Catherine was in her usual chair in the familiar room where she had lived for so many years. These walls had witnessed most of the pleasantnesses and disappointments of her life; within them she had grown into that amused spectatorship of all the pranks of human creatures which it had pleased her to think was her characteristic attitude, indulgent to everybody, seeing through everybody. They had never seen her in the aspect which she bore now, beaten down under the stroke of fate. She was too far gone even to be conscious of the extraordinary irony of life which had made of the one only creature to whom she had been consciously unjust, whom she had considered from her childhood as an enemy, her sole ministrant and sympathiser now. But she was not conscious even of Hester's presence, who, overpowered by a great awe of the suffering which she shared, kept herself in the background, recognising, as so few watchers do, that she was there for the sake of the sorrowful woman whom she watched, and not at all for her own. Catherine lay back in her chair, her head thrown back, her eyelids half closed. She did not move, except now and then to put up her hand and dry the moisture which collected slowly under her eyelids. It could not be called tears. It was that extorted dew of pain which comes when the heart seems pressed and crushed in some giant grasp. She was not thinking, any more than it is inevitable to think as long as life remains. She was only suffering, nothing more. She could not make any head against it. Her last stronghold had fallen. This it is which makes calamity so terrible to the old. She could not get beyond it. There was nothing, nothing in her path but this, blocking it across with a darkness that would never be dispersed. If he had died she would have known she could not remain long behind him, and the gloom would have been but a mist between; but he had not died. The thought of searching for him through the world, of holding out succour to him when he came to need, of forgiving, that last prerogative of love, was scarcely in her nature. It was hers rather to feel that deep impossibility of re-beginning, the misery and pain of any struggle to make the base seem noble, which is as true a sentiment as the other. She could not have done it. To many women it is the highest form of self-abnegation as it is the bitterest lot that can be borne on earth; but to Catherine it would not have been possible. The blow to her was final. There was but one thing—to fight for Vernon's to the last gasp, to ward off disgrace and failure from the name, to keep the ground it had occupied so long, against possibility, against hope; but after that no more—no more. She had borne herself bravely as long as any eye was upon her, betraying nothing; and had sat down to table and tried to eat, with that utter self-mastery which will sustain the life it loathes with sedulous care so long as it is necessary—talking to Hester at intervals, giving Marshall directions as if nothing had happened. She had been first impatient, then satisfied to find the girl there. Her presence was a help in that needful struggle.
Catherine went up stairs after dinner as usual. Nothing was changed; but when she had attained to that shelter, she could do no more. She put back her head and closed her eyes, and gave herself up to the endurance of her death-blow. At the other end of the room Hester sat motionless. A keen-sighted spectator would have seen the outline of her figure in her dark dress, but nothing more. She was watching, forgetting her own share, intent upon the other. Her mind was full of what the old captain had said, "I'm killed, sire." Hester watched with a great awe, wondering if even thus, in the silence, without any more demonstration, a woman might die. She thought in her heart it would be well; but being so young she was afraid. And the silence was so deep, more deep than life could tolerate. She watched eagerly for that sole movement, the lifting of Catherine's hand to dry away the moisture from her eyes.
This stillness was broken suddenly by a loud knocking at the door—a continued volley of knocks, accompanied by the sound of voices outside. Then this sound surged inwards, and hasty steps were heard rushing up stairs. Hester's heart leaped to her mouth. It could not be that he would come back with such a noise and outcry; but yet a sort of frantic hope took possession of her as she rose to her feet. Catherine had raised herself too, and sat with her eyes widely open fixed upon the door. They had not long to wait. The door was flung open, dashing against a cabinet which stood near, with a superfluity of noise and emphasis; and, sweeping away the silence before her, and every possibility of calm, Ellen Merridew burst into the room, her eyes inflamed with crying, her fair countenance streaked with red, her light locks standing up round her face. She was followed by her husband, trying to hold her back, and by Marshall in the rear, eager—under a respectable semblance of attending the hasty visitors—to give accuracy to the floating suspicions of the servants' hall, and find out what it was all about. Ellen rushed in, and gazed about her wildly.
"Where is he?" she cried. "Oh, Aunt Catherine, where is he? You are hiding him, I said you would hide him, whatever he did. Oh, is it nothing to you if he goes and ruins people that never did him any harm?—young people like us that have all our life before us, and a dear baby to be turned out upon the world. Oh, Aunt Catherine, if you have any heart at all, where is he, where is he? I'll have him to justice!" cried Ellen. "I'll not sit under it. I won't—not if he should kill me! I want Edward. Where is Edward? I sha'n't go out of this till you give him up to me. He has ruined us, he has ruined us!" cried the excited creature, bursting into a transport of passionate tears.
There had been a moment of bewildered struggle in Catherine's face; then she rose up with what seemed to the excited new comers her usual composure.
"What does all this mean?" she said, in her quiet voice.
Hester had shut the door upon the servant's curiosity; Ellen crying violently, and poor Algernon, endeavouring vainly to console her, stood between the two, in the centre of the room. It was all that poor young Merridew could do not to weep too.
"I am sure you will forgive her, Miss Vernon," he said, in faltering tones. "We are nearly out of our senses. Oh, don't cry, my dearest; whatever they do they can't part us, and I'll work for you and baby. I'll work till I drop. Miss Vernon, if Edward's here—she doesn't mean any harm. She is just off her head, poor girl! and baby not a month old yet. If you will only let us see him, I'll pledge my word——"
"Algy, hold your tongue!" cried Ellen amidst her sobs, stamping her foot. "Hold your tongue, I tell you. She'll never, never give him up—never till she's forced, I know that. She has always liked that fellow better than the whole of us put together. And we've every one kotoued to him for her sake. He's been the head of everything, though he was nothing but a poor—— And as frightened of her as a dog, and hated her all the time. Oh yes, Aunt Catherine, you may believe me or not, but whenever there was a word about you, Edward was always the worst. Of course we all had our remarks to make, I don't say anything different; but he was always the worst. And now he's gone, and led Algy to his ruin," she cried, with another wild outburst. "We have lost every penny. Do you hear me, Aunt Catherine, do you hear me? We're ruined, with a dear baby not a month old, and I that have never got up my strength. Oh yes, Algy, yes, dear. I know you'll work till you drop. But what good will that do to me, to have you work yourself to death, and to be left a widow at my age, with a baby to support? And, Aunt Catherine, it will all be your fault," cried Ellen. "Yes, it will be your fault. If you hadn't made such a fuss about him, who would have ever trusted him? It was because of you I gave my consent. I said Aunt Catherine will never let him come to harm. And now here it has all come to smash, and me and Algy are ruined. Oh, how can you have the heart? and a dear innocent baby without a word to say for himself! And me at my age—and poor Algy that thought he was making so good a marriage when he got one of the Vernons——"
"Nelly, Nelly, darling!" cried the poor young fellow, "I married you because I loved you, not because you were one of the Vernons."
"And he had a good right to think so," said Ellen pushing away his caressing arm. "And they all thought so—every one; and now they've turned against me, and say I'm extravagant, and that I've ruined him. Oh! me to have ruined him that thought I was making a man of him! Aunt Catherine! Will you let us all be sacrificed, every one, only to keep Edward from harm?"
Catherine Vernon had sunk into her chair, but there was something of the old look of the spectator at a comedy again upon her face. The evening was beginning to fall, and they did not see the almost ghastly colour which had replaced the wonderful complexion of which everybody once spoke.
"Make her sit down, Algernon, and stop this raving," she said. "What has happened? I know nothing of it. If you have any claims upon Vernon's you will be paid with the rest—if we stand, till the last penny, if we fall, to the utmost that can be paid. I cannot say any more."
They both sat down and gazed at her with consternation on their faces; even Ellen's tears dried up as by magic. After she had stopped, they sat staring as if stupefied. Then Ellen got up, and threw herself at Catherine's feet with a cry of wild dismay.
"Aunt Catherine! you don't mean to say that you cannot help us, that you cannot save us? Oh, Aunt Catherine! don't be angry with me. I did not mean to make you angry. I was always silly, you know. You will help us, you will save Algy, you will pay the money, won't you?" She crept close to Catherine, and took her hand and kissed it, looking up piteously, with tears streaming down her face. "You'll do it for me, Aunt Catherine? Oh, though I am silly I am fond of my husband. And he's so good; he's never said it was my fault. And I always knew you would put it right. Aunt Catherine! you will put it right?"
Her voice rose into a shrill, despairing cry; then she dropped down helpless, sobbing and moaning, but still holding by Catherine's hand and her dress, whatever she could grasp at, in a passion of incredulity and despair.
Then Catherine, who had been so stately, sank back into her chair.
"I can't bear any more," she said, "I can't bear any more. For the love of God take her away!"
But it was only the sudden appearance of Harry which put an end to this painful scene. He gathered his sister up in his arms, while her husband was ineffectually intreating and reasoning with her, and carried her out of the room, with a severity and sternness which silenced the young pair.
"Look here," he said, taking them into the deserted library which had been Edward's room, "we are all in the same box. He has ruined her and us all. You, out of your own confounded folly, the rest of us—I can't tell you how. He has ruined her. God—forgive him!" cried Harry, with a long pause, bringing out the last words with a violent effort. "But, look here! The only hope we have of pulling through is in her. They can't let Catherine Vernon be ruined in Redborough. I don't think it's in the heart of man to do it; but if we drive her into her grave, as you've been trying to do——"
"Oh, Harry, how dare you say so! I only went to her—where should I go?—and I thought it would be all right. I thought it was dreadful, but I never believed it, for I know Aunt Catherine——"
"Ellen, hold your tongue, for God's sake! If we kill her, it's all up with us. Hasn't she got enough to bear? I brought a cab when I knew you were here. Take her home, Algy, and keep her quiet, and let's meet and talk over it like men," Harry said, severely.
He had never so asserted himself in all his life before. They hurried her out between them to the cab, much against Ellen's will, who wanted explanations, and to know if it was true that Aunt Catherine couldn't, couldn't if she would; and then told them, sobbing, that if it was so, none of them could afford to pay for a cab, and why, why should ruined people spend a shilling when they had not got it? The cabman heard part of these protestations, and Marshall another part. But on the whole both Algernon and Harry were more occupied with her in her transport, more anxious for its consequences, more tender of her, than if she had been the most self-commanded and heroic woman in the world.
When this tempest of interruption swept away, Catherine was still for a few minutes more. Then she called Hester to her in a voice of exhaustion.
"I think," she said, "it has done me no harm. Anything is better than that which—is always behind. And I must do nothing to hurt myself before to-morrow. Was not Harry there? He may have something to tell me. Let him come and say it to you. You are quick witted, and you will understand; and if it is worth writing, write it down. I will not take any part. I will keep still here. If it rouses me, so much the better. If not, you will listen for me with your young ears, and forget nothing. I must save myself, you see, for to-morrow."
"I will forget nothing," Hester said.
Catherine smiled faintly, with her eyes closed.
"I had thought of making you bring me some wine. There is some Tokay in the cellar; but one always pays for a strong stimulant, and this is the better way. You are young, and you are a Vernon too. Bend your mind to it. Think of nothing but the business in hand."
"I will," said Hester, with solemnity, as if she were pronouncing the words before a judge.
Catherine took hold of her dress when she was going away.
"One thing," she said. "I think you and I have hated each other because we were meant to love each other, child."
"I think I have always done both," said Hester.
The faint sound that broke through the stillness was not like Catherine's laugh. She patted the girl's arm softly with her hand. Their amity was too new to bear caresses.
"Now go and do your work, for your honour and mine," she said.
It appeared that Harry had much to say. It was strange to have to say it all to the young and eager listener, her eyes glowing with interest and anxiety, who was not content with any one statement, but questioned and investigated till she had brought out every point of meaning, while the real authority sat by silent, her eyes closed, her hands clasped, like an image of repose. Both the young people kept their eyes upon her. There was not a movement which Hester did not watch, while she exerted her faculties to comprehend everything that Harry told her, and put down everything that seemed at all important. The impulse carried her over her own share of the individual misery. Everything else disappeared before the paramount importance of this. When all that Harry had to say was said, there arose a silence between them which had the effect which nothing before had of rousing Catherine. She opened her eyes and looked at them kindly.
"Everything has been done as I wished," she said. "I have gleaned something, and the rest you will tell me, Hester, to-morrow. It has been a rest to me to hear your voices. You can expect me, Harry, at the same hour."
"Is it not too much for you, Aunt Catherine? It is everything for us that you should come."
"I will come," she said. "It is easier than staying at home. Fatigue is salvation. Now I am going to bed, to sleep. Oh, I mean it. I cannot do my work without it. You will come too in the morning, Hester, when I send for you? Then, good-night."
They watched her go away with her step still stately. Her faithful maid, whom Mrs. John had found so kind, but who had not always been kind, was waiting for her. The two young people stood and looked after her with eyes of tender respect and awe.
"I thought once," said Hester, in a hush of subdued feeling, "that she might have died sitting in her chair."
"Ah," said Harry, who had a little more experience, "it is seldom that people get out of it so easily as that. I want to tell you something more if it will not—upset you more."
Hester smiled.
"Is there anything that can upset me more?" she said.
He looked at her wistfully. He did not know what her individual part in this trouble had been; whether Edward was more to her than another, or what the position was in which they stood to each other.
"I don't know how to take it," he said, "or how to understand it. There are news of—Edward."
The last gleam of hope shot across Hester's mind.
"He is coming back?" she said, clasping her hands.
Harry shook his head.
"Will you come with me to the door? It is such a lovely night."
She had not the courage or the presence of mind to say no. She went down stairs with him, where the lamps were lighted again, and out to the gate—the same hour, the same atmosphere as last night. Was it only last night that all had happened? She could have turned and fled in the tremor, the horror of the recollection. Just there she lay at Catherine's feet. Just there Catherine had stood and listened.
Hester stood her ground like a martyr. She knew she must learn to do so, and that it would not be possible to avoid the place made so bitter by recollection. Harry did not know how to speak. He shifted uneasily from one foot to another. "He has been traced to town; he got in at the junction, not here. He reached London this morning, very early—with a lady."
"With a lady!"
Hester had expected a great shock, but the astonishment of this took its sting away.
"They left this afternoon, it is supposed to go abroad," Harry said.
"Still with the lady? That is very strange," said Hester, with a little quiver in her lips.
"There is reason now to suppose that he—married her in the meantime."
Hester had grasped by accident the post of the gate. She was glad she had done so. It was a support to her, at least. Married her! It gave her no immediate pain in her astonishment, which was unspeakable. In the dusk Harry did not see her face. He had no conception of the real state of the case. The fact that Edward had been discovered with another woman had confused Harry and diverted the natural suspicions which had risen in his mind when he had found Hester so linked with Catherine after the discovery of Edward's flight. He watched her with a little alarm, wondering and anxious. But the only sign of any emotion was the tightening of her hand upon the iron gate.
"You will know," he said, "whether it will be best to say anything of this. If it will hurt her more, let it alone till the crisis is past.”
"If it will hurt her—more? I do not think anything—can hurt her more."
"And you are nearly over-worn," he said, with a tender and pitying cadence in his voice. "I can't say spare yourself, Hester. You are the only one she deserves nothing from. She ought to feel that: if he is gone who owes her everything, yet you are standing by her, who never owed her anything."
Hester could not bear it any longer. She waved her hand to him and went in—into the house that was not hers, where there was no one who had a thought to bestow upon her. Where was there any one? Her mother loved her with all her heart, but had nothing to say to her in this rending asunder of her being. She thought she was glad that it was all happening in a house which was not her home, which after, as Harry said, the crisis was past, she might never need to enter again. She went up stairs, to the unfamiliar room in which she had spent the previous night. There she sat down in the dark on the bed, and looked at it all, passing before her eyes, like a panorama. For this was the only description that could be given. The conversation just recorded occurred over again, as if it had been in a book. "With a lady!" "They left this afternoon." "Reason to suppose that in the meantime—" And then this talk, suspended in the air as it seemed, came to a pause. And Hester, through the interval, saw all her own long stormy wooing, its sudden climax with so much that was taken for granted—"My only love!—and I am your only love." That was all true. Those agitated scenes, the dances that were nothing but a love duel from beginning to end, the snatches of talk in the midst of the music and tumult, the one strange blessed moment in the verandah at home, the meeting so tragical and terrible of last night. That was a sort of interlude that faded again, giving place to Harry's steady subdued voice—
"Married her in the meantime! Married her!"
Hester said these words aloud, with a laugh of incredulous dismay and mockery. The sound terrified herself when she heard it. It was Catherine's laugh made terrible with a sort of tragic wonder. Married her! Had there been no place for Hester at all, nothing but delusion from beginning to end?