Hester

“ Her name, as I learned on further inquiry, was Hester. She had been born and bred in the Yorkshire dales; her parents were of the yeoman class, and poor through improvidence rather than misfortune. As a girl, Hester was remarkable for her pride and her beauty, of which no more relics remained than are left of the summer rose-garden in drear and misty November. She received the scant education common to her condition half-a-century ago, and grew up a wild, wilful-tempered girl, impatient of all restraint, and eager for change and excitement. ”

“ Hester cast a long look all round from east to west, taking in the breadth of the Common glistening in the morning dew, the dark roofs of the Heronry against the trees, the glittering vanes and windows of the town on the other side.
"It is very pretty," she said with a little sigh. "And to think what they say of England! They say it is always fog, and the sun never shines. How can people tell such lies? ”

“ Hester is not beautiful like you, so that every one must acknowledge and no one can deny her beauty; but I love her face. And she is very clever, wonderfully clever. Robert, have you never told Katharine about Hester? She used to be quite one of ourselves, you know. She knows all about you, Katharine, and takes the greatest interest in you. ”

“ Hester, a sharp-eyed, middle-aged woman, watched the pale creature for a moment, then left the room muttering, "Something is wrong, and Sir Richard must know it. That black-bearded man came for no good, I'll warrant." ”

“ The cook perhaps forgot her promise, or perhaps places were scarce, for she did not write; and so Hester, at last, was the only one of the London servants remaining.
It was dull, indeed! The stagnant pool and neglected garden were at any time but dreary objects for contemplation. The awkward, ill-educated country servants afforded but indifferent companionship for Hester, who had been brought up with no idea of going into service, or mixing with such society, and so grew to be very sad and silent and down-hearted. ”

“ Shall we never be finished? Will our chipping go on to the very end?" said Hester, with a sudden ring of pain in her voice.
"Yes, I think it must go on till our new beginning," returned Mark quietly. "Then we shall find—and what's better, the Great Maker will find—that no touch of His hand has been in vain, that every blow with the mallet was needed, every scrape with the sharp tool," he added, in a pitying voice, for he had detected that Hester's questioning cry had been wrung from an aching heart. ”

“ So you are to all friends, Hester, and in that wonderfully unlike most women of the world; and you know the world as well as any one, I think. But talking of old friends and constancy, what about that silly girl Streightley's sister, that Katharine, and you too, Hester, bored one to death with last year? ”

“ It was at this picnic, the Finley annual, that he asked Hester, then seventeen, to marry him. She was darkly, wildly pretty, as a rambler rose tugging at its stem is restlessly pretty, as a pointed little gazelle smelling up at the moon is whimsically pretty, as a runaway stream from off the flank of a river is naughtily pretty, and she wore a crisp percale shirt waist with a saucy bow at the collar, fifty-cent silk stockings, and already she had almond incarnadine nails with points to them. ”

“ Fellowes to come and be with you?"
"No, no, just for to-day let me be alone. There is such a thing as getting acquainted with grief, you know," returned Hester, with a sad smile.
"As you will, my dear! Then, I should like to tell you that all the offices for the dead will be my care. You will let me have my son just once in his father's house?" he asked, in a pleading tone. "It is my purpose to take him to Calcutta and lay him beside his young mother. And you, Hester, will want to return to your happy home? You have youth and hope still with you. ”

“ The girls rejoiced with Hester, all except Berenice. She went through with the form of congratulations, but her voice had a sarcastic touch and her eyes had narrowed themselves into mere slits. Her words were a little uncertain as to meaning; but Hester to whom all things appeared beautiful, was in no mood to take exception.
"I'm sure I'm glad you're on the scrub," she said slowly. "I'm always glad to see people get what they work so hard for." ”

“ What a pretty party! Hester breathed ecstatically. Everybody looks so well!
Mary could not avoid observing that Hester was wearing a gown of black and yellow striped satin, cut princesse, with very long, tight sleeves and a train. On another this robe might have appeared picturesque. Hester merely succeeded in looking more dowdy than usual.
Très, très jolie, Orville echoed in his thin, squeaky voice. What charming music! Charmante!
It makes you dance, Byron commented dryly. ”

“ Meantime Hester, tingling with wrath after this hard encounter, had gone back to her room with a new problem that held her anxious thoughts far into the night. Had she made a mistake in defying this man? Should she have controlled her anger and somehow gained a little time? Perhaps a day would have been enough. If Miss Thompson came at once by the morning train she would be at Ipping House soon after luncheon, and an hour later Hester Storm might have been free, speeding toward London and New York, with all this trouble left behind. ”

“ Hester told him. She wondered as she did so why he had asked the question as though it were of moment.
"Who are your people? Have you always lived there?"
He had touched Hester on the one delicate subject of her life. She had pride enough for several girls. Not even Aunt Debby knew how her lack of parentage and name had hurt her. She had never permitted herself to think of it, lest she should grow depressed and unhappy. And to think that now this Robert Vail whom she had liked so much, had presumed to question her. ”

“ So, as days passed on, beyond dark shadows under her eyes, the result of broken nights, there was little bodily sign of what Hester endured mentally.
'Why, Hester, you have really and truly received a letter at last from Earlshaugh!' exclaimed Annot one morning, to Hester's annoyance and pique, as the former quickly recognised the coat of arms and post-mark; and that Annot, who received missives from the same source daily, should jest over the event, made Hester, with all her innate gentleness of heart, almost hate the speaker. ”

“ Hester saw it and said within herself, "That boy has good blood in his veins. He's no clodhopper's son, I can tell by his hands and feet, his air and walk. Poor lad, it's hard for him, I'll warrant, but he's not too proud for honest work, and I like that."
"You may stay, Paul, and we will try you for a month. Hester, take him to Parks and see that he is made comfortable. Tomorrow we will see what he can do. ”

“ Then he held out his hand, not to Hester, but to his son. Had Alfred willed it, a moment more and life might have been changed for both these defrauded ones! But the young man's corrupted will leant all the other way. He held his hand stiffly by his side, saying:
"Come along, Hester, the breeze is getting chilly!" He put his arm in hers and almost pulled her away. "Didn't I tell you the beach was simply crawling with these half-castes to-night," he muttered, as he pushed past his father with an angry scowl. ”

“ Absurd indeed would have seemed, to any one really knowing the two, the idea of a woman like Hester fitting herself into the mould of such a man as lord Gartley!—for what must be done with the quantity of her that would be left over after his lordship's mould was filled! The notion of squeezing a large, divine being, like Hester, into the shape of such a poor, small, mean, worldly, time-serving fellow, would have been so convincingly ludicrous as to show at once the theory on which it was founded for the absurdity it was. ”

“ Hester thought as she went whether, if it had not been for the possibility of repentance, the world would ever have been made at all.
On her way to her room she met the major, looking for herself, to tell him about her mother, of whose attack, as he had been out for a long walk, he had but just heard.
"But what did it, Hester?" he said. "I can smell in the air something has gone wrong: what the deuce is it? There's always something getting out of gear in this best of worlds?" ”

“ Hester was so tall and straight, so proud-looking and yet so soft and womanly, her bearing a thing of beauty in itself, her dark velvety eyes so sensitive and sweet in expression that anyone might wonder how Annot Drummond, with all her fair and fairy-like loveliness, had lured Roland away from her, yet it was so.
Now and then, oftener than she wished, there came back unbidden to Hester's mind memories of those happy August evenings at Merlwood, ere Annot came, when she and Roland wandered in the leafy dingles by the Esk, by 'caverned Hawthornden' and Roslin's ruin-crowned rock ”

“ I'll tell you what it is, Hester! I'll not have you crawled upon by those vile half-castes at every turn—dangerous liars and thieves, every one of them! You must really seek your pleasure elsewhere than with such low associates. In fact, the way you're going on is quite compromising to me. Here am I struggling for an assured position at the bar, while you are haunting the East-Indian dens of Vepery. It isn't loyal of you! You shan't ruin me by such ongoings—that's the long and the short of it! ”

“ Here a tally-ho with four horses stood waiting.
Robert assisted the Fraulein and girls to their places and bade the coachman drive on. Hester and Helen sat side by side.
"Now, I am really to meet your Aunt Harriet," said Hester. "It is very strange. Think of my rooming with you for ten months and never meeting her."
"Never met mother?" exclaimed Robert Vail. "Be prepared to meet the finest mother in the world."
"There may be some exception," said Helen, "at least Hester may think so. She may be vain enough to think that she had the finest mother in the world." ”

“ Hester?"
Somehow, looking into the blueness of his eyes and their entreaty for her affirmative, she did what you or I might have done. She half lied, regretting it while the words still smoked on her lips.
"Why, yes, Gerald; I've held a fine position in Lichtig Brothers, New York importers. Those places sometimes pay as high as seventy-five a week. But I don't make any bones, Gerald; I've not been an angel."
"The—the salesman, Hester?"—his lips quivering with a nausea for the question. ”

“ The German teacher had heard the unusual commotion and appeared on the scene.
"Ach, Fraulein Alden, what matters it by you? To your room go you at once. To Miss Burkham, I such conduct shall report."
Hester in the exuberance of spirit, hugged the little German lady who was as fat as a [Pg 166] dumpling. "Fraulein Franz, you are a dear old soul if you do get your English verbs confused. You would dance and laugh and spill your ice-cream too, if you were to play on the scrub team." ”

“ There was too much to be done after dinner to permit of any visiting. The girls went to their rooms and began to dismantle them. Hester and Helen had much to do, but they contrived to carry on a steady flow of talk while they worked.
"Perhaps, we'll never be together again," said Hester, from the depths of the closet whither she had gone in search of shoes. "You will not be here next year. We may never meet again."
"I think we shall," said Helen. "The world is not a very large place. You are to visit me, you know. I shall ask your Aunt Debby when I see her." ”

“ Oh, Hester, just hold your tongue. What do you know about it? I would rather sell my Indian shawl, or my pearls—Dear me, what a good thing I did not part with my pearls! that is something nobody can turn up their noses at. And you can say you got them from your mother, and your grandmother before her—which is more than they ever had. ”

“ Hester secured permission to visit her Aunt Debby. She was to go down on the ten o'clock car and return Monday morning in time for chapel. On her way to the car, she met Mellie, Berenice and several girls from the west dormitory. [Pg 214]
"We'll walk with you to the triangle," said Berenice. "I do not know how we will put in our time to-day. It is certainly dull with the girls gone. I wonder how the game went last evening?"
"Didn't you hear?" asked one of the others. "They telephoned Miss Watson last evening. She's our hall-teacher and she told us at once. ”

“ In this exercise, Hester was said to excel any man in the parish: she had a violent predilection for thwacking, or, to use her own expression, lecturing, her domestics for every trivial offence; and nothing but the high wages which she gave, induced the rustic labourers to remain in her service. ”

“ A responsive grunt being taken for acquiescence, Hester was admitted accordingly, and fell asleep in the corner.
She awoke with a start just before day-break, to find that the bundle of wrappers had taken the form of a man, whose face—a very ugly one—was close to hers, with a pair of cold grey eyes fixed searchingly upon her.
“Oh, sir!” Hester cried.
“What makes you call out in your sleep?” the other traveller asked, sharply. “What makes you cry out ‘Murder!’ in your sleep?” ”

“ Elsewhere the token of sin, it was the taper of the sick-chamber. It had even thrown its gleam, in the sufferer's hard extremity, across the verge of time. It had shown him where to set his foot, while the light of earth was fast becoming dim, and ere the light of futurity could reach him. In such emergencies, Hester's nature showed itself warm and rich; a well-spring of human tenderness, unfailing to every real demand, and inexhaustible by the largest. Her breast, with its badge of shame, was but the softer pillow for the head that needed one. ”

“ Hester had no words to express herself. Basket-ball! It was enough to send the color to her cheeks. She had seen the boys in the high-school play. At home, girls did not indulge in such games. It might be that she herself, Hester Alden, could learn to play and be put on one of those teams. The thought brightened her cheeks and sent the blood through her veins with excitement.
"Who teaches you? How many teams have you, and how can you get on one? Does it take long to learn to play?"
Sara looked at her. Sara was deliberate. ”