After that day there was no word spoken by either Gerard or Hester of the Rector’s visit. He came no more to the Rosary, nor did any one else in the parish call upon the new-comers. Perhaps the involuntary look of distress in Mr. Gilstone’s countenance, when Mr and Mrs. Hanley were again discussed at a village tea-drinking, may have confirmed his parishioners in their suspicions of evil. The old speculations were repeated, the old assertion was reiterated, to the effect that people who did not desire to be visited or to visit must be innately bad, and the Rector held his peace. He started a new subject, and even affected not to know that any one had been talking about the Hanleys. He was sore at heart when ho thought of that fair and lovable girl, before whom the future seemed so dark an outlook.
For Hester the world was not quite what it had been before her conversation with the Rector. An unspeakable sadness stole over her spirits when she remembered the bitter shame of that hour in which she found herself face to face with an orthodox follower of the Gospel, and saw her position as it looked in his eyes. A gnawing remorse had fastened upon her heart. She looked back with sick regret to the days of poverty and hard labour, the long walks through the arid streets, the long hours at her sewing-machine, and all the little domestic cares that had been needed to eke out scanty resources, and make her father’s life comfortable. Gladly would she have gone back to the drudgery could she have been as she was then — without fear or reproach. The plethora of wealth in which she lived — the flowers, the frivolities, the wastefulness which she had no power to control, shocked and pained her. She felt like an Indian wife in some luxurious zenana, helpless, hopeless, irresponsible. The fact that her future was amply provided for, a fact of which Gerard had assured her in the most delicate manner, gave her no satisfaction. She could not conceive the possibility of life when he was gone.
She bore her burden in silence. He for whom she had sacrificed religion and good name never knew of those long watches of the night in which her thoughts were full of sadness. He never saw her tears or heard her complain of all that was painful in her position at the Rosary. The October days drew in; the harmony in red and gold [and russet, which had made autumnal woods lovelier than summer foliage, gradually faded to the dull grey of winter. At every breath of the wind the dead leaves came gently showering down, with sound as faint as a snowfall, and all the upper branches of beech and elm were bare, while here and there some sturdy oak still spread boughs of red or gold against the iron sky.
The days were short, and often too cold for idle hours upon the river. Scarcely had the wintry sun sloped toward the westward curve of the reedy shore when the pale mist of night began to creep over the meadows and along the river, until it slowly rose and wrapped house and garden in one dense cloud. Hester’s tender care guarded Gerard from those river fogs with strictest watchfulness, for had not he told her Dr. South’s poor opinion of his lungs? Thus the long evenings might have hung heavily upon them both had they not both been students, for whom the longest life would have been only too short for the unexplored, inexhaustible world of books. To study the catalogues of booksellers, to read the advertisements of new books in the Athenæum, and to order every book that took his fancy made one unfailing source of amusement for Gerard Hillersdon, and with these long, quiet evenings old ambitions revived.
He would write a novel — he would write that narrative poem which had been simmering in his mind for years, that story in verse which was to have all the depth of Browning and all the delicacy of Tennyson, all the dash, wit, and chic of Owen Meredith, with all the passion of Swinburne, a poem which, if it succeeded, should mark a new era in poetry.
He loved to talk of his unrealised dreams, and Hester loved to listen. Thus the wintry evenings were seldom too long, and Hester, seeing him happy, felt that her sacrifice had not been in vain, and told herself again and again that her own feelings were as nothing when weighed against his content.
He went up to London one bright October day, and saw Dr. South, who expressed himself altogether hopefully.
“You have been taking life easily,” he said, “and the result is all I could wish, more than I hoped. Your heart is better, your lungs are stronger. We cannot give you a new heart, but we can make the old one wear much longer than I thought possible the last time I saw you. Frankly, you were in a very bad way just then.”
Gerard heard this verdict with delight. So far from being tired of this world he had a greed of life. He could comtemplate old age with calmness. That season which to the mind of youth is ordinarily a jest and yet a horror had for him no terrors. He could contemplate long years of luxurious repose, in that palace of art which he had built for himself, and to which every year of declining life should bring new treasures. He could think of himself seated among his books, his statues, pictures, gems, curios; white-haired, white-bearded, wise with the hoarded wisdom of a long life; a man to whom young men should come as they went to Protagoras, to hear golden words of philosophic counsel. Fate had given him the gold which can buy such an old age as this. He thought of Samuel Rogers, of Stirling Maxwell — of the few men who seem to have drunk the wine of life to the lees, and yet to have found no bitterness in the cup; and he saw before him the possibility of a life as perfect as theirs, could but life itself hold out. That was the one all-absorbing desire — to keep the bond intact between consciousness and this clay — without which he had been taught to believe consciousness must cease to be.
He went back to the Rosary after that interview with Dr. South happier than he had been for some time. He felt his youth renewed, the shadow of impending doom removed from his path. He was more than ever devoted to Hester. He told her the doctor’s opinion, and kissed away her tears of joy.
In Devonshire there had been some anxiety about him. Mr and Mrs. Hillersdon had returned from a long stay at Royat and a delightful tour in the south-west of France. They were now installed at the Rectory, where Lilian was occupied with preparations for her marriage.
“Mother is very disappointed to hear that you are not coming to us before Christmas,” wrote Lilian. “She wants to thank you for all the pleasure your money has afforded her and father; and to tell you how easy and luxurious our travels were made by your generous gift. For my part I have worlds to tell you, and I shall be unhappy till we meet. We stayed three days in town, for father to see his old friends at the clubs and to dine with some clerical bigwigs, and for mother and me to do our shopping, which was tremendous. We went on the very first morning to Hillersdon House, and it was a blow to find that you were not there or likely to be there for an indefinite time. Your servants were rather mysterious about you — servants love mystery, don’t they? Your paragon housekeeper was at Brighton, your butler had gone for an airing in the Park. The footman did not know your address, but told me in the most condescending way that our letters would be forwarded to you; so I live in the hope that you will receive this letter somewhere, by land or sea, in a shooting-lodge in the Highlands, or on a Norwegian lake.
“I am very unhappy about that poor girl in whose fate you were as much — or almost as much — interested as I was. I mean Hester Davenport. After having failed in finding you, I drove to Chelsea, hoping to find Hester. I wanted to take her to lunch with mother at the Alexandra, and then to a picture gallery, just to make a little break in her monotonous life. But I found her rooms empty, and her landlady was very doleful about her. She left one morning in the middle of August; paid what was owing, put together a few things in a Gladstone bag, sent her landlady’s little boy for a cab, and drove off, Heaven knows where. Her father had disappeared mysteriously a few days before, and the landlady thought this had upset poor Hester. She was very much agitated when leaving, quite unlike her usual self. She gave no address, but a fortnight afterwards the landlady received a few lines from her, telling her to send any letters that might be waiting for her, addressed to H., at the Post Office, Reading. Two of Whiteley’s men came about the same time with an order from Hester, packed up all her book
s, her father’s clothes and belongings, in two deal cases, addressed them to the South-Western Station, Reading, to be called for, and left them ready for the railway people to take away. Nothing more has been heard of Hester or her father at their old lodgings. The landlady cried when she talked of them, and 6he evidently thinks there is something wrong. I have a good mind to write to Hester, and address my letter to the Reading Post Office, and yet what can I say to her? It is all so mysterious; first the old man’s disappearance, and then her sudden flight. It seemed like a flight, did it not?
“Jack was very glad to see us on our return. He has been working hard all the summer, has had neither holiday nor change of air; but now he is coming down to Helmsleigh for the harvest festival, and we are all going to be very happy. We want you to complete our happiness.”
Gerard destroyed this letter directly he had read it, knowing how these words of his sister would have distressed Hester. She had spoken of Lilian very rarely, and he had heard the deep regret in her tone, the sorrow for the loss of a friendship that had been very dear, the hopelessness of that friendship’s renewal. Not for worlds would he have her reminded of the morning of her flight, with its agony of conflicting emotions, shame, regret, fond self-sacrificing love, courage to meet the worst that fate could bring, for his sake. He could recall her face now in its rigid whiteness, as the cab drove up to the station door where he stood ready to receive her. They had parted only a few hours before in the rosy flush of morning. They were meeting now never to part again, Gerard told her, as they sat side by side in the railway carriage, careless whither the train took them on their first journey together.
Lilian’s letter brought back the memory of that morning to Gerard, and with it a revival of his tenderest feelings. How gentle, how utterly unselfish she had been in the despair which went with her surrender; how careful that he should not suffer from her remorse! He began to think seriously of trying to free himself from his promise to Edith Champion — that promise made in her husband’s lifetime, and of which she had said, “Remember, it is an oath.” He began to think of confessing the new tie with which he had bound himself, and appealing to Edith’s generosity to release him. He thought of this, but as it was a thing which could be done at any time, he was in no haste to do it. Should new obligations arise — should there be the promise of a child to be born to him — well, in that case it might be his duty to release himself, at any cost, from that older tie.
Justin Jermyn dropped in frequently during these shortening autumnal days, always full of animal spirits, always with his budget of little social scandals, which set everybody in a ridiculous light, and offered food for laughter. What a preposterous world it seemed, contemplated from his standpoint and how could anybody be serious about it, or care by what slow linking together of infinitesimals, by what processes, molecular or nebular, this speck in the universe had come to be the thing it is? Hester hated his mocking talk, but she was glad to see Gerard amused within the narrow limits of the Rosary. Had there been no such visitor as Jermyn, he might have wanted to go to London oftener, perhaps. So in some wise she had reason to be grateful to Jermyn.
Matt Muller, the landscape painter, to whom the Thames had been a gold mine, was still living on his house-boat, despite those autumnal mists which were more conducive to art than to health. He was building himself a cottage and painting-room on the river bank, and had the delightful duty of watching the bricklayers at their work. Jermyn oscillated between London and Mr. Muller’s house-boat, and was always fresh and metropolitan, while the painter, he protested, had lapsed into a bovine state of being, and thought of nothing but the canvas on his easel and the cottage that was slowly rising out of a level stretch of meadow land.
Jermyn stayed later than usual one evening after dining at the Rosary. The weather had been exceptionally fine during the last few days. This was St. Luke’s summer, as Hester said, with a faint sigh, when she heard the church bells pealing along the river, and remembered the date, the eighteenth of October, St. Luke’s Day — day which, in the years that were past, had seen her kneeling in her place at church; clay which for her henceforth meant only the uncertified anniversary of a problematical personage.
She had spent the morning on the river with Gerard, tempted by the warmth of the sunshine which gilded meadow and islet. They had stayed out till the edge of dusk, and, creeping slowly home in their punt, had found Jermyn pacing the lawn by the water, looking out for their return.
“I have come to offer myself for dinner,” he said, as he helped Hester out of the boat. “It is ages since I have bored you with my society — a week at the very least — and I have brought you a budget of news, Gerard; news not altogether fit for Mrs. Boffin,” shaking his finger at Hester, “so I must keep it for our half-hour in your cosy tabagie.”
“Your half-hours in the smoking-room are very long,” said Hester.
“Their length proves that I can interest Gerard. You ought to be very grateful to me, Mrs Hanley. He would expire of ennui in this delicious retreat if I did not bring him a faithful report of all the malicious things that are done and said in London.”
“I have forgotten the meaning of the word ennui since I came to the Rosary,” said Gerard; “so you may suppress all desire to patronise us upon that score. “When the leaves are all off the trees and the Thames begins to look dreary, we shall take wing for the Riviera.”
“I will meet you at Monte Carlo. I am more at home there than anywhere,” said Jermyn, gaily.
“I doubt if we shall go to Monte Carlo.”
“Oh yes, you will. You won’t go, perhaps — you’ll gravitate there. It has been called the loadstone rock, don’t you know. It will draw you, as that rock in the story drew the nails out of Sinbad’s vessel. You will find yourself powerless against the fascination of one of the loveliest spots upon this earth. I shall be just as sure of meeting you there as Cæsar’s shade was of meeting Brutus at Philippi.”
The dinner passed gaily. The lamplit table was brilliant with the beauty of decay, decked with autumn leaves and berries of various and harmonious colouring, which Hester had collected that morning in a woodland walk, while the world was all fresh and dewy. The evening was so mild that the two young men were able to smoke their after-dinner cigars and enjoy their after-dinner talk pacing up and down the gravel path in front of the drawingroom, while Hester sat in the lamplight by the hearth, where a fire of pine logs gave a show of cheerfulness without too much heat. She had her work and her books about her, and the girlish figure in the white gown in the brightly-furnished room made a graceful picture of home-life altogether unlike that vision of Bohemianism and debauchery which the spinsters of Lowcombe imagined within the walls of the Rosary.
“Does Mrs. Hanley go with yon to the South?” inquired Jermyn, after they had exhausted his stock of London gossip, and were lapsing into thoughtfulness.
The night was even lovelier than the day had been; the sky was full of stars, and now towards ten o’clock, the late moon was rising round and golden from behind a wooded hill on the opposite shore. “Naturlich. Did you suppose I should leave her behind?”
“I only suppose there is an end to all things. You have had a very long honeymoon.”
“We are not tired of each other yet.”
“No?” interrogatively. “And poor Mrs. Champion, whom the world declares you are to marry directly she is out of her weeds. It will be rather rough upon her if you many any one else.”
“That is a matter for the lady’s consideration and mine — not for yours.”
“I apologise. After all the chief aim in this life is to be happy, and so long as you are happy with the lady yonder — a most lovely and amiable creature—”
“For God’s sake hold your tongue! You mean kindly to us both, I dare say — but every word you say increases my irritation.”
“My dear Hillersdon, how sensitive you are. Strange that a position which seems to have secured your happiness should not bear discussion �
�� even with an intimate friend.”
Gerard turned upon his heel, and went back to the house, Jermyn following him, and the two young men spent the rest of the evening in the drawing-room with Hester, where their talk was no longer of living people, but of books and ideas, and of great minds that have gone out into the Unknown. Hester was always carried away by talk of this kind, carried away from remorseful brooding, from the consciousness of an abiding sorrow. In that shadowy world of speculative thought all painful feelings were merged in the one great mystery, what we are and whither we are going; whether that individual existence, so agonisingly distinct to-day, shall tomorrow merge and melt into the infinitesimal life which builds the coral reef and recomposes the earth we tread on.
Such conversations always left her in deepest melancholy. Yet she took a morbid pleasure in them, as people do in books that make them cry.
The wood fire and the lamplight had heated the low cottage drawing-room over much before Justin Jermyn left, and when he was gone Gerard opened the window, and let in the cool, soft air, and the wide sweep of moonlit sky, above a ridge of firs which bounded the landscape. The moon was high in the midmost heaven by this time, riding triumphantly amidst that glorious company ox 6tars which look like her satellites. Hester and Gerard stood at the open window, contemplating the sky and river, glad to be alone, albeit they had not wearied of Jermya, who had a knack of being interesting upon any subject. They were both silent, both full of thought, glad to rest after the animated discussion of the last two hours.
Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon Page 920