Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (276 page)

Her father sat looking at her through his spectacles, stroking his chin. It was amazing to herself that she was taking so lightly now what had caused her such deep emotion yesterday.

‘I daresay, then,’ said Harold, ‘you are more fully possessed of particulars than I am. So that my mother and I need only tell you what no one else can tell you - that is, what are her and my feelings and wishes under these new and unexpected circumstances.’

‘I am most anxious,’ said Esther, with a grave beautiful look of respect to Mrs Transome - ‘most anxious on that point. Indeed, being of course in uncertainty about it, I have not yet known whether I could rejoice.’ Mrs Transome’s glance had softened. She liked Esther to look at her.

‘Our chief anxiety,’ she said, knowing what Harold wished her to say, ‘is, that there may be no contest, no useless expenditure of money. Of course we will surrender what can be rightfully claimed.’

‘My mother expresses our feeling precisely, Miss Lyon,’ said Harold. ‘And I’m sure, Mr Lyon, you will understand our desire.’

‘Assuredly, sir. My daughter would in any case have had my advice to seek a conclusion which would involve no strife. We endeavour, sir, in our body, to hold to the apostolic rule that one Christian brother should not go to law with another; and I, for my part, would extend this rule to all my fellow-men, apprehending that the practice of our courts is little consistent with the simplicity that is in Christ.’

‘If it is to depend on my will,’ said Esther, ‘there is nothing that would be more repugnant to me than any struggle on such a subject. But can’t the lawyers go on doing what they will in spite of me? It seems that this is what they mean?’

‘Not exactly,’ said Harold, smiling. ‘Of course they live by such struggles as you dislike. But we can thwart them by determining not to quarrel. It is desirable that we should consider the affair together, and put it into the hands of honourable solicitors. I assure you we Transomes will not contend for what is not our own.’

‘And this is what I have come to beg of you,’ said Mrs Transome. ‘It is that you will come to Transome Court - and let us take full time to arrange matters. Do oblige me: you shall not be teased more than you like by an old woman: you shall do just as you please, and become acquainted with your future home, since it is to be yours. I can tell you a world of things that you will want to know; and the business can proceed properly.’

‘Do consent,’ said Harold, with winning brevity.

Esther was flushed, and her eyes were bright. It was impossible for her not to feel that the proposal was a more tempting step towards her change of condition than she could have thought of beforehand. She had forgotten that she was in any trouble. But she looked towards her father, who was again stroking his chin, as was his habit when he was doubting and deliberating.

‘I hope you do not disapprove of Miss Lyon’s granting us this favour?’ said Harold to the minister.

‘I have nothing to oppose to it, sir, if my daughter’s own mind is clear as to her course.’

‘You will come - now - with us,’ said Mrs Transome, persuasively. ‘You will go back with us in the carriage.’

Harold was highly gratified with the perfection of his mother’s manner on this occasion, which he had looked forward to as difficult. Since he had come home again, he had never seen her so much at her ease, or with so much benignancy in her face. The secret lay in the charm of Esther’s sweet young deference, a sort of charm that had not before entered into Mrs Transome’s elderly life. Esther’s pretty behaviour, it must be confessed, was not fed entirely from lofty moral sources: over and above her really generous feeling, she enjoyed Mrs Transome’s accent, the high-bred quietness of her speech, the delicate odour of her drapery. She had always thought that life must be particularly easy if one could pass it among refined people; and so it seemed at this moment. She wished, unmixedly, to go to Transome Court.

‘Since my father has no objection,’ she said, ‘and you urge me so kindly. But I must beg for time to pack up a few clothes.

‘By all means,’ said Mrs Transome. ‘We are not at all pressed.’

When Esther had left the room, Harold said, ‘Apart from our immediate reason for coming, Mr Lyon, I could have wished to see you about these unhappy consequences of the election contest. But you will understand that I have been much preoccupied with private affairs.’

‘You have well said that the consequences are unhappy, sir. And but for a reliance on something more than human calculation, I know not which I should most bewail - the scandal which wrong-dealing has brought on right principles, or the snares which it laid for the feet of a young man who is dear to me. “One soweth, and another reapeth,” is a verity that applies to evil as well as good.’

‘You are referring to Felix Holt. I have not neglected steps to secure the best legal help for the prisoners; but I am given to understand that Holt refuses any aid from me. I hope he will not go rashly to work in speaking in his own defence without any legal instruction. It is an opprobrium of our law that no counsel is allowed to plead for the prisoner in cases of felony. A ready tongue may do a man as much harm as good in a court of justice. He piques himself on making a display, and displays a little too much.’

‘Sir, you know him not,’ said the little minister, in his deeper tone. ‘He would not accept, even if it were accorded, a defence wherein the truth was screened or avoided - not from a vainglorious spirit of self-exhibition, for he hath a singular directness and simplicity of speech; but from an averseness to a profession wherein a man may without shame seek to justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him.’

‘It’s a pity a fine young fellow should do himself harm by fanatical notions of that sort. I could at least have procured the advantage of first-rate consultation. He didn’t look to me like a dreamy personage.’

‘Nor is he dreamy; rather, his excess lies in being too practical.’

‘Well, I hope you will not encourage him in such irrationality: the question is not one of misrepresentation, but of adjusting fact, so as to raise it to the power of evidence. Don’t you see that?’

‘I do, I do. But I distrust not Felix Holt’s discernment in regard to his own case. He builds not on doubtful things, and hath no illusory hopes; on the contrary, he is of a too-scornful incredulity where I would fain see a more childlike faith. But we will hold no belief without action corresponding thereto; and the occasion of his return to this his native place at a time which has proved fatal, was no other than his resolve to hinder the sale of some drugs, which had chiefly supported his mother, but which his better knowledge showed him to be pernicious to the human frame. He undertook to support her by his own labour: but, sir, I pray you to mark - and old as I am, I will not deny that this young man instructs me herein - I pray you to mark the poisonous confusion of good and evil which is the wide-spreading effect of vicious practices. Through the use of undue electioneering means - concerning which, however, I do not accuse you farther than of having acted the part of him who washes his hands when he delivers up to others the exercise of an iniquitous power - Felix Holt is, I will not scruple to say, the innocent victim of a riot; and that deed of strict honesty, whereby he took on himself the charge of his aged mother, seems now to have deprived her of sufficient bread, and is even an occasion of reproach to him from the weaker brethren.’

‘I shall be proud to supply her as amply as you think desirable,’ said Harold, not enjoying this lecture.

‘I will pray you to speak of this question with my daughter, who, it appears, may herself have large means at command, and would desire to minister to Mistress Holt’s needs with all friendship and delicacy. For the present, I can take care that she lacks nothing essential.’

As Mr Lyon was speaking, Esther re-entered, equipped for her drive. She laid her hand on her father’s arm, and said, ‘You will let my pupils know at once, will you, father?’

‘Doubtless, my dear,’ said the old man, trembling a little under the feeling that this departure of Esther’s was a crisis. Nothing again would be as it had been in their mutual life. But he feared that he was being mastered by a too-tender self-regard, and struggled to keep himself calm.

Mrs Transome and Harold had both risen.

‘If you are quite ready, Miss Lyon,’ said Harold, divining that the father and daughter would like to have an unobserved moment, ‘I will take my mother to the carriage, and come back for you.’

When they were alone, Esther put her hands on her father’s shoulders, and kissed him.

‘This will not be a grief to you, I hope, father? You think it is better that I should go?’

‘Nay, child, I am weak. But I would fain be capable of a joy quite apart from the accidents of my aged earthly existence, which, indeed, is a petty and almost dried-up fountain - whereas to the receptive soul the river of life pauseth not, nor is diminished.’

‘Perhaps you will see Felix Holt again, and tell him everything?’

‘Shall I say aught to him for you?’

‘O no; only that Job Tudge has a little flannel shirt and a box of lozenges,’ said Esther, smiling. ‘Ah, I hear Mr Transome coming back. I must say good-bye to Lyddy, else she will cry over my hard heart.’

In spite of all the grave thoughts that had been, Esther felt it a very pleasant as well as new experience to be led to the carriage by Harold Transome, to be seated on soft cushions, and bowled along, looked at admiringly and deferentially by a person opposite, whom it was agreeable to look at in return, and talked to with suavity and liveliness. Towards what prospect was that easy carriage really leading her? She could not be always asking herself Mentor-like questions. Her young bright nature was rather weary of the sadness that had grown heavier in these last weeks, like a chill white mist hopelessly veiling the day. Her fortune was beginning to appear worthy of being called good fortune. She had come to a new stage in her journey; a new day had arisen on new scenes, and her young untired spirit was full of curiosity.

CHAPTER 39

No man believes that many-textured knowledge and skill - as a just idea of the solar system, or the power of painting flesh, or of reading written harmonies - can come late and of a sudden; yet many will not stick at believing that happiness can come at any day and hour solely by a new disposition of events; though there is nought less capable of a magical production than a mortal’s happiness, which is mainly a complex of habitual relations and dispositions not to be wrought by news from foreign parts, or any whirling of fortune’s wheel for one on whose brow Time has written legibly.

SOME days after Esther’s arrival at Transome Court, Denner, coming to dress Mrs Transome before dinner - a labour of love for which she had ample leisure now - found her mistress seated with more than ever of that marble aspect of self-absorbed suffering, which to the waiting-woman’s keen observation had been gradually intensifying itself during the past week. She had tapped at the door without having been summoned, and she had ventured to enter though she had heard no voice saying ‘Come in.’

Mrs Transome had on a dark warm dressing-gown, hanging in thick folds about her, and she was seated before a mirror which filled a panel from the floor to the ceiling. The room was bright with the light of the fire and of wax candles. For some reason, contrary to her usual practice, Mrs Transome had herself unfastened her abundant grey hair, which rolled backward in a pale sunless stream over her dark dress. She was seated before the mirror apparently looking at herself, her brow knit in one deep furrow, and her jewelled hands laid one above the other on her knee. Probably she had ceased to see the reflection in the mirror, for her eyes had the fixed wide-open look that belongs not to examination, but to reverie. Motionless in that way, her clear-cut features keeping distinct record of past beauty, she looked like an image faded, dried, and bleached by uncounted suns, rather than a breathing woman who had numbered the years as they passed, and had a consciousness within her which was the slow deposit of those ceaseless rolling years.’

Denner, with all her ingrained and systematic reserve, could not help showing signs that she was startled, when, peering from between her half-closed eyelids, she saw the motionless image in the mirror opposite to her as she entered. Her gentle opening of the door had not roused her mistress, to whom the sensations produced by Denner’s presence were as little disturbing as those of a favourite cat. But the slight cry, and the start reflected in the glass, were unusual enough to break the reverie: Mrs Transome moved, leaned back in her chair, and said -

‘So you’re come at last, Denner?’

‘Yes, madam; it is not late. I’m sorry you should have undone your hair yourself.’

‘I undid it to see what an old hag I am. These fine clothes you put on me, Denner, are only a smart shroud.’

‘Pray don’t talk so, madam. If there’s anybody doesn’t think it pleasant to look at you, so much the worse for them. For my part, I’ve seen no young ones fit to hold up your train. Look at your likeness down below; and though you’re older now, what signifies? I wouldn’t be Letty in the scullery because she’s got red cheeks. She mayn’t know she’s a poor creature, but I know it, and that’s enough for me: I know what sort of a dowdy draggletail she’ll be in ten years’ time. I would change with nobody, madam. And if troubles were put up to market, I’d sooner buy old than new. It’s something to have seen the worst.’

‘A woman never has seen the worst till she is old, Denner,’ said Mrs Transome, bitterly.

The keen little waiting-woman was not clear as to the cause of her mistress’s added bitterness; but she rarely brought herself to ask questions, when Mrs Transome did not authorise them by beginning to give her information. Banks the bailiff and the head-servant had nodded and winked a good deal over the certainty that Mr Harold was ‘none so fond’ of Jermyn, but this was a subject on which Mrs Transome had never made up her mind to speak, and Denner knew nothing definite. Again, she felt quite sure that there was some important secret connected with Esther’s presence in the house; she suspected that the close Dominic knew the secret, and was more trusted than she was, in spite of her forty years’ service; but any resentment on this ground would have been an entertained reproach against her mistress, inconsistent with Denner’s creed and character. She inclined to the belief that Esther was the immediate cause of the new discontent.

‘If there’s anything worse coming to you, I should like to know what it is, madam,’ she said, after a moment’s silence, speaking always in the same low quick way, and keeping up her quiet labours. ‘When I awake at cock-crow, I’d sooner have one real grief on my mind than twenty false. It’s better to know you’re robbed than to think one’s going to be murdered.’

‘I believe you are the creature in the world that loves me best, Denner; yet you will never understand what I suffered. It’s of no use telling you. There’s no folly in you and no heartache. You are made of iron. You have never had any trouble.’

‘I’ve had some of your trouble, madam.’

‘Yes, you good thing. But as a sick-nurse, that never caught the fever. You never even had a child.’

‘I can feel for things I never went through. I used to be sorry for the poor French queen when I was young: I’d have lain cold for her to lie warm. I know people have feelings according to their birth and station. And you always took things to heart, madam, beyond anybody else. But I hope there’s nothing new, to make you talk of the worst.’

‘Yes, Denner, there is - there is,’ said Mrs Transome, speaking in a low tone of misery, while she bent for her headdress to be pinned on.

‘Is it this young lady?’

‘Why, what do you think about her, Denner?’ said Mrs Transome, in a tone of more spirit, rather curious to hear what the old woman would say.

‘I don’t deny she’s graceful, and she has a pretty smile and very good manners: it’s quite unaccountable by what Banks says about her father. I know nothing of those Treby townsfolk myself, but for my part I’m puzzled. I’m fond of Mr Harold. I always shall be, madam. I was at his bringing into the world, and nothing but his doing wrong by you would turn me against him. But the servants all say he’s in love with Miss Lyon.’

‘I wish it were true, Denner,’ said Mrs Transome, energetically. ‘I wish he were in love with her, so that she could master him, and make him do what she pleased.’

‘Then it is not true - what they say?’

‘Not true that she will ever master him. No woman ever will. He will make her fond of him, and afraid of him. That’s one of the things you have never gone through, Denner. A woman’s love is always freezing into fear. She wants everything, she is secure of nothing. This girl has a fine spirit - plenty of fire and pride and wit. Men like such captives, as they like horses that champ the bit and paw the ground: they feel more triumph in their mastery. What is the use of a woman’s will? - if she tries, she doesn’t get it, and she ceases to be loved. God was cruel when he made women.’

Denner was used to such outbursts as this. Her mistress’s rhetoric and temper belonged to her superior rank, her grand person, and her piercing black eyes. Mrs Transome had a sense of impiety in her words which made them all the more tempting to her impotent anger. The waiting-woman had none of that awe which could be turned into defiance: the Sacred Grove was a common thicket to her.

‘It mayn’t be good-luck to be a woman,’ she said. ‘But one begins with it from a baby: one gets used to it. And I shouldn’t like to be a man - to cough so loud, and stand straddling about on a wet day, and be so wasteful with meat and drink. They’re a coarse lot, I think. Then I needn’t make a trouble of this young lady, madam,’ she added, after a moment’s pause.

‘No, Denner. I like her. If that were all - I should like Harold to marry her. It would be the best thing. If the truth were known - and it will be known soon - the estate is hers by law - such law as it is. It’s a strange story: she’s a Bycliffe really.’

Denner did not look amazed, but went on fastening her mistress’s dress, as she said -

‘Well, madam, I was sure there was something wonderful at the bottom of it. And turning the old lawsuits and everything else over in my mind, I thought the law might have something to do with it. Then she is a born lady?’

‘Yes; she has good blood in her veins.’

‘We talked that over in the housekeeper’s room - what a hand and an instep she has, and how her head is set on her shoulders - almost like your own, madam. But her lightish complexion spoils her, to my thinking. And Dominic said Mr Harold never admired that sort of woman before. There’s nothing that smooth fellow couldn’t tell you if he would: he knows the answers to riddles before they’re made. However, he knows how to hold his tongue; I’ll say that for him. And so do I, madam.’

‘Yes, yes; you will not talk of it till other people are talking of it.’

‘And so, if Mr Harold married her, it would save all fuss and mischief?’

‘Yes - about the estate.’

‘And he seems inclined; and she’ll not refuse him, I’ll answer for it. And you like her, madam. There’s everything to set your mind at rest.’

Denner was putting the finishing-touch to Mrs Transome’s dress by throwing an Indian scarf over her shoulders, and so completing the contrast between the majestic lady in costume and the dishevelled Hecuba-like woman whom she had found half an hour before.

‘I am not at rest!’ Mrs Transome said, with slow distinctness, moving from the mirror to the window, where the blind was not drawn down, and she could see the chill white landscape and the far-off unheeding stars.

Denner, more distressed by her mistress’s suffering than she could have been by anything else, took up with the instinct of affection a gold vinaigrette which Mrs Transome often liked to carry with her, and going up to her put it into her hand gently. Mrs Transome grasped the little woman’s hand hard, and held it so.

‘Denner,’ she said, in a low tone, ‘if I could choose at this moment, I would choose that Harold should never have been born.’

‘Nay, my dear’ (Denner had only once before in her life said ‘my dear’ to her mistress), ‘it was a happiness to you then.’

‘I don’t believe I felt the happiness then as I feel the misery now. It is foolish to say people can’t feel much when they are getting old. Not pleasure, perhaps - little comes. But they can feel they are forsaken - why, every fibre in me seems to be a memory that makes a pang. They can feel that all the love in their lives is turned to hatred or contempt.’

‘Not mine, madam, not mine. Let what would be, I should want to live for your sake, for fear you should have nobody to do for you as I would.’

‘Ah, then, you are a happy woman, Denner; you have loved somebody for forty years who is old and weak now, and can’t do without you.’

The sound of the dinner-gong resounded below, and Mrs Transome let the faithful hand fall again.