We may not make this world a paradise
By walking it together with clasped hands
And eyes that meeting feed a double strength.
We must be only joined by pains divine,
Of spirits blent in mutual memories.
It was a consequence of that interview with her father, that when Esther
stepped early on a gray March morning into the carriage with Mrs.
Transome, to go to the Loamford Assizes, she was full of an expectation
that held her lips in trembling silence, and gave her eyes that
sightless beauty which tells that the vision is all within.
Mrs. Transome did not disturb her with unnecessary speech. Of late,
Esther's anxious observation had been drawn to a change in Mrs.
Transome, shown in many small ways which only women notice. It was not
only that when they sat together the talk seemed more of an effort to
her: that might have come from the gradual draining away of matter for
discourse pertaining to most sorts of companionship, in which repetition
is not felt to be as desirable as novelty. But while Mrs. Transome was
dressed just as usual, took her seat as usual, trifled with her drugs
and had her embroidery before her as usual, and still made her morning
greetings with that finished easy politeness and consideration of tone
which to rougher people seems like affectation, Esther noticed a strange
fitfulness in her movements. Sometimes the stitches of her embroidery
went on with silent unbroken swiftness for a quarter of an hour, as if
she had to work out her deliverance from bondage by finishing a
scroll-patterned border; then her hands dropped suddenly and her gaze
fell blankly on the table before her, and she would sit in that way
motionless as a seated statue, apparently unconscious of Esther's
presence, till some thought darting within her seemed to have the effect
of an external shock and rouse her with a start, when she looked around
hastily like a person ashamed of having slept. Esther, touched with
wondering pity at signs of unhappiness that were new in her experience,
took the most delicate care to appear inobservant, and only tried to
increase the gentle attention that might help to soothe or gratify this
uneasy woman. But, one morning, Mrs. Transome had said, breaking a
rather long silence--
"My dear, I shall make this house dull for you. You sit with me like an
embodied patience. I am unendurable; I am getting into a melancholy
dotage. A fidgety old woman like me is as unpleasant to see as a rook
with its wing broken. Don't mind me, my dear. Run away from me without
ceremony. Every one else does, you see. I am part of the old furniture
with new drapery."
"Dear Mrs. Transome," said Esther, gliding to the low ottoman close by
the basket of embroidery, "do you dislike my sitting with you?"
"Only for your own sake, my fairy," said Mrs. Transome, smiling faintly,
and putting her hand under Esther's chin. "Doesn't it make you shudder
to look at me?"
"Why will you say such naughty things?" said Esther, affectionately. "If
you had had a daughter, she would have desired to be with you most when
you most wanted cheering. And surely every young woman has something of
a daughter's feeling toward an older one who has been kind to her."
"I should like you to be really my daughter," said Mrs. Transome,
rousing herself to look a little brighter. "That is something still for
an old woman to hope for."
Esther blushed: she had not foreseen this application of words that came
from pitying tenderness. To divert the train of thought as quickly as
possible, she at once asked what she had previously had in her mind to
ask. Before her blush had disappeared she said:
"Oh, you are so good; I shall ask you to indulge me very much. It is to
let us set out very early to Loamford on Wednesday, and put me down at a
particular house, that I may keep an appointment with my father. It is a
private matter, that I wish no one to know about, if possible. And he
will bring me back to you wherever you appoint."
In that way Esther won her end without needing to betray it; and as
Harold was already away at Loamford, she was the more secure.
The Independent minister's house at which she was set down, and where
she was received by her father, was in a quiet street not far from the
jail. Esther had thrown a dark cloak over the handsomer coverings which
Denner had assured her were absolutely required of ladies who sat
anywhere near the judge at a great trial; and as the bonnet of that day
did not throw the face into high relief, but rather into perspective, a
veil drawn down gave her a sufficiently inconspicuous appearance.
"I have arranged all things, my dear," said Mr. Lyon, "and Felix expects
us. We will lose no time."
They walked away at once, Esther not asking a question. She had no
consciousness of the road along which they passed; she could never
remember anything but a dim sense of entering within high walls and
going along passages, till they were ushered into a larger space than
she had expected, and her father said:
"It is here that we are permitted to see Felix, my Esther. He will
presently appear."
Esther automatically took off her gloves and bonnet, as if she had
entered the house after a walk. She had lost the complete consciousness
of everything except that she was going to see Felix. She trembled. It
seemed to her as if he too would look altered after her new life--as if
even the past would change for her and be no longer a steadfast
remembrance, but something she had been mistaken about, as she had been
about the new life. Perhaps she was growing out of that childhood to
which common things have rareness, and all objects look larger. Perhaps
from henceforth the whole world was to be meaner for her. The dread
concentrated in those few moments seemed worse than anything she had
known before. It was what the dread of the pilgrim might be who has it
whispered to him that the holy places are a delusion, or that he will
see them with a soul unstirred and unbelieving. Every minute that passes
may be charged with some such crisis in the little inner world of man or
woman.
But soon the door opened slightly; someone looked in; then it opened
wide, and Felix Holt entered.
"Miss Lyon--Esther!" and her hand was in his grasp.
He was just the same--no, something inexpressibly better, because of the
distance and separation, and the half-weary novelties, which made him
like the return of the morning.
"Take no heed of me, children," said Mr. Lyon. "I have some notes to
make, and my time is precious. We may remain here only a quarter of an
hour." And the old man sat down at a window with his back to them,
writing with his head bent close to the paper.
"You are very pale; you look ill, compared with your old self," said
Esther. She had taken her hand away, but they stood still near each
other, she looking up at him.
"The fact is, I'm not fond of prison," said Felix, smiling; "but I
suppose the best I can hope for is to have a good deal more of it."
"It is thought that in the worst case a pardon may be obtained," said
Esther, avoiding Harold Transome's name.
"I don't rely on that," said Felix, shaking his head. "My wisest course
is to make up my mind to the very ugliest penalty they can condemn me
to. If I can face that, anything less will seem easy. But you know," he
went on, smiling at her brightly, "I never went in for fine company and
cushions. I can't be very heavily disappointed in that way."
"Do you see things just as you used to do?" said Esther, turning pale as
she said it--"I mean--about poverty, and the people you will live among.
Has all the misunderstanding and sadness left you just as obstinate?"
She tried to smile, but could not succeed.
"What--about the sort of life I should lead if I were free again?" said
Felix.
"Yes. I can't help being discouraged for you by all these things that
have happened. See how you may fail!" Esther spoke timidly. She saw a
peculiar smile, which she knew well, gathering in his eyes. "Ah, I dare
say I am silly," she said, deprecatingly.
"No, you are dreadfully inspired," said Felix. "When the wicked Tempter
is tired of snarling that word failure in a man's cell, he sends a voice
like a thrush to say it for him. See now what a messenger of darkness
you are!" He smiled, and took her two hands between his, pressed
together as children hold them up in prayer. Both of them felt too
solemnly to be bashful. They looked straight into each other's eyes, as
angels do when they tell some truth. And they stood in that way while he
went on speaking.
"But I'm proof against that word failure. I've seen behind it. The only
failure a man ought to fear is failure in cleaving to the purpose he
sees to be best. As to just the amount of result he may see from his
particular work--that's a tremendous uncertainty: the universe has not
been arranged for the gratification of his feelings. As long as a man
sees and believes in some great good, he'll prefer working toward that
in the way he's best fit for, come what may. I put effects at their
minimum, but I'd rather have the maximum of effect, if it's of the sort
I care for, than the maximum of effect I don't care for--a lot of fine
things that are not to my taste--and if they were, the conditions of
holding them while the world is what it is, are such as would jar on me
like grating metal."
"Yes," said Esther, in a low tone, "I think I understand that now,
better than I used to do." The words of Felix at last seemed strangely
to fit her own experience. But she said no more, though he seemed to
wait for it a moment or two, looking at her. But then he went on--
"I don't mean to be illustrious, you know, and make a new era, else it
would be kind of you to get a raven and teach it to croak 'failure' in
my ears. Where great things can't happen, I care for very small things,
such as will never be known beyond a few garrets and workshops. And
then, as to one thing I believe in, I don't think I can altogether fail.
If there's anything our people want convincing of, it is, that there's
some dignity and happiness for a man other than changing his station.
That's one of the beliefs I choose to consecrate my life to. If anybody
could demonstrate to me that I was a flat for it, I shouldn't think it
would follow that I must borrow money to set up genteelly and order new
clothes. That's not a rigorous consequence to my understanding."
They smiled at each other, with the old sense of amusement they had so
often had together.
"You are just the same," said Esther.
"And you?" said Felix. "My affairs have been settled long ago. But
yours--a great change has come in them--magic at work."
"Yes," said Esther, rather falteringly.
"Well," said Felix, looking at her gravely again, "it's a case of
fitness that seems to give a chance sanction to that musty law. The
first time I saw you your birth was an immense puzzle to me. However,
the appropriate conditions are come at last."
These words seemed cruel to Esther. But Felix could not know all the
reasons for their seeming so. She could not speak; she was turning cold
and feeling her heart beat painfully.
"All your tastes are gratified now," he went on innocently. "But you'll
remember the old pedagogue and his lectures?"
One thought in the mind of Felix was, that Esther was sure to marry
Harold Transome. Men readily believe these things of the women who love
them. But he could not allude to the marriage more directly. He was
afraid of this destiny for her, without having any very distinct
knowledge by which to justify his fear to the mind of another. It did
not satisfy him that Esther should marry Harold Transome.
"My children," said Mr. Lyon at this moment, not looking round, but only
looking close at his watch, "we have just two minutes more." Then he
went on writing.
Esther did not speak, but Felix could not help observing now that her
hands had turned to a deathly coldness, and that she was trembling. He
believed, he knew, that whatever prospects she had, this feeling was for
his sake. An overpowering impulse from mingled love, gratitude, and
anxiety, urged him to say--
"I had a horrible struggle, Esther. But you see I was right. There was a
fitting lot in reserve for you. But remember you have cost a great
price--don't throw what is precious away. I shall want the news that you
have a happiness worthy of you."
Esther felt too miserable for tears to come. She looked helplessly at
Felix for a moment, then took her hands from his, and, turning away
mutely, walked dreamily toward her father, and said, "Father, I am
ready--there is no more to say."
She turned back again, toward the chair where her bonnet lay, with a
face quite corpse-like above her dark garments.
"Esther!"
She heard Felix say the word, with an entreating cry, and went toward
him with the swift movement of a frightened child toward its protector.
He clasped her, and they kissed each other.
She never could recall anything else that happened, till she was in the
carriage again with Mrs. Transome.