requires, and to confide to you how wholly her happiness lies in your hands.”
“Hester! Miss Ibbotson! I assure you, Mrs. Grey, you must be completely mistaken.”
“I beg your pardon: I am not so easily mistaken as some people. There is Mrs. Rowland, now! I am sure she fancies that her brother is in love with Hester, when it is plain to everybody but herself that he and my other young cousin are coming to a conclusion as fast as need be. However, I know you do not like to hear me find fault with Mrs. Rowland; and, besides, I have no right to tell Margaret’s secrets; so we will say no more about that.”
Mr. Hope sighed heavily. These remarks upon Enderby and Margaret accorded but too well with his own observations. He could not let Mrs. Grey proceed without opposition; but all he was capable of was to repeat that she was entirely mistaken.
“Yes, that is what men like you always say—in all sincerity, of course. Your modesty always stands in the way of your happiness for a while: but you are no losers by it. The happiness is all the sweeter when it comes at last.”
“But that is not what I mean. You have made it difficult for me to explain myself. I hardly know how to say it; but it must be said. You have mistaken my intentions—mistaken them altogether.”
It was now Mrs. Grey’s turn to change colour. She asked in a trembling voice:
“Do you mean to say, Mr. Hope, that you have not been paying attentions to Hester Ibbotson?”
“I do say so; that I have paid no attentions of the nature you suppose. You compel me to speak plainly.”
“Then I must speak plainly too, Mr. Hope. If any one had told me you would play the part you have played, I should have resented the imputation as I resent your conduct now. If you have not intended to win Hester’s affections, you have behaved infamously. You have won her attachment by attentions which have never varied, from the very first evening that she entered our house, till this afternoon. You have amused yourself with her, it seems; and now you are going to break her heart.”
“Stop, stop, Mrs. Grey! I cannot hear this.”
“There is not a soul in the place that does not think as I do. There is not a soul that will not say—.”
“Let us put aside what people may say. If, by any imprudence of my own, I have brought blame upon myself, I must bear it. The important point is—. Surely, Mrs. Grey, it is possible that you may be in error about Miss Ibbotson’s—Miss Ibbotson’s state of mind.”
“No, Mr. Hope, it is not possible.” And being in for it, as she said, Mrs. Grey gave such a detail of her observations, and of unquestionable facts, as left the truth indeed in little doubt.
“And Margaret,” said Mr. Hope, in a troubled voice: “do you know anything of her views of my conduct?”
“Margaret is not so easily seen through as Hester,” said Mrs. Grey: an assertion from which Mr. Hope silently dissented; Margaret appearing to him the most simple-minded person he had ever known; lucid in her sincerity, transparent in her unconsciousness. He was aware that Mrs. Grey had been so occupied with Hester as not to have been open to impression from Margaret.
“Margaret is not so easily seen through as Hester, you know; and she and I have never talked over your conduct confidentially: but if Margaret does not perceive the alteration in her sister, and the cause of it, it can only be because she is occupied with her own concerns.”
“That is not like Margaret,” thought Mr. Hope.
“However, she does see it, I am sure; for she has proposed their return to Birmingham—their immediate return, though their affairs are far from being settled yet, and they do not know what they will have to live upon. They promised to stay till October, too; and we are only half through August yet. Margaret can hardly have any wish to leave us on her own account, considering whom she must leave behind. It is for Hester’s sake, I am confident. There is no doubt of the fact, Mr. Hope. Your honour is involved. I repeat, you have won this dear girl’s affections; and now you must act as a man of conscience, which I have always supposed you to be.”
Mr. Hope was tempted to ask for further confirmation, from the opinions of the people who were about Hester; but he would not investigate the degree of exposure which might have taken place. Even if no one agreed with Mrs. Grey, this would be no proof that her conviction was a wrong one; it might happen through Hester’s successful concealment of what she must be striving to suppress.
Mrs. Grey urged him about his honour and conscience more closely than he could bear. He faintly begged her to leave him. He obtained from her a promise that she would inform no person of what had been said; and she again assured him that neither Hester, nor any one else, had the remotest idea of her speaking as she had done this evening. On his part, Mr. Hope declared that he should reflect on what had passed, and act with the strictest regard to duty. As, in Mrs. Grey’s eyes, his duty was perfectly clear, this declaration was completely satisfactory. She saw the young people, with her mind’s eye, settled in the corner house which belonged to Mr. Rowland, and was delighted that she had spoken. As soon as she was gone, Mr. Hope would discover, she had little doubt, that he had loved Hester all this time without having been conscious what the attraction had really been; and in a little while he would be thankful to her for having smoothed his way for him. With these thoughts in her mind, she bade him good-night, just as Mr. Grey drove up to the door. She whispered once more, that he was as dear to her as a son, and that this was the reason of her having spoken so plainly.
“How are you this evening, Hope?” said Mr. Grey, from the doorway. “On the sofa, eh? don’t rise for me, then. Rather done up, eh? Ah! I was afraid you were for getting on too fast. Bad economy in the end. You will be glad to be rid of us: so I shall not come in. Take care of yourself, I beg of you. Good-night.”
In what a state of mind was Hope left! His plain-speaking motherly friend little guessed what a storm she had raised in a spirit usually as calm as a summer’s morning. There was nothing to him so abhorrent as giving pain; nothing so intolerable in idea as injuring any human being: and he was now compelled to believe that through some conduct of his own, some imprudence, in a case where imprudence is guilt, he had broken up the peace of a woman whom, though he did not love, he respected and warmly regarded! His mind was in too tumultuous a state for him to attempt to settle with himself the degree of his culpability. He only knew that he was abased in his own sense of deep injury towards a fellow-creature. In the same breath came the destruction of his hopes—hopes, of which, till the moment, he had been scarcely conscious—with regard to the one on whom his thoughts had been really fixed. He had pledged himself to act strictly according to his sense of duty. His consolation, his refuge in every former trial of life, since the days of childhood, had been in resolving to abide faithfully by the decisions of duty. In this he had found freedom; in this he had met strength and repose, so that no evil had been intolerable to him. But what was his duty now? Amidst the contradictions of honour and conscience in the present case, where should he find his accustomed refuge? At one moment he saw clearly the obligation to devote himself to her whose affections he had gained—thoughtlessly and carelessly, it is true, but to other eyes purposely. At the next moment, the sin of marrying without love—if not while loving another—rose vividly before him, and made him shrink from what, an instant before, seemed clear duty. The only hope was in the possibility of mistake, which might yet remain. The whole could not be mistake, about Hester, and Enderby, and Margaret, and all Mrs. Grey’s convictions. Some of all this must be true. The probability was that it was all true: and if so—he could almost repine that he had not died when his death was expected. Then he should not have known of all this injury and woe; then he should not have had to witness Margaret’s love for another: then Hester’s
