by George Eliot
‘I think you are quite right, Mrs Holt. And for my part, I am determined to do my best for your son, both in the witness-box and elsewhere. Take comfort; if it is necessary, the king shall be appealed to. And rely upon it, I shall bear you in mind, as Felix Holt’s mother.’
Rapid thoughts had convinced Harold that in this way he was best commending himself to Esther.
‘Well, sir,’ said Mrs Holt, who was not going to pour forth disproportionate thanks, ‘I’m glad to hear you speak so becoming; and if you had been the king himself, I should have made free to tell you my opinion. For the Bible says, the king’s favour is towards a wise servant;4 and it’s reasonable to think he’d make all the more account of them as have never been in service, or took wage, which I never did, and never thought of my son doing; and his father left money, meaning otherways, so as he might have been a doctor on horseback at this very minute, instead of being in prison.’
‘What! was he regularly apprenticed to a doctor?’ said Mr Lingon, who had not understood this before.
‘Sir, he was, and most clever, like his father before him, only he turned contrairy. But as for harming anybody, Felix never meant to harm anybody but himself and his mother, which he certainly did in respect of his clothes, and taking to be a low working man, and stopping my living respectable, more particular by the pills, which had a sale, as you may be sure they suited people’s insides. And what folks can never have boxes enough of to swallow, I should think you have a right to sell. And there’s many and many a text for it, as I’ve opened on without ever thinking; for if it’s true, “Ask, and you shall have,” I should think it’s truer when you’re willing to pay for what you have.’
This was a little too much for Mr Lingon’s gravity; he exploded, and Harold could not help following him. Mrs Holt fixed her eyes on the distance, and slapped the back of her left hand again: it might be that this kind of mirth was the peculiar effect produced by forcible truth on high and worldly people who were neither in the Independent nor the General Baptist connection.
‘I’m sure you must be tired with your long walk, and little Job too,’ said Esther, by way of breaking this awkward scene. ‘Aren’t you, Job?’ she added, stooping to caress the child, who was timidly shrinking from Harry’s invitation to him to pull the little chariot – Harry’s view being that Job would make a good horse for him to beat, and would run faster than Gappa.
‘It’s well you can feel for the orphin child, Miss Lyon,’ said Mrs Holt, choosing an indirect answer rather than to humble herself by confessing fatigue before gentlemen who seemed to be taking her too lightly. ‘I didn’t believe but what you’d behave pretty, as you always did to me, though everybody used to say you held yourself high. But I’m sure you never did to Felix, for you let him sit by you at the Free School before all the town, and him with never a bit of stock round his neck. And it shows you saw that in him worth taking notice of; – and it is but right, if you know my words are true, as you should speak for him to the gentlemen.’
‘I assure you, Mrs Holt,’ said Harold, coming to the rescue – ‘I assure you that enough has been said to make me use my best efforts for your son. And now, pray, go on to the house with the little boy and take some rest. Dominic, show Mrs Holt the way, and ask Mrs Hickes to make her comfortable, and see that somebody takes her back to Treby in the buggy.’
‘I will go back with Mrs Holt,’ said Esther, making an effort against herself.
‘No, pray,’ said Harold, with that kind of entreaty which is really a decision. ‘Let Mrs Holt have time to rest. We shall have returned, and you can see her before she goes. We will say good-bye for the present, Mrs Holt.’
The poor woman was not sorry to have the prospect of rest and food, especially for ‘the orphin child’, of whom she was tenderly careful. Like many women who appear to others to have a masculine decisiveness of tone, and to themselves to have a masculine force of mind, and who come into severe collision with sons arrived at the masterful stage, she had the maternal cord vibrating strongly within her towards all tiny children. And when she saw Dominic pick up Job and hoist him on his arm for a little while, by way of making acquaintance, she regarded him with an approval which she had not thought it possible to extend to a foreigner. Since Dominic was going, Harry and old Mr Transome chose to follow. Uncle Lingon shook hands and turned off across the grass, and thus Esther was left alone with Harold.
But there was a new consciousness between them. Harold’s quick perception was least likely to be slow in seizing indications of anything that might affect his position with regard to Esther. Some time before, his jealousy had been awakened to the possibility that before she had known him she had been deeply interested in some one else. Jealousy of all sorts – whether for our fortune or our love – is ready at combinations, and likely even to outstrip the fact. And Esther’s renewed confusion, united with her silence about Felix, which now first seemed noteworthy, and with Mrs Holt’s graphic details as to her walking with him and letting him sit by her before all the town, were grounds not merely for a suspicion, but for a conclusion in Harold’s mind. The effect of this, which he at once regarded as a discovery, was rather different from what Esther had anticipated. It seemed to him that Felix was the least formidable person that he could have found out as an object of interest antecedent to himself. A young workman who had got himself thrown into prison, whatever recommendations he might have had for a girl at a romantic age in the dreariness of Dissenting society at Treby, could hardly be considered by Harold in the light of a rival. Esther was too clever and tasteful a woman to make a ballad heroine of herself, by bestowing her beauty and her lands on this lowly lover. Besides, Harold cherished the belief that, at the present time, Esther was more wisely disposed to bestow these things on another lover in every way eligible. But in two directions this discovery had a determining effect on him; his curiosity was stirred to know exactly what the relation with Felix had been, and he was solicitous that his behaviour with regard to this young man should be such as to enhance his own merit in Esther’s eyes. At the same time he was not inclined to any euphemisms that would seem by any possibility to bring Felix into the lists with himself.
Naturally, when they were left alone, it was Harold who spoke first. ‘I should think there’s a good deal of worth in this young fellow – this Holt, notwithstanding the mistakes he has made. A little queer and conceited, perhaps; but that is usually the case with men of his class when they are at all superior to their fellows.’
‘Felix Holt is a highly cultivated man; he is not at all conceited,’ said Esther. The different kinds of pride within her were coalescing now. She was aware that there had been a betrayal.
‘Ah?’ said Harold, not quite liking the tone of this answer. ‘This eccentricity is a sort of fanaticism, then? – this giving up being a doctor on horseback, as the old woman calls it, and taking to – let me see – watchmaking, isn’t it?’
‘If it is eccentricity to be very much better than other men, he is certainly eccentric; and fanatical too, if it is fanatical to renounce all small selfish motives for the sake of a great and unselfish one. I never knew what nobleness of character really was before I knew Felix Holt.’
It seemed to Esther as if, in the excitement of this moment, her own words were bringing her a clearer revelation.
‘God bless me!’ said Harold, in a tone of surprised yet thorough belief, and looking in Esther’s face. ‘I wish you had talked to me about this before.’
Esther at that moment looked perfectly beautiful, with an expression which Harold had never hitherto seen. All the confusion which had depended on personal feeling had given way before the sense that she had to speak the truth about the man whom she felt to be admirable.
‘I think I didn’t see the meaning of anything fine – I didn’t even see the value of my father’s character, until I had been taught a little by hearing what Felix Holt said, and seeing that his life was like his words.’
Harold looked an
d listened, and felt his slight jealousy allayed rather than heightened. ‘This is not like love,’ he said to himself, with some satisfaction. With all due regard to Harold Transome, he was one of those men who are liable to make the greater mistakes about a particular woman’s feelings, because they pique themselves on a power of interpretation derived from much experience. Experience is enlightening, but with a difference. Experiments on live animals may go on for a long period, and yet the fauna on which they are made may be limited. There may be a passion in the mind of a woman which precipitates her, not along the path of easy beguilement, but into a great leap away from it. Harold’s experience had not taught him this; and Esther’s enthusiasm about Felix Holt did not seem to him to be dangerous.
‘He’s quite an apostolic sort of fellow, then,’ was the self-quieting answer he gave to her last words. ‘He didn’t look like that; but I had only a short interview with him, and I was given to understand that he refused to see me in prison. I believe he’s not very well inclined towards me. But you saw a great deal of him, I suppose; and your testimony to any one is enough for me,’ said Harold, lowering his voice rather tenderly. ‘Now I know what your opinion is, I shall spare no effort on behalf of such a young man. In fact, I had come to the same resolution before, but your wish would make difficult things easy.’
After that energetic speech of Esther’s, as often happens, the tears had just suffused her eyes. It was nothing more than might have been expected in a tender-hearted woman, considering Felix Holt’s circumstances, and the tears only made more lovely the look with which she met Harold’s when he spoke so kindly. She felt pleased with him; she was open to the fallacious delight of being assured that she had power over him to make him do what she liked, and quite forgot the many impressions which had convinced her that Harold had a padded yoke ready for the neck of every man, woman, and child that depended on him.
After a short silence, they were getting near the stone gateway, and Harold said, with an air of intimate consultation –
‘What could we do for this young man, supposing he were let off? I shall send a letter with fifty pounds to the old woman to-morrow. I ought to have done it before, but it really slipped my memory, amongst the many things that have occupied me lately. But this young man – what do you think would be the best thing we could do for him, if he gets at large again? He should be put in a position where his qualities could be more telling.’
Esther was recovering her liveliness a little, and was disposed to encourage it for the sake of veiling other feelings, about which she felt renewed reticence, now that the overpowering influence of her enthusiasm was past. She was rather wickedly amused and scornful at Harold’s misconceptions and ill-placed intentions of patronage.
‘You are hopelessly in the dark,’ she said, with a light laugh and toss of her head. ‘What would you offer Felix Holt? a place in the Excise? You might as well think of offering it to John the Baptist. Felix has chosen his lot. He means always to be a poor man.’
‘Means? Yes,’ said Harold, slightly piqued, ‘but what a man means usually depends on what happens. I mean to be a commoner; but a peerage might present itself under acceptable circumstances.’
‘O there is no sum in proportion to be done there,’ said Esther, again gaily. ‘As you are to a peerage, so is not Felix Holt to any offer of advantage that you could imagine for him.’
‘You must think him fit for any position – the first in the county.’
‘No, I don’t,’ said Esther, shaking her head mischievously. ‘I think him too high for it.’
‘I see you can be ardent in your admiration.’
‘Yes, it is my champagne; you know I don’t like the other kind.’
‘That would be satisfactory if one were sure of getting your admiration,’ said Harold, leading her up to the terrace, and amongst the crocuses, from whence they had a fine view of the park and river. They stood still near the east parapet, and saw the dash of light on the water, and the pencilled shadows of the trees on the grassy lawn.
‘Would it do as well to admire you, instead of being worthy to be admired?’ said Harold, turning his eyes from that landscape to Esther’s face.
‘It would be a thing to be put up with,’ said Esther, smiling at him rather roguishly. ‘But you are not in that state of self-despair.’
‘Well, I am conscious of not having those severe virtues that you have been praising.’
‘That is true. You are quite in another genre.’
‘A woman would not find me a tragic hero.’
‘O, no! She must dress for genteel comedy – such as your mother once described to me – where the most thrilling event is the drawing of a handsome cheque.’
‘You are a naughty fairy,’ said Harold, daring to press Esther’s hand a little more closely to him, and drawing her down the eastern steps into the pleasure-ground, as if he were unwilling to give up the conversation. ‘Confess that you are disgusted with my want of romance.’
‘I shall not confess to being disgusted. I shall ask you to confess that you are not a romantic figure.’
‘I am a little too stout.’
‘For romance – yes. At least you must find security for not getting stouter.’
‘And I don’t look languishing enough?’
‘O yes – rather too much so – at a fine cigar.’
‘And I am not in danger of committing suicide?’
‘No; you are a widower.’
Harold did not reply immediately to this last thrust of Esther’s. She had uttered it with innocent thoughtlessness from the playful suggestions of the moment; but it was a fact that Harold’s previous married life had entered strongly into her impressions about him. The presence of Harry made it inevitable. Harold took this allusion of Esther’s as an indication that his quality of widower was a point that made against him; and after a brief silence he said, in an altered, more serious tone –
‘You don’t suppose, I hope, that any other woman has ever held the place that you could hold in my life?’
Esther began to tremble a little, as she always did when the love-talk between them seemed getting serious. She only gave the rather stumbling answer, ‘How so?’
‘Harry’s mother had been a slave – was bought, in fact.’
It was impossible for Harold to preconceive the effect this had on Esther. His natural disqualification for judging of a girl’s feelings was heightened by the blinding effect of an exclusive object – which was to assure her that her own place was peculiar and supreme. Hitherto Esther’s acquaintance with Oriental love was derived chiefly from Byronic poems, and this had not sufficed to adjust her mind to a new story, where the Giaour5 concerned was giving her his arm. She was unable to speak; and Harold went on –
‘Though I am close on thirty-five, I never met with a woman at all like you before. There are new eras in one’s life that are equivalent to youth – are something better than youth. I was never an aspirant till I knew you.’
Esther was still silent.
‘Not that I dare to call myself that. I am not so confident a personage as you imagine. I am necessarily in a painful position for a man who has any feeling.’
Here at last Harold had stirred the right fibre. Esther’s generosity seized at once the whole meaning implied in that last sentence. She had a fine sensibility to the line at which flirtation must cease; and she was now pale, and shaken with feelings she had not yet defined for herself.
‘Do not let us speak of difficult things any more now,’ she said, with gentle seriousness. ‘I am come into a new world of late, and have to learn life all over again. Let us go in. I must see poor Mrs Holt again, and my little friend Job.’
She paused at the glass door that opened on the terrace, and entered there, while Harold went round to the stables.6
When Esther had been up-stairs and descended again into the large entrance-hall, she found its stony spaciousness made lively by human figures extremely unlike the statues. Since Har
ry insisted on playing with Job again, Mrs Holt and her orphan, after dining, had just been brought to this delightful scene for a game at hide-and-seek, and for exhibiting the climbing powers of the two pet-squirrels. Mrs Holt sat on a stool, in singular relief against the pedestal of the Apollo, while Dominic and Denner (otherwise Mrs Hickes) bore her company; Harry, in his bright red and purple, flitted about like a great tropic bird after the sparrow-tailed Job, who hid himself with much intelligence behind the scagliola pillars and the pedestals; while one of the squirrels perched itself on the head of the tallest statue, and the other was already peeping down from among the heavy stuccoed angels on the ceiling, near the summit of a pillar.
Mrs Holt held on her lap a basket filled with good things for Job, and seemed much soothed by pleasant company and excellent treatment. As Esther, descending softly and unobserved, leaned over the stone bannisters and looked at the scene for a minute or two, she saw that Mrs Holt’s attention, having been directed to the squirrel which had scampered on to the head of the Silenus carrying the infant Bacchus, had been drawn downward to the tiny babe looked at with so much affection by the rather ugly and hairy gentleman, of whom she nevertheless spoke with reserve as of one who possibly belonged to the Transome family.
‘It’s most pretty to see its little limbs, and the gentleman holding it. I should think he was amiable by his look; but it was odd he should have his likeness took without any clothes. Was he Transome by name?’ (Mrs Holt suspected that there might be a mild madness in the family.)
Denner, peering and smiling quietly, was about to reply, when she was prevented by the appearance of old Mr Transome, who since his walk had been having ‘forty winks’ on the sofa in the library, and now came out to look for Harry. He had doffed his furred cap and cloak, but in lying down to sleep he had thrown over his shoulders a soft Oriental scarf which Harold had given him, and this still hung over his scanty white hair and down to his knees, held fast by his wooden-looking arms and laxly clasped hands, which fell in front of him.
