North and South
if it were wax before a fire. He dreaded lest he should go forwards to
meet her, with his arms held out in mute entreaty that she would come
and nestle there, as she had done, all unheeded, the day before, but
never unheeded again. His heart throbbed loud and quick. Strong man as
he was, he trembled at the anticipation of what he had to say, and how
it might be received. She might droop, and flush, and flutter to his
arms, as to her natural home and resting-place. One moment he glowed
with impatience at the thought that she might do this,—the next he
feared a passionate rejection, the idea of which withered up his future
with so deadly a blight that he refused to think of it. He was startled
by the sense of the presence of some one else in the room. He turned
round. She had come in so gently, that he had never heard her; the
street noises had been more distinct to his inattentive ear than her
slow movements, in her soft muslin gown.
She stood by the table, not offering to sit down. Her eyelids were
dropped half over her eyes; her teeth were shut, not compressed; her
lips were just parted over them, allowing the white line to be seen
between their curve. Her slow deep breathings dilated her chin and
beautiful nostrils; it was the only motion visible on her countenance.
The fine-grained skin, the oval cheek, the rich outline of her mouth,
its corners deep set in dimples,—were all wan and pale to-day; the loss
of their usual natural healthy colour being made more evident by the
heavy shadow of the dark hair, brought down upon her temples, to hide
all sign of the blow she had received. Her head, for all its drooping
eyes, was thrown a little back, in the old proud attitude. Her long arms
hung motionless by her sides. Altogether she looked like some prisoner,
falsely accused of a crime that she loathed and despised, and from which
she was too indignant to justify herself.
Mr. Thornton made a hasty step or two forwards; recovered himself, and
went with quiet firmness to the door (which she had left open), and shut
it. Then he came back, and stood opposite to her for a moment, receiving
the general impression of her beautiful presence, before he dared to
disturb it, perhaps to repel it, by what he had to say.
“Miss Hale, I was very ungrateful yesterday—”
“You had nothing to be grateful for,” said she raising her eyes, and
looking full and straight at him. “You mean, I suppose, that you believe
you ought to thank me for what I did.” In spite of herself—in defiance
of her anger—the thick blushes came all over her face, and burnt into
her very eyes; which fell not nevertheless from their grave and steady
look. “It was only a natural instinct; any woman would have done just
the same. We all feel the sanctity of our sex as a high privilege when
we see danger. I ought rather,” said she, hastily, “to apologise to you,
for having said thoughtless words which sent you down into the danger.”
“It was not your words; it was the truth they conveyed, pungently as it
was expressed. But you shall not drive me off upon that, and so escape
the expression of my deep gratitude, my—” he was on the verge now; he
would not speak in the haste of his hot passion; he would weigh each
word. He would; and his will was triumphant. He stopped in mid career.
“I do not try to escape from anything,” said she. “I simply say, that
you owe me no gratitude; and I may add, that any expression of it will
be painful to me, because I do not feel that I deserve it. Still, if it
will relieve you from even a fancied obligation, speak on.”
“I do not want to be relieved from any obligation,” said he, goaded by
her calm manner. “Fancied, or not fancied—I question not myself to know
which—I choose to believe that I owe my very life to you—ay—smile,
and think it an exaggeration if you will. I believe it, because it adds
a value to that life to think—oh, Miss Hale!” continued he, lowering
his voice to such a tender intensity of passion that she shivered and
trembled before him, “to think circumstances so wrought, that whenever I
exult in existence henceforward, I may say to myself, ‘All this gladness
in life, all honest pride in doing my work in the world, all this keen
sense of being, I owe to her!’ And it doubles the gladness, it makes the
pride glow, it sharpens the sense of existence till I hardly know if it
is pain or pleasure to think that I owe it to one—nay, you must, you
shall hear,”—said he, stepping forward with stern determination—“to
one whom I love, as I do not believe man ever loved woman before.” He
held her hand tight in his. He panted as he listened for what should
come. He threw the hand away with indignation, as he heard her icy
tone; for icy it was, though the words came faltering out, as if she
knew not where to find them.
“Your way of speaking shocks me. It is blasphemous. I cannot help it, if
that is my first feeling. It might not be so, I dare say, if I
understood the kind of feeling you describe. I do not want to vex you;
and besides, we must speak gently, for mamma is asleep; but your whole
manner offends me—”
“How!” exclaimed he. “Offends you! I am indeed most unfortunate.”
“Yes!” said she with recovered dignity. “I do feel offended; and, I
think, justly. You seem to fancy that my conduct of yesterday”—again
the deep carnation blush, but this time with eyes kindling with
indignation rather than shame—“was a personal act between you and me;
and that you may come and thank me for it, instead of perceiving, as a
gentleman would—yes! a gentleman,” she repeated, in allusion to their
former conversation about that word, “that any woman, worthy of the name
of woman, would come forward to shield, with her reverenced
helplessness, a man in danger from the violence of numbers.”
“And the gentleman thus rescued is forbidden the relief of thanks!” he
broke in contemptuously. “I am a man. I claim the right of expressing my
feelings.”
“And I yielded to the right; simply saying that you gave me pain by
insisting upon it,” she replied, proudly. “But you seem to have
imagined, that I was not merely guided by womanly instinct, but”—and
here the passionate tears (kept down for long—struggled with
vehemently) came up into her eyes and choked her voice—“but that I was
prompted by some particular feeling for you—you! Why, there was not a
man—not a poor desperate man in all that crowd—for whom I had not more
sympathy—for whom I should not have done what little I could more
heartily.”
“You may speak on, Miss Hale. I am aware of these misplaced sympathies
of yours. I now believe that it was only your innate sense of
oppression—(yes; I, though a master, may be oppressed)—that made you
act so nobly as you did. I know you despise me; allow me to say, it is
because you do not understand me.”
“I do not care to understand,” she replied, taking hold of the table to
steady herself; for she thought him cruel—as, indeed, he was—and she
was weak with her indignation.
“No, I see you do not. You are unfair and unjust.”
Margaret compressed her lips. She would not speak in answer to such
accusations. But, for all that—for all his savage words, he could have
thrown himself at her feet, and kissed the hem of her garment. She did
not speak; she did not move. The tears of wounded pride fell hot and
fast. He waited awhile, longing for her to say something, even a taunt,
to which he might reply. But she was silent. He took up his hat.
“One word more. You look as if you thought it tainted you to be loved by
me. You cannot avoid it. Nay, I, if I would, cannot cleanse you from it.
But I would not if I could. I have never loved any woman before: my
life has been too busy, my thoughts too much absorbed with other things.
Now I love, and will love. But do not be afraid of too much expression
on my part.”
“I am not afraid,” she replied, lifting herself straight up. “No one yet
has ever dared to be impertinent to me, and no one ever shall. But, Mr.
Thornton, you have been very kind to my father,” said she, changing her
whole tone and bearing to a most womanly softness. “Don’t let us go on
making each other angry. Pray don’t!” He took no notice of her words; he
occupied himself in smoothing the nap of his hat with his coat-sleeve,
for half a minute or so; and then, rejecting her offered hand, and
making as if he did not see her grave look of regret, he turned abruptly
away, and left the room. Margaret caught one glance at his face before
he went.
When he was gone she thought she had seen the gleam of washed tears in
his eyes; and that turned her proud dislike into something different and
kinder, if nearly as painful—self-reproach for having caused such
mortification to any one.
“But how could I help it?” asked she of herself. “I never liked him. I
was civil; but I took no trouble to conceal my indifference. Indeed, I
never thought about myself or him, so my manners must have shown the
truth. All that yesterday, he might mistake. But that is his fault, not
mine. I would do it again, if need were, though it does lead me into all
this shame and trouble.”
CHAPTER XXV.
FREDERICK.
“Revenge may have her own;
Roused discipline aloud proclaims their cause,
And injured navies urge their broken laws.”
BYRON.
Margaret began to wonder whether all offers were as unexpected
beforehand,—as distressing at the time of their occurrence, as the two
she had had. An involuntary comparison between Mr. Lennox and Mr.
Thornton arose in her mind. She had been sorry, that an expression of
any other feeling than friendship had been lured out by circumstances
from Henry Lennox. That regret was the predominant feeling, on the first
occasion of her receiving a proposal. She had not felt so stunned—so
impressed as she did now, when echoes of Mr. Thornton’s voice yet
lingered about the room. In Lennox’s case, he seemed for a moment to
have slid over the boundary between friendship and love; and the instant
afterwards, to regret it nearly as much as she did, although for
different reasons. In Mr. Thornton’s case, as far as Margaret knew,
there was no intervening stage of friendship. Their intercourse had been
one continued series of opposition. Their opinions clashed; and indeed,
she had never perceived that he had cared for her opinions, as belonging
to her, the individual. As far as they defied his rock-like power of
character, his passion-strength, he seemed to throw them off from him
with contempt, until she felt the weariness of the exertion of making
useless protests; and now, he had come, in this strange wild passionate
way, to make known his love! For, although at first it had struck her,
that his offer was forced and goaded out of him by sharp compassion for
the exposure she had made of herself,—which he, like others, might
misunderstand—yet, even before he left the room,—and certainly not
five minutes after, the clear conviction dawned upon her, shined bright
upon her, that he did love her; that he had loved her; that he would
love her. And she shrank and shuddered as under the fascination of some
great power, repugnant to her whole previous life. She crept away, and
hid from his idea. But it was of no use. To parody a line out of
Fairfax’s Tasso—
“His strong idea wandered through her thought.”
She disliked him the more for having mastered her inner will. How dared
he say that he would love her still, even though she shook him off with
contempt? She wished she had spoken more—stronger. Sharp, decisive
speeches came thronging into her mind, now that it was too late to utter
them. The deep impression made by the interview, was like that of a
horror in a dream; that will not leave the room although we waken up,
and rub our eyes, and force a stiff rigid smile upon our lips. It is