A Red Wallflower

'I should not think it right, papa. We want the money for other things.'

'What things?'

Did he not know! Esther drew breath to answer.

'Papa, there are the taxes, which I agreed with Mrs. Bounder I would pay, you know, as part of the rent. The money is ready, and that is a great deal more pleasure than a dress and a party would be to me. And then, winter is coming on, and we must lay in our fuel. I think to do it now, while it is cheaper.'

'And so, for that, you are to stay at home and see nobody!'

'Isn't it right, papa? and whatever is right is always pleasant in the end.'

'Deucedly pleasant!' said the colonel grimly, and rising from the table. 'I am going to my room, Esther, and I do not wish to be called to see any body. If business comes, you must attend to it.'

'Called to see anybody'! Who ever came to that house, on business or otherwise, but at the most rare intervals! And now one business visit had just come yesterday, there might not be another in months. Esther looked a little sorrowful, for her father's expression, most unwonted from his mouth, showed his irritation to be extreme; but what had irritated him? However, she was somewhat accustomed to this sort of demonstration, which nevertheless always grieved her; and she was glad that she had escaped telling her father her second reason. The truth was, Esther's way of life was so restricted and monotonous outwardly – she lived so by herself and to herself – that the stimulus and refreshment of a social occasion like that one when she had met Miss Frere a year ago was almost too pleasant. It made Esther feel a little too sensibly how alone and shut out from human intercourse was the nobler part of herself. A little real intellectual converse and contact was almost too enjoyable; it was a mental breath of fresh air, in which life seemed to change and become a different thing; and then – we all know how close air seems after fresh – the routine of school teaching, and the stillness and uniformity of her home existence, seemed to press upon her painfully, till after a time she became wonted to it again. So, on the whole, she thought it not amiss that her old party dress had done all the service it decently could, and that she had no means to get another. And now, after a few moments' grave shadow on her face, all shadows cleared away, as they usually did, and she set herself to the doing of what this holiday at home gave her to do. There was mending, making up accounts, a drawing to finish for a model; after that, if she could get it all done in time, there might be a bit of blessed reading in a new book that her old friend Miss Fairbairn had lent her. Esther set her face bravely to her day's work.

The morning was not far advanced, and the mending was not finished, when the unwonted door-knocker sounded again. This time the door was opened by some one whom Pitt did not know, and who did not know him; for Mrs. Bounder had come into town, and, as Barker's hands were just in her bread, had volunteered to go to the door for her. Pitt was ushered into the little parlour, in which, as nobody was there, he had leisure to make several observations. Yesterday he had had no leisure for them. Now he looked about him. That the fortunes of the family must have come down very much it was evident. Such a street, in the first place; then this little bit of a house; and then, there was more than that; he could see tokens unmistakeable of scantness of means. The drugget was well worn, had been darned in two places – very neatly, but darned it was, and the rest of it threatened breaches. The carpet beyond the drugget was old and faded, and the furniture? – Pitt wondered if it could be the same furniture, it looked so different here. There was the colonel's couch, however; he recognised that, although in its chintz cover, which was no longer new, but faded like the carpet. Books on the table were certainly the colonel's books; but no pictures were on the walls, no pretty trifles lying about; nothing was there that could testify of the least margin of means for anything that was not strictly necessary. Yet it was neat and comfortable; but Pitt felt that expenditures were very closely measured, and no latitude allowed to ease or to fancy. He stood a few minutes, looking and taking all this in; and then the inner door opened, and he forgot it instantly. At one stroke, as it were, the mean little room was transformed into a sacred temple, and here was the priestess. The two young people stood a second or two silent, facing each other.

But Esther knew him at once; and more, as she met the frank, steadfast eyes that she had known and trusted so long ago, she trusted them at once again and perfectly. There was no mistaking either their truth or their kindness. In spite of his new connections and alienated life, her old friend had not forgotten her. She extended her hand, with a flash of surprise and pleasure in her face, which was not a flash but a dawn, for it grew and brightened into warmer kindliness.

'Pitt Dallas!' she said. 'It is really you!'

The two hands met and clasped and lay in each other, but Pitt had no words for what went on within him. With the first sight of Esther he knew that he had met his fate. Here was all that he had left six or seven years ago, how changed! The little head, so well set on its shoulders, with its wealth of beautifully ordered hair; those wonderful grave, soft, sweet, thoughtful eyes; the character of the quiet mouth; the pure dignity and grace of the whole creature, – all laid a spell upon the man. He found no words to speak audibly; but in his mind words heaped on words, and he was crying to himself, 'Oh, my beauty! Oh, my gazelle! My fair saint! My lily! My Queen!' What right he had to the personal pronoun does not appear; however, we know that appropriation is an instinct of humanity for that which it likes. And it may also be noted, that Pitt never thought of calling Esther a rose. Nor would any one else. That was not her symbol. Roses are sweet, sweeter than anything, and yielding in fairness to nothing; but – let me be pardoned for saying it – they are also common. And Esther was rather something apart, rare. If I liken her to a lily, I do not mean those fair white lilies which painters throw at the feet of Franciscan monks, and dedicate also to the Virgin, – Annunciation lilies, so called. They are common too, and rather specially emblems of purity. What I am thinking of, and what Pitt was thinking of, is, on the contrary, one of those unique exotic lilies, which are as much wonders of colour as marvels of grace; apart, reserved, pure, also lofty, and delicate to the last degree; queening it over all the rest of the flowers around, not so much by official pre-eminence of beauty as by the superiority of the spiritual nature. A difference internal and ineffable, which sets them of necessity aside of the crowd and above it.

Pitt felt all this in a breath, which I have taken so many words clumsily to set forth. He, as I said, took no words, and only gave such expression to his thoughts as he could at the moment by bowing very low over Esther's hand and kissing it. Something about the action hurt Esther; she drew her hand away.

'It is a great surprise,' she said quietly. 'Won't you sit down?'

'The surprise ought to have been, that you did not see me before; not that I am here now.'

'I got over that surprise a great while ago,' said Esther. 'At least I thought I did; but it comes back to me now that I see you. How was it? How could it be?'

In answer to which, Pitt gave her a detailed account of his various efforts in past years to discover the retreat of his old friends. This was useful to him; he got his breath, as it were, which the sight of Esther had taken away; was himself again.

Esther listened silently, with perfect faith in the speaker and his statements, with a little undefined sort of regretfulness. So, then, Pitt need not have been lost to them, if only they could have been found! Just what that thought meant she had no time then to inquire. She hardly interrupted him at all.

'What do you suppose became of your letters?' she asked when he had done. For Pitt had not said that they went to his father's hands.

'I suppose they shared the fate of all letters uncalled for; if not the dead-letter office, the fire.'

'It was not very strange that you could not find us when you came to New York. We really troubled the post office very little, having after a while nothing to expect from it, and that was the only place where you could hope to get a clue.' Neither would Esther mention Mr. Dallas. With a woman's curious fine discernment, she had seen that all was not right in that quarter; indeed, had suspected it long ago.

'But you got some letters from me?' Pitt went on, 'while you were in

Seaforth? One or two, I know.'

'Yes, several. Oh yes! while we were in Seaforth.'

'And I got answers. Do you remember one long letter you wrote me, the second year after I went?'

'Yes,' she said, without looking at him.

'Esther, that letter was worth everything to me. It was like a sunbeam coming out between misty clouds and showing things for a moment in their true colours. I never forgot it. I never could forget it, though I fought for some years with the truth it revealed to me. I believed what you told me, and so I knew what I ought to do; but I struggled against my convictions. I knew from that time that it was the happiest thing and the worthiest thing to be a saint; all the same, I wanted to be a sinner. I wanted to follow my own way and be my own master. I wanted to distinguish myself in my profession, and rise in the world, and tower over other men; and I liked all the delights of life as well as other people do, and was unwilling to give up a life of self-indulgence, which I had means to gratify. Esther, I fought hard! I fought for years – can you believe it? – before I could make up my mind.'

'And now?' she said, looking at him.

'Now? Now,' said he, lowering his voice a little, – 'now I have come to know the truth of what you told me; I have learned to know Christ; and I know, as you know, that all things that may be desired are not to be compared with that knowledge. I understand what Paul meant when he said he had suffered the loss of all things for it and counted them less than nothing. So do I; so would I; so have I, as far as the giving up of myself and them to their right owner goes. That is done.'

Esther was very glad; she knew she ought to be very glad, and she was; and yet, gladness was not precisely the uppermost feeling that possessed her. She did not know what in the world could make her think of tears at that moment; but there was a strange sensation as if, had she been alone, she would have liked to cry. No shadow of such a softness appeared, however.

'What decided you at last?' she said softly.

'I can scarce tell you,' he answered. 'I was busy studying the matter, arguing for and against; and then I saw of a sudden that I was lighting a lost battle; that my sense and reason and conscience were all gained over, and only my will held out. Then I gave up fighting any more.'

'You came up to the subject on a different side from what I did,'

Esther remarked.

'And you, Esther? have you been always as happy as you were when you wrote that letter?'

'Yes,' she said quietly. 'More happy.' But she did not look up.

'The happiness in your letter was the sunbeam that cleared up everything for me. Now I have talked enough; tell me of yourself and your father.'

'There is not much to tell,' said Esther, with that odd quietness. She felt somehow oppressed. 'We are living in the old fashion; have been living so all along.'

'But – Quite in the old fashion?' he said, with a swift glance at the little room where they were sitting. 'It does not look so, Esther.'

'This is not so pleasant a place as we were in when we first came to

New York,' Esther confessed. 'That was very pleasant.'

'Why did you change?'

'It was necessary,' she said, with a smile. 'You may as well know it; papa lost money.'

'How?'

'He invested the money from the sale of the place at Seaforth in some stocks that gave out somehow. He lost it all. So then we had nothing but the stipend from England; and I think papa somehow lost part of that, or was obliged to take part of it to meet obligations.'

'And you?'

'We did very well,' said Esther, with another smile. 'We are doing very well now. We are out of debt, and that is everything. And I think papa is pretty comfortable.'

'And Esther?'

'Esther is happy.'

'But – I should think – forgive me! – that this bit of a house would hardly hold you.'