Felix Holt, The Radical Part 26

Was there ever more awkward speaking?--or any behavior less like that of the graceful, self-possessed Miss Lyon, whose phrases were usually so well turned, and whose repartees were so ready?

For a moment there was silence. Esther had her two little delicately-gloved hands clasped on the table. The next moment she felt one hand of Felix covering them both and pressing them firmly; but he did not speak. The tears were both on her cheeks now, and she could look up at him. His eyes had an expression of sadness in them, quite new to her. Suddenly little Job, who had his mental exercises on the occasion, called out, impatiently--

"She's tut her finger!"

Felix and Esther laughed, and drew their hands away; and as Esther took her handkerchief to wipe the tears from her cheeks she said--

"You see, Job, I am a naughty coward. I can't help crying when I've hurt myself."

"Zoo soodn't kuy," said Job energetically, being much impressed with a moral doctrine which had come to him after a sufficient transgression of it.

"Job is like me," said Felix, "fonder of preaching than of practice. But let us look at this same watch," he went on, opening and examining it.

"These little Geneva toys are cleverly constructed to go always a little wrong. But if you wind them up and set them regularly every night, you may know at least that it's not noon when the hand points there."

Felix chatted, that Esther might recover herself; but now Mrs. Holt came back and apologized.

"You'll excuse my going away, I know, Miss Lyon. But there were the dumplings to see to, and what little I've got left on my hands now I like to do well. Not but what I've more cleaning to do than ever I had in my life before, as you may tell soon enough if you look at this floor. But when you've been used to doing things, and they've been taken away from you, it's as if your hands had been cut off, and you felt the fingers as are of no use to you."

"That's a great image, mother," said Felix, as he snapped the watch together and handed it to Esther; "I never heard you use such an image before."

"Yes, I know you've always some fault to find with what your mother says. But if ever there was a woman could talk with the open Bible before her, and not be afraid, it's me. I never did tell stories, and I never will--though I know it's done, Miss Lyon, and by church members too, when they have candles to sell, as I could bring you to the proof.

But I never was one of 'em, let Felix say what he will about the printing on the tickets. His father believed it was gospel truth, and it's presumptuous to say it wasn't. For as for curing, how can anybody know? There's no physic'll cure without a blessing, and _with_ a blessing I know I've seen a mustard plaister work when there was no more smell nor strength in the mustard than so much flour. And reason good--for the mustard had lain in paper n.o.body knows how long--so I'll leave you to guess."

Mrs. Holt looked hard out of the window and gave a slight, inarticulate sound of scorn.

Felix had leaned back in his chair with a resigned smile, and was pinching Job's ears.

Esther said, "I think I had better go now," not knowing what else to say, yet not wis.h.i.+ng to go immediately, lest she should seem to be running away from Mrs. Holt. She felt keenly how much endurance there must be for Felix. And she had often been discontented with her father, and called him tiresome!

"Where does Job Tudge live?" she said, still sitting and looking at the droll little figure, set off by a ragged jacket with a tail about two inches deep sticking out above the funniest of corduroys.

"Job has two mansions," said Felix. "He lives here chiefly; but he has another home, where his grandfather, Mr. Tudge, the stone-breaker, lives. My mother is very good to Job, Miss Lyon. She has made him a little bed in a cupboard, and she gives him sweetened porridge."

The exquisite goodness implied in these words of Felix impressed Esther the more, because in her hearing his talk had usually been pungent and denunciatory. Looking at Mrs. Holt, she saw that her eyes had lost their bleak north-easterly expression, and were s.h.i.+ning with some mildness on little Job, who had turned round toward her, propping his head against Felix.

"Well, why shouldn't I be motherly to the child, Miss Lyon?" said Mrs.

Holt, whose strong powers of argument required the file of an imagined contradiction, if there were no real one at hand. "I never was hard-hearted, and I never will be. It was Felix picked the child up and took to him, you may be sure, for there's n.o.body else master where he is; but I wasn't going to beat the orphan child and abuse him because of that, and him as straight as an arrow when he's stripped, and me so fond of children, and only had one of my own to live. I'd three babies, Miss Lyon, but the blessed Lord only spared Felix, and him the masterfulest and brownest of 'em all. But I did my duty by him, and I said, he'll have more schooling than his father, and he'll grow up a doctor, and marry a woman with money to furnish--as I was myself, spoons and everything--and I shall have the grandchildren to look up to me, and be drove out in the gig sometimes, like old Mrs. Lukyn. And you see what it's all come to, Miss Lyon: here's Felix made a common man of himself, and says he'll never be married--which is the most unreasonable thing, and him never easy but when he's got the child on his lap, or when----"

"Stop, stop, mother," Felix burst in; "pray don't use that limping argument again--that a man should marry because he's fond of children.

That's a reason for not marrying. A bachelor's children are always young: they're immortal children--always lisping, waddling, helpless, and with a chance of turning out good."

"The Lord above may know what you mean! And haven't other folks's children a chance of turning out good?"

"Oh, they grow out of it very fast. Here's Job Tudge now," said Felix, turning the little one round on his knee, and holding his head by the back--"Job's limbs will get lanky; this little fist that looks like a puff-ball and can hide nothing bigger than a gooseberry, will get large and bony, and perhaps want to clutch more than its share; these wide blue eyes that tell me more truth than Job knows, will narrow and narrow and try to hide truth that Job would be better without knowing; this little negative nose will become long and self-a.s.serting; and this little tongue--put out thy tongue, Job"--Job, awe-struck under this ceremony, put out a little red tongue very timidly--"this tongue, hardly bigger than a rose-leaf, will get large and thick, wag out of season, do mischief, brag and cant for gain or vanity, and cut as cruelly, for all its clumsiness, as if it were a sharp-edged blade. Big Job will perhaps be naughty--" As Felix, speaking with the loud emphatic distinctness habitual to him, brought out this terribly familiar word, Job's sense of mystification became too painful: he hung his lip and began to cry.

"See here," said Mrs. Holt, "you're frightening the innocent child with such talk--and it's enough to frighten them that think themselves the safest."

"Look here, Job, my man," said Felix, setting the boy down and turning him toward Esther; "go to Miss Lyon, ask her to smile at you, and that will dry up your tears like the suns.h.i.+ne."

Job put his two brown fists on Esther's lap, and she stooped to kiss him. Then holding his face between her hands she said, "Tell Mr. Holt we don't mean to be naughty, Job. He should believe in us more. But now I must really go home."

Esther rose and held out her hand to Mrs. Holt, who kept it while she said, a little to Esther's confusion--

"I'm very glad it's took your fancy to come here sometimes, Miss Lyon. I know you're thought to hold your head high, but I speak of people as I find 'em. And I'm sure anybody had need be humble that comes where there's a floor like this--for I've put by my best tea-trays, they're so out of all character--I must look Above for comfort now; but I don't say I'm not worthy to be called on for all that."

Felix had risen and moved toward the door that he might open it and s.h.i.+eld Esther from more last words on his mother's part.

"Good-bye, Mr. Holt."

"Will Mr. Lyon like for me to sit with him an hour this evening, do you think?"

"Why not? He always likes to see you."

"Then I will come. Good-bye."

"She's a very straight figure," said Mrs. Holt. "How she carries herself! But I doubt there's some truth in what our people say. If she won't look at young Muscat, it's the better for _him_. He'd need have a big fortune that marries her."

"That's true, mother," said Felix, sitting down, s.n.a.t.c.hing up little Job, and finding a vent for some unspeakable feeling in the pretence of worrying him.

Esther was rather melancholy as she went home, yet happier withal than she had been for many days before. She thought, "I need not mind having shown so much anxiety about his opinion. He is too clear-sighted to mistake our mutual position; he is quite above putting a false interpretation on what I have done. Besides, he had not thought of me at all--I saw that plainly enough. Yet he was very kind. There is something greater and better in him than I had imagined. His behavior to-day--to his mother and me too--I should call it the highest gentlemanliness, only it seems in him to be something deeper. But he has chosen an intolerable life; though I suppose, if I had a mind equal to his, and if he loved me very dearly, I should choose the same life."

Esther felt that she had prefixed an impossible "if" to that result. But now she had known Felix her conception of what a happy love must be had become like a dissolving view, in which the once-dear images were gradually melting into new forms and new colors. The favorite Byronic heroes were beginning to look like last night's decorations seen in the sober dawn. So fast does a little leaven spread within us--so incalculable is one personality on another. Behind all Esther's thoughts, like an unacknowledged yet constraining presence, there was the sense, that if Felix Holt were to love her, her life would be exalted into something quite new--into a sort of difficult blessedness, such as one may imagine in beings who are conscious of painfully growing into possession of higher powers.

It was quite true that Felix had not thought the more of Esther because of that Sunday afternoon's interview which had shaken her mind to the very roots. He had avoided intruding on Mr. Lyon without special reason, because he believed the minister to be preoccupied with some private care. He had thought a great deal of Esther with a mixture of strong disapproval and strong liking, which both together made a feeling the reverse of indifference; but he was not going to let her have any influence on his life. Even if his determination had not been fixed, he would have believed that she would utterly scorn him in any other light than that of an acquaintance, and the emotion she had shown to-day did not change that belief. But he was deeply touched by this manifestation of her better qualities, and felt that there was a new tie of friends.h.i.+p between them. That was the brief history Felix would have given of his relation to Esther. And he was accustomed to observe himself. But very close and diligent looking at living creatures, even through the best microscope, will leave room for new and contradictory discoveries.

Felix found Mr. Lyon particularly glad to talk to him. The minister had never yet disburdened himself about his letter to Mr. Philip Debarry concerning the public conference; and as by this time he had all the heads of his discussion thoroughly in his mind, it was agreeable to recite them, as well as to express his regret that time had been lost by Mr. Debarry's absence from the Manor, which had prevented the immediate fulfillment of his pledge.

"I don't see how he can fulfill it if the rector refuses," said Felix, thinking it well to moderate the little man's confidence.

"The rector is of a spirit that will not incur earthly impeachment, and he cannot refuse what is necessary to his nephew's honorable discharge of an obligation," said Mr. Lyon. "My young friend, it is a case wherein the prearranged conditions tend by such a beautiful fitness to the issue I have sought, that I should have forever held myself a traitor to my charge had I neglected the indication."

CHAPTER XXIII.

"I will not excuse you; you shall not be excused; excuses shall not be admitted; there's no excuse shall serve; you shall not be excused."--_Henry IV._

When Philip Debarry had come home that morning and read the letters which had not been forwarded to him, he laughed so heartily at Mr.

Lyon's that he congratulated himself on being in his private room.

Otherwise his laughter would have awakened the curiosity of Sir Maximus, and Philip did not wish to tell any one the contents of the letter until he had shown them to his uncle. He determined to ride over to the rectory to lunch; for as Lady Mary was away, he and his uncle might be _tete-a-tete_.

The rectory was on the other side of the river, close to the church of which it was the fitting companion: a fine old brick-and-stone house, with a great bow-window opening from the library on to the deep-turfed lawn, one fat dog sleeping on the door-stone, another fat dog waddling on the gravel, the autumn leaves duly swept away, the lingering chrysanthemums cherished, tall trees stooping or soaring in the most picturesque variety, and a Virginian creeper turning a little rustic hut into a scarlet pavilion. It was one of those rectories which are among the bulwarks of our venerable inst.i.tutions--which arrest disintegrating doubt, serve as a double embankment against Popery and Dissent, and rally feminine instinct and affection to reinforce the decisions of masculine thought.

"What makes you look so merry, Phil?" said the rector, as his nephew entered the pleasant library.

"Something that concerns you," said Philip, taking out the letter. "A clerical challenge. Here's an opportunity for you to emulate the divines of the sixteenth century and have a theological duel. Read this letter."