Chapter Nineteen.
Home at “The Hopes’.”
The evil consequences of Mr Hope’s voting for Lowry had not been exaggerated in the anticipations of his friends and vigilant neighbours; and these consequences were rather aggravated than alleviated by the circumstance that Mr Lowry won the election. First, the inhabitants of Deerbrook were on the watch for any words which might fall from Sir William or Lady Hunter; and when it was reported that Sir William had frowned, and sworn an oath at Mr Hope, on hearing how he had voted, and that Lady Hunter had asked whether it was possible that Mr Hope had forgotten under whose interest he held his appointment to attend the almshouses and the neighbouring hamlet, several persons determined to be beforehand with their great neighbours, and to give the benefit of their family practice to some one of better politics than Mr Hope. In another set of minds, a real fear of Mr Hope, as a dangerous person, sprang up under the heat of the displeasure of the influential members of society. Such were slow to have recourse to another medical attendant, and undertook the management of the health of their own families till they could find an adviser in whom they could perfectly confide. When Mr Lowry gained the contest, the population of Deerbrook was electrified, and the unpleasantness of their surprise was visited upon the only supporter of Mr Lowry whom the place contained. Wise folks were not wanting who talked of the skill which some persons had in keeping on the winning side,—of reasons which time sometimes revealed for persons choosing to be singular,—and some remarkable incidents were reported of conversations between Mr Lowry and Mr Hope in the lanes, and of certain wonderful advantages which had lately fallen to one or another of Mr Hope’s acquaintances, through some strong political interest. Mr Rowland doubted, at his own table, all the news he heard on the subject, and said everywhere that he did not see why a man should not vote as he pleased. Mr Grey was very sorry about the whole affair; he was sorry that there had been any contest at all for the county, as it disturbed the peace of Deerbrook; he was sorry that the candidate he preferred had won, as the fact exasperated the temper of Deerbrook; he was sorry that Hope had voted, to the detriment of his name and rising fortunes; and he was sorry that he himself had been unable at last to vote for Lowry, to keep his young friend in countenance: it was truly unlucky that he should have passed his promise early to Sir William Hunter not to vote. It was a sad business altogether. It was only to be hoped that it would pass out of people’s minds; that things would soon get into their usual train; and that it might be seven years before there was another election.
Hester complained to her husband and sister of the manner in which she was treated by the tradespeople of the place. She had desired to put herself on a footing of acquaintanceship with them, as neighbours, and persons with whom there must be a constant transaction of business for life. She saw at once the difference in the relation between tradespeople and their customers in a large town like Birmingham, and in a village where there is but one baker, where the grocer and hatter are the same personage, and where you cannot fly from your butcher, be he ever so much your foe. Hester therefore made it her business to transact herself all affairs with the village tradesmen. She began her housekeeping energetically, and might be seen in Mr Jones’s open shop in the coldest morning of January, selecting her joint of meat; or deciding among brown sugars at Tucker’s, the grocer’s. After the election, she found some difference in the manner of most of the shop-people towards her; and she fancied more than there was. With some of these persons, there was no more in their minds than the consciousness of having discussed the new family and Mr Hope’s vote, and come to a conclusion against his “principles.” With others, Mrs Rowland’s influence had done deeper mischief. A few words dropped by herself, or reports of her sayings, circulated by her servants, occasioned dislike or alarm which Hester’s sensitiveness apprehended at once, and forthwith exaggerated. She complained to her husband that she could not go to the shops with any comfort, and that she thought she must turn over the housekeeping to Morris. Margaret remonstrated against this; and, by being her sister’s constant companion in her walks of business as well as pleasure, hoped to be able to keep the peace, and to preserve or restore, if need were, a good understanding between parties who could most materially promote or injure each other’s comfort. The leisure hours to which she had looked forward with such transport were all chequered with anxiety on this subject, in the intervals of speculation on another matter, to which she found her mind constantly recurring, in spite of her oft-repeated conviction that it was no concern of hers,—where Mr Enderby was,—what he was doing,—and when he would come. Day by day, as she spread her books before her, or began to write, she wondered at her own listlessness about employments to which she had looked forward with so much eagerness; and when she detected herself gazing into the fire by the half-hour together, or allowing the ink to dry in her suspended pen, she found that she was as far as ever from deciding whether Hester was not now in the way to be less happy than ever, and how it was that, with all her close friendship with Philip Enderby, of which she had spoken so confidently to Maria, she was now in perfect ignorance of his movements and intentions. The whole was very strange, and, in the experience, somewhat dreary.
Her great comfort was Edward: this was a new support and a strong one: but even here she was compelled to own herself somewhat disappointed. This brotherly relation, for which she had longed all her life, did not bring the fulness of satisfaction which she had anticipated. She had not a fault to find with Edward: she was always called upon by his daily conduct for admiration, esteem, and affection; but all this was not of the profit to her which she had expected. He seemed altered: the flow of his spirits was much moderated; but perhaps this was no loss, as his calmness, his gentle seriousness, and domestic benevolence were brought out more strikingly than ever. Margaret’s disappointment lay in the intercourse between themselves. That Edward was reserved—that beneath his remarkable frankness there lay an uncommunicativeness of disposition—no one could before his marriage have made her believe: yet it certainly was so. Though Hester and she never discussed Edward’s character, more or less—though Hester’s love for him, and Margaret’s respect for that love, rendered all such conversation unpossible, Margaret was perfectly well aware that Hester’s conviction on this particular point was the same as her own—that Hester had discovered that she had not fully understood her husband, and that there remained a region of his character into which she had not yet penetrated. Margaret was obliged to conclude that all this was natural and right, and that what she had heard said of men generally was true even of Edward Hope—that there are depths of character where there are not regions of experience, which defy the sympathy and sagacity of women. However natural and right all this might be, she could not but be sorry for it. It brought disappointment to herself, and, as she sadly suspected, to Hester. While continually and delightedly compelled to honour and regard him more and more, and to rely upon him as she had never before relied, she felt that he did not win, and even did not desire, any intimate confidence. She found that she could still say things to Maria which she could not say to him; and that, while their domestic conversation rarely flagged—while it embraced a boundless range of fact, and all that they could ascertain of morals, philosophy, and religion—the greatest psychological events, the most interesting experiences of her life might go forward without express recognition from Edward. Such was her view of the case; and this was the disappointment which, in the early days of her new mode of life, she had to acknowledge to herself, and to conceal from all others.
One fine bright morning towards the end of January, the sisters set out for their walk, willingly quitting the clear crackling fire within for the sharp air and sparkling pathways without.
“Which way shall we go?” asked Margaret.
“Oh, I suppose along the high-road, as usual. How provoking it is that we are prevented, day after day, from getting to the woods by my snow-boots not having arrived! We will go by Mrs Howell’s for the chance of their having come.”
Mrs Howell had two expressions of countenance—the gracious and the prim. Till lately, Hester had been favoured with the first exclusively. She was now to be amused with variety, and the prim was offered to her contemplation. Never did Mrs Howell look more inaccessible than to-day, when she scarcely rose from her stool behind the counter, to learn what was the errand of her customer.
“You guess what I am come for, Mrs Howell, I dare say. Have my boots arrived yet?”
“I am not aware of their having arrived, ma’am. But Miss Miskin is now occupied in that department.”
“Only consider how the winter is getting on, Mrs Howell! and I can walk nowhere but in the high-road, for want of my boot.”
Mrs Howell curtsied.
“Can you not hasten your agent, or help me to my boots, one way or another? Is there no one in Deerbrook whom you could employ to make me a pair?”
Mrs Howell cast up her hands and eyes.
“How do other ladies manage to obtain their boots before the snow comes, instead of after it has melted?”
“Perhaps you will ask them yourself ma’am: I conceive you know all the ladies in Deerbrook. You will find Miss Miskin in that department, ladies, if you wish to investigate.”
Hester invaded the domain of Miss Miskin—the shoe-shop behind the other counter—in the hope of finding something to put on her feet, which should enable her to walk where she pleased. While engaged in turning over the stock, without any help from Miss Miskin, who was imitating Mrs Howell’s distant manner with considerable success, a carriage drove up to the door, which could be no other than Sir William Hunter’s; and Lady Hunter’s voice was accordingly heard, the next minute, asking for green sewing-silk. The gentle drawl of Mrs Howell’s tone conveyed that her countenance had resumed its primary expression. She observed upon the horrors of the fire which had happened at Blickley the night before. Lady Hunter had not heard of it; and the relation therefore followed of: the burning down of a house and shop in Blickley, when a nursemaid and baby were lost in the flames.
“I should hope it is not true,” observed Lady Hunter. “Last night, did you say?—Early this morning? There has scarcely been time for the news to arrive of a fire at Blickley early this morning.”
“It is certainly true, however, my lady. No doubt whatever of the catastrophe, I am grieved to say.” And Mrs Howell’s sighs were sympathetically responded to by Miss Miskin in the back shop.
“But how did you hear it?” asked Lady Hunter.
There was no audible answer. There were probably signs and intimations of something; for Lady Hunter made a circuit round the shop, on some pretence, and stared in at the door of the shoe-parlour, just at the right moment for perceiving, if she so pleased, the beautiful smallness of Hester’s foot. Some low, murmuring, conversation then passed at Mrs Howell’s counter, when the words “black servant” alone met Margaret’s ear.
Hester found nothing that she could wear. The more she pressed for information and assistance about obtaining boots, the more provokingly cool Miss Miskin grew. At last Hester turned to her sister with a hasty inquiry what was to be done.
“We must hope for better fortune before next winter, I suppose,” said Margaret, smiling.
“And wet my feet every day this winter,” said Hester; “for I will not be confined to the high-road for any such reason as this.”
“Dear me, ma’am, you are warm!” simpered Miss Miskin.
“I warm! What do you mean, Miss Miskin?”
“You are warm, ma’am:— not that it is of any consequence; but you are a little warm at present.”
“Nobody can charge that upon you, Miss Miskin, I must say,” observed Margaret, laughing.
“No, ma’am, that they cannot, nor ever will. I am not apt to be warm, and I hope I can excuse... Good morning, ladies.”
Mrs Howell treated her customers with a swimming curtsey as they went out, glancing at her shop-woman the while. Lady Hunter favoured them with a full stare.
“What excessive impertinence!” exclaimed Hester. “To tell me that I was warm, and she hoped she could excuse! My husband will hardly believe it.”
“Oh, yes, he will. He knows them for two ignorant, silly women; worth observing, perhaps, but not worth minding. Have you any other shop to go to?”
Yes, the tinman’s, for a saucepan or two of a size not yet supplied, for which Morris had petitioned.
The tinman was either unable or not very anxious to understand Hester’s requisitions. He brought out everything but what was wanted; and was so extremely interested in observing something that was going on over the way, that he was every moment casting glances abroad between the dutch-ovens and fenders that half-darkened his window. The ladies at last looked over the way too, and saw a gig containing a black footman standing before the opposite house.
“A stranger in Deerbrook!” observed Margaret, as they issued from the shop. “I do not wonder that Mr Hill had so little attention to spare for us.”
The sisters had been so accustomed, during all the years of their Birmingham life, to see faces that they did not know, that they could not yet sympathise with the emotions caused in Deerbrook by the appearance of a stranger. They walked on, forgetting in conversation all about the gig and black servant. Hester had not been pleased by the insufficient attention she had met with in both the shops she had visited, and she did not enjoy her walk as was her wont. As they trod the crisp and glittering snow, Margaret hoped the little Rowlands and Greys were happy in making the snow-man which had been the vision of their imaginations since the winter set in: but Hester cast longing eyes on the dark woods which sprang from the sheeted meadows, and thought nothing could be so delightful as to wander among them, and gather icicles from the boughs, even though the paths should be ankle-deep in snow.
Just when they were proposing to turn back, a horseman appeared on the ridge of the rising ground over which the road passed. “It is Edward!” cried Hester. “I had no idea we should meet him on this road.” And she quickened her pace, and her countenance brightened as if she had not seen him for a month. Before they met him, however, the gig with the black footman, now containing also a gentleman driving, overtook and slowly passed them—the gentleman looking round him, as if in search of some dwelling hereabouts. On approaching Hope, the stranger drew up, touched his hat, and asked a question; and on receiving the answer, bowed, turned round, and repassed Hester and Margaret. Hope joined his wife and sister, and walked his horse beside the path.
“Who is that gentleman, Edward?”
“I believe it is Mr Foster, the surgeon at Blickley.”
“What did he want with you?”
“He wanted to know whether he was in the right road to the Russell Taylors.”
“The Russell Taylors! Your patients!”
“Once my patients, but no longer so. It seems they are Mr Foster’s patients now.”
Hester made no reply.
“Can you see from your pathway what is going on below there in the meadow? I see the skaters very busy on the ponds. Why do not you go there, instead of walking here every day?”
Margaret had to explain the case about the snow-boots, for Hester’s face was bathed in tears. Edward rallied her gently; but it would not do. She motioned to him to ride on, and he thought it best to do so. The sisters proceeded in silence, Hester’s tears flowing faster and faster. Instead of walking through Deerbrook, she took a back road homewards, and drew down her veil. As ill luck would have it, however, they met Sophia Grey and her sisters, and Sophia would stop. She was about to turn back with them, when she saw that something was the matter, and then she checked herself awkwardly, and wished her cousins good morning, while Fanny and Mary were staring at Hester.
“One ought not to mind,” said Margaret, half laughing: “there are so many causes for grown people’s tears! but I always feel now as I did when I was a child—a shame at being seen in tears, and an excessive desire to tell people that I have not been naughty.”
“You could not have told Sophia so of me, I am sure,” said Hester.
“Yes, I could; you are not crying because you have been naughty, but you are naughty because you cry; and that may be cured presently.”
It was not presently cured, however. During the whole of dinner-time, Hester’s tears continued to flow; and she could not eat, though she made efforts to do so. Edward and Margaret talked a great deal about skating and snow-men, and about the fire at Blickley; but they came to a stand at last. The foot-boy went about on tiptoe, and shut the door as if he had been in a sick-room; and this made Hester’s short sobs only the more audible. It was a relief when the oranges were on the table at last, and the door closed behind the dinner and the boy. Margaret began to peel an orange for her sister, and Edward poured out a glass of wine; he placed it before her, and then drew his chair to her side, saying—
“Now, my dear, let us get to the bottom of all this distress.”
“No, do not try, Edward. Never mind me! I shall get the better of this, by-and-by: only let me alone.”
“Thank you!” said Hope, smiling. “I like to see people reasonable! I am to see you sorrowing in this way, and for very sufficient cause, and I am neither to mind your troubles nor my own, but to be as merry as if nothing had happened! Is not this reasonable, Margaret?”
“For very sufficient cause!” said Hester, eagerly.
“Yes, indeed; for very sufficient cause. It must be a painful thing to you to find my neighbours beginning to dislike me; to have the tradespeople impertinent to you on my account; to see my patients leave me, and call in somebody from a distance, in the face of all Deerbrook. It must make you anxious to think what is to become of us, if the discontent continues and spreads: and it must be a bitter disappointment to you to find that to be my wife is not to be so happy as we expected. Here is cause enough for tears.”
In the midst of her grief, Hester looked up at her husband with an expression of gratitude and tenderness which consoled him for her.
“I will not answer for it,” he continued, “but that we may all three sit down to weep together, one of these days.”
“And then,” said Margaret, “Hester will be the first to cheer up and comfort us.”
“I have no doubt of it,” replied Hope. “Meantime, is there anything that you would have had done otherwise by me? Was I right or not to vote? and was there anything wrong in my manner of doing it? Is there any cause whatever for repentance?”
“None, none,” cried Hester. “You have been right throughout. I glory in all you do.”
“To me it seems that you could not have done otherwise,” observed Margaret. “It was a simple, unavoidable act, done with the simplicity of affairs which happen in natural course. I neither repent it for you, nor glory in it.”
“That is just my view of it, Margaret. And it follows that the consequences are to be taken as coming in natural course too. Does not this again simplify the affair, Hester?”
“It lights it up,” replied Hester. “It reminds me how all would have been if you had acted otherwise than as you did. It is, to be sure, scarcely possible to conceive of such a thing,—but if you had not voted, I should have—not despised you in any degree,—but lost confidence in you a little.”
“That is a very mild way of putting it,” said Hope, laughing.
“Thank Heaven, we are spared that!” exclaimed Margaret. “But, brother, tell us the worst that you think can come of this displeasure against you. I rather suspect, however, that we have suffered the worst already, in discovering that people can be displeased with you.”
“That being so extremely rare a lot in this world, and especially in the world of a village,” replied Hope, “I really do not know what to expect as the last result of this affair, nor am I anxious to foresee. I never liked the sort of attachment that most of my neighbours have testified for me. It was to their honour in as far as it showed kindness of heart, but it was unreasonable: so unreasonable that I imagine the opposite feelings which are now succeeding may be just as much in excess. Suppose it should be so, Hester?”
“Well, what then?” she asked, sighing.
“Suppose our neighbours should send me to Coventry, and my patients should leave me so far as that we should not have enough to live on?”
“That would be persecution,” cried Hester, brightening. “I could bear persecution,—downright persecution.”
“You could bear seeing your husband torn by lions in the amphitheatre,” said Margaret, smiling, “but...”
“But a toss of Mrs Howell’s head is unendurable,” said Hope, with solemnity.
Hester looked down, blushing like a chidden child.
“But about this persecution,” said she. “What made you ask those questions just now?”
“I find my neighbours more angry with me than I could have supposed possible, my dear. I have been treated with great and growing rudeness for some days. In a place like this, you know, offences seldom come alone. If you do a thing which a village public does not approve, there will be offence in whatever else you say and do for some time after. And I suspect that is my case now. I may be mistaken, however; and whatever happens, I hope, my love, we shall all be to the last degree careful not to see offence where it is not intended.”
“Not to do the very thing we are suffering under ourselves,” observed Margaret.
“We will not watch our neighbours, and canvass their opinions of us by our own fireside,” said Hope. “We will conclude them all to be our friends till they give us clear evidence to the contrary. Shall it not be so, love?”
“I know what you mean,” said Hester, with some resentment in her voice and manner. “You cannot trust my temper in your affairs: and you are perfectly right. My temper is not to be trusted.”
“Very few are, in the first agonies of unpopularity; and such faith in one’s neighbours as shall supersede watching them ought hardly to be looked for in the atmosphere of Deerbrook. We must all look to ourselves.”
“I understand you,” said Hester. “I take the lesson home, I assure you. It is clear to me through your cautious phrase,—the ‘we,’ and ‘all of us,’ and ‘ourselves.’ But remember this,—that people are not made alike, and are not able, and not intended to feel alike; and if some have less power than others over their sorrow, at least over their tears, it does not follow that they cannot bear as well what they have to bear. If I cannot sit looking as Margaret does, peeling oranges and philosophising, it may not be that I have less strength at my heart, but that I have more at stake,—more—”
Hope started from her side, and leaned against the mantelpiece, covering his face with his hands. At this moment, the boy entered with a message from a patient in the next street, who wanted Mr Hope.
“Oh, do not leave me, Edward! Do not leave me at this moment!” cried Hester. “Come back for five minutes!”
Hope quietly said that he should return presently, and went out. When the hall door was heard to close behind him, Hester flung herself down on the sofa. Whatever momentary resentment Margaret might have felt at her sister’s words, it vanished at the sight of Hester’s attitude of wretchedness. She sat on a footstool beside the sofa, and took her sister’s hand in hers.
“You are kinder to me than I deserve,” murmured Hester: “but, Margaret, mind what I say! never marry, Margaret! Never love, and never marry, Margaret!”
Margaret laid her hand on her sister’s shoulder, saying,—“Stop here, Hester! While I was the only friend you had, it was right and kind to tell me all that was in your heart. But now that there is one nearer and dearer, and far, far worthier than I, I can hear nothing like this. Nor are you fit just now to speak of these serious things: you are discomposed—”
“One would think you were echoing Miss Miskin, Margaret,—‘You are warm, ma’am.’ But you must hear this much. I insist upon it. If you would have heard me, you would have found that I was not going to say a word about my husband inconsistent with all the love and honour you would have him enjoy. I assure you, you might trust me not to complain of my husband. I have no words in which to say how noble he is. But, oh! it is all true about the wretchedness of married life! I am wretched, Margaret.”
“So I see,” said Margaret, in deep sorrow.
“Life is a blank to me. I have no hope left. I am neither wiser, nor better, nor happier for God having given me all that should make a woman what I meant to be. What can God give me more than I have?”
“I was just thinking so,” replied Margaret, mournfully.
“What follows then?”
“Not that all married people are unhappy because you are.”
“Yes, oh, yes! all who are capable of happiness: all who can love. The truth is, there is no perfect confidence in the world: there is no rest for one’s heart. I believed there was, and I am disappointed: and if you believe there is, you will be disappointed too, I warn you.”
“I shall not neglect your warning; but I do believe there is rest for rational affections—I am confident there is, if the primary condition is fulfilled—if there is repose in God together with human love.”
“You think that trust in God is wanting in me?”
“Do let us speak of something else,” said Margaret. “We are wrong to think and talk of ourselves as we do. There is something sickly about our state while we do so, and we deserve to be suffering as we are. Come! let us be up and doing. Let me read to you; or will you practise with me till Edward comes back?”
“Not till you have answered my question, Margaret. Do you believe that my wretchedness is from want of trust in God?”
“I believe,” said Margaret, seriously, “that all restless and passionate suffering is from that cause. And now, Hester, no more.”
Hester allowed Margaret to read to her; but it would not do. She was too highly wrought up for common interests. The reading was broken off by her hysterical sobs; and it was clear that the best thing to be done was to get her to bed, under Morris’s care, that all agitating conversation might be avoided. When Mr Hope returned, he found Margaret sitting alone at the tea-table. If she had had no greater power of self-control than her sister, Edward might have been made wretched enough, for her heart was full of dismay: but she felt the importance of the duty of supporting him, and he found her, though serious, apparently cheerful.
“I have sent Hester to bed,” said she, as he entered. “She was worn out. Yes: just go and speak to her; but do not give her the opportunity of any more conversation till she has slept. Tell her that I am going to send her some tea; and by that time yours will be ready.”
“Just one word upon the events of to-day,” said Hope, as he took his seat at the tea-table, after having reported that Hester was tolerably composed:— “just one word, and no more. We must avoid bringing emotions to a point—giving occasion for—”
“I entirely agree with you,” said Margaret. “She requires to be drawn out of herself. She cannot bear that opening of the sluices, which is a benefit and comfort to some people. Let us keep them shut, and when it comes to acting, see how she will act!”
“Bless you for that!” was on Hope’s lips; but he did not say it. Tea was soon dismissed, and he then took up the newspaper; and when that was finished, he found he could not read to Margaret—he must write:— he had a case to report for a medical journal.
“I hope I have not spoiled your evening,” said Hester, languidly, when her sister went to bid her good-night. “I have been listening; but I could not hear you either laughing or talking.”
“Because we have been neither laughing nor talking. My brother has been writing—”
“Writing! To whom? To Emily, or to Anne?”
“To a far more redoubtable person than either: to the editor of some one of those green and blue periodicals that he devours, as if they were poetry. And I have been copying music.”
“How tired you look!”
“Well, then, good-night!”
Margaret might well look tired; but she did not go to rest for long. How should she rest, while her soul was sick with dismay, her heart weighed down with disappointment, her sister’s sobs still sounding in her ear, her sister’s agonised countenance rising up from moment to moment, as often as she closed her eyes? And all this within the sacred enclosure of home, in the very sanctuary of peace! All this where love had guided the suffering one to marriage—where there was present neither sickness, nor calamity, nor guilt, but the very opposites of all these! Could it then be true, that the only sanctuary of peace is in the heart? that while love is the master passion of humanity, the main-spring of human action, the crowning interest of human life—while it is ordained, natural, inevitable, it should issue as if it were discountenanced by Providence, unnatural, and to be repelled? Could it be so? Was Hester’s warning against love, against marriage, reasonable, and to be regarded? That warning Margaret thought she could never put aside, so heavily had it sunk upon her heart, crushing—she knew not what there. If it was not a reasonable warning, whither should she turn for consolation for Hester? If this misery arose out of an incapacity in Hester herself for happiness in domestic life, then farewell sisterly comfort—farewell all the bright visions she had ever indulged on behalf of the one who had always been her nearest and dearest? Instead of these, there must be struggle and grief, far deeper than in the anxious years that were gone; struggle with an evil which must grow if it does not diminish, and grief for an added sufferer—for one who deserved blessing where he was destined to receive torture. This was not the first time by a hundred that Hester had kept Margaret from her pillow, and then driven rest from it; but never had the trial been so great as now. There had been anxiety formerly; now there was something like despair, after an interval of hope and comparative ease.
Mankind are ignorant enough, Heaven knows, both in the mass, about general interests, and individually, about the things which belong to their peace: but of all mortals, none perhaps are so awfully self-deluded as the unamiable. They do not, any more than others, sin for the sake of sinning; but the amount of woe caused by their selfish unconsciousness is such as may well make their weakness an equivalent for other men’s gravest crimes. There is a great diversity of hiding-places for their consciences—many mansions in the dim prison of discontent: but it may be doubted whether, in the hour when all shall be uncovered to the eternal day, there will be revealed a lower deep than the hell which they have made. They, perhaps, are the only order of evil ones who suffer hell without seeing and knowing that it is hell. But they are under a heavier curse even than this; they inflict torments, second only to their own, with an unconsciousness almost worthy of spirits of light. While they complacently conclude themselves the victims of others, or pronounce, inwardly or aloud, that they are too singular, or too refined, for common appreciation, they are putting in motion an enginery of torture whose aspect will one day blast their minds’ sight. The dumb groans of their victims will sooner or later return upon their ears from the depths of the heaven to which the sorrows of men daily ascend. The spirit sinks under the prospect of the retribution of the unamiable, if all that happens be indeed for eternity, if there be indeed a record—an impress on some one or other human spirit—of every chilling frown, of every querulous tone, of every bitter jest, of every insulting word—of all abuses of that tremendous power which mind has over mind. The throbbing pulses, the quivering nerves, the wrung hearts, that surround the unamiable—what a cloud of witnesses is here! and what plea shall avail against them? The terror of innocents who should know no fear—the vindictive emotions of dependants who dare not complain—the faintness of heart of life-long companions—the anguish of those who love—the unholy exultation of those who hate,—what an array of judges is here! and where can appeal be lodged against their sentence? Is pride of singularity a rational plea? Is super-refinement, or circumstance of God, or uncongeniality in man, a sufficient ground of appeal, when the refinement of one is a grace granted for the luxury of all, when circumstance is given to be conquered, and uncongeniality is appointed for discipline? The sensualist has brutified the seraphic nature with which he was endowed. The depredator has intercepted the rewards of toil, and marred the image of justice, and dimmed the lustre of faith in men’s minds. The imperial tyrant has invoked a whirlwind, to lay waste, for an hour of God’s eternal year, some region of society. But the unamiable—the domestic torturer—has heaped wrong upon wrong, and woe upon woe, through the whole portion of time which was given into his power, till it would be rash to say that any others are more guilty than he. If there be hope or solace for such, it is that there may have been tempers about him the opposite of his own. It is matter of humiliating gratitude that there were some which he could not ruin; and that he was the medium of discipline by which they were exercised in forbearance, in divine forgiveness and love. If there be solace in such an occasional result, let it be made the most of by those who need it; for it is the only possible alleviation to their remorse. Let them accept it as the free gift of a mercy which they have insulted, and a long-suffering which they have defied.
Not thus, however, did Margaret regard the case of her sister. She had but of late ceased to suppose herself in the wrong when Hester was unhappy: and though she was now relieved from the responsibility of her sister’s peace, she was slow to blame—reluctant to class the case lower than as one of infirmity. Her last waking thoughts (and they were very late) were of pity and of prayer.
As the door closed behind Margaret, Hope had flung down his pen. In one moment she had returned for a book; and she found him by the fireside, leaning his head upon his arms against the wall. There was something in his attitude which startled her out of her wish for her book, and she quietly withdrew without it. He turned, and spoke, but she was gone.
“So this is home!” thought he, as he surveyed the room, filled as it was with tokens of occupation, and appliances of domestic life. “It is home to be more lonely than ever before—and yet never to be alone with my secret! At my own table, by my own hearth, I cannot look up into the faces around me, nor say what I am thinking. In every act and every word I am in danger of disturbing the innocent—even of sullying the pure, and of breaking the bruised reed. Would to God I had never seen them! How have I abhorred bondage all my life! and I am in bondage every hour that I spend at home. I have always insisted that there was no bondage but in guilt. Is it so? If it be so, then I am either guilty, or in reality free. I have settled this before. I am guilty; or rather, I have been guilty; and this is my retribution. Not guilty towards Margaret. Thank God, I have done her no wrong! Thank God, I have never been in her eyes—what I must not think of! Nor could I ever have been, if... She loves Enderby, I am certain, though she does not know it herself. It is a blessing that she loves him, if I could but always feel it so. I am not guilty towards her, nor towards Hester, except in the weakness of declining to inflict that suffering upon her which, fearful as it must have been, might perhaps have proved less than, with all my care, she must undergo now. There was my fault. I did not, I declare, seek to attach her. I did nothing wrong so far. But I dared to measure suffering—to calculate consequences presumptuously and vainly: and this is my retribution. How would it have been, if I had allowed them to go back to Birmingham, and had been haunted with the image of her there? But why go over this again, when my very soul is weary of it all? It lies behind, and let it be forgotten. The present is what I have to do with, and it is quite enough. I have injured, cruelly injured myself; and I must bear with myself. Here I am, charged with the duty of not casting my shadow over the innocent, and of strengthening the infirm. I have a clear duty before me—that is one blessing. The innocent will soon be taken from under my shadow—I trust so—for my duty there is almost too hard. How she would confide in me, and I must not let her, and must continually disappoint her, and suffer in her affection. I cannot even be to her what our relation warrants. And all the while her thoughts are my thoughts; her... But this will never do. It is enough that she trusts me, and that I deserve that she should. This is all that I can ever have or hope for; but I have won thus much; and I shall keep it. Not a doubt or fear, not a moment’s ruffle of spirits, shall she ever experience from me. As for my own poor sufferer—what months and years are before us both! What a discipline before she can be at peace! If she were to look forward as I do, her heart would sink as mine does, and perhaps she would try... But we must not look forward: her heart must not sink. I must keep it up. She has strength under her weakness, and I must help her to bring it out and use it. There ought to be, there must be, peace in store for such generosity of spirit as lies under the jealousy, for such devotedness, for such power. Margaret says, ‘When it comes to acting, see how she will act.’ Oh, that it might please Heaven to send such adversity as would prove to herself how nobly she can act! If some strong call on her power would come in aid of what I would fain do for her, I care not what it is. If I can only witness my own wrong repaired—if I can but see her blessed from within, let all other things be as they may! The very thought frees me, and I breathe again!”