John Caldigate Part 24

Caldigate came over from Folking that morning attended by one John Jones, an old college friend, as his best man. The squire was not at the wedding, but on the day before he was with Hester at The Nurseries, telling her that she should be his dear daughter, and at the same time giving her a whole set of wicked but very pretty worldly gauds. 'Upon my word, my dear, he has been very gracious,' said Mrs. Robert, when she saw them. 'I quite envy the girls being married nowadays, because they get such pretty things.'

'They are very pretty,' said Hester.

'And must have cost, I'm afraid to say how much money.'

'I suppose it means to say that he will love me, and therefore I am so glad to have them!' But the squire, though he did mean to say that he would love her, did not come to the wedding. He was, he said, unaccustomed to such things, and hoped that he might be excused.

Therefore, from the Folking side there was no one but John Caldigate himself and John Jones. Of the Babingtons, of course, there was not one.

As long as there was a possibility of success Mrs. Babington had kept up her remonstrances;--but when there was no longer a possibility she announced that there was to be an everlasting quarrel between the houses. Babington and Folking were for the future to know nothing of each other. Caldigate had hoped that though the ladies would for a time be unforgiving, his uncle and his male cousins would not take up the quarrel. But aunt Polly was too strong for that; and he was declared to be a viper who had been warmed in all their bosoms and had then stung them all round. 'If you will nurse a viper in your bosom of course he will sting you,' said Aunt Polly in a letter which she took the trouble to write to the squire. In reply to which the squire wrote back thus; 'My dear sister, if you will look into your dictionary of natural history you will see that vipers have no stings. Yours truly, D.

Caldigate.' This letter was supposed to add much to the already existing offence.

But the marriage ceremony was performed in spite of all this quarrelling, and the mother standing up in the dark corner of her pew heard her daughter's silver-clear voice as she vowed to devote herself to her husband. As she heard it, she also devoted herself. When sorrow should come as sorrow certainly would come, then she would be ready once again to be a mother to her child. But till that time should come the wife of John Caldigate would be nothing to her.

She was not content with thinking and resolving that it should be so, but she declared her intention in so many words to her daughter. For poor Hester, though she was proud of her husband, this was in truth a miserable day. Could she have been induced to separate herself altogether from her mother on the previous night, or even on that morning, it would have been better, but there was with her that customary longing for a last word of farewell which has often made so many of us wretched. And then there was a feeling that, as she was giving herself away in marriage altogether in opposition to her mother's counsels, on that very account she owed to her more attached and increased observance. Therefore, she had arranged with her husband that when she returned from the banquet to prepare herself for her journey, a longer absence than usual should be allowed to her;--so that she might be taken back to Chesterton, and might thus see her mother the last after saying farewell to all the others. Then the carriage should return to The Nurseries and he would be ready to step in, and she need not show herself again, worn out as she would be with the tears and sobbings which she antic.i.p.ated.

It all went as it was arranged, but it would have been much better to arrange it otherwise. The journey to the Grange and back, together with the time spent in the interview, took an hour,--and the time went very slowly with the marriage guests. There always comes a period beyond which it is impossible to be festive. When the bride left the room, the bridesmaids and other ladies went with her. Then the gentlemen who remained hardly knew what to do with each other. Old Mr. Bolton was not jovial on the occasion, and the four brothers hardly knew how to find subjects for conversation on such an occasion. The bridegroom felt the hour to be very long, although he consented to play billiards with the boys; and John Jones, although he did at last escape and find his way up among the girls, thought that his friend had married himself into a very sombre family. But all this was pleasant pastime indeed compared with that which poor Hester endured in her mother's bedroom. 'So it has been done,' said Mrs. Bolton, sitting in a comfortless little chair, which she was accustomed to use when secluded, with her Bible, from all the household. She spoke in a voice that might have been fit had a son of hers been just executed on the gallows.

'Oh, mamma, do not speak of it like that!'

'My darling, my own one; would you have me pretend what I do not feel?'

'Why, yes. Even that would be better than treatment such as this.' That would have been Hester's reply could she have spoken her mind; but she could not speak it, and therefore she stood silent. 'I will not pretend.

You and your father have done this thing against my wishes and against my advice.'

'It is I that have done it, mamma.'

'You would not have persevered had he been firm,--as firm as I have been. But he has vacillated, turning hither and thither, serving G.o.d and Mammon. And he has allowed himself to be ruled by his own son. I will never, never speak to Robert Bolton again.'

'Oh mamma, do not say that.'

'I do say it. I swear it. You shall not touch pitch and not be defiled.

If there be pitch on earth he is pitch. If your eye offend you, pluck it out. He is my step-son, I know; but I will pluck him out like an eye that has offended. It is he that has robbed me of my child.'

'Am I not still your child?' said Hester, going down on her knees with her hands in her mother's lap and her eyes turned up to her mother's face.

'No. You are not mine any longer. You are his. You are that man's wife.

When he bids you do that which is evil in the sight of the Lord, you must do it. And he will bid you. You are not my child now. As days run on and sins grow black I cannot warn you now against the wrath to come.

But though you are not my child, though you are this man's wife, I will pray for you.'

'And for him?'

'I do not know. I cannot say. Who am I that I should venture to pray specially for a stranger? That His way may be shown to all sinners;--thus will I pray for him. And it will be shown. Though whether he will walk in it,--who can say that?' So much was true of John Caldigate, no doubt, and is true of all; but there was a tone in her voice which implied that in regard to this special sinner there could be very little hope indeed.

'Why should you think that he is bad, mamma?'

'We are all bad. There is no doubt about his being bad. There is not one among us fit to sweep the lowest step of G.o.d's throne. But they who are His people shall be made bright enough to sit round His feet. May the time come when you, my darling, shall be restored to the fold.' The poor young wife by this time had acknowledged to herself the mistake she had made in thus coming to her mother after her marriage. She now was of course in that ecstatic phase of existence which makes one's own self altogether subordinate to the self of another person. That her husband should be happy const.i.tuted her hope of happiness; that he should be comfortable, her comfort. If he were thought worthy, that would be her worthiness; or if he were good, that would be her goodness. And even as to those higher, more distant aspirations, amidst which her mother was always dwelling, she would take no joy for herself which did not include him. The denunciations against him which were so plainly included even in her mother's blessings and prayers for herself, did not frighten her on behalf of the man to whom she had devoted herself. She could see the fanaticism and fury of her mother's creed. But she could not escape from the curse of the moment. When that last imprecation was made by the woman, with her hands folded and her eyes turned up to heaven, Hester could only bury her face on her mother's knees and weep. 'When that time comes, and I know it will come, you shall return to me, and once more be my child,' said the mother.

'You do not mean that I shall leave my husband?'

'Who can tell? If you do, and I am living, you shall be my child. Till then we must be apart. How can it be otherwise? Can I give my cheek to a man to be kissed, and call him my son, when I think that he has robbed me of my only treasure?'

This was so terrible that the daughter could only hang around her mother's neck, sobbing and kissing her at the same time, and then go without another word. She was sure of this,--that if she must lose one or the other, her mother or her husband, then she would lose her mother.

When she returned to The Nurseries, her husband, according to agreement came out to her at once. She had bidden adieu to all the others; but at the last moment her father put his hand into the carriage, so that she could take it and kiss it. 'Mamma is so sad,' she said to him; 'go home to her and comfort her.' Of course the old man did go home, but he was aware that there would for some time be little comfort there either for him or for his wife. He and his sons had been too powerful for her in arranging the marriage; but now, now that it was done, nothing could stop her reproaches. He had been made to think it wrong on one side to shut his girl up, and now from the other side he was being made to think that he had done very wrong in allowing her to escape.

It had been arranged that they should be driven out of Cambridge to the railway station at Audley End on their way to London; so that they might avoid the crowd of people who would know them at the Cambridge station.

As soon as they had got away from the door of Robert Bolton's house, the husband attempted to comfort his young wife. 'At any rate it is over,'

he said, alluding of course to the tedium of their wedding festivities.

'So much is over,' she replied.

'You do not regret anything?'

She shook her head slowly as she leaned lovingly against his shoulder.

'You are not sorry, Hester, that you have become my wife?'

'I had to be your wife,--because I love you.'

'Is that a sorrow?'

'I had been all my mother's;--and now I am all yours. She has thrown me off because I have disobeyed her. I hope you will never throw me off.'

'Is it likely?'

'I think not. I know that I shall never throw you off. They have tried to make me believe that you are not all that you ought to be--in religion. But now your religion shall be my religion, and your life my life. I shall be of your colour--altogether. But, John, a limb cannot be wrenched out of a socket, as I have been torn away from my mother, without pain.'

'She will forgive it all when we come back.'

'I fear--I fear. I never knew her to forgive anything yet.' This was very bad; but nevertheless it was plain to him as it had been plain to Robert and William Bolton, that not because of the violence of the woman's character should the life of her daughter have been sacrificed to her. His duty to make her new life bright for her was all the more plain and all the more sound,--and as they made their first journey together he explained to her how sacred that duty should always be to him.

Chapter XXII

As To Touching Pitch

Before the wedding old Mr. Caldigate arranged with his son that he would give up to the young married people the house at Folking, and indeed the entire management of the property. 'I have made up my mind about it,'

said the squire, who at this time was living with his son on happy terms. 'I have never been adapted for the life of a country gentleman,'

he continued, 'though I have endeavoured to make the best of it, and have in a certain way come to love the old place. But I don't care about wheat nor yet about bullocks;--and a country house should always have a mistress.' And so it was settled. Mr. Caldigate took for himself a house in Cambridge, whither he proposed to remove nothing but himself and his books, and promised to have Folking ready for his son and his son's bride on their return from their wedding tour. In all this Robert Bolton and the old squire acted together, the brother thinking that the position would suit his sister well. But others among the Boltons,--Mrs Daniel, the London people, and even Mrs. Robert herself,--had thought that the 'young people' had better be further away from the influences or annoyances of Puritan Grange. Robert, however, had declared that it would be absurd to yield to the temper, and prejudice, and fury--as he called it--of his father's wife. When this discussion was going on she had absolutely quarrelled with the attorney, and the attorney had made up his mind that she should be--ignored. And then, too, as Robert explained, it must be for the husband and not for the wife to choose where they would live. Folking was, or at any rate would be, his own, by right of inheritance, and it was not to be thought of that a man should be driven away from his natural duties and from the enjoyment of his natural privileges by the mad humours of a fanatic female. In all this old Mr. Bolton was hardly consulted; but there was no reason why he should express an opinion. He was giving his daughter absolutely no fortune; nor had he even vouchsafed to declare what money should be coming to her at his death. John Caldigate had positively refused to say a word on the subject;--had refused even when instigated to do so by Hester's brother. 'It shall be just as he pleases,' Caldigate had said.

'I told your father that I was not looking after his daughter with any view to money, and I will be as good as my word.' Robert had told her father that something should be arranged;--but the old man had put it off from day to day, and nothing had been arranged. And so it came to pa.s.s that he was excluded almost from having an opinion as to his daughter's future life.

It was understood that the marriage trip should be continued for some months. Caldigate was fettered by no business that required an early return. He had worked hard for five years, and felt that he had earned a holiday. And Hester naturally was well disposed to be absent for as long a time as would suit her husband. Time, and time alone, might perhaps soften her mother's heart. They went to Italy, and stayed during the winter months in Rome, and then, when the fine weather came, they returned across the Alps, and lingered about among the playgrounds of Europe, visiting Switzerland, the Tyrol, and the Pyrenees, and returning home to Cambridges.h.i.+re at the close of the following September.

And then there was a reason for the return. It would be well that the coming heir to the Folking estate should be born at Folking. Whether an heir, or only an insignificant girl, it would be well that the child should be born amidst the comforts of home; and so they came back. When they reached the station at Cambridge the squire was there to receive them, as were also Robert Bolton and his wife. 'I am already in my new house,' said the old man,--'but I mean to go out with you for to-day and to-morrow, and just stay till you are comfortably fixed.'

'I never see her myself,' said Robert, in answer to a whispered inquiry from his sister. 'Or it would be more correct to say she will never see me. But I hear from the others that she speaks of you constantly.'