"Father!" he cried, rushing to the window, "Abel has made such a bonfire in the back-yard, and he is burning weeds and all kinds of things, and he has given us each a "tato" to bake, and Fraulein has given us a band-box she did not want, and we"ve filled it quite full of dry leaves.
And do you think if we wait a little Auntie Hester will be back in time to see it burn?"
It was a splendid bonfire. It leaped. It rose and fell. It was replenished. Something alive in the heart of it died hard. The children danced round it.
"Oh, if only Auntie Hester was here!" said Regie, clapping his hands as the flame soared.
But "Auntie Hester" was too late to see it.
CHAPTER XLI
And we are punished for our purest deeds, And chasten"d for our holiest thoughts; alas!
There is no reason found in all the creeds, Why these things are, nor whence they come to pa.s.s.
--OWEN MEREDITH
It was while Hester was at the Palace that Lord Newhaven died. She had perhaps hardly realized, till he was gone, how much his loyal friendship had been to her. Yet she had hardly seen him for the last year, partly because she was absorbed in her book, and partly because, to her astonishment, she found that her brother and his wife looked coldly upon "an unmarried woman receiving calls from a married man."
For in the country individuality has not yet emerged. People are married or they are unmarried--that is all. Just as in London they are agreeable or dull--that is all.
"Since I have been at Warpington," Hester said to Lord Newhaven one day, the last time he found her in, "I have realized that I am unmarried. I never thought of it all the years I lived in London, but when I visit among the country people here, as I drive through the park, I remember, with a qualm, that I am a spinster, no doubt because I can"t help it. As I enter the hall I recall, with a pang, that I am eight-and-twenty. By the time I am in the drawing-room I am an old maid."
She had always imagined she would take up her friendship with him again, and when he died she reproached herself for having temporarily laid it aside. Perhaps no one, except Lord Newhaven"s brothers, felt his death more than d.i.c.k and Hester and the Bishop. The Bishop had sincerely liked Lord Newhaven. A certain degree of friendship had existed between the two men, which had often trembled on the verge of intimacy. But the verge had never been crossed. It was the younger man who always drew back. The Bishop, with the instinct of the true priest, had an unshaken belief in his cynical neighbor. Lord Newhaven, who trusted no one, trusted the Bishop. They might have been friends. But there was a deeper reason for grief at his death than any sense of personal loss. The Bishop was secretly convinced that he had died by his own hand.
Lord Newhaven had come to see him, the night he left Westhope, on his way to the station. He had only stayed a few minutes, and had asked him to do him a trifling service. The older man had agreed, had seen a momentary hesitation as Lord Newhaven turned to leave the room, and had forgotten the incident immediately in the press of continuous business.
But with the news of his death the remembrance of that momentary interview returned, and with it the instant conviction that that accidental death had been carefully planned.
And now Hester"s visit at the Palace had come to an end, and the Bishop"s carriage was taking her back to Warpington.
The ten days at Southminster had brought a little color back to her thin cheeks, a little calmness to her glance. She had experienced the rest--better than sleep--of being understood, of being able to say what she thought without fear of giving offence. The Bishop"s hospitality had been extended to her mind, instead of stopping short at the menu.
Her hands were full of chrysanthemums which the Bishop had picked for her himself; her small head full of his parting words and counsel.
Yes, she would do as he so urgently advised, give up the attempt to live at Warpington. She had been there a whole year. If the project had failed, as he seemed to think it had, at any rate, it had been given a fair trial. Both sides had done their best. She might ease money matters later for her brother by laying by part of the proceeds of this book for Regie"s schooling. She could see that the Bishop thought highly of the book. He had read it before it was sent to the publisher. While she was at the Palace he had asked her to reconsider one or two pa.s.sages in it which he thought might give needless offence to her brother and others of his mental calibre, and she had complied at once, and had sent for the book. No doubt she should find it at Warpington on her return.
When it was published she should give Minna a new sofa for the drawing-room, and Fraulein a fur boa and m.u.f.f, and Miss Brown a type-writer for her G.F.S. work, and Abel a barometer, and each of the servants a new gown, and James those four enormous volumes of Pusey for which his soul yearned. And what should she give Rachel--dear Rachel?
Ah! What need to give her anything? The book itself was hers. Was it not dedicated to her? And she would make her home with Rachel for the present, as the Bishop advised, as Rachel had so urgently begged her to do.
"And we will go abroad together after Christmas as she suggests," said Hester to herself. "We will go to Madeira, or one of those warm places where one can sit like a cat in the sun, and do nothing, nothing, nothing, from morning till night. I used to be so afraid of going back to Warpington, but now that the time is coming to an end I am sure I shall not irritate them so much. And Minna will be glad. One can always manage if it is only for a fixed time. And they shall not be the losers by my leaving them. I will put by the money for my little Regie. I shall feel parting with him."
The sun was setting as she reached Warpington. All was gray, the church tower, the trees, the pointed gables of the Vicarage, set small together, as in a Christmas card, against the still red sky. It only needed "Peace and Good-will" and a robin in the foreground to be complete. The stream was the only thing that moved, with its shimmering mesh of fire-tipped ripples fleeing into the darkness of the reeds. The little bridge, so vulgar in every-day life, leaned a mystery of darkness over a mystery of light. The white frost held the meadows, and binding them to the gray house and church and bare trees was a thin floating ribbon of--was it mist or smoke? In her own window a faint light wavered. They had lit a fire in her room. Hester"s heart warmed to her sister-in-law at that little token of care and welcome. Minna should have all her flowers, except one small bunch for Fraulein. In another moment she was ringing the bell, and Emma"s smiling red face appeared behind the gla.s.s door.
Hester ran past her into the drawing-room. Mrs. Gresley was sitting near the fire with the old baby beside her. She returned Hester"s kiss somewhat nervously. She looked a little frightened.
The old baby, luxuriously seated in his own little arm-chair, rose, and holding it firmly against his small person to prevent any disconnection with it, solemnly crossed the hearth-rug, and placed the chair with himself in it by Hester.
"You would like some tea," said Mrs. Gresley. "It is choir practice this evening, and we don"t have supper till nine."
But Hester had had tea before she started.
"And you are not cold?"
Hester was quite warm. The Bishop had ordered a foot-warmer in the carriage for her.
"You are looking much better."
Hester felt much better, thanks.
"And what lovely flowers!"
Hester suggested, with diffidence, that they would look pretty in the drawing-room.
"I think," said Mrs. Gresley, who had thought the same till that instant, "that they would look best in the hall."
"And the rest of the family," said Hester, whose face had fallen a little. "Where are they?"
"The children have just come in. They will be down directly. Come back to me, Toddy; you are boring your aunt. And James is in his study."
"Is he busy, or may I go in and speak to him?"
"He is not busy. He is expecting you."
Hester gathered up her rejected flowers and rose. She felt as if she had been back at Warpington a year--as if she had never been away.
She stopped a moment in the hall to look at her letters, and laid down her flowers beside them. Then she went on quickly to the study, and tapped at the door.
"Come in," said the well-known voice.
Mr. Gresley was found writing. Hester instantly perceived that it was a pose, and that he had taken up the pen when he heard her tap.
Her spirits sank a peg lower.
"He is going to lecture me about something," she said to herself, as he kissed her.
"Have you had tea? It is choir practice this evening, and we don"t have supper till nine."
Hester had had tea before she started.
"And you are not cold?"
On the contrary, Hester was quite warm, thanks. Bishop, foot-warmer, etc.
"You are looking much stronger."
Hester felt much stronger. Certainly married people grew very much alike by living together.