CHAPTER XVI.
The weekly clearance of mundane books has been made at Plas Berwyn; theskimp drab gowns, and the ill-made frock coat, whose flaps lap over oneanother so painfully behind, have been endured by the Misses Brandonand their brother respectively. At church has been all the Brandonhousehold: son and daughters, man-servant and maid-servant, ox andsheep, camel and ass. I need hardly say that the last quartette havebeen introduced merely for the sake of euphony, and to give a fullerrhythm to the close of the sentence. The Misses Brandon always standas stiff as pokers during the creed, with their backs to the altar. Itamuses them, and it does not do anybody else any harm, so why shouldnot they, poor women? Bob truckles to the Scarlet Woman; he bows, andturns his honest, serious face to the east. The service is in Welsh,of which he does not understand a word. He can pick his way prettywell through the prayers, however, by the help of a Welsh and Englishprayer book. There are several landmarks that he knows, whose friendlyfaces beam upon him now and again when he is beginning to flounderhopelessly among uncouth words of seven consonants and a vowel. Theseare his chief finger-posts: "Gogoniant ir Tad, ac ir Mab, ac ir YsprydGlan;" that is, "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to theHoly Ghost." "Gwared ni, Arglywd daionus!" "Good Lord, deliver us!" "NaLadratta!" "Thou shalt not steal!"
Jack Craven has been to church too, and has, as he always does, beenreading the inscriptions on the coffin-plates, nailed up, Welshfashion, against the dilapidated, whitewashed walls, in lieu ofmonumental tablets. Esther has also been to church; has been in statein a great, close carriage, in company with Sir Thomas, Miladi, andMiss Blessington. Sir Thomas has been storming the whole way about agap he detected in a hedge that they passed, through which some cattlehave broken, so that they all arrive at the church door in that calmlydevout state of quietude which is the fittest frame of mind for thereception of Divine truth.
The Gerard pew in Felton church is as large as a moderate-sized room,and is furnished with arm-chairs and a fire-place. In winter, SirThomas spends fully half the service time in poking the fire noisilyand raking out the ashes. There is no fire now, and he misses it. Ahigh red curtain runs round the sacred enclosure, and through it thefarmers' wives and daughters strain their eyes to catch a glimpse ofMiladi's marabout feathers, and Miss Blessington's big, golden chignon,and little green aerophane bonnet. St. John generally pulls the brassrings of his bit of curtain aside along the brass rods, to make apeep-hole for himself over the congregation. The shape and size of thepew do away with the necessity for any wearisome conformity of attitudeamong the inmates. During the prayers, Sir Thomas stands bolt upright,with one bent knee resting on his chair; his bristling grey head,shaggy brows, and fierce spectacles looming above the red curtain, tothe admiration and terror of the row of little charity girls beneath.Constance kneels forward on a hassock, with a large, ivory prayerbook, gold-crossed, red-edged, in one hand, and a turquoise andgold-topped double scent-bottle and cobweb cambric handkerchief in theother. She confesses in confidence to her pale lavender gloves that shehas done that which she ought not to have done, and has left undonethat which she ought to have done; making graceful little salaams andundulations of head and body every two minutes. Miladi confesses thatshe has gone to sleep. St. John makes no pretence of kneeling at all:he leans, elbow on knee and head on hand, and looks broken-hearted, asmen have a way of doing in church.
In the afternoon, no one at Felton thinks of attending Divine service.It is a fiat of Sir Thomas's that no carriage, horses, or servants areto be taken out more than once a day, and the two miles' walk is aninsuperable impediment to Lady Gerard, and hardly less so to Constance.
After luncheon the three ladies are sitting in the garden, with theprospect of four unbroken hours of each other's companionship beforethem. Masses of calceolarias, geraniums, lobelias, are flaring andflaunting around them--masses in which the perverted eye of modernhorticulture sees its ideal of beauty. Nature, in her gardening, neverplants great, gaudy squares and ovals and rounds of red and blue andyellow, without many shades of tenderest grey and green to soften andrelieve them. Across the grass St. John comes lounging; his Sundayfrock coat sitting creaseless to his spare, sinewy figure. Estherhates the sight of that coat: it reminds her so painfully, by its veryunlikeness, of the singular garment that forms the head and crown ofher betrothed's scant wardrobe.
"Do you know, I have half a mind to go to Radley church this afternoon.Will any one come with me?--will you, Conny?" turning, mindful of lastnight, with a conciliatory smile to Miss Blessington.
"How far is it?" she asks, indolently, divided between her hatredof walking and her desire to frustrate the _tete-a-tete_ she seesimpending between St. John and Esther.
"Three or four miles; four, I suppose."
She lifts her large blue eyes languidly, "Four miles there, and fourmiles back! Are you mad, St. John? What do you suppose one is made of?"
"Will _you_ take pity on me then, Miss Craven?" turning eagerly toEsther.
She tilts her hat low down over her little, straight, Greek nose, looksup at him with shy coquetry under the brim, but answers not.
"A man who delights in solitude must be either a wild beast or a god,don't you know? I have no pretence to be either: I hate my own societycordially. Come" (with a persuasive ring in his pleasant voice); "youhad much better."
"Don't be so absurd, St. John!" cries Miss Blessington, pettishly."Miss Craven would far rather be left in peace."
"Would you?" (appealing to her.)
"No--o; that is--I mean--I think I should like the walk, if I may. MayI, Lady Gerard? do you mind?" (turning sweet red cheeks and quick eyestowards her hostess.)
"I, my dear! Why should I mind?" responds Miladi, leaning back andfanning herself with a large fan (I believe that fat women often suffera foretaste of the torments of the damned in the matter of heat)--"soas you don't ask me to go with you (with a fat smile). And, St. John,be sure that you are back in time for dinner, there's a good boy! Youknow what a fuss Sir Thomas is always in on Sunday evening?"
"I know that Sir Thomas is digging his grave with his teeth as fast ashe can," answers St. John disrespectfully.
"Shall not we be rather late for church if we have four miles to go?"asks Esther, as she steps out briskly beside her companion, while heartand conscience keep up a quarrelsome dialogue within her.
"It is not four miles; it is only three."
"You told Miss Blessington four?"
"So I did; but I drew for the extra mile upon the rich stores of myimagination."
"Why did you?" she asks, turning a wondering rosy face set in the frameof a minute white bonnet towards him.
"Did you ever hear of the invitations that the Chinese give oneanother?" he asks, laughing, and switching off a fern-head with a babyumbrella--"which, however pressing they may be, are always expectedby the giver to be declined. My invitation to Conny was a Chineseone: I was not quite sure that she would understand it as such, and Iwas so afraid that she would yield to my importunities, that I had toembroider a little in the matter of distance; do you see?"
There has been rain in the morning; now the clouds have rent themselvesasunder, and broken up into great glistering rocks, peaks, and spires,such as no fuller on earth could white:
"Blue isles of heaven laugh between."
The breeze comes more freshly over the wet grasses and flowers, andblows in little fickle puffs against St. John's bronzed cheeks andEsther's carnation ones. The girl's heart is pulsing with a keen, sharpjoy; all the keener, as the heaven's blue is deeper for the clouds thathover about it.
"I shall have him all to myself for three hours," she is sayinginwardly; "he will speak to no one but me; he will hear no one else'svoice (she forgets the parson and the clerk). Surely Bob may spare methese three hours, and just a few more, out of the great long lifeduring which I shall tramp-tramp at his side! Three hours:
"Then let come what come may No matter if I go mad, I shall have had my day."
&
nbsp; "Let me carry your prayer book?"
"No, thanks; it is not heavy" (retaining it, mindful of a certaininscription in the fly-leaf).
"I am like a retriever; I like to have something to carry" (taking itfrom her with gentle violence).
"'_Esther Craven_ from _Robert Brandon_.' Who _is_ Robert Brandon whenhe is at home?" (speaking rather shortly.)
Esther's heart leaps into her mouth. Shall she tell him _now_, thisminute, without giving herself time for second thoughts, which arenot by any means always best? Shall she lift off the weight ofcompunction, anxiety, shame, that has been pressing upon her for thelast fortnight?--let it fall down, as the dead albatross fell from theAncient Mariner's neck--
"Like lead into the sea?"
The subject has introduced itself naturally, easily, without any of thedragging in by the head and shoulders of the officiously-volunteeredconfessions that she had salved her conscience by deprecating.Shall she, with strong, brave hand, push away all hope of the finehouse and the broad lands, of the carriages and horses, the rosesand pine-apples, the down pillows and fragrances of life? Shall shecourageously, nobly, and yet in mere bare duty, turn away from thefairy prince and return to her hovel and scullionship? Shall she, orshall she not?
"Who _is_ Robert Brandon?" repeats St. John, rather crossly.
In the second that follows Esther's life destiny is settled. Sherefuses the good and chooses the evil. ("He is the man I am engagedto," that is what she ought to have said.)
"He is in the ----th foot." This is what she does say, blushing tillthe tears come into her eyes, turning away her head, and feelingstabbed through and through with shame.
"An ally of yours?" (quickly.)
"I have known him all my life," she answers, evasively.
"I thought he was a very young child, from this specimen of hiscaligraphy," remarks Gerard, superciliously, examining Bob's sprawly,slanty characters. "He would be none the worse for a few writinglessons."
Esther is a mean young woman: she feels ashamed of her poor lover, andhis pothooks and hangers, and yet vexed with St. John for sneering atthem.
"It was a fact worth inscribing, I must say," continues he,ironically--"the making of such a very handsome present," holding thepoor little volume between his lavender kid finger and thumb, andsurveying it with a disparaging smile. "He must have had a great dealof change out of sixpence, I should think."
"If you have nothing better to do than abuse my property," criesEsther, impulsively, snatching it out of his hand, "you may give it meback," looking half disposed to whimper.
"I apologise," responds St. John, gravely. "I did not mean to offendyou; I give you _carte blanche_ to insult mine" (holding out a veryminute Russia leather one). "But may I ask, is Mr. Robert Blandon, orBrandon, or what's his name, your godfather?"
"No; why?"
"Because I never heard of any one being given a prayer book exceptas a wedding present, or by their godfathers and godmothers at theirbaptism. As you are not married, I know it could not have been thefirst case, and so I concluded it must be the last."
"Robert is not old enough to be my godfather," says Essie, overcomingby a great effort the repugnance to pronouncing the fateful name:"he is quite young; a great deal younger than you," she ends, ratherspitefully.
"He might easily be that," replies St. John, coldly. "Once, not so verymany years ago, in whatever company I was, I always was the youngestpresent; now, on the contrary, in whatever company I am, I always feelthe eldest present. I don't suppose I always am, but I always feel asif I were."
"I believe old people have the best of it, after all," says Esther,recovering a little of her equanimity: "they have certainly fewertroubles than young ones. I should say that Sir Thomas was decidedly ahappier man than you are."
"A man's happiness is proportioned to the simplicity of his tastes, Isuppose," answers St. John, sardonically. "Sir Thomas's happiness liesin a nutshell: he has two ruling passions--eating and bullying; he hasa very fair cook to satisfy the one, and my mother always at hand forthe gratification of the other."
"We have all our ruling passions," rejoins Esther, with a light laugh,"only very often we will not own them. Mine is burnt almonds; what isyours?"
"Going to church," he replies, in the same tone; "as you may perceiveby the strenuous efforts I have made to get there this afternoon."
Radley church stands on a knoll. Radley parishioners have to go upwardsto be buried--a happy omen, it is to be hoped, for the destination oftheir souls. The church has a little grey tower, pretty, old, andsquat, and a peal of bells--these are its claim to distinction--a merrypeal, as people say; but to me it seems that in all the gamut of sadsounds there is nothing sadder, sorrowfuller, than bells chiming outsweetly and solemnly across the summer air.
Rung in by the grave music of their invitation, St. John and Estherenter. Verger or pew-opener is there none, so they slip into the firstof the open sittings that presents itself. The clergyman is young andenergetic: he has rooted up the tall, worm-eaten, oak pews--disfiguringcompromises between cattle-pen and witness-box--has clothed several
"Dear little souls In nice white stoles,--"
and is trying to teach himself intoning. He produces at present onlyprolonged whining groans, but it is a step in the right direction.
Rest is good after exertion, and so Essie thinks. The south wind hasbeen playing tricks with the dusk riches of her hair. Nature has beenlaying on her bistre under the great liquid eyes, and emptying a wholepotful of her rouge on the rose velvet round of her cheeks. She is notin apple-pie order at all, and yet
"She was most beautiful to see, Like a lady from a far countree."
If Esther were to murder any one, and her guilt were to be brought hometo her as plainly as the eye of day shines in the sky at noon, judgeand jury would combine to acquit her.
"Blessed be God, who has made beautiful women!" says the Bedouin, andGerard echoes the benediction, as he stands with his big lavender thumbon one side of the hymn book, and her small, lavender thumb on theother, while the "dear little souls" are singing sweetly and quickly:
"There God for ever sitteth, Himself of all the Crown; The Lamb, the Light that shineth, And goeth never down."
Grand words, that make one feel almost good and almost happy merely tosay them!
There is only one hymn-book in the pew, and St. John is glad of it.There is something pleasant in the sense of union and partnership,though it be only a three minutes' partnership in a dog's-eared psalter.
"Is not there some different way of going home?" asks Essie, as theystand side by side, after service, in the high churchyard, lookingdown on the straggling damson trees, the grey smoke spiring northwardsunder the south wind's faint blowing, the dark-blue green of the turnipfields. "I hate going back the same way one came; it shows such a wantof invention!"
"There is another way," answers St. John, scooping out a little plumpgreen moss from a chink in the wall with the point of his umbrella,while the parson and the parson's sister, on their homeward way, turntheir heads to look at them--the parson at Esther, the parson's sisterat St. John--Jack at Jill, and Jill at Jack as is the way of the world;"but it is a good deal longer and a great deal muddier than the one wecame by."
"I like mud," says Essie, gaily, stooping and picking a daisy from alittle child's grave at her feet; "it is my native element; at home weare up to our knees in mud in winter, and over our ankles in summer."
So they chose the longer and the muddier way. It is its length that isits recommendation to them both, I think.
Down the village street, past the Loggerheads and the Forge, and alonga long country lane, paved unevenly with round stones after a wayour forefathers in some of the northern counties had of paving, inimperfect prophetic vision of MacAdam. To-day no broad waggon-wheelgroans, nor hoofed foot clatters along; only a few cottagersand smart-bonneted servant girls trudge along to the PrimitiveWesleyan Methodist Chapel, built A.D. 1789, that sta
nds in simple,dissenting ugliness at the hill-foot, while over its newly-painted,gingerbread-coloured door stands this modest announcement: "This is theGate of Heaven."
"It strikes me," says St. John, rousing himself out of a reverie whichhas lasted a quarter of an hour--"it strikes me as one of the fewinstances in which one's experience tallies with what one reads innovels, the awkward knack people have of interrupting one at the wrongmoment."
"How do you mean?" asks Essie, coming out of a reverie, too.
"I never," pursues he, taking off his hat, and passing his hand overthe broad red mark it has made on his forehead--"I never read aloud toany one in my life--I was rather fond of reading poetry at one periodof my history, I leave you to guess which--not that she cared aboutit--she did not know Milton from Tommy Moore; but I never read to herin the course of my life without the footman coming in to put coals onat the most affecting passages--Arthur's parting from Guinevere, say,or Medora's death--and clattering down the tongs and shovel, making thedevil's own row."
Esther laughs.
"These reflections are _a propos_ of--what?"
"Of Conny's most ill-timed entry last night," he answers, with energy."I don't suppose she makes such a midnight raid once in five years, andshe certainly could not have found you and me _tete-a-tete_ at twoin the morning more than once in fifty years. Why could not she leaveus in peace that once? We did not grudge her any amount of pleasantdreams; why need she grudge us our pleasant wakefulness?"
"Do you think she came on purpose, then?" asks Essie, her eyes openingas round in alarmed surprise as a baby's when a grown-up person makesugly faces at it.
He shrugs his shoulders slightly. "Cannot say, I'm sure. Conny isnot much in the habit of burning the midnight oil in the pursuit ofknowledge generally. If it _was_ accident, she came in at a wonderfully_a propos_, or rather _mal a propos_, moment. Tell me," he says,crossing over to her side of the road, and fixing frankly-asking eyesupon her; "I may be mistaken--it is a misfortune to which I am oftenincident--but I could not help thinking that, just as that unluckycandle appeared round the corner last night, you were going to tell mesomething--something about yourself? I thought I saw it in your face. Ithink I deserved some little reward for raking up for your behoof theashes of that old fire that I burnt my fingers at so badly once."
Esther still remains silent, but turns her long neck from one side tothe other with a restless, uneasy motion.
"Are lamplight and the small hours indispensable accessories?" he asks,with gentle pleading in look and words--"or could not you tell me aswell now?"
"Tell you what?" she says, turning round sharp upon him, and snapping,as a little cross dog snaps at the heels of the passer-by--"must Iinvent something?"
"Are you sure that it is _necessary_ to invent?" he asks, scanning thefair, troubled face with searching gaze.
She pulls a bunch of nuts out of the hedge from among theirrough-ribbed green leaves, and begins to pick them out of theirsheath. "What am I to tell you?" she says, petulantly, a suspicion thathe may have heard a rumour of her engagement crossing her mind: "thatI live in an old farmhouse with my brother Jack, and that we are veryhard up--you know already; that 'Su dry da chi' is Welsh for 'How doyou do?' and that our asparagus has answered very badly this year?"
"Of course, I cannot force your confidence," he answers, rather coldly.
"Why do you insist upon my having something to confide? What reasonhave you for supposing that I have?" she cries, with increasedirritation.
"None whatever, but what you yourself have given me!"
"_I!_"
"Yes, _you;_ not your words, but your face now and then. Don't think meimpertinent. You know what unhappy reason I have had to be suspicious.But tell me" (trying his best to get a look round the corner into theaverted, perturbed face of his companion)--"tell me whether there isnot something between you and--and--that fellow that gave you theprayer-book?"
Esther's heart gives one great bounding throb; the thin muslin of herdress but poorly conceals its hard, quick pulsings.
One more chance for her! Fate generally gives us two or three chancesbefore it allows us to consign ourselves irrecoverably to the dogs. Onemore choice between loyalty and disloyalty--a plain question, to beanswered plainly, unequivocally--Yes or No; Robert or St. John. The manwhose conversation bores her, whose proximity and whose gaze leave hercolder than snow on an alp's high top an hour before sunrise, and withwhom she has promised to live till death do them part; or the man, nowhit better or handsomer, whose coming, felt, though unseen, makes herwhole frame vibrate, as a harp's strings vibrate under the player'shands--beneath whose eyes hers sink down bashful, yet passionate--theman whom, after this week, she must see never again until death do themunite. Woman-like, she tries to avoid the alternative.
"What is that to you?" she retorts, abruptly, endeavouring to beplayful, and succeeding only in being rude.
"Nothing whatever," he replies, flushing angrily; and then they walk onfor some distance in silence.
"Are you angry?" asks Esther, presently, with a smile, half saucy, halffrightened.
"_I?_ not in the least," he replies, with an air of ostentatiousindifference, but with a complexion undoubtedly florider than naturemade his.
"You look excessively cross, and have not uttered a word for the lasthalf mile," she says, pouting out her full red under-lip, and thenlooking (a little alarmed at her own audacity) to see in what spirit hetakes her impertinence.
"When I do not get civil answers to civil questions, I think it best tohold my tongue," he says, stalking along with his head up, and hittingviciously with his umbrella at the tall, yellow mulleins in the hedge.
"People's ideas differ as to what _are_ civil questions," says Essie,trying to stalk too, and to elevate nose and chin in emulation of his."Suppose that I had asked you how many times you had been refused,would you have answered me?"
"Undoubtedly I should," he replies, gravely.
"How many times have you?" she asks, coming down from her elevation ofoffended dignity with a jump, and looking up at him with naive, eagercuriosity.
"Questions should be answered in the order of priority in which theyare asked," he replies, with a smile of amusement at her simplicity,but with a good deal of dissatisfied doubt underlying the smile."Answer my question, and I'll answer yours."
Esther turns away, and passes her hand along the hedge, catching idlyat any grasses or flowers that come in her way, to the great detrimentof her Sunday gloves. His anxiety overcomes his hurt pride.
"Give me an answer one way or another," he says, breathing rathershort. "Is there not something between you and him?"
Esther is silent. "No" is a plain downright lie, at which consciencedemurs, and "Yes" a cannon-ball that will knock her away from St.John's side out into the drear, great world for ever.
"For God's sake answer me!" he says again, in great agitation at adumbness that seems to him ominous.
Hearing the sharp pain and angry fear in his voice, she hesitates nolonger. Lie or no lie, she takes the plunge.
"Nothing!" she says, faintly, turning first milk-white, then red as arose in her burning prime.
"Why do you turn away your face? Are you quite certain?" he asks,quickly, only half convinced by her weak negation.
"Certain," she replies, indistinctly, as if just able to echo hiswords, but not to frame any of her own.
"Why do you stammer and blush, then, whenever his name is mentioned?"he asks, with jealous impatience.
"I won't stand being catechised in this way," she cries, blazing outangrily, and stopping short, while sparks of fire, half quenched intears of vexation, dart from the splendid night of her eyes. "I haveanswered a question which you ought never to have asked; you must bea person of very little observation," she continues, sharply, "not tohave discovered during the three weeks that I have been with you that Iblush at everything and nothing; I should be as likely as not to blushwhen Sir Thomas's name was mentioned, or--or----"
> "Or mine," suggests St. John, ironically; "put it as strongly as youcan."
"Or yours, if you like," she answers, hardily, but crimsoning painfullymeanwhile in confirmation of her words.
At a little distance farther on, their path forsakes the road and leadsacross a line of grass fields. St. John crosses the first stile, andwaits politely on the other side to help Esther over.
"No, no!" she cries, petulantly, withdrawing her foot from the firstrung--"I hate being helped over stiles. Go on, please."
He obeys, and walks on. Her dignity does not allow her to hurry herpace to overtake him, nor does his permit him to slacken his steps tillshe come up with him; and they walk on in single file, goose-fashion,through two fields and a half.
Dividing and watering the third field, as the four ancient riversdivided and watered the rose gardens and asphodel fields of Paradise, alittle beck, with many turns and bends and doublings back upon itself,strays babbling, like a silver ribbon twisted among the meadow's greenhair. It is not like the Welsh brooks, fretful and brawling, makinglittle waterfalls and whirlpools and eddies over and about everywater-worn stone; smoothly it flows on, as a holy, eventless lifeflows towards the broad sea whose tides wash the shores of Time. Indry weather it is slow-paced enough, and crystal clear; now the lateheavy rains have quickened its current, and rolled it along, turbid andmuddy. Even though swollen, however, it is still but a narrow thread,and St. John clears it at a jump.
"Shall I go on still?" he asks, with a malicious smile from the otherside, addressing Esther, who stands looking down rather ruefully atthe quick, brown water at her feet.
"I believe you knew of this, and brought me here on purpose to make afool of me," she cries, reproachfully.
"I did nothing of the kind," he answers, quietly. "Last time I was herethere was a plank thrown across; but you see the stream has been higherthan it is now" (pointing to the drenched grass and little deposit ofsticks and leaves on the bank), "and has probably carried it away."
"How _am_ I to get over?" she asks, hopelessly, with a look of childishdistress on her face.
"I'll carry you," he answers, springing back to her side; "the brookis shallower farther down; I can lift you over with the greatest easeimaginable."
"_That_ you shan't!" answers Esther, civilly turning her back upon him.
"May I ask why?" he asks, coolly. "After the number of times I havecarried you up and down stairs at Felton, you can hardly be afraid ofmy letting you fall?"
"The very fact of my having already had so many obligations to youmakes me resolved not to add to their number," she replies, stiffly,with an effort to look dignified, which her laughing, _debonnaire_,seductive style of beauty renders peculiarly unsuccessful.
"If you can suggest any better plan, I shall be delighted to assist youin carrying it out," rejoins he, smothering a smile.
"I'll jump!" she says, desperately, eyeing meanwhile the hurryingstream and space between bank and bank with calculating look.
"You cannot," he cries, hastily; "you'll get a ducking as sure as Istand here. Don't be so silly!"
The word "silly" acts as a whip and spur to Essie's flagging courage.She retreats a few yards from the edge, in order to get a little runto give her a better spring.
"As headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile!" remarksGerard, resignedly, quoting Mrs. Malaprop and folding his arms.
Neither the preparatory run, nor the tremendous bound she takes,avail to save Miss Craven from the fate which her obstinacy and thecomparative shortness of her legs render unavoidable. She jumps short,and falls forward on the wet bank; her lavender kid gloves diggingconvulsively into it, and her legs disporting themselves fish-like inthe brook.
He is at her side in an instant, raises gently and lifts her on tothe grass, unmindful of the pollution caused to his coat by the muddycontact.
"What a fool I was!" she cries, passionately, sinking down among agrove of huge burdock leaves, smothered in shame and angry blushes.
St. John thinks it rude to disagree with her, so holds his peace.
"Why don't you laugh at me? why don't you jeer me?" she continues,vehemently; "why don't you tell me you are very glad of it, and that Irichly deserve it, as I see you are longing to do? Anything would bebetter than standing there like a stock or a stone!"
"It is not of much consequence how I stand or how I look," he replies,coldly. "It would be more to the purpose to know how you are to gethome!"
"I will walk as I am," she cries impulsively, springing to her feet;"it will be a fit penance for my idiocy, and you shall go on ahead. Idon't want you to be disgraced by being seen in company with such anobject."
"That is very probable, isn't it?" he answers, laughinggood-humouredly. "No, I have a better proposition than that, I think.It has just occurred to me that an old servant of ours lives at nogreat distance from here, her cottage is not more than three or fourfields off. If you can manage to get there she would dry your clothesfor you in a minute."
Rendered docile by her late disaster, feeling very small, and hangingher head, Esther acquiesces. Her gown, from which every particle ofstarch or stiffness has fled, clings to her limbs and defines theirform; the water drips down from her in a thousand little spouts andrivulets: bang, bang, go her soaked petticoats against her ankles atevery step she takes.
"You have had almost enough of taking me out to walk, I expect," sheremarks presently, rather grimly.
"You have had almost enough of jumping brooks, I expect," he retorts,drily; and then they walk on in silence till they reach a littlewhitewashed cottage, with its slip of potato ground and plot of pinksand marigolds and lark-spurs--an oasis of tilled ground among thewilderness of pasturage.
St. John knocks at the half-open door and puts his head in. "Are you athome, Mrs. Brown? How are you?" says he, in that frank, friendly voicethat goes far to make the Felton tenants wish that Sir St. John reignedin Sir Thomas's stead.
"Quite well, thank you, Mr. St. John; I hope I see you the same,"replies the person addressed, coming to the door with a jolly red faceand a voluminous widow's cap that contradict one another; "it's a longtime since we've seen you come our way."
"So it is, Mrs. Brown; but, you see, I have been after the partridges."
"And Sir Thomas, I hope he keeps pretty well, Mr. St. John?"
"Yes, thanks."
"And Miladi, I hope she has her health."
"Yes, thanks."
"And Miss Bl----?"
"Yes, thanks," interrupts St. John, rather impatiently, breakingthrough the thread of her interrogatories. "Do you see, Mrs. Brown,that this young lady has met with an accident: she has tumbled into thebrook. Do you think you could let her dry herself at your fire a bit?"
"Eh dear, Miss, you _are_ in a mess!" ejaculates Mrs. Brown, walkinground Esther, and surveying her curiously, as she stands close behindGerard, dripping still, with a hang-dog air and chattering teeth. "Why,you have not a dry stitch upon you; you are one _mask_ of mud! Wouldyou please to step in?"
Mrs. Brown and Essie retire into an inner chamber for the purpose ofremoving the wet clothes and replacing them temporarily with some ofthe contents of Mrs. Brown's wardrobe.
St. John remains in the outer room, looks at the clock, behind whosedial-plate a round china-moon-face peeps out; takes up the mugs on thedresser: "For a Good Boy," "A Keepsake from Melford," "A Present fromManchester," hiding amongst numberless gilt flourishes; chivies thetabby cat; counts the flitches of bacon hanging from the rafters; walksto the door, and watches the bees crawling in and out of the low doorof their straw houses, and the maroon velvet nasturtiums trailing alongthe borders, and lifting their round leaves and dark faces up to theknees of the standard rose.
As he so stands, whistling softly and musing, some one joins himin the doorway. He turns and beholds Esther, bashful, shame-faced,metamorphosed. To Mrs. Brown's surprise, she has declined themagnanimous offer of her best black silk. There is nothing coquettishor picturesque, as she is aware, a
bout an ill-made dress that triesto follow the fashion and fails--destined, too, for a woman treble hersize. She has chosen in preference, a short, dark, linsey petticoatand lilac cotton bedgown, which, by its looseness, can adapt itself tothe round slenderness of her tall, lissom figure. Her bonnet was notincluded in the ruin of her other garments, but she has taken it off,as destructive to the harmony of her costume.
St. John surveys her for some moments: looks upward from petticoatto bedgown, and downward from bedgown to petticoat, but observes adiscreet silence.
"Does it become me?" she asks at last, with shy vanity. "Why do not yousay something?"
"I have been so unlucky in two or three of my remarks lately," replieshe, with a concluding glance at the round, bare arms that emergewhitely from the short cotton sleeves, "that I have become chary ofmaking any more."
"You need not be afraid of offending me by telling me that it isunbecoming," she says, gravely--"quite the contrary!"--she continuesrather discontentedly--"think that it suits me _too well_, as if itwere a dress that I ought to have been born to. Upon Miss Blessingtonnow such a costume would look utterly incongruous."
St. John bursts out laughing. "A goddess in a bedgown! Diana of theEphesians in a linsey petticoat! Perish the thought!"
Esther looks mortified, and turns away.
The cleansing of Miss Craven's garments is a lengthy operation. Mrs.Brown retreats into her back kitchen, draws forward a washtub, kneelsdown beside it, turns up her sleeves, and with much splashing of hotwater and s lathering of soap, rubs and scrubs, wrings out, dries, andirons the luckless gown and petticoat.
It is latish and duskish by the time that St. John and his companionset out on their homeward way. Two or three starflowers have alreadystolen out, and are blossoming, infinitely distant, in the meadows ofthe sky. They are not loquacious: it is the little shallow rivulet thatbrawls; the great deep river runs still. Silently they walk along; herlittle feet trip softly through the rustling grass beside him: theevening wind blows her light garments against him. He has taken herlittle gloveless hand as he helps her over a stile (adversity has madeher abject, and she no longer spurns his assistance), and now retainsit, half absently. Bare palm to bare palm, they saunter through therich, dim land. It is dusk, but not so dusk but that they can see theirdark eyes flashing into one another: sharp, stinging pleasure shootsalong their young, full veins. The vocabularies of pain and of delightare so meagre, that each has to borrow from the other to express itsown highest height and deepest depth. As they pass along a lane, whosehigh grass banks and overgrown hawthorn hedges make the coming nightalready come, Esther's foot stumbles over a stone. The next moment sheis in his arms, and he is kissing her repeatedly.
"Esther, will you marry me?" he asks, in a passionate whisper,forgetting to make any graceful periphrasis to explain his meaning,using the plain words as they rise in his heart.
No answer. Emotions as complicated as intense check the passage ofher voice. Even here, on this highest pinnacle of bliss--pinnacle sohigh that she had hardly dared hope ever to climb there--the thoughtof Bob and his despair flashes before her: her own remarks about thesenselessness of kissing--about its being a custom suited only tosavages, and her own great aversion to it--recur to her with a stab ofremorse.
"You won't?" cries St. John, mistaking the cause of her silence, in avoice in which extreme surprise and profound alarm and pain are mixedin equal quantities.
Still no answer.
"If you have been making a fool of me all this time, you might, atleast, have the civility to tell me so," he says, in a voice so sternlycold that remorse, coyness, and all other feelings merge into womanishfear.
"Don't blame me before I deserve it," she says, with a faint smile. "Iwill mar----"
She finishes her sentence on his breast.
Perfect happiness never lasts more than two seconds in this world; atthe end of that time St. John's doubts return. He puts her a little wayfrom him, that she may be a freer agent. "Esther," he says, "I halfbelieve that you said 'yes' out of sheer fright; you thought I wasgoing to upbraid you; and I am aware" (with a half smile) "that thereare few things you would not do or leave undone to avoid a scolding;you did not say it readily, as if you were glad of it. I know that youhave only known me three weeks, that I am not particularly likeable,especially by women, and that I always show to the worst possibleadvantage at home. All I beg of you is, tell me the truth: Do you likeme, or do you not?"
"I do like you."
"Like is such a comprehensive word," he says, with a slight, impatientcontracting of his straight brows. "You _like_ Mrs. Brown, I suppose,for washing your clothes?"
"I like you better than Mrs. Brown."
"I did not doubt that," he answers, laughing; "probably you like mebetter than Sir Thomas, than my mother, than Constance, perhaps; butsuch liking as that I would not stoop to pick off the ground. I must befirst or nowhere. Am I first?"
"No, you are not," she answers firmly.
His countenance falls, as Cain's did.
"I am not!" he repeats, in a constrained voice. "Who is then, may Iask?"
"Jack, my brother--he is, and always will be!"
"Bah!" cries Gerard, laughing, and looking immensely relieved. "How youfrightened me! I believe you did it on purpose, as you said to me aboutthe brook this afternoon. After him, am I first?"
"Yes."
"Before----what's his name?--the fellow that writes such a remarkablygood hand--before Brandon?"
"Why do you always worry me about him?" she exclaims, angrily, turningaway.
"Why do you so strongly resent being worried about him?" retorts St.John suspiciously.
"It is wearisome to hear a person always harping on one string," sheanswers coldly. "Believe me or not, as you choose; but please spare methe trouble of these repeated and useless asseverations."
"I beg your pardon!" he says, his countenance clearing, and passing hisarm round her half-shrinking, half-yielding form. "I will never dig himup as long as I live. Peace to his ashes! Oh darling!" he continues,his voice changing to an emphatic, eager, impassioned key--"I have beenso little used to having things go as I wish, that I can hardly believeit is I that am standing here. Pinch me, that I may be sure that I amawake! Oh Esther! is it really true? Can you possibly be fond of me? Sofew people are! Not a soul in the wide world, I do believe, except myold mother. The girl that I told you about last night lay in my arms,and let me kiss her as you are doing; she kissed me back again, asyou do not do; I looked into her eyes, and they seemed true as truthitself, and all the while she was _lying_ to me: my very touch musthave been hateful to her, as it is to you, perhaps?"
"You are always referring to that--that _person_," says Esther, liftinggreat jealous eyes, and a mouth like a ripe cleft cherry, through themisty twilight towards him. "I perceive that I am only a _pis aller_after all. If you had ceased to care for her, you would have forgivenher long ago, and have given up measuring everybody else by herstandard."
"I have forgiven her fully and freely," he answers, magnanimously, andstanding heart to heart with a woman
".........fairer than the evening air, Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars; More lovely than the monarch of the sky, In wanton Arethusa's azured arms."
He may afford to be magnanimous. "I not only forgive her, but hale downblessings on her own and her plunger's ugly head. To be candid," heends, laughing, "I forgave her a year ago, when I met her at BraintonStation, grown fat, with a red nose, and a tribe of squinting children,who, but for the finger of Providence interposing, might have beenmine."
Speaking, he lays his lips upon the blossom of her sweet red mouth; butshe, pricked with the sudden smart of recollected treachery, draws awayfrom him.
"Come," she says, with a slight shiver, "let us go home. We shall getinto dreadful disgrace as it is; what will Sir Thomas say?"
"I can tell you beforehand," says St. John, gaily; "he will say,with his usual charming candour, that, if we ask his opin
ion, we area couple of fools to go gadding about to strange churches just tosee a parcel of lighted candles and squeaking little boys and popishmummeries; that, for his part, he has stuck to his parish church forthe last fifty years, and means to do so to the end of the chapter; andthat, if we don't choose to conform to the rules of his house, &c."
"Does he always say the same?" asks Esther, smiling.
"Always. A long and affectionate study of his character has enabledme to predicate with exactness what he will say on any great subject,Esther."
"How do you know that my name is Esther?" she asks naively. "You havenever heard any one call me so."
"Do you forget the flyleaf of the Prayer-book that----Hang it! I was onthe point of uttering the forbidden name!"
Smiling, he looks for an answering smile from her, but finds none.
"I have heard of you as Esther Craven from my youth up," he continues."Before you came we speculated as to what 'Esther' Craven would belike; it was only when you arrived _in propria persona_ that you roseinto the dignity of 'Miss' Craven."
"I hate being called Esther," she says, plaintively, with eyesdown-drooped to the lush-green grasses that bow and make obeisancebeneath her quick feet; "it always makes me feel as if I were indisgrace. Jack never calls me Esther unless he is vexed with me. Callme _Essie_, please."
"Essie, then."
"Well?"
"I think it right to warn you" (putting an arm of resolute possession,bolder than ever poor Brandon's had been, round her supple figure--forwho is there in these grey evening fields to witness the embrace?)--"Ithink it right to warn you that I may very possibly grow like SirThomas in time; they tell me that I have a look of him already. Ido not see that myself; but, even if that does come to pass, can youpromise to like me even then?"
"Even then."
"I may very probably d--n the servants, and be upset for a wholeevening if there are lumps in the melted butter; I may very probablyinsist on your playing backgammon with me every evening, and insist,likewise, on your being invariably beaten. Can you bear even that?"
"Even that."
They both laugh; but in Esther's laugh there is a ring of bitterness,which she herself hears, and wonders that he does not.
As they near the house, they see thin slits of crimson light throughthe dining-room shutters. Esther involuntarily quickens her pace.
"Why are you in such a hurry?" he asks, his eyes shining eager withreproachful passion in the passionless white starlight. "Who knows?to-morrow we may be dead; to-day we are as gods, knowing good and evil.This walk has not been to you what it has to me, or you would be in nohaste to end it."
"I don't suppose it has," she answers, half-absently, with a sigh.
He had expected an eager disclaimer, and is disappointed.
"There can be but one explanation of that," he says, angrily.
"If you only knew----," begins Esther, with an uncertainhalf-inclination to confess, though late.
"If you are going to tell me anything disagreeable," he says, quicklyputting his hand before her mouth, "stop! Tell me to-morrow, or the dayafter, but not now--not now! Let there be one day of my life on whichI may look back and say, as God said when he looked back upon His newworld, 'Behold, it is very good!'"
She is silent.
"And yet, perhaps, it would be better if I knew the end of yoursentence; if I only knew--what?--how little you care about me?"
"You are mistaken," she answers, roused into vehemence. "I love youso well, that I have grown hateful to myself!" and having spoken thusoracularly, she raises herself on tiptoe, lifts two shy burning lipsto his, and kisses him voluntarily. Then, amazed at her own audacity,clothed with shame as with a garment, she tears herself out of hisarms, as in delightful surprise he catches her to his heart, and flieswith frenzied haste into the house.