North and South
“As angels in some brighter dreams
Call to the soul when man doth sleep,
So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes,
And into glory peep.”
HENRY VAUGHAN.
Mrs. Hale was curiously amused and interested by the idea of the
Thornton dinner party. She kept wondering about the details, with
something of the simplicity of a little child, who wants to have all its
anticipated pleasure described beforehand. But the monotonous life led
by invalids often makes them like children, inasmuch as they have
neither of them any sense of proportion in events, and seem each to
believe that the walls and curtains which shut in their world, and shut
out everything else, must of necessity be larger than anything hidden
beyond. Besides Mrs. Hale had had her vanities as a girl; had perhaps
unduly felt their mortification when she became a poor clergyman’s
wife;—they had been smothered and kept down; but they were not extinct;
and she liked to think of seeing Margaret dressed for a party, and
discussed what she should wear, with an unsettled anxiety that amused
Margaret, who had been more accustomed to society in her one year in
Harley Street than her mother in five and twenty years of Helstone.
“Then you think you shall wear your white silk. Are you sure it will
fit? It’s nearly a year since Edith was married!”
“Oh, yes, mamma! Mrs. Murray made it, and it’s sure to be right; it may
be a straw’s breadth shorter or longer-waisted, according to my having
grown fat or thin. But I don’t think I’ve altered in the least.”
“Hadn’t you better let Dixon see it? It may have gone yellow with lying
by.”
“If you like, mamma. But if the worst comes to the worst, I’ve a very
nice pink gauze which Aunt Shaw gave me, only two or three months before
Edith was married. That can’t have gone yellow.”
“No! but it may have faded.”
“Well! then I’ve a green silk. I feel more as if it was the
embarrassment of riches.”
“I wish I knew what you ought to wear,” said Mrs. Hale, nervously.
Margaret’s manner changed instantly. “Shall I go and put them on one
after another, mamma, and then you could see which you liked best?”
“But—yes! perhaps that will be best.”
So off Margaret went. She was very much inclined to play some pranks
when she was dressed up at such an unusual hour; to make her rich white
silk balloon out into a cheese, to retreat backwards from her mother as
if she were the queen; but when she found that these freaks of hers were
regarded as interruptions to the serious business, and as such annoyed
her mother, she became grave and sedate. What had possessed the world
(her world) to fidget so about her dress, she could not understand; but
that very afternoon, on naming her engagement to Bessy Higgins (apropos
of the servant that Mrs. Thornton had promised to enquire about), Bessy
quite roused up at the intelligence.
“Dear! and are you going to dine at Thornton’s at Marlborough Mills?”
“Yes, Bessy. Why are you so surprised?”
“Oh, I dunno. But they visit wi’ a’ th’ first folk in Milton.”
“And you don’t think we’re quite the first folk in Milton, eh, Bessy?”
Bessy’s cheeks flushed a little at her thought being thus easily read.
“Well,” said she, “yo’ see, they thinken a deal o’ money here; and I
reckon yo’ve not getten much.”
“No,” said Margaret, “that’s very true. But we are educated people, and
have lived amongst educated people. Is there anything so wonderful, in
our being asked out to dinner by a man who owns himself inferior to my
father by coming to him to be instructed? I don’t mean to blame Mr.
Thornton. Few drapers’ assistants, as he was once, could have made
themselves what he is.”
“But can yo’ give dinners back, in yo’re small house? Thornton’s house
is three times as big.”
“Well, I think we could manage to give Mr. Thornton a dinner back, as
you call it. Perhaps not in such a large room, nor with so many people.
But I don’t think we’ve thought about it at all in that way.”
“I never thought yo’d be dining with Thorntons,” repeated Bessy. “Why,
the mayor hissel’ dines there; and the members of Parliament and all.”
“I think, I could support the honour of meeting the mayor of Milton.”
“But them ladies dress so grand!” said Bessy, with an anxious look at
Margaret’s print gown, which her Milton eyes appraised at sevenpence a
yard.
Margaret’s face dimpled up into a merry laugh. “Thank you, Bessy, for
thinking so kindly about my looking nice among all the smart people. But
I’ve plenty of grand gowns,—a week ago, I should have said they were
far too grand for anything I should ever want here. But as I’m to dine
at Mr. Thornton’s, and perhaps to meet the mayor, I shall put on my very
best gown, you may be sure.”
“What win yo’ wear?” asked Bessy, somewhat relieved.
“White silk,” said Margaret. “A gown I had for a cousin’s wedding, a
year ago.”
“That’ll do!” said Bessy, falling back in her chair. “I should be loth
to have yo’ looked down upon.”
“Oh! I’ll be fine enough, if that will save me from being looked down
upon in Milton.”
“I wish I could see you dressed up,” said Bessy. “I reckon, yo’re not
what folk would ca’ pretty; yo’ve not red and white enough for that. But
dun yo’ know, I ha’ dreamt of yo’, long afore ever I seed yo’.”
“Nonsense, Bessy!”
“Ay, but I did. Yo’r very face,—looking wi’ yo’r clear steadfast eyes
out o’ th’ darkness, wi’ yo’r hair blown off from yo’r brow, and going
out like rays round yo’r forehead, which was just as smooth and straight
as it is now,—and yo’ always came to give me strength, which I seemed
to gather out o’ yo’r deep comforting eyes,—and yo’ was drest in
shining raiment—just as yo’r going to be drest. So, yo’ see, it was
yo’!”
“Nay, Bessy,” said Margaret, gently, “it was but a dream.”
“And why might na I dream a dream in my affliction as well as others?
Did not many a one i’ the Bible? Ay, and see visions too! Why, even my
father thinks a deal o’ dreams! I tell yo’ again, I saw yo’ as plainly,
coming swiftly towards me, wi’ yo’r hair blown back wi’ the very
swiftness o’ the motion, just like the way it grows, a little standing
off like; and the white shining dress on yo’ve getten to wear. Let me
come and see yo’ in it. I want to see yo’ and touch yo’ as in very deed
yo’ were in my dream.”
“My dear Bessy, it is quite a fancy of yours.”
“Fancy or no fancy,—yo’ve come, as I knew yo’ would, when I saw yo’r
movement in my dream,—and when yo’re here about me, I reckon I feel
easier in my mind, and comforted, just as a fire comforts one on a dree
day. Yo’ said it were on th’ twenty-first; please God, I’ll come and see
yo’.”
“Oh Bessy! you may come and welcome; but don’t talk so—it really makes
me sorry. It does indeed.”
“Then I’ll keep it to mysel’, if I bite my tongue out. Not but what it’s
true for all that.”
Margaret was silent. At last she said, “Let us talk about it sometimes,
if you think it true. But not now. Tell me, has your father turned out?”
“Ay!” said Bessy heavily—in a manner very different from that she had
spoken in but a minute or two before. “He and many another,—all
Hamper’s men,—and many a one besides. Th’ women are as bad as th’ men,
in their savageness, this time. Food is high,—and they mun have food
for their childer, I reckon. Suppose Thorntons sent ’em their dinner
out,—th’ same money, spent on potatoes and meal, would keep many a
crying baby quiet, and hush up its mother’s heart for a bit!”
“Don’t speak so!” said Margaret. “You’ll make me feel wicked and guilty
in going to this dinner.”
“No!” said Bessy. “Some’s pre-elected to sumptuous feasts, and purple
and fine linen,—may be yo’re one on ’em. Others toil and moil all their
lives long—and the very dogs are not pitiful in our days, as they were
in the days of Lazarus. But if yo’ ask me to cool yo’re tongue wi’ th’
tip of my finger, I’ll come across the great gulf to yo’ just for th’
thought o’ what yo’ve been to me here.”
“Bessy; you’re very feverish! I can tell it in the touch of your hand,
as well us in what you’re saying. It won’t be division enough, in that
awful day, that some of us have been beggars here, and some of us have
been rich,—we shall not be judged by that poor accident, but by our
faithful following of Christ.”
Margaret got up, and found some water; and soaking her
pocket-handkerchief in it, she laid the cool wetness on Bessy’s
forehead, and began to chafe the stone-cold feet. Bessy shut her eyes,
and allowed herself to be soothed. At last she said,
“Yo’d ha’ been deaved out o’ yo’r five wits, as well as me, if yo’d had
one body after another coming in to ask for father, and staying to tell
me each one their tale. Some spoke o’ deadly hatred, and made my blood
run cold wi’ the terrible things they said o’ th’ masters,—but more,
being women, kept plaining, plaining (wi’ the tears running down their
cheeks, and never wiped away, nor heeded), of the price o’ meat, and how
their childer could na sleep at nights for th’ hunger.”
“And do they think the strike will mend this?” asked Margaret.
“They say so,” replied Bessy. “They do say trade has been good for long,
and the masters has made no end o’ money; how much father doesn’t know,
but, in course, th’ Union does; and, as it is natural, they wanted their
share o’ th’ profits, now that food is getting dear; and th’ Union says
they’ll not be doing their duty if they don’t make th’ masters give ’em
their share. But masters has getten th’ upper hand somehow; and I’m
feared they’ll keep it now and evermore. It’s like th’ great battle o’
Armageddon, the way they keep on, grinning and fighting at each other,
till even while they fight, they are picked off into the pit.”
Just then, Nicholas Higgins came in. He caught his daughter’s last
words.
“Ay! and I’ll fight on too; and I’ll got it this time. It’ll not take
long for to make ’em give in, for they’ve getten a pretty lot of
orders, all under contract; and they’ll soon find out they’d better give
us our five per cent. than lose the profit they’ll gain; let alone the
fine for not fulfilling the contract. Aha my masters! I know who’ll
win.”
Margaret fancied from his manner that he must have been drinking, not so
much from what he said, as from the excited way in which he spoke; and
she was rather confirmed in this idea by the evident anxiety Bessie
showed to hasten her departure. Bessy said to her,—
“The twenty-first—that’s Thursday week. I may come and see yo’ dressed
for Thornton’s, I reckon. What time is yo’r dinner?”
Before Margaret could answer, Higgins broke out,—
“Thornton’s! Ar’ t’ going to dine at Thornton’s? Ask him to give yo’ a
bumper to the success of his orders. By th’ twenty-first, I reckon,
he’ll be pottered in his brains how to get ’em done in time. Tell him,
there’s seven hundred ’ll come marching into Marlborough Mills, the
morning after he gives the five per cent., and will help him through his
contract in no time. You’ll have ’em all there. My master, Hamper. He’s
one o’ th’ oud-fashioned sort. Ne’er meets a man bout an oath or a
curse; I should think he were going to die if he spoke me civil; but
arter all, his bark’s waur than his bite, and yo’ may tell him one o’
his turn-outs said so, if yo’ like. Eh! but yo’ll have a lot of prize
mill-owners at Thornton’s! I should like to get speech o’ them, when
they’re a bit inclined to sit still after dinner, and could na run for
the life on ’em. I’d tell ’em my mind. I’d speak up again th’ hard way
they’re driving on us!”
“Good-bye!” said Margaret, hastily. “Good-bye, Bessy! I shall look to
see you on the twenty-first, if you’re well enough.”
The medicines and treatment which Dr. Donaldson had ordered for Mrs.
Hale, did her so much good at first that not only she herself, but