North and South
were founded on the recollection of tidy elder scholars at Helstone
school, who were only too proud to be allowed to come to the parsonage
on a busy day, and treated Mrs. Dixon with all the respect, and a good
deal more of fright, which they paid to Mr. and Mrs. Hale. Dixon was not
unconscious of this awed reverence which was given to her; nor did she
dislike it: it flattered her much as Louis the Fourteenth was flattered
by his courtiers shading their eyes from the dazzling light of his
presence. But nothing short of her faithful love for Mrs. Hale could
have made her endure the rough independent way in which all the Milton
girls, who made application for the servant’s place, replied to her
inquiries respecting their qualifications. They even went the length of
questioning her back again; having doubts and fears of their own, as to
the solvency of a family who lived in a house of thirty pounds a-year,
and yet gave themselves airs, and kept two servants, one of them so very
high and mighty. Mr. Hale was no longer looked upon as Vicar of
Helstone, but as a man who only spent at a certain rate. Margaret was
weary and impatient of the accounts which Dixon perpetually brought to
Mrs. Hale of the behaviour of these would-be servants. Not but what
Margaret was repelled by the rough uncourteous manners of these people;
not but what she shrunk with fastidious pride from their hail-fellow
accost, and severely resented their unconcealed curiosity as to the
means and position of any family who lived in Milton, and yet were not
engaged in trade of some kind. But the more Margaret felt impertinence,
the more likely she was to be silent on the subject; and, at any rate,
if she took upon herself to make inquiry for a servant, she could spare
her mother the recital of all her disappointments and fancied or real
insults.
Margaret accordingly went up and down to butchers and grocers, seeking
for a nonpareil of a girl; and lowering her hopes and expectations every
week, as she found the difficulty of meeting with any one in a
manufacturing town who did not prefer the better wages and greater
independence of working in a mill. It was something of a trial to
Margaret to go out by herself in this busy bustling place. Mrs. Shaw’s
ideas of propriety and her own helpless dependence on others, had always
made her insist that a footman should accompany Edith and Margaret, if
they went beyond Harley Street or the immediate neighbourhood. The
limits by which this rule of her aunt’s had circumscribed Margaret’s
independence had been silently rebelled against at the time: and she had
doubly enjoyed the free walks and rambles of her forest life from the
contrast which they presented. She went along there with a boundless
fearless step, that occasionally broke out into a run, if she were in a
hurry, and occasionally was stilled into perfect repose, as she stood
listening to, or watching any of the wild creatures who sang in the
leafy courts, or glanced out with their keen bright eyes from the low
brushwood or tangled furze. It was a trial to come down from such motion
or such stillness, only guided by her own sweet will, to the even and
decorous pace necessary in streets. But she could have laughed at
herself for minding this change, if it had not been accompanied by what
was a more serious annoyance.
The side of the town on which Crampton lay was especially a thoroughfare
for the factory people. In the back streets around them there were many
mills, out of which poured streams of men and women two or three times a
day. Until Margaret had learnt the times of their ingress and egress,
she was very unfortunate in constantly falling in with them. They came
rushing along, with bold, fearless faces, and loud laughs and jests,
particularly aimed at all those who appeared to be above them in rank or
station. The tones of their unrestrained voices, and their carelessness
of all common rules of street politeness, frightened Margaret a little
at first. The girls, with their rough, but not unfriendly freedom, would
comment on her dress, even touch her shawl or gown to ascertain the
exact material; nay, once or twice she was asked questions relative to
some article which they particularly admired. There was such a simple
reliance on her womanly sympathy with their love of dress, and on her
kindliness, that she gladly replied to these inquiries, as soon as she
understood them; and half smiled back at their remarks. She did not mind
meeting any number of girls, loud spoken and boisterous though they
might be. But she alternately dreaded and fired up against the workmen,
who commented not on her dress, but on her looks, in the same open,
fearless manner. She, who had hitherto felt that even the most refined
remark on her personal appearance was an impertinence, had to endure
undisguised admiration from these outspoken men. But the very
outspokenness marked their innocence of any intention to hurt her
delicacy, as she would have perceived if she had been less frightened by
the disorderly tumult. Out of her fright came a flash of indignation
which made her face scarlet, and her dark eyes gather flame, as she
heard some of their speeches. Yet there were other sayings of theirs,
which, when she reached the quiet safety of home, amused her even while
they irritated her.
For instance, one day, after she had passed a number of men, several of
whom had paid her the not unusual compliment of wishing she was their
sweetheart, one of the lingerers added, “Your bonny face, my lass, makes
the day look brighter.” And another day, as she was unconsciously
smiling at some passing thought, she was addressed by a poorly-dressed,
middle-aged workman, with, “You may well smile, my lass; many a one
would smile to have such a bonny face.” This man looked so careworn that
Margaret could not help giving him an answering smile, glad to think
that her looks, such as they were, should have had the power to call up
a pleasant thought. He seemed to understand her acknowledging glance,
and a silent recognition was established between them whenever the
chances of the day brought them across each other’s paths. They had
never exchanged a word; nothing had been said but that first compliment;
yet somehow Margaret looked upon this man with more interest than upon
any one else in Milton. Once or twice, on Sundays, she saw him walking
with a girl, evidently his daughter, and, if possible, still more
unhealthy than he was himself.
One day Margaret and her father had been as far as the fields that lay
around the town; it was early spring, and she had gathered some of the
hedge and ditch flowers, dog-violets, lesser celandines, and the like,
with an unspoken lament in her heart for the sweet profusion of the
South. Her father had left her to go into Milton upon some business; and
on the road home she met her humble friends. The girl looked wistfully
at the flowers, and, acting on a sudden impulse, Margaret offered them
to her. Her pale blue eyes lightened up as she took them, and her father
spoke for her.
“Thank yo, Miss. Bessy’ll think a deal o’ them flowers; that hoo will;
and I shall think a deal o’ yor kindness. Yo’re not of this country, I
reckon?”
“No!” said Margaret, half sighing. “I come from the South—from
Hampshire,” she continued, a little afraid of wounding his consciousness
of ignorance, if she used a name which he did not understand.
“That’s beyond London, I reckon? And I come fro’ Burnleyways, and forty
miles to th’ North. And yet, yo see, North and South has both met and
made kind o’ friends in this big smoky place.”
Margaret had slackened her pace to a walk alongside of the man and his
daughter, whose steps were regulated by the feebleness of the latter.
She now spoke to the girl, and there was a sound of tender pity in the
tone of her voice as she did so that went right to the heart of the
father.
“I’m afraid you are not very strong.”
“No,” said the girl, “nor never will be.”
“Spring is coming,” said Margaret, as if to suggest pleasant, hopeful
thoughts.
“Spring nor summer will do me good,” said the girl quietly.
Margaret looked up at the man, almost expecting some contradiction from
him, or at least some remark that would modify his daughter’s utter
hopelessness. But instead, he added—
“I’m afeared hoo speaks the truth. I’m afeared hoo’s too far gone in a
waste.”
“I shall have a spring where I am boun’ to, and flowers, and amaranths,
and shining robes besides.”
“Poor lass, poor lass!” said her father in a low tone. “I’m none so sure
o’ that; but it’s a comfort to thee, poor lass, poor lass. Poor father!
it’ll be soon.”
Margaret was shocked by his words—shocked but not repelled; rather
attracted and interested.
“Where do you live? I think we must be neighbours, we meet so often on
this road.”
“We put up at nine Frances Street, second turn to th’ left at after
yo’ve past th’ Goulden Dragon.”
“And your name? I must not forget that.”
“I’m none ashamed o’ my name. It’s Nicholas Higgins. Hoo’s called Bessy
Higgins. Whatten yo’ asking for?”
Margaret was surprised at this last question, for at Helstone it would
have been an understood thing, after the enquiries she had made, that
she intended to come and call upon any poor neighbour whose name and
habitation she had asked for.
“I thought—I meant to come and see you.” She suddenly felt rather shy
of offering the visit, without having any reason to give for her wish to
make it, beyond a kindly interest in a stranger. It seemed all at once
to take the shape of an impertinence on her part; she read this meaning
too in the man’s eyes.
“I’m none so fond of having strange folk in my house.” But then
relenting, as he saw her heightened colour, he added, “Yo’re a foreigner,
as one may say, and maybe don’t know many folk here, and yo’ve given my
wench here flowers out of yo’r own hand;—yo may come if yo like.”
Margaret was half amused, half-nettled at this answer. She was not sure
if she would go where permission was given so like a favour conferred.
But when they came to the turn into Frances Street, the girl stopped a
minute, and said,
“Yo’ll not forget yo’re to come and see us.”
“Aye, aye,” said the father, impatiently, “hoo’ll come. Hoo’s a bit set
up now, because hoo thinks I might ha’ spoken more civilly; but hoo’ll
think better on it, and come. I can read her proud bonny face like a
book. Come along, Bess; there’s the mill bell ringing.”
Margaret went home, wondering at her new friends, and smiling at the
man’s insight into what had been passing in her mind. From that day
Milton became a brighter place to her. It was not the long, bleak sunny
days of spring, nor yet was it that time was reconciling her to the town
of her habitation. It was that in it she had found a human interest.
CHAPTER IX.
DRESSING FOR TEA.
“Let China’s earth, enriched with coloured stains,
Pencil’d with gold, and streaked with azure veins,
The grateful flavour of the Indian leaf,
Or Mocha’s sunburnt berry glad receive.”
MRS. BARBOULD.
The day after this meeting with Higgins and his daughter Mr. Hale came
upstairs into the little drawing-room at an unusual hour. He went up to
different objects in the room, as if examining them, but Margaret saw
that it was merely a nervous trick—a way of putting off something he
wished, yet feared to say. Out it came at last—
“My dear! I’ve asked Mr. Thornton to come to tea to-night.”
Mrs. Hale was leaning back in her easy chair, with her eyes shut, and an
expression of pain on her face which had become habitual to her of late.
But she roused up into querulousness at this speech of her husband’s.
“Mr. Thornton!—and to-night! What in the world does the man want to