John Caldigate Part 42

It was the same protest over and over again, and it was vain to answer.

'You will not stay under your father's roof?'

'No; I have to live under my husband's roof.' Then Mrs. Bolton left the room, apparently in anger. Though her heart within might be melting with ruth, still it was necessary that she should a.s.sume a look of anger. On the morrow she would have to show herself angry with a vengeance, if she should then still be determined to carry out her plan. And she thought that she was determined. What had pity to do with it, or love, or moving heart-stirring words? Were not all these things temptation from the Evil One, if they were allowed to interfere with the strict line of hard duty? When she left the room, where the young mother was still standing with her baby in her arms, she doubted for some minutes,--perhaps for some half-hour,--then she wrestled with those emanations from the Evil One,--with pity, with love, and suasive tenderness,--and at last overcame them. 'I know I am pure,' the daughter had said. 'I know I am right,' said the mother.

But she spoke a word to her husband when he came home. 'I cannot bend her; I cannot turn her, in the least.'

'She will not stay?'

'Not of her own accord.'

'You have told her?'

'Oh no; not till to-morrow.'

'She ought to stay, certainly,' said the father. There had been very little intercourse between the mother and daughter during the afternoon, and while the three were sitting together, nothing was said about the morrow. The evening would have seemed to be very sad and very silent, had they not all three been used to so many silent evenings in that room. Hester, during her wedding tour and the few weeks of her happiness at Folking, before the trouble had come, had felt a new life and almost an ecstasy of joy in the thorough liveliness of her husband.

But the days of her old home were not so long ago that its old manners should seem strange to her. She therefore sat out the hours patiently, st.i.tching some baby's ornament, till her mother told her that the time for prayer had come. After worship her father called her out into the hall as he went up to his room. 'Hester,' he said, 'it is not right that you should leave us to-morrow.'

'I must, papa.'

'I tell you that it is not right. You have a home in which everybody will respect you. For the present you should remain here.'

'I cannot, papa. He told me to go back to-morrow. I would not disobey him now,--not now,--were it ever so.' Then the old man paused as though he were going on with the argument, but finding that he had said all that he had to say, he slowly made his way upstairs.

'Good-night, mamma,' said Hester, returning only to the door of the sitting-room.

'Good-night, my love.' As the words were spoken they both felt that there was something wrong,--much that was wrong. 'I do not think they will do that,' said Hester to herself, as she went up the stairs to her chamber.

Chapter x.x.xIV

Violence

It had been arranged at Folking, before Hester had started, that Caldigate himself should drive the waggonette into Cambridge to take her back on the Wednesday, but that he would bring a servant with him who should drive the carriage up to the Grange, so that he, personally, should not have to appear at the door of the house. He would remain at Mr. Seely's, and then the waggonette should pick him up. This had been explained to Mrs. Bolton. 'John will remain in town, because he has so much to do with Mr. Seely,' Hester had said; 'and Richard will call here at about twelve.' All her plans had thus been made known, and Mrs.

Bolton was aware at what hour the bolts must be drawn and the things removed.

But, as the time drew nearer, her dislike to a sudden commencement of absolute hostilities became stronger,--to hostilities which would seem to have no sanction from Mr. Bolton himself, because he would then be absent. And he too, though as he lay awake through the dreary hours of the long night he said no word about the plan, felt, and felt more strongly as the dawn was breaking, that it would be mean to leave his daughter with a farewell kiss, knowing as he would do that he was leaving her within prison-bars, leaving her to the charge of jailers.

The farewell kiss would be given as though he and she were to meet no more in her old home till this terrible trial should be over, and some word appropriate to such a parting would then be spoken. But any such parting word would be false, and the falsehood would be against his own child! 'Does she expect it?' he said, in a low voice, when his wife came up to him as he was dressing.

'She expects nothing. I am thinking that perhaps you would tell her that she could not go to-day.'

'I could not say "to-day." If I tell her anything, I must tell her all.'

'Will not that be best?' Then the old man thought it all over. It would be very much the best for him not to say anything about it if he could reconcile it to his conscience to leave the house without doing so. And he knew well that his wife was more powerful than he,--gifted with greater persistence, more capable of enduring a shower of tears or a storm of anger. The success of the plan would be more probable if the conduct of it were left entirely to his wife, but his conscience was sore within him.

'You will come with me to the gate,' he said to his daughter, after their silent breakfast.

'Oh yes;--to say good-bye.'

Then he took his hat, and his gloves, and his umbrella, very slowly, lingering in the hall as he did so, while his wife kept her seat firm and square at the breakfast table. Hester had her hat and shawl with her; but Mrs. Bolton did not suspect that she would endeavour to escape now without returning for her child. Therefore she sat firm and square, waiting to hear from Hester herself what her father might bring himself to communicate to her. 'Hester,' he said, as he slowly walked round the sweep in front of the house, 'Hester,' he said, 'you would do your duty best to G.o.d and man,--best to John Caldigate and to your child,--by remaining here.'

'How can I unless he tells me?'

'You have your father's authority.'

'You surrendered it when you gave me to him as his wife. It is not that I would rebel against you, papa, but that I must obey him. Does not St.

Paul say, "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord"?'

'Certainly; and you cannot suppose that in any ordinary case I would interfere between you and him. It is not that I am anxious to take anything from him that belongs to him.' Then, as they were approaching the gate, he stood still. 'But now, in such an emergency as this, when a question has risen as to his power of making you his wife----'

'I will not hear of that. I am his wife.'

'Then it may become my duty and your mother's to--to--to provide you with a home till the law shall have decided.'

'I cannot leave his home unless he bids me.'

'I am telling you of my duty--of my duty and your mother's.' Then he pa.s.sed out through the gate, thus having saved his conscience from the shame of a false farewell; and she slowly made her way back to the house, after standing for a moment to look after him as he went. She was almost sure now that something was intended. He would not have spoken in that way of his duty unless he had meant her to suppose that he intended to perform it. 'My duty,' he had said, 'my duty and your mother's!' Of course something was intended, something was to be done or said more than had been done or said already. During the breakfast she had seen in the curves of her mother's mouth the signs of some resolute purpose.

During the very prayers she had heard in her mother's voice a sound as of a settled determination She knew,--she knew that something was to be done, and with that knowledge she went back into her mother's room, and sat herself down firmly and squarely at the table. She had left her cup partly full, and began again to drink her tea. 'What did your papa say to you?' asked her mother.

'Papa bade me stay here, but I told him that most certainly I should go home to Folking.' Then Mrs. Bolton also became aware of fixed will and resolute purpose on her daughter's part.

'Does his word go for nothing?'

'How can two persons' words go for anything when obedience is concerned? It is like G.o.d and Mammon.'

'Hester!'

'If two people tell one differently, it must be right to cling to one and leave the other. No man can serve two masters. I have got to obey my husband. Even were I to say that I would stay, he could come and take me away.'

'He could not do that.'

'I shall not be so disobedient as to make it necessary The carriage will be here at twelve, and I shall go. I had better go and help nurse to put the things up.' So saying she left the room, but Mrs. Bolton remained there a while, sitting square and firm at the table.

It was not yet ten when she slowly followed her daughter up-stairs. She first went into her own room for a moment, to collect her thoughts over again, and then she walked across the pa.s.sage to her daughter's chamber.

She knocked at the door, but entered as she knocked. 'Nurse,' she said, 'will you go into my room for a minute or two? I wish to speak to your mistress. May she take the baby, Hester?' The baby was taken, and then the two were alone. 'Do not pack up your things to-day, Hester.'

'Why not?'

'You are not going to-day.'

'I am going to-day, mamma.'

'That I should seem to be cruel to you,--only seem,--cuts me to the heart. But you cannot go back to Folking to-day.'

'When am I to go?'