Esther went up-stairs to her bedroom, thinking that she should not sleep that night. She set her light on a high stand, and did not touch her dress. What she desired to see with undisturbed clearness were things not present: the rest she needed was the rest of a final choice. It was difficult. On each side there was renunciation.
She drew up her blinds, liking to see the gray sky, where there were some veiled glimmerings of moonlight, and the lines of the forever running river, and the bending movement of the black trees. She wanted the largeness of the world to help her thought. This young creature, who trod lightly backward and forward, and leaned against the window-frame, and shook back her brown curls as she looked at something not visible, had lived hardly more than six months since she saw Felix Holt for the first time. But life is measured by the rapidity of change, the succession of influences that modify the being; and Esther had undergone something little short of an inward revolution. The revolutionary struggle, however, was not quite at an end.
There was something which she now felt profoundly to be the best thing that life could give her. But – if it was to be had at all – it was not to be had without paying a heavy price for it, such as we must pay for all that is greatly good. A supreme love, a motive that gives a sublime rhythm to a woman's life, and exalts habit into partnership with the soul's highest needs, is not to be had where and how she wills: to know that high initiation, she must often tread where it is hard to tread, and feel the chill air, and watch through darkness. It is not true that love makes all things easy: it makes us choose what is difficult. Esther's previous life had brought her into close acquaintance with many negations, and with many positive ills too, not of the acutely painful, but of the distasteful sort. What if she chose the hardship, and had to bear it alone, with no strength to lean upon – no other better self to make a place for trust and joy? Her past experience saved her from illusions. She knew the dim life of the back street, the contact with sordid vulgarity, the lack of refinement for the senses, the summons to a daily task; and the gain that was to make that life of privation something on which she dreaded to turn her back, as if it were heaven – the presence and the love of Felix Holt – was only a quivering hope, not a certainty. It was not in her woman's nature that the hope should not spring within her and make a strong impulse. She knew that he loved her: had he not said how a woman might help a man if she were worthy? and if she proved herself worthy? But still there was the dread that after all she might find herself on the stony road alone, and faint and be weary. Even with the fulfillment of her hope, she knew that she pledged herself to meet high demands.
And on the other side there was a lot where everything seemed easy – but for the fatal absence of those feelings which, now she had once known them, it seemed nothing less than a fall and degradation to do without. With a terrible prescience which a multitude of impressions during her stay at Transome Court had contributed to form, she saw herself in a silken bondage that arrested all motive, and was nothing better than a well-cushioned despair. To be restless amidst ease, to be languid among all appliances for pleasure, was a possibility that seemed to haunt the rooms of this house, and wander with her under the oaks and elms of the park. And Harold Transome's love, no longer a hovering fancy with which she played, but become a serious fact, seemed to threaten her with a stifling oppression. The homage of a man may be delightful until he asks straight for love, by which a woman renders homage. Since she and Felix had kissed each other in the prison, she felt as if she had vowed herself away, as if memory lay on her lips like a seal of possession. Yet what had happened that very evening had strengthened her liking for Harold, and her care for all that regarded him: it had increased her repugnance to turning him out of anything he had expected to be his, or to snatching anything from him on the ground of an arbitrary claim. It had even made her dread, as a coming pain, the task of saying anything to him that was not a promise of the utmost comfort under this newly-disclosed trouble of his.
It was already near midnight, but with these thoughts succeeding and returning in her mind like scenes through which she was living, Esther had a more intense wakefulness than any she had known by day. All had been stillness hitherto, except the fitful wind outside. But her ears now caught a sound within – slight, but sudden. She moved near her door, and heard the sweep of something on the matting outside. It came closer, and paused. Then it began again, and seemed to sweep away from her. Then it approached, and paused as it had done before. Esther listened, wondering. The same thing happened again and again, till she could bear it no longer. She opened the door, and in the dim light of the corridor, where the glass above seemed to make a glimmering sky, she saw Mrs. Transome's tall figure pacing slowly, with her cheek upon her hand.
CHAPTER L
The great question in life is the suffering we cause: and the utmost ingenuity of metaphysics cannot justify the man who has pierced the heart that loved him. – Benjamin Constant.
When Denner had gone up to her mistress's room to dress her for dinner, she had found her seated just as Harold had found her, only with eyelids drooping and trembling over slowly-rolling tears – nay, with a face in which every sensitive feature, every muscle, seemed to be quivering with a silent endurance of some agony.
Denner went and stood by the chair a minute without speaking, only laying her hand gently on Mrs. Transome's. At last she said beseechingly, "Pray, speak, madam. What has happened?"
"The worst, Denner – the worst."
"You are ill. Let me undress you, and put you to bed."
"No, I am not ill. I am not going to die! I shall live – I shall live!"
"What may I do?"
"Go and say I shall not dine. Then you may come back, if you will."
The patient waiting-woman came back and sat by her mistress in motionless silence, Mrs. Transome would not let her dress be touched, and waved away all proffers with a slight movement of her hand. Denner dared not even light a candle without being told. At last, when the evening was far gone, Mrs. Transome said:
"Go down, Denner, and find out where Harold is, and come back and tell me."
"Shall I ask him to come to you, madam?"
"No; don't dare to do it, if you love me. Come back."
Denner brought word that Mr. Harold was in his study, and that Miss Lyon was with him. He had not dined, but had sent later to ask Miss Lyon to go into his study.
"Light the candles and leave me."
"Mayn't I come again?"
"No. It may be that my son will come to me."
"Mayn't I sleep on the little bed in your bedroom?"
"No, good Denner; I am not ill. You can't help me."
"That's the hardest word of all, madam."
"The time will come – but not now. Kiss me. Now go."
The small quiet old woman obeyed, as she had always done. She shrank from seeming to claim an equal's share in her mistress's sorrow.
For two hours Mrs. Transome's mind hung on what was hardly a hope – hardly more than the listening for a bare possibility. She began to create the sounds that her anguish craved to hear – began to imagine a footfall, and a hand upon the door. Then, checked by continual disappointment, she tried to rouse a truer consciousness by rising from her seat and walking to her window, where she saw streaks of light moving and disappearing on the grass, and heard the sound of bolts and closing doors. She hurried away and threw herself into her seat again, and buried her head in the deafening down of the cushions. There was no sound of comfort to her.
Then her heart cried out within her against the cruelty of this son. When he turned from her in the first moment, he had not had time to feel anything but the blow that had fallen on himself. But afterward – was it possible that he should not be touched with a son's pity – was it possible that he should not have been visited by some thought of the long years through which she had suffered? The memory of those years came back to her now with a protest against the cruelty that had all fallen on her. She started up with a new restlessness from this spirit of resistance. She was not penitent. She had borne too hard a punishment. Always the edge of calamity had fallen on her. Who had felt for her? She was desolate. God had no pity, else her son would not have been so hard. What dreary future was there after this dreary past? She, too, looked out into the dim night; but the black boundary of trees and the long line of the river seemed only part of the loneliness and monotony of her life.
Suddenly she saw a light on the stone balustrades of the balcony that projected in front of Esther's window, and the flash of a moving candle falling on a shrub below. Esther was still awake and up. What had Harold told her – what had passed between them? Harold was fond of this young creature, who had been always sweet and reverential to her. There was mercy in her young heart; she might be a daughter who had no impulse to punish and to strike her whom fate had stricken. On the dim loneliness before her she seemed to see Esther's gentle look; it was possible still that the misery of this night might be broken by some comfort. The proud woman yearned for the caressing pity that must dwell in that young bosom. She opened her door gently, but when she had reached Esther's she hesitated. She had never yet in her life asked for compassion – had never thrown herself in faith on an unproffered love. And she might have gone on pacing the corridor like an uneasy spirit without a goal, if Esther's thought, leaping toward her, had not saved her from the need to ask admission.
Mrs. Transome was walking toward the door when it opened. As Esther saw that image of restless misery, it blent itself by a rapid flash with all that Harold had said in the evening. She divined that the son's new trouble must be one with the mother's long sadness. But there was no waiting. In an instant Mrs. Transome felt Esther's arm round her neck, and a voice saying softly —
"Oh, why didn't you call me before?"
They turned hand and hand into the room, and sat down on a sofa at the foot of the bed. The disordered gray hair – the haggard face – the reddened eyelids under which the tears seemed to be coming again with pain, pierced Esther to the heart. A passionate desire to soothe this suffering woman came over her. She clung round her again, and kissed her poor quivering lips and eyelids, and laid her young cheek against the pale and haggard one. Words could not be quick or strong enough to utter her yearning. As Mrs. Transome felt that soft clinging, she said —
"God has some pity on me."
"Rest on my bed," said Esther. "You are so tired. I will cover you up warmly, and then you will sleep."
"No – tell me, dear – tell me what Harold said."
"That he has had some new trouble."
"He said nothing hard about me?"
"No – nothing. He did not mention you."
"I have been an unhappy woman, dear."
"I feared it," said Esther, pressing her gently.
"Men are selfish. They are selfish and cruel. What they care for is their own pleasure and their own pride."
"Not all," said Esther, on whom these words fell with a painful jar.
"All I have ever loved," said Mrs. Transome. She paused a moment or two, and then said, "For more than twenty years I have not had an hour's happiness. Harold knows it, and yet he is hard to me."
"He will not be. To-morrow he will not be. I am sure he will be good," said Esther, pleadingly. "Remember – he said to me his trouble was new – he has not had time."
"It is too hard to bear, dear," Mrs. Transome said, a new sob rising as she clung fast to Esther in return. "I am old, and expect so little now – a very little thing would seem great. Why should I be punished any more?"
Esther found it difficult to speak. The dimly-suggested tragedy of this woman's life, the dreary waste of years empty of sweet trust and affection, afflicted her even to horror. It seemed to have come as a last vision to urge her toward the life where the draughts of joy sprang from the unchanging fountains of reverence and devout love.
But all the more she longed to still the pain of this heart that beat against hers.
"Do let me go to your own room with you, and let me undress you, and let me tend upon you," she said, with a woman's gentle instinct. "It will be a very great thing to me. I shall seem to have a mother again. Do let me."
Mrs. Transome yielded at last, and let Esther soothe her with a daughter's tendance. She was undressed and went to bed; and at last dozed fitfully, with frequent starts. But Esther watched by her till the chills of morning came, and then she only wrapped more warmth around her, and slept fast in the chair till Denner's movement in the room roused her. She started out of a dream in which she was telling Felix what had happened to her that night.
Mrs. Transome was now in the sounder morning sleep which sometimes comes after a long night of misery. Esther beckoned Denner into the dressing-room, and said:
"It is late, Mrs. Hickes. Do you think Mr. Harold is out of his room?"
"Yes, a long while; he was out earlier than usual."
"Will you ask him to come up here? Say I begged you."
When Harold entered Esther was leaning against the back of the empty chair where yesterday he had seen his mother sitting. He was in a state of wonder and suspense, and when Esther approached him and gave him her hand, he said, in a startled way —
"Good God! how ill you look! Have you been sitting up with my mother?"
"Yes. She is asleep now," said Esther. They had merely pressed hands by way of greeting, and now stood apart looking at each other solemnly.
"Has she told you anything?" said Harold.
"No, only that she is wretched. Oh, I think I would bear a great deal of unhappiness to save her from having any more."
A painful thrill passed through Harold, and showed itself in his face with that pale rapid flash which can never be painted. Esther pressed her hands together, and said, timidly, though it was from an urgent prompting —
"There is nothing in all this place – nothing since ever I came here – I could care for so much as that you should sit down by her now, and that she should see you when she wakes."
Then with delicate instinct, she added, just laying her hand on his sleeve, "I know you would have come. I know you meant it. But she is asleep now. Go gently before she wakes."
Harold just laid his right hand for an instant on the back of Esther's as it rested on his sleeve, and then stepped softly to his mother's bedside.
An hour afterward, when Harold had laid his mother's pillow afresh, and sat down again by her, she said —
"If that dear thing will marry you, Harold, it will make up to you for a great deal."
But before the day closed Harold knew that this was not to be. That young presence, which had flitted like a white new-winged dove over all the saddening relics and new finery of Transome Court, could not find its home there. Harold heard from Esther's lips that she loved some one else, and that she resigned all claim to the Transome estates. She wished to go back to her father.
CHAPTER LI
The maiden said, I wis the londe
Is very fair to see,
But my true-love that is in bonde
Is fairer still to me.
One April day, when the sun shone on the lingering raindrops, Lyddy was gone out, and Esther chose to sit in the kitchen, in the wicker-chair against the white table, between the fire and the window. The kettle was singing, and the clock was ticking steadily toward four o'clock.
She was not reading, but stitching; and as her fingers moved nimbly, something played about her parted lips like a ray. Suddenly she laid down her work, pressed her hands together on her knees, and bent forward a little. The next moment there came a loud rap at the door. She started up and opened it, but kept herself hidden behind it.
"Mr. Lyon at home?" said Felix, in his firm tones.
"No, sir," said Esther from behind her screen; "but Miss Lyon is, if you'll please to walk in."
"Esther!" exclaimed Felix, amazed.
They held each other by both hands, and looked into each other's faces with delight.
"You are out of prison?"
"Yes, till I do something bad again. But you? – how is it all?"
"Oh, it is," said Esther, smiling brightly as she moved toward the wicker chair, and seated herself again, "that everything is as usual: my father is gone to see the sick; Lyddy is gone in deep despondency to buy the grocery; and I am sitting here, with some vanity in me, needing to be scolded."
Felix had seated himself on a chair that happened to be near her, at the corner of the table. He looked at her still with questioning eyes – he grave, she mischievously smiling.
"Are you come back to live here then?"
"Yes."
"You are not going to be married to Harold Transome, or to be rich?"
"No." Something made Esther take up her work again, and begin to stitch. The smiles were dying into a tremor.
"Why?" said Felix, in rather a low tone, leaning his elbow on the table, and resting his head on his hand while he looked at her.
"I did not wish to marry him, or to be rich."
"You have given it all up?" said Felix, leaning forward a little, and speaking in a still lower tone. Esther did not speak. They heard the kettle singing and the clock loudly ticking. There was no knowing how it was: Esther's work fell, their eyes met; and the next instant their arms were round each other's necks, and once more they kissed each other.
When their hands fell again, their eyes were bright with tears. Felix laid his hand on her shoulder.
"Could you share the life of a poor man, then, Esther?"
"If I thought well enough of him," she said, the smile coming again, with the pretty saucy movement of her head.
"Have you considered well what it would be? – that it would be a very bare and simple life?"
"Yes – without atta of rose."
Felix suddenly removed his hand from her shoulder, rose from his chair, and walked a step or two; then he turned round and said, with deep gravity —
"And the people I shall live among, Esther? They have not just the same follies and vices as the rich, but they have their own forms of folly and vice; and they have not what are called the refinements of the rich to make their faults more bearable. I don't say more bearable to me – I'm not fond of those refinements; but you are."
Felix paused an instant, and then added —
"It is very serious, Esther."
"I know it is serious," said Esther, looking up at him. "Since I have been at Transome Court I have seen many things very seriously. If I had not, I should not have left what I did leave. I made a deliberate choice."
Felix stood a moment or two, dwelling on her with a face where the gravity gathered tenderness.
"And these curls?" he said, with a sort of relenting, seating himself again, and putting his hand on them.
"They cost nothing – they are natural."
"You are such a delicate creature."
"I am very healthy. Poor women, I think, are healthier than the rich. Besides," Esther went on, with a mischievous meaning, "I think of having some wealth."
"How?" said Felix, with an anxious start. "What do you mean?"
"I think even of two pounds a week: one needn't live up to the splendor of all that, you know; we might live as simply as you liked: there would be money to spare, and you could do wonders, and be obliged to work too, only not if sickness came. And then I think of a little income for your mother, enough for her to live as she has been used to live; and a little income for my father, to save him from being dependent when he is no longer able to preach."
Esther said all this in a playful tone, but she ended, with a grave look of appealing submission —
"I mean – if you approve. I wish to do what you think it will be right to do."
Felix put his hand on her shoulder again and reflected a little while, looking on the hearth: then he said, lifting up his eyes, with a smile at her —
"Why, I shall be able to set up a great library, and lend the books to be dog's-eared and marked with bread-crumbs."
Esther said, laughing, "You think you are to be everything. You don't know how clever I am. I mean to go on teaching a great many things."
"Teaching me?"
"Oh, yes," she said, with a little toss; "I shall improve your French accent."
"You won't want me to wear a stock," said Felix, with a defiant shake of the head.
"No; and you will not attribute stupid thoughts to me before I've uttered them."
They laughed merrily, each holding the other's arms, like girl and boy. There was the ineffable sense of youth in common.
Then Felix leaned forward, that their lips might meet again, and after that his eyes roved tenderly over her face and curls.
"I'm a rough, severe fellow, Esther. Shall you never repent? – never be inwardly reproaching me that I was not a man who could have shared your wealth? Are you quite sure?"
"Quite sure!" said Esther, shaking her head; "for then I should have honored you less. I am weak – my husband must be greater and nobler than I am."
"Oh, I tell you what, though!" said Felix, starting up, thrusting his hands into his pockets, and creasing his brow playfully, "if you take me in that way I shall be forced to be a much better fellow than I ever thought of being."
"I call that retribution," said Esther, with a laugh as sweet as the morning thrush.