North and South
Mrs. Thornton did not speak; but she laid her work on the table, and
seemed to think.
“It will be a long way for her to walk back at night!” she remarked, at
last.
“Oh, but I will send her home in a cab. I never thought of her walking.”
At this point, Mr. Thornton came in, just before going to the mill.
“Mother! I need hardly say, that if there is any little thing that could
serve Mrs. Hale as an invalid, you will offer it, I’m sure.”
“If I can find it out, I will. But I have never been ill myself, so I am
not much up to invalids’ fancies.”
“Well! here is Fanny then, who is seldom without an ailment. She will be
able to suggest something, perhaps—won’t you, Fan?”
“I have not always an ailment,” said Fanny, pettishly; “and I am not
going with mamma. I have a headache to-day, and I shan’t go out.”
Mr. Thornton looked annoyed. His mother’s eyes were bent on her work, at
which she was now stitching away busily.
“Fanny! I wish you to go,” said he, authoritatively. “It will do you
good, instead of harm. You will oblige me by going, without my saying
anything more about it.”
He went abruptly out of the room after saying this.
If he had stayed a minute longer, Fanny would have cried at his tone of
command, even when he used the words, “You will oblige me.” As it was,
she grumbled.
“John always speaks as if I fancied I was ill, and I am sure I never do
fancy any such thing. Who are these Hales that he makes such a fuss
about?”
“Fanny, don’t speak so of your brother. He has good reasons of some kind
or other, or he would not wish us to go. Make haste and put your things
on.”
But the little altercation between her son and her daughter did not
incline Mrs. Thornton more favourably towards “these Hales.” Her jealous
heart repeated her daughter’s question, “Who are they, that he is so
anxious we should pay them all this attention?” It came up like a burden
to a song, long after Fanny had forgotten all about it in the pleasant
excitement of seeing the effect of a new bonnet in the looking-glass.
Mrs. Thornton was shy. It was only of late years that she had had
leisure enough in her life to go into society; and as society she did
not enjoy it. As dinner-giving, and as criticising other people’s
dinners, she took satisfaction in it. But this going to make
acquaintance with strangers was a very different thing. She was ill at
ease, and looked more than usually stern and forbidding as she entered
the Hales’ little drawing-room.
Margaret was busy embroidering a small piece of cambric for some little
article of dress for Edith’s expected baby—“Flimsy, useless work,” as
Mrs. Thornton observed to herself. She liked Mrs. Hale’s double knitting
far better; that was sensible of its kind. The room altogether was full
of knick-knacks, which must take a long time to dust; and time to people
of limited income was money.
She made all these reflections as she was talking in her stately way to
Mrs. Hale, and uttering all the stereotyped commonplaces that most
people can find to say with their senses blindfolded. Mrs. Hale was
making rather more exertion in her answers, captivated by some real old
lace which Mrs. Thornton wore; “lace,” as she afterwards observed to
Dixon, “of that old English point which has not been made for this
seventy years, and which cannot be bought. It must have been an
heir-loom, and shows that she had ancestors.” So the owner of the
ancestral lace became worthy of something more than the languid exertion
to be agreeable to a visitor, by which Mrs. Hale’s efforts at
conversation would have been otherwise bounded. And presently, Margaret,
racking her brain to talk to Fanny, heard her mother and Mrs. Thornton
plunge into the interminable subject of servants.
“I suppose you are not musical,” said Fanny, “as I see no piano.”
“I am fond of hearing good music; I cannot play well myself; and papa
and mamma don’t care much about it; so we sold our old piano when we
came here.”
“I wonder how you can exist without one. It almost seems to me a
necessary of life.”
“Fifteen shillings a week, and three saved out of them!” thought
Margaret to herself. “But she must have been very young. She probably
has forgotten her own personal experience. But she must know of those
days.” Margaret’s manner had an extra tinge of coldness in it when she
next spoke.
“You have good concerts here, I believe.”
“Oh, yes! Delicious! Too crowded, that is the worst. The directors admit
so indiscriminately. But one is sure to hear the newest music there. I
always have a large order to give to Johnson’s, the day after a
concert.”
“Do you like new music simply for its newness, then?”
“Oh; one knows it is the fashion in London, or else the singers would
not bring it down here. You have been in London, of course.”
“Yes,” said Margaret, “I have lived there for several years.”
“Oh! London and the Alhambra are the two places I long to see!”
“London and the Alhambra!”
“Yes! ever since I read the Tales of the Alhambra. Don’t you know them?”
“I don’t think I do. But surely, it is a very easy journey to London.”
“Yes; but somehow,” said Fanny, lowering her voice, “mamma has never
been to London herself, and can’t understand my longing. She is very
proud of Milton; dirty, smoky place as I feel it to be. I believe she
admires it the more for those very qualities.”
“If it has been Mrs. Thornton’s home for some years, I can well
understand her loving it,” said Margaret, in her clear, bell-like voice.
“What are you saying about me, Miss Hale? May I inquire?”
Margaret had not the words ready for an answer to this question, which
took her a little by surprise, so Miss Thornton replied:
“Oh, mamma! we are only trying to account for your being so fond of
Milton.”
“Thank you,” said Mrs. Thornton. “I do not feel that my very natural
liking for the place where I was born and brought up,—and which has
since been my residence for some years, requires any accounting for.”
Margaret was vexed. As Fanny had put it, it did seem as if they had been
impertinently discussing Mrs. Thornton’s feelings; but she also rose up
against that lady’s manner of showing that she was offended.
Mrs. Thornton went on after a moment’s pause:
“Do you know anything of Milton, Miss Hale? Have you seen any of our
factories? our magnificent warehouses?”
“No!” said Margaret. “I have not seen anything of that description as
yet.”
Then she felt that, by concealing her utter indifference to all such
places, she was hardly speaking with truth; so she went on:
“I dare say, papa would have taken me before now if I had cared. But I
really do not find much pleasure in going over manufactories.”
“They are very curious places,” said Mrs. Hale, “but there is so much
noise and dirt always. I remember once going in a lilac silk to see
candles made, and my gown was utterly ruined.”
“Very probably,” said Mrs. Thornton, in a short displeased manner. “I
merely thought, that as strangers newly come to reside in a town which
has risen to eminence in the country, from the character and progress of
its peculiar business, you might have cared to visit some of the places
where it is carried on; places unique in the kingdom, I am informed. If
Miss Hale changes her mind and condescends to be curious as to the
manufactures of Milton, I can only say I shall be glad to procure her
admission to print-works, or reed-making, or the more simple operations
of spinning carried on in my son’s mill. Every improvement of machinery
is, I believe, to be seen there, in its highest perfection.”
“I am so glad you don’t like mills and manufactories, and all those kind
of things,” said Fanny, in a half-whisper, as she rose to accompany her
mother, who was taking leave of Mrs. Hale with rustling dignity.
“I think I should like to know all about them, if I were you,” replied
Margaret quietly.
“Fanny!” said her mother, as they drove away, “we will be civil to these
Hales: but don’t form one of your hasty friendships with the daughter.
She will do you no good, I see. The mother looks very ill, and seems a
nice, quiet kind of person.”
“I don’t want to form any friendship with Miss Hale, mamma,” said Fanny,
pouting. “I thought I was doing my duty by talking to her, and trying to
amuse her.”
“Well! at any rate John must be satisfied now.”
CHAPTER XIII.
SOFT BREEZE IN A SULTRY PLACE.
“That doubt and trouble, fear and pain,
And anguish, all, are shadows vain,
That death itself shall not remain;
That weary deserts we may tread,
A dreary labyrinth may thread.
Thro’ dark ways underground be led;
Yet, if we will one Guide obey,
The dreariest path, the darkest way
Shall issue out in heavenly day;
And we, on divers shores now cast,
Shall meet, our perilous voyage past,
All in our Father’s house at last!”
R. C. TRENCH.
Margaret flew up stairs as soon as their visitors were gone, and put on
her bonnet and shawl, to run and inquire how Betsy Higgins was, and sit
with her as long as she could before dinner. As she went along the
crowded narrow streets, she felt how much of interest they had gained by
the simple fact of her having learnt to care for a dweller in them.
Mary Higgins, the slatternly younger sister, had endeavoured as well as
she could to tidy up the house for the expected visit. There had been
rough-stoning done in the middle of the floor, while the flags under the
chairs and table and round the walls retained their dark unwashed
appearance. Although the day was hot, there burnt a large fire in the
grate, making the whole place feel like an oven; Margaret did not
understand that the lavishness of coals was a sign of hospitable welcome
to her on Mary’s part, and thought that perhaps the oppressive heat was
necessary for Bessy. Bessy herself lay on a squab, or short sofa, placed
under the window. She was very much more feeble than on the previous
day, and tired with raising herself at every step to look out and see if
it was Margaret coming. And now that Margaret was there, and had taken a
chair by her, Bessy lay back silent, and content to look at Margaret’s
face, and touch her articles of dress, with a childish admiration of
their fineness of texture.
“I never knew why folk in the Bible cared for soft raiment afore. But it
must be nice to go dressed as yo’ do. It’s different fro’ common. Most
fine folk tire my eyes out wi’ their colours; but some how yours rest
me. Where did ye get this frock?”
“In London,” said Margaret, much amused.
“London! Have yo’ been in London?”
“Yes! I lived there for some years. But my home was in a forest; in the
country.”
“Tell me about it,” said Bessy. “I like to hear speak of the country,
and trees, and such like things.” She leant back, and shut her eyes,
and crossed her hands over her breast, lying at perfect rest, as if to
receive all the ideas Margaret could suggest.
Margaret had never spoken of Helstone since she left it, except just
naming the place incidentally. She saw it in dreams more vivid than
life, and as she fell away to slumber at nights her memory wandered in
all its pleasant places. But her heart was opened to this girl: “Oh,
Bessy, I loved the home we have left so dearly! I wish you could see it.
I cannot tell you half its beauty. There are great trees standing all
about it, with their branches stretching long and level, and making a
deep shade of rest even at noonday. And yet, though every leaf may seem
still, there is a continual rushing sound of movement all around—not
close at hand. Then sometimes the turf is as soft and fine as velvet;
and sometimes quite lush with the perpetual moisture of a little,
hidden, tinkling brook near at hand. And then in other parts there are