CHAPTER XLIX.
Nay, falter not--'tis an assured good To seek the noblest--'tis your only good Now you have seen it; for that higher vision Poisons all meaner choice forevermore.
That day Esther dined with old Mr. Transome only. Harold sent word thathe was engaged and had already dined, and Mrs. Transome that she wasfeeling ill. Esther was much disappointed that any tidings Harold mighthave brought relating to Felix were deferred in this way; and, heranxiety making her fearful, she was haunted by the thought that if therehad been anything cheering to tell, he would have found time to tell itwithout delay. Old Mr. Transome went as usual to his sofa in the libraryto sleep after dinner, and Esther had to seat herself in the smalldrawing-room, in a well-lit solitude that was unusually dispiriting toher. Pretty as this room was, she did not like it. Mrs. Transome'sfull-length portrait, being the only picture there, urged itself toostrongly on her attention: the youthful brilliancy it representedsaddened Esther by its inevitable association with what she daily sawhad come instead of it--a joyless, embittered age. The sense that Mrs.Transome was unhappy, affected Esther more and more deeply as thegrowing familiarity which relaxed the efforts of the hostess revealedmore and more the threadbare tissue of this majestic lady's life. Eventhe flowers and the pure sunshine and the sweet waters of Paradise wouldhave been spoiled for a young heart, if the bowered walks had beenhaunted by an Eve gone gray with bitter memories of an Adam who hadcomplained. "The woman----she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." Andmany of us know how, even in our childhood, some blank discontented faceon the background of our home has marred our summer mornings. Why wasit, when the birds were singing, when the fields were a garden, and whenwe were clasping another little hand just larger than our own, there wassomebody who found it hard to smile? Esther had got far beyond thatchildhood to a time and circumstances when this daily presence ofelderly dissatisfaction amidst such outward things as she had alwaysthought must greatly help to satisfy, awaked, not merely vaguequestioning emotion, but strong determining thought. And now, in thesehours since her return from Loamford, her mind was in that state ofhighly-wrought activity, that large discourse, in which we seem to standaloof from our own life--weighing impartially our own temptations andthe weak desires that most habitually solicit us. "I think I am gettingthat power Felix wished me to have: I shall soon see strong visions,"she said to herself, with a melancholy smile flitting across her face,as she put out her wax lights that she might get rid of the oppressiveurgency of walls and upholstery and that portrait smiling with deludedbrightness, unwitting of the future.
Just then Dominic came to say that Mr. Harold sent his compliments, andbegged that she would grant him an interview in his study. He dislikedthe small drawing-room: if she would oblige him by going to the study atonce, he would join her very soon. Esther went, in some wonder andanxiety. What she most feared or hoped in these moments related to FelixHolt, and it did not occur to her that Harold could have anythingspecial to say to her that evening on other subjects.
Certainly the study was pleasanter than the small drawing-room. A quietlight shone on nothing but greenness and dark wood, and Dominic hadplaced a delightful chair for her opposite to his master's, which wasstill empty. All the little objects of luxury around indicated Harold'shabitual occupancy; and as Esther sat opposite all these things alongwith the empty chair which suggested the coming presence, theexpectation of his beseeching homage brought with it an impatience andrepugnance which she had never felt before. While these feelings werestrongly upon her, the door opened and Harold appeared.
He had recovered his self-possession since his interview with hismother: he had dressed and was perfectly calm. He had been occupied withresolute thoughts, determining to do what he knew that perfect honordemanded, let it cost him what it would. It is true he had a tacit hopebehind, that it might not cost him what he prized most highly: it istrue he had a glimpse even of reward; but it was not less true that hewould have acted as he did without that hope or glimpse. It was the mostserious moment in Harold Transome's life; for the first time the ironhad entered into his soul, and he felt the hard pressure of our commonlot, the yoke of that mighty resistless destiny laid upon us by the actsof other men as well as our own.
When Esther looked at him she relented, and felt ashamed of hergratuitous impatience. She saw that his mind was in some way burdened.But then immediately sprang the dread that he had to say somethinghopeless about Felix.
They shook hands in silence, Esther looking at him with anxioussurprise. He released her hand, but it did not occur to her to sit down,and they both continued standing on the hearth.
"Don't let me alarm you," said Harold, seeing that her face gatheredsolemnity from his. "I suppose I carry the marks of a past agitation. Itrelates entirely to troubles of my own--of my own family. No one beyondis involved in them."
Esther wondered still more, and felt still more relenting.
"But," said Harold, after a slight pause, and in a voice that wasweighted with new feeling, "it involves a difference in my position withregard to you; and it is on this point that I wished to speak to you atonce. When a man sees what ought to be done, he had better do itforthwith. He can't answer for himself to-morrow."
While Esther continued to look at him, with eyes widened by anxiousexpectation, Harold turned a little, leaned on the mantelpiece, andceased to look at her as he spoke.
"My feelings drag me another way. I need not tell you that your regardhas become very important to me--that if our mutual position had beendifferent--that, in short, you must have seen--if it had not seemed tobe a matter of worldly interest, I should have told you plainly alreadythat I loved you, and that my happiness could be complete only if youwould consent to marry me."
Esther felt her heart beginning to beat painfully. Harold's voice andwords moved her so much that her own task seemed more difficult than shehad before imagined. It seemed as if the silence, unbroken by anythingbut the clicking of the fire, had been long, before Harold turned roundtoward her again and said--
"But to-day I have heard something that affects my own position. Icannot tell you what it is. There is no need. It is not any culpabilityof my own. But I have not just the same unsullied name and fame in theeyes of the world around us, as I believed that I had when I allowedmyself to entertain that wish about you. You are very young, entering ona fresh life with bright prospects--you are worthy of everything that isbest. I may be too vain in thinking it was at all necessary; but I takethis precaution against myself. I shut myself out from the chance oftrying, after to-day, to induce you to accept anything which others mayregard as specked and stained by any obloquy, however slight."
Esther was keenly touched. With a paradoxical longing, such as oftenhappens to us, she wished at that moment that she could have loved thisman with her whole heart. The tears came into her eyes; she did notspeak, but, with an angel's tenderness in her face, she laid her hand onhis sleeve. Harold commanded himself strongly and said--
"What is to be done now is, that we should proceed at once to thenecessary legal measures for putting you in possession of your own, andarranging mutual claims. After that I shall probably leave England."
Esther was oppressed by an overpowering difficulty. Her sympathy withHarold at this moment was so strong, that it spread itself like a mistover all previous thought and resolve. It was impossible now to woundhim afresh. With her hand still resting on his arm, she said, timidly--
"Should you be urged--obliged to go--in any case?"
"Not in every case, perhaps," Harold said, with an evident movement ofthe blood toward his face; "at least not for long, not for always."
Esther was conscious of the gleam in his eyes. With terror at herself,she said, in difficult haste, "I can't speak. I can't say anythingto-night. A great decision has to be made: I must wait--till to-morrow."
She was moving her hand from his arm, when Harold took it reverentiallyand raised it to his lips. She turned toward her chair, and as hereleased he
r hand she sank down on the seat with a sense that she neededthat support. She did not want to go away from Harold yet. All the whilethere was something she needed to know, and yet she could not bringherself to ask it. She must resign herself to depend entirely on hisrecollection of anything beyond his own immediate trial. She sathelpless under contending sympathies while Harold stood at some distancefrom her, feeling more harassed by weariness and uncertainty, now thathe had fulfilled his resolve, and was no longer under the excitement ofactually fulfilling it.
Esther's last words had forbidden his revival of the subject that wasnecessarily supreme with him. But still she sat there, and his mind,busy as to the probabilities of her feeling, glanced over all she haddone and said in the later days of their intercourse. It was thisretrospect that led him to say at last--
"You will be glad to hear that we shall get a very powerfully signedmemorial to the Home Secretary about young Holt. I think your speakingfor him helped a great deal. You made all the men wish what you wished."
This was what Esther had been yearning to hear and dared not ask, aswell from respect for Harold's absorption in his own sorrow, as from theshrinking that belongs to our dearest need. The intense relief ofhearing what she longed to hear, affected her whole frame: her color,her expression, changed as if she had been suddenly freed from sometorturing constraint. But we interpret signs of emotion as we interpretother signs--often quite erroneously, unless we have the right key towhat they signify. Harold did not gather that this was what Esther hadwaited for, or that the change in her indicated more than he hadexpected her to feel at this allusion to an unusual act which she haddone under a strong impulse.
Besides the introduction of a new subject after very momentous wordshave passed, and are still dwelling on the mind, is necessarily a sortof concussion, shaking us into a new adjustment of ourselves.
It seemed natural that soon afterward Esther put out her hand and said,"Good-night."
Harold went to his bedroom on the same level with his study, thinking ofthe morning with an uncertainty that dipped on the side of hope. Thissweet woman, for whom he felt a passion newer than any he had expectedto feel, might possibly make some hard things more bearable--if sheloved him. If not--well, he had acted so that he could defy anyone tosay he was not a gentleman.
Esther went up-stairs to her bedroom, thinking that she should not sleepthat night. She set her light on a high stand, and did not touch herdress. What she desired to see with undisturbed clearness were thingsnot present: the rest she needed was the rest of a final choice. It wasdifficult. On each side there was renunciation.
She drew up her blinds, liking to see the gray sky, where there weresome veiled glimmerings of moonlight, and the lines of the foreverrunning river, and the bending movement of the black trees. She wantedthe largeness of the world to help her thought. This young creature, whotrod lightly backward and forward, and leaned against the window-frame,and shook back her brown curls as she looked at something not visible,had lived hardly more than six months since she saw Felix Holt for thefirst time. But life is measured by the rapidity of change, thesuccession of influences that modify the being; and Esther had undergonesomething little short of an inward revolution. The revolutionarystruggle, however, was not quite at an end.
There was something which she now felt profoundly to be the best thingthat life could give her. But--if it was to be had at all--it was not tobe had without paying a heavy price for it, such as we must pay for allthat is greatly good. A supreme love, a motive that gives a sublimerhythm to a woman's life, and exalts habit into partnership with thesoul's highest needs, is not to be had where and how she wills: to knowthat high initiation, she must often tread where it is hard to tread,and feel the chill air, and watch through darkness. It is not true thatlove makes all things easy: it makes us choose what is difficult.Esther's previous life had brought her into close acquaintance with manynegations, and with many positive ills too, not of the acutely painful,but of the distasteful sort. What if she chose the hardship, and had tobear it alone, with no strength to lean upon--no other better self tomake a place for trust and joy? Her past experience saved her fromillusions. She knew the dim life of the back street, the contact withsordid vulgarity, the lack of refinement for the senses, the summons toa daily task; and the gain that was to make that life of privationsomething on which she dreaded to turn her back, as if it wereheaven--the presence and the love of Felix Holt--was only a quiveringhope, not a certainty. It was not in her woman's nature that the hopeshould not spring within her and make a strong impulse. She knew that heloved her: had he not said how a woman might help a man if she wereworthy? and if she proved herself worthy? But still there was the dreadthat after all she might find herself on the stony road alone, and faintand be weary. Even with the fulfillment of her hope, she knew that shepledged herself to meet high demands.
And on the other side there was a lot where everything seemed easy--butfor the fatal absence of those feelings which, now she had once knownthem, it seemed nothing less than a fall and degradation to do without.With a terrible prescience which a multitude of impressions during herstay at Transome Court had contributed to form, she saw herself in asilken bondage that arrested all motive, and was nothing better than awell-cushioned despair. To be restless amidst ease, to be languid amongall appliances for pleasure, was a possibility that seemed to haunt therooms of this house, and wander with her under the oaks and elms of thepark. And Harold Transome's love, no longer a hovering fancy with whichshe played, but become a serious fact, seemed to threaten her with astifling oppression. The homage of a man may be delightful until he asksstraight for love, by which a woman renders homage. Since she and Felixhad kissed each other in the prison, she felt as if she had vowedherself away, as if memory lay on her lips like a seal of possession.Yet what had happened that very evening had strengthened her liking forHarold, and her care for all that regarded him: it had increased herrepugnance to turning him out of anything he had expected to be his, orto snatching anything from him on the ground of an arbitrary claim. Ithad even made her dread, as a coming pain, the task of saying anythingto him that was not a promise of the utmost comfort under thisnewly-disclosed trouble of his.
It was already near midnight, but with these thoughts succeeding andreturning in her mind like scenes through which she was living, Estherhad a more intense wakefulness than any she had known by day. All hadbeen stillness hitherto, except the fitful wind outside. But her earsnow caught a sound within--slight, but sudden. She moved near her door,and heard the sweep of something on the matting outside. It came closer,and paused. Then it began again, and seemed to sweep away from her. Thenit approached, and paused as it had done before. Esther listened,wondering. The same thing happened again and again, till she could bearit no longer. She opened the door, and in the dim light of the corridor,where the glass above seemed to make a glimmering sky, she saw Mrs.Transome's tall figure pacing slowly, with her cheek upon her hand.