Chapter 4: Resistance

Annie was shocked to have a guest, let alone a peer, enter by the kitchen door. Esther merely asked her to fetch mother.

“Dear,” Mother said when she was far enough down to see George, “who is this.”

“This is Lord George. He has asked me to marry him. I have accepted.” She turned to George, who was stupefied, but not so much as to miss her expression. He took her in his arms and kissed her. The kiss was emphasized by her total cooperation, but limited by his consciousness of her mother’s disapproving stare.

“Esther, I do not know what your father will say.”

“He will say whether he would rather give the bride away or hear about the wedding in a letter from Gretna Green. But, Milord, you have not said why you wish to marry me.”

“Because I love you with all my heart,” George said.

“I love you, as well. It would have been better of you, though, to tell me before you told Father.”

“Well, I only thought to tell him once. I plan to tell you on every morning of the rest of my life.”

She thought that a good enough answer to earn him another kiss, although a very small one on the chin.

“Now,” she said, “I think you should go.”

“But your father...”

“Will be very angry with me, and even angrier with you. You cannot protect me from him, and it would embarrass me to have you hear it.”

“I want to protect you,” he said.

“And so you shall, but not from my family. They are too close, and I need them to be close. You could keep me from them, but that is not what I need.”

George left, claiming another kiss in the doorway. Then he left by the front door and went around the house to get his carriage.

Esther hid herself in the curtain until he turned into the street and was lost from sight.

“Father will be wroth,” Daniel said.

“So he will. The three of you should not be downstairs when he arrives. Esther expected a switching. Her brothers and sister would hear, but she much preferred that they not see.

“But I want to hear,” Deborah said.

“Deborah, Father will be very angry. You will hear. The horses in the stable will hear.”

True to her prediction, Father shouted. “He asked for my permission to ask for your hand.”

That was unwise,” Esther said, “but he reconsidered.”

“All I gave you permission to do was to ride with him right home.”

“And we came right here. I was in the stable when I accepted.”

“And what were you doing in the stable?” Father asked.

“Accepting his proposal, and asking him inside to hear my announcement to Mother.

“You have not always been the most obedient of daughters, but...”

“If I am to marry, then I am to grow beyond being your daughter. You cannot choose how I am to grow.”

The argument – as arguments do – went on much longer without going any further. Esther had expected a switching and had determined to maintain her defiance through it. That was guaranteed to prolong the switching.

Peter Slater never even thought of sending his daughter for a switch. If he had had a bit more self-awareness, that would have told him that he had already conceded Esther’s main point. She was an adult making her own decision. However mistaken he thought that decision, it was hers to make.

George had been quite taken by a girl. Partly to keep the girl available to him, partly to compensate her for the seduction/rape, he had pursued marriage to the girl. That afternoon, he had been dealing with a woman.

He had wanted to protect her from her father; thinking back, he was less certain that he would have been able to. He was peer, and Peter Slater was a commoner; that gave him the advantage of social leverage. Except that Slater did not grant him that social leverage.

Esther seemed think she could handle her father herself. From the slip of a girl he had known, that thought would have been risible; from the woman he had met this afternoon, it was not.

If he wed a woman, she would, ipso facto, be a countess. For the first time, he thought of Esther as a countess. The woman he’d met this afternoon would make a good one.

Friday evening, he drove by l’Ecole Gallienne a little before six without seeing any students. He went around the block and held his watch until it said six. He went around the block twice more without seeing Esther.

“She did not come to school today, milord,” one girl called from a giggling group. George did not quite trust the giggles, and so he went around to the front again and waited until one of the school servants came out.

“Miss Esther Slater,” he said. “Could you tell her that her ride is waiting?”

“I have not seen Miss Esther this day, milord.”

When he had received the same response on Saturday noon, he repaired to Lionel’s home where he cast all his woes before the couple. Anne, who was again increasing, cautioned against either violence or despair. They were getting in all the balls they could while Anne retained any of her figure. They made a hole in their calendar, though, and decided to invite the Slaters for that Thursday.

“It is always wiser to talk it out,” said Anne. “Gretna Green is more effective as a threat than as a destination. Besides, they are her parents; let her be the one to decide that they are beyond persuasion. You do not know that they are.”

They decided that George would seek Esther at the school Monday night. Were she not there, he would drive to the Slater house and leave the invitation.

Esther laid out all of her situation at class meeting. She had already told them of her sexual experience.

“Well, Esther,” Mrs. Jennings said, “it is quite possible for two arguing people to be both wrong. Considering our fallen state, it is even likely. You are still your father’s daughter and under his discipline. It is wrong for you to defy him.”

“Yes, Mrs. Jennings.” Esther tried to look chastened, but Mrs. Jennings had all but told her that Father was wrong.

After services Sunday, she saw Mrs. Jennings talking with Father and (of course) Mother. Mrs. Jennings had absolutely no authority over Father, but she was a class leader. Father’s opinion of the peerage was not generally shared, and several of the girls from class looked at her enviously.

She had not spoken more than “amen” at evening prayers since the incidents around the snow-and-rain day. That was a long period of silence, but the children, even Daniel, often did not speak a prayer on any single night, and almost never spoke twice. Sunday night, she prayed that she might resume her studies. Father did not respond during the prayer period.

“Esther,” he said when she was going up to bed, “is it your studies you wish to resume? Or is it the rides with your earl?”

I thought my studies were more fit for prayer. I also wish to have discussions with my fiancé.”

“He is not that. I have not consented to the match.” Not consenting was a mild description of his previously-stated position. She could not hope that the milder description expressed a weakening of his opposition.

“He has proposed; I have accepted,” she said. “We are engaged. We cannot marry in England without your permission.”

“You cannot really believe that if that Lord of yours got you in a coach that the coach would go anywhere near Carlisle.”

“Yes I do. And I believe as thoroughly that if you brought me to a London church after the banns had been read, then Lord George would take the vows. You must decide, Father, whether you fear his not marrying me or his marrying me.”

“I am your father. Do not tell me what I must decide.”

“Yes, Father.”

“But I will decide that you can go to school tomorrow.” He said. “Do you promise to come straight home?”

“Yes, Father. I promise.”

When she got to school, she heard that ‘her earl’ had been seen the previous days. The mistresses told her the lessons she had missed, but they seemed to have heard rumors. She had not mentioned the proposal outside of home and class meeting, and her schoolmates were only excited by the peer seeking her out.

When she got to the door, an usher greeted her and led her out. George, who was waiting, handed him a coin.

“Where are we?” George asked when the curricle was on its way.

“I promised to come straight home.”

“Then you shall. I mean where are we in a more general sense. Do I need to know which window is your room so that I can put the ladder there?”

She laughed at the image. “I think father is coming around. If he does not, he still goes to the office every day.” She could not imagine eloping on the Sabbath.

“Before I forget.” He handed her a folded heavy sheet of paper addressed to her parents. “This is an invitation from Anne. – Do you remember her from long ago? – She and Lionel invite them, you, and me to dinner on Thursday. She thought I should try speaking before I tried housebreaking.

There were a good many things to think about and several to answer. Of course she remembered Lady Anne. She remembered every detail of the day she met him. Before she arranged her thoughts, though, he had turned into a street and slowed the horses. He took her in both arms and kissed her.

The kiss was delightful. He licked her lips, and she opened them. The touch of his tongue on hers sent a shock through her system. Despite the day, she warmed. Despite the warmth, her nipples hardened.

When he took an arm away, she wrapped hers around him. The kiss went on until he pushed her away.

“Your street,” he said. “Oh, Esther, I love you. I am not certain that I can wait.”

She straightened on the seat. “I love you also. Waiting is difficult, but it is necessary.” Would they really have more of these kisses and conversations after they were married than they had had today? Father was so long in the office and he and Mother seemed to deal with the children so much. “Does Lady Anne expect an answer to the letter? Pull into the drive.”

“Proper etiquette would call for a written response. You can give it to me; you can give even a spoken response to me. Let me help you down.”

So, Lord George got down, walked around the carriage, and helped her down. They did not kiss. She went in the kitchen door. Mother was there.

“Did your father say that you could ride with that man again?” she asked.

“He said to come directly home from school. We came directly here. I am here much earlier than I would be had I walked, -- earlier, even, than if I had called for a cab. He gave me a letter for you.” She handed Mother the letter and went to hang up her cape.

“It is addressed to your father as well,” Mother said when Esther had returned. “Here. Shell these.” She pushed the bowls of unshelled peas and shelled ones across the table.

Esther took the chair in front of those bowls and began to finish the shelling. “The letter is an invitation for the two of you to bring me to the house of Lord George’s brother for a discussion about my future. The peerage has the odd opinion that this topic involves me enough to make my presence acceptable. Lord George tells me that among their class the answer would be written. If Father gives me a verbal answer, though, they can deal with the ill manners.”

Mother said nothing more then. When Father came in, though, she handed him the letter still sealed. “May we discuss this when the children are abed?” she asked.

Nothing more was said in her hearing that night. Father and Mother kept their day clothes on for evening prayer, which may have meant that they intended to have their discussion in the stables.

Father was taking her to school every morning, now. The weather was a plausible cause, but she had walked in worse weather at times.

“I do not know what your earl thinks there is to speak about,” Father said when they were on their way. “He has my answer. It is no.”

“You have answered no, and I have answered yes,” she pointed out. “Were he to take your answer as final, then, as you have said, he has no reason to speak with you. Then he should only speak to me. It would seem to me that your willingness to speak with him would, at the least, argue for a delay.”

“You still threaten an elopement? Have you discussed this with him?”

“I have asked him to wait until I have had a chance to persuade you. I do not wish a final break with my family. And, no, I would prefer that to a final break with Lord George.”

Father snorted and rattled the reins. Even though they could only travel at the same speed as the vehicles around them, they were soon at school.

School had not really been interesting before her penmanship had won the prize. It had provided a certain respite from her daily drudgery. Now, it provided merely a boring interlude in the drama her life had become.

Lord George was waiting when she got out the door. He bundled her in snugly, and she was quite conscious of his hip warm against hers.

“I have no reply for you, milord,” she said.

“George.”

“What I have to say is to George. What message I have – or do not have – is to Milord.”

He laughed. “George loves Esther,” he said. And, as soon as the horses did not require active guidance, he demonstrated that. She loved him, too, and she demonstrated that as enthusiastically. They broke off when they turned into her street, though, and he helped her down at the walk in front of her house.

She did have a reply the next evening, but it was sealed. She hadn’t even known that Father possessed a seal. She handed it to Lord George before they got to the more important matters of the ride home.

The next evening was Thursday.

“Your parents accepted,” Lord George told her as he helped her into the curricle. “The invitation particularly mentioned you, and the acceptance was of the invitation. They did not mention you, though. Tell me what window is yours if they show up without you.”

“They are on the side of the house away from the drive, the third and fourth from the street. I share the room with Deborah, and I do not think we are at the point of elopement, yet. If Father remains stubborn, I shall get in this carriage some evening and ask you to take me away.”

When she got home, though, Mother told her to find some clothes which looked better than the ones which had been ruined in the street puddle. She was, after all, having supper with the aristocracy. Father was not in a good mood at tea, and while she moderated her appetite, she decided that it was not wise to warn her parents.

At dinner, there were only six at a table which could seat twice as many. She and George sat across from Mother and Father with their host and hostess at the ends. Lady Anne was obviously increasing, and Esther wondered whether she had been already carrying the babe when they had met the first time.

The conversation at dinner was not about the engagement. “Speak with Lionel,” George said at one point.

“You are supposed to be drawing me out,” Lionel said. “Try France as a subject.” It turned out that he was well informed about France since the Restoration. The instructors who were from France had all their experience, and almost all of their interest, before ‘93.

“Will you come with us, Mrs. Slater?” Lady Anne asked when she rose at the end of the meal. Esther, warned by her – slight – previous experience, had looked for that rising. They followed her into the drawing room.

“Now, Mrs. Slater, what does your family have against George?” Lady Anne asked when all of them were seated.

“Mr. Slater thinks he is after her purse.”

Lady Anne laughed. “A man may pursue a particular lass, or just want to have a lass. I find it hard to believe that a man would pursue a particular purse. George is, however ill you think of him, an earl. Were he in pursuit of some purse, he would frequent the balls. At the balls, he could find a maiden with a sufficient dowry and a desire to be a countess before the next season.

“Does Esther not have a brother? Whatever your family’s private plans, George would assume that the wealth would go to the son.

“I was there the afternoon on which they met.” She continued. “George’s interest was immediately apparent. I do not say that his interest was as great as it is now, but it was real.”

“Well,” Mother said, “you think this is an affair of the heart?”

“On George’s part, certainly. I do not observe Esther as often, nor did I know her before. She seemed interested back then, but the only other man present was married.”

“I am not certain that this news would persuade Mr. Slater.”

“No man is worthy of marrying his little chick in some fathers’ eyes. Some man needs must, though. Is that not so?”

“I think,” Mother said, “that Mr. Slater was thinking of a man of her own class.”

“A particular one? Or just: when the time came, he would be a merchant?”

“He has never mentioned anyone in particular to me.”

Lionel, having some suspicion of Wesleyan particularities, had briefed his butler. When the gentlewomen were on their way out of the room, he poured the brandied port. Then he offered Mr. Slater a cigar. When the gentleman spurned it, he left without passing out the other cigars.

“Now, Mr. Slater,” George began, “you have expressed dissatisfaction with me as a suitor for Esther’s hand. I do not believe that you have articulated clearly my failings. If I do not see your objections, it is not fair to ask me to overcome them.

“I am still not certain that you are not after her dowry. I have told you that you will get none from me.”

“You specified the person from whom you expected a report on my financial condition. You told me that his report cleared me. I do not say that this should have satisfied you.” Although George’s tone did, in fact, imply that. “I do say that clearance by your first preferred resource should oblige you to name another.”

“After all,” Lionel said, “the idea that George is pursuing your daughter because of some secret indebtedness falls apart if the indebtedness is too secret. There must be a hundred men with eligible daughters and wealth to match yours. Not many could be as loath to have an earl for a grandson. If George is unable to win their daughters, it must be because they know; if he’s unwilling to win their daughters, it must be because Esther has attractions other than the dowry. You strike me as a very determined man. If you say that there will be no dowry, then I think George believes you.”

“I just think she would be happier married to a man of her own class.”

“Would be,” Lionel asked, “or would have been? It is one thing for a man to marry a woman who is not in love with him. Thousands do this every week. It is quite another for him to marry one who has been in love with another. It is one thing to marry without love and learn love as one goes on. It is quite another to marry with the memory of love and not feel it towards one’s spouse.”

“Lord Lionel, I do not trust your class,” Peter Slater finally admitted.