Weighed and Wanting

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 know you will win the battle, kill the tiger, take the small-pox, and be the worse for it?"

"It's all very well for you to laugh!" returned the major; "but what is to become of us if you take the small-pox! Why, my dear cousin, you might lose every scrap of your good looks!"

"And then who on earth would care for me any more!" said Hester, with mock mournfulness, which brought a glimmer of the merry light back to the major's face.

"But really, Hester," he persisted, "this is most imprudent. It is your life, not your beauty only you are periling!"

"Perhaps," she answered.

"And the lives of us all!" added the major.

"Is the small-pox worse than a man-eating tiger?" she asked.

"Ten times worse," he answered. "You can fight the tiger, but you can't fight the small-pox. You really ought not to run such fearful risks."

"How are they to be avoided? Every time you send for the doctor you run a risk! You can't order a clean doctor every time!"

"A joke's all very well! but it is our duty to take care of ourselves."

"In reason, yes," replied Hester.

"You may think," said the major, "that God takes special care of you because you are about his business—and far be it from me to say you are not about his business or that he does not take care of you; but what is to become of me and the like of me if we take the small-pox from you?"

Hester had it on her lips to say that if he was meant to die of the small-pox, he might as well take it of her as of another; but she said instead that she was sure God took care of her, but not sure she should not die of the small-pox.

"How can you say God takes care of you if he lets you die of the small-pox!"

"No doubt people would die if God forgot them, but do you think people die because God forgets them?"

"My dear cousin Hester, if there is one thing I have a penchant for, it is common sense! A paradox I detest with my whole soul!"

"One word, dear major Marvel: Did God take care of Jesus?"

"Of course! of course! But he wasn't like other men, you know."

"I don't want to fare better, that is, I don't want to have more of God's care than he had."

"I don't understand you. I should think if we were sure God took as good care of us as of him—"

But there he stopped, for he began to have a glimmer of where she was leading him.

"Did he keep him what you call safe?" said Hester. "Did he not allow the worst man could do to overtake him? Was it not the very consequence of his obedience?"

"Then you have made up your mind to die of the small-pox?—In that case–"

"Only if it be God's will," interrupted Hester.

"To that, and that alone, have I made up my mind. If I die of the small-pox, it will not be because it could not be helped, or because I caught it by chance; it will be because God allowed it as best for me and for us all. It will not be a punishment for breaking his laws: he loves none better, I believe, than those who break the laws of nature to fulfil the laws of the spirit—which is the deeper nature, 'the nature naturing nature,' as I read the other day: of course it sounds nonsense to anyone who does not understand it."

"That's your humble servant," said the major. "I haven't a notion what you or the author you quote means, though I don't doubt both of you mean well, and that you are a most courageous and indeed heroic young woman. For all that it is time your friends interfered; and I am going to write by the next post to let your father know how you are misbehaving yourself."

"They will not believe me quite so bad as I fear you will represent me."

"I don't know. I must write anyhow."

"That they may order me home to give them the small-pox? Wouldn't it be better to wait and be sure I had not taken it already? Your letter, too, might carry the infection. I think you had better not write."

"You persist in making fun of it! I say again it is not a thing to be joked about," remarked the major, looking red.

"I think," returned Hester, "whoever lives in terror of infection had better take it and have done with it. I know I would rather die than live in the fear of death. It is the meanest of slaveries. At least, to live a slave to one's fears is next worst to living a slave to one's likings. Do as you please, major Marvel, but I give you warning that if you interpose—I will not say interfere—because you do it all for kindness—but if you interpose, I will never ask you to help me again; I will never let you know what I am doing, or come to you for advice, lest, instead of assisting me, you should set about preventing me from doing what I may have to do."

She held out her hand to him, adding with a smile:

"Is it for good-bye, or a compact?"

"But just look at it from my point of view," said the major, disturbed by the appeal. "What will your father say if he finds me aiding and abetting?"

"You did not come up at my father's request, or from the least desire on his part to have me looked after. You were not put in charge of me, and have no right to suppose me doing anything my parents would not like. They never objected to my going among my friends as I thought fit. Possibly they had more faith in my good sense, knowing me better than major Marvel."

"But when one sees you doing the thing that is plainly wrong–"

"If it be so plainly wrong, how is it that I who am really anxious to do right, should not see it wrong? Why should you think me less likely to know what is right than you, major Marvel?"

"I give in," said the major, "and will abide by the consequences."

"But you shall not needlessly put yourself in danger. You must not come to me except I send for you. If you hear anything of Corney, write, please."

"You don't imagine," cried the major, firing up, "that I am going to turn tail where you advance? I'm not going to run from the small-pox any more than you. So long as he don't get on my back to hunt other people, I don't care. By George! you women have more courage ten times than we men!"

"What we've got to do we just go and do, without thinking about danger. I believe it is often the best wisdom to be blind and let God be our eyes as well as our shield. But would it be right of you, not called to the work, to put yourself in danger because you would not be out where I am in? I could admire of course, but never quite justify sir Philip Sidney in putting off his cuisses because his general had not got his on."

"You're fit for a field-marshal, my dear!" said the major enthusiastically—adding, as he kissed her hand, "I will think over what you have said, and at least not betray you without warning."

"That is enough for the present," returned Hester, shaking hands with him warmly.

The major went away hardly knowing whither, so filled was he with admiration of "cousin Helen's girl."

"By Jove!" he said to himself, "it's a confounded good thing I didn't marry Helen; she would never have had a girl like that if I had! Things are always best. The world needs a few such in it—even if they be fools—though I suspect they will turn out the wise ones, and we the fools for taking such care of our precious selves!"

But the major was by no means a selfish man. He was pretty much mixed, like the rest of us. Only, if we do not make up our minds not to be mixed with the one thing, we shall by and by be but little mixed with the other.

That same evening he sent her word that one answering the description of Cornelius had been descried in the neighborhood of Addison square.

CHAPTER XL.

DOWN AND DOWN

Down the hill and down!—to the shores of the salt sea, where the flowing life is dammed into a stagnant lake, a dead sea, growing more and more bitter with separation and lack of outlet. Mrs. Franks had come to feel the comforting of her husband a hopeless thing, and had all but ceased to attempt it. He grew more hopeless for the lack of what she thought moved him no more, and when she ceased to comfort him, the fountain of her own hope began to fail; in comforting him she had comforted herself. The boys, whose merriment even was always of a sombre kind, got more gloomy, but had not begun to quarrel; for that evil, as interfering with their profession, the father had so sternly crushed that they had less than the usual tendency to it.

They had reached at last the point of being unable to pay for their lodging. They were indeed a fort-night's rent behind. Their landlady was not willing to be hard upon them, but what could a poor woman do, she said. The day was come when they must go forth like Abraham without a home, but not like Abraham with a tent and the world before them to set it up in, not like Abraham with camels and asses to help them along. The weakly wife had to carry the sickly baby, who, with many ups and downs, had been slowly pining away. The father went laden with the larger portion of the goods yet remaining to them, and led the Serpent of the Prairies, with the drum hanging from his neck, by the hand. The other boys followed, bearing the small stock of implements belonging to their art.

They had delayed their departure till it was more than dusk, for Franks could not help a vague feeling of blame for the condition of his family, and shrank from being seen of men's eyes; every one they met must know they had not a place to lay their heads! The world was like a sea before them—a prospect of ceaseless motion through the night, with the hope of an occasional rest on a doorstep or the edge of the curb-stone when the policeman's back was turned. They set out to go nowhither—to tramp on and on. Is it any wonder—does it imply wickedness beyond that lack of trust in God which is at the root of all wickedness, if the thought of ending their troubles by death crossed his mind, and from very tenderness kept returning? At the last gasp, as it seemed, in the close and ever closer siege of misfortune, he was almost ready, like the Jews of Masada, to conquer by self-destruction. But ever and again the sad eyes of his wife turned him from the thought, and he would plod on, thinking, as near as possible, about nothing.

At length as they wandered they came to a part where seemed to be only small houses and mews. Presently they found themselves in a little lane with no thoroughfare, at the back of some stables, and had to return along the rough-paved, neglected way. Such was the quiet and apparent seclusion of the spot, that it struck Franks they had better find its most sheltered corner, in which to sit down and rest awhile, possibly sleep. Scarcely would policeman, he thought, enter such a forsaken place! The same moment they heard the measured tread of the enemy on the other side of the stables. Instinctively, hurriedly, they looked around for some place of concealment, and spied, at the end of a blank wall, belonging apparently to some kind of warehouse, a narrow path between that and the wall of the next property. Careless to what it led, anxious only to escape the annoyance of the policeman, they turned quickly into it. Scarcely had they done so when the Serpent, whose hand his father had let go, disappeared with a little cry, and a whimper ascended through the darkness.

"Hold your n'ise, you rascal!" said his father sharply, but under his breath; "the bobby will hear you, and have us all to the lock-up!"

Not a sound more was heard. Neither did the boy reappear.

"Good heavens, John!" cried the mother in an agonized whisper, "the child has fallen down a sewer! Oh, my God! he is gone for ever!"

"Hold your n'ise," said Franks again, "an' let's all go down a'ter him! It's better down anywheres than up where there ain't nothing to eat an' nowheres to lie down in."

"'Tain't a bad place," cried a little voice in a whisper broken with repressed sobs. "'Tain't a bad place, I don't think, only I broken one o' my two legs; it won't move to fetch of me up again."

"Thank God in heaven, the child's alive!" cried the mother. "—You ain't much hurt, are you, Moxy?"

"Rather, mother!"

By this time the steps of the policeman, to which the father had been listening with more anxiety than to the words of wife or child, were almost beyond hearing. Franks turned, and going down a few steps found his child, where he half lay, half sat upon them. But when he lifted him, he gave a low cry of pain. It was impossible to see where or how much he was hurt. The father sat down and took him on his knees.

"You'd better come an' sit here, wife," he said in a low dull voice. "There ain't no one a sittin' up for us. The b'y's a bit hurt, an' here you'll be out o' the wind at least."

They all got as far down the stair as its room would permit—the elder boys with their heads hardly below the level of the wind. But by and by one of them crept down past his mother, feebly soothing the whimpering baby, and began to feel what sort of a place they were in.

"Here's a door, father!" he said.

"Well, what o' that?" returned his father. "'Taint no door open to us or the likes on us. There ain't no open door for the likes of us but the door o' the grave."

"Perhaps this is it, father," said Moxy.

"If it be," answered his father with bitterness, "we'll find it open, I'll be bound."

The boy's hand had come upon a latch; he lifted it, and pushed.

"Father," he cried with a gasp, "it is open!"

"Get in then," said his father roughly, giving him a push with his foot.

"I daren't. It's so dark!" he answered.

"Here, you come an' take the Sarpint," returned the father, with faintly reviving hope, "an' I'll see what sort of a place it is. If it's any place at all, it's better than bein' i' the air all night at this freezin' time!"

So saying he gave Moxy to his bigger brother and went to learn what kind of a place they had got to. Ready as he had been a moment before for the grave, he was careful in stepping into the unknown dark. Feeling with foot and hand, he went in. He trod upon an earthen floor, and the place had a musty smell: it might be a church vault, he thought. In and in he went, with sliding foot on the soundless floor, and sliding hand along the cold wall—on and on, round two corners, past a closed door, and back to that by which he had entered, where, as at the grave's mouth, sat his family in sad silence, waiting his return.

"Wife," he said, "we can't do better than to take the only thing that's offered. The floor's firm, an' it's out o' the air. It's some sort of a cellar—p'r'aps at the bottom of a church. It do look as if it wur left open jest for us!—You used to talk about him above, wife!"