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JOHN CALDIGATE
‘She is controller of her own actions as completely as are
you and I. We have already seen how inefficacious with her are
all attempts at persuasion. And she knows her position. If he
were out of prison to-morrow he would be her husband.’
‘But he has another wife.’
‘Of that the civil law knows nothing. If money were coming to her he could claim it, and the verdict against him would
only be evidence, to be taken for what it was worth. It would
have been all very well had she wished to sever herself from
him; but as she is determined not to do so, any interference
would be useless.’ The question as to the marriage or no marriage was not made quite clear to the banker’s mind, but he did
understand that neither he, nor his wife, nor his sons had ‘any
power,’ and of that argument he was determined to make use.
William, the barrister in London, was induced to write
a letter, a very lengthy and elaborate epistle having come
from Mrs. Bolton to his wife, in which the religious duty of
all the Boltons was set forth in strong language, and in which
he was incited to do something. It was almost the first letter
which Mrs. William Bolton had ever received from her stepmother, whatever trifling correspondence there might have
been between them having been of no consequence. They, too,
felt that it would be better that Hester should return to her
old home, but felt also that they had no power. ‘Of course, she
won’t,’ said Mrs. William.
‘She has a will of her own,’ said the barrister.
‘Why should she? Think of the gloom of that home
at Chesterton, and her absolute independence at Folking. No
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ANTHONY TROLLOPE
doubt it would be better. The position is so frightful that even
the gloom would be better. But she won’t. We all know that.’
The barrister, however, feeling that it would be better,
thought that he should perform his duty by expressing his
opinion, and wrote a letter to Hester, which was intended to
be if possible persuasive; — and this was the answer:—
‘DEAR WILLIAM — If you were carried away to prison
on some horrible false accusation, would Fanny go away from
you, and desert your house and your affairs, and return to her
parents? You ask her, and ask her whether she would believe
anything that anybody could say against you. If they told her
that her children were nameless, would she agree to make
them so by giving up your name? Wouldn’t she cling to you
the more, the more all the world was against you?’ (‘I would,’
said Fanny, with tearful energy. ‘Fanny’ was, of course, Mrs.
William Bolton, and was the happy mother of five nearly
grown-up sons and daughters, and certainly stood in no peril as to her own or their possession of the name of Bolton.
The letter was being read aloud to her by her husband,
whose mind was also stirred in his sister’s favour by the nature of the arguments used.) ‘If so,’ continued the writer, ‘why
shouldn’t I be the same? I don’t believe a word the people
said. I am sure I am his wife. And as, when he was taken away
from me, he left a house for his wife and child to live in, I shall
continue to live in it.
‘All the same, I know you mean to be good to me. Give my
best love to Fanny, and believe me your affectionate sister,
‘HESTER CALDIGATE.’
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JOHN CALDIGATE
In every letter and stroke of the name as she wrote it there
was an assertion that she claimed it as her own, and that she
was not ashamed of it.
‘Upon my word,’ said Mrs. William Bolton, through her
tears, ‘I am beginning to think that she is almost right.’ There
was so much of conjugal proper feeling in this that the husband could only kiss his wife and leave her without further
argument on the matter.
CHAPTER XLVI
BURNING WORDS
‘No power at all; none whatever,’ the banker said, when he
was next compelled to carry on the conversation. This was immediately upon his return home from Cambridge, for his wife
never allowed the subject to be forgotten or set aside. Every afternoon and every evening it was being discussed at all hours
not devoted to prayers, and every morning it was renewed at
the breakfast-table.
‘That comes from Robert.’ Mr. Bolton was not able to deny
the assertion. ‘What does he mean by “no power”?’
‘We can’t make her do it. The magistrates can’t interfere.’
‘Magistrates! Has it been by the interference of magistrates
that men have succeeded in doing great things? Was it by order from the magistrates that the lessons of Christ have been
taught over all the world? Is there no such thing as persuasion? Has truth no power? Is she more deaf to argument and
eloquence than another?’
‘She is very deaf, I think,’ said the father, doubting his own
eloquence.
‘It is because no one has endeavoured to awaken her by
burning words to a true sense of her situation When she said
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JOHN CALDIGATE
this she must surely have forgotten much that had occurred
during those weary hours which had been passed by her and
her daughter outside there in the hall. ‘No power!’ she repeated. ‘It is the answer always made by those who are too sleepy to
do the Lord’s work. It was because men said that they had no
power that the grain fell upon stony places, where they had
not much earth. It is that aversion to face difficulties which
causes the broad path to be crowded with victims. I, at any rate,
will go. I may have no power, but I will make the attempt.’
Soon after that she did make the attempt. Mr. Bolton,
though he was assured by Robert that such an attempt would
produce no result, could not interfere to prevent it. Had he
been far stronger than he was in his own house, he could
hardly have forbidden the mother to visit the daughter. Hester had sent word to say that she did not wish to see even her
mother. But this had been immediately after the verdict, when
she was crushed and almost annihilated by her misery. Some
weeks had now passed by, and it could not be that she would
refuse to admit the visitor, when such a visitor knocked at her
door. They had loved each other as mothers and daughters do
love when there is no rival in the affection — when each has
no one else to love. There never had been a more obedient
child, or a more loving parent. Much, no doubt, had happened
since to estrange the daughter from the mother. A husband
had been given to her who was more to her than any parent —
as a husband should be. And then there had been that terrible opposition, that struggle, that battle in the hall. But
the mother’s love had never waned because of that. She was
sure that her child would not refuse to see her.
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ANTHONY TROLLOPE
So the fly was ordered to take her out to Folking, and on
the morning fixed she dressed herself in her blackest black.
She always wore brown or black — brown being the colour
suitable for the sober and sad domesticities of her week-days,
which on ceremonies and Sabbath was changed for a more solemn black. But in her wardrobe there were two such gowns,
one of which was apparently blacker than the other, nearer to
a guise of widowhood — more fit, at any rate, for general funereal obsequies. There are women who seem always to be burying someone; and Mrs. Bolton, as she went forth to visit her
daughter, was fit to bury any one short of her husband.
It was a hot day in August, and the fly travelled along
the dusty road very slowly. She had intended to reach Folking at twelve, so that her interview might be over and that she
might return without the need of eating. There is always some
idea of festivity connected with food eaten at a friend’s table,
and she did not wish to be festive. She was, too, most unwilling to partake of John Caldigate’s bread. But she did not reach
the house till one, and when she knocked at the door Hester’s
modest lunch was about to be put upon the table.
There was considerable confusion when the servant saw
Mrs. Bolton standing in the doorway. It was quite understood
by everyone at Folking that for the present there was to be
no intercourse between the Boltons and the Caldigates. It
was understood that there should be no visitors of any kind
at Folking, and it had been thought that Mr. Smirkie had
forced an entrance in an impertinent manner. But yet it was
not possible to send Mrs. Bolton from her own daughter’s door
with a mere ‘not at home.’ Of course she was shown in — and
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JOHN CALDIGATE
was taken to the parlour, in which the lunch was prepared,
while word was taken up to Hester announcing that her
mother was there.
Mr. Caldigate was in the house — in his own book-room, as
it used to be called — and Hester went to him first. ‘Mamma is
here — in the dining-room.’
‘Your mother!’
‘I long to see mamma.’
‘Of course you do.’
‘But she will want me to go away with her.’
‘She cannot take you unless you choose to go.’
‘But she will speak of nothing else. I know it. I wish she had
not come.’
‘Surely, Hester, you can make her understand that your
mind is made up.’
‘Yes, I shall do that. I must do that. But, father, it will be
very painful. You do not know what things she can say. It nearly killed me when I was at the Grange. You will not see her,
I suppose?’
‘If you wish it, I will. She will not care to see me; and as
things are at present, what room is there for friendship?’
‘You will come if I send for you?’
‘Certainly. If you send for me I will come at once.’
Then she crept slowly out of the room, and very slowly and
very silently made her way to the parlour-door. Though she
was of a strong nature, unusually strong of heart and fixed of
purpose, now her heart misgave her. That terrible struggle,
with all its incidents of weariness and agony, was present to her
mind. Her mother could not turn the lock on her now; but, as
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ANTHONY TROLLOPE
she had said, it would be very dreadful. Her mother would say
words to her which would go through her like swords. Then
she opened the door, and for a moment there was the sweetness of an embrace. There was a prolonged tenderness in
the kiss which, even to Mrs. Bolton, had a charm for the moment to soften her spirit. ‘Oh, mamma; my own mamma!’
‘My child!’
‘Yes, mamma; — every day when I pray for you I tell myself
that I am still your child — I do.’
‘My only one! my only one! — all that I have!’ Then again
they were in each other’s arms. Yet, when they had last met, one
had been the jailer, and the other the prisoner; and they had
fought it out between them with a determined obstinacy which
at moments had almost amounted to hatred. But now the very
memory of these sad hours increased their tenderness. ‘Hester,
through it all, do you not know that my heart yearns for you
day and night? — that in my prayers I am always remembering you? that my dreams are happy because you are with me?
that I am ever longing for you as Ruth longed for Naomi? I am
as Rachel weeping for her children, who would not be comforted because they are not. Day and night my heart-strings
are torn asunder because my eyes behold you not.’
It was true — and the daughter knew it to be true. But
what could be done? There had grown up something for her,
holier, greater, more absorbing even than a mother’s love. Happily for most young wives, though the new tie may surmount
the old one, it does not crush it or smother it. The mother retains a diminished hold, and knowing what nature has intended is content. She, too, with some subsidiary worship, kneels
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at the new altar, and all is well. But here, though there was
abundant love, there was no sympathy. The cause of discord
was ever present to them both. Unless John Caldigate was
acknowledged to be a fitting husband, not even the mother
could be received with a full welcome. And unless John Caldigate were repudiated, not even the daughter could be accepted as altogether pure. Parental and filial feelings sufficed
for nothing between them beyond the ecstasy of a caress.
As Hester was standing mute, still holding her mother’s
hand, the servant came to the door, and asked whether she
would have her lunch.
‘You will stay and eat with me, mamma? But you will
come up to my room first?’
‘I will go up to your room, Hester.’
‘Then we will have our lunch,’ Hester said, turning to
the servant. So the two went together to the upper chamber,
and in a moment the mother had fetched her baby, and placed
it in her mother’s arms.
‘I wish he were at the Grange,’ said Mrs. Bolton. Then Hester shook her head; but feeling the security of her position, left
the baby with its grandmother. ‘I wish he were at the Grange.
It is the only fitting home for him at present.’
‘No, mamma; that cannot be.’
‘It should be so, Hester. It should be so.’
‘Pray do not speak of it, dear mamma.’
‘Have I not come here on purpose that I might speak of it?
Sweet as it is to me to have you in my arms, do you not know
that I have come for that purpose — for that only?’
‘It cannot be so.’
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‘I will not take such an answer, Hester. I am not here to
speak of pleasure or delights — not to speak of sweet companionship, or even of a return to that more godly life which,
I think, you would find in your father’s house. Had not this
ruin come, unhappy though I might have been, and distrustful, I should not have interfered. Those whom God has joined
together, let not man put asunder.’
‘It is what I say to myself every hour. God has joined us, and
no man, no number of men, shall put us asunder.’
‘But, my own darling — God has not joined you! When he
pretended to be joined to you, he had a wife then living —
still living.’
‘No.’
‘Will you set up your own opinion against evidence which
the jury has believed, which the judge has believed, which all
the world has believed?’
‘Yes, I will,’ said Hester, the whole nature of whose face
was now altered, and who looked as she did when sitting in
the hall-chair at Puritan Grange — ‘I will. Though I were
almost to know that he had been false, I should still believe
him to be true.’
‘I cannot understand that, Hester.’
‘But I know him to be true — quite true,’ she said, wishing to erase the feeling which her unguarded admission had
made. ‘Not to believe him to have been true would be death to
me; and for my boy’s sake, I would wish to live. But I have no
doubt, and I will listen to no one — not even to you, when you
tell me that God did not join us together.’
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