Маргарет Олифант
Hester. Volume 2 of 3
"Do you call me a cat?" he said.
"Oh, I am not in fun. I am as earnest as ever I can be. It is wicked, it is miserable, and I cannot understand you. All the others are as nothing in comparison with you."
He grew a little pale under this accusation; he would not meet it directly. "But you know," he said, "why she hates you. It is for your mother's sake."
"My mother!" cried Hester astonished. "But no one could hate my mother." The suggestion took away her breath.
"It is true, all the same. I thought you did not know. She was to have married John Vernon, your father, and he preferred – that is the whole account of it; then he got into trouble, and she had her revenge."
"Did she ruin my father?" said Hester in a low whisper of horror.
"I – don't know if it went so far as that," Edward said.
A hesitation was in his speech. It was scarcely compunction, but doubt, lest a statement of this kind, so easily to be contradicted, might be injudicious on his part – but then, who would speak to Hester on such a subject? And her mother was a little fool, and, most likely, did not know, or would be sure to mistake, the circumstances.
"Don't let us talk of that: it is so long past," he said; "and here is a wretch, a scoundrel, coming up with his eye fixed upon you as if he was a partner. How I loathe all your partners, Hester! Mind, the rest of the dances are for me. I shall watch for you as soon as you have shaken that fellow off."
But Hester did not care for the dances that followed. She went through them indifferently, faithful to the partners who had presented themselves before he came on the scene; and, indeed, the conversation in the conservatory had not drawn her nearer to Edward. It had given her a great deal to think of. She had not time in the whirl and fluster of this gaiety to think it all out.
CHAPTER VIII.
A NEW COMPETITOR
Emma Ashton had brought Hester's flowers, and though she was tired with her journey, had taken a great deal of interest in Hester's dress. When she came in to show herself to the old people in her white robes before her ball, the stranger had surveyed her with much attention. She had kissed her slowly and deliberately when introduced to her.
"Roland told me a great deal about you," she said. "I suppose we are cousins too. You look very nice. I hope you will enjoy yourself." She was a very deliberate, measured talker, doing everything steadily. When Hester was gone, she resumed her seat beside her grandmother.
"Roland admires her very much. She is pretty, but I should think she had a great deal of temper," Emma said.
"Temper is scarcely the word. She is a great favourite with your grandfather – and with me too – with me too."
"Roland told me," said Emma. "When I say temper I don't mean any harm. She would do much better for Roland if she had a good deal of temper. That is what he wants to keep him straight; for a man ought not to flirt after he is married, and he will, unless she keeps him in order."
"Married! but is he likely to marry? I did not hear anything of it."
"When a man can keep a sister he can keep a wife," said Emma, announcing this fact as if it were an oracle. "He has a house, and everything that is necessary. And of course I shall not stand in his way. I can go back to Elinor, where I am a sort of head nurse, and cheap enough at the money; or I can be a governess. That touches his pride – he does not like that."
Here the old captain came back, who had been putting his favourite carefully into the fly.
"Why has she not her mother with her?" he said. "I like a girl to have her mother with her. It is pretty, it is natural. I do not like those new-fashioned, independent ways."
"But they are much more convenient, grandpapa," said Emma. "Think how I should have been situated had a girl always wanted her mother with her. Elinor, with her family, cannot always be going out; and when she goes she likes to amuse herself, she does not go for me. A girl going out with her mother means a devoted sort of old lady like the mothers in books. Such nonsense, you know – for a girl's mother, when she is eighteen or so, is rarely more than forty, and people of forty like amusement just as much as we do. It is better, on the whole, I think, when every one is for herself."
"Well, that is not my opinion," said the old captain, shortly.
He was accustomed to do most of the talking himself, and it startled him to have it thus taken out of his hand.
"I suppose an invitation will come for me," said Emma calmly, "as soon as they know I am here; and then Hester and I can go together. Roland said there was no dancing, but I think it always safest to bring a ball-dress. It is not heavy, though it takes up a good deal of room; but then you can always take one box into the carriage, and the railway only charges by weight."
"Roland is very busy, I suppose, my dear. You only see him in the evening?"
"I don't always see him in the evening. He has his own friends, and I am getting a few acquaintances too. If he gives me my living and very little to do I ought to be grateful to him, but I would not let him give up his own amusements for me. That wouldn't be fair. Oh yes, he is very busy. He has found so many new people to do business for down here."
"I hope to goodness he won't speculate with their money and ruin them," Captain Morgan said.
"Ruin! oh, I hope not. But Roland says there is nothing so exciting as to be on the verge of ruin. He says it is better than a play: for instead of looking on at the acting, the acting is going on inside of you. But it is his trade to speculate, isn't it, grandpapa? That is what he is there for, and he is very good at it they say. I suppose this girl has not any money? When they are pretty and nice they seldom have."
"What girl?" said Captain Morgan, almost haughtily – as haughtily and harshly as the old gentleman could persuade himself to speak.
"Doesn't he know, grandmamma?" said Emma, "the girl Roland admired so much: and she would just do for him, if she had some money: but so nice looking as he is, and so well established in business, I don't think, unless there is money, he should throw himself away."
"Is it Hester Vernon that you mean?" asked the captain in an angry voice.
"She does not mean any harm, Rowley. Don't you see Hester is just to her an abstract person, not the dear girl she is to you and me. And Emma," said the old lady almost with timidity, "I fear your ball-dress will not be of much use. Mrs. Merridew will not think of inviting you – she will not perhaps know you are here."
"Roland met her, grandmamma," said Emma calmly. "He told me; we are all cousins, I believe. She will be sure to invite me, or if not, you will be able to get me an invitation. People always exert themselves to get invitations for girls. It is like helping young men on in business. We cannot go and make acquaintances for ourselves as young men go and set up offices, but we must have our chance, you know, as well. Of course," said Emma in her deliberate way, "it is for everybody's advantage that we should have our chance as well as the men."
"And what do you call your chance?" said Captain Morgan. He planted himself in the front of the fireplace with his legs very wide apart, which, as his wife well understood, meant war.
"My old man," she said, "what do you know about the talk of girls? They have one way of thinking, and we have another. They are young, and we are old."
"Hester is younger than she is," said the captain, "let her alone. She is as ready to talk as there is any need to be."
"My chance, grandpapa?" said Emma with a slow little laugh. "It is not necessary, is it, to explain? a girl's chance is in making – friends. If one goes for a governess one's family does not like it. They would rather you were your sister's head nurse with all the trouble, and without any pay. Roland has taken me now – and I do not require to work for my living; but it is not so very cheerful with Roland that I should not wish – if I could – to make a change. We must all think of ourselves you know."
"My dear," said the old lady in her soft voice, "in one way that is very true."
"It is very true, I think, in every way. It might be cheerful for me if Roland were to spend his evenings at home as Tom Pinch in Dickens did with his sister. But then Roland is not a bit like Tom Pinch, and I said to him when I came, 'You are not to change your life for me.' So that sometimes, you know, I am in the house all alone all day, and then if he is out to dinner, or if he has any evening engagement, I am alone all the night. And if he were to marry, why there would be an end of me altogether. So you see, grandmamma, wherever I am, it is very natural that I should wish to have my chance."
"How old are you?" said the captain abruptly.
"I shall be twenty-three at Christmas," said Emma, raising her eyes to his face. She was curious to know why he asked – whether he thought her older, or younger than her age, whether he thought it was strange she should still be unmarried. "I was kept very much out of sight when I was with Elinor," she said half apologetically. She had not had her "chance" as she had always wished to have. She had not been very well treated she felt in this life, the youngest of seven. She had been passed on from one to another of her married sisters to make herself useful. All of them had said that Emma must "come out," but no one had taken any trouble about it. She had to scramble for a dress, a very cheap one, and to coax Elinor into taking her to some little local merrymaking, and so opening, as it were, the gates of society. As soon as she could say that she was "out" Emma had kept the idea of having "her chance" of making friends and getting invitations always before her. But her opportunities had not been great, and Elinor had not devoted herself to her younger sister. She was still young enough to amuse herself, and it had not occurred to her to put so unimportant a person as Emma in the foreground. So that she had never been allowed to have much of a "chance." Emma had not much experience of the world. Of the many novels she had read, and which were her guides to life, a great many devoted themselves to the history and description of young ladies at whose entrance into a ball-room every man present fell metaphorically on his knees. She was acquainted with many evening parties in fiction at which the fate of countless young men and women was decided. The smallest dance would be represented there as bringing people together who were never more to be sundered. Emma herself had not produced any such sensation at the small parties she had hitherto gone to, but she felt that this glory must be awaiting her, and especially that in a new place like this Redborough, in some waltz or other, among some unknown assembly she should meet her fate.
This being the case, it is not to be wondered at that she should lose no time in announcing her certainty of an invitation to anything so likely to conduce to such an object as Ellen Merridew's dancing teas. She had come down to Redborough prepared to be cousin to all the world. Roland, indeed, had taken pains to explain that Catherine Vernon's cousins were not actually her cousins, but she had thought it better in many ways to ignore this, and to descend upon the new scene with the most amiable disposition to embrace as a near relative every Vernon presented to her. Among them all, what could be more likely than that her fate should be found? She meant no harm to anybody. It would be doing no harm, certainly, if any young man fell in love with her, to make him happy by marrying him. She felt most strongly the supreme necessity of marrying for her own part. She had no disguise with herself on this subject, and with her grandparents she did not think it necessary to have any disguise. Everything was involved in it. Roland had taken the responsibility of her upon himself and given her a home, with very little to do, and enough to make her sufficiently comfortable. Emma had always been brought up to consider everything from a strictly practical point of view. She had been taught to believe that she had no right to anything, that it was out of their bounty and charity that her brothers and sisters, now one, now another, afforded her a temporary home. And she was very comfortable with Roland – but if he were to marry, what then? The comfort of having a home of her own, a husband of her own with a settled income, was to Emma in prospect the crown of all good things. She would not have been ashamed to say so if necessary; and it was in balls and parties and picnics and social meetings generally, that a young woman had her chance of suddenly obtaining, by looking pretty, by making herself agreeable, all these good things at a stroke. She made up her mind at once that heaven and earth must be moved to get her an invitation to Mrs. Algernon Merridew's Thés Dansantes. She would not take, she said to herself, any denial. She would see all the Redborough people there, among whom there must certainly be some individuals of the class upon which depended Emma's fate. As she sat unfolding so much of this as was needful with a calm confidence in being understood, her grandparents, with a sort of stupefaction, listened and looked on. Emma was knitting all the time in the German way, with a very slight swift movement of her fingers and without looking at her work. She spoke slowly, with an air of such undoubted fact and practical commonplace about her, that those two old people, who each in their several ways indulged in fancy and sentiment, were daunted and silenced. Emma spoke in a sort of saintly simplicity, as not knowing that anything beyond those solid primitive foundations, anything like sentiment or fancy, was in the world.
She was not handsome like her brother, and yet there was something remarkable about her appearance which some people admired. Her hair was dark, her features sufficiently good. The strange thing in her was her eyes, which were very light in colour – so light, that sometimes there seemed no colour at all in them. This was not beautiful, but it was bizarre and unusual, and as such Emma had her admirers. But it was only in this particular, not in mind or thoughts, that there was anything in her out of the way.
"Well?" said the old captain to his wife, when, after having yawned softly over her work as a signal and preparation for bed-going, Emma rose with a smile at half-past ten, and kissed them both, and asked if she might have her candle. "I must not keep you out of bed," she said, with that look of complacent consideration which, notwithstanding, was quite innocent and referred to her own circumscribed horizon, in which everything connected with herself was well in the foreground. Mrs. Morgan did not meet her husband's eye as she had met it when Roland was the visitor.
"She has not been well brought up, poor thing!" the old lady said. "She has had no one to care for her – and, Rowley, she is our own flesh and blood."
"That's the wonderful thing," the captain said, "Katie's child! My dear, I give it up; there seems no reason and no sense in it. I cannot think what the Lord can mean."
"Oh, hush, Rowley – nothing, nothing that is not good."
"One would say – that there must be just a crowd of souls ready to put into the new little bodies, and that one must slip down before the other that ought to come; – like that vile cad, you know, that slipped into the pool of Siloam before the poor fellow that had no servant could shuffle down."
"And that was all the better for your poor fellow as it turned out, Rowley, for he got his healing more sweetly out of the very hand – And, poor little spirit, if it was not intended for this body, I can't think it has got very much by its deceit," Mrs. Morgan said, with a little laugh.
But the captain did not laugh. There was consternation in his soul.
"A girl," he said, "with her eyes open to all chances, looking out for a husband, and seriously thinking that is the right thing to do – to come from you and me, Mary – to come from you and me!"
The old lady gave him her hands that he might help her out of her chair, and when she stood upright, tottering a little – for she was not strong upon her legs – she gave him a little playful tap with her finger upon his old cheek.
"You are just a high-flown old sentimentalist," she said. "There is no harm in her. She is only prose to your poetry – which I've always been all our lives, and you've said so many a day."
"Don't blaspheme, old woman, don't blaspheme," the captain said.
But next day, when Hester came in to give them the account – which she knew the old people would expect – of all that had happened, Emma lost no time in making her desires known.
"It must have been a very pretty party," she said; "a conservatory lighted like that is always so nice. It is cool to sit in after you have got heated with dancing. I wish I could have seen you all enjoying yourselves. I am so fond of dancing, and I don't get much; for Roland does not care for dancing parties, and at Waltham Elinor never had time. I suppose you had an invitation, grandmamma, though you are too old to go?"
Here Hester explained, wondering, that there were very few chaperons, and nobody asked but people who were known to dance.
"Ellen says it only tires the others, and what is the use?" Hester said.
"That is very true; she must be judicious – she must have right notions. When do you think my invitation will come, grandmamma? I suppose people will call when they know I am here?"
Here there was a little pause, for even Mrs. Morgan was taken aback by this question, and did not know what to say.
"I am sure," said Hester blushing, after a minute's silence, "that if Miss Ashton would – like it so very much – "
"Oh, I should, of course, very much. I want to know the Redborough people. I like to know the people wherever I go. It is so dull knowing no one," Emma said. "And then it would be so convenient, you know, for I could go with – you – "
To this Hester did not know what to reply; but it was well in one way that the new comer took it all for granted and gave no trouble. Emma made no account of embarrassed looks and hesitating replies. She did not even notice them, but pursued her own way deliberately, impervious to any discouragement, which was more equivocal than a flat "No." She had been used to "noes" very flat and uncompromising, and everything less seemed to her to mean assent. When she had disposed, as she thought, of this question, she went on to another which was of still greater importance.
"But I cannot expect Cousin Catherine to call upon me," she said composedly. "She is too old, and she is always treated as a kind of princess, Roland says. And you are too old to take me, grandmamma. Perhaps I could go with Hester. Would that be the right thing? For they all say I must not neglect Cousin Catherine."
Hester looked aghast upon the young woman, who contemplated them so calmly over her knitting, and talked of neglecting Catherine, and being called upon by the sovereign of society, who left even the Redborough magnates out, and called only upon those who pleased her. Emma went on quite placidly, knitting with the ends of her fingers in that phlegmatic German way, which is an offence to English knitters. The stocking went on dropping in longer and longer lengths from her hands, as if twirling upon a leisurely wheel. She had explained that they were knickerbocker stockings, for Elinor's boys, which she was always busy with.
"She gives me so much for them, for every dozen pairs – and the wool; I make a little by it, and it is much cheaper for her than the shops."
"Your grandfather will take you – some day," said Mrs. Morgan hastily.
"Oh, that will do very well, but it ought to be soon," Emma said. She returned to the subject after Hester had given a further account of the merrymaking of the previous night.
"Are you all great friends?" said Emma, "or are there little factions as there generally are in families? Elinor and William's wife used always to be having tiffs, and then the rest of us had to take sides. I never would. I thought it was wisest not. I was nobody, you know, only the youngest. And when one has to stay a few months here and a few months there, without any home of one's own, it is best to keep out of all these quarrels, don't you think, grandmamma? Roland said there were some old things living here, some old maids that were spiteful."
Now it is curious enough that though the Miss Vernon-Ridgways were not at all approved by their neighbours, it gave these ladies a shock to hear an outsider describe them thus.
"Never mind that," said Mrs. Morgan, almost impatiently. "Are you going further, Hester? If you want my old man, tell him not to stay out too long, for the wind is cold to-day."
"I am going to Redborough," Hester said. "I have some things to do for mamma."
"Oh, you must take me with you," said Emma – "just one moment till I have turned this heel. I never like to leave a heel midway. I want to see Redborough of all things. Grandmamma, you will not mind me leaving you – I want to see all I can, as I don't know how long I may stay."
"Do you mind, Hester?" the old lady said in a little alarm, as having finished the heel, and put her knitting carefully away in a long basket made to hold the length of her needles, Emma went up stairs to get her hat. Hester laughed a little and hesitated, for though she was not moved to enthusiasm by Emma, she was young enough to like the novelty of a new companion, whoever that might be.
"I hope she will not make me take her to see Catherine. Catherine would not be very gracious to any one whom I brought her. Dear Mrs. Morgan, I wanted to ask you – Was Catherine – Did Catherine – "
"What, my dear?"
"Nothing – I can't tell you before any one. It was something I heard from – last night. Yes, I am quite ready, Miss Ashton," Hester said.
"It is grand to be called Miss Ashton, but I wish you would say Emma. It makes me feel as if I were some one's governess when you say Miss Ashton. I nearly was," said Emma. "You know we are a large family, eight of us, and we had no money. I am sure I can't tell how we managed to grow up. It was thanks to Elinor I believe; she was the only one who could manage papa. And now they are all provided for, but only me. Elinor and Bee made very good marriages, and Kate didn't do so badly either, but she's gone to India. The others were to help me between them, but that is not very nice. They are always scheming to have as little of you as they can, and to make the others have too much. I never would give in to that. I always kept to my day. I used to say 'No, Bee, my time is up. I don't mind where you put me (for I never made any fuss in that sort of way, it turns the servants against you), I can sleep anywhere, but you must keep your turn. Elinor sha'n't be put upon if I can help it,' and the short and the long of it was that I had as nearly as possible taken a governess's place."
"That would have been better surely – to be independent," Hester said.
"In some ways. To have a paid salary would be very nice – but it hurts a girl's chance. Oh, yes, it does," said Emma, "there is no doubt of it: people say not when they want to coax you into it, but it does – and as all the others have married so well, of course I was very unwilling to do anything to damage my chance."
"What was your chance?" said Hester with a set countenance: partly she did not know, and partly from the context she divined, and meant to crush her companion with lofty indignation: but Emma was not quick enough to perceive the moral disapproval. She was not even conscious that it was possible to disapprove of such an elemental necessity.
"Oh, you know very well," she said with a little laugh. "I have never been a flirt. I haven't got any inclination that way. Of course in my position I would think it my duty to consider any offer. But I was very nearly driven to the governessing," she continued calmly. "Elinor had visitors coming, and Bee was so ill-natured as to start painting and papering just as I was due there. Can you imagine anything more nasty? just to be able to say she could not take me in! I just said I must take a situation, and they were in a way. But I do really believe I should have done it had it not been for Roland. He said it would suit him very well to have me. He had just got a house of his own, you know, and I could be of use to him. So he took me, which was very kind. It is a little dull after being used to children, but I have scarcely anything to do, and he gives me a little allowance for my clothes. Don't you think it is very kind?"
"I would much rather be a governess," Hester said with a glow of indignant pride. This matter-of-fact description of the state of dependence, which was made without any sense of injury at all, with the composure of an individual fully capable of holding her own and looking for nothing else, had an effect upon her sensitive mind which it is impossible to describe. She shrank from the revelation as if it had been something terrible; and yet it was not terrible at all, but the most calm historic account of a state of affairs which seemed perfectly natural to every one concerned. Emma knew that she would herself have employed any possible expedient to get rid of an unnecessary member of her household, especially such a detrimental as "the youngest" – and she was not angry with Bee.
"Ah, you don't know children," said Emma serenely. "I have been used to them all my life, and I know what demons they are; and then it does so spoil your chances in life. Being with Roland is very nice you know, he never orders me about, and he gives me an allowance for my clothes, as I told you. But it is much duller. At Elinor's and Bee's, and even at William's, there's a little life going on. Now and then you can't help seeing people. Even when your sisters don't wish it, people will ask you out when they know you're there. And I must say that for Elinor, that when she's not worried she does take a little trouble about you, and always likes to see you look nice. To be sure with five boys and a husband in business, she is worried," Emma added with impartiality, "most of the time. What is that big house, that red one, so near the road? Nice people ought to live there."
"That is the Grange," said Hester, with a sudden flush, "that is Catherine Vernon's house."
"Oh – h! But then why should I lose any time? It would look better that I should go at once, the very first day. I suppose you run in whenever you please."
Hester's countenance flamed more than ever. "I never go – except when I go with my mother. Catherine would not care to see you with me. She is very fond of your grandfather and grandmother – but not so fond of us. And she is quite right, we don't deserve it so much," Hester said, flinging back her young head with that movement of natural pride which belonged to her. Just then, to make the situation more complicated, Edward came out from the gate, and seeing the two figures on the road, hesitated for a moment, conscious of Catherine's eye behind him, and Hester's keen consciousness before.
"Oh," said Emma again, "then there are factions? I am sure I am very glad grandpapa is on Catherine's side; for Elinor said, and then Roland told me – Who is that? Oh, then, there are men there? I thought she lived alone. He looks rather nice, though I like men to be taller than that. Mind you introduce me, and walk a little faster please, before he gets away."
Hester's response to this was naturally the indignant one of walking more slowly, so as to give the hesitating figure at the gate full time to get away. But Edward had thought better of it. On the whole, he found it more undesirable to encounter Hester's disdain than anything Catherine would be likely to say. And just at that hour after luncheon Catherine generally abandoned her seat in the window. It was true that he very seldom came back to lunch. He advanced accordingly a few steps from the door, and held out his hand. "I am glad to see you are none the worse of our dissipations last night," he said.
"Introduce me," said Emma, keeping her place close to Hester's side, "we are all cousins together, though we don't know each other. I wanted to go in at once to see Cousin Catherine, whom I have heard of all my life; but she will not let me. Perhaps you will mention it to Cousin Catherine. I will come as soon as I can get grandpapa to bring me. It is so much more formal than I thought. Among relations generally one runs out and in, and never thinks twice, but that does not seem to be your way here."
"No, it is not our way here. We hold each other at arm's length. We are not even civil if we can help it," said Edward, with a laugh and a glance at Hester, who stood, the impersonation of unwilling politeness, holding herself back, in an attitude which said as plainly as words, that though their way was the same she did not choose to be accompanied, by him, along even that common way.
"I see," said Emma. "I am sure I am very sorry I made you stand and talk, Hester, when you dislike it so much. Of course, among relations one understands all that. Do you live here? I remember now Roland told me there were some gentlemen-cousins, but I am quite a stranger, and I don't know anything. Hester is going to take me to see the little town."
"You must not say 'little town' to any of the Redborough people, Miss Ashton."
"Oh, mustn't I? At Waltham nobody minds. I should like to see the Bank where all the Vernon money comes from. The Vernon money has never done us any good I believe, but still when one is connected with money one likes to see all about it at least. Do you think, Hester, this gentleman would be so good as to see about my invitation? I don't know if Mrs. – , I forget her name, who gives the dances – is your sister, Mr. Vernon."
"Mrs. Merridew is my cousin," said Edward.
