Weighed and Wanting, George MacDonald [ebook reader android txt] 📗

swelled with delight, translating her confidence into his power. He was no longer the second person in the compact, but had taken the place belonging to the male contracting party! For he had been painfully conscious now and then that he played but second fiddle.

They sat down and talked the whole thing over.

Now that Hester was at peace she began to look at it from Gartley's point of view.

"I am so sorry for you!" she said. "It is very sad you should have to marry into a family so disgraced. What will your aunt say?"

"My aunt will treat the affair like the sensible woman she is," replied the earl. "But there is no fear of disgrace; the thing will never be known. Besides, where is the family that hasn't one or more such loose fishes about in its pond? The fault was committed inside the family too, and that makes a great difference. It is not as if he'd been betting, and couldn't pay up!"

From the heaven of her delight Hester fell prone. Was this the way her almost husband looked at these things? But, poor fellow! how could he help looking at them so? Was it not thus he had been from earliest childhood taught to look at them? The greater was his need of all she could do for him! He was so easy to teach anything! What she saw clear as day it could not be hard to communicate to one who loved as he loved! She would say nothing now-would let him see no sign of disappointment in her!

"If he don't improve," continued his lordship, "we must get him out of the country. In the meantime he will go home, and not a suspicion will be roused. What else should he do, with such a property to look after?"

"My father will not see it so," answered Hester. "I doubt if he will ever speak to him again. Certainly he will not except he show some repentance."

"Has your father refused to have him home?"

"He has not had the chance. Nobody knows what has become of him."

"He'll have to condone, or compromise, or compound, or what do they call it, for the sake of his family-for your sake, and my sake, my darling! He can't be so vindictive as expose his own son! We won't think more about it! Let us talk of ourselves!"

"If only we could find him!" returned Hester.

"Depend upon it he is not where you would like to find him. Men don't come to grief without help! We must wait till he turns up."

Far as this was from her purpose, Hester was not inclined to argue the point: she could not expect him or any one out of their own family to be much interested in the fate of Cornelius. They began to talk about other things; and if they were not the things Hester would most readily have talked about, neither were they the things lord Gartley had entered the house intending to talk about. He too had been almost angry, only by nature he was cool and even good-tempered. To find Hester, the moment she came back to London, and now in the near prospect of marriage with himself, yielding afresh to a diseased fancy of doing good; to come upon her in the street of a low neighbourhood, followed by a low crowd, supported and championed by a low fellow-well, it was not agreeable! His high breeding made him mind it less than a middle-class man of like character would have done; but with his cold dislike to all that was poor and miserable, he could not fail to find it annoying, and had entered the house intending to exact a promise for the future-not the future after marriage, for a change then went without saying.

But when he had heard her trouble, and saw how deeply it affected her, he knew this was not the time to say what he had meant; and there was the less occasion now that he was near to take care of her!

He had risen to go, and was about to take a loving farewell, when Hester, suddenly remembering, drew back, with almost a guilty look.

"Oh, Gartley!" she said, "I thought not to have let you come near me! Not that I am afraid of anything! But you came upon me so unexpectedly! It is all very well for one's self, but one ought to heed what other people may think!"

"What can you mean, Hester?" exclaimed Gartley, and would have laid his hand on her arm, but again she drew back.

"There was small-pox in the house I had just left when you met me," she said.

He started back and stood speechless-manifesting therein no more cowardice than everyone in his circle would have justified: was it not reasonable and right he should be afraid? was it not a humiliation to be created subject to such a loathsome disease? The disgrace of fearing anything except doing wrong, few human beings are capable of conceiving, fewer still of actually believing.

"Has it never occurred to you what you are doing in going to such places, Hester?" he faltered. "It is a treachery against every social claim. I am sorry to use such hard words, but-really-I-I-cannot help being a little surprised at you! I thought you had more-more-sense!"

"I am sorry to have frightened you."

"Frightened!" repeated Gartley, with an attempt at a smile, which closed in a yet more anxious look, "-you do indeed frighten me! The whole world would agree you give me good cause to be frightened. I should never have thought you capable of showing such a lack of principle. Don't imagine I am thinking of myself; you are in most danger! Still, you may carry the infection without taking it yourself!"

"I didn't know it was there when I went to the house-only I should have gone all the same," said Hester. "But if seeing you so suddenly had not made me forget, I should have had a bath as soon as I got home. I
am sorry I let you come near me!"

"One has no right either to take or carry infection," insisted lord Gartley, perhaps a little glad of the height upon which an opportunity of finding fault set him for the first time above her. "But there is no time to talk about it now. I hope you will use what preventives you can. It is very wrong to trifle with such things!"

"Indeed it is!" answered Hester; "and I say again I am sorry I forgot. You see how it was-don't you? It was you made me forget!"

But his lordship was by no means now in a smiling mood. He bade her a somewhat severe good night, then hesitated, and thinking it hardly signified now, and he must not look too much afraid, held out his hand. But Hester drew back a third time, saying, "No, no; you must not," and with solemn bow he turned and went, his mind full of conflicting feelings and perplexing thoughts:-What a glorious creature she was!-and what a dangerous! He recalled the story of the young woman brought up on poisons, whom no man could come near but at the risk of his life. What a spirit she had! but what a pity it was so ill-directed! It was horrible to think of her going into such abominable places-and all alone too! How ill she had been trained!-in such utter disregard of social obligation and the laws of nature! It was preposterous! He little thought what risks he ran when he fell in love with her ! If he got off now without an attack he would be lucky! But-good heavens! if she were to take it herself! "I wonder when she was last vaccinated!" he said. "I was last year; I daresay I'm all right! But if she were to die, or lose her complexion, I should kill myself! I know I should!" Would honor compel him to marry her if she were horribly pock-marked? Those dens ought to be rooted out! Philanthropy was gone mad! It was strict repression that was wanted! To sympathize with people like that was only to encourage them! Vice was like hysterics-the more kindness you showed the worse grew the patient! They took it all as their right! And the more you gave, the more they demanded-never showing any gratitude so far as he knew!


CHAPTER XXXIX.

THE MAJOR AND THE SMALL-POX.


His lordship was scarcely gone when the major came. So closely did the appearance of the one follow on the disappearance of the other, that there was ground for suspecting the major had seen his lordship enter the house, and had been waiting and watching till he was gone. But she was not yet to be seen: she had no fear of the worst small-pox could do to her, yet was taking what measures appeared advisable for her protection. Her fearlessness came from no fancied absence of danger, but from an utter disbelief in chance. The same and only faith that would have enabled him to face the man-eating tiger, enabled her to face the small-pox; if she did die by going into such places, it was all right.

For aught I know there may be a region whose dwellers are so little capable of being individually cared for, that they are left to the action of mere general laws as sufficient for what for the time can be done for them. Such may well to themselves seem to be blown about by all the winds of chaos and the limbo-which winds they call chance? Even then and there it is God who has ordered all the generals of their condition, and when they are sick of it, will help them out of it. One thing is sure-that God is doing his best for every man.

The major sat down and waited.

"I am at my wits' end!" he said, when she entered the room. "I can't find the fellow! That detective's a muff! He ain't got a trace of him yet! I must put on another!-Don't you think you had better go home? I will do what can be done, you may be sure!"

"I am sure," answered Hester. "But mamma is better; so long as I am away papa will not leave her; and she would rather have papa than a dozen of me."

"But it must be so dreary for you-here alone all day!" he said, with a touch of malice.

"I go about among my people," she answered.

"Ah! ah!" he returned. "Then I hope you will be careful what houses you go into, for I hear the small-pox is in the neighborhood."

"I have just come from a house where it is now," she answered. The major rose in haste. "-But," she went on, "I have changed all my clothes, and had a bath since."

The major sat down again.

"My dear young lady!" he said, the roses a little ashy on his cheek-bones, "do you know what you are about?"

"I hope I do-I think I do" she answered.

"Hope! Think!" repeated the major indignantly.

"Well, believe ," said Hester.

"Come, come!" he rejoined with rudeness, "you may hope or think or believe what you like, but you have no business to act but on what you
know ."

"I suppose you never act where you do not know!" returned Hester. "You always