Chapter XXIX

I think that people's value, or want of value, is seldom their own: it belongs rather to the circumstances that surround them--to attributes foreign to themselves--outside of them. Had Robinson Crusoe, while walking down Bond Street in flowing wig and lace ruffles, first met his man Friday, he might have tossed him sixpence to avoid his importunities; but would hardly have taken him into intimate friendship--would hardly even have admitted him as a man and a brother. Among the blind the one-eyed is king, and among a crowd of total strangers an acquaintance rises into a friend.

Lonely Esther is half-inclined to effect this metamorphosis in the case of Miss Blessington. The mere fact of having eaten, drank, and slept for a considerable period under the same roof with her--the bare fact of having lived with and disliked her during a whole month and more--was enough recommendation in a house not one of whose inmates had she ever beheld before. Almost as a friend has she greeted her this morning. With admiration most unfeigned, though made a little bitter by mental comparison with her own dimmed, grief-blighted beauty, has she regarded the stately woman, the splendid animal, sleek and white as a sacred Egyptian cow; the brilliancy of whose pale, bright hair, and the perfect smoothness of her great satin throat, are heightened by the sober richness of her creaseless black velvet dress. Voluptuous, yet cold, the passions that her splendid physique provoke are chilled to death by the passionless stupor of her soul. I am not at all sure that impassioned ugliness--supposing the ugliness to be moderate, and the passion immoderate--has not more attraction for the generality of men than iced beauty.

Esther's warmth is thrown away; she might as well expect that the "Venus de Medici" would return the pressure of warm clinging fingers with her freezing, sculptured hand.

"I was so glad to find you here last night: it was so pleasant to see a face one knew," Miss Craven says, with the rash credulity of youth unexpectant of snubs.

Miss Blessington looks slightly surprised. "Tha--anks; it is very good of you to say so, I am sure," she answers, rather drawlingly, and with a small, cold smile that would repress demonstrations much more violent than any that Esther had meditated. It is difficult _always_ to remember that one is a "companion."

The Blessington dining-room is, like the other reception-rooms, huge and very nobly proportioned. Did we not know that our seventeenth and eighteenth century ancestors were not giants, we should be prone to imagine that it must have been a race of Anakims that required such great wide spaces to sup, and sip chocolate, and play at ombre in. The furniture is in its dotage; it has, figuratively speaking, like its owners, lost hair and teeth, and all unnecessary etceteras; it is reduced to the bare elements of existence. Three tall windows look out upon a flat lawn, and in the middle of this lawn, exactly opposite Esther's eyes, as she sits at breakfast, is an unique and chaste piece of statuary, entitled "The Rape of the Sabines." The space afforded by the stone pediment is necessarily limited, and consequently Roman and Sabines, gentlemen and lady, are all piled one a-top of another in such inextricable confusion as to demand a good quarter of an hour's close observation to determine which of the muscular writhing legs belong to the Roman ravisher and which to the injured Sabine husband. As the sculptor has given none of his _protégées_ any clothing, the snow has been kind enough to throw a modest white mantle over them all.

"Mr. and Mrs. Blessington do not come down to breakfast?" says Esther, interrogatively, as the two girls seat themselves at table.

"No; they breakfast in their own rooms."

"I suppose," says Esther, with some embarrassment, "that they will send for me if they want me for anything, won't they? Perhaps" (with diffidence)--"perhaps you will kindly tell me the sort of things they will want me to do?"

"My uncle will be down presently," answered Miss Blessington, "and he will then expect you to read to him until luncheon."

"To read what? The Bible?" inquired Esther, who has a vague idea that the Bible is the only form in which literature should employ the attention of the aged.

"The Bible? Oh, dear, no!" (with a little laugh). "The papers: the _Times_, _Saturday_, and _Justice of the Peace_, are his favourites; he takes a great, a _remarkable_ interest, considering his age, in politics."

"I like reading aloud," says Esther, resolute to look on the bright side.

"Reading aloud to my uncle is very fatiguing," replies Constance, cheeringly: "one has to sustain one's voice at a pitch several octaves higher than the natural one. I attempted reading to him once or twice, but it affected my throat so much that I had to leave off," she ends, with a little lackadaisical cough.

"I daresay it won't affect mine," rejoins the other rather drily.

There is a pause. Talking is a vice to which Miss Blessington is nowise addicted--more especially objectless talking to a little person of the feminine gender who is not one of _nous autres_.

"I hope," says Esther, presently, trusting to the obtuseness of her companion's perceptions not to discover the flagrant hypocrisy of the question--"I hope that Sir Thomas was quite well when you left Felton?"

"Quite--thanks."

"And Lady Gerard?"

"Yes--thanks."

"And--and" (bending down her head in the vain endeavour to screen the red blush that the frosty sun, flaming in through the window opposite, makes obtrusively evident)--"and Mr. Gerard?"

"He is _very_ well--thanks," replies Miss Blessington, with the conscious smile that had formerly exasperated Esther, and with an emphasis not common with her.

Miss Blessington does not usually employ emphasis: it is _mezzoceto_, as is enthusiasm of which it is the exponent.

Half an hour later Esther is sitting beside the old squire, as close as possible to his best ear, brandishing the _Times'_ giant squares in her unaccustomed hand. The old squire is a superb wreck. Spiteful Time is fond of removing the landmarks that youth sets upon our faces; is fond of changing great, clear, almond eyes into little damp jellies--sweet moist pursemouths into dry bags of wrinkles; but it is a task beyond even _his_ power to destroy the shape of that grand old bent head--to deface the outlines of that thin-nostriled, patrician nose.

"What shall I read first?" asks the young girl, timidly, but enunciating each syllable with painstaking slowness and clearness.

"The State of the Funds," replies the old gentleman, promptly, thrusting his hand into his breast, and closing his eyes, in his favourite attitude.

Esther has not the most distant idea where the "State of the Funds" lives: she turns the huge sheets topsy-turvy--inside out, outside in--in the vain search for their habitat, making, meanwhile, the most unjustifiable aggressive rustling and crackling, which she presumptuously trusts to his deafness not to hear.

"Don't make such an infernal crackling, my dear!" he says presently, with some pettishness.

"I thought you could not hear," she unwisely answers, trembling.

"God bless my soul, child! The dead would have heard the noise you were making," he rejoins, snappishly.

Having at length mastered the fact that the "State of the Funds" comes under the head of "Money Market and City Intelligence," Esther gives the desired information. Then follows a leader:

"The position of American politics is at this moment peculiarly perplexing and anomalous; so perplexing that even those English observers who, like ourselves, have given a careful and constant attention to the course of the Transatlantic movement since the first appearance of Secession, can hardly pretend clearly to understand----"

"Pretend clearly to _what?_ For God's sake don't gabble so!"

"Can--hardly--pretend--clearly--to--understand--the--full--meaning --of--the--situation,--and--must--feel--that--it--would--be----"

"Is there no medium, may I ask, between gabbling and drawling?"

"And must feel that it would be rash to express a confident opinion thereupon."

Esther now proceeds for a considerable period unchecked--gradually and unconsciously relapsing into the brisk gallop so dear to youth when engaged upon a subject that does not interest it. Suddenly a deep slumberous breath, drawn close to her ear, makes her aware that her hearer has lapsed into sleep.

"I have read him to sleep," she says to herself, with a sort of triumphant feeling at her own prowess, taking furtive glances at the wrinkled profile, sunk, in perfect imbecility of slumber, on his breast.

Not feeling any particular personal interest in the effect of Secession upon American politics, she stops, and gazes vacantly out of window at the "Rape of the Sabines." But the cessation of the sweet monotony that lulled him, arouses the old man.

"Go on--go on!" he cries, fussily, lifting his head and opening his dim eyes. "What are you stopping for? Read that paragraph over again; you read it so fast that I could not quite follow the meaning of it."

She complies, and so, with dozing and waking, waking and dozing, on one side, reading and stopping, stopping and reading on the other, the little drama plays itself out till nearly luncheon-time.

"We are going to drive into Shelford this afternoon; do you feel inclined to come with us, Constance, my dear?" asks the old lady, as they quit the luncheon-table--Esther dutifully bringing up the rear, with air-cushion, footstool, and _couvre-pied_.

"Not to-day, aunt, I think--thanks," answers Constance, with the utmost sweetness; the "Not to-day" seeming to imply that on some future morrow she will gladly avail herself of the invitation to join her elderly relatives in their _triste_ airing; but Miss Blessington being in her generation a wise woman, that morrow never comes.

The old family-coach rolls round the frosty sweep to the door; two large horses, sleek and fat with over-many oats and over-little work, draw it.

"The tails of both hung down behind,
Their shoes were on their feet."

"Give me your arm, Miss Craven; one is very apt to fall this frosty weather," says the old lady, appearing at the door, transformed, by the aid of numberless cloaks and shawls, and a huge velvet bonnet, date anno domini, into a large and perfectly shapeless bundle.

Supported on one side by Esther's slender arm, and on the other by the florid and plethoric butler, she is hoisted up the three steps into the body of the ancient machine, which is painted invisible green, and hung marvellous high in air. The same course is pursued with the old gentleman, who, muffled, comfortered, and scarved up to the tip of his venerable nose, follows. Lastly, the young prop steps in, and sits down humbly with her back to the horses--a process which usually ends in making her sick. The windows are shut tight up; a great hot skin of some wild beast is thrown over their knees; in that confined atmosphere it emits a strong furry odour, more powerful than agreeable; striving emulously with it--sometimes mastering it, sometimes mastered by it--is the fusty smell of the cloth lining. The old people do not seem to perceive either; old noses have less keen scent, old lungs require less air to feed on, than young ones.

"Trit-trot, trit-trot, trit-trot," goes the old vehicle along the beaten snow of the broad turnpike-road. As they are jogging a little brisklier than usual down a _very_ slight decline, the old gentleman speaks--his strong, shaky old voice loudly audible above the "rumble--rumble--rumble," which, joined to the want of air, is fast making Esther faint and headachy:

"What the deuce does Ruggles mean going at such a pace down these steep hills? Does he think he is to knock my horses' legs all to pieces for his own amusement?"

"I'm sure I don't know, Mr. Blessington," answers the old lady, nervously laying hold of the side of the carriage; "it is not at all safe this slippery weather; I'm sure I hope the horses are roughed."

"Miss Craven, tell him to mind what he is about; tell him to go slower--_much_ slower," says the old gentleman, in some excitement.

Miss Craven, having with some difficulty lowered the front window, thrusts her head out of it, and, having taken the opportunity to open mouth and nose and eyes as wide as they will go, to inhale as large a quantity as possible of crisp fresh air, cries: "Ruggles! Ruggles! go slower! _much_ slower!"

Ruggles grins, but complies, and subsides into a solemn walk, which continues until they reach Shelford. There smug bareheaded shop-keepers, violet-nosed, scarlet-fingered, standing out in the cold street at the carriage-door, executing with pleased alacrity extensive commissions of half a yard of elastic for Miss Blessington--three ounces of red wool for Mrs. Blessington's knitting--half a dozen blue envelopes for Mr. Blessington. Then, "trit-trot, jig-jog," home again.

Dinner at six: a later hour would be fatal to his digestion, the old gentleman thinks, then, a nice long evening--long as one of those _Veillées du Château_, when Madame la Baronne read aloud some enthralling yet severely moral tale, and Cæsar and Caroline and Pulchérie all sat entranced, unheeding the flight of time, as ticked away by the château clocks. There is only one small lamp in the whole of the grand old room, and that, in deference to the old man's failing eyes, is hung with so large and deep a green shade, that it is impossible to see to do anything by its light. There is nothing for it but to gape, from seven till ten, at the great battle-pieces hung round the walls--to endeavour to make out, by the aid of the fitful firelight, the singularly clean dead bodies, free apparently from the slightest speck of dust, or stain of blood; at the red-nostriled chargers, snorting away their ebbing lives with all four legs in the air. At ten o'clock, James rung for, to light the candles: then Mrs. Blessington, her air-cushion, work-basket, and Shetland shawl, escorted to her room; two long chapters and several psalms read to her; then a frightened rush along dark passages and draughty galleries to the great distant bedroom--to the rats' multifarious noises; to the ingenious tunes played by the wind upon the rattling window-frames; to the ginger-curtained bed and many-folded screen; to _possible_ sleep, and _certain_ terrors--terrors none the less awful for being totally unreasonable.