The little girls seemed to wish to obey; but their brother still forced them to giggle; and their struggling entreaties were heard—“Now don’t, Sydney; now pray, Sydney, don’t!”
“Mary and Fanny, go to bed,” said their mother, decidedly, when lights were brought. “Sydney, bid your cousins good-night, and then come with me; I want to ask you a question.”
“Good-night already, mother! Why, it is not time yet this half-hour.”
“It is enough that I choose you to go to bed. Wish your cousins good-night, and come with me.”
Mrs. Grey led the way once more into the store-room, followed, rather sulkily, by Sydney.
“What can all this be about?” whispered Hester to Margaret. “There is always something going on which we are not to know.”
“Some affair of fruit, or wine, or bonbons, perhaps, which are all the better for making their appearance unexpectedly.”
At this moment Sophia and her mother entered by opposite doors. Sophia’s eyes were red; and there was every promise in her face that the slightest word spoken to her would again open the sluices of her tears. Mrs. Grey’s countenance was to the last degree dismal: but she talked—talked industriously, of everything she could think of. This was the broadest possible hint to the sisters not to inquire what was the matter; and they therefore went on sewing and conversing very diligently till they thought they might relieve Mrs. Grey by offering to retire. They hesitated only because Mr. Grey had not come in; and he so regularly appeared at ten o’clock, that they had never yet retired without having enjoyed half an hour’s chat with him.
“Sophia, my dear,” said her mother, “are the night candles there? Light your cousins’ candles.—I am sure they are wishing to go; and it is getting late. You will not see Mr. Grey to-night, my dears. He has been sent for to a distance.”
At this moment, the scrambling of a horse’s feet was heard on the gravel before the front door. Sophia looked at her mother, and each lighted a candle precipitately, and thrust it into a hand of each cousin.
“There, go, my dears,” said Mrs. Grey. “Never mind stopping for Mr. Grey. I will deliver your good-night to him. You will have to be rather early in the morning, you know. Good-night, good-night.”
Thus Hester and Margaret were hurried up-stairs, while the front door was in the act of being unbarred for Mr. Grey’s entrance. Morris was despatched after them, with equal speed, by Mrs. Grey’s orders, and she reached their chamber-door at the same moment that they did.
Hester set down her candle, bade Morris shut the door, and threw herself into an armchair with wonderful decision of manner, declaring that she had never been so treated;—to be amused and sent to bed like a baby, in a house where she was a guest!
“I am afraid something is the matter,” said Margaret.
“What then? they might have told us so, and said plainly that they had rather be alone.”
“People must choose their own ways of managing their own affairs, you know: and what those ways are cannot matter to us, as long as we are not offended at them.”
“Do you take your own way of viewing their behaviour, then, and leave me mine,” said Hester hastily.
Morris feared there was something amiss; and she believed Alice knew what it was: but she had not told either cook or housemaid a syllable about it. By Morris’s account, Alice had been playing the mysterious in the kitchen as her mistress had in the parlour. Mr. Grey had been suddenly sent for, and had saddled his horse himself, as his people were all gone, and there was no one on the premises to do it for him. A wine-glass had also been called for, for Miss Sophia, whose weeping had been overheard. Master Sydney had gone to his room very cross, complaining of his mother’s having questioned him overmuch about his ride, and then sent him to bed half an hour before his usual time.
A deadly fear seized upon Margaret’s heart, when she heard of Sydney’s complaint of being overmuch questioned about his ride—a deadly fear for Hester. If her suspicion should prove true, it was out of pure consideration that they had been “amused and sent to bed like babies.” A glance at Hester showed that the same apprehension had crossed her mind. Her eyes were closed for a moment, and her face was white as ashes. It was not for long, however. She presently said, with decision, that whatever was the matter, it must be some entirely private affair of the Greys’. If any accident had happened to any one in the village—if bad news had arrived of any common friend—there would be no occasion for secrecy. In such a case, Mrs. Grey would have given herself the comfort of speaking of it to her guests. It must certainly be some entirely private, some family affair.—Hester was sincere in what she said. She knew so little of the state of her own heart, that she could not conceive how some things in it could be divined or speculated upon by others. Still only on the brink of the discovery that she loved Mr. Hope, she could never have imagined that any one else could dream of such a thing—much less act upon it. She was angry with herself for letting her fears now point for a moment to Mr. Hope; for, if this bad news had related to him, her sister and she would, of course, have heard of it the next moment after the Greys. Margaret caught her sister’s meaning, and strove to the utmost to think as she did; but Sydney’s complaint of being “overmuch questioned about his ride” was fatal to the attempt. It returned upon her incessantly during the night; and when, towards morning, she slept a little, these words seemed to be sounding in her ear all the while. Before undressing, both she and Hester had been unable to resist stepping out upon the stairs to watch for signs whether it was the intention of the family to sit up or go to rest. All had retired to their rooms some time before midnight; and then it was certain that nothing more could be learned before morning.
Each sister believed that the other slept; but neither could be sure. It was an utterly wretched night to both, and the first which they had ever passed in misery, without speaking to each other. Margaret’s suffering was all from apprehension. Hester was little alarmed in comparison; but she this night underwent the discovery which her sister had made some little time ago. She discovered that nothing could happen to her so dreadful as any evil befalling Mr. Hope. She discovered that he was more to her than the sister whom she could have declared, but a few hours before, to be the dearest on earth to her. She discovered that she was for ever humbled in her own eyes; that her self-respect had received an incurable wound: for Mr. Hope had never given her reason to regard him as more than a friend. During the weary hours of this night, she revolved every conversation, every act of intercourse, which she could recall; and from all that she could remember, the same impression resulted—that Mr. Hope was a friend, a kind and sympathising friend—interested in her views and opinions, in her tastes and feelings;—that he was this kind friend, and nothing more. He had in no case distinguished her from her sister. She had even thought, at times, that Margaret had been the more important of the two to him. That might be from her own jealous temper, which, she knew, was apt to make her fancy every one preferred to herself: but she had thought that he liked Margaret best, as she was sure Mr. Enderby did. Whichever way she looked at the case, it was all wretchedness. She had lost her self-sufficiency and self-respect, and she was miserable.
The first rays of morning have a wonderful power of putting to flight the terrors of the darkness, whether their causes lie without us or within. When the first beam of the midsummer sunshine darted into the chamber, through the leafy limes which shaded one side of the apartment, Hester’s mood transiently changed. There was a brief reaction in her spirits. She thought she had been making herself miserable far too readily. The mystery of the preceding evening might turn out a trifle: she had been thinking too seriously about her own fancies. If she had really been discovering a great and sad secret about herself, no one else knew it, nor need ever know it. She could command herself; and, in the strength of pride and duty, she would do so. All was not lost. Before this mood had passed away, she fell asleep, with prayer in her heart, and quiet tears upon her cheek. Both sisters were roused from their brief slumbers by a loud tapping at their door. All in readiness to be alarmed, Margaret sprang up, and was at the door to know who was there.
“It