He did read them all about Frank--all the last half of the letter-- Hester hanging on his arm, and Philip and Margaret listening, as if they were taking in their share of family news. When it was done, and some one said it was time to be turning homewards, Hope disengaged his arm from Hester, and ran off, saying that he would report of Mrs Enderby to Mr Rowland in the office, and meet them before they should be out of the shrubbery. He did so: but he first took his way round by a fence which was undergoing the operation of tarring, thrust Frank's letter into the fire over which the tar was heating, and saw every inch of it consumed before he proceeded. When he regained his party, Hester took his arm, and turned once more towards the shrubbery, saying--

"We have plenty of time, and I am not at all tired: so now read me the rest."

"My love, I have read you all I can."

Hester stopped short, and with flashing eyes, whose fire was scarcely dimmed by her tears, cried--

"Do you mean to give me no more of your confidence than others? Is your wife--"

"My dear, it is not my confidence: it is Frank's."

"And is not Frank my brother? He is nothing to them."

"He was not your brother when this letter was written, nor did he know that he should ever be so. Consider this letter as one of old time--as belonging to the antiquity of our separate lives. I hope there will never be another letter from Frank, or anybody else (out of the range of my professional affairs) whose contents will not be as much yours as mine. This must satisfy you now, Hester; for I can tell you no more.

This ought to satisfy you."

"It does not satisfy me. I never will be satisfied with giving all, and having nothing in return. I have given you all. Not a thought has there been in my heart about Margaret, from the day we married, that I have not imparted to you. Has it not been so?"

"I believe it, and I thank you for it."

"And what is it to you to have a sister--you who have always had sisters--what is it to you, in comparison with my longing to have a brother? And now you make him no more mine than he is Margaret's and Philip's. He himself, if he has the heart of a brother, would cry out upon you for disappointing me."

"I can allow for your feelings, Hester. I have known too well what disappointment is, not to feel for you. But here the fault is not mine."

"Whose is it then? It is to be charged upon Providence, I suppose, like most of our evils."

"No, Hester; I charge it upon you. The disappointment was unavoidable; but the sting of it lies in yourself. You are unreasonable. It is at your own request that I remind you to be reasonable."

"And when was that request made? When I believed that you would hold me your friend--that no others were to come near my place in your confidence--that all you cared for was to be equally mine--that your brother himself was to be my brother. It was when you promised me these things that I put my conscience and my feelings into your charge. But now all that is over. You are as much alone in your own soul as ever, and I am thrust out from it as if you were like other men... Oh!" she cried, covering her face with her hands, "call me your housekeeper at once--for I am not your wife--and breathe not upon my conscience--look not into my heart--for what are they to you? I reclaim from you, as your servant, the power I gave you over my soul, when I supposed I was to be your wife."

"Now you must hear me, Hester. Sit down; for you cannot stand under the tempest of your own feelings. Now, what are the facts out of which all this has arisen? I have had a letter, written before we were known to be engaged, containing something which is confided to my honour. We had both rather that such had not been the case. Would you now have me violate my honour? Let us have done. The supposition is too ridiculous."

"But the manner," pleaded Hester. "It is not curiosity about the letter. I care nothing if it contained the affairs of twenty nations.

But, oh! your manner was cruel. If you loved me as you once did, you could not treat me exactly as you treat Margaret and Philip. You do not love me as you once did... You do not answer me," she continued in a tone of wretchedness. "Nay, do not answer me now. It will not satisfy me to hear you say upon compulsion that you love me. Ah! I had Margaret once; and once I had you. Philip has taken my Margaret from me; and if you despise me, I will lie down and die."

"Fear not!" said Hope, with great solemnity. "While I live you shall be honoured, and have such rest as you will allow to your own heart. But do you not see that you have now been distrusting me--not I you? Shall I begin to question whether you love me? Could you complain of injustice if I did, when you have been tempting my honour, insulting my trust in you, and wounding my soul? Is this the love you imagine I cannot estimate and return? This is madness, Hester. Rouse yourself from it. Waken up the most generous part of yourself. We shall both have need of it all."

"Oh, G.o.d! what do you intend? Consider again, before you break my heart, if you mean to say that we must... Edward! forgive me, Edward!"

"I mean to say that we must support each other under troubles of G.o.d's sending, instead of creating woes of our own."

"Support each other! Thank Heaven!"

"I see how your spirit rouses itself at the first sound of threatening from without. I knew it would. Rough and trying times are coming, love, and I must have your support. Trouble is coming--daily and hourly annoyance, and no end of it that I can see: and poverty, perhaps, instead of the ease to which we looked forward when you married me. I do not ask you whether you can bear these things, for I know you can. I shall look to you to help me to keep my temper."

"Are you not mocking me?" doubtfully whispered Hester.

"No, my love," her husband replied, looking calmly in her face. "I know you to be a friend made for adversity."

"Let it come, then!" exclaimed she. And she felt herself on the threshold of a new life, in which all the past might yet be redeemed.

They soon rejoined Margaret, and went home to relate and to hear what new threats the day had disclosed.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

DEERBROOK COMMOTIONS.

Among many vague threats, there was one pretty definite menace which had encountered Hope from various quarters of late. By whose agency, and by what means, he did not know, but he apprehended a design to supplant him in his practice. There was something more meant than that Mr Foster from Blickley appeared from time to time in the village. Hope imagined that there was a looking forward to somebody else, who was to cure all maladies as soon as they appeared, and keep death at a distance from Deerbrook. It seemed to be among the poor people chiefly that such an expectation prevailed. Philip was sure that Mr Rowland knew nothing of it, nor Mrs Enderby. Mr Grey, when spoken to, did not believe it, but would quietly and discreetly inquire. Mrs Grey was sure that the Deerbrook people would not venture to discountenance altogether any one who had married into their connection so decidedly. Her young folks were to hear nothing of the matter, as it would not do to propagate an idea which might bring about its own accomplishment.

At the almshouses to-day, the threat had been spoken plainly enough; and Hope had found his visit there a very unpleasant one. It had been wholly disagreeable. When within a mile and a half of the houses, a stone had been thrown at him from behind a hedge. It narrowly missed him. A little further on, there was another, from the opposite side of the road. This indication was not to be mistaken. Hope leaped his horse over a gate, and rode about the field, to discover who had attacked him. For some time he could see no one; but, on looking more closely to the fence, he saw signs in one part that hedging was going on. As he approached the spot, a labourer rose up from the ditch, and was suddenly very busy at his work. He looked stupid, and denied having thrown any stones, but admitted that there was n.o.body else in the field that he knew of. Further on, more stones were thrown: it was evidently a conspiracy; but Hope could find no one to call to account for it, but an old woman in one case, and two boys in another.--As he rode up to the almshouses, the aged inmates came out to their doors, or looked from their fanciful Gothic windows, with every indication of displeasure in their faces and manner. The old women shook their heads at him, and some their fists; the old men shook their sticks at him. He stopped to speak to one man of eighty-three, who was sitting in the sun at his door; but he could get no answer out of him, nothing but growls about the doctor being a pretty doctor not to have mended his patient's eye-sight yet. Not a bit better could he see now than he could a year ago, with all the doctoring he had had: and now the gentleman would not try anything more! A pretty doctor, indeed! But it would not be long before there would be another who would cure poor people's eyes as if they were rich: and poor people's eyes were as precious to them as rich people's.--He next went into a house where an aged woman was confined to bed with rheumatism; but her gossips stopped him in the middle of the room, and would not let him approach her, for fear he should be her death. As she had been lying awake the night before, she had heard her deceased husband's shoes dance of their own accord in the closet; and this was a sign that something was going to happen to somebody. She thought of the doctor at the time, and prayed that he might be kept from coming near her; for she knew he would be the death of her, somehow, as he had been of other folks. So Hope was obliged to leave her and her rheumatism to the gossips. The particular object of his visit to the place to-day, however, was a little girl, a grandchild of one of the pensioners, admitted by special favour into the establishment. This girl had small-pox, and her case was a severe one. Hope was admitted with unwillingness even to her, and was obliged to a.s.sume his ultimate degree of peremptoriness of manner with her nurses. He found her m.u.f.fled up about the head with flannel, and with a slice of fat bacon, folded in flannel, tied about her throat,--a means considered a specific for small-pox in some regions. The discarding of the flannel and bacon, of course, caused great offence; and there was but too much reason to fear that all his directions as to the management of the girl would be observed by contraries, the moment his back was turned. He had long ago found explanation and argument to be useless. All that he could do was, to declare authoritatively, that if his directions were not followed, the girl would die, and her death would lie at the door of her nurses; that, in that case, he expected some of the people about her would be ill after her; but that if he was obeyed, he trusted she might get through, and n.o.body else be the worse. Almost before he was out of the house, another slice of fat bacon was cut, and the flannels put to the fire to heat again.

Hope mounted his horse to depart, just at the hour when the labourers were at their dinners in all the cottages around. They poured out to stare at him, some shouting that they should not have him long to look at, as they would get a better doctor soon. Some sent their dogs yelping at his horse's heels, and others vented wrath or jokes about churchyards. Soon after he had left the noise behind him, he met Sir William Hunter, riding, attended by his groom. Hope stopped him, making it his apology that Sir William might aid in saving the life of a patient, in whom he was much interested. He told the story of the small-pox, of the rural method of treating it with which he had to contend, and proposed that Sir William should use his influence in securing for the patient a fair chance of her life. Sir William listened coolly, would certainly call at the almshouses and make inquiry; but did not like to interfere with the notions of the people there: made a point indeed of leaving them pretty much to their own ways; owned that it would be a pity the girl should die, if she really might be got through; would call, therefore, and inquire, and see whether Lady Hunter could not send down anything from the Hall. He smiled rather incredulously when a.s.sured that it was not anything that could be sent down from the Hall that was wanted by the patient, but only the use of the fresh air that was about her, and the observance of her doctor's simple directions. Sir William next began to make his horse fidget, and Hope took the hint.

"This has been my business with you at present," said he. "At some more convenient time, I should be glad of a little conversation with you on other matters connected with these almshouses."

Sir William Hunter bowed, put spurs to his horse, and galloped off, as if life or death depended on his reaching the Hall in three minutes and a half.

These hints of "another doctor"--"a better doctor"--"a new man"--met Hope in other directions. Mrs Howell was once quoted as a whisperer of the fact; and the milliner's young lady was known to have speculated, on whether the new doctor would prove to be a single man. No one turned away from such gossip with more indifference than Hope; but it came to him in the form of inquiries which he was supposed best able to answer.

He now told Hester of them all; warned her of the probable advent of a rival pract.i.tioner; and at the same time urged upon her a close economy in the management of the house, as his funds were rapidly failing. If his practice continued to fall off as it was now doing, he scarcely saw how they were to keep up their present mode of living. It grieved him extremely to have to say this to his wife in the very first year of their marriage. He had hoped to have put larger means in her power, from year to year; but at present he owned his way was far from being clear. They had already descended to having no prospect at all.

For all this Hester cared little. She had never known the pinchings of poverty, any more than the embarra.s.sments of wealth. She could not conceive of such a thing, as being very anxious about what they should eat, and what they should drink, and wherewith they should be clothed; though, if she had looked more narrowly at her own imaginations of poverty, she would perhaps have discovered on the visionary table always a delicate dish for her husband--in the wardrobe, always a sleek black coat--and in his waiting-room, a clear fire in winter; while the rest of the picture was made up of bread and vegetables, and shabby gowns for herself, and devices to keep herself warm without burning fuel. Her imagination was rather amused than alarmed with antic.i.p.ations of this sort of poverty. It was certainly not poverty that she dreaded. A more serious question was, how she could bear to see her husband supplanted, and, in the eyes of others, disgraced. This question the husband and wife now often asked each other, and always concluded by agreeing that time must show.

The girl at the almshouses died in a fortnight. Some pains were taken to conceal from the doctor the time and the precise spot of her burial-points which the doctor never thought of inquiring about, and of which it was therefore easy to keep him in ignorance. A few of the neighbouring cottagers agreed to watch the grave for ten nights, to save the body from the designs of evil surgeons. One of the watchers reported, after the seventh night, that he had plainly heard a horse coming along the road, and that he rather thought it stopped opposite the churchyard. He had raised himself up, and coughed aloud, and that was no doubt the reason why n.o.body came: the horse must have turned back and gone away, whoever might be with it. This put people on the watch; and on the eighth night two men walked about the churchyard. They had to tell that they once thought they had caught the doctor in the fact.

They had both heard a loud whistle, and had stood to see what would come of it (they could see very well, for it had dawned some time). A person came through the turnstile with a sack, which seemed to leave his intentions in no doubt. They hid themselves behind two opposite trees, and both sprang out upon him at once: but it was only the miller's boy on his way to the mill. On the ninth and tenth nights nothing happened; the neighbours began to feel the want of their regular sleep; and the querulous grandmother, who seemed more angry that they meant to leave the poor girl's body to itself now, than pleased that it had been watched at all, was compelled to put up with a.s.surances that doctors were considered to wish to cut up bodies within the first ten days, if at all, and were not apt to meddle with them afterwards.

It was full three weeks from this time when Hope was sent for to the almshouses, after a longer interval than he had ever known to elapse without the old folks having some complaint to make. The inmate who was now ill was the least aged, and the least ignorant and unreasonable person, in the establishment. He was grateful to Hope for having restored him from a former illness; and, though now much shaken in confidence, had enough remaining to desire extremely to see his old friend, when he found himself ill and in pain. His neighbours wondered at him for wishing to court destruction by putting himself again into the hands of the suspicious doctor: but he said he could have no ease in his mind, and was sure he should never get well till he saw the gentleman's face again; and he engaged an acquaintance to go to Deerbrook and summon him. This acquaintance spread the fact of his errand along the road as he went; and therefore, though Hope took care to choose his time, so as not to ride past the cottage-doors while the labourers were at dinner, his visit was not more private or agreeable than on the preceding occasion.

The first symptom of his being expected on the road was, that Sir William Hunter, riding, as before, with his groom behind him, fell in with Hope, evidently by design.

Sir William Hunter's visit to the almshouses had produced the effect of making him acquainted with the discontents of the people, and had afforded him a good opportunity of listening to their complaints of their surgeon, without being troubled with the answers. Since the election, he had been eager to hear whatever could be said against Hope, whose vote, given contrary to Sir William's example and influence, was regarded by the baronet as an unpardonable impertinence.

"So you lost your patient down there, I find," said Sir William, rudely.

"The girl slipped through your fingers, after all. However, I did my duty by you. I told the people they ought to allow you a fair chance."

"I requested your interference on the girl's account, and not on my own," said Hope. "But as you allude to my position among these people, you will allow me to ask, as I have for some time intended, whether you are aware of the treatment to which I am subjected, in your neighbourhood, and among your dependants?"

"I find you are not very popular hereabouts, indeed, sir," replied the baronet, with a half-smile, which was immediately reflected in the face of the groom.

"With your leave, we will have our conversation to ourselves," said Hope.

The baronet directed his groom to ride on slowly. Hope continued:

"The extreme ignorance of the country people has caused some absurd stories against me to be circulated and believed. If those who are not in this state of extreme ignorance will do me justice, and give me, as you say, a fair chance, I have no fear but that I shall live down calumnies, and, by perseverance in my professional duty, recover the station I lately held here. This justice, this fair chance, I claim, Sir William, from all who have the intelligence to understand the case, and rightly observe my conduct. I have done my best in the service of these pensioners of yours; and excuse my saying that I must be protected in the discharge of my duty."

"Ay, there's the thing, Mr Hope. That can't be done, you see. If the people do not like you, why then the only thing is for you to stay away."

"Then what is to become of the sick?"