CHAPTER XXVIII.
It has snowed all day; an immense white monotony is over all the land.The clouds that piled themselves in sulky threatening last night behindthe Welsh hills, and many others like them, have to-day fulfilled theirthreats, and have been, through all the daylight hours, emptying theirflaky load on the patient earth. It is as if a huge white bird hadbeen shaking his pinions somewhere, high up in the air--shaking downmillions of little down feathers. Rain always seems in earnest, snowin play--with such delicate leisureliness does it saunter down. Therushing train, that bears Esther to her new distant life, is toppedlike any twelfth-night cake; so are the wayside stations; so are thehouses in the smoky towns; so are the men, sparsely walking about onthe country roads; so are the engine drivers and stokers; so are thesheep in the fields.
Miss Craven has been sitting all day long in the narrow _enceinte_of a railway carriage, between the two close-shut, snow-blindedwindows--sitting opposite a courteous warrior, who, travelling with allthe luxuriousness which his sex think indispensable, is magnanimousenough to share his buffalo-robe and foot-warmer with her. A_tete-a-tete_ of so many consecutive hours with a man would, under anyother circumstances than a railway journey, have produced an intimacythat would last a life-time; but now, all the result of it is a coupleof bows on the platform at Paddington--a look of interested curiosityafter his late companion's retreating figure, as she hurries herselfand her small properties into a filthy four-wheeler, on the part ofthe warrior, and total oblivion on the part of Esther. Since that timeshe has traversed London in her dilapidated shambling _growler_, shehas had awful misgiving that the "cabby," with the villany that allwomen ascribe to all "cabbies," is purposely taking her in a wrongdirection--is bearing her away to some dark, policeless slum, there tobe robbed and murdered. She has reflected, with cold shivers of terror,as to what would be the wisest course to pursue, supposing such to bethe case. Should she look silently out of window till she caught sightof the friendly helmet and tight frock-coat of some delivering "Bobby,"and then scream? Should she open the door and jump out on the snowypavement?
While still undecided, her cab stops, and--all mean back-streets andsorry short-cuts being safely passed--deposits her and her box, bag,and umbrella, beneath the Shoreditch lamps and among the Shoreditchporters. Then an hour's waiting in the crowded general waiting-room,where all the chairs are occupied by fat men, none of whom make amovement towards vacating theirs in favour of the slender weary woman,who, with crape veil thrown back from her sad child-face, is holdingher little numb hands over the fire, trying vainly to bring them backto life. Then more train; then a three-miles' drive in a fly, up hilland down dale, along snowy country lanes.
And now her journey is ended: the fly has stopped at the door ofa great, vague, snow-whitened bulk, that she takes upon trust asBlessington Court. The driver, having rung the bell, now standsbanging his arms, each one against the opposite shoulder, in the roughendeavour to restore circulation. The servants are too comfortable--thebutler over his mulled port in the housekeeper's room, and the footmenover their mulled beer in the servants' hall--to be in any hurry toattend to the summons. At length, after five minutes' waiting, a soundof withdrawing bolts and turning keys makes itself heard; the heavydoor swings inward, and a footman appears in the aperture, blinkingdisgustedly at the snow, which drives full into his eyes. Estherimmediately descends, and enters with the abrupt haste characteristicof extreme nervousness.
"Will you pay him, please?" she says, with a certain flurry of manner,to the servant. "I--I don't know how much I ought to give him--how manymiles it is."
While the man complies with her request, she stands in the hugestone-floored hall, lit only by firelight, shivering with cold andfear. She peers up at the ceiling--of which, by-the-bye, there is none,as the hall runs up to the top of the house; at the walls, from whichgreat life-size figures, dimly naked, glimmer uncomfortably cold.Anxious doubts assail her as to whether there are any rules of whichshe is ignorant for a "companion's" behaviour and deportment; she isnot aware that she has ever seen one of those curious animals hithertoin the course of her life. Ought they to make a reverence on entering aroom? Ought they to say "Sir" or "Ma'am" to whoever they address? Oughtthey to laugh at everybody's jokes?--not sit down unless given leave soto do, and not speak unless spoken to? So wondering, she tremblinglyfollows the footman as he opens the door of an adjoining apartment,and, announcing "Miss Craven," retires joyfully to the society of hiscompeers and his beer.
The apartment in which Esther is thus left stranded is as large asthe hall that she has just quitted. It seems to her oppressivelyimmense--quite a long walk from the door to the inhabited portion. Avery big roasting fire burns on the hearth: and right in front of it,in the very glare of its hot red eyes, sits a very old man, doubledtogether in an armchair--one hand in his breast, and his aged head sunkupon it, apparently fast asleep. An old lady, wrapped up in a shawl,reposes in another easy-chair, with her eyes likewise closed. A lampwith a green shade burns faintly on a centre table, and beyond lamp andtable sits a third person, hidden by the lamp-shade from Esther's eyes.
"Are they all asleep?" thinks the poor girl, advancing with gentle,hesitating steps. "They seem to be. How can I wake them?--or would itbe disrespectful?"
While she so speculates, the third person rises and comes forward. "Howdo you do, Miss Craven? You must have had a cold journey, I'm afraid?"says a bland, unforgotten voice.
It is Miss Blessington. In an instant, Esther seems to have jumped backover the past intervening months--to be just entering on her Feltonvisit. There is the same voice greeting her--the same tones of politeinquiry; the same words almost, except that _then_ it was, "How do youdo, Miss Craven? You must have had a hot journey, I'm afraid?" and nowit is, "How do you do, Miss Craven? You must have had a cold journey,I'm afraid?"--the same undulating walk; the same effect of lilacevening clouds. Involuntarily she turns her head and glances towardsthe window, half-expecting to see St. John's legs disappearing throughit. Instead, an old woman's voice sounds quavering: "Are you MissCraven, my dear? Come here!"
Esther does not hear. "It _was_ rather cold," she says, answeringConstance, in half bewilderment between past and present, her eyesdazed with the light after her long, dark journey.
"Mrs. Blessington is speaking to you," says Constance, in mild reminder.
Esther turns round quickly. "Oh! I beg your pardon--I did not hear--Ihope I was not rude," she cries, forgetting the "Ma'am" she hadhalf-purposed employing.
"Who's there?--who's talking?" asks the old man, lifting up his head,and speaking in a voice tremulous indeed, but with a remnant of thepower and fire that "youth gone out had left in ashes."
No one answers.
"Who's there, Mrs. Blessington?" he repeats, with querulous anger.
"Miss Craven, uncle--the young lady that we expected to-day--don't youknow?" replies Constance, stooping gracefully over him, and putting herlips as close as possible to his withered ear.
"H'm! Tell her to come and speak to me. I want to see what she islike," he rejoins, much as if she had not been in the room.
"Go to him, my dear," says the old lady.
"And speak as loud as you can; he is as deaf as a post," addsConstance, not in the least lowering her voice at the announcement,in perfect confidence of the truth of her assertion, shrugging herhandsome shoulders as she speaks.
Esther goes trembling, and lays her small cold hand in the long bonywreck of muscle, vein, and flesh that is stretched out to her. He gazesat her face with the eager intentness of the purblind.
"What is your name?" he asks abruptly.
"Esther," she answers, faltering.
"Cannot hear a word you say--you mumble so," he says, pettishly.
"Go round to the other side; the other ear is the best," suggestsConstance, calmly.
Esther obeys. "_Esther_," she repeats, speaking unnecessarily loud thistime--at the top of her voice, in fact, out of sheer nervousness.
"Yo
u need not scream at me, my dear, as if I were stone deaf. _Esther_or _Hester_, did you say?"
"Esther."
"And who gave it you, pray?"
"My father and mother, I suppose."
"H'm! Well, you may tell them, with my compliments," he says, with asenile laugh, "that I think they might have found a prettier name togive a young lady, and that the old squire says so. The old squire saysso," he repeats, chuckling a little to himself.
"I cannot tell them," answers Esther, half-crying. "They are dead."
"Oh, indeed!"
There his interest in the new comer seems to cease. His white headsinks back on his breast again, and he relapses into slumber.
Esther has had neither luncheon, dinner, nor tea--a fact which none ofher companions appear to contemplate as possible. _One_ bun has beenher sole support throughout the long bitter day--only _one_, becauseall such buns must be bought with Mrs. Brandon's money.
"I daresay you would like to go to bed, dear, you look tired," saysMrs. Blessington, scanning rather curiously Esther's fagged, woebegonelittle face. "Travelling is so much more fatiguing than it used to bein former days, when one travelled in one's own carriage, whatever theymay say. I remember," she continues, with an old woman's garrulity,"Mr. Blessington and I travelling from London to York by easy stages oftwenty miles a day, in our own curricle, with outriders. One never seesa curricle nowadays."
"I _am_ rather tired," the girl answers, with a faint smile, "andcravingly hungry," she might have added, but does not.
"Ring the bell for James to light the candles."
Weak from inanition, and with limbs cramped by long remaining inone position, Esther follows Miss Blessington up low flights ofuncarpeted stone stairs, through draughty twisting passages, along abroad bare gallery, down more passages, and then into a huge gloomy,mouldy room--frosty, yet cold, despite the fire burning brisklyon the old-fashioned-hobbed grate; a vast dark four-poster, hungwith ginger-coloured moreen; a couch that looks highly suitable forlying-in-state on; an old-fashioned screen, covered with caricatures ofFox, Burke, the Regent, and Queen Caroline; and on the walls a highlyvaluable and curious tapestry, which waves pleasantly in the bitterwind that enters freely beneath the ill-fitting old door, giving an airof galvanic motion and false life to the ill-looking Cupids, green withage, that play hide-and-seek amongst vases, broken pillars and wormyblue trees.
"You have plenty of room, you see," says Miss Blessington, with a curveof her suave lips, as she lights the candles on the dressing-table,which, instead of being pink petticoated, white-muslined deal, is baresturdy oak, with millions of little useless drawers and pigeon-holes init.
"Plenty," echoes Esther, rather aghast, surveying her premises withsome dismay.
"You must not be frightened if you hear odd noises; it's only rats,"says her companion, putting one small white-booted foot on the fender.
"I wish that--that stuff would not sway and shake about so," saysthe young girl, pointing nervously with one timid fore-finger to thetapestry. "Might not some one get behind it very easily and hide, as itdoes not seem to be fastened down?"
"Possibly," replies Miss Blessington, indifferently. "I never heard ofsuch a thing having happened."
"Am I near any one else--tolerably near, I mean?" asks Esther, herheart sinking.
"Not very."
"Would no one hear me if I screamed?" she inquires, laying her handunconsciously on the marble round of her companion's firm white arm,while her frightened eyes burn upon Constance's impassive face.
"We will hope that you will not make the experiment," she answers, witha cold smile, and so goes.