Catherine Vernon

“ It would have given Catherine Vernon a sharper shock still if she had seen into Edward's mind as he went away from her, bitterly feeling that while other men could taste the sweetness of freedom and of love, he was attached to an old woman's apron-strings, and had to keep her company and do her pleasure, instead of taking the good of his youth like the rest. ”

“ Catherine Vernon would probably have laughed at any one else of her own age who had been so easily persuaded; but it is always so much more easy to believe in the sincerity of affection which is called forth by one's self! ”

“ To be sure, Hester, you must go; and though I cannot bear to be without you, yet if Catherine wants you, and she is in trouble, stay. I am sure she would do as much for me," said the simple soul, without any cold breathings of doubt. She went to the gate with Hester, and when she came back could not help giving her neighbours a little sketch of the state of affairs. "My Hester has gone back to the Grange," she said, "she will probably stay there all night. Catherine Vernon wrote me the nicest note to tell me my child had been of so much use to her; that is always gratifying to a mother." ”

“ Catherine Vernon was the first thought when anything was wanted either by the poor who needed help, or the philanthropist who wanted to give it. The Vernon Almshouses, which had been established a hundred years before, but had fallen into great decay till she took them in hand, were always known as Catherine Vernon's Almshouses. Her name was put to everything. Catherine Street, Catherine Square, Catherine places without number. The people who built little houses on the outskirts exhausted their invention in varying the uses of it. ”

“ Sometimes she would be drawn into the talk of the women who misrepresented their dear Catherine all day long, and sneered bitterly at the very bounty that supplied their wants. Sometimes she would join involuntarily in the worse malignity of the man to whom Catherine Vernon gave everything that was good in his life, and who attributed every bad motive to her. ”

“ There was a dinner-party that evening at the Grange. It was given on account of Ashton, now well known in Redborough; and Catherine Vernon had taken the trouble to go herself to beg Captain Morgan to be of the party: but the old man had refused steadily.
"I will have none of your fine company," he said. "No, no; you do enough for me here. When you come to see us it always is a pleasure, both to my old woman and me: but a dinner, no. I have not had on my evening coat this dozen of years. It's not likely it would be in the fashion now."
"What does it matter about fashion? ”

“ She will betray nobody. We ought not to meet in the dark like two——to send little hidden notes. We are responsible to the people who love us. We ought to be honest—to mamma, to Catherine Vernon."
"We ought to go and hand in the banns, perhaps," he said, with sudden bitterness, "like two—honest shopkeepers, as you say. Catherine Vernon would give me away. And is this all you know of love, Hester?—it is the woman's way, I suppose—congratulations, wedding presents, general triumph over everybody. ”

“ Catherine Vernon belonged to the last class. If her youth had not been altogether happy, there had been fewer [Pg 35] sorrows and still fewer struggles in her life. She had gone along peacefully, her own mistress, nobody making her afraid, no one to be anxious about, no one dear enough to rend her heart. Most people who have gone through the natural experiences of life are of opinion with the Laureate, that it is
"Better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all." ”

“ It is not a taste which can be indulged without falling into an occasional appearance of pettiness; but yet there is a great deal to be said for this degree of interest in our fellow creatures, and there is no way in which it can be kept up so well as in a country town, where everybody knows everybody else. This is perhaps rather an elaborate [Pg 204] preface to introduce the simple fact that Catherine Vernon from the very beginning had known of Harry's visit to the Vernonry. ”

“ People are not generally afraid of Catherine Vernon: but it is singular sometimes how you will find your own family steeled against you, when everybody else likes you well enough. They see you too near at hand, where there is no illusion possible, I suppose ”

“ The idea struck Catherine sadly now she came to think of it. There was a great difference. Why should men prefer to sit alone, to abandon that domestic hearth which [Pg 35] sounds so well in print, and which from Cowper downward all the writers have celebrated. Even Dickens (then the master of every heart) made it appear delightful and attractive to everybody. And yet the young man preferred to go and sit alone. A wife would alter all that, provided only that the choice he made was a good one, Catherine Vernon said. The drawing-room was a model of comfort ”

“ 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, [Pg 233] to keep the ground it had occupied so long, against possibility, against hope ”

“ It was so late: and besides, I never heard of people making calls at night; people you don't know."
"Oh, my dear!" said Mrs. John, in dismay. "Oh, Hester! what have you done? Catherine Vernon turned away from the door! She will never forgive you, never, as long as she lives."
"I don't care," said Hester, almost sullenly. "How was I to know? Even if I had been quite sure it [Pg 66] was Cousin Catherine, I should not have let the Queen come in, to disturb you."
"The Queen of course would never want to come," said Mrs. John, who was very literal, "but Catherine Vernon! she is more than the Queen ”

“ She shifted her position a little as Miss Vernon sat down on one of the creaking basket chairs, but did not even put her candle out of her hand, or relax in her defensive attitude. When her visitor laughed again, Hester felt a flush of hot anger, like a flame, going over her. To be ludicrous is the last thing a girl can bear: but even for that she would not give in.
"You are a capital guardian," Catherine said, "but I assure you I am not an enemy. I shall have to call my maid Jennings, who has gone to the kitchen to see Betsey, before I go home, for I am not fond of walking alone. ”

“ God forgive them, for in my inmost heart I feel that He never punishes, He only sends messengers after us to keep us in the right path; the poverty was nothing; and even this! we shall yet understand it all!"
They stood there in silence, nurse supporting Lady Desmond, who leant against her, her bonnet thrown aside, her luxuriant black hair drawn back from her lofty forehead, her large dark eyes dilated, as if her soul gazed through them far away. Kate, a smile struggling through the tears streaming from hers, and one hand slightly raised towards Heaven. ”

“ S.S. Cosmae Damiano in Forum: it has got lost, so to speak, in the excavations, and you seek it through blind alleys and a long dark passage—a dirty, tawdry church, with a few frowsy, sluttish people; and behind the ballroom chandeliers above the altar, a Ravenna apse, gold and blue; and lambs in procession on a green ground.
Then S. Pietro in Vincoli, which has a delightful position, with its big palm and tower and a certain Romantic Catherine Sforza character; also, what always refreshes me in Rome, its early Renaissance character, before Jesuits, &c. ”

“ I dreaded the effect of the shock on your sensitive and imaginative nature, and intended to have broken it to you gradually."
"But," continued Kate, not noticing the latter part of his speech, "shall we have nothing left? no money at all! good God! And grandpapa, what am I to do for him—and nurse? Do not think me very weak, but I cannot help the terror I feel."
"Miss Vernon, I vow to Heaven, I only [49] intended just to prepare you a little for the worst; perhaps matters may not be so bad as your alarmed imagination paints. ”

“ I can hardly breathe," said Kate, laying down the book which she found could not engage her cousin's attention, and walking towards the window.
"Yes," said Lady Desmond, languidly, "draw up the blinds, Kate, to the top; let us have all the light and air we can."
"If Lord Effingham is not here very soon he will get a wetting; I am sure we are on the edge of a thunder storm," observed Miss Vernon, after a pause. ”

“ So Kate Vernon, in spite of her clear and [16] cultivated intellect, her sound judgment, and her sense of the ridiculous, could not keep nurse's evil omen from dwelling on her mind; more, ay, a thousand times more, than her grandfather's apparent anxiety about the intelligence communicated by Lady Desmond, and they accomplished the circuit of the walls, silently, or, exchanging occasional remarks very foreign from the subject occupying both their minds. ”

“ Verner comfortable. She has been quite anxious to make it look nice, and moved nearly all the things herself."
"It does look comfortable," acquiesced Lionel as he stood before the blaze of the fire, feeling grateful to Decima, to his mother, to Lucy, to all of them. "Sibylla, this is one of your fires; yea like a blaze."
"And Catherine will wait upon you, Mrs. Verner," continued Decima. "She understands it. She waited on mamma for two years before Thérèse came. Should you require your hair done, Thérèse will do that; mamma thinks Catherine would not make any hand at it." ”

“ Catherine knocked at the door. Miss Decima had sent her and bade her say that dinner was on the point of being served. Sibylla sprang up from the sofa, and dried her tears.
"I wonder whether I can get at my gold combs?" cried she, all her grief flying away.
Lionel turned to Catherine; an active little woman with a high colour and a sensible countenance, looking much younger than her real age. That was not far off fifty; but in movement and lissomeness, she was young as she had been at twenty. Nothing vexed Catherine so much as for Lady Verner to allude to her "age." ”

“ I started as it met my sight; it was Kate Vernon, sitting as was her custom, at the open window of the cottage, her cheek resting on her left hand, showing the graceful contour of her throat, and her right playing as she was wont to do, when lost in thought, with Cormac's ear; while the old hound sat gazing at her as though he would fain ask what vision engrossed her fancy. It was a most lovely picture; the lovelier for its admirable likeness to the original. How well I knew that pensive and abstracted air; the large eyes gazing dreamily into some imaginary world ”

“ Am I speaking too freely, Miss Vernon, in thus placing the reality of your future before you?"
"No," said Kate, firmly, and holding out her hand to him. "No, I feel the need of such suggestions, and I like to talk of what must be; it is good for me, and there is no use in making grandpapa think of it at all more than necessary; I hope to manage so as often to cheat him into forgetfulness of my occupation; only I do trust Mr. Winter's friend may not engage apartments for us in a wretched, narrow street. ”

“ Grandpapa gone, nurse gone, Georgy, Mr. Winter, his kind wife, all I was ever linked with in happy days, far away."
"My love, don't go there; stay a bit longer with us; you know, if the house was only a little larger, I would not let you go away for ever so long; but—"
"Dear friend," said Kate, recovering herself—"I was surprised into this outburst—do not mind it—I am quite resolved to go to Mrs. Jorrocks. Nay, when I have conquered my foolish weakness, I shall be pleased to be near my old haunts. I will go to my room and think—I am always better when I think by myself." ”

“ Lord Effingham retired at this silent, but unmistakeable expression of her feelings, with a look of half startled, half sullen, yet not wholly uncompassionate; and Kate, stealing quickly through the open window of the morning-room, reached her own unnoticed.
Lady Desmond was in remarkably good spirits at dinner, and Kate was struck by the air of joyous exultation, that seemed as it were to illuminate her grand style of beauty.
"I am right glad to be well again, cousin mine," she exclaimed. "Glad to be in the world, though, alas! all the mental revolution I intended to make is unaccomplished." ”

“ Vernon's dinner yesterday. What is the magic of all this? Winter is a curious specimen of humanity, yet he filled up his niche in the little party as no one else could; nor can I fancy him out of his element in any society. What an extraordinary contrast between Kate and that little deformed organist! Unfortunate creature, and yet he appears perfectly happy! With what empressement the old Colonel and his sweet granddaughter welcome him. And Kate herself, there is so much happiness in the calm repose of her countenance, and her brilliant smile ”

“ I see it is from Georgina."
"Dearest Kate," began Miss Vernon, in obedience to his commands, "your last letter is now so ancient, I am ashamed to mention it—your first I did not answer because I was [6] too much vexed at your absurd opposition to all my plans for your benefit. Time has cooled my resentment, and accident has revived my affection for my pretty, loveable god-child, while it has, I hope, awakened in your mind proper regret for the folly of preferring a life of seclusion in a dull country town to the brilliant lot you might have secured. ”

“ Kate! Miss Vernon, I know our natures are wide apart as heaven and earth, but still I can feel, in my inmost heart, that you have attained to a better and purer atmosphere than I have ever breathed. I know, that in your hands, I should be different from what I am. I tell you, that every shadow of good in me clings round you; and if you do not love me now, at least think before you—"
"Lord Effingham," cried Kate, covering her face with one hand, and extending the other before her, "give me a moment's thought to distinguish if this be not some horrid dream!" ”