_ Hester had been prevented by her mother's indisposition from taking
Philip's letter to the Fosters, to hold a consultation with them
over its contents.
Alice Rose was slowly failing, and the long days which she had to
spend alone told much upon her spirits, and consequently upon her
health.
All this came out in the conversation which ensued after reading
Hepburn's letter in the little parlour at the bank on the day after
Sylvia had had her confidential interview with Jeremiah Foster.
He was a true man of honour, and never so much as alluded to her
visit to him; but what she had then told him influenced him very
much in the formation of the project which he proposed to his
brother and Hester.
He recommended her remaining where she was, living still in the
house behind the shop; for he thought within himself that she might
have exaggerated the effect of her words upon Philip; that, after
all, it might have been some cause totally disconnected with them,
which had blotted out her husband's place among the men of
Monkshaven; and that it would be so much easier for both to resume
their natural relations, both towards each other and towards the
world, if Sylvia remained where her husband had left her--in an
expectant attitude, so to speak.
Jeremiah Foster questioned Hester straitly about her letter: whether
she had made known its contents to any one. No, not to any one.
Neither to her mother nor to William Coulson? No, to neither.
She looked at him as she replied to his inquiries, and he looked at
her, each wondering if the other could be in the least aware that a
conjugal quarrel might be at the root of the dilemma in which they
were placed by Hepburn's disappearance.
But neither Hester, who had witnessed the misunderstanding between
the husband and wife on the evening, before the morning on which
Philip went away, nor Jeremiah Foster, who had learnt from Sylvia
the true reason of her husband's disappearance, gave the slightest
reason to the other to think that they each supposed they had a clue
to the reason of Hepburn's sudden departure.
What Jeremiah Foster, after a night's consideration, had to propose
was this; that Hester and her mother should come and occupy the
house in the market-place, conjointly with Sylvia and her child.
Hester's interest in the shop was by this time acknowledged.
Jeremiah had made over to her so much of his share in the business,
that she had a right to be considered as a kind of partner; and she
had long been the superintendent of that department of goods which
were exclusively devoted to women. So her daily presence was
requisite for more reasons than one.
Yet her mother's health and spirits were such as to render it
unadvisable that the old woman should be too much left alone; and
Sylvia's devotion to her own mother seemed to point her out as the
very person who could be a gentle and tender companion to Alice Rose
during those hours when her own daughter would necessarily be
engaged in the shop.
Many desirable objects seemed to be gained by this removal of Alice:
an occupation was provided for Sylvia, which would detain her in the
place where her husband had left her, and where (Jeremiah Foster
fairly expected in spite of his letter) he was likely to come back
to find her; and Alice Rose, the early love of one of the brothers,
the old friend of the other, would be well cared for, and under her
daughter's immediate supervision during the whole of the time that
she was occupied in the shop.
Philip's share of the business, augmented by the money which he had
put in from the legacy of his old Cumberland uncle, would bring in
profits enough to support Sylvia and her child in ease and comfort
until that time, which they all anticipated, when he should return
from his mysterious wandering--mysterious, whether his going forth
had been voluntary or involuntary.
Thus far was settled; and Jeremiah Foster went to tell Sylvia of the
plan.
She was too much a child, too entirely unaccustomed to any
independence of action, to do anything but leave herself in his
hands. Her very confession, made to him the day before, when she
sought his counsel, seemed to place her at his disposal. Otherwise,
she had had notions of the possibility of a free country life once
more--how provided for and arranged she hardly knew; but Haytersbank
was to let, and Kester disengaged, and it had just seemed possible
that she might have to return to her early home, and to her old
life. She knew that it would take much money to stock the farm
again, and that her hands were tied from much useful activity by the
love and care she owed to her baby. But still, somehow, she hoped
and she fancied, till Jeremiah Foster's measured words and
carefully-arranged plan made her silently relinquish her green,
breezy vision.
Hester, too, had her own private rebellion--hushed into submission
by her gentle piety. If Sylvia had been able to make Philip happy,
Hester could have felt lovingly and almost gratefully towards her;
but Sylvia had failed in this.
Philip had been made unhappy, and was driven forth a wanderer into
the wide world--never to come back! And his last words to Hester,
the postscript of his letter, containing the very pith of it, was to
ask her to take charge and care of the wife whose want of love
towards him had uprooted him from the place where he was valued and
honoured.
It cost Hester many a struggle and many a self-reproach before she
could make herself feel what she saw all along--that in everything
Philip treated her like a sister. But even a sister might well be
indignant if she saw her brother's love disregarded and slighted,
and his life embittered by the thoughtless conduct of a wife! Still
Hester fought against herself, and for Philip's sake she sought to
see the good in Sylvia, and she strove to love her as well as to
take care of her.
With the baby, of course, the case was different. Without thought or
struggle, or reason, every one loved the little girl. Coulson and
his buxom wife, who were childless, were never weary of making much
of her. Hester's happiest hours were spent with that little child.
Jeremiah Foster almost looked upon her as his own from the day when
she honoured him by yielding to the temptation of the chain and
seal, and coming to his knee; not a customer to the shop but knew
the smiling child's sad history, and many a country-woman would save
a rosy-cheeked apple from out her store that autumn to bring it on
next market-day for 'Philip Hepburn's baby, as had lost its father,
bless it.'
Even stern Alice Rose was graciously inclined towards the little
Bella; and though her idea of the number of the elect was growing
narrower and narrower every day, she would have been loth to exclude
the innocent little child, that stroked her wrinkled cheeks so
softly every night in return for her blessing, from the few that
should be saved. Nay, for the child's sake, she relented towards the
mother; and strove to have Sylvia rescued from the many castaways
with fervent prayer, or, as she phrased it, 'wrestling with the
Lord'.
Alice had a sort of instinct that the little child, so tenderly
loved by, so fondly loving, the mother whose ewe-lamb she was, could
not be even in heaven without yearning for the creature she had
loved best on earth; and the old woman believed that this was the
principal reason for her prayers for Sylvia; but unconsciously to
herself, Alice Rose was touched by the filial attentions she
constantly received from the young mother, whom she believed to be
foredoomed to condemnation.
Sylvia rarely went to church or chapel, nor did she read her Bible;
for though she spoke little of her ignorance, and would fain, for
her child's sake, have remedied it now it was too late, she had lost
what little fluency of reading she had ever had, and could only make
out her words with much spelling and difficulty. So the taking her
Bible in hand would have been a mere form; though of this Alice Rose
knew nothing.
No one knew much of what was passing in Sylvia; she did not know
herself. Sometimes in the nights she would waken, crying, with a
terrible sense of desolation; every one who loved her, or whom she
had loved, had vanished out of her life; every one but her child,
who lay in her arms, warm and soft.
But then Jeremiah Foster's words came upon her; words that she had
taken for cursing at the time; and she would so gladly have had some
clue by which to penetrate the darkness of the unknown region from
whence both blessing and cursing came, and to know if she had indeed
done something which should cause her sin to be visited on that
soft, sweet, innocent darling.
If any one would teach her to read! If any one would explain to her
the hard words she heard in church or chapel, so that she might find
out the meaning of sin and godliness!--words that had only passed
over the surface of her mind till now! For her child's sake she
should like to do the will of God, if she only knew what that was,
and how to be worked out in her daily life.
But there was no one she dared confess her ignorance to and ask
information from. Jeremiah Foster had spoken as if her child, sweet
little merry Bella, with a loving word and a kiss for every one, was
to suffer heavily for the just and true words her wronged and
indignant mother had spoken. Alice always spoke as if there were no
hope for her; and blamed her, nevertheless, for not using the means
of grace that it was not in her power to avail herself of.
And Hester, that Sylvia would fain have loved for her uniform
gentleness and patience with all around her, seemed so cold in her
unruffled and undemonstrative behaviour; and moreover, Sylvia felt
that Hester blamed her perpetual silence regarding Philip's absence
without knowing how bitter a cause Sylvia had for casting him off.
The only person who seemed to have pity upon her was Kester; and his
pity was shown in looks rather than words; for when he came to see
her, which he did from time to time, by a kind of mutual tacit
consent, they spoke but little of former days.
He was still lodging with his sister, widow Dobson, working at odd
jobs, some of which took him into the country for weeks at a time.
But on his returns to Monkshaven he was sure to come and see her and
the little Bella; indeed, when his employment was in the immediate
neighbourhood of the town, he never allowed a week to pass away
without a visit.
There was not much conversation between him and Sylvia at such
times. They skimmed over the surface of the small events in which
both took an interest; only now and then a sudden glance, a checked
speech, told each that there were deeps not forgotten, although they
were never mentioned.
Twice Sylvia--below her breath--had asked Kester, just as she was
holding the door open for his departure, if anything had ever been
heard of Kinraid since his one night's visit to Monkshaven: each
time (and there was an interval of some months between the
inquiries) the answer had been simply, no.
To no one else would Sylvia ever have named his name. But indeed she
had not the chance, had she wished it ever so much, of asking any
questions about him from any one likely to know. The Corneys had
left Moss Brow at Martinmas, and gone many miles away towards
Horncastle. Bessy Corney, it is true was married and left behind in
the neighbourhood; but with her Sylvia had never been intimate; and
what girlish friendship there might have been between them had
cooled very much at the time of Kinraid's supposed death three years
before.
One day before Christmas in this year, 1798, Sylvia was called into
the shop by Coulson, who, with his assistant, was busy undoing the
bales of winter goods supplied to them from the West Riding, and
other places. He was looking at a fine Irish poplin dress-piece when
Sylvia answered to his call.
'Here! do you know this again?' asked he, in the cheerful tone of
one sure of giving pleasure.
'No! have I iver seen it afore?'
'Not this, but one for all t' world like it.'
She did not rouse up to much interest, but looked at it as if trying
to recollect where she could have seen its like.
'My missus had one on at th' party at John Foster's last March, and
yo' admired it a deal. And Philip, he thought o' nothing but how he
could get yo' just such another, and he set a vast o' folk agait for
to meet wi' its marrow; and what he did just the very day afore he
went away so mysterious was to write through Dawson Brothers, o'
Wakefield, to Dublin, and order that one should be woven for yo'.
Jemima had to cut a bit off hers for to give him t' exact colour.'
Sylvia did not say anything but that it was very pretty, in a low
voice, and then she quickly left the shop, much to Coulson's
displeasure.
All the afternoon she was unusually quiet and depressed.
Alice Rose, sitting helpless in her chair, watched her with keen
eyes.
At length, after one of Sylvia's deep, unconscious sighs, the old
woman spoke:
'It's religion as must comfort thee, child, as it's done many a one
afore thee.'
'How?' said Sylvia, looking up, startled to find herself an object
of notice.
'How?' (The answer was not quite so ready as the precept had been.)
'Read thy Bible, and thou wilt learn.'
'But I cannot read,' said Sylvia, too desperate any longer to
conceal her ignorance.
'Not read! and thee Philip's wife as was such a great scholar! Of a
surety the ways o' this life are crooked! There was our Hester, as
can read as well as any minister, and Philip passes over her to go
and choose a young lass as cannot read her Bible.'
'Was Philip and Hester----'
Sylvia paused, for though a new curiosity had dawned upon her, she
did not know how to word her question.
'Many a time and oft have I seen Hester take comfort in her Bible
when Philip was following after thee. She knew where to go for
consolation.'
'I'd fain read,' said Sylvia, humbly, 'if anybody would learn me;
for perhaps it might do me good; I'm noane so happy.'
Her eyes, as she looked up at Alice's stern countenance, were full
of tears.
The old woman saw it, and was touched, although she did not
immediately show her sympathy. But she took her own time, and made
no reply.
The next day, however, she bade Sylvia come to her, and then and
there, as if her pupil had been a little child, she began to teach
Sylvia to read the first chapter of Genesis; for all other reading
but the Scriptures was as vanity to her, and she would not
condescend to the weakness of other books. Sylvia was now, as ever,
slow at book-learning; but she was meek and desirous to be taught,
and her willingness in this respect pleased Alice, and drew her
singularly towards one who, from being a pupil, might become a
convert.
All this time Sylvia never lost the curiosity that had been excited
by the few words Alice had let drop about Hester and Philip, and by
degrees she approached the subject again, and had the idea then
started confirmed by Alice, who had no scruple in using the past
experience of her own, of her daughter's, or of any one's life, as
an instrument to prove the vanity of setting the heart on anything
earthly.
This knowledge, unsuspected before, sank deep into Sylvia's
thoughts, and gave her a strange interest in Hester--poor Hester,
whose life she had so crossed and blighted, even by the very
blighting of her own. She gave Hester her own former passionate
feelings for Kinraid, and wondered how she herself should have felt
towards any one who had come between her and him, and wiled his love
away. When she remembered Hester's unfailing sweetness and kindness
towards herself from the very first, she could better bear the
comparative coldness of her present behaviour.
She tried, indeed, hard to win back the favour she had lost; but the
very means she took were blunders, and only made it seem to her as
if she could never again do right in Hester's eyes.
For instance, she begged her to accept and wear the pretty poplin
gown which had been Philip's especial choice; feeling within herself
as if she should never wish to put it on, and as if the best thing
she could do with it was to offer it to Hester. But Hester rejected
the proffered gift with as much hardness of manner as she was
capable of assuming; and Sylvia had to carry it upstairs and lay it
by for the little daughter, who, Hester said, might perhaps learn to
value things that her father had given especial thought to.
Yet Sylvia went on trying to win Hester to like her once more; it
was one of her great labours, and learning to read from Hester's
mother was another.
Alice, indeed, in her solemn way, was becoming quite fond of Sylvia;
if she could not read or write, she had a deftness and gentleness of
motion, a capacity for the household matters which fell into her
department, that had a great effect on the old woman, and for her
dear mother's sake Sylvia had a stock of patient love ready in her
heart for all the aged and infirm that fell in her way. She never
thought of seeking them out, as she knew that Hester did; but then
she looked up to Hester as some one very remarkable for her
goodness. If only she could have liked her!
Hester tried to do all she could for Sylvia; Philip had told her to
take care of his wife and child; but she had the conviction that
Sylvia had so materially failed in her duties as to have made her
husband an exile from his home--a penniless wanderer, wifeless and
childless, in some strange country, whose very aspect was
friendless, while the cause of all lived on in the comfortable home
where he had placed her, wanting for nothing--an object of interest
and regard to many friends--with a lovely little child to give her
joy for the present, and hope for the future; while he, the poor
outcast, might even lie dead by the wayside. How could Hester love
Sylvia?
Yet they were frequent companions that ensuing spring. Hester was
not well; and the doctors said that the constant occupation in the
shop was too much for her, and that she must, for a time at least,
take daily walks into the country.
Sylvia used to beg to accompany her; she and the little girl often
went with Hester up the valley of the river to some of the nestling
farms that were hidden in the more sheltered nooks--for Hester was
bidden to drink milk warm from the cow; and to go into the familiar
haunts about a farm was one of the few things in which Sylvia seemed
to take much pleasure. She would let little Bella toddle about while
Hester sate and rested: and she herself would beg to milk the cow
destined to give the invalid her draught.
One May evening the three had been out on some such expedition; the
country side still looked gray and bare, though the leaves were
showing on the willow and blackthorn and sloe, and by the tinkling
runnels, making hidden music along the copse side, the pale delicate
primrose buds were showing amid their fresh, green, crinkled leaves.
The larks had been singing all the afternoon, but were now dropping
down into their nests in the pasture fields; the air had just the
sharpness in it which goes along with a cloudless evening sky at
that time of the year.
But Hester walked homewards slowly and languidly, speaking no word.
Sylvia noticed this at first without venturing to speak, for Hester
was one who disliked having her ailments noticed. But after a while
Hester stood still in a sort of weary dreamy abstraction; and Sylvia
said to her,
'I'm afeared yo're sadly tired. Maybe we've been too far.'
Hester almost started.
'No!' said she, 'it's only my headache which is worse to-night. It
has been bad all day; but since I came out it has felt just as if
there were great guns booming, till I could almost pray 'em to be
quiet. I am so weary o' th' sound.'
She stepped out quickly towards home after she had said this, as if
she wished for neither pity nor comment on what she had said. _