Mrs. Oliphant

“ Hester had rebelled as a girl does against every such injurious picture of women; but it occurred to her now that it must all be true. No doubt it was unsafe to trust such a creature with any kind of authority. She would not be content with less than absolute sway. She would let no charity nor ruth, nor the hearts of others, nor their wishes, stand in her way. She would crush a young life with no more compunction than a savage. Thus Hester took refuge from questions more trying—from the aspect of Edward which within these last few days had become more and more important to her. ”

“ Ellen tossed back all her bracelets, and shook her golden locks and her sealskin hat, and made an agitation in the air of scent and sound and movement.
"Oh, that's being a great deal too good," she cried.
Hester stood at the door, and looked on while Mrs. Algernon got into her victoria and drew the fur rug over her, and was driven away, waving the hand and the bracelets in a parting jingle. The girl was not envious, but half-contemptuous, feeling herself in her poverty as much superior to this butterfly in furs and feathers, as pride could desire. ”

“ The young man thought he saw through Catherine, as she thought she saw through all the other inmates of her little world. What he did see through was the superficial badness which her position had made, but he had not so much as a glimmering of the other Catherine, the nobler creature who stood behind; and though he smiled and assented, a sensation of disgust came into his heart. He, too, had his comedy of human nature, which secretly, under cover of his complacency and agreement with Catherine's opinion, he regarded with the bitterest and angriest scorn. ”

“ He does what he likes, and never considers if it is good for him or not."
"Sympathetic!" cried Hester. "He is sympathetic with me. When he sees me lonely and neglected he comes and stands beside me. If he cannot do more, he does do that. I don't pretend to say that he is very amusing," she continued, with a laugh, "but he does what he can. He stands by me. Oh! failing other things that are better, I like that. Rather than being sympathetic with Catherine, I like him to sympathise with me."
"There is no question of names," said Edward, "We must not get personal. ”

“ It is my fault, I have no doubt, that your wife is ignorant of Drawing-rooms, Mr. Merridew."
"I always said so, Aunt Catherine," cried Ellen, who was ready to cry, in the midst of her triumph. "It is horrid for girls to have relations with those out-of-the-way notions."
Catherine only laughed; it was her habitual comment. She turned smiling to young Ashton by her side.
"You ought not to dislike state," he said, in an undertone; "you who are a kind of queen yourself—or, shall I say, grand duchess—in your own town?"
"A queen without any subjects," said Catherine, shaking her head. ”

“ Thus the house on the hill which flaunted forth every Thursday evening the great lamps of its lighted windows and the lines of Chinese lanterns in the conservatory, became the centre for the moment of a great deal of life and many anxious thoughts. It turned Ellen's head with pride and delight when she received indications of this, which indeed came to her on all sides. When a shade of alarm crossed Algernon's face at the amount of the bills, she took a lofty position which no man pretending to any spirit could have gone against. ”

“ From Hester's point of view there was indeed little to be said for this woman, who, to so many in the place, was the very impersonation of active benevolence and goodness—a tyrant who seized upon the very soul of the young man whom she favoured most, and whose prying and vigilant observation forced him to deception, and made him true to himself only when he was out of her sight—a woman, who while she gave with one hand closed a grasp of iron upon the people obliged to her with the other, and would prescribe their very dress if she could. ”

“ What the child of our child whom we lost, who never had a child, would have been. And you have spoiled us for the other thing—the grandchild of common life."
"It is a long time since we have been out together," said Hester, as the old man put his other hand in its large mitten within her slender arm.
"And you have been in the meantime getting into some of the muddles," he said. "It was kind of my old wife to hand you over to me, Hester. We all think our own experience the best. ”

“ And what a pretty necklace that is," said Emma, artlessly entering upon her subject. "Are they real? Oh, you must not be offended with me, for I never had any nice ornaments. The youngest never has any chance. If they are real, I suppose they are worth a great deal of money; and you must be quite rich, or you would not be able to afford them."
"We are not rich; indeed we are very poor," said Hester, "but the pearls are my mother's. She got them when she was young, from her mother. They have belonged to us for numbers of years."
"I wonder what Cousin Catherine could mean!" said Emma innocently. ”

“ Had they been seated together in Edward's room at home, a hundred disturbances were possible. Servants can never be shut out; if it is only to mend the fire they will appear in the middle of the most private conference. And Catherine herself, all unconscious that her presence was disagreeable, might have come to the door to summon them, or perhaps even to bring them, with her own kind hands, the cups of tea which in his heart Edward loathed as one of the signs of his slavery. They were the drink of bondage—those poor cups that never inebriate. ”

“ It occurred to her now, as breath failed her, to remember how in all the accounts of a first ball she had ever read, the heroine had felt all other sentiments melt away in the rapturous pleasure of dancing with the man of her heart. Novels were all Hester's experience. She remembered this, and it gave her a half comic, half miserable sensation to realise that she was not thinking about the dancing at all. She was carrying on her duel with Edward. There was always a warm sense of gratification in that—a stirring up of all her faculties. ”

“ I hate all those wretched people who take from her hand, and then sneer and snarl at her, like dogs—no, not like dogs: dogs are far nobler—like cats; that is better."
Hester's eyes were shining with eloquence and ardour; the little movement of her head so proud, so animated, so full of visionary passion, threw back and gave a certain freedom to the hair which her mother called auburn. Her whole figure was full of that force and meaning which is above beauty. Edward looked at her with smiling admiration. ”

“ It did not matter to them so much that Ellen Vernon was silly; indeed the greater part of them were so dazzled by the furs and the bracelets, and the victoria, if not by the brilliant fairness and beaming smiles and prettiness of the bride, that they did not remember Ellen Vernon had been silly, and thought Mrs. Algernon Merridew not only the leader of fashion, but the most amiable and good-natured of all queens of society, the most "easy to get on with" and most full of "go." ”

“ Her eyes softened as she looked at him.
"I think you and I, Roland, are going to be great friends," she said, and then turned with a slight little sigh, so small as to be almost imperceptible, to the louder voices appealing to her. "You must settle it among you," she said. "I give Edward carte blanche. The only thing is that it must take in everybody, all the Vernonry and our neighbours as well—a real Christmas party."
"Oh, don't you think, Aunt Catherine, Christmas is such a bore!" said Ellen, "and family parties! Let us have strangers. Let us have people we never set eyes on before. ”

“ If it made Catherine wild to think that there was a friendship, or any other sentiment between Edward and the girl whom she had so slighted, then let Catherine be wild. That was no motive to restrain Hester's freedom of action. All this passed through her mind as she stood in the verandah in the cold, gazing after Ellen, long after Ellen was out of sight. There were many things which gave her a sort of attraction of repulsion to Edward. He had tried to deceive Roland Ashton about her, telling him she was about to marry Harry, when he knew very well she had refused to marry Harry. ”

“ She was acquainted with many evening parties in fiction at which the fate of countless young men and women was decided. The smallest dance would be represented there as bringing people together who were never more to be sundered. Emma herself had not produced any such sensation at the small parties she had hitherto gone to, but she felt that this glory must be awaiting her, and especially that in a new place like this Redborough, in some waltz or other, among some unknown assembly she should meet her fate. ”

“ Captain Morgan said.
"Then what does she mean by it?" cried Hester. "She cannot endure the sight of me. Oh, I know she is not paltry in one way. She does not care about money, as some people do; but she is in another. Why should she care about what I wear? Did you ever hear anything about my father?" the girl said, raising her eyes suddenly, and looking him full in the face. The old captain was so taken by surprise that he fell back a step and almost dropped her arm in his dismay.
"About your father!"
"About him and Catherine Vernon—and how it was he went away? ”

“ It is such a fine thing for a girl when she is known to belong to the best people in a place. It is not even as if my name were Vernon. But people will say 'Miss Ashton! who is Miss Ashton? I never heard of her!' Whereas if I were with you, the best partners in the place would ask to get introduced to me, and that would give me a start. Afterwards I could get on by myself, as I hear Mrs. Merridew does not care for chaperons," Emma said.
Once more Catherine was struck dumb. ”

“ The scene seemed to throw a certain unworthiness, levity, unelevated aspect upon the question altogether—as if this thing which was to affect two lives was no more than an engagement for a dance.
And though it is a strange thing to say, it is doubtful whether Edward was much more decided in his sentiments than Hester was. In such a case the man at least generally knows more or less what he wants; but partly because Edward's mind was in a high state of excitement on other subjects, he too was for a moment entirely uncertain as to what his wishes were. ”

“ Ellen, who was critical, and inclined by nature to a poor opinion of old Captain Morgan's grandson, looked at him with astonished, and indeed reluctant, approval. His whiskers were not so thick or so black as Algernon's; but he had a fine mass of dark hair, wavy, and rather longer than is now permitted by fashion, fine features and dark eyes, with a paleness which was considered very interesting in those days. He was much taller and of more imposing aspect than Edward, whose stature was not great; he was far more intellectual than Harry ”

“ Catherine Vernon, who was sixty-five, and knew herself to be an old woman, looked at the other, who was over eighty, as a girl looks at her mother—wondering at her strange experiences, feeling herself a child in presence of a knowledge which is not hers. ”

“ Young Merridew had thrust forward his head, and was listening, which perhaps was not very good manners.
"It is quite true," he said eagerly. "Ellen says I am a very Redborough person. I have been born and bred here. I can't remember the time when I didn't look up to—her, as if she was something above the human——"
"And yet you have married a Vernon!" said Catherine; but she was pleased. "It is not an uncommon thing in this world," she said. "People at a distance think more kindly of one than those who are near; but this is not talk for a dinner-table. ”

“ And you must always take into consideration that at any moment Roland might marry, and then where should I be? Why, he admires you very much. He might just as likely as not, next time he comes, make you an offer; and then where should I be?"
"You think, I suppose," said Hester, loftily, "that when a man makes an offer, as you say, that is all about it; there is no opposition to be looked for on the girl's side?"
"Well, you know," said Emma, "I call you one of the high-flown ones. There are always some like that. But in an ordinary way what do girls want but their chance? ”