Hester: A Story of Contemporary Life, Volume 3 (of 3)

CHAPTER XII. CHAPTER XII. AFTERWARDS. Hester woke next morning in an unfamiliar room with a consciousness of something strange and terrible that had happened, she could not tell what, that first sensation before memory awakens which is one of the most bitter indications of having entered upon the world of evil. So the guilty pair in Paradise, in the morning of the world, must have woke out of their sleep, and felt, before remembrance came, the sense of ill. She scarcely remembered how she had been transported to that bed. She had slept for sorrow, calamity crushing all her unused faculties, and her first waking sensation was one of trouble and wonder what it was. She had not long to wait before the whole came rushing back upon her mind. She gave a low cry, and all her wounds began to bleed anew—nay, she felt them as for the first time, for last night's terror and commotion and misery were like a dream to her. When she uttered that cry, there was a soft stir in the room, and a little, noiseless figure, and anxious face appeared at her bedside. "Mother!" Hester cried, with a voice of dismay. "Yes, my darling, I am here. Catherine was so good as to send for me. She said you had received a great shock. She went out herself very early, so that you need not be afraid of being disturbed, Hester. And what is it, my dear? She would not give me any satisfaction. She said you had behaved very well, and had been the means of giving her valuable information. I am very glad of that anyhow, Hester. I always told you she was kind in the main. If you and she should be better friends after this it would be a great pleasure to me." There was anxiety in Mrs. John's plaintive face, but it was confined to the fear lest her daughter's health should be affected, and to a little uncertainty whether the relations with Catherine might be improved or injured by this mysterious event, whatever it was. "She has been very kind, mamma." "I was sure of it, my dear. Catherine has a way with her that is not very— nice —sometimes. But then we all have some fault. I was to ring for tea as soon as you were awake. That maid, after all, though I have always had a prejudice against her, is kind too, in her way. She has made me most comfortable. I have always observed in my life, Hester, that when you get to know people you so often think better of them than when— That has been my experience. Do you feel able to take some breakfast, dear? or will you get up first? You are to do exactly as you please." Hester lay still with a little moan, and made no reply. She would have liked to turn her face to the wall, to beg that the light of day might be shut out, that she might be left to make acquaintance with her trouble. But none of these things were possible. Her mother's gentle face shining upon her with so much easy anxiety, and so little conception of anything under the surface, brought her to herself as nothing else could have done. Why should she be troubled with these anguishes that were beyond her? The girl raised herself with that heroism of necessity which is more effectual than mere will. Mrs. John would weep with her, and make up to her with a thousand caresses for the loss of her lover, when she came to understand it; but she would never understand the burden that was on Hester's soul. The girl said to herself that it must be borne silently, that there must be no further betrayal. She begged her mother to leave her a little, while she got up. "I have had a long sleep. I am quite myself again," she said. "You look pale," said Mrs. John, kissing her. "You have had a shock, and you have never told me yet what it was. But perhaps, on the whole, the best thing you can do is to get up; breakfast in bed is not very comfortable. I will go and have a good look at Catherine's pretty things in the drawing-room—she has some nice china—and come back in half an hour or so. Don't hurry, my darling, but it is such a lovely morning; it will do you good to have some fresh air." When Hester was left alone she tried to think, but could not. Scenes came back to her as in a theatre—the meeting at the gate, and all that passed there; Catherine's appearance, and the force with which Edward flung her away from him, and set out into the dark, into the unknown. Why—why had he done it? Was it in a sudden fit of passion, which he had repented of? Was it in the terror of being discovered—and out of that suspicion and opposition, and gloomy distrust which had always been in his mind towards Catherine? And then the railway would rise before her mind—the crowd and noise, and wild unnaturalness of everything, the disappointment which to her at heart was a relief. Had he not gone after all? What if a better thought had struck him? What if, when they all went to the bank, thinking him a traitor, they should find him there, throwing light on everything, putting the wrong right? Hester raised her head again when this thought came into her mind. Was it not after all the most likely, the most natural thought? A man does wrong by temptation, by evil companions, by the leading on of one wrong thing after another; but when he is brought to a pause, when there is a distinct call upon him, when he is made to see beyond dispute what his duty is, is it not natural, certain, that he must do it? So she said to herself. For a moment all the clouds flew away, a warm exhilaration took possession of her. Then there floated up before her eyes another scene—the table round which they had sat in the dead of night; Harry with his troubled face opposite to her; Catherine paramount in her energy and rapidity; she herself putting down upon paper, so quickly that her fingers alone moved and her mind had no share but the most broken and imperfect one, what she was told to write. If he had come back, if he was working now at the re-establishment of everything, could Edward ever forgive them? What matter, what matter, she cried, so long as he set himself right, so long as Vernon's stood by his help and did not fall? From all this it will be seen that nothing of the despair which in reality and in reflection had overwhelmed all the other chief actors in the drama, had touched Hester. To her everything was still possible, and Edward's vindication, Edward's repentance, the chief, the most natural event of all. "Well, my dear, are you ready?" said Mrs. John. "There is quite a nice breakfast waiting for you down stairs. Catherine's maid (whom I really was unjust to, Hester, for she is a very nice woman when you come to know her) insisted upon making you some chocolate instead of tea: for it would be more sustaining, she said, in case you should not be disposed to eat. I don't know why she should think you would not be disposed to eat. I told her you always liked your breakfast. But come, my dear, come, I am sure you must want something. Did you find the clean things I brought you? Oh I thought you would be better in a nice clean print, instead of that dark thing; but you have put on the old one all the same." "It is best for me to-day," Hester said. She thought to herself if it all turned out as she hoped, with what joy she would return to her summer garments in the evening, even if it might be that Edward had broken with her for ever. She thought this almost certain, for had she not turned against him? but this was not the question paramount in her mind. There was but one thing all important, that he should have returned to his post. Mrs. John was greatly surprised at the wisdom of that prevision on the part of Catherine's maid. How could she have foreseen that Hester, a healthy girl, with generally a healthy appetite, would turn away almost with loathing from the dainty food, the pretty tray, the careful provision made for her? She swallowed the chocolate hastily at her mother's entreaty: the very air of the house, those stairs and passages, all flooded with light, which had painted themselves on her recollection in the darkness, filled Hester with a sense of the intolerable. She made haste to get out, to get away, to take her mother home. "Don't you think it will only be polite to wait till Catherine comes back?" Mrs. John said. "You must remember, dear, that she has been very kind to you; and nothing could be kinder than her note, and sending the carriage for me this morning, and all. I think we ought to wait and thank her for her kindness. She will think it strange that we should go away without a word. Well, if you think it really will be better to come back in the afternoon, Hester—Has Catherine gone out to spend the day? That is quite unusual, surely for her—but however, of course it is not our business. Lean on my arm, my dear. I am sure, as you say, the air will do you good." The air did not do Hester good: the shade of the holly-tree lying motionless upon the road, the half open gate at which Catherine had appeared in the darkness, the strange intelligence that seemed to be in every bush, as if these inanimate things knew and remembered what had been done and said in secret, seemed to bring conviction, and force back upon her all the scenes she had gone through of which her innocent mother knew nothing. And every inch of the way recalled her own proud, eager thoughts of the night before, the desperation with which she had gone to that meeting, determined upon her protest and refusal, yet never sure that she would ever retrace these steps again. To retrace them now as she was doing, with her mother's gentle talk in her ears, the occasional mild question which it was so easy to elude, the praises of Catherine which her supposed kindness called forth so easily, seemed an incredible thing. Mrs. John enjoyed the walk. It was seldom she went out in the morning, and the excitement of her daughter's absence all night, of Catherine's explanations, of the drawing together of some new and closer bond between Hester and the head of the Vernon society—the most important person of all the kindred—gave her a secret exhilaration. There had not been such a sensation in the Vernonry for months as that which had been caused that morning by the sight of Catherine's well-known brougham, sent for Mrs. John! It might be that in future this would be no rare sight: it might be—but the poor lady scarcely knew how to contain the satisfaction with which she saw the vista opening up before her of Hester's promotion and favour with Catherine. Valuable information! She was proud of what seemed to her like the highest praise. She always knew that her Hester, so much superior as she was to other girls——if Catherine but knew her as she deserved to be known. And then she asked with pleasant expectation— "What was the information, Hester, that you gave Catherine? I am so glad that you were able to tell her something she didn't know. I was quite in a flutter when I got her note last night; but of course it was perfectly right for you to stay when she wished it. I shall tell her I am so much obliged to her for having taken such good care of you. It gave me quite a fright for the moment, but I soon got over it. And Emma, you know, went away at last by the night train." Thus Mrs. John diverted her own attention and never pressed a question. But it is impossible to tell how deserted, how silent, how far out of the world and life the little rooms at the Vernonry looked after the agitation of the night. Hester could not rest in them: the summer forenoon seemed a twelve-month long. She could not take up any of her usual occupations. She was afraid to meet any one, to be questioned perhaps more closely than her mother had questioned her. Her heart was away, it was not in this place. In the pauses of Mrs. John's gentle talk she felt her own thoughts thronging upon her almost audibly. It seemed impossible that other people, that even her mother, unsuspicious as she was, should not find her out. And how slow, how slow were those sunshiny minutes, sixty of them in an hour! The time of the early dinner came, and again Hester turned from the food. Mrs. John began to be alarmed. "If it goes on like this I shall have to send for the doctor," she said. Hester hastened out as soon as the meal was over to escape from her mother's comments. It seemed to her that she recognised some new knowledge in the keen glances of the sisters, and in Mr. Mildmay Vernon's grin as he sat over his newspaper in the summer-house. And she was afraid of the old Morgans, who had more insight. The surroundings of the house altogether were odious to her—unnecessary things that had nothing to do with those real affairs and mysteries of living which were being solved elsewhere. She asked herself wistfully, whether it was not time for her to go back: though if Catherine had not returned, what could she do but cause suspicion if she went to the empty house? To be even in the empty house would be something—it would be so much nearer the scene in which everything was going on. While she stood with her hand curved over her forehead looking out upon the road, with her eyes "busy in the distance shaping things that made her heart beat quick," the old captain came up to her. She thought he was paler than usual, and his eyes were troubled. He had laid his hand on her shoulder before she heard his approach, so absorbed was she in her own thoughts. He took her by the arm in his fatherly way— "Come with me, Hester, and talk to my old woman," he said. It was with a great start that she turned to him, trembling with nervousness all unknown to the Hester of yesterday. "Is she ill?" she cried, scarcely knowing what she said; and then with a vague smile, "I forgot. Emma is gone, and she is missing—" "It is not Emma we are thinking of. Hester, tell me," said the old man, leading her away with her arm in his, "what is this about Catherine? What has happened? Your mother told us you were there all night, and now to-day——" "What do they say has happened?" cried Hester with a gasp of suspense. "I cannot make head nor tail of it. I hear that one of the young men has gone wrong; that Catherine is at the bank; that there are great defalcations; that he went off last night——I can testify," cried Captain Morgan, querulously, "that he did not go away last night, for I was there." Hester looked up at him with a face from which all colour had fled. "Is it known who it is? are you sure he has not come back? Oh, I have a feeling," she cried, "a feeling in my heart that he has come back!" "My child," said the old captain, "you may trust her and me. Whatever it is, it is safe with her and me." Mrs. Morgan was sitting at the window in her summer place; her placid brow had a cloud upon it, but was not agitated like her husband's. "Have you come back to us, Hester?" she said. "We thought we had lost you. If you can satisfy his mind with anything you can say, do it, my dear." "What can I say?" Hester cried. "We are all in great trouble. I don't know which is the greatest, but I cannot tell you secrets that are not mine. Dear Mrs. Morgan, tell the captain so. Whatever I know it is by accident. I think I shall die with anxiety and suspense, but there is nothing I can say." "My dear, you will not die, you will live to be anxious many another day. Rowley, my old man, you hear the child. We must not ask her another question. Wait, as you have waited many a time before. It is all in the Lord's hands." The old man was wiping the moisture from his forehead: he had seated himself as soon as he came in, his old limbs were shaking under him. His large, colourless hands shook, holding his handkerchief. "Mary," he said, "if it is my flesh and blood that has brought this disturbance into the place, that has seduced her boy, and brought down ruin on her house, how am I ever to lift my head again?" The old lady looked at him with pathetic eyes, in which there was a suffering as acute as his own, softened and made almost bright by the patience and calm that were habitual to her. "Rowley, we are not thinking of Catherine, we are thinking of ourselves," she said. And then there was a pause. It seemed to Hester that her own brokenheartedness was a sort of child's passion in comparison. She said humbly— "Will you tell me what you are afraid of? There is nobody blamed but one. There is not a name spoken of but one. I don't know if that is any comfort to you, Captain Morgan." "And the one is her boy, the apple of her eye, the only one that she has trusted, her choice out of all the world," the old lady said. "Oh be silent, be silent, my old man! What is your pride to that? I would rather I had a share of the burden—I would like to be suffering with her." The tears stood in the deep wells of those old eyes, which had wept so much. She was past weeping now. "The Lord forgive him and bring him back," she said. "You mean punish him, you mean give him over to the powers of darkness that he belongs to! What does he deserve, a man that has used a woman like that?" "I am not asking what he deserves. I will tell you what he would get if he would come back. Pardon!" said the old woman with a sob, instinctively putting out her old soft hands. "I am not for pardon," said the captain vehemently, his head moving in his agitation, his hands shaking. "I am for every soul bearing its own burden. Here is a woman that has spread prosperity around her. She has been kind, even when she has not been merciful. The grateful and the ungrateful, she has been good to them all. She has been like the sun shining and the rain raining upon both just and unjust. And here is the end of her, stung to her heart by the child of her bosom. For it will be the end of her. She is a grand woman. She won't bear being deceived." "Do not say that," said Hester; "she is so strong, stronger than any of us—if you had seen her last night!" "Where could I have seen her last night?" he said quickly; then, with a smile, "that is all you know, you children. Yes, stronger than any one of you, able to do everything. Do you remember the French boy in Browning's ballad, Hester, that could not bear it when his Emperor asked if he were wounded? 'I'm killed, sire!' That is like Catherine. She stands like a tower. I can see her in my mind's eye. She needs no sleep, no rest: but she is killed for all that." Hester rose to her feet as he spoke in an excitement she could not control. "I must go," she said. "I must go—I might be wanted." The old man rose and hobbled out after her. He followed her to the gate. "I will wait while you get your hat. I am coming with you," he said. "We cannot rest, Hester, neither you nor I." Mrs. John was dozing in her chair as she generally did in the afternoon. She opened her eyes and said, "Are you going for a walk, dear?" then closed them tranquilly again. The very atmosphere in the brown wainscotted parlour breathed of peace and quiet uncongenial with any such throbbings as those in Hester's heart. She joined the old man, who was waiting for her at the door, and they went on together, saying little. The great window in the Grange where Catherine usually sat commanding the road was vacant. There was a certain deserted air about the place. They knew without a word that Catherine was still out of it. "It is too far for you to go," Hester said. Though they had not spoken for a long time they understood each other à demi-mot . "It is too far for me," said he, "but what does that matter? everything will soon be too far for me. Let me go on while I can." They walked as far as the bank, where their anxious eyes made out the people lingering about, the air of curiosity and excitement. Old Captain Morgan hobbled up to Mr. Merridew, who was making his way out with a serious face. "You will excuse me for my anxiety, sir," he said, "but will you tell me if Miss Vernon is there, and what is going on?" "That is an easy question you are asking me," said Mr. Merridew, eying him closely; "certainly Miss Vernon is there." "I am her near relation," said the old man, "and you are connected with her by marriage." "I know very well who you are, Captain Morgan: a distinguished officer, though people have not found it out here. If you can lend Miss Vernon substantial help I advise you to do it at once." Captain Morgan drew back a little: he gave Hester a pathetic glance. They retired slowly with lingering steps from the vicinity of Vernon's. They understood all without knowing anything. "There is the bitterness of having nothing," said the old captain, "and that man knew it, Hester. I would coin myself if I could, for her, and yet I cannot help her." Neither of them knew about business, nor how men like Mr. Merridew, who had been listening all day long to Catherine's explanations and arguments without being moved, could save the bank still if they would. But they felt in their hearts the dull opposition of his face, the shake of his head, the nature of his advice to one whom he knew to be a poor man, to help her now. "Money is a wonderful thing," said Captain Morgan; "it can do so much and yet so little. If you or I were rich as we are poor, we could make Catherine think for half an hour that she had surmounted everything." "Why for half an hour, Captain Morgan?" said Hester. "Because, my dear, at the end of that time Vernon's being safe, there would come back upon her that from which neither heaven nor earth can deliver her." "Oh, Captain Morgan, do not say so. Cannot Heaven, cannot God, deliver from everything?" cried Hester, with a sense of horror. "Ay, in a way that He uses always at the end—by death. At least we think death will do that for us; but it is only a guess even then. How otherwise?" said the old man, raising his dim old eyes beneath their heavy lids. "What is done cannot be undone. If the boy were to be touched with compunction too late and come back, even that would not restore the past." "Why not?" she said, "why not? We could forgive him." It was the first acknowledgment she had made of any share in the catastrophe. "Forgive him! You speak as if that could change anything! What is your forgiveness? You seem to think it is a thing, not so many words." Then after they had gone a little while in silence the old man burst forth again. "You could forgive him! A man wants not forgiveness, but to make up for his sins. You think it is like giving him a fortune to give him your pardon, as if he could set up again, and make a new beginning upon that. Forgiveness may save a man's soul, but it does not save his honour or his life. You could have him back and let him live upon you, and eat out your hearts with his baseness trying to make it show like virtue. But Catherine is too noble a creature for that," cried the old captain. "Thank God she has never been broken down to that." This torrent of words overwhelmed Hester; they had turned into the quiet road again, and the girl fell into a low sobbing and weeping as she went. She was too much overstrained to be able to control herself. Yet her heart struggled against this sentence. "If you love any one is it only while he is good?" she said. "Is it noble to cast him from you because he has gone wrong? Then what is love or faithfulness? Are they nothing—nothing?" She knew now that he had not come back. Honour had not moved him, nor love, nor any nobler impulse. She could have flung herself upon the earth in her misery. She felt that a touch now would be too much—that she could bear nothing further. And her companion saw that she was beyond the reach of any argument. He was silent, and they moved slowly along together, he tottering on his aged limbs, scarcely able to get along. "Soon everything will be too far for me," he said with a half-pleased, almost satisfied nodding of his head. It took them a long time to get home, and the old captain was so worn out that he could not rise from his chair again that evening. He and his old wife sat sadly, saying something to each other once in half an hour. They could think of nothing but Catherine. They kept up their broken musing discussion upon her and her fate as the slow summer evening again crept silently by. But Hester could not rest. She satisfied her mother easily that it was right she should go back to the Grange and find out if she could be of use. "It is what I was going to suggest, my dear," said Mrs. John. "If Edward Vernon is away, as you say, and nobody with her, she must be lonely. And if there is any trouble besides—though you have never rightly explained to me what it was. No no, dear, I don't mean to say it is your fault. No doubt you have told me, and I have not taken it up. To be sure, Hester, you must go; and though I cannot bear to be without you, yet if Catherine wants you, and she is in trouble, stay. I am sure she would do as much for me," said the simple soul, without any cold breathings of doubt. She went to the gate with Hester, and when she came back could not help giving her neighbours a little sketch of the state of affairs. "My Hester has gone back to the Grange," she said, "she will probably stay there all night. Catherine Vernon wrote me the nicest note to tell me my child had been of so much use to her; that is always gratifying to a mother." "Of use!" cried the ladies both together. "Gracious goodness, what can be going to happen? Hester of use!" cried one sister. "And to Catherine!" said the other. "Dear Catherine, she tells you so to please you—when probably she is thinking you the greatest bore—" "She likes something new to experiment upon," said Mr. Mildmay Vernon with a snarl. Mrs. John was much discouraged by this reception of her news. She said— "You little know my child if you think she will be experimented upon," holding her head high; but when she got indoors she cried a little over their ill-nature. If it had been one of them who had been chosen how different would have been their tone. Had the brougham been sent express for Miss Matilda or Miss Martha, what airs they would have given themselves! and Mrs. John knew that she had given herself no airs: she had not said a word. But she could not be silent about the promotion of her child. CHAPTER XIII. AN INTERRUPTION. Catherine was in her usual chair in the familiar room where she had lived for so many years. These walls had witnessed most of the pleasantnesses and disappointments of her life; within them she had grown into that amused spectatorship of all the pranks of human creatures which it had pleased her to think was her characteristic attitude, indulgent to everybody, seeing through everybody. They had never seen her in the aspect which she bore now, beaten down under the stroke of fate. She was too far gone even to be conscious of the extraordinary irony of life which had made of the one only creature to whom she had been consciously unjust, whom she had considered from her childhood as an enemy, her sole ministrant and sympathiser now. But she was not conscious even of Hester's presence, who, overpowered by a great awe of the suffering which she shared, kept herself in the background, recognising, as so few watchers do, that she was there for the sake of the sorrowful woman whom she watched, and not at all for her own. Catherine lay back in her chair, her head thrown back, her eyelids half closed. She did not move, except now and then to put up her hand and dry the moisture which collected slowly under her eyelids. It could not be called tears. It was that extorted dew of pain which comes when the heart seems pressed and crushed in some giant grasp. She was not thinking, any more than it is inevitable to think as long as life remains. She was only suffering, nothing more. She could not make any head against it. Her last stronghold had fallen. This it is which makes calamity so terrible to the old. She could not get beyond it. There was nothing, nothing in her path but this, blocking it across with a darkness that would never be dispersed. If he had died she would have known she could not remain long behind him, and the gloom would have been but a mist between; but he had not died. The thought of searching for him through the world, of holding out succour to him when he came to need, of forgiving, that last prerogative of love, was scarcely in her nature. It was hers rather to feel that deep impossibility of re-beginning, the misery and pain of any struggle to make the base seem noble, which is as true a sentiment as the other. She could not have done it. To many women it is the highest form of self-abnegation as it is the bitterest lot that can be borne on earth; but to Catherine it would not have been possible. The blow to her was final. There was but one thing—to fight for Vernon's to the last gasp, to ward off disgrace and failure from the name, to keep the ground it had occupied so long, against possibility, against hope; but after that no more—no more. She had borne herself bravely as long as any eye was upon her, betraying nothing; and had sat down to table and tried to eat, with that utter self-mastery which will sustain the life it loathes with sedulous care so long as it is necessary—talking to Hester at intervals, giving Marshall directions as if nothing had happened. She had been first impatient, then satisfied to find the girl there. Her presence was a help in that needful struggle. Catherine went up stairs after dinner as usual. Nothing was changed; but when she had attained to that shelter, she could do no more. She put back her head and closed her eyes, and gave herself up to the endurance of her death-blow. At the other end of the room Hester sat motionless. A keen-sighted spectator would have seen the outline of her figure in her dark dress, but nothing more. She was watching, forgetting her own share, intent upon the other. Her mind was full of what the old captain had said, "I'm killed, sire." Hester watched with a great awe, wondering if even thus, in the silence, without any more demonstration, a woman might die. She thought in her heart it would be well; but being so young she was afraid. And the silence was so deep, more deep than life could tolerate. She watched eagerly for that sole movement, the lifting of Catherine's hand to dry away the moisture from her eyes. This stillness was broken suddenly by a loud knocking at the door—a continued volley of knocks, accompanied by the sound of voices outside. Then this sound surged inwards, and hasty steps were heard rushing up stairs. Hester's heart leaped to her mouth. It could not be that he would come back with such a noise and outcry; but yet a sort of frantic hope took possession of her as she rose to her feet. Catherine had raised herself too, and sat with her eyes widely open fixed upon the door. They had not long to wait. The door was flung open, dashing against a cabinet which stood near, with a superfluity of noise and emphasis; and, sweeping away the silence before her, and every possibility of calm, Ellen Merridew burst into the room, her eyes inflamed with crying, her fair countenance streaked with red, her light locks standing up round her face. She was followed by her husband, trying to hold her back, and by Marshall in the rear, eager—under a respectable semblance of attending the hasty visitors—to give accuracy to the floating suspicions of the servants' hall, and find out what it was all about. Ellen rushed in, and gazed about her wildly. "Where is he?" she cried. "Oh, Aunt Catherine, where is he? You are hiding him, I said you would hide him, whatever he did. Oh, is it nothing to you if he goes and ruins people that never did him any harm?—young people like us that have all our life before us, and a dear baby to be turned out upon the world. Oh, Aunt Catherine, if you have any heart at all, where is he, where is he? I'll have him to justice!" cried Ellen. "I'll not sit under it. I won't—not if he should kill me! I want Edward. Where is Edward? I sha'n't go out of this till you give him up to me. He has ruined us, he has ruined us!" cried the excited creature, bursting into a transport of passionate tears. There had been a moment of bewildered struggle in Catherine's face; then she rose up with what seemed to the excited new comers her usual composure. "What does all this mean?" she said, in her quiet voice. Hester had shut the door upon the servant's curiosity; Ellen crying violently, and poor Algernon, endeavouring vainly to console her, stood between the two, in the centre of the room. It was all that poor young Merridew could do not to weep too. "I am sure you will forgive her, Miss Vernon," he said, in faltering tones. "We are nearly out of our senses. Oh, don't cry, my dearest; whatever they do they can't part us, and I'll work for you and baby. I'll work till I drop. Miss Vernon, if Edward's here—she doesn't mean any harm. She is just off her head, poor girl! and baby not a month old yet. If you will only let us see him, I'll pledge my word——" "Algy, hold your tongue!" cried Ellen amidst her sobs, stamping her foot. "Hold your tongue, I tell you. She'll never, never give him up—never till she's forced, I know that. She has always liked that fellow better than the whole of us put together. And we've every one kotoued to him for her sake. He's been the head of everything, though he was nothing but a poor—— And as frightened of her as a dog, and hated her all the time. Oh yes, Aunt Catherine, you may believe me or not, but whenever there was a word about you, Edward was always the worst. Of course we all had our remarks to make, I don't say anything different; but he was always the worst. And now he's gone, and led Algy to his ruin," she cried, with another wild outburst. "We have lost every penny. Do you hear me, Aunt Catherine, do you hear me? We're ruined, with a dear baby not a month old, and I that have never got up my strength. Oh yes, Algy, yes, dear. I know you'll work till you drop. But what good will that do to me, to have you work yourself to death, and to be left a widow at my age, with a baby to support? And, Aunt Catherine, it will all be your fault," cried Ellen. "Yes, it will be your fault. If you hadn't made such a fuss about him, who would have ever trusted him? It was because of you I gave my consent. I said Aunt Catherine will never let him come to harm. And now here it has all come to smash, and me and Algy are ruined. Oh, how can you have the heart? and a dear innocent baby without a word to say for himself! And me at my age—and poor Algy that thought he was making so good a marriage when he got one of the Vernons——" "Nelly, Nelly, darling!" cried the poor young fellow, "I married you because I loved you, not because you were one of the Vernons." "And he had a good right to think so," said Ellen pushing away his caressing arm. "And they all thought so—every one; and now they've turned against me, and say I'm extravagant, and that I've ruined him. Oh! me to have ruined him that thought I was making a man of him! Aunt Catherine! Will you let us all be sacrificed, every one, only to keep Edward from harm?" Catherine Vernon had sunk into her chair, but there was something of the old look of the spectator at a comedy again upon her face. The evening was beginning to fall, and they did not see the almost ghastly colour which had replaced the wonderful complexion of which everybody once spoke. "Make her sit down, Algernon, and stop this raving," she said. "What has happened? I know nothing of it. If you have any claims upon Vernon's you will be paid with the rest—if we stand, till the last penny, if we fall, to the utmost that can be paid. I cannot say any more." They both sat down and gazed at her with consternation on their faces; even Ellen's tears dried up as by magic. After she had stopped, they sat staring as if stupefied. Then Ellen got up, and threw herself at Catherine's feet with a cry of wild dismay. "Aunt Catherine! you don't mean to say that you cannot help us, that you cannot save us? Oh, Aunt Catherine! don't be angry with me. I did not mean to make you angry. I was always silly, you know. You will help us, you will save Algy, you will pay the money, won't you?" She crept close to Catherine, and took her hand and kissed it, looking up piteously, with tears streaming down her face. "You'll do it for me, Aunt Catherine? Oh, though I am silly I am fond of my husband. And he's so good; he's never said it was my fault. And I always knew you would put it right. Aunt Catherine! you will put it right?" Her voice rose into a shrill, despairing cry; then she dropped down helpless, sobbing and moaning, but still holding by Catherine's hand and her dress, whatever she could grasp at, in a passion of incredulity and despair. Then Catherine, who had been so stately, sank back into her chair. "I can't bear any more," she said, "I can't bear any more. For the love of God take her away!" But it was only the sudden appearance of Harry which put an end to this painful scene. He gathered his sister up in his arms, while her husband was ineffectually intreating and reasoning with her, and carried her out of the room, with a severity and sternness which silenced the young pair. "Look here," he said, taking them into the deserted library which had been Edward's room, "we are all in the same box. He has ruined her and us all. You, out of your own confounded folly, the rest of us—I can't tell you how. He has ruined her . God—forgive him!" cried Harry, with a long pause, bringing out the last words with a violent effort. "But, look here! The only hope we have of pulling through is in her. They can't let Catherine Vernon be ruined in Redborough. I don't think it's in the heart of man to do it; but if we drive her into her grave, as you've been trying to do——" "Oh, Harry, how dare you say so! I only went to her—where should I go?—and I thought it would be all right. I thought it was dreadful, but I never believed it, for I know Aunt Catherine——" "Ellen, hold your tongue, for God's sake! If we kill her, it's all up with us. Hasn't she got enough to bear? I brought a cab when I knew you were here. Take her home, Algy, and keep her quiet, and let's meet and talk over it like men," Harry said, severely. He had never so asserted himself in all his life before. They hurried her out between them to the cab, much against Ellen's will, who wanted explanations, and to know if it was true that Aunt Catherine couldn't, couldn't if she would; and then told them, sobbing, that if it was so, none of them could afford to pay for a cab, and why, why should ruined people spend a shilling when they had not got it? The cabman heard part of these protestations, and Marshall another part. But on the whole both Algernon and Harry were more occupied with her in her transport, more anxious for its consequences, more tender of her, than if she had been the most self-commanded and heroic woman in the world. When this tempest of interruption swept away, Catherine was still for a few minutes more. Then she called Hester to her in a voice of exhaustion. "I think," she said, "it has done me no harm. Anything is better than that which—is always behind. And I must do nothing to hurt myself before to-morrow. Was not Harry there? He may have something to tell me. Let him come and say it to you. You are quick witted, and you will understand; and if it is worth writing, write it down. I will not take any part. I will keep still here. If it rouses me, so much the better. If not, you will listen for me with your young ears, and forget nothing. I must save myself, you see, for to-morrow." "I will forget nothing," Hester said. Catherine smiled faintly, with her eyes closed. "I had thought of making you bring me some wine. There is some Tokay in the cellar; but one always pays for a strong stimulant, and this is the better way. You are young, and you are a Vernon too. Bend your mind to it. Think of nothing but the business in hand." "I will," said Hester, with solemnity, as if she were pronouncing the words before a judge. Catherine took hold of her dress when she was going away. "One thing," she said. "I think you and I have hated each other because we were meant to love each other, child." "I think I have always done both," said Hester. The faint sound that broke through the stillness was not like Catherine's laugh. She patted the girl's arm softly with her hand. Their amity was too new to bear caresses. "Now go and do your work, for your honour and mine," she said. It appeared that Harry had much to say. It was strange to have to say it all to the young and eager listener, her eyes glowing with interest and anxiety, who was not content with any one statement, but questioned and investigated till she had brought out every point of meaning, while the real authority sat by silent, her eyes closed, her hands clasped, like an image of repose. Both the young people kept their eyes upon her. There was not a movement which Hester did not watch, while she exerted her faculties to comprehend everything that Harry told her, and put down everything that seemed at all important. The impulse carried her over her own share of the individual misery. Everything else disappeared before the paramount importance of this. When all that Harry had to say was said, there arose a silence between them which had the effect which nothing before had of rousing Catherine. She opened her eyes and looked at them kindly. "Everything has been done as I wished," she said. "I have gleaned something, and the rest you will tell me, Hester, to-morrow. It has been a rest to me to hear your voices. You can expect me, Harry, at the same hour." "Is it not too much for you, Aunt Catherine? It is everything for us that you should come." "I will come," she said. "It is easier than staying at home. Fatigue is salvation. Now I am going to bed, to sleep. Oh, I mean it. I cannot do my work without it. You will come too in the morning, Hester, when I send for you? Then, good-night." They watched her go away with her step still stately. Her faithful maid, whom Mrs. John had found so kind, but who had not always been kind, was waiting for her. The two young people stood and looked after her with eyes of tender respect and awe. "I thought once," said Hester, in a hush of subdued feeling, "that she might have died sitting in her chair." "Ah," said Harry, who had a little more experience, "it is seldom that people get out of it so easily as that. I want to tell you something more if it will not—upset you more." Hester smiled. "Is there anything that can upset me more?" she said. He looked at her wistfully. He did not know what her individual part in this trouble had been; whether Edward was more to her than another, or what the position was in which they stood to each other. "I don't know how to take it," he said, "or how to understand it. There are news of—Edward." The last gleam of hope shot across Hester's mind. "He is coming back?" she said, clasping her hands. Harry shook his head. "Will you come with me to the door? It is such a lovely night." She had not the courage or the presence of mind to say no. She went down stairs with him, where the lamps were lighted again, and out to the gate—the same hour, the same atmosphere as last night. Was it only last night that all had happened? She could have turned and fled in the tremor, the horror of the recollection. Just there she lay at Catherine's feet. Just there Catherine had stood and listened. Hester stood her ground like a martyr. She knew she must learn to do so, and that it would not be possible to avoid the place made so bitter by recollection. Harry did not know how to speak. He shifted uneasily from one foot to another. "He has been traced to town; he got in at the junction, not here. He reached London this morning, very early—with a lady." "With a lady!" Hester had expected a great shock, but the astonishment of this took its sting away. "They left this afternoon, it is supposed to go abroad," Harry said. "Still with the lady? That is very strange," said Hester, with a little quiver in her lips. "There is reason now to suppose that he—married her in the meantime." Hester had grasped by accident the post of the gate. She was glad she had done so. It was a support to her, at least. Married her! It gave her no immediate pain in her astonishment, which was unspeakable. In the dusk Harry did not see her face. He had no conception of the real state of the case. The fact that Edward had been discovered with another woman had confused Harry and diverted the natural suspicions which had risen in his mind when he had found Hester so linked with Catherine after the discovery of Edward's flight. He watched her with a little alarm, wondering and anxious. But the only sign of any emotion was the tightening of her hand upon the iron gate. "You will know," he said, "whether it will be best to say anything of this. If it will hurt her more, let it alone till the crisis is past." "If it will hurt her—more? I do not think anything—can hurt her more." "And you are nearly over-worn," he said, with a tender and pitying cadence in his voice. "I can't say spare yourself, Hester. You are the only one she deserves nothing from. She ought to feel that: if he is gone who owes her everything, yet you are standing by her, who never owed her anything." Hester could not bear it any longer. She waved her hand to him and went in—into the house that was not hers, where there was no one who had a thought to bestow upon her. Where was there any one? Her mother loved her with all her heart, but had nothing to say to her in this rending asunder of her being. She thought she was glad that it was all happening in a house which was not her home, which after, as Harry said, the crisis was past, she might never need to enter again. She went up stairs, to the unfamiliar room in which she had spent the previous night. There she sat down in the dark on the bed, and looked at it all, passing before her eyes, like a panorama. For this was the only description that could be given. The conversation just recorded occurred over again, as if it had been in a book. "With a lady!" "They left this afternoon." "Reason to suppose that in the meantime—" And then this talk, suspended in the air as it seemed, came to a pause. And Hester, through the interval, saw all her own long stormy wooing, its sudden climax with so much that was taken for granted—"My only love!—and I am your only love." That was all true. Those agitated scenes, the dances that were nothing but a love duel from beginning to end, the snatches of talk in the midst of the music and tumult, the one strange blessed moment in the verandah at home, the meeting so tragical and terrible of last night. That was a sort of interlude that faded again, giving place to Harry's steady subdued voice— "Married her in the meantime! Married her!" Hester said these words aloud, with a laugh of incredulous dismay and mockery. The sound terrified herself when she heard it. It was Catherine's laugh made terrible with a sort of tragic wonder. Married her! Had there been no place for Hester at all, nothing but delusion from beginning to end? CHAPTER XIV. THE SETTLEMENT. The records of the next few days were agitated and full of excitement. Day after day Catherine spent at the bank, immersed in calculations and consultations with every one who could throw the slightest light upon the matter. Everything oozed out by degrees, and it was said now that Edward was being hunted down by detectives, now that he had escaped altogether, now that his defalcations were so tremendous that nothing but absolute ruin was possible for Vernon's, now that there was enough left to make a fight upon if only the creditors would be merciful, and give time, and have patience. The usual panic with which such news is received was somehow tempered in this case. It was thought in the district that Catherine Vernon was enormously rich, and independent of the bank, and when it was known that she had not abandoned it, but in her old age had come back, and was in the office every day, struggling to retrieve affairs, there was nobody short of the financial authorities of the place who did not believe that all was safe. Catherine Vernon would not see any harm come to the bank; Catherine Vernon would see everybody paid. This popular faith held up with a certainty of obstinate prepossession which was worth so much solid capital to the tottering house. Catherine herself placed everything she had in the world in the common stock. She it was who took the lead in all the discussions. She rejected the provisions for her own comfort which everybody concerned was anxious to make. The prevailing feeling among all who had any power was at first that the re-establishment of the whole concern was hopeless, but that enough might be saved out of the wreck to enable Catherine to end her days in peace. To this she opposed a determined negative. She would have no arrangement made on her behalf. "Do you think I want," she cried, "to end my days in peace? I am ready to die fighting, on the contrary, rather than sacrifice the place my father lived and died in and his father before him. Don't speak of peace to me." It was when they perceived that she was immovable in this point and was determined to denude herself of everything, that the old contemporaries who had stood by her before in her gallant struggle, and had been her competitors, and had lived to see themselves distanced by Catherine, had felt it impossible to persevere in their refusal to help. She would have no charity, she declared with a flushed cheek. Help for Vernon's, yes, to set them on their feet again, with a certainty that nobody should lose a penny in the long run—for that she would thank them with a full heart; but help for herself, to keep her in a show of comfort when the reality was gone, no! "not a farthing," she said. "I am not afraid of the workhouse," said Catherine, with proud calm, "and I have a right to a Vernon almshouse, the first that is vacant. Nobody will deny that I am Redborough born, and of good reputation. I will not take a penny. Do you think I could not live in a single room and eat my rations like another? It is because you don't know Catherine Vernon yet." The old men who had known Catherine Vernon all her life could not withstand this. "We must manage it for her, we must do it somehow," they said. "Vernon's is an old name among us. There is no name in all the district that the people have such confidence in. We must try, sir, we must try," they began to say to each other, "to help her through." The young men, many of them, were impatient, and would have refused to consider the question at all. What had an old woman to do with business? She ought to be thankful if she was allowed a maintenance, and to terminate her days in comfort. But on this point there was not another word to be said. The Grange and everything in it was to be sold, the White House and the old furniture, part of which Mrs. John still remembered so fondly. There was no question as to that. "We are prepared to sacrifice everything," Catherine said. "What we desire is not to keep up any false pretence, but to carry on our business and recover ourselves by your help. Dismiss me from your mind. I will take my chance; but think of Vernon's, which is not hopeless, which has life in it yet." Old Mr. Rule on his side had pages upon pages of statements to put before the gentlemen. The week was one of terrible suspense and misery, but at the end, though with conditions that were very hard upon the pride of the family, it was decided at last in favour of the bank. Certain great capitalists came forward to prop it up, "new blood" was put into it in the shape of an enterprising manager, who was to guide Harry's steps. There were bitternesses, as there is in every cup that is administered by strangers. But Catherine had gained her object, and she made no complaint. Vernon's would continue, and Harry might have it in his power still to retrieve the family fortunes. As for all the rest, what did it matter? She was a woman who was, or thought herself, very independent of material conditions. Whether she lived in the Grange or one of the Vernon almshouses, what did it matter to her? She did not care for fine eating or fine clothing. "Besides, my clothes will last out my time," she said with a smile. The week's struggle had been good for her. She had not forgotten the great and enduring grief which lay behind all this. But she had not had time to think of it. She had put it away out of her mind as a strong nature can, till her work was done. It was waiting for her to overwhelm her: but in the meantime she was strong. Roland Ashton hurried down as soon as the terrible news reached him. He was eager to tell her his own connection with it, to prove to her that it was not he who had led Edward into speculation, that he had done his utmost to restrain him, and had even in his anxiety been willing to embark in what he felt to be a hazardous course in order to save Edward from the rashness he feared. He came down with all his details ready and a burning anxiety to set himself right. But when he reached the scene of all their troubles, Roland never said a word to Catherine on the subject. Such details were beyond the case. She had never willingly spoken of Edward; when it was possible she ignored him altogether; the investigations which had been set on foot, and which had revealed the greater part of his secrets, she had been compelled to know of, but had spoken to no one about them. Since the first day his name had scarcely passed her lips. Harry only had been allowed to tell her that he had baffled all the attempts made to find him, and had escaped. The search after him had been indeed made rather to satisfy anxiety than with any design of punishment, for the other partners in the bank were responsible for everything, and it was on their shoulders that the burden had to fall. He disappeared as if he had fallen into the sea or been lost in a railway accident. The most wonderful complication of all, the companionship in which he had left England, was not told to her then. It threw to all the others a horrible mockery upon the whole story. There was a bitter sort of smile upon Roland's face when he sat with the old people, and told them all the investigations he had made, the incredulous indignation with which he had received the first idea that Emma's disappearance could be connected with that of Edward, the growing certainty that it was so, and finally the receipt of her letter which he brought them to read. The old people were very sad for their beloved Catherine and little inclined to laugh, but the old captain indulged in a tremulous roar which was half a groan, and the old lady, who allowed that her sense of humour was small, gave a grieved smile when it was read to her. This is what Emma said:— " Dear Roland ,—I think it my duty to let you know, as it was, so to speak, in your house I was living at the time, how it is that I had to make up my mind at a very short notice, and couldn't even go through the form of referring Edward to you. I met him in the train, as you will probably have heard. I was rather sorry about leaving Redborough, and so was he too till he saw me beside him. And then it turned out that he had been very much struck with me at Ellen Merridew's parties, and would have spoken then but for some entanglements that were of old standing, and that he could not shake off. I need not mention any names, but if I say it was some one that was quite out of the question, some one that was detested at the Grange, you will know. He told me he was leaving England for ever, and would I come with him? You know I have always thought it my first duty to get settled, being the youngest and without any fixed home. So after thinking it over for an hour or two, and him being so anxious to come to the point, which is generally just where gentlemen are so slow, I thought it best to consent. We were married before a registrar, but he says that is just as legal as in church. It was at the registrar's in Holywood Street, Trentham Square. We are going to travel, and may be moving about for a good while; but when we settle I shall let you know. I am glad to tell you that we shall be quite well off, and have everything very handsome; and Edward never grudges me anything I fancy. Give my love to them all, and let them know I am as happy as possible, and that I am Mrs. Edward Vernon now, which is one of the prettiest names I know. Your affectionate sister, " Emma. " This was the last that was heard of this strange pair for a number of years. They discovered that Edward, after many losses, had made a sudden successful venture which had brought him a sum so large as to turn his head. He had been utterly demoralised by all the excitements he had passed through, and the sense of a reckoning which he could never meet, and he had not given himself time to think. He disappeared into the unknown with his ill-gotten gains and the wife he had picked up in the midnight train, and was seen no more. As for poor Algernon Merridew, who was his victim, although only as his own eagerness and that of his wife to get money anyhow, made him so, he had to descend, like all the rest, from his temporary grandeur and gaiety. Old Merridew was as stern now as he had been indulgent before, and Ellen, who had been almost worshipped as one of the Vernons when she glorified the family by entering it, was now the object of everybody's scoffs and accusations. But Ellen was a girl of spirit, and equal to the circumstances. Algernon got a humble place in the bank, and the little family lived with Harry, putting their small means together until better days came; but adversity and a determination at least not to let herself be insignificant had so inspiring an effect upon Ellen, that she kept the impoverished household as gay as the extravagant one had been, by cheaper and better means. The Merridew girls, once so subservient, learned what she called "their place" when she was poor more effectually than they had done when she was rich. And her brother, always by her, who, though he had losses, was still the chief partner in the bank, Catherine Vernon's nephew, and the bearer of a name which commanded respect in all the district, kept the balance even. When Vernon's flourished again Algernon became a partner, and all the past grandeurs of the beginning were more than realised. In the meantime, however, when it had just been decided that Vernon's, bolstered up by a great deal of supplementary aid, was to go on again, there was much commotion among all the dependents of the house. For one thing it was decided that as the Grange was to be sold, the most natural refuge for Catherine was at the Vernonry, her own house, from which some of her dependents must go to make room for her. This was the one point upon which she had made no personal decision, for it hurt her pride to be obliged to dismiss one of those for whom she had provided shelter so long. There had been a great effort made to make her retain the Grange, and continue her life in its usual course, a little retrenched and pared away, yet without any great disturbance of the habitual use and wont. This she would not consent to, making the protest we have seen, that external circumstances were nothing to her, that one of the Vernon almshouses would be as good a shelter as any other for an old woman. But she shrank from bidding any one of her pensioners to make room for her in the Vernonry. It raised a wonderful commotion, as may be supposed, in the house itself. All the dwellers on the garden side were disposed to think that Mrs. Reginald, whose boys were now growing up, and two of them in what their mother called "positions," was the right person to go. But Mrs. Reginald herself was of opinion that her house, a good deal battered and knocked about by the boys in the course of their bringing up, was not in a fit state to receive Catherine Vernon, and that the other side, which was the best, was the natural place for her. The Miss Vernon-Ridgways could think or speak of nothing else. "Our little place," they said, "is far too small for Catherine. She could not turn round in it. Of course we would turn out in a moment; it would be our duty. But dear Catherine, used to such large rooms, what could she do in ours, which is the size of a pocket-handkerchief? And if Mrs. Reginald will not budge, why there is Mrs. John. She is so intimate with Catherine nowadays. Hester, that used to be such a rebel, and whom Catherine, we all know, could not endure, is always there. Dear me, of course there cannot be a doubt about it. Mrs. John's house is the right thing; she must have that," which was a great relief to their minds. Mr. Mildmay Vernon made a great many faces over his newspaper as he sat in the summer-house. He reflected that the hot water-pipes would be sure to get out of order in winter, and who would now repair them? He did not commit himself by any remark, but he thought the more. When Mrs. John told him of the opinion of the sisters, and consulted him with a troubled countenance, he only shook his head. "I am sure I would do anything for Catherine," Mrs. John said, "especially now when she is in trouble; but we cannot go far from here, for Hester is so much with her; and where are we to get a house? There is nothing within reach but that little cottage on the road. I am sure, if I were Mrs. Reginald, with no particular tie, and her boys in town, such a long way to come, I don't think I should have any doubt as to what my duty was." It was a question which Hester at last solved in her hasty way, declaring that wherever they lived Catherine must have the best place in her own house—a principle to which her mother was obliged to make a faltering adhesion. But while every one was thus resisting, Mr. Mildmay Vernon was carrying on his reflections about the hot water-pipes. "She put me next the trees on account of my rheumatism," he said to himself. "I know she did, and I shall never live through a winter if the apparatus gets out of gear. And I can't afford to pay for the fire, that's clear." The result of which reflection was that Mr. Mildmay Vernon made it known that he had received a legacy which would make a little addition to his income, and he could not think any longer of taking up room which he believed was wanted. "Besides, one may accept a favour from one's cousin," he said, "especially when it is not much of a favour, being the damp part of the house which few people would have taken had they been paid for doing so—but to be indebted to a firm of bankrupts is impossible," Mr. Mildmay Vernon said.

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