Weighed and Wanting by George MacDonald (fiction book recommendations TXT) 📕

her image possessed him, that she could hardly have been a woman at all and not care for what might befall him. Neither, although her life lay, and she felt that it lay, in far other regions, was she so much more than her mother absorbed in the best, as to be indifferent to the pleasure of wearing a distinguished historical name, or of occupying an exalted position in the eyes of the world. Her nature was not yet so thoroughly possessed with the things that are as distinguished from the things that only appear, as not to feel some pleasure in being a countess of this world, while waiting the inheritance of the saints in light. Of course this was just as far unworthy of her as it is unworthy of any one who has seen the hid treasure not to have sold all that he has to buy it-not to have counted, with Paul, everything but dross to the winning of Christ-not even worth being picked up on the way as he presses towards the mark of the high calling; but I must say this for her, that she thought of it first of all as a buttressing help to the labours, which, come what might, it remained her chief hope to follow again among her poor friends in London. To be a countess would make many things easier for her, she thought. Little she knew how immeasurably more difficult it would make it to do anything whatever worth doing!-that, at the very first, she would have to fight for freedom-her own-with hidden crafts of slavery, especially mighty in a region more than any other under the influences of the prince of the power of the air! She had the foolish notion that, thus uplifted among the shows of rule, she would be able with more than mere personal help to affect the load of injustice laid upon them from without, and pressing them earthwards. She had learned but not yet sufficiently learned that, until a man has begun to throw off the weights that hold him down, it is a wrong done him to attempt to lighten those weights. Why seek a better situation for the man whose increase of wages will only go into the pocket of the brewer or distiller? While the tree is evil, its fruit will be evil.

So again the days passed quietly on. Mark grew a little better. Hester wrote regularly, but the briefest bulletins, to the major, seldom receiving an acknowledgment. The new earl wrote that he had been to the funeral, and described in a would-be humorous way the house and lands to which he had fallen heir. The house might, he said, with unlimited money, be made fit to live in, but what was left of the estate was literally a mere savage mountain.


CHAPTER XXX.

IN ANOTHER LIGHT.


Mr. Raymount went now and then to London, but never stayed long. In the autumn he had his books removed to Yrndale, saying in London he could always get what books he wanted, but must have his own about him in the country. When they were accommodated and arranged to his mind, all on the same floor, and partly in the same room with the old library of the house, he began, for the first time in his life, to feel he had an abiding place and talked of selling the house in Addison Square. It would have been greater progress to feel that there is no abiding in place or among things.

In the month of October, when the forsaken spider-webs were filled no more with flies, but in the morning now with the dew-drops, now with hoarfrost, and the fine stimulus and gentle challenge of the cold roused the vital spirit in every fibre to meet it; when the sun shone a little sadly, and the wraith of the coming winter might be felt hovering in the air, major Marvel again made his appearance at Yrndale, but not quite the man he was; he had a troubled manner, and an expression on his face such as Mrs. Raymount had never before seen there: it was the look of one who had an unpleasant duty to discharge-a thing to do he would rather not do, but which it would cost him far more to leave undone. He had brought the things he promised, every one, and at sight of them Mark had brightened up amazingly. At table he tried to be merry as before, but failed rather conspicuously, drank more wine than was his custom, and laid the blame on the climate. His chamber was over that of his host and hostess, and they heard him walking about for hours in the night. There was something on his mind that would not let him sleep! In the morning he appeared at the usual hour, but showed plain marks of a sleepless night. When condoled with he answered he must seek a warmer climate, for if it was like this already, what would it be in January?

It was in reality a perfect autumn morning, of which every one except the major felt the enlivening influence-the morning of all mornings for a walk! Just as Hester was leaving the room to get ready to go with Saffy-Mark was not able for a long walk-the major rose, and overtaking her in the anteroom, humbly whispered the request that she would walk with him alone, as he much wished a private conversation with her. Hester, though with a little surprise, also a little undefined anxiety, at once consented, but ran first to her mother.

"What can he want to talk to me about, mamma?" she concluded.

"How can I tell, my dear?" answered her mother with a smile. "Perhaps he will dare the daughter's refusal too."

"Oh, mamma! how can you joke about such a thing!"

"I am not quite joking, my child. There is no knowing what altogether unsuitable things men will do!-Who can blame them when they see how women consent to many unsuitable things!"

"But, mamma, he is old enough to be my father!"

"Of course he is! Poor man! it would be a hard fate to have fallen in love with both mother and daughter in vain!"

"I won't go with him, mamma!"

"You had better go, my dear. You need not be much afraid. He is really a gentleman, however easily mistaken for something else. You must not forget how much we owe him for Mark!"

"Do you mean, mamma," said Hester, with a strange look out of her eyes, "that I ought to marry him if he asks me?" Hester was sometimes oddly stupid for a moment as to the intent of those she knew best.

Her mother laughed heartily.

"What a goose you are, my darling! Don't you know your mother from a miscreant yet?"

But in truth her mother so rarely jested that there was some excuse for her. Relieved from the passing pang of a sudden dread, Hester went without more words and put on her bonnet to go with the cause of it. She did not like the things at all, for no one could be certain what absurd thing he might not do.

They set out together, but until they were some distance from the house walked in absolute silence, which seemed to Hester to bode no good. But how changed the poor man was, she thought. It would be pitiful to have to make him still more miserable! Steadily the major marched along, his stick under his arm like a sword, and his eyes looking straight before him.

"Cousin Hester," he said at length, "I am about to talk to you very strangely-to conduct myself indeed in a very peculiar manner. Can you imagine a man rendering himself intensely, unpardonably disagreeable, from the very best of motives?"

It was a speech very different from any to be expected of him. That he should behave oddly seemed natural-not that he should knowingly intend to do so!

"I think I could," answered Hester, wishing neither to lead him on nor to deter him: whatever he had to say, the sooner it was said the better!

"Tell me," he said suddenly after a pause just beginning to be awkward-then paused again. "-Let me ask you first," he resumed, "whether you are able to trust me a little. I am old enough to be your father-let me say your grandfather;-fancy I am your grandfather: in my soul I believe neither could wish you well more truly than myself. Tell me-trust me and tell me: what is there between you and Mr. Vavasor?"

Hester was silent. The silence would have lasted but a moment had Hester to ask herself, not what answer she should give to his question, but what answer there was to give to it. Whether bound, whether pleased to answer it or not, might have come presently, but it did not; every question has its answer, known or unknown: what was the answer to this one? Before she knew it, the major resumed.

"I know," he said, "ladies think such things are not to be talked about with gentlemen; but there are exceptions to every rule: David ate the show-bread because there was a good reason for breaking a good rule.-Are you engaged to Mr. Vavasor?"

"No," answered Hester promptly.

"What is it then? Are you going to be?"

"If I answered that in the affirmative," said Hester, "would it not be much the same as acknowledging myself already engaged?"

"No! no!" cried the major vehemently. "So long as your word is not passed you remain free. The two are as far asunder as the pole from the equator. I thank God you are not engaged to him!"

"But why?" asked Hester, with a pang of something like dread. "Why should you be so anxious about it?"

"Has he never said he loved you?" asked the major eagerly.

"No," said Hester hurriedly. She felt instinctively it was best to answer directly where there was no reason for silence. What he might be wrong to ask she was not therefore wrong to answer. But her No trembled a little, for the doubt came with it, whether though literally, it was strictly true. "We are friends," she added. "We trust each other a good deal."

"Trust him with nothing, least of all your heart, my dear," said the major earnestly. "Or if you must trust him, trust him with anything, with everything, except that. He is not worthy of you."

"Do you say so to flatter me or to disparage him?"

"Entirely to disparage him. I never flatter."

"You did not surely bring me out, major Marvel, to hear evil of one of my best friends?" said Hester, now angry.

"I certainly did-if the truth be evil-but only for your sake. The man I do not feel interest enough in to abuse even. He is a nobody."

"That only proves you do not know him: you would not speak so if you did," said Hester, widening the space between her and the major, and ready to choke with what in utterance took such gentle form.

"I am confident I should have worse to say if I knew him better. It is you who do not know him. It astonishes me that sensible people like your father and mother should let a fellow like that come prowling after you!"

"Major Marvel, if you are going to abuse my father and mother as well as lord Gartley,-" cried Hester, but he interrupted her.

"Ah, there it is!" exclaimed he bitterly. "Lord Gartley!-I have no business to interfere-no more than