"What the deuce does Ruggles mean going at such a pace down these steep hills? Does he think he is to knock my horses' legs all to pieces for his own amusement?"
"I'm sure I don't know, Mr. Blessington," answers the old lady, nervously laying hold of the side of the carriage; "it is not at all safe this slippery weather; I'm sure I hope the horses are roughed."
"Miss Craven, tell him to mind what he is about; tell him to go slower—much slower," says the old gentleman, in some excitement.
Miss Craven, having with some difficulty lowered the front window, thrusts her head out of it, and, having taken the opportunity to open mouth and nose and eyes as wide as they will go, to inhale as large a quantity as possible of crisp fresh air, cries: "Ruggles! Ruggles! go slower! much slower!"
Ruggles grins, but complies, and subsides into a solemn walk, which continues until they reach Shelford. There smug bareheaded shop-keepers, violet-nosed, scarlet-fingered, standing out in the cold street at the carriage-door, executing with pleased alacrity extensive commissions of half a yard of elastic for Miss Blessington—three ounces of red wool for Mrs. Blessington's knitting—half a dozen blue envelopes for Mr. Blessington. Then, "trit-trot, jig-jog," home again.
Dinner at six: a later hour would be fatal to his digestion, the old gentleman thinks, then, a nice long evening—long as one of those Veillées du Château, when Madame la Baronne read aloud some enthralling yet severely moral tale, and Cæsar and Caroline and Pulchérie all sat entranced, unheeding the flight of time, as ticked away by the château clocks. There is only one small lamp in the whole of the grand old room, and that, in deference to the old man's failing eyes, is hung with so large and deep a green shade, that it is impossible to see to do anything by its light. There is nothing for it but to gape, from seven till ten, at the great battle-pieces hung round the walls—to endeavour to make out, by the aid of the fitful firelight, the singularly clean dead bodies, free apparently from the slightest speck of dust, or stain of blood; at the red-nostriled chargers, snorting away their ebbing lives with all four legs in the air. At ten o'clock, James rung for, to light the candles: then Mrs. Blessington, her air-cushion, work-basket, and Shetland shawl, escorted to her room; two long chapters and several psalms read to her; then a frightened rush along dark passages and draughty galleries to the great distant bedroom—to the rats' multifarious noises; to the ingenious tunes played by the wind upon the rattling window-frames; to the ginger-curtained bed and many-folded screen; to possible sleep, and certain terrors—terrors none the less awful for being totally unreasonable.
[CHAPTER XXX.]
This first day is a sample of Esther's new life; the other days were like it—not a jot better, not a jot worse. The same thing happened at the same time each day: no two things ever changed places. It was a life that provided all the necessaries of life—that demanded no hard manual labour, no overworking of the brain. The intellectual faculties that it called into play must have been possessed by any moderately intelligent seven-years' child. No one bullies Esther; no one oppresses her; no one troubles their head much about her. So as she performs her monotonous, easy, tiresome little duties towards them, the old people have no sort of objection to her enjoying life, if she can. With the aged, comfort and happiness are interchangeable terms: continuous warmth of body, pleasant-tasted meats, a profound stagnant quiet around their arm-chairs, much sleep—these are their summum bonum. They have had love, and have outlived it—excitement also, and grief: they have outlived all but the elemental instincts that refuse to be outlived. Looking back from the vantage-ground of dotage on the fought battle of life, they wonder that any one can long to be in the thick of it. In this life of Esther's there are no hardships to be borne—none of those sufferings, the enduring of which with self-conscious complacent heroism almost compensates them. It has none of the elements of tragedy: there is nothing very noble in bearing with respectable patience the trifling annoyance of making yourself hoarse roaring the price of wheat, and the pros and cons of disendowment, into an old man's ear; there is nothing grand in picking up the countless dropped stitches in an old woman's knitting. In it there is nothing to endure, nothing to enjoy; it is essentially negative, flat, stale, sterile. It would be all very well if any end were to be seen to it; if it were not a sort of small Eternity in life; if there were to be distant holidays to be looked forward to, when the few saved pounds might be poured, with the joyful generosity of the very poor, into some stricken parent's lap—might go to buy boots and shoes for needy little brothers and sisters. But