“Don’t you want Catherine Vernon to see them, mother? If it is so, tell me at once.”
“Don’t I want Catherine Vernon—to see them?” cried Mrs. John, stupefied with astonishment. “I wonder,” she added, regretfully, “what there is between you that makes you lose your good sense, Hester—for you are very sensible in most things, and far cleverer than I ever was—the moment Catherine Vernon’s name is mentioned? I cannot think what it can be.”
“Oh, mother! You are too good—if that is what not being clever means. When I think how you have been allowed to stand in the corner of that room, and nobody taking any notice of you.”
“My dear,” said Mrs. John, mildly, “I did not require to go unless I liked.”
“And now this dinner—a sort of Christmas dole for her relations—like the flannel petticoats to the poor women.”
“We do not require to go unless we like,” said Mrs. John; “but if you will reflect a little, Hester, that is not how a lady should talk.”
It was seldom that the mild little woman said so much. When Hester came up to Catherine, following her mother’s little figure, clothed in a black silk gown which had seen a great deal of service, she read, with an excitement that made her glow, that Catherine’s first glance was upon the pearls.
“You are quite fine,” she said as she went through the Christmas formula, and dropped a formal kiss upon Hester’s reluctant cheek; “you have put on your lovely pearls to do us honour.”
“She is fond of the pearls,” said Mrs. John, who was very watchful to prevent any collision; “they were her grandmother’s, and her great-grandmother’s, Catherine. It is not only for their value that one is fond of things like these.”
“Their value is sometimes the worst thing about them,” said Catherine, feeling that there was a sternness of virtue in what she said which justified her dislike. But Mrs. John stood her ground.
“I don’t think so,” she said simply. “I like them to be worth a great deal, for they are all she will have.”
Hester, thus talked over, stood drawing back, in all her flush of youthful indignation, kept down by the necessities of the occasion. She gave a glance round at the little audience which was enjoying the encounter, the Miss Vernon-Ridgways in the foreground. She caught their keen inquisitive stare, and the mantling of delight upon their faces as they witnessed the little passage of arms; and Mr. Vernon Mildmay craning over their shoulders with his sharp face projected to see what it was, and Mrs. Reginald’s countenance half sympathetic, half-preoccupied (for today for the first time her eldest boy had accompanied her, and she was very anxious lest he should do or say anything that might injure him with Catherine). But the one thing Hester did not catch was Edward’s eyes, which surely, if he had cared for her, ought now to have been raised in kindness. He was outside of the circle, his head turned away, taking no notice. When Mrs. John fell back to give way to Ellen Merridew, who came up rustling and jingling with all her bracelets, Edward still kept apart. He was talking to Harry, to Algernon, to everybody except the two who, Hester felt, wanted the succour of a chivalrous sympathy. But Mrs. John had no feeling of this kind. She felt that she had held her own. She looked with a mild pride upon the group of her neighbours all so eagerly watching for mischief. It was natural, when you think of it, that she should treat the ill-nature of the Miss Vernon-Ridgways with gentle disdain. Poor things! they had neither a daughter nor a necklace of pearls. And as she had not been at the Thés Dansantes, nor seen Edward in any aspect but that he had always borne at the Grange, she felt no anxiety as to his present behaviour. Harry’s was the eye which she sought. She beamed with smiles when he came and stood beside her. Harry was always faithful, whoever might be careless. She looked at him and at Hester with a little sigh; but who could tell what might happen with patience and time?
There was, however, one moment during the evening in which Edward had the opportunity of setting himself right. It was while the departures were going on, while the ladies were being shawled and cloaked. Catherine had not come downstairs, and in the darkness of the further corner of the hall, under cover of the chatter of Ellen and Emma Ashton, the young man ventured upon a hurried whisper—
“Do you despise me or detest me most?” he said in Hester’s ear. She started—what with the sudden proximity, what with the unexpected character of the question.
“I wonder?” she answered coldly. He took the opportunity of wrapping her cloak round her to grasp both her hands in a sudden, almost fierce grasp.
“You could do nothing less: but I cannot be different here. Suspicion produces treachery, don’t you know?” he said, with his face close to her ear. “I cannot be true here. No, don’t say anything. I ought, but I cannot. It is in the air. All of us, everyone except you, we are making believe and finding each other out, yet going on all the same. But it is only for a time,” Edward cried, grasping her hands once more till the pressure was painful, “only for a time!”
Next moment he was standing at the door, impassible, saying good night to everyone, paying no more heed to Hester than if she had been, as indeed she was, the least important of all the Christmas visitors. Ellen, as a married woman and a social power, commanded his attention, and to Emma, as the stranger among so many who knew
