“I have the heart to do all I think right, Hester!” said my father, sternly. “I am the last man in the world to speak to of pity. Pity has ruined me; and I will do what is right, and not a false kindness to my only child. This lover of yours is your own choice—remember at all times he is your own choice. Imighthave made a wiser selection. I might not have made so good a one. The probability is in your favor; but, however it happens, recollect it is your own election, and that I wash my hands of the matter. But I insist on the condition I have toldyou of. What we have to do, we must do quickly. There is time enough for all necessary preparations, Hester.”
I had taken my seat again in the dull and mortified sullenness of rejected affection and unappreciated feelings. Preparations! was it that I cared for? I had no spirit to speak again. I rather was pleased to give up with a visible bad grace all choice and wish in the matter.
“You do not answer me,” said my father; “is my substantial reason too little to satisfy your punctilio, Hester? are you afraid of what the world will say?”
“No! I know no world to be afraid of,” said I, almost rudely, but with bitter tears coming to my eyes; “if you care so little for me, I do not mind for myself if it was to-morrow.”
“I do not choose it to be to-morrow, however,” said my father, with only a smile at my pique, “there are some things necessary beforehand besides white satin and orange flowers. Alice has arranged your dress before, you had better consult with her, and to-morrow I will give you a sum sufficient for your equipment; that is enough, I think, Hester. Neither of us seems to have any peculiar delight in the subject. I consider the matter settled so far as personal discussion between us goes—matters of arrangement we can manage at our leisure.”
He drew his book to him, and opened it as he spoke. When he began to read, he seemed to withdraw from me into his retirement, abstracted and composed, leaving me in the tumult of my thoughts to subside into quietness as I best could. I sat still for some time, leaning back in my chair, gnawing at my heart; but I could not bear it—and then I rose up to walk up and down from window to window, my father taking no note of me—what I did. As I wandered about in this restless and wretched way, I saw the lights in the college windows, shining through the half-closed curtain. He was there, brave, generous, simple heart! I woke out of my great mortification and grief, to a delight of rest and relaxation. Yes, he was there; that was his light shining in his window, and he was sitting close byit looking out upon this place which enclosed me and mine. I knew his thoughts now, and what he was doing, and I knew he was thinking of me.
When my heart began to return to its former gladness, I went away softly to my own room, thinking that no one would hear me, and that I might have a little time to myself; but when I had just gone, and was standing by the window, leaning my head upon it, looking out at his window, and shedding some quiet tears, Alice once more appeared upon me, with her candle in her hand. She did not speak at first, but went about the room on several little pretences, waiting for me to address her; then she said, “Will I leave the light, Miss Hester?” and stood gazing at me wistfully from beside the dressing-table. I only said, “Stay, Alice,” under my breath, but her anxious ear heard it. She put down the light at once, and went away to a distant corner of the room, where she pretended to be doing something, for she would not hasten me, though she was very anxious—it was pure love and nothing else, the love of Alice.
“Alice!”
She came to me in a moment. I had just drawn down the blind, and I crept close to her, as I used to do when I was a child. “Do you know what has happened, Alice?” I said.
“Dear, I have had my thoughts,” said Alice, “is it so then? and does your papa give his consent?”
“Oh! papa is very cruel—very cruel!” cried I bitterly, “he does not care for me, Alice. He cares nothing for me! he says it must be in three weeks, and speaks to me as if punctilio and preparations were all I cared for. It is very hard to bear—he will force me to go away and leave him, when perhaps he is dying. Oh! Alice, it is very hard.”
“Yes, my darling—yes, my darling!” said Alice vaguely; “and will I live to dress another bride? oh! God bless them—God bless them! evil has been in the house, and distress, and sorrow—oh! that it may be purged and cleansed for them.”
“What do you mean? what house, Alice?” I cried in great astonishment.
Alice drew her hand slowly over her brow and said, “I was dreaming, do not mind me, Miss Hester. I dressed your mamma, darling, and you’ll let me dress my own dear child.”
“No one else shall come near me, Alice; but think of it,” cried I in despair, “in three weeks—and itmustbe. I think it will kill me. My father used to care for me, Alice, but now he is only anxious to send me away.”
“Miss Hester, it is your father’s way; and he has his reasons,” said my kind comforter; “think of your own lot, how bright it is, and your young bridegroom that loves you dearly; think of him.”
“Yes, Alice,” I said very humbly, but I could not help starting at the name she gave him, it was so very sudden: every time I thought of it, it brought a pang to my heart.
But then she began to talk of what things we must get immediately—and I was not very old nor very wise—I was interested about these things very soon, and regarded this business of preparation with a good deal of pleasure; the white silk dress, and the veil, and the orange blossoms—it may be a very poor thing to tell of myself, but I had a flutter of pleasure thinking of them; and there we sat, full of business, Alice and I, and Alice went over my wardrobe in her imagination, and began to number so many things which I would require—and it was so great a pleasure to her, and I was so much softened and cheered myself, that when I rose, after she had left me, to wave my hand in the darkness, at the light in his window, I had almost returned to the deep satisfaction of my first joy.
But when I returned to the drawing-room—returned out of my own young blossoming life, with all its tumult of hopes, to my father, sitting alone at his book, all by himself, abstracted and solitary, like one whom life had parted from and passed by—I could not resist the sudden revulsion which threw me down once more. But now I was very quiet. I bent down my headinto my hands where he could not see me weeping. I forgot he had wounded or injured me—I said, “My father! my dear father!” softly to myself; and then I began to dream how Harry would steal into his affections—how we would woo him out of his solitude; how his forsaken desolate life would grow bright in our young house; and I began to be very glad in my heart, though I did not dry my tears.
When we were parting for the night, my father came slowly up to me, and with a gesture of fondness put his hands on my head. “Hester,” he said, in a low steady voice, “you are my only child”—that was all—but the words implied everything to me. I leaned upon his arm to hide my full eyes, and he passed his hand softly over my hair—“My only child! my only child!” he repeated once or twice, and then he kissed my cheek, and “God bless you, my love!” and sent me away.
I was very sad, yet I was very happy when I lay down to rest. The blind was drawn up, and I could see the light still shining in Harry’s window; and I was not afraid now to put his name beside my father’s when I said my prayers. It was very little more than saying my prayers with me. I had known no instruction, and in many things I was still a child. Just when I was going to sleep, some strong associations brought into my mind what Alice had told me of my father; how rejoiced he looked on the day of his betrothal, and how she never saw him look happy again—it was a painful thought, and it came to me as a ghost might have come at my bedside; I could not get far from it. I had no fear for myself, yet this haunted me. Ah, my dear father, how unhappy he had been!
ITwas the first of September, a brilliant sunshiny autumn day. The light streamed fall into my chamber window, and upon the figure of Alice standing before it, with her white apron and her white cap, so intensely white under the sunshine. She was drawing out rolls of white ribbon, and holding them suspended in the light for me to see them. They were dazzling in their silken snowy lustre. It was difficult to make a choice while this bright day glorified them all.
The room was not in disorder, yet it was littered everywhere with articles of dress. On my dining-table was a little open jewel-case with the bit of gold chain and the little diamond pendant which I had worn the first time I saw Harry—and the jewels were sparkling quietly, to themselves, in the shade. There were other ornaments, presents from him, lying beside this; and they made a subdued glow in the comparative dimness of that corner of the room. On my bed, catching a glance of sunshine, lay my bridal dress, its rich full folds and white brocaded flowers glistening in the light. On the little couch near the window were all the pretty things of lace which graced mytrousseau—the veil arranged by Alice’s own hand over a heap of rich purple silk which lay there for my approval, and which brought out to perfection the delicate pattern of the lace. And this was not all, for every chair held something—boxes of artificial flowers, so beautifully made, that it was impossible not to like them, exquisite counterfeits of nature—boxes of gloves, in delicate pale colors, fit for a bride—and last of all, this box of snowy-white ribbons, from which we found it so difficult to choose.
People speak of the vanity of all these bridal preparations. I have heard often how foolish was all this display and bustle about a marriage. I do not think it. It is the one day in a woman’s life when everything and every one should do her honor. As I stood with Alice in my bright room, half blinded with the intense light upon the white ribbons, I was pleased with all the things about me. I had license to like everything, and to be interested with all the additions to my wardrobe. Only once in one’s life can one bea bride. And all these white, fine, shining dresses—all these flowers and draperies of lace and pretty ornaments—they are not minutes of vanity always, but expressions of a natural sentiment—and they were very pleasant to me.
“I’ll come out of the light, Miss Hester—here, dear, you can see them better now: though I like to see them shining in the sunshine. There is a beauty! will this one do?”
“Do you think that is the best?” said I, “then I will take it, Alice; and some for your cap now; here is a satin one, and here is gauze, but I must choose them myself; and you are to have your silk gown made and wear it—you are not to put it away in your drawer.”
Alice looked down at her dark green stuff gown, hanging quite dead and unbrightened even in that fervid sunshine, and shook her head with a smile of odd distress. “It is much too fine for me, I was never meant to be a lady,” said Alice, “but I’d wear white like a girl, sooner than cross you, my darling; and that is for me—bless your dear heart! that is a ribbon fit for a queen!”
“But the queen is not to be here,” said I, “so you must wear it, Alice; and I do not want you to be without your apron. I like that great white apron. I wonder if I will like to lay down my head upon it, Alice, when I am old?”
“When you are old, Alice will not be here, Miss Hester,” she said, with a smile; “you are like other young things, you think you will not be a young lady when you are married; butmy darling, married or not married, the years take their full time to come.”
“Ah, I will never be a girl again,” said I, sighing with one of the half mock, half real sentimentalities of youth. “Alice, do you think, after all, my father is pleased?”
“I think,” she began, but she stopped and paused, and evidently took a second thought; “yes, Miss Hester, I think he is pleased,” she said, “he has every reason—yes, dear, don’t fear for your papa; it is all good—all better than anybody could have planned it—I know it is.”
“Do you know that you speak very oddly sometimes, Alice,” said I; “you speak as if you were a prophet, and knew something about us, that we did not ourselves know.”
“Don’t you think such things, Miss Hester,” said Alice, hurriedly, and her face reddened, “as I am no gipsy nor fortune-teller either, not a bit.”
“Are you angry?” said I, “angry at me, Alice?” I was a little surprised, and it was quite true that two or three times I had been at a loss to know what she meant.
“Angry atyou—no, darling, nor never was all your life,” said Alice, “for all you have your own proud temper, Miss Hester—for I never was one to flatter. Will I send the box away? look, dear, if you have got all.”
I had got all that we wanted, and when she went away, I drew my chair to the window, and began a labor of love. Alice never changed the fashion of her garments, and while she labored night and day for me, I was making a cap for her, and braiding a great muslin apron, which she was to wear onthe day. I was very busy with the apron, doing it after a fashion of my own, and in a pattern which Alice would think all the more of because it was my own design, though I am not very sure that it gained much in effect by that circumstance. I drew my seat near to the open window, into the sunshine, and began to work, singing to myself very quietly but very gladly, as the pattern grew under my fingers. My heart rejoiced in thebeautiful day, and in its own gladness; and I do not know that this joy was less pleasant for the tremor of expectation, and the flutter of fear, which my strange new circumstances brought me. I glanced from the window, hearing a step in the garden, and there was Harry, wandering about looking up at me.
When he caught my eye, he began to beckon with all his might, and try to get me to come down to him. I had seen him already this morning, so I knew it was not because he had anything to say to me, and I shook my head, and returned to my work. Then he began to telegraph to me his despair, his impatience, his particular wish to talk to me—and kept me so occupied smiling at him, and answering his signals, that the apron did not make much more progress than if I had gone down. At last, however, Alice came back, and I looked from the window no more, but went on soberly with my occupation. I had no young friends to come to see my pretty things, so Alice began to put them away.
A fortnight was gone, since that day when we were engaged, as Alice called it; and in a week, only a week now, the other day was to come.
“You have never told me yet, Miss Hester,” said Alice, as she passed behind me, “where you are going, after—”
I interrupted her hurriedly. I was frightened for a mention of this dreadful ceremony, in so many words; and the idea of going away was enough to overset my composure at any time—I who had never left home before, and such a going away as this!
“We are to go abroad,” I answered hurriedly; “but only for a few weeks, and then to have a house in Cambridgeshire, if we can find one very near at hand, Alice.”
“Yes,” answered Alice.
There was so much implied in this “yes,” it seemed so full of information and consciousness, as if she could tell me more than I told her, that I was annoyed and almost irritated. In the displeasure of the moment I could not continue the conversation;it was very strange what Alice could mean by these inferences, and then to look so much offended when I spoke to her about them. I saw that Harry was still in the garden, looking up, and beckoning to me again, when he saw me look out—so I put away my work, and went down to hear what he had to say.
He had not anything very particular to say; but it was not disagreeable, though there was little originality in it, and I had heard most of it before; and he helped me with some flowers in the green-house which had been sadly neglected, and we cut some of the finest of them in the garden, for the vase upon my little table upstairs; and he told me I ought to wear flowers in my hair, and he said he would bring me a wreath of briony. “I should like to bind the beautiful clustered berries over those brown locks of yours, Hester,” he said. “I will tell you some day how I came to know the briony first, and fell in love with it—it was one of the first incidents in my life.”
“Tell me now then,” said I.
But he shook his head and smiled. “Not now—wait till I can get a wreath of it fresh from a Cambridgeshire hedgerow, and then I will tell you my tale.”
“I shall think it is a tale about a lady, if you speak of it so mysteriously,” said I, and when I turned to him I saw he blushed. “It was so then,” I said, with the slightest pique possible. I was not quite pleased.
“There never was but one in the world to me, Hester,” he said, and I very soon cast down my eyes, “so it could not be about a lady, unless it happened in a dream, and the lady was you.”
I looked at him with a strange perplexity, he was almost as hard to understand as Alice was—but he suddenly changed the conversation, and made me quite helpless for any further controversy by talking about what we were to do next week, after—I was always silenced in a moment by a reference to that.
Then my father looked out from the library window andcalled to us. My father had been a good deal occupied with Harry, and I pleased myself with thinking that he began to like him already. They seemed very good friends, and Harry showed him so much deference and was so anxious to follow his wishes in everything, that I was very grateful to him; and all the more because I thought it was from his own natural goodness he did this, fully more than from a wish to please me.
We went in together to the library. My father was reading papers, some of those long straggling papers tied together at the top, which always look so ominous, and are so long-winded. His book was put away, and instead he had pen and ink and his great blotting-book before him. My father had been writing much and reading little, during these two weeks; the occupation of his life was rudely broken in upon by these arrangements, and though I could not understand how it was that he had so much business thrown upon him, the fact seemed to be certain. There was more life even in the room, it was less orderly, and there was a litter of papers upon the table. My father looked well, pale, and self-possessed, but not so deadly calm, and he called Harry to him with a kind and familiar gesture. I had not yet overcome the embarrassment which I always felt when I was with them both; and when I saw that my father was pointing out sundry things in the papers to Harry, that they were consulting about them, and that I was not a necessary spectator, I turned over some books for a few minutes, and then I turned to go away. When he saw me moving towards the door, my father looked up. “Wait a little, Hester, I may want you by and by,” he said. I was obedient and came back, but I did not like being here with Harry. I did not feel that our young life and our bright prospects were fit to intrude into this hermit’s room, and I wondered if it would look drearier or more solitary—if my father would feel any want of me in my familiar place, when I went away.
But I had very little reason to flatter myself that he would miss me. He conducted all these matters with a certain satisfaction,I thought. He was glad to have me “settled;” and though I think he had been kinder than usual ever since that night, he had never said that it would grieve him to part with me, or that the house would be sad when I was gone.
There was a pause in their consultation. I heard, for I did not see, because I had turned to the window, and they were behind me, and then my father said—“Come here, Hester, we have now talked together of these arrangements—sit down by me, here, and see if it will not distress you too much to hear the programme of the drama in which you are to be a principal actor—here is a chair, sit down.”
I turned, and went slowly to the seat he pointed out to me. I was very reluctant, but I could not disobey him, not even though I saw Harry’s face bending forward eagerly to know if this was disagreeable to me.
“In the first place,” said my father with a smile, “it is perhaps well that Hester is no heiress, as she once was supposed to be. Had my daughter inherited the family estate, her husband must have taken her name, and that is a harder condition than the one I stipulated for.”
As there was no answer for a moment, I glanced shyly under the hand which supported my head at Harry. To my great surprise, he seemed strangely and painfully agitated. There was a deep color on his face. He did not lift his eyes, but shifted uneasily, and almost with an air of guilt, upon his chair; and he began to speak abruptly with an emotion which the subject surely did not deserve.
“Hester is worth a greater sacrifice than that of a name like mine,” he said; “it would give me pleasure to show my sense of the honor you do me by admitting me into your family. I have no connexions whom I can gain by abandoning my own name, and I have no love for it, even though Hester has made it pleasanter to my ear. Let me be called Southcote. I would have proposed it myself had I thought it would be agreeable to you. You have no son. When you give Hester to me, makeme altogether your representative. I will feel you do me a favor. Pray let us settle it so.”
My father looked at him with more scrutinizing eyes—“When I was your age, young man, not for all the bounties of life, would I have relinquished my name.”
Once more Harry blushed painfully. I too, for the moment, would rather that he had not made this proposal, yet how very kind it was of him! and I could not but appreciate the sacrifice which he made for me.
“Your name was the name of a venerable family, distinguished and dear to you,” he said, after a little pause. “I am an orphan, with no recollections that endear it to me. Nay, Mr. Southcote, do not fear, I have no antecedents which make me ashamed of it; but for Hester’s sake and yours, I will gladly relinquish this name of mine. If you do not wish it, that is another question.”
There was a suppressed eagerness in his tone which impressed me very strangely. I could understand how, in an impulse of generosity, he could make the proposal; but I could not tell why he should be so anxious about it. It was very strange.
“I have not sufficient self-denial to say that,” said my father. “I do wish it. It will gratify me more than anything else can, and I do not see indeed why, being satisfied on every other point, I should quarrel with you for proposing to do what I most desire; but regard for his own name is so universal in every man, I confess in other circumstances I should have been disposed to despise the man who accepted my heiress and her name with her. You, of course, are in an entirely different position. I can only accept your offer with gratitude. It is true, as you say, I have no son—you shall be my representative—yes, and I will be glad to think,” said my father, with a momentary softening, and in a slow and lingering tone, “that she is Hester Southcote still.”
Ah, those lingering touches of tenderness, how they overpowered me! I did not wish to let my father see me cry, likea weak girl; but I put my hands on my eyes to conceal my tears. He did care for me, though he expressed it so little; and when he said that, I was glad too, that I was still to bear my father’s name—glad of this one proof of Harry’s regard, and proud of the self-relinquishment—the devotion he showed to me.
There was a considerable pause after that—we did not seem at our ease, any one of us, and when I glanced up again, Harry, though he looked relieved, was still heated and embarrassed, and watched my father eagerly. He cleared his voice a great many times, as if to speak—changed his position, glanced at me; but did not seem able to say anything after all. My father had a faint smile upon his face—though it was a smile, I did not think it a pleasant one—and I was quite silent, with a vague fear of what was to follow.
But nothing followed to confirm my alarm. When my father spoke again it was quite in his usual tone.
“Then, with this one change—which, by the bye, requires our instant attention as to the papers and everything necessary—our arrangements stand as before; and you leave Cambridge on Tuesday, and return in a month, either here or to some house which Mr. Osborne may find for you. Osborne is your agent, I understand? You leave these matters in his hands? Now, I must know the hour you will leave me—how you are to travel, and where you will go first; and if I may depend certainly on the time of your return?”
“We will fix it for any time you choose,” said Harry, quickly and with an air of relief. “I will be only too proud to bring Hester home, and to see her in her own settled house; but you must give us our moon; we have a right to that—Ihave a right to that. You will not grudge us our charmed holiday. I shall be content to have no other all my life.”
My father looked at him with a smile, almost of scorn, but it soon settled into a fixed and stern gravity. “I will not grudge your pleasure—no,” he said, in the tone of a monitor whomeans to imply “it is all vanity,” “but I wish to have your assurance that I may trust your word. And you, Hester, are you nearly ready to go away from me?”
“Oh! papa, papa!” I cried wildly. Was he disposed to regret me at last?
“Nay, nay, child, we must have no lamentations,” said my father, “no weeping for the house you leave behind. On the verge of your life be sparing of your tears, Hester—if you have not occasion for them all one day or another you will be strangely favored. Are you ready? tell me? I have been hard upon you sometimes; I am not a man of genial temper, and what kindness was in me was soured. There—I apologize to you, Hester, for wounding your sensibilities—they distress me; and now answer my question.”
“I will be ready,” I said. This dreadful coldness of his always drove me into a sullen gloom.
“Very well, you have chosen each other,” said my father gravely; “and now you are about to begin your life. I am no dealer in good advice or moral maxims. I only bid you remember that it is of your own free will you bind yourselves in this eternal contract. This union, on which you are entering, has a beginning, but no end. Its effects are everlasting; you can never deliver yourself from its influences, its results. On the very heart and soul of each of you will be the bonds of your marriage; and neither separation, nor change, nor death, can obliterate the mark they will make. I do not speak to discourage you. I only bid you think of the life before you, and remember that you pursue it together of your own free choice.”
“We do not need that you should use such solemn words; they are not for us, father,” said Harry, advancing to my side, and drawing my hand within his arm. He was afraid that I could not bear this, when he saw me drooping and leaning on the chair from which I had just risen. He did not know what a spirit of defiance these words roused in me. “Hester trustsme and does not fear that I will make her life wretched; and, as for me, my happiness is secure when I claim the right thus to stand by her, and call her mine. There are no dark prognostics in our lot—think not so. We will fear God and love each other; and I desire to feel the bonds of my marriage in my very soul and heart. I do not care to have a thought that is not hers—not a wish that my wife will not share with me. Say gentler words to us, father! Bless us as you bless her in your heart. She is a young, tender, delicate woman. She trembles already; but you will not speak only those words which make her tremble more?”
My father stood by himself, stooping slightly, leaning his hands upon the table before him, and looking at us. Harry’s firm voice shook a little as he ended; his eyes were glistening, and there was a noble tender humility about his whole look and attitude, which was a very great and strange contrast to the cold, self-possessed man before him. I saw that my father was struck by it. I saw that the absence of any thought for himself—that his care and regard for me moved with a strange wonder my father’s unaccustomed heart. The young man’s generous life and love, the very strength of all the youthful modest power of which he would make no boast—his entire absence of offence, yet firm and quiet assertion of what was due to our young expectations and hopes, and perhaps the way in which we stood together, my arm in his, leaning upon him, impressed my father. He looked at us long, with a steady, full look; and then he spoke.
“You are right—it does not become me to bode evil to my own child, nor to her bridegroom. God bless you! I say the words heartily; and now leave me, I am weary, and will call you if I need you, Hester! I am not ill, do not fear for me.”
He took our hands, Harry’s and mine, and held them tightly within his own; then he said again, “Children, God bless you!” and sent us away.
We went up to the drawing-room together; Harry had spentalmost all of the day with us for at least a week past, and even now he did not seem disposed to go away. When I told him that I had something to do, he bade me bring it and work beside him—he would like to see me working, so I did what he said—and while I was busy with Alice’s apron, he talked to me, for I did not speak a great deal myself. My mind was somewhat troubled by what my father had said. I had an uneasy sense of something doubtful and uncertain in our circumstances, of some event or mystery, though I could not tell what it was. I do not think I was pleased that Harry should be so willing to resign his name. It was one of those concessions that a woman does not like to have made to her. A true woman is far happier to receive rank than to confer it. When she is placed in these latter circumstances, she is thrown upon the false expedient of undervaluing herself, and what she has to bestow. I would much rather have felt that Harry was quite superior to me in the external matters—then we could have stood on our natural ground to each other, and I should have been proud of his name; but it was not a pleasant thought to me that he himself thought it unworthy, and that he was to adopt mine.
“You are very grave, Hester; are you thinking of what your father said?” he asked me at last.
“I do not quite know what I am thinking of,” I said, with a faint sigh.
“No, it is a summer cloud,” said Harry, “something floating over this beautiful sky of our happiness; but it will not last, Hester. I know you may trust yourself; your sweet young life and all its hopes. I think you need not fear to trust them with me.”
“I have no fear—it is not that,” said I; “do not heed me. I cannot tell what it is that troubles me.”
He bent down upon his knee to see my face, which was stooping over Alice’s apron, and he put his hand upon mine, and arrested my fingers, which were playing nervously with the braid. “Do you remember the compact you made with me,Hester? ‘Cannot tell’ is for other people; but what troubles you should trouble me also.”
“Nay, I would not have that,” said I, hurriedly, “that would be selfish, but indeed I don’t know what it is—I rather feel as if there was something which I did not know—as if there was a secret somewhere which somebody ought to tell me; I cannot guess what or where it is, but I think there is surely something. Do you know of anything, Harry?”
He continued to kneel at my knee, holding my hand, and looking up in my face, and I gazed at him wistfully, wondering to see the color rise to his very hair. He did not remove his eyes from me, but what could it be that brought that burning crimson to his face?
But I did not wait for his answer. In my womanish foolishness, afraid that I was grieving him, I took away the opportunity, that opportunity—what misery it might have saved me: and spoke myself, wearing the time away till he had quite recovered himself. “I do not think you would hide anything from me, Harry, which I ought to know; my father scarcely knows that I am a woman now; it is hard for him to get over the habit of thinking me a child, but you are no older than I am; we are equal then—and you would not use me as if I was unfit to know all that concerns us both.”
“We are equal then,” he said, repeating my words hurriedly, but without any answer to the meaning of them; “but I do not think we are nearly equals in anything else, Hester. Your sincere heart—oh, if I begin to speak of that, I will soon make myself out a poor fellow, and I would rather you did not think me so just yet; equal! why I am justly entitled to call myself your superior in that particular at least, for do you know I am two or three years older than you are?”
“I was not speaking of that,” said I gravely.
“I know you were not speaking of that,” said Harry, “you were speaking of the summer cloud. See, Hester, there is another on the sky; look how it floats away with the sunshine and thewind. There shall be neither secret nor mystery between us, trust me. I want your help and sympathy too much for that.”
“There shall be!” I said to myself in an under tone. I was quite satisfied; this promise was fortunate, and Henry did not say: “there is not.”
But at this moment we heard the door open below, and Mr. Osborne’s voice asking for my father.
I rose in great haste and ran up stairs. I forgot everything of more importance, and only remembered how embarrassed and uncomfortable I should be, if Mr. Osborne came in and found us together. I went back again to my room with my heart beating quick. The vague and uncertain doubtfulness which had taken possession of me did not prompt any distrust of Harry. It was not that I found that he was deceiving me, or that I dreamed of such a possibility. The utmost length to which my suspicions went, was to a little jealousy of something which I did not know, and was not told of, and when I reflected over it in my own room, I found no particular foundation for these doubts of mine; but still I should have much preferred that Harry had not offered to take our name. It was generous like himself. I was no heiress that he should have done it for the land, or for the rank I brought him. Instead of that, he did it for pure love; but I was perverse still, and I was not pleased.
When I went down stairs, I found that Mr. Osborne was to dine with us, and that Harry had not gone away; and after a little time, I found that I was very glad of Mr. Osborne’s presence at table. My father spoke very little, and seemed more abstracted than usual. Harry was almost talkative, on the contrary, but he was less easy than I had seen him; and as for me, I said nothing, but watched them with a strange fascination, as if I was the spectator of some drama of which I must find out the secret. It was a relief to see Mr. Osborne’s uninterrupted spirits, his usual manner and bearing. I wonder if they are happier than other people, those men who have nobody to disturb their equanimity, no one to put them out of temper, or breaktheir hearts—but at any rate, it was a comfort to look at Mr. Osborne, and to see, whatever change might be in us, that there was none in him.
After dinner, Harry left us, though only for a time, and when I had been by myself in the drawing-room for nearly an hour, Mr. Osborne came in, and approached me with something in his hand. When he opened it, it turned out to be another little gold chain with something hanging from it, very much like my little diamond ornament; but this was a very small miniature of a very young sweet face, so smiling, and loving, and gentle, that it was pleasant to look at it. “I think this is the fittest present I can make you,” said Mr. Osborne. “You know who it is, Hester?”
“No,” I said; though from the look he gave me, I guessed at once.
“It is very like her,” he said in a low voice; “like what she was when I had a young man’s fancy for that pretty sweet young face. No, Hester, you need not glance at me so wistfully, she did not break my heart; but I love you the better, my child, that she was your mother.”
“And this is my mother!” I said. It was younger than me, this innocent simple girlish face—my heart was touched by its gentleness, its happiness, the love and kindness in its sweet eyes—my tears began to fall fast upon the jewelled rim—this was my mother! and it was not a face to make any one unhappy. I did not think of thanking Mr. Osborne, I only thought of her.
“She must have been very happy,” I said, softly; we sank our voices speaking of her.
“She was very happy then,” said Mr. Osborne; “the sunshine was her very life, Hester; and when it faded away from her, she died.”
These words recalled me to myself. I could not permit him to go on, perhaps to blame my father—so I interrupted him to thank him very gratefully for his present.
“She used to wear an ornament like this; and the miniatureis from a sketch I myself made of her in her first youth,” said Mr. Osborne. “I know your father has no portrait, but there is one in the possession of her friends.”
“Her friends! has she friends living?” I asked eagerly; “I do not know what it is to have relations. I wonder if they know anything of us.”
“You have one relation at least, Hester,” said Mr. Osborne; “is it possible, after all his attempts to become acquainted with you, that you have never given a kind thought to your cousin?”
“I do not know my cousin, sir,” I answered rather haughtily, “I do not wish to know him; we have nothing in common with each other, he and I.”
“How do you know that?” said my companion. “Hester, when you do know him, do him justice. I have seen Edgar Southcote; I know few like him, and he ill deserves unkindness, or distrust, or resentment at your hands. Now hear me, Hester. I have given you this portrait of your mother, because I loved her in my youth; and because you are as dear to me as if you were my own child; but I give it you also as a charm against the cruel injustice, the suspicion, and the pride of your race. A false conception of her motives, obstinately held and dwelt upon, killed your poor mother. Yes! I do not want to mince words. It made her wretched first, and then it killed her. Hester, beware! your husband’s happiness depends as much on you as yours does on him. He is himself a noble young man, worthy the regard of any woman; and I have had a higher opinion of yourself ever since I saw that you valued him. When you leave your father’s house, take this sweet counsellor with you. Remember the cause that broke her young heart, and left you without a mother in the world. Let the glance of the sweet frank eyes teach you a woman’s wisdom, my dear child. Forgive what is wrong—foster what is right. Hester! I am making a long speech to you. It is the first and last preachment you will hear from an old friend.”
I had risen while he was speaking, and stood before him alittle proud, a little indignant, waiting till he should come to an end. Then I said: “Mr. Osborne, I cannot hear you blame my father.”
“I am not blaming your father, Hester. I am warning you,” he answered; “and I do it because you are as a child to me.”
I thanked him again, kissed the little miniature, and put it round my neck. But Mr. Osborne would not suffer this. “Time enough,” he said, “when you go away. Do not awake too strongly your father’s recollections. He is not in a fit state for that.”
“He is not worse!” I exclaimed eagerly.
“No, Hester, he is not worse—but he is not strong, you know. Now go and put this away, and remember my words like a good child.”
When I took it upstairs Alice was in the room; and when she saw it, Alice wept on it, and exclaimed how like it was. Then she clasped it on my neck, and kissed me, and cried, and said how glad she was that I should have such a token of my mother; and then Alice, too, began to admonish me. “Oh! think of her sometimes, Miss Hester! Think how her young life and all her hopes were lost. It was no blame of her’s, my sweet young lady! Oh! think of your mother, dear child.” I was strangely shaken by all these admonitions. I did not know whether to reject this indignantly, or to sit down on the floor, and cry with mortification and annoyance. What occasion had they all to be afraid of my spirit or temper? I put away this beautiful little portrait, at last, with a vexed and sullen pain. Why did everybody preach to me on this text? I had never harmed my mother, and how could my circumstances possibly resemble those she was placed in? If this sweet, gentle smile of hers was to be a perpetual reproach to me, how could I have any pleasure in it? I was annoyed and vexed with everybody, and though in the rebound my heart clung to my father, I could not go to him to seek for sympathy. I wandered out into the garden, into the twilight, thinking with a deeper pity of his disappointedheart. I forgave him all his hard words and coldness, thinking mysteriously of the darkness which had fallen over all his life; and I could not be patient with my advisers who had been warning me by his example. How could they tell what he had suffered? What was it to them that he had looked for love, and had not found it? In imagination, I stood by my father’s side, vindicating and defending, and said to myself with indignant earnestness: “Nobody shall blame him to me.”
I was not even satisfied with Harry. He had not answered me plainly, and he had gone away. I paced up and down the springy, fragrant grass with short, impatient steps. I forgot that the night-wind was chill, and that I had nothing to protect me from it. I was not at all in a sweet or satisfactory mood of mind; and when I thought of the continual happy smile of the miniature, it rather chafed and annoyed than calmed me. While I was thus unhappily wandering in the garden, at issue with myself and every one around, I suddenly heard a step behind, and as suddenly felt a great, soft shawl thrown over me. I resisted my first impatient impulse to throw it off, and submitted to have myself wrapped in it, and a fold of it thrown over my head like a hood—the warmth and shelter it seemed to give, had something strangely pleasant in them. I was soothed against my will—and Harry drew my arm through his, and we continued our walk in silence. It was pleasant to be taken possession of so quietly—it was pleasant to feel that some one had a right to take care of me, whether I would or no.
And then Harry had all the talk to himself for a long time, though it was not the less agreeable on that account; and then my troubled mood went away, and I told him of Mr. Osborne’s present, and how they had been cautioning me on his behalf—and, indeed, with a confession of the temper I was in when he came to me—things were very different now. I perceived it was a beautiful dewy Autumn night, with a young moon in the sky, and pale silvery stars half lost in the mist of the Milky Way, and there was a breath of faint fragrance in the air, and one byone the lights were beginning to shine in the college windows—these friendly lights which I had watched so long—then my father’s lamp was lighted in the library. In the stillness and darkness we wandered through the garden, speaking little, finding no great necessity to speak. Out of all the agitation of the day, it happened to me now to become very quiet, and very happy; my heart beat quick, yet softly; I no longer felt the chill evening breath, or chafed at what had been said to me—what mattered all that had been said to me? When Harry and I were together, I knew nothing could ever step in between us. Nobody else understood me as he did. Nobody else, like me, trusted in him.
ITwas my marriage day.
I awoke when the morning was breaking with its chill harmony of tints in the east. I went to my window, to watch the song-thrushes rising upon the grey of the dawn; to look upon those long wide lines of clouds which seemed to stretch out their vain ineffectual barriers to keep down the rising day. I lingered till the early sunshine came down aslant upon the top-most boughs, and woke the birds to twitter their good-morrow—till the darkness in the garden paths underneath yielded and fled before this sweet invasion, and took a momentary refuge in the depths of dreary shadow, under the three elm trees at the boundary wall. No one was astir but I—there was not a sound but the chirp of little housewives in their leafy nests, up betimes to seek the day’s provisions. I saw nothing but the sky, the clouds, the early light, the dew glistening on the trees, and the sunshine touching the little deep-set windows of Corpus, and the morning mist just clearing from the brown outline of its wall.
It was my wedding-day—the first grand crisis of my life—and I had no lack of material for my thoughts; but I was not thinking as I knelt by the window in my white dressing-gown, vacantly looking out upon the rising day. My mind was full of a vague tumult of imagination. I myself was passive and made no exertion, but looked at the floating pictures before me, as I might have looked in a dream. My fancy was like the enchanted mirror in the story; out of the mist, scenes and figures developed themselves for a moment, and faded into vapor once more. The scenes were those of my girlish life; so many recollections of it came back upon me; so many glimpses I had ofthat careless sunshine, those unencumbered days! when I was a child at Cottiswoode, where I was the young lady of the Manor, and knew all these lands over which I looked in my frank girlish pride to be our own. Then the time when the new heir came—and then all those years and days which had gone over me here. I saw myself in the garden on which I was looking now with dreamy eyes—I saw myself in the corner of the window-seat looking out upon the twinkling lights of Corpus, and thinking to myself in my silence and solitude of the owners of these lights; and then Harry glided in upon my dreams, and I woke with a startling flush of consciousness to remember what day this was, and to know that I myself was a bride!
Yes, a bride! to go away from my father’s house in a few hours, never to come back to it again as to my home. To take farewell of all my girlish loneliness, and retirements, and wild fancies—to give up all the involuntary romancings and possibilities, the uncommunicated and self-contained life of my youth. I almost fancied, with a sudden shrinking and tremor, that this was the last hour of all my life in which I should be alone. I buried my face in my hands at the thought, though there was no one there to see me; I felt my face burn with a hot heavy glow. I had in me a restless sense of excitement, a reluctant heart, and yet a passive consciousness of certainty, of necessity, of something fixed and absolute, from which there was neither way nor means to recede. A thing whichmustbe, always roused a little defiance, a little resistance; and the morning of a bridal is seldom a time of perfect happiness to anybody concerned. I lay with my head upon the cushion of my chair, kneeling before it. I tried to say my prayers, but my thoughts wandered off from the familiar words. My thoughts seemed wandering everywhere, and would not be composed into steady attention for a moment; and after I had said the words, I knew with a certain shock and distress that I had meant nothing by them, and that those childish sentences that claimed sincerity more than the most elaborate compositions could have done, were only a coverfor a tumult of agitating thoughts. After this, in real distress at my involuntary mocking of prayer, I spoke aloud, and trembling, with my face still hidden, what plain words I could think of, asking for a blessing. “Oh, Lord, bless us, bless us.” I almost think that was all that I could keep my mind to; and after I had made this child’s outcry, I lay still, kneeling, hiding my face, in this little pause of vacant time, on the threshold of my fate.
When I heard some one stirring below, and after an interval, when Alice’s step approached my door, I rose up hurriedly, that she might not see me thus. Alice could not tell whether to smile or to cry as she came towards me. It was a true April face, beaming and showery, that stooped towards me as she kissed my cheek. “Bless you, my darling!” said Alice, and with the words the tears fell, but she recovered immediately and set me down in the old-fashioned easy chair, and drew a little table before me, and brought me some tea; and henceforward I delivered myself up into the hands of Alice, and was served and waited upon as if I had been a child.
It was still only seven o’clock, and there was no haste, yet we began my solemn toilet immediately. I became quite calm under the sway of Alice. When she brushed my hair over my shoulders, I shook it round me like a veil, and defied her to reduce it into order. I was relieved and eased by her company. I had no longer the opportunity of bewildering myself with my own thoughts, and as Alice brushed and braided, she told me stories, as she had been used to do, of many another bride.
“For nobody makes much account of the bridegroom, Miss Hester,” said Alice; “though the wedding wouldn’t be much of a wedding without him, and though a handsome young gentleman like our Mr. Harry is a pleasure to see in the day of his joy; but even if it’s a poor country maid, instead of a young lady, every one wants a look at the bride. The married folks think of their young days, and the young folks of what’s to come; and I think there’s never a mortal, unless he’s quite given over to the evil one, but has a kind thought for a bride.”
To this I answered nothing, but only played with a superb bracelet Harry had given me, sliding it on and off my arm, and watching the glitter of the light in the precious stones.
“But, my darling, you hav’n’t half the company you should have had,” continued Alice, smoothing my hair with her large kind hand, in a caressing motion. “Half-a-dozen pretty young bridesmaids at the least, ought to have gone with you—all in their pretty gowns and their white ribbons; and now there’s only Mr. Osborne’s niece, just for the name of the thing, and not another woman but me.”
“That is because I know no one, Alice,” said I.
“But you should have known some one, dear,” said Alice. “It’s not in nature for a young thing to be so lonesome; but that’s all to be mended now. You’ll not make light of the country people, Miss Hester, as your papa did? Promise me now, my dear young lady, that you’ll think well of them, for his sake, when you get home.”
“What country people, Alice? I don’t suppose we will be rich enough to keep company with great people,” said I, “but you always speak as if you knew quite well where I was to live, when the truth is, that nobody knows, and that Mr. Osborne is to find a house for us, if he can.”
Alice made no immediate reply. I liked her pleasant talk and recollections, and I did not like to bring them to an end, so I resumed the conversation by a question. “I never asked you, Alice, how you got those roses from Cottiswoode, that night, you remember, three weeks ago?”
“I have some more to-day, Miss Hester,” said Alice.
“Have you? how did you get them? I hope the master of the house does not think that his flowers are stolen for us,” said I, with a little indignation. “You ought to take care, Alice, that you do not compromise my father and me.”
“There is no fear, Miss Hester,” said Alice, almost with a little bitterness. “The young Squire, your cousin, would never believe your papa nor you to stoop out of your pride for a fancylike that. No, a friend brought me the flowers for my own pleasure, and if you’d rather not have them, I’ll take them back to my own room.”
“Why, Alice, how foolish you are,” said I, turning back in surprise to look at her. “I wonder now whyyoushould care for my cousin. I don’t see how he can be anything to you.”
“Kindness is a deal to me, dear; I never like to see a kind meaning despised,” said Alice.
“You flatter me, Alice,” said I, with some pique; “you think it was a kind meaning that my cousin should propose to share his new inheritance with me; perhaps you think it is a kind meaning which moves Harry too?”
“Oh, Miss Hester!” cried Alice, with a subdued groan, “don’t talk in that way, it’s just as your papa did. You’ll break my heart.”
“Alice, you don’t know—no one knows, what papa has had to suffer,” said I. “He gave her all his heart, and she took it, because she was sorry for him! Never say that to me again; I would rather die—I would rather die, than be so bitterly deceived!”
Again I heard the groaning sigh with which Alice had answered me, but this time she did not say anything. I was somewhat excited. I did not now attempt to resume our talk again. I was annoyed and distracted to hear my cousin’s “generous” proposal brought before me this morning. I felt myself humiliated by it. I felt as if it were a scoff at Harry to say that any one had entertained compassion for his bride—and it occurred to me, that I would like to meet Edgar Southcote, perhaps in a year or two, and show him how far I was from being such a one as he would pity. This idea possessed me immediately, and I said in the impulse of the moment—“By and bye, Alice, I will have no objection to see my cousin.”
Why or for what reason I could not fancy, but I felt the hand of Alice tremble as she arranged the last braids of my hair; and she answered me in the strangest, subdued, troubledvoice, “And when you know him, Miss Hester—when you know him—oh! be kind to the poor young gentleman—if it were only for your mother’s sake.”
“For my mother’s sake! are you crazy, Alice?” I said, turning round upon her with utter amazement, “how is it possible that you can connect my mother with him?”
Alice seemed greatly disconcerted at my sudden question. She retreated a step or two, as if I had made a real attack upon her, and said in a faltering apologetic voice, “I’ll maybe never have to wait upon you, and talk to you another morning, Miss Hester—you oughtn’t to be hard on poor old Alice to-day.”
“Why should you never wait upon me, and talk to me again?” I said. “You are full of whims this morning, Alice! Shall I not find you here when we come back again? You do not mean that you will not come to me?”
“I never will leave your papa while he has need of me, dear,” said Alice, humbly.
“Ah, he will permit you to stay with him—he will not permit me,” said I, “but papa will get strong, and then you will come. I wish you would not be mysterious, Alice. I wish you would not give me these prophetic warnings. Do you really think I have such a dreadful temper that I will make everybody unhappy, or what do you mean?”
“It’s not that, Miss Hester,” said Alice hurriedly, retreating once more before me, and taking out of its folds the dress which I was about to put on.
“Because if you think so,” I said, recovering from my momentary anger, “you should not speak to me about it, you ought to warn the person most concerned.”
I smiled at the thought—to warn Harry of my hereditary pride and my faulty character—to caution him how to deal with me—with a proud assurance which warmed my very heart, I smiled at the thought. Yes, I was secure and blessed in my firm persuasion of what I was to Harry. I was his lady of romance—his perfect ideal woman—his first love—and I rejoicedin him because he thought so. It did not make me vain, but it made him the ideal lover, the true knight.
There came a message to the door that my father was in the dining-room and wished to see me. I was fully dressed. Can a bride forget her ornaments? I thought they were very dazzling as I saw them in my mirror. I could not help pausing to look at myself, at the lustre of my dress, and the glow of Harry’s bracelet on my arm; and I was about to go away so, to see my father—but Alice stopped me to wrap a large light shawl over my splendor—“Dear, he’ll feel it,” said Alice. I was struck with the delicacy which both Alice and Mr. Osborne, though they condemned him, showed to my father and his feelings. I wrapped the shawl closer over my arms, and with a subdued step left my own room. I wondered what he was thinking of. I wondered if this day recalled to him the freshness of those hopes which had been dead and withered for many a year, and when I went in at last, I went very softly and humbly, like a timid child.
He was pale and his eyes were hollow—he looked rather worse than usual to-day—and before I reached the door of the room, I had heard his slow measured footsteps pacing from window to window. He very seldom did this, and I knew it was a sign of some excitement and agitation in his mind. I was pleased it should be so. I was pleased that he did not send me away with his perfect cold self-possession, as if I had been a book or a picture. He turned towards me when I went in, but did not look at me for a moment! and when I met his eye, I saw by his momentary glance of relief, that he was glad not to see me in my full bridal dress. But this was only for a moment; he came towards me steadily, and with his own hands removed the shawl. I hung my head under his full serious gaze. I felt the color burning on my cheek and the tears coming to my eyes. A few hours and I would be away from him. A few hours, and it might be, I would never see him again.
But my tears were checked by the touch of his cold firmhand upon my head. “God bless you, Hester!” he said, slowly. “My own life has been unfortunate and aimless. I think all my better ambition died on my wedding-day. I gave myself over to the bitterest feeling in the world, a sense of wrong and injury, while I was still young, and reckoned happy. I would fain hope your life is to be happier than mine has been; but in any case, do not follow my example. I care not who blames or justifies me, but I have not made so much by my experiment that I should recommend it to my child—forgive when you are wronged—endure when you are misunderstood—if you can, at all times be content. I believe a woman finds it easier to attain these passive heroisms, and heaven knows I have profited little by my resistance to the mild fictions of ordinary life. Remember, Hester, what I say; take whose example you will to form your life by, only do not take mine.”
I cannot tell how this strange repetition of the advice which I had already heard so often, overpowered me. Where was the opportunity for my following my father’s example? I saw no circumstances at all like his in the promise of my life. I could not suspect any compassion in Harry’s regard for me. It was pure, manly affection, and no feigning. I felt as if all this was a conspiracy to drive me into the very suspiciousness from which they sought to guard me. What temper must I be of when everybody thought these cautions necessary; I felt humiliated and degraded by the constant counsel. The tears gathered in my eyes—large tears of mortification and bitterness—but my pride was roused at the same time, and they did not fall.
All this while, when I was swallowing down as I best could the sob in my throat, my father looked at me steadily, then he suddenly threw the shawl over me again. “I did not think, Hester, that you had been like your mother,” he said, in a tone so cold and rigid that I saw at once it was the extreme control he exercised over some violent and passionate emotion which alone could express itself in these tones, and then he stooped,kissed my forehead gently, and began once more with hasty and irregular steps to pace the room from end to end. I stood where he had left me for a moment, and then I left the room and retired to my own.
The sun was rising higher—the world was all astir—it was very near the time. I went back and sat down at my chamber window to wait for the hour. Alice would not leave me; she remained in the room wandering about in a restless state of excitement, dressed and ready, but she did not speak, nor disturb my thoughts; and Harry had now arrived and was with my father, she told me—but that made no impression on my abstracted mood. I sat as in a dream, looking out upon all these familiar objects; there seemed to me a languid pause of expectation upon everything. I myself, as still as if I had been in a trance, watched at the window; but my senses were nervously quick and vivid. I thought I heard every step and movement below—and long before anybody else heard them, I felt that this was Mr. Osborne and the young lady, who was to be my bridesmaid, who alighted at the outer door, and came gaily talking through the close—then I knew that the time of my reverie was over. When Alice left me to bring Miss Osborne upstairs, I tried to shake myself free from my lethargy—it required an effort. I felt like the enchanted lady in the tale, as if I had been fixed in that magic chair, and could have slept there for a hundred years.
I was abruptly disturbed by the entrance of Miss Osborne—she was older than I, and used to such things—she did not understand the intense secret excitement which I had reached to by this time. She came up to me in a flutter of silk, and lace, and ribbons; she laid cordial hands upon me and kissed me. Having neither mother, sisters, nor female friends, I was very shy of the salutations which are current among young ladies. I felt myself shrink a little from the kiss, and my color rose in spite of myself. Miss Osborne laughed, and was astonished, and tried to encourage me. “Don’t give way,there’s a dear; poor little thing, how nervous you look, come lean on me, love, and get ready; where’s some gloves? and her handkerchiefs? she must keep up her heart now, must she not?”
This was addressed in a half-satirical tone to Alice, and Alice as well as myself was considerably discomposed by the cool activity and gaiety of our visitor. “Dear, there is the carriage waiting for you at the door,” whispered Alice in my ear. “Don’t tremble, darling—don’t now, it’ll be all over before you know.”
And when I went down stairs, I did not see either Harry or Mr. Osborne, though I suppose they were both there; I saw only my father’s white thin hand take mine and lead me away—and then we drove from the door. I recollect quite well seeing the people in the streets as we drove along, and being struck with a vague wonder whether this day was really the same as any other day to all those strangers. Then came the church, a confused and tremulous picture—and then a voice addressed us, and I had to say something and so had Harry, and the scene suddenly cleared up, and became distinct for an instant before me, when with a shock and start I found my hand put into his hand; and by and bye all was over, and we came away.
And now we were again at home—at home—no longer home to me. And Alice with her silk gown and her great white muslin apron which I had braided for her, with the cap of lace and white ribbons which I had made, and her little white shawl fastened with a brooch which Harry had given her, and which contained some of my hair. Alice stood by my chair, sometimes forgetting that she had to attend to the party at table, and only remembering that she had to cry over, and comfort, and encourage me. Harry was in wild spirits, too joyous, almost flighty—like a man who has just achieved some wonderful triumph; but is scarcely quite aware of it yet. His name was Southcote now, and my name was unchanged. My father sat at the head of the table, beside us—he was grave,but much calmer than he had been in the morning, and I thought he watched Harry, and Harry avoided his eye in a manner which was strange to me. Mr. Osborne and his niece were a great relief to us—this event, which was so momentous to us, was nothing to them but a little occasion of festivity to which they had to contribute a reasonable portion of gaiety. They came to rejoice with those who did rejoice, and they were certainly the most successful in the company. The table was gay with flowers, and there were the sweet pale Cottiswoode roses, like friends from home, with dew upon their leaves, and the faint fragrance stealing through the room. I wondered once more where Alice had got them—for my own part I was not now excited; I had fallen into a lull of composure, and was watching everybody. I remember the little speech Mr. Osborne made—full of real kindness; but with a little mock formality in it, as if a large party had been present, when he drank our healths; and I remember the glow upon Harry’s face, and the gleam in his eyes, when he without any mockery stretched out his hand to him, and thanked him. Miss Osborne sat by me in her rustle and flutter of finery, whispering jokes and kind words into my ear; telling me not to look so pale—not to blush so much—to compose myself and a great many other young lady-like sayings, and I began to think that though it was not very comfortable, it might be very good to be “supported” by Miss Osborne, since I carefully strove to banish all trace of feeling from my face, that I might be saved from her criticisms. We sat at table an unmercifully long time; but though I could see Harry was as impatient as I was, and though he was constantly looking at his watch, and whispering that it would soon be time to go away, no one else seemed disposed to release us. At length my father rose, and we all went into the drawing-room, where the table was covered with cards and envelopes. My father lifted one of the little packets and took a note from it to show to me. It was addressed to my cousin, and very formally and politely informed him of what had taken place to-day.“I thought it right to let him know; what do you think, Harry?” said my father, turning round to him somewhat sharply. Harry came up to see what it was. “It is to Hester’s cousin, once a pretender for her hand. I ought to let him know it is disposed of, ought I not?” said my father, and he lifted the cover, which was addressed to “Edgar Southcote, Esq., Cottiswoode.” My father was looking full at him, and I saw once more that burning flush rise to Harry’s hair, and cover his whole face. Their eyes met; I do not know, and have never known what was in the glance; but Harry never spoke, he turned to me immediately, and took my hand, and said hoarsely with an extraordinary suppressed emotion, “Hester—my wife! Hester—it is time to go away.” I thought he rather wished to draw me from my father’s side, to keep me from much conversation with him; but he looked up again at me with recovered composure, and turned again boldly to my father. “All this only agitates and distresses me,” he said, holding out his hand; “let me take her away, it is our time.”
My father slowly extended his hand to him. “Take her away!” he said, “she is yours, and I do not dispute with you the triumph you have gained. Hester, my love, go and get ready. I will detain you no longer; Osborne, take leave of her, she is going away.”
Then Mr. Osborne came forward and took both my hands and looked into my face. I was surprised to see that a tear twinkled in his sunny bright gray eye. “So you are going away,” he said; “well, it is the course of nature; but Cambridge will be all the duller, Hester, when you are not to be met with in the streets. Good-bye! my dear child, I wished for this, but it costs me a pang notwithstanding. Good-bye, Hester! and don’t let anything persuade you to be offended with your old friend.”
With an old-fashioned graceful courtesy, he kissed my hand. I think I never felt so strong a momentary impulse to cling to any one, as at that time I did cling to him.Hesaid it grieved him that I should go away; but, alas! there was no tear for mein my father’s thoughtful eye. I had to restrain whatever I felt; my eyes were blinded with tears; but Miss Osborne was rustling forward to support me and give me her arm upstairs, and I would not call forth her common-place coldness, should I not even have ten minutes with Alice, all by ourselves.
But Alice contrived this, and, as I changed my dress, Alice wept over me. “The house will be desolate—desolate, darling,” said Alice, “but I see nothing but happiness for you. It makes my heart light to think on what’s before you. He’s a noble young gentleman, Miss Hester; I never saw one was equal to him. Now, darling, you’re ready, and here’s the picture, my sweet young lady’s sweet face to be your counsellor, my own child, and blessing and prosperity and joy be with you. Farewell, farewell;—I’ll not cry now. I’ll not shed tears on the threshold the bride steps over, and there’s himself waiting for you.”
Yes! there he was, without the door, standing waiting for my coming forth. I came out of my pretty room, the bower of my youth, and gave my husband my hand. Still my eyes were blind with tears, but I did not shed them, and in the close was my father, walking quickly up and down waiting to take leave of me. He took me in his arms for a moment, kissed my forehead again—said once more, “God bless you, my love, God bless my dear child!” and then put my hand again in Harry’s. I was lifted into the carriage; I caught a last glimpse of the face of Alice, struggling with tears, and smiling; and then I fell into a great fit of weeping, I could control myself no longer. Harry did not blame me, he said I had been a hero, and soothed and calmed, and comforted me, with some bright moisture in his own eyes, and I awoke to remember him, and think of myself no longer; and this was how I left my home.
END OF BOOK 1.