Yet she would have liked a little genuine, definite response to the things she wrote! He seemed to have nothing to say from himself! He would assent and echo, but any response was always such as to make her doubt whether she had written plainly, invariably suggesting things of this world and not of the unseen, the world of thought and being. And when she mentioned work he always replied as if she meant an undefined something called doing good. He never doubted that the failure of that foolish concert of ladies and gentlemen given to the riff-raff of London, had taught her that whether man be equal in the sight of God or not, any attempt on the part of their natural superiors to treat them as such could not but be disastrous.

24. Calamity

—Twenty-Four —

Calamity

One afternoon the post brought a letter from Lord Gartley and two for Mr. and Mrs. Raymount. The one to Mrs. Raymount was written in a strange-looking cramped hand, which she immediately recognized.

“What can Sarah be writing about?” she said, a sudden foreboding of evil crossing her mind.

Hester rose to leave the room. She did not like to read Gartley’s letters around her mother—not from shyness, but from shame: she did not want anyone to know how poor her Gartley’s utterances were on paper. But before she was six steps away, she heard a cry from her mother and turned.

“Good heavens, what can it be?” said Mrs. Raymount. “Something has happened to him!”

Her face was pale, almost as white as the paper she held.

“Mother, mother! what is it?” Hester asked.

“I knew we were too happy,” she moaned. “I knew something was bound to come.”

“Let’s go to papa,” said Hester, frightened but quiet. She took her mother by the hand to lead her. But Mrs. Raymount stood as if fixed to the ground.

In the meantime, Mr. Raymount’s letters had been carried to him in the study and one of them had similarly perturbed him. He was pacing up and down the room almost as white as his wife, but his pallor was that of rage.

“The scoundrel!” he cried. “I had the suspicion he was a mean dog! Now all the world will know it—and that he is my son! What have I done that I have given life to a vile hound like this?”

He threw himself in a chair and wept with rage and shame. He had for years been writing of family and social duties, now here was his illustration! His own son! How could he ever show himself again? He would leave the country. Damn the property! The rascal should never succeed to it! Mark would have it—if he lived! And now Hester was going to marry an earl! Not if the truth would prevent it! Her engagement must be broken at once! Lord Gartley would never marry the sister of a thief!