Hester took this as a permission to speak of Melea’s prospects,—happy prospects, as she called them.
“The young people talk of some such thing,” said Mr. Berkeley, carelessly. “Young people always do, you know. But it is nonsense talking. Craig is as poor as a rat, and Melea will be long enough earning her wedding clothes.” And he began hoeing up very diligently the weeds that were just visible in the border below the window. While he was not looking, Mrs. Berkeley held up with a smile the work she was doing. Hester had before observed that the work basket was piled very high.
“Is this for Miss Melea?” she delightedly enquired. Mrs. Berkeley nodded assent, and then gave the cautionary explanation that this was no sign that Melea was to be married soon, but only that a wedding wardrobe was not so very difficult to earn. She had pleasure in doing this work; it seemed to hasten the time when she and Mr. Berkeley should have a daughter near them once more.
Before they had time to pursue the topic, Mr. Berkeley came in, complaining of the heat. The first thing he did was to pick up the newspaper he had thrown away, fix himself in his reading light, give the paper the pat which was necessary to stiffen it in its full length, and mutter over it, as much at his ease as if nobody was by. Amidst the mutterings and occasional interjections, the other two carried on their conversation in an under tone. It was all about the curate, and the curate’s house, and the curate’s small accession of income, and large accession of pupils, which was as much for the advantage of Lewis in the way of companionship, as for Melea’s, in a different way. At the close of a very cheerful picture of what was to be, Hester looked up and saw Mr. Berkeley still in reading posture, but looking over his spectacles at his wife, and evidently listening to what was passing.[passing.] As soon as he saw himself observed, he said, “Go on, my dear, pray. There is nobody here to be taken in by a fancy picture,—no novices that think people are all born to be married, and nothing else. Mrs. Morrison knows by this time that this is too cold a world for love to warm every corner of it. She knows—”
“I wonder you can be so unjust to Henry,” cried Mrs. Berkeley, who saw that Hester did not altogether relish the appeal made to her. “You know very well that if Melea’s engagement was at an end to-day, you would wander about the house like a ghost, and find that the world had grown much colder all in a moment.”
“When did I ever say a word against Craig, pray?—at least, for more than three years. What I mean is, that the less people connect themselves, in such days as these, the better for them. That is the only way to slip through the world quietly, and to get out of it without having one’s heart and soul torn to pieces before one’s breath is out of one’s body.”
“You would not have daughters, Sir,” Hester ventured to say. “You had rather be living all alone, with only your physician to feel your pulse when you die.”
“Mr. Berkeley’s daughters and Mr. Berkeley’s wife are not like any other wife and daughters,” said Mrs. Berkeley, smiling; “and Horace is also unique. Mr. Berkeley’s doctrine is only generally applicable, you know; so we need not be offended.”
“I never choose to be personal,” observed Mr. Berkeley. “I point out nobody’s wife and children as the proper ones not to exist. I only mean that it must be a heavenly thing to have only one’s self to care for.”
“I will believe it, my dear, when I find you in heaven, caring only for yourself.”