After these days were over, she emerged conscious of some radical change. She seemed to have been walking with George 'on the other side,' and to have left him there--for a while. She now really believed him dead, and that she had got to live her life without him. This first full and sincere admission of her loss tranquillised her. All the more reason now that she should turn to the dear friendships that life still held, should live in and for them, and follow where they led, through the years before her. Farrell, Cicely, Hester--they stood between her weakness--oh how conscious, how scornfully conscious, she was of it!--and sheer desolation. Cicely, 'Willy,'--for somehow she and he had slipped almost without knowing it into Christian names--had become to her as brother and sister. And Hester too--so strong!--so kind!--was part of her life; severe sometimes, but bracing. Nelly was conscious, indeed, occasionally, that something in Hester disapproved something in her. 'But it would be all right,' she thought, wearily, 'if only I were stronger.' Did she mean physically or morally? The girl's thought did not distinguish.
'I believe you want me "hatched over again and hatched different"!' she said one evening to Hester, as she laid her volume of 'Adam Bede' aside.
'No--but--if you were me--you wouldn't stop here moping!' said Nelly, with sudden passion. 'You'd strike out--do something!'
'With these hands?' said Hester, raising one of them, and looking at it pitifully. 'My dear--does Bridget feed you properly?'
'I don't know. I never think about it. She settles it.'
'She will!' cried Nelly, sitting upright in her chair, her eyes bright and cheeks flushing, as though something in Hester's words accused her. 'I couldn't stop her!'
'Then Mrs. Rowe settles it,' said Nelly, half laughing. 'I never enquire. What does it matter?'
She put down her knitting, and her wide, sad eyes followed the clouds as they covered the purple breast of the Langdales, which rose in threatening, thunder light, beyond the steely tarn in front. Hester watched her anxiously. How lovely was the brown head, with its short curls enclosing the delicate oval of the face! But Nelly's lack of grip on life, of any personal demand, of any healthy natural egotism, whether towards Bridget, or anybody else, was very disquieting to Hester. In view of the situation which the older woman saw steadily approaching, how welcome would have been some signs of a greater fighting strength in the girl's nature!