‘Safe enough, I should think,’ said the
clergyman.
’What I mean is that she has no dangers to fear
such as my poor wife has encountered. Whomever
I think of now I cannot but compare them to ourselves.
No woman surely was ever so ill-used as she, and no
man ever so unfortunate as myself.’
‘It will be all over in August.’
’And where shall I be? My own lawyer tells
me that it is too probable that I shall be in prison.
And where will she be then?’
Persuasion
Early on the Tuesday morning Hester came down into
the breakfast parlour at Puritan Grange, having with
difficulty persuaded herself that she would stay the
appointed hours in her mother’s house. On
the previous evening her mother had, she thought,
been very hard on her, and she had determined to go.
She would not stay even with her mother, if her mother
insisted upon telling her that she was not her husband’s
wife. But during the night she was able to persuade
herself to bear what had been already said,—to
let it be as though it had been forgotten. Her
mother was her mother. But she would bear no
more. As to herself and her own conduct her parents
might say what they pleased to her. But of her
husband she would endure to hear no evil word spoken.
In this spirit she came down into the little parlour.
Mrs. Bolton was also up,—had been up and
about for some time previous. She was a woman
who never gave way to temptations of ease. A nasty
dark morning at six o’clock, with just light
enough to enable her to dress without a candle, with
no fire and no hot water, with her husband snoring
while she went through her operations, was to her thinking
the proper condition of things for this world.
Not to be cold, not to be uncomfortable, not to strike
her toes against the furniture because she could not
quite see what she was about, would to her have been
to be wicked. When her daughter came into the
parlour, she had been about the house for more than
an hour, and had had a conference both with the cook
and with the gardener. The cook was of opinion
that not a word should be said, or an unusual bolt
drawn, or a thing removed till the Wednesday.
’She can’t carry down her big box herself,
ma’am; and the likes of Miss Hester would never
think of going without her things;—and then
there’s the baby.’ A look of agony
came across the mother’s face as she heard her
daughter called Miss Hester;—but in truth
the woman had used the name from old association,
and not with any reference to her late young mistress’s
present position. ’I should just tell her
flat on Wednesday morning that she wasn’t to
stir out of this, but I wouldn’t say nothing
at all about any of it till then.’ The gardener
winked and nodded his head, and promised to put a
stake into the ground behind the little wicket-gate
which would make the opening of it impossible.
’But take my word for it, ma’am, she’ll
never try that. She’ll be a deal too proud.
She’ll rampage at the front door, and ‘ll
despise any escaping like.’ That was the
gardener’s idea, and the gardener had long known
the young lady. By these arguments Mrs. Bolton
was induced to postpone her prison arrangements till
the morrow.
