My Lady
When the lamplight no longer shines and Esther is alone, her thoughts drift to her mother. She finds a peace in it; after long days of trying to keep her thoughts far from Lady Dedlock, it is easy and natural that they drift to her when the last vestiges of sunlight fade.
As much as Esther tells herself that she loves this life, her companionship with Ada, her strange engagement to Jarndyce... she does so long for something else. Something -- someone, perhaps -- so far away and foreign to this life. Esther thinks that she saw a glimpse of this in her mother's face. That elegant beauty... graceful hands and cultured voice.
Esther can't help thinking that her mother is beautiful. Much more so than anything she's seen in life. So much more beautiful and lovely than Ada and Jarndyce and Caddy and Dr. Woodcourt altogether.
She has resigned herself to this life, to loneliness. Esther's thoughts travel far too often to those fateful words, that she ought never have been born. Now, as she turns her face to the pillow so not even the moonlight will see her pock-marked skin, and slides her hand under the covers she cannot help but agree.
Why can she not feel this way for Jarndyce, who has declared his love, or even for Woodcourt, who as Ada says, has all but said it? Esther cringes even as she shifts her nightgown up around her hips.
"Oh, Mother," she sighs. "How did I end up so wrong?"
And her fingers work their way under her bloomers. When she touches herself, Esther moans low, muffling the sound so that Ada will not wake and come seeking out the source of the noise. Esther can almost feel her mother's breath on her cheek and her elegant fingers on her sex.