“I am fourteen,” said Hester. “I never was very little since I can remember;” and then they stood and looked at each other under the glass roof, which still let in some light among the flowers, their two faces lit up by the flame of the candle. Hester stood in front of the door which led into the house, and, indeed, had something the aspect of a guardian of the house preventing the visitor from going in. There was a sort of resemblance to each other in their faces and somewhat largely developed figures; but this, which ought to have been a comfortable and soothing thought, did not occur to either. And it cannot be denied that the first encounter was hostile on both sides.
“I should like to see your mother: to—welcome her—home.”
“She has gone to bed. She was—tired,” Hester said; and then, with an effort—“I do not suppose it is quite happy for her, just the first night, coming back to the place she used to live in. I made her go to bed.”
“You take good care of her,” said Miss Vernon; “that is right. She always wanted taking care of.” Then, with a smile, she added, “Am I not to go in? I came to see if you were comfortable and had everything you want.”
“Mother will be much obliged,” said Hester, stiffly. She did not know any better. She was not accustomed to visitors, and was altogether at a loss what to do—not to speak of the instinct of opposition which sprang up in her mind to this first new actor in the new life which lay vaguely existing and unknown before her feet. It seemed to her, she could scarcely tell how, that here was an enemy, someone to be held at arm’s length. As for Catherine Vernon, she was more completely taken aback by this encounter than by anything which had happened for years. Few people opposed her or met her with suspicion, much less hostility; and the aspect of this girl standing in the doorway, defending it, as it were, preventing her from entering, was half comic, half exasperating. Keeping her out of her own house! It was one of the drawbacks of her easy beneficence, the defauts de ses qualités, that she felt a little too distinctly that it was her own house, which, seeing she had given it to Mrs. John, was an ungenerosity in the midst of her generosity. But she was human, like the rest of us. She began to laugh, bewildered, half angry, yet highly tickled with the position, while Hester stood in front of her, regarding her curiously with those big eyes. “I must rest here, if I am not to go in,” she said. “I hope you don’t object to that; for it is as much as I can do to walk from the Grange here.”
Hester felt as if her lips were sealed. She could not say anything; indeed she did not know what she ought to say. A vague sense that she was behaving badly made her uncomfortable; but she was not going to submit, to yield to the first comer, to let anybody enter who chose. Was she not the guardian of her mother, and of her quiet and repose? She shifted her position a little as Miss Vernon sat down on one of the creaking basket chairs, but did not even put her candle out of her hand, or relax in her defensive attitude. When her visitor laughed again, Hester felt a flush of hot anger, like a flame, going over her. To be ludicrous is the last thing a girl can bear: but even for that she would not give in.
“You are a capital guardian,” Catherine said, “but I assure you I am not an enemy. I shall have to call my maid Jennings, who has gone to the kitchen to see Betsey, before I go home, for I am not fond of walking alone. You must try and learn that we are all friends here. I suppose your mother has told you a great deal about the Vernons—and me?”
“I don’t know about any Vernons—except ourselves,” Hester said.
“My dear,” said Miss Vernon, hastily, “you must not get it into your little head that you are by any means at the head of the house, or near it. Your grandfather was only the second son, and you are only a girl—if you had been a boy it might have been different; and even my great-grandfather, John Vernon, who is the head of our branch, was nothing more than a cadet of the principal family. So don’t give yourself any airs on that score. All your neighbours here are better Vernons than you—”
“I never give myself any airs—I don’t know what you mean,” said Hester, feeling a wish to cry, but mastering herself with all the strength of passion.
“Don’t you, my poor child? I think you do. You are behaving in a silly way, you know, meeting me like this. Your mother should have taught you better manners. I have no desire but to be kind to you. But never mind, I will not say anything about it, for I dare say you are all put the wrong way with fatigue and excitement; otherwise I should think you were excessively uncivil, do you know,” Miss Vernon said.
And Hester stood, fiery-red, and listened. If she had spoken she must have cried—there was no alternative. The candle flickered between the two antagonists. They were antagonists already, as much as if they had been on terms of equality. When Miss Vernon had rested as long as she thought necessary, she got up and bade her young enemy good night. “Tell your mother that I have done my duty in the way of calling, and that it is she now who
