CHAPTER XLI.
He rates me as the merchant does the wares He will not purchase--"quality not high 'Twill lose its color opened to the sun, Has no aroma, and, in fine, is naught-- I barter not for such commodities-- There is no ratio betwixt sands and gems." 'Tis wicked judgment! for the soul can grow, As embryos, that live and move but blindly, Burst from the dark, emerge, regenerate, And lead a life of vision and of choice.
Esther did not take the carriage into Malthouse Lane, but left it towait for her outside the town; and when she entered the house she puther finger on her lip to Lyddy and ran lightly up-stairs. She wished tosurprise her father by this visit, and she succeeded. The littleminister was just then almost surrounded by a wall of books, with merelyhis head peeping above them, being much embarrassed to find a substitutefor tables and desks on which to arrange the volumes he kept open forreference. He was absorbed in mastering all those painstakinginterpretations of the Book of Daniel, which are by this time well goneto the limbo of mistaken criticism; and Esther, as she opened the doorsoftly, heard him rehearsing aloud a passage in which he declared, withsome parenthetic provisoes, that he conceived not how a perverseingenuity could blunt the edge of prophetic explicitness, or how an openmind could fail to see in the chronology of "the little horn" theresplendent lamp of an inspired symbol searching out the germinal growthof an anti-Christian power.
"You will not like me to interrupt you, father?" said Esther, slyly.
"Ah, my beloved child!" he exclaimed, upsetting a pile of books, andthus unintentionally making a convenient breach in his wall, throughwhich Esther could get up to him and kiss him. "Thy appearing is as ajoy despaired of. I had thought of thee as the blinded think of thedaylight--which indeed is a thing to rejoice in, like all other good,though we see it not nigh."
"Are you sure you have been as well and comfortable as you said you werein your letters?" said Esther, seating herself close in front of herfather and laying her hand on his shoulder.
"I wrote truly, my dear, according to my knowledge at the time. But toan old memory like mine the present days are but as a little waterpoured on the deep. It seems now that all has been as usual, except mystudies, which have gone somewhat curiously into prophetic history. ButI fear you will rebuke me for my negligent apparel," said the littleman, feeling in front of Esther's brightness like a bat overtaken by themorning.
"That is Lyddy's fault, who sits crying over her want of Christianassurance instead of brushing your clothes and putting out your cleancravat. She is always saying her righteousness is filthy rags, andreally I don't think that is a very strong expression for it. I'm sureit is dusty clothes and furniture."
"Nay, my dear, your playfulness glances too severely on our faithfulLyddy. Doubtless I am myself deficient, in that I do not aid her infirmmemory by admonition. But now tell me aught that you have left untoldabout yourself. Your heart has gone out somewhat toward this family--theold man and the child, whom I had not reckoned of?"
"Yes, father. It is more and more difficult to me to see how I can makeup my mind to disturb these people at all."
"Something should doubtless be devised to lighten the loss and thechange to the aged father and mother. I would have you in any case seekto temper a vicissitude, which is nevertheless a providentialarrangement not to be wholly set aside."
"Do you think, father--do you feel assured that a case of inheritancelike this of mine is a sort of providential arrangement that makes acommand?"
"I have so held it," said Mr. Lyon, solemnly; "in all my meditations Ihave so held it. For you have to consider, my dear, that you have beenled by a peculiar path, and into experience which is not ordinarily thelot of those who are seated in high places, and what I have hinted toyou already in my letters on this head, I shall wish on a futureopportunity to enter into more at large."
Esther was uneasily silent. On this great question of her lot she sawdoubts and difficulties, in which it seemed as if her father could nothelp her. There was no illumination for her in this theory ofprovidential arrangement. She said suddenly (what she had not thought ofat all suddenly)--
"Have you been again to see Felix Holt, father? You have not mentionedhim in your letters."
"I have been since I last wrote, my dear, and I took his mother with me,who, I fear, made the time heavy to him with her plaints. But afterwardI carried her away to the house of a brother minister at Loamford, andreturned to Felix, and then we had much discourse."
"Did you tell him of everything that has happened--I mean aboutme--about the Transomes?"
"Assuredly I told him, and he listened as one astonished. For he hadmuch to hear, knowing naught of your birth, and that you had any otherfather than Rufus Lyon. 'Tis a narrative I trust I shall not be calledon to give to others; but I was not without satisfaction in unfoldingthe truth to this young man, who hath wrought himself into my affectionstrangely--I would fain hope for ends that will be a visible good in hisless way-worn life, when mine shall be no longer."
"And you told him how the Transomes had come, and that I was staying atTransome Court?"
"Yes, I told these things with some particularity, as is my wontconcerning what hath imprinted itself on my mind."
"What did Felix say?"
"Truly, my dear, nothing desirable to recite," said Mr. Lyon, rubbinghis hand over his brow.
"Dear father, he did say something, and you always remember what peoplesay. Pray tell me; I want to know."
"It was a hasty remark, and rather escaped him than was consciouslyframed. He said, 'Then she will marry Transome; that is what Transomemeans.'"
"That was all?" said Esther, turning rather pale, and biting her lipwith the determination that the tears should not start.
"Yes, we did not go further into that branch of the subject. I apprehendthere is no warrant for his seeming prognostic, and I should not bewithout disquiet if I thought otherwise. For I confess that in youraccession to this great position and property, I contemplate withhopeful satisfaction your remaining attached to that body ofcongregational Dissent, which, as I hold, hath retained most of pure andprimitive discipline. Your education and peculiar history would thus beseen to have coincided with a long train of events in making this familyproperty a means of honoring and illustrating a purer form ofChristianity than that which hath unhappily obtained the pre-eminence inthis land. I speak, my child, as you know, always in the hope that youwill fully join our communion and this dear wish of my heart--nay, thisurgent prayer--would seem to be frustrated by your marriage with a man,of whom there is at least no visible indication that he would unitehimself to our body."
If Esther had been less agitated, she would hardly have helped smilingat the picture her father's words suggested of Harold Transome "joiningthe church" in Malthouse Yard. But she was too seriously preoccupiedwith what Felix had said, which hurt her in a two-edged fashion that washighly significant. First, she was very angry with him for daring to saypositively whom she would marry; and secondly, she was angry at theimplication that there was from the first a cool deliberate design inHarold Transome to marry her. Esther said to herself that she was quitecapable of discerning Harold Transome's disposition, and judging of hisconduct. She felt sure he was generous and open. It did not lower him inher opinion that since circumstances had brought them together heevidently admired her--was in love with her--in short, desired to marryher; and she thought that she discerned the delicacy which hindered himfrom being more explicit. There is no point on which young women aremore easily piqued than this of their sufficiency to judge the men whomake love to them. And Esther's generous nature delighted to believe ingenerosity. All these thoughts were making a tumult in her mind whileher father was suggesting the radiance her lot might cast on the causeof congregational Dissent. She heard what he said, and remembered itafterward, but she made no reply at present, and chose rather to startup in search of a brush--an action which would seem to her father quitea usual sequence with her. It served the purpo
se of diverting him from alengthy subject.
"Have you yet spoken with Mr. Transome concerning Mrs. Holt, my dear?"he said, as Esther was moving about the room. "I hinted to him that youwould best decide how assistance should be tendered to her."
"No, father, we have not approached the subject. Mr. Transome may haveforgotten it, and, for several reasons, I would rather not talk ofthis--of money matters to him at present. There is money due to me fromthe Lukyns and the Pendrells."
"They have paid it," said Mr. Lyon, opening his desk. "I have it hereready to deliver to you."
"Keep it, father, and pay Mrs. Holt's rent with it, and do anything elsethat is wanted for her. We must consider everything temporary now," saidEsther, enveloping her father in a towel, and beginning to brush hisauburn fringe of hair, while he shut his eyes in preparation for thispleasant passivity. "Everything is uncertain--what may become ofFelix--what may become of us all. Oh, dear!" she went on, changingsuddenly to laughing merriment, "I am beginning to talk like Lyddy, Ithink."
"Truly," said Mr. Lyon, smiling, "the uncertainty of things is a textrather too wide and obvious for fruitful application and to discourseof it is, as one may say, to bottle up the air, and make a present of itto those who are already standing out of doors."
"Do you think," said Esther, in the course of their chat, "that theTreby people know at all about the reasons of my being at TransomeCourt?"
"I have had no sign thereof: and indeed there is no one, as it appears,who could make the story public. The man Christian is away in Londonwith Mr. Debarry, Parliament now beginning; and Mr. Jermyn woulddoubtless respect the confidence of the Transomes. I have not seen himlately. I know nothing of his movements. And so far as my own speech isconcerned, and my strict command to Lyddy, I have withheld the means ofinformation even as to your having returned to Transome Court in thecarriage, not wishing to give any occasion to solicitous questioningtill time hath somewhat inured me. But it hath got abroad that you arethere, and is the subject of conjectures, whereof, I imagine, the chiefis, that you are gone as companion to Mistress Transome; for some of ourfriends have already hinted a rebuke to me that I should permit yourtaking a position so little likely to further your spiritual welfare."
"Now, father, I think I shall be obliged to run away from you, not tokeep the carriage too long," said Esther, as she finished her reforms onthe minister's toilet. "You look beautiful now, and I must give Lyddy alittle lecture before I go."
"Yes, my dear; I would not detain you, seeing that my duties demand me.But take with you this Treatise, which I have purposely selected. Itconcerns all the main questions between ourselves and theEstablishment--government, discipline, state-support. It is seasonablethat you should give a nearer attention to these polemics, lest you bedrawn aside by the fallacious association of a State Church withelevated rank."
Esther chose to take the volume submissively, rather than to adopt theungraceful sincerity of saying that she was unable at present to giveher mind to the original functions of a bishop or the comparative meritof Endowments and Voluntaryism. But she did not run her eyes over thepages during her solitary drive to get a foretaste of the argument, forshe was entirely occupied with Felix Holt's prophecy that she wouldmarry Harold Transome.