CHAPTER XXXIII
Next morning St. John wakes, recovered from his ill temper, his headache, and all the effects of his Irish saturnalia. Perhaps, had he known who it was that lay wakeful in a great ginger four-poster, two doors off, his slumbers would not have been so profound. The hounds meet twelve miles away, at Shepherds Hatch. By nine o'clock he is in the saddle, and riding quietly along the deep Essex lanes and wet fields, with a soft, south wind blowing in his face, and the grass, crisped by the slightest possible frost, beneath the horse's hoofs.
He is lucky enough to come in for the run of the season; has the satisfaction of seeing many better men than himself floundering, hatless and well-watered, in a brook, or getting croppers over stiff hawthorn hedges; over all which obstacles his grey, a new investment, of whose fencing powers he and his groom had been unjustly doubtful, carries him like a bird. As to whether his ladylove may relish this early preference of "bold Reynolds" to herself, any more than she relished his fatigue and headache last night, he troubles himself but little. He has no intention whatever of being a hen-pecked husband. When he proposed to her, he told her what he could give her, and what he could not – what she might expect, and what she might not: nor has this day's desertion been any departure from his half of the bargain. Somewhere about five o'clock he is back again at Blessington, splashed from head to heel; his tops, in which this morning you might have seen your face, all stained and discoloured; with a dab of mud on each cheek, and a third on the bridge of his nose. He runs upstairs lightly, whistling a tune, and has just reached the first landing, when, "Click-clack," he hears a woman's high-heeled shoes descending. It is Esther, who is walking listlessly down, with her eyes fixed on a great picture let into the wall – a large, white woman, with her clothes tumbling off, hurling her substantial person upon a spear; a young man, with arms like a blacksmith's, lying on the ground, making a profuse display of his charms, and, though with no very perceptible wound, evidently in articulo mortis; a fat Cupid blubbering hard by – the whole entitled "Pyramus and Thisbe."
St. John looks upward, to see who the author of the "click-clacking" may be. "Who the devil is this pretty girl?" is his first thought. His second – a thought that makes him stagger back with the colour hurrying from his healthy cheek – a thought full of anger, astonishment, desire, and pain – a thought that involuntarily he speaks aloud, is "Esther."
At almost the same moment she has caught sight of him. In her case, there is no surprise; but the pain is as great, if not greater.
"Yes, it is I," she answers, almost inaudibly, trembling all over.
His first impulse seems to be to rush away from her, to pass quickly upstairs; his second takes him to her side.
"In Heaven's name, what brings you here?" he asks, in a voice almost as low as her own, from intense repressed emotion.
No answer. His voice has carried her back, across the gulf of Jack's death, of her own servitude and failing health, to that night when, in the starry Felton fields, she had stood by his side, his beloved, promised wife. She is silent – struggling with a strong, vile, degrading temptation to fling down her tired head upon the shoulder of Miss Blessington's affianced husband, and weep out loud.
"Are you on a visit here?" he asks again, with stern brevity.
"Yes," she answers, bitterly, strengthened by his tone, in which there is small kindness, and much wrath; "I am paid fifty pounds a year to visit here."
"What do you mean?"
"I am Mr. and Mrs. Blessington's 'companion.'"
"Good God! You are here always, then?"
"Always."
A pause! Against his will his eyes dwell upon her, hungry and fierce, astonished at the alteration wrought in her whom he had once thought fairest among women. Faded, wasted, forlorn, to his cost he finds that he still thinks her so.
"Is this bondage to last all your life, then?" he inquires more collectedly, after a few seconds.
"Until they die, or until my voice fails."
"And what then?"
"I must look out for some other old people, to whom I can be ears, and voice, and feet."
"Good God! And what can be your motive?"
"One must live."
"I had thought the world wide enough for two people to walk apart," he says, with almost a groan. "I have entreated God that I might never look on your face again, and this is how my prayer is answered."
Another pause. "Tick-tack – tick-tack – tick-tack," goes a clock in the gallery overhead.
"You look extremely ill!"
"Do I?"
"You are wonderfully altered!"
"Yes, I know it!"
"What is it ails you?"
"Nothing."
"What does this mean?" – touching her black dress with a jealous pang of fear that his innocent rival, the "lout who gave her the sixpenny Prayer Book, and inscribed his name with a crooked pin on the fly-leaf," is numbered with the dead; and that the hollow cheeks, dejected droop of the head, and crape-covered garments are for him.
The tears crowd into her eyes; they know the way there so well now. She turns away, and leans against the banisters to hide them.
A light breaks in upon him. He remembers that she had a brother, her girlish rhapsodies about whom used to make him rather impatient.
"I see," he says, in a softer tone; "forgive me for asking."
Encouraged by his voice, she lifts her face towards him with a tearful smile.
"You may be satisfied, I think," she says, simply. "You have had your revenge; I have been punished almost enough."
Revenge is sweet, they say; but at this moment I do not think that St. John finds it so.
"You did not know that I was here?" she asks, presently.
"Know it!" he repeats, passionately. "Not I. Do you suppose I would have come within a hundred miles of this house if I had known it?"
"I will try to keep out of your way," she answers, meekly.
"For God's sake, do! It is the most merciful thing that you can do for both of us."
"I would leave this place to-day, if I could," she answers, humbly raising her wistful, deprecating eyes to his; "but I cannot. My daily bread is here – yours is not. Why cannot you go?"
He hesitates. "I ought, I suppose," he answers, doubtfully. "I will, if you wish it."
"It is as you wish," she replies.
Footmen are passing to and fro, through the hall, busy with preparations for dinner; any moment Mr. Gerard's blue-and-white angel may come sweeping downstairs and surprise them.
"I have not congratulated you yet, Mr. Gerard," Esther says, timidly.
"Congratulated me! – what upon?" he asks, absently, staring vacantly at her.
"Upon your engagement to Miss Blessington."
A shade crosses his face. "Oh yes, to be sure! I had forgotten. Thanks! you are very good, I'm sure."
"I hope you will be very happy —quite happy."
"Thanks. Wish that I may be Prime Minister, or Commander-in-Chief, or something equally probable, while you are about it," he says, sardonically.
"I wish you to be happy," she repeats, gently, "and I hope that is not improbable."
"Such a wish in your mouth is something like a butcher with his knife at its throat wishing a sheep a long life!"
A guilty sense of hypocrisy in wishing him happy whom, less than forty-eight hours ago, she had been congratulating herself on his certain misery, keeps her dumb.
"Why could not you have sent me word that you were here, and I would have kept away?" he asks, flashing angrily upon her.
"I asked Miss Blessington to tell you, but she forgot."
He turns away with a muttered exclamation, not benedictory towards his betrothed, between his teeth.
"I will try to be as little annoyance to you as I can," says the poor child, in bitter mortification. "You will be out hunting most of the day, I daresay, and, except when I am waiting upon either Mr. and Mrs. Blessington, I am not often downstairs."
He takes no notice of her submissive speech, but stands, with his eyes moodily downcast, upon the white stone of the cold carpetless stairs.
"Believe me, I would go away, if I could," she says, piteously. "I did not wish to be in your way; but I had nowhere to go to."
A shade of pity softens his stern face.
"Are they kind to you?" he asks abruptly.
"Yes – oh yes – quite kind."
"And what, in God's name," he says, slowly, as if the question were forced from him against his will, by the slender fragility of her figure, by the pallid delicacy of her face – "And what, in God's name, can have induced your friends to allow you to accept such a situation, for which you are about as well fitted as I for the archbishopric of Canterbury?"
"I have not many friends, and I did not ask the advice of the few I have."
"They ought to have given it unasked," he says, gruffly.
"So they did, but I did not take it."
"Well, it is no business of mine," he says, harshly, ashamed and angry at himself for his temporary lapse into friendliness. "God knows I have had as good reason to hate you, and wish you ill, as ever man had! I have hated you," he says, with fierce heartiness, "during the last three months, as I should not have thought it possible to hate anything so weak and tender. I hope I hate you still!"
Remembering how much deeplier she had sinned against that other, and with how godlike a fulness and freedom he had pardoned her, she feels her heart rise up against him.
"The worse case I see you in, the more I ought to rejoice – the more I should have rejoiced yesterday," he continues, with rapid passion; "and yet – and yet – "
He passes his hand across his forehead, pushing the hair away; and not even the dab of mud on his nose can hinder the expression of his countenance from having something of a tragical pathos in it.
"And yet what?" she asks, tremulously, moving a step nearer to him.
"And yet, for the life of me, while I am with you, I cannot. When I am away from you, I can remember what you are; when I am with you, I see only what you seem. Esther! Esther! why, in God's name, don't the two tally better?"
"Whether they tally or not can be of but little concern to you now, Mr. Gerard," she answers, with some exasperation.
His brown cheek flushes into shamed angry-red.
"You are right," he says, stiffly. "It is no concern of mine; I am sorry I needed reminding."
"Why must we waste time digging that poor old past out of its grave?" she says, with persuasive gentleness, as her hand lays itself lightly, as if half afraid of being shaken off, upon his scarlet sleeve. "Why cannot we let bygones, that" (with a sigh) "are so completely bygones, be bygones? I did you an injury once – not an irreparable one, you will allow, since it is already repaired" (smiling half-scornful, half-melancholy); "and my whole life since has been a punishment – O God! what a punishment!" (putting her hand for a second over her eyes). "I am tired of being punished now. We shall see very little of one another henceforth, but that little might as well be in civility as in incivility – mightn't it?"
"Civility!" – he repeats, without much of that quality in his tone – "civility between you and me! And what would that end in, pray? It would be oversweet at first, and bitterer than wormwood afterwards, as our former civility was. No – no! we will have no sophisms, no absurd Platonisms here! God forbid my thrusting myself into temptation again! We will say 'good morning' and 'good evening' to one another, as people would remark it if we did not. But for the rest, let us hold our tongues and keep apart; and as soon as I can do it, without exciting great question, you may rely upon my going; and then we shall have done with one another for good, I pray God!"
She bends her head submissively. "You are right, I think."
"Click-clack – click-clack," come other high-heeled shoes; "swish! swish!" a long dress trails along. From the heaven of the upper regions the blue-and-white angel is in the act of descent. Without another word, the two part – the woman going quickly down, the man as quickly up.
"Good morning, Conny! Rather late in the day to say 'good morning,' isn't it?"
This is his greeting, accompanied with a rather constrained laugh, to his future proprietor.
"So you and Miss Craven have been renewing your acquaintance upon the landing?" replies the divinity, smiling a little inquisitively. "I was looking down at you from the gallery; you looked so picturesque!"
"If being cased from top to toe in black mud is picturesque, I am eminently so," answers he, looking down at his legs to hide a transient expression of confusion. "Well, good-bye for the present; I suppose I must be going to adorn for this unearthly meal."
CHAPTER XXXIV
No one ever accused the dinners en famille at Felton of being too lively; but, that evening, Gerard decides that they yield the palm, in point of perfect stagnation, to Blessington. There is, indeed, none of that lynx-eyed watching of the servants, none of that pouncing upon their minutest derelictions, which makes dining in Sir Thomas's company so thoroughly uncomfortable a process: no one calls the fat red-faced butler and the two blue-and-yellow footmen "hounds, louts, fools."
At Blessington, indeed, the servants have things pretty much their own way; and, accustomed to their master's total and mistress's partial deafness, have got into a habit of conversing with one another in a tone of voice considerably above that usually considered seemly in civilised ménages. With one member of the company (Miss Craven) St. John has entered into a pact to exchange no remarks, good or bad; a second member (Mr. Blessington) contributes nothing to the conversation but a series of inarticulate though loud mumblings over his food – with the exception of a question, addressed to the butler, as to what the viands upon the table under his sightless eyes consist of. "'Aricot – Volly Vong – Line of Mutton – Biled Turkey," enumerates that functionary, glibly, at the top of his voice. From a third member (Mrs. Blessington) St. John has already heard all that is to be said on the subject of draughts and sand-bags; and with the fourth member, conversation always drives as heavily as a loaded waggon dragged up a perpendicular hill.
The evening is but a prolongation of the dinner, with the additional disadvantage of there being no eating and drinking to employ the otherwise unoccupied jaws. "England expects every man to do his duty!" She expects every man who has the misfortune to be in the position of an affianced to sit, hours long, idle beside his betrothed – however ardently his soul may be sighing for a sheet of the Times or a whiff of Latakia: to hold converse with no other man, woman, or child, if she be in the room.
Since, at the entrance of the gentlemen, Constance looked up expectant, and since he has a vague idea that it is part of his share of their bargain to pay her all outward observance and attention, St. John seats himself on the sofa beside her. She sits rather forward, upright as a dart; he leans back, with his arms resting on the sofa behind her. It is not a caress; but, from a little distance, it has the air of one. The old gentleman, rendered surprisingly wakeful by the unwonted incident of the addition of a stranger to his little circle, insists upon hearing a pungent article on Gladstone and the Irish Church, over which he has fallen asleep in the morning, re-read to him by his little white slave.
"I am afraid I can hardly see, Mr. Blessington; there is so little light!" she has remonstrated, mildly.
"Light! – pooh!" repeats the old gentleman, gaily. "What do young eyes like yours want with light? They ought to be able to see in the dark, like cats. You'll be borrowing Mrs. Blessington's spectacles next – eh, Mrs. Blessington?"
"Mrs. Blessington is asleep, Mr. Blessington."
"Oh! Go on, then, my dear – go on. Let us hear what they have got to say for these rascally placehunters, who are trying to remove the landmarks of the Constitution for the sake of getting into office."
Her long damp evening rambles – rambles on which a mother would have put so decided a veto – have brought back Miss Craven's cold. She has been hoarse all day; and it is a well-known fact that hoarseness always becomes worse towards night: a tiresome little tickling cough interrupts her every moment. Add to which, her attention is completely distracted from the subject in hand by the involuntary and vain effort to catch what Mr. Gerard and his love are saying to one another. She would hardly have been repaid for her trouble had she succeeded.
"Had you a good run to-day?"
"Yes, rather a quick thing."
"Which horse did you ride?"
"The grey – one you have not seen. I bought her in Ireland of Brownrigg; he required more of a weight-carrier."
"Does she seem likely to prove satisfactory?"
"Very: she has a good turn of speed, jumps capitally, and is very temperate."
"Was it a large field?"
"Middling."
"Any one you knew?"
"Two or three" (with a yawn).
"You are going out to-morrow again, of course?" with a slight attempt at a pout, which is not even perceived by the person for whose benefit it is intended.
"No, I think not; it is five-and-twenty miles, and the trains do not fit: one gets lazy in one's old age. I suppose I shall agree soon with Brakespeare, of the – th, who sent seven horses down to Melton last year; and at the end of the season confessed that he hated hunting, and that he thought it a very dangerous amusement."
"Really?" answers Constance, who always takes everything au sérieux, opening her great eyes.
"No, not really – most assuredly!" he answers, laughing lazily. "On the contrary, I am nearer coinciding with the opinion of the Jewish gentleman, who said it would be a very pleasant world if there were no shummers and no shabbaths."
It is hardly worth Miss Craven's while, you will perceive, to lose her place twice, and get rated by her old employer, for the sake of hearing brilliant questions and answers of the above description. Though her jealous eyes are fixed upon the Saturday's columns, they see, none the less clearly, those two figures reclined upon the distant sofa. Once she sees St. John raise himself, and, stooping forward over his companion, speak with more animation than he has yet used. If she break the drum of her ear in the attempt, she must catch the drift of that remark – some delicious tender nothing, no doubt. She succeeds:
"By-the-bye, Conny, how was the lump on your pony's leg when you left home?"
As another and another article follow the first, Esther's cough becomes increasingly troublesome: her throat aches with the effort of reading: her voice at each paragraph waxes huskier and huskier. For several minutes past Gerard's answers to Miss Blessington's questions have been growing ever more wildly random; suddenly he leaves the sofa, and comes over to Mr. Blessington's armchair.
"Will you let me read to you a bit?" he asks, in that loud unmodulated roar that people unused to the deaf think the only method of making them hear.
"Eh! what does he say?" inquires the old gentleman, sharply, lifting his head, and peering blindly up in the direction whence the voice came.
"I asked whether you would let me read to you, for a change, instead of Miss Craven?"
"No – thanks, no," replies the old man, ungraciously. "Much obliged to you, but I cannot hear a word you say; you run all your words into one another."
"Do I? I daresay," rejoins Gerard, good-humouredly; "but have you ever heard me read? I think not."
"Begging your pardon, I have, though; I heard you read prayers here one Sunday evening."
"And I am afraid my mode of conducting divine worship has not left a pleasant impression," says the young man, laughing. "Well, but I promise to read as slow as ever you choose, and to count four at every full-stop."
"No – no," cries the old man, obstinately. "Get away with you, my dear boy! you are interrupting us. No offence, but we are very happy without you – aren't we, Miss Esther? You attend to your own business; we don't offer to help you in that – do we – eh, my dear?"
Baffled and vexed, St. John stands silent; and as he so stands, the young girl lifts her great meek eyes, dumbly grateful, to his. He has forbidden her to speak to him, but he cannot lay an embargo upon the gentle messages sent from those sorrowful shining orbs. His own meet them for an instant; then he turns away with a half-shudder.
"What a churchyard cough that girl has!" says Miss Blessington, fanning herself gently, as he reseats himself beside her; "it really quite fidgets one. Of course it is very unjust of one, but I always feel so angry with a person who goes 'cough, cough, cough' every minute."
"I feel angrier with the person who is the cause of it," answers Gerard, thoroughly chafed: "it is positive barbarity. You see what success I met with when I tried to relieve guard. Suppose you offer: you can always make him hear!"
"I should be delighted," answers Conny, blandly; "only, unfortunately, this damp weather makes my throat so relaxed" (touching the firm round pillar with two white slender fingers), "that I really should be afraid."
"Just try – there's a good girl," urges he, coaxingly; "you can stop in a minute if you find that it hurts you."
A mulish expression comes into her face; small good would persuasion, cajolery, threats, or promises do now!
"I am very sorry I cannot oblige you; but as I am to dine out on Thursday, and one is always expected to sing, I really must nurse my voice."