“Not to-night,” said Hester. “Do not ask it of her to-night.”
“I believe I may ask it at this very moment. The happy can forgive. Is it not so, Margaret?”
“For myself I could and I do, brother. I would go now and nurse her child, and comfort her. But—”
“But you cannot forgive the wretchedness she has caused to Philip. Well, if you each forgive her for your own part, there is a chance that she may yet lift up her humbled head.”
“What possessed her to hate us so?” said Hester.
“Her hatred to us is the result of long habits of ill-will, of selfish pride, and of low pertinacity about small objects. That is the way in which I account for it all. She disliked you first for your connection with the Greys; and then she disliked me for my connection with you. She nourished up all her personal feelings into an opposition to us and our doings; and when she had done this, and found her own only brother going over to the enemy, as she regarded it, her dislike grew into a passion of hatred. Under the influence of this passion, she has been led on to say and to do more and more that would suit her purposes, till she has found herself sunk in an abyss of guilt. I really believe she was not fully aware of her situation, till her misery of to-day revealed it to her.”
“Poor thing!” said Margaret. “Is there nothing we can do to help her?”
“We will ask Enderby. I take hers to be no uncommon case. The dislikes of low and selfish minds generally bear very much the character of hers, though they may not be pampered by circumstances into such a luxuriance as in this case. In a city, Mrs Rowland might have been an ordinary spiteful fine lady. In such a place as Deerbrook, and with a family of rivals’ cousins incessantly before her eyes, to exercise her passions upon, she has ended in being—”
“What she is,” said Margaret, as Hope stopped for a word.
“Margaret is less surprised than you expected, is she not?” said Hester. “You did not suppose that she would sit and listen as she does to your analysis of Mrs Rowland. But if the truth were known, she carries a prophecy about her on her finger. I have no doubt she has been expecting this very news ever since she recovered her ring. Yes or no, Margaret?”