Again at Folking

Thus Hester prevailed, and was taken back to the house of the man who had married her.  By this time very much had been said about the matter publicly.  It had been impossible to keep the question,—­whether John Caldigate’s recent marriage had been true or fraudulent,—­out of the newspapers; and now the attempt that had been made to keep them apart by force gave an additional interest to the subject.  There was an opinion, very general among elderly educated people, that Hester ought to have allowed herself to be detained at the Grange.  ’We do not mean to lean heavily on the unfortunate young lady,’ said the ‘Isle-of-Ely-Church-Intelligencer’; ’but we think that she would have better shown a becoming sense of her position had she submitted her self to her parents till the trial is over.  Then the full sympathy of all classes would have been with her; and whether the law shall restore her to a beloved husband, or shall tell her that she has become the victim of a cruel seducer, she would have been supported by the approval and generous regard of all men.’  It was thus for the most part that the elderly and the wise spoke and thought about it.  Of course, they pitied her; but they believed all evil of Caldigate, declaring that he too was bound by a feeling of duty to restore the unfortunate one to her father and mother until the matter should have been set at rest by the decision of a jury.

But the people,—­especially the people of Utterden and Netherden, and of Chesterton, and even of Cambridge,—­were all on the side of Caldigate and Hester as a married couple.  They liked the persistency with which he had claimed his wife, and applauded her to the echo for her love and firmness.  Of course the scene at Puritan Grange had been much exaggerated.  The two nights were prolonged to intervals varying from a week to a fortnight.  During that time she was said always to have been at the window holding up her baby.  And Mrs. Bolton was accused of cruelties which she certainly had not committed.  Some details of the affair made their way into the metropolitan Press,—­so that the expected trial became one of those causes celebres by which the public is from time to time kept alive to the value and charm of newspapers.

During all this John Caldigate was specially careful not to seclude himself from public view, or to seem to be afraid of his fellow-creatures.  He was constantly in Cambridge, generally riding thither on horseback, and on such occasions was always to be seen in Trumpington Street and Trinity Street.  Between him and the Boltons there was, by tacit consent, no intercourse whatever after the attempted imprisonment.  He never showed himself at Robert Bolton’s office, nor when they met in the street did they speak to each other.  Indeed at this time no gentleman or lady held any intercourse with Caldigate, except his father and Mr. Bromley the clergyman.  The Babingtons were strongly of opinion that he should have surrendered the care of his wife; and Aunt Polly went so far as to write to him when she first heard of the affair at Chesterton, recommending him very strongly to leave her at the Grange.  Then there was an angry correspondence, ended at last by a request from Aunt Polly that there might be no further intercourse between Babington and Folking till after the trial.