During this time Caldigate still remained outside,
but in vain. As circumstances were at present,
he had no means of approaching his wife. He could
kick down a slight trellis-work gate; but he could
bring no adequate force to bear against the stout
front door. At last, when the dusk of evening
came on he took his departure, assuring his wife that
he would be there again on the following morning.
The Escape
During the whole of that night Hester kept her position
in the hall, holding her baby in her arms as long
as the infant would sleep in that position, and then
allowing the nurse to take it to its cradle up-stairs.
And during the whole night also Mrs. Bolton remained
with her daughter. Tea was brought to them, which
each of them took, and after that neither spoke a
word to the other till the morning. Before he
went to bed, Mr. Bolton came down and made an effort
for their joint comfort. ‘Hester,’
he said, ’why should you not go to your room?
You can do yourself no good by remaining there.’
‘No,’ she said, sullenly; ’no; I
will stay.’ ‘You will only make yourself
ill,—you and your mother.’
‘She can go. Though I should die, I will
stay here.’
Nor could he succeed better with his wife. ’If
she is obstinate, so must I be,’ said Mrs. Bolton.
It was in vain that he endeavoured to prove to her
that there could be no reason for such obstinacy, that
her daughter would not attempt to escape during the
hours of the night without her baby.
‘You would not do that,’ said the old
man, turning to his daughter. But to this Hester
would make no reply, and Mrs. Bolton simply declared
her purpose of remaining. To her mind there was
present an idea that she would, at any rate, endure
as much actual suffering as her daughter. There
they both sat, and in the morning they were objects
pitiable to be seen.
Macbeth and Sancho have been equally eloquent in the
praise of sleep. ‘Sleep that knits up the
ravelled sleave of care!’ But sleep will knit
up effectually no broken stitches unless it be enjoyed
in bed. ‘Blessings on him who invented
sleep,’ said Sancho. But the great inventor
was he who discovered mattresses and sheets and blankets.
These two unfortunates no doubt slept; but in the
morning they were weary, comfortless, and exhausted.
Towels and basins were brought to them, and then they
prepared themselves to watch through another day.
It seemed to be a trial between them, which could
outwatch the other. The mother was, of course,
much the older; but with poor Hester there was the
baby to add to her troubles. Never was there
a woman more determined to carry out her purpose than
Mrs. Bolton, or one more determined to thwart the
purpose of another than she who still called herself
Hester Caldigate. In the morning Mrs. Bolton
implored her husband to go into Cambridge as usual;
but he felt that he could not leave the house with
such inmates. So he sat in his bedroom dozing
wretchedly in his arm-chair.
