"Thank you." Hester dropped her a curtsey. "And who is Uncle Josh?"
"He's Dad's brother, and well known in London. I believe he writes for the papers; 'connected with the press'—that's how Dad puts it. When Dad writes a poem he hasn't time to polish it; so he sends it up to Uncle Josh, and it comes back beautifully polished by return of post. Now do you know what I want?" asked Nuncey, falling back and eyeing her.
"What?"
"Guess."
"Really I can't." Hester knew by this time that Nuncey's thoughts moved without apparent connection.
"I want to see you out of mourning—well, in half-mourning, then. It ought to be pale grey, and there's a lilac ribbon in Bonaday's shop at this moment. You needn't pretend you don't care about these things, for I know better."
After supper, and on their way to and from the ferry, Mr. Benny would talk readily enough about the school. But on one point—the tribulation it was bringing upon Aunt Butson—he kept silence; for the thought of it made him unhappy. He knew that Hester was innocent, but he could not wholly acquit himself of complicity in the poor old woman's fate. Mr. Benny had a troublesome and tender conscience in all matters that concerned his duty towards his neighbour. The School Board was driving Mrs. Butson out of employ, taking away her scanty earnings; and he was Clerk to the School Board. To be sure, if he resigned to-morrow, another man would take his place, and Mrs. Butson be not one penny the better. Mr. Benny saw this, yet it did not ease his conscience wholly.
Hester, too, kept silence. Her way to the school led her past the little shanty (originally a carpenter's workshop) in which Aunt Butson taught. It stood a stone's-throw back from the village street, partly concealed by a clump of elms; but once or twice she had heard and spied children at play between the trees there—children with faces unfamiliar to her—and gathered that the old woman still kept her door open. As the days went by the date for raising Mrs. Trevarthen's rent, and the cottage still showed every sign of habitation, she took it for granted that Mr. Sam had relented—possibly in obedience to his promise not to persecute the young sailor. She did not know that, in serving his notice without consulting Peter Benny, Mr. Sam had made a trifling mistake; that Mrs. Trevarthen held her cottage on a quarterly tenancy, and could neither have her rent raised nor be evicted before Michaelmas. Hester would have been puzzled to say precisely what sealed her lips from inquiry. Partly, no doubt, she shrank from discovering a fresh obligation to Mr. Sam, whose unctuous handshake she was learning to detest. Tom Trevarthen had disappeared. His mother kept house unmolested. Why not let sleeping dogs lie? For the rest, the school absorbed most of her thoughts, and paid back interest in cheerfulness. The children were beginning to show signs of loyalty, and a teacher who has won loyalty has won everything. Myra alone stood aloof, sullen, impervious to kindness.
In truth, Myra was suffering. For the first time in their lives her will and Clem's had come into conflict; and Clem's revealed itself as unexpectedly, almost hopelessly, stubborn. That the Virtuous Lady had sailed for Quebec, carrying away Aunt Hannah, the one other person in the world who understood her, made little difference. A hundred Aunt Hannahs could not console her for this loss—for a loss she called it. "The woman is taking him from me!" She cried the words aloud to herself on her lonely walks, making the cattle in the fields, the horses in the stable, the small greyhound, even the fields and trees, confidants in her woe. "She is stealing you from me," she reproached Clem; "and you can't see that she is a witch! You don't love me any longer!" "I love you better than ever," protested poor Clem. "No, you don't, or you would choose between us. Say 'I hate her!'" But Clem shook his head. "I don't hate her; and besides, she isn't a witch."
She had been forbidden to speak to Calvin for a week. "My dear man," she answered Mr. Sam, to his no small astonishment, "do you think I want to talk to the pimply creature? He tells fibs; and besides, he's a robber."