, he
was obliged to lay down his delicate wheel-work. His mother came from
her turnip-paring, in the kitchen, where little Job was her companion,
to observe that they must be killing everybody in the High Street, and
that the election, which had never been before at Treby, must have come
for a judgment; that there were mercies where you didn't look for them,
and that she thanked God in His wisdom for making her live up a back
street.
Felix snatched his cap and rushed out. But when he got to the turning
into the market-place the magistrates were already on horseback there,
the constables were moving about, and Felix observed that there was no
strong spirit of resistance to them. He stayed long enough to see the
partial dispersion of the crowd and the restoration of tolerable quiet,
and then went back to Mrs. Holt to tell her that there was nothing to
fear now; he was going out again, and she must not be in any anxiety at
his absence. She might set by his dinner for him.
Felix had been thinking of Esther and her probable alarm at the noises
that must have reached her more distinctly than they had reached him,
for Malthouse Yard was removed but a little way from the main street.
Mr. Lyon was away from home, having been called to preach charity
sermons and attend meetings in a distant town; and Esther, with the
plaintive Lyddy for her sole companion, was not cheerfully
circumstanced. Felix had not been to see her yet since her father's
departure, but to-day he gave way to new reasons.
"Miss Esther was in the garret," Lyddy said, trying to see what was
going on. But before she was fetched she came running down the stairs,
drawn by the knock at the door, which had shaken the small dwelling.
"I am so thankful to see you," she said, eagerly. "Pray come in."
When she had shut the parlor door behind them, Felix said, "I suspected
that you might have been made anxious by the noises. I came to tell you
that things are quiet now. Though, indeed, you can hear that they are."
"I _was_ frightened," said Esther. "The shouting and roaring of rude men
is so hideous. It is a relief to me that my father is not at home--that
he is out of the reach of any danger he might have fallen into if he had
been here. But I gave you credit for being in the midst of the danger,"
she added, smiling, with a determination not to show much feeling. "Sit
down and tell me what has happened."
They sat down at the extremities of the old black sofa, and Felix said--
"To tell you the truth, I had shut myself up, and tried to be as
indifferent to the election as if I'd been one of the fishes in the
Lapp, till the noises got too strong for me. But I only saw the tail end
of the disturbance. The poor noisy simpletons seemed to give way before
the magistrates and the constables. I hope nobody has been much hurt.
The fear is that they may turn out again by-and-by; their giving way so
soon may not be altogether a good sign. There's a great number of heavy
fellows in the town. If they go and drink more, the last end may be
worse than the first. However----"
Felix broke off, as if this talk was futile, clasped his hands behind
his head, and, leaning backward, looked at Esther, who was looking at
him.
"May I stay here a little while?" he said, after a moment, which seemed
long.
"Pray do," said Esther, coloring. To relieve herself she took some work
and bowed her head over her stitching. It was in reality a little heaven
to her that Felix was there, but she saw beyond it--saw that by-and-by
he would be gone, and that they should be farther on their way, not
toward meeting, but parting. His will was impregnable. He was a rock,
and she was no more to him than the white clinging mist-cloud.
"I wish I could be sure that you see things just as I do," he said
abruptly, after a minute's silence.
"I am sure you see them much more wisely than I do!" said Esther, almost
bitterly, without looking up.
"There are some people one must wish to judge truly. Not to wish it
would be mere hardness. I know you think I am a man without feeling--at
least, without strong affections. You think I love nothing but my own
resolutions."
"Suppose I reply in the same sort of strain?" said Esther, with a little
toss of the head.
"How?"
"Why, that you think me a shallow woman, incapable of believing what is
best in you, setting down everything that is too high for me as a
deficiency."
"Don't parry what I say. Answer me." There was an expression of painful
beseeching in the tone with which Felix said this. Esther let her work
fall on her lap and looked at him, but she was unable to speak.
"I want you to tell me--once--that you know it would be easier to me to
give myself up to loving and being loved, as other men do, when they
can, than to----"
This breaking-off in speech was something quite new in Felix. For the
first time he had lost his self-possession, and turned his eyes away. He
was at variance with himself. He had begun what he felt he ought not to
finish.
Esther, like a woman as she was--a woman waiting for love, never able
to ask for it--had her joy in these signs of her power; but they made
her generous, not chary, as they might have done if she had had a
pettier disposition. She said, with deep yet timid earnestness--
"What you have chosen to do has only convinced me that your love would
be the better worth having."
All the finest part of Esther's nature trembled in those words. To be
right in great memorable moments is perhaps the thing we need most
desire for ourselves.
Felix as quick as lightning turned his look upon her again, and, leaning
forward, took her sweet hand and held it to his lips some moments before
he let it fall again and raised his head.
"We shall always be the better for thinking of each other," he said,
leaning his elbow on the back of the sofa, and supporting his head as he
looked at her with calm sadness. "This thing can never come to me twice
over. It is my knighthood. That was always a business of great cost."
He smiled at her, but she sat biting her inner lip and pressing her
hands together. She desired to be worthy of what she reverenced in
Felix, but the inevitable renunciation was too difficult. She saw
herself wandering through the future weak and forsaken. The charming
sauciness was all gone from her face, but the memory of it made this
childlike dependent sorrow all the more touching.
"Tell me what you would----" Felix burst out, leaning nearer to her; but
the next instant he started up, went to the table, took his cap in his
hand and came in front of her.
"Good-bye," he said, very gently, not daring to put out his hand. But
Esther put up hers instead of speaking. He just pressed it and then went
away.
She heard the doors close behind him, and felt free to be miserable. She
cried bitterly. If she might have married Felix Holt, she could have
been a good woman. She felt no trust that she could ever be good without
him.
Felix reproached himself. He would have done better not to speak in that
way. But the prompting to which he had chiefly listened had been the
desire to prove to Esther that he set a high value on her feelings. He
could not help seeing that he was very important to her; and he was too
simple and sincere a man to ape a sort of humility which would not have
made him any the better if he had possessed it. Such pretences turn our
lives into sorry dramas. And Felix wished Esther to know that her love
was dear to him as the beloved dead are dear. He felt that they must
not marry--that they would ruin each other's lives. But he had longed
for her to know fully that his will to be always apart from her was
renunciation, not an easy preference. In this he was thoroughly
generous; and yet, now some subtle, mysterious conjuncture of
impressions and circumstances had made him speak, he questioned the
wisdom of what he had done. Express confessions give definiteness to
memories that might more easily melt away without; and Felix felt for
Esther's pain as the strong soldier, who can march on hungering without
fear that he shall faint, feels for the young brother--the
maiden-cheeked conscript whose load is too heavy for him.