<h2><SPAN name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI.</SPAN></h2>
<h3>WALKS AND TALKS.</h3>
<p>"They tell me you are to be congratulated,
Hester," said old Captain Morgan.</p>
<p>She had met him taking his evening walk, and
in that and in his aspect altogether there was
something altogether despondent—a depression and
air of weakness which was not common with the
old man. She had not gone with him for some
days, and perhaps he had felt the desertion. The
first thing Hester did was to draw his hand within
her arm.</p>
<p>"You are tired," she said.</p>
<p>"Not very. I am a silly old fellow and always go
too far. I have been thinking of you, my dear; and
if you are to be congratulated——"</p>
<p>"No; I don't think so, Captain Morgan. What
about?"</p>
<p>"About—— If anything so important had
happened you would have come and told me,
Hester."</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>"I am glad you see that at last. But yes, there
is something to congratulate me upon. Nothing did
happen. Is not that a great deal to say? For I
was tempted, sadly tempted."</p>
<p>"My dear, I don't understand that."</p>
<p>Hester laughed.</p>
<p>"You see, Captain Morgan, you are wise and know
a great deal; but you were never a girl—and a poor
girl. It would have been so delightful to put my
mother back in her nice house, and show Catherine——"
Here she paused somewhat embarrassed.</p>
<p>"What of Catherine?" he said.</p>
<p>"Oh, not much—they were, perhaps, when they
were young—on different sides. My mother has
come down, and Cousin Catherine has gone up. I
should like to have put the balance straight."</p>
<p>"To bring Catherine down, and put your
mother——"</p>
<p>"No, Captain Morgan. Catherine is always good
when she is with you. I think I almost like her
<i>then</i>. I would not harm her," said Hester, holding
up her head, "if I had the power to do it. But she
scorns every one of us; perhaps because we all
consent to eat her bread. I would not, you know,
if I could help it."</p>
<p>"I know you are ungenerous, Hester, in that
respect."</p>
<p>"Ungenerous! Well, never mind, there are more
kinds of ungenerosity than one. I am going in with
you to tell Mrs. Morgan."</p>
<p>"I am not sure," said the old captain, "though it<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</SPAN></span>
is a wretched piece of self-denial, that I want you
to come with me to-night."</p>
<p>Hester opened her great eyes wide.</p>
<p>"Why!" she said. It was the one house in the
world to which she felt she had a right.</p>
<p>"That is nonsense, however," said the old man;
"for of course you must meet. We have got our
grandson, Hester."</p>
<p>"I heard somebody had come, but I thought it
was a gentleman. I did not know you had any—children—except
little Mary."</p>
<p>"We have none—in this world; but do you think
my wife would have been what she is with never a
child? We all have our disabilities, my love. I
have never been a young girl, and you have never
been an old—pair."</p>
<p>They both laughed. Hester with the easily-recovered
cheerfulness of youth, he in tremulous
tones, which had as much pathos as mirth in them.</p>
<p>"This is the son of my daughter," he said. "She
has been long dead, poor girl—happily for her.
Unless when there is some business connected with
them to be settled we don't talk much of them.
My wife and I long ago went back to the honeymoon
stage. We have had to live for each other: and
very glad to have each other to live for. Children
are very strange, my dear."</p>
<p>"Are they?" said Hester, with an awe which she
could scarcely understand.</p>
<p>"Very strange. So dependent upon you for long,
so independent after; so unlike you, that you cannot<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</SPAN></span>
understand what you have to do with them. Perhaps
it is a penalty of living so long as we have done.
I have a theory," said the old captain, cheering up,
"that after seventy, when you have lived out your
life, you begin another. And it is quite different.
It is a pity we can't renew the old bodies—eyes
and ears and legs and all the rest of it. It would
be a very interesting experiment."</p>
<p>"Like the people who found the elixir of life, or
the Wandering Jew?"</p>
<p>The girl spoke to humour him, herself wondering
over every word with that curiosity, mingled with
pity and tenderness and half disapproval, with which
youth listens to the vagaries of age.</p>
<p>"Not at all like the Wandering Jew; his life was
continuous and one-ideaed," said Captain Morgan,
delighted to get upon his hobby. "And I miss a
great deal in the stories of those who get the elixir.
They may renew their lives but not themselves.
There is one I recollect at this moment, St. Leon.
Of course you have never read St. Leon. He
becomes a beautiful young man, and the rival of his
son, who, of course, does not know him. But the
old fellow knows <i>him</i>. He is an old fellow notwithstanding
his elixir; the soul of him is just the same.
That is not my point of view."</p>
<p>The old man had become quite erect and walked
smartly, animated by his fancy, leading Hester with
him rather than leaning on her.</p>
<p>"No," he repeated, "that is not at all my point of
view. The bodies keep old, the minds get—different.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</SPAN></span>
I have shaken off my old burdens. I don't take
any more responsibility for those who—used to
belong to me. They don't belong to me any longer.
They are labouring along in the former life. I have
started in the new."</p>
<p>"But Mrs. Morgan?" said Hester, with a quaver
in her voice.</p>
<p>"Ah! there's the blot," said the old man. "Of
course, she and I belong to each other for ever and
ever. Oh, I don't want to begin again without my
old wife; and she won't give up the children,
though they are children no longer. Once a mother,
always a mother, Hester. You women are sadly
fettered—you can't shake it off."</p>
<p>"Nor you either, Captain Morgan!" cried Hester,
indignant. She could not bear that he should
so wrong himself.</p>
<p>"My dear, I could do it—without difficulty. Is
it just, do you think, that one human creature
should be made the victim of another, simply because
he has been instrumental in bringing that other into
the world? Supposing that they have drained all
that was best in me out of me for years? Supposing
that they have made my life hard and bitter to me?
Supposing that they have grown alien to me in every
respect—thinking other thoughts, walking in other
ways? And that they are as old and more worldly
than I am—older, less open to any influence of nature—am
I to go treating these old rigid commonplace
people as if they were my children still, and breaking
my heart about them? No; no."</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>This seemed a terrible speech to Hester. She kept
patting his arm softly with her hand, and saying, "Oh,
Captain Morgan! You do not mean that!" again and
again. It was dreadful that he should say this. A
father to give up his children! It hurt Hester to
think that such an idea could find entrance into
any mind.</p>
<p>"And as for the grandchildren, that is out of the
question altogether," Captain Morgan said; "I am
not going to begin a new life of trouble through
them."</p>
<p>"I thought," said Hester, "that fathers and
mothers never could forget their children—it is in
the Bible."</p>
<p>"'Can a woman forget?' It is a woman, my
dear. There is nothing about a man. My wife is
horrified at what I say, as much as you are. But
for all that there is justice in everything, and one
soul should not be sacrificed for another. Well,
will you come in? I do not forbid you; but don't
take much notice, I warn you, Hester, of the person
you are going to meet."</p>
<p>The person she was going to meet! This was
enough to make her curious, if not prepossess her in
favour of the unknown, who, however, she expected
to be introduced to her in the shape of a schoolboy—perhaps
a heavy schoolboy—a sort of being for
whom the girl had an instinctive dislike. She followed
the old captain into the house almost mechanically.
Mrs. Morgan's chair, now that it began to be
chilly in the evenings, was placed so as to approach<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</SPAN></span>
the fire, which in the evening was now always
lighted, and sent out a cheerful glow. It was more
cheerful than usual to-night, coming in from the grey
of the waning light outside. There was no lamp,
but only the leaping flame of the fire. The sound
of cheerful voices in conversation, even of laughter,
was audible as the door was opened. The quiet in
which the old lady generally sat waiting for her husband's
return—a tranquillity which was peace itself,
yet a silent peacefulness—had always seemed very
sweet to Hester. That soft stillness of waiting had
seemed to her the very atmosphere of love; but now
at the door, even before she entered, she was conscious
of a difference. Life had entered in. The voices
were not forced or measured, but chiming with each
other in the free interchange of familiar affection:
the old lady's soft little laugh enticing a louder
laughter; her voice alternating with the deeper tones.
There was no pause in this lively conversation; but
some one rose up against the firelight—a tall, straight
figure, no schoolboy, as was evident at the first glance—when
they went in. But, indeed, the first glance
was not supported by any further revelation, for
after the little commotion occasioned by their
entrance, the stranger subsided into his chair again,
and remained to Hester, till her departure, a shadow
only, with a singularly soft and harmonious voice. It
got up again to bow to her. And it went on talking,
out of the gloom, as she, sitting in the full glare of
the light, kept shyly by Mrs. Morgan's side. Why
was she shy? It was not her disposition to be shy.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</SPAN></span>
This evening a gentle embarrassment was upon her.
She had a pleasure in sitting there by the old lady's
side, defended by the darkness from all necessity of
saying anything, sharing, she could scarcely tell why,
the content which trembled in every tone of her old
friend's voice. The captain did not take any share
in this talk. He sat down behind backs, saying that
the fire was too much for him, with a long-drawn
breath that sounded like a sigh. Once or twice he
was appealed to by name, and made a brief response;
but he took no part in the conversation. On ordinary
occasions it was he who talked, Mrs. Morgan in her
great chair remaining quietly quiescent, now and then
making a remark. It was very strange to see the
captain thrown thus into the background; but,
curiously enough, Hester did not remark it, so much
was she occupied with the novelty of the conversation.
When the door opened she was alarmed lest it
should be the lights that were coming, so much more
satisfactory was it to let things remain as they were.
The unseen speaker talked about a great many things
altogether unknown to Hester—his brothers and
sisters, his cousins, a throng of unknown Christian
names, every one of which it was evident had
characteristics of its own with which both the speakers
were acquainted. The listener felt as if a throng of
new acquaintances crowded softly in, filling the dim
place with not unfriendly faces.</p>
<p>"And what is Elinor doing?" Mrs. Morgan
said.</p>
<p>"It is easy to answer that question, grandmother.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</SPAN></span>
She is spoiling her children, and we all know
so much better, we who have none."</p>
<p>"Yes, yes; that is always the way," said the old
lady. "But, Roland, you must tell her from me
that it is very foolish. She will not think it is
ignorance on my part. Her mother, poor dear,
was just the same," and here the old lady shook
her head softly, with a glitter in her eyes, as if a
tear was not far off; but if so, there was sweetness
in the tear. She turned, after a time, to Hester,
who sat by, with a strange sort of pleasure to which
she was unaccustomed, listening, in surprised interest,
without wishing to take any part.</p>
<p>"You are surprised to hear me so talkative,
Hester? But it is not often I have a grandson to
wake me up. You did not know I had one
perhaps? Ah! I have been hearing of so many
people that I don't often hear of. That does an
old body good."</p>
<p>"I like it too," said Hester, the firelight adding
colour and animation to her face. "I did not
know there were so many people in the world."</p>
<p>"That's very pretty of you to say, my dear,"
said the old lady. "I was afraid you would think
it all gossip; but they are people who belong to
me, the most of them. And letters don't tell you
like the voice. You must run away when you are
tired, for I think I shall go on asking questions
till midnight. This young lady—this dear girl—Roland,
is the comfort of our lives."</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>"I thought no less," said the voice of the shadow,
with a softness which went to Hester's heart, sending
a little thrill of pleasure through her. She had
not even seen his face—but she could not be unaware
that he was looking at hers—from the protecting
darkness on the other side of the fire. This curious
pleasurable encounter, as through a veil, of two fresh
souls, hitherto unknown to each other—a moment as
full of enchantment as can be in this world—was
suddenly broken in upon by the old captain, who
jumped up, notwithstanding his rheumatism, as
quickly as a boy, and, coming between, stood up
with his back to the fire, interrupting the light.</p>
<p>"My old woman," he said, "your Elinors and your
Emilys are like a book to her. It is like reading a
chapter at hazard out of a novel; but there is no end
to the story and no beginning, and she is at this
moment deep in her own—approaching the end of the
third volume."</p>
<p>"I should have said, to see Miss Vernon," said
the stranger, who was more a voice than ever,
now that the old man interrupted what little light
there was, "that she was at the beginning of the
first."</p>
<p>Was it the beginning of the first? Hester felt
a wave of colour fly over her face, and thought in
her heart that the new-comer was right. The initial
chapter—surely this was true; not even a
beginning, but something that went before any
beginning.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>"It never answers," said Captain Morgan, "to give
an opinion without knowledge of the facts. You are
a clever fellow, Roland, but not so clever as that
comes to. You will find, Hester, that round every
human creature you come across, there is some kind
of a world hanging 'bound with gold chains about
the feet of——' That is the most uncomfortable
metaphor I know. I wonder what Mr. Tennyson
could have been thinking of? Did he think that
this round world was hanging on like a big ball,
hampering the going of God, do you suppose? But
there is something of that kind, true enough, with
men."</p>
<p>"If you mean that for me," said the old lady,
smiling, "you are wrong, Rowley. God knows my
heart yearns after them all, great and small, and it is
the greatest refreshment and no hampering, to hear
about them all—their pleasures and their troubles.
What hurts me is to keep it all in and ask no questions,
as so often I have to do."</p>
<p>The old captain shook his head. He kept on
shaking it gently.</p>
<p>"We have argued that question a great many
times," he said, "but I am not convinced."</p>
<p>What was evident was, that he intended this conversation
which had been so animated and pleasant to
come to an end. He could not surely be unkind?
But he placed himself, as it were, in the midst of the
current, and stopped its flowing. A sensation of
vexed displeasure and disappointment with her old<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</SPAN></span>
friend whom she loved rose in Hester's mind. Was
it like him to reject the kindness of kin, to limit his
wife in her affections, to turn a cold shoulder on his
grandson? And yet all these things he seemed
to do. "Roland" on the other side (she knew no
other name for him), had been silenced. He had
scarcely attempted to speak since the old man took
that place in front of the fire, from which his shadow
fell like a dark pillar across the room, dividing the
side on which Mrs. Morgan sat with Hester beside
her, from the other on which was the new being with
whom Hester had already formed an almost intimate
acquaintance she felt, though she did not know his
name and had not seen his face. This very uncertainty
pleased her imagination, and inclined her to
the new-comer. But it was embarrassing to find herself
in the midst of a scene, where so many confusing
uncomprehended elements were at work, and where
something which was not family harmony and peace
lay evidently under the surface. When she rose up
to go away, the unknown rose too; but the captain
was on the alert.</p>
<p>"You can now go back to your gossip," he said,
"my dear: for I mean to see Hester round the
corner."</p>
<p>"No, Captain Morgan. It is very damp, and your
rheumatism——"</p>
<p>"Bah! my rheumatism. There are worse things
than my rheumatism," he said, bustling to get his
coat.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>"Might I not replace you, grandfather? It would
be a pleasure, and I have no rheumatism."</p>
<p>This idea pleased Hester. It would be only for a
moment; but he was something new. She was so
sadly familiar with every person and thing about
that any novelty was delightful to her. But the
captain was not to be shaken off. He pushed Roland
back into his seat. "There are worse things than
rheumatism," he said. And he scrambled into his
coat and took Hester under his arm with unwonted
formality. She felt annoyed and angry beyond
description, vexed with her old friend. Why should
he interrupt the innocent talk? Why interfere so
pointedly to prevent the simplest communication
between her and the stranger? A mere politeness,
where could have been the harm of that? And
then it was quite unnecessary that anybody should
see her home. That the old man should risk an
illness to do this, when she had so often run unattended
from one door to the other, was more
irritating than words could say. And, what was
worst of all, it made the captain less perfect in her
opinion—the captain of whom she had felt that, all
the rest of the world failing her, here was still an
excellence upon which she could fall back.</p>
<p>Since they had come in, though the interval was
short, the autumn evening had closed in completely. It
was very damp and cold. The Common lay in a white
mist; the sky hazy, with a few faint stars looking
down through veils of vapour; the atmosphere heavy.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>"Why should you come out to catch cold?" Hester
said. "I want no one. I am quite able to take
care of myself."</p>
<p>"And I want no one, my dear, except myself, to
have anything to do with you," said the old man.
"I am not afraid to tell you my meaning, without
disguise."</p>
<p>"Then stand at the door while I run home," she
pleaded; but he would not spare her a step of the
way. He hobbled along to the verandah, with his
comforter twisted about his throat and mouth,
speaking out of the folds of it with a muffled voice.</p>
<p>"If it was any girl but you I should be afraid to
say it, lest the mere contradiction might be enough
for them; but with you I am not afraid," he said.</p>
<p>Was his confidence justified? Was Hester too
wise to be moved by that hint of opposition, that
sense that a thing which is forbidden must be
pleasant? It is dangerous to predict of any one
that this will be the case; and perhaps the captain
did his best to falsify his own hope. He took her to
the very door and saw her admitted, as if there
might be a chance up to the last moment of the
alarming grandson still producing himself to work
her harm. And then he hobbled back in the gathering
mists. He even stood lingering at his own
door before he went in to the fireside and the
cheerful light.</p>
<p>"Neither Catherine nor Hester, neither the young
nor the old," he said to himself. In his earnestness<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</SPAN></span>
he repeated the words half aloud, "Neither Catherine
nor Hester, neither money nor love." And then
there came something of scorn into the old man's
voice. "If his father's son is capable of love,"
he said.</p>
<p class="center spaced-above">
END OF VOL. I.<br/></p>
<hr class="chap" />
<p class="center spaced-above">
LONDON<br/>
<br/>
<span class="smcap">R. Clay, Sons, and Taylor</span>,<br/>
<br/>
BREAD STREET HILL.<br/></p>
<hr class="chap" />
<div class='transnote'><h3>Transcriber's Notes:</h3>
<p>Obvious errors and inconsistencies in spelling, punctuation and
hyphenation have been corrected.</p>
<p>Archaic spellings have been retained.</p>
</div>
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />