North and South
morning, for the comfort and safety of his newly imported Irish hands;
he had to secure them from all chance of communication with the
discontented workpeople of Milton. Last of all, he had to go home and
encounter his mother.
Mrs. Thornton had sat in the dining-room all day, every moment expecting
the news of her son’s acceptance by Miss Hale. She had braced herself up
many and many a time, at some sudden noise in the house; had caught up
the half-dropped work, and begun to ply her needle diligently, though
through dimmed spectacles, and with an unsteady hand! and many times had
the door opened, and some indifferent person entered on some
insignificant errand. Then her rigid face unstiffened from its gray
frost-bound expression, and the features dropped into the relaxed look
of despondency, so unusual to their sternness. She wrenched herself away
from the contemplation of all the dreary changes that would be brought
about to herself by her son’s marriage; she forced her thoughts into the
accustomed household grooves. The newly-married couple-to-be would need
fresh household stocks of linen: and Mrs. Thornton had clothes-basket
upon clothes-basket, full of table-cloths and napkins, brought in, and
began to reckon up the store. There was some confusion between what was
hers, and consequently marked G. H. T. (for George and Hannah Thornton),
and what was her son’s—bought with his money, marked with his initials.
Some of those marked G. H. T. were Dutch damask of the old kind,
exquisitely fine; none were like them now. Mrs. Thornton stood looking
at them long,—they had been her pride when she was first married. Then
she knit her brows, and pinched and compressed her lips tight, and
carefully unpicked the G.H. She went so far as to search for the
Turkey-red marking-thread to put in the new initials; but it was all
used,—and she had no heart to send for any more just yet. So she looked
fixedly at vacancy; a series of visions passing before her, in all of
which her son was the principal, the sole object,—her son, her pride,
her property. Still he did not come. Doubtless he was with Miss Hale.
The new love was displacing her already from her place as first in his
heart. A terrible pain—a pang of vain jealousy—shot through her: she
hardly knew whether it was more physical or mental; but it forced her to
sit down. In a moment, she was up again as straight as ever,—a grim
smile upon her face for the first time that day, ready for the door
opening, and the rejoicing triumphant one, who should never know the
sore regret his mother felt at his marriage. In all this, there was
little thought enough of the future daughter-in-law as an individual.
She was to be John’s wife. To take Mrs. Thornton’s place as mistress of
the house, was only one of the rich consequences which decked out the
supreme glory: all household plenty and comfort, all purple and fine
linen, honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, would all come as
naturally as jewels on a king’s robe, and be as little thought of for
their separate value. To be chosen by John, would separate a
kitchen-wench from the rest of the world. And Miss Hale was not so bad.
If she had been a Milton lass, Mrs. Thornton would have positively liked
her. She was pungent, and had taste, and spirit, and flavour in her.
True, she was sadly prejudiced, and very ignorant; but that was to be
expected from her southern breeding. A strange sort of mortified
comparison of Fanny with her, went on in Mrs. Thornton’s mind; and for
once she spoke harshly to her daughter; abused her roundly; and then, by
way of penance, she took up Henry’s Commentaries, and tried to fix her
attention on it, instead of pursuing the employment she took pride in,
and continuing her inspection of the table-linen.
_His_ step at last! She heard him, even while she thought she was
finishing a sentence; while her eye did pass over it, and her memory
could mechanically have repeated it word for word, she heard him come in
at the hall-door. Her quickened sense could interpret every sound of
motion: now he was at the hat-stand—now at the very room-door. Why did
he pause? Let her know the worst.
Yet her head was down over the book; she did not look up. He came close
to the table, and stood still there, waiting till she should have
finished the paragraph which apparently absorbed her. By an effort she
looked up. “Well, John?”
He knew what that little speech meant. But he had steeled himself. He
longed to reply with a jest; the bitterness of his heart could have
uttered one, but his mother deserved better of him. He came round behind
her, so that she could not see his looks, and, bending back her gray,
stony face, he kissed it, murmuring:
“No one loves me,—no one cares for me, but you, mother.”
He turned away and stood leaning his head against the mantelpiece, tears
forcing themselves into his manly eyes. She stood up,—she tottered. For
the first time in her life, the strong woman tottered. She put her hands
on his shoulders; she was a tall woman. She looked into his face: she
made him look at her.
“Mother’s love is given by God, John. It holds fast for ever and ever.
A girl’s love is like a puff of smoke,—it changes with every wind. And
she would not have you, my own lad, would not she?” She set her teeth;
she showed them like a dog for the whole length of her mouth. He shook
his head.
“I am not fit for her, mother; I knew I was not.”
She ground out words between her closed teeth. He could not hear what
she said; but the look in her eyes interpreted it to be a curse,—if not
as coarsely worded, as fell in intent as ever was uttered. And yet her
heart leapt up light, to know he was her own again.
“Mother!” said he, hurriedly, “I cannot hear a word against her. Spare
me,—spare me! I am very weak in my sore heart;—I love her yet; I love
her more than ever.”
“And I hate her,” said Mrs. Thornton, in a low fierce voice. “I tried
not to hate her, when she stood between you and me, because,—I said to
myself,—she will make him happy; and I would give my heart’s blood to
do that. But now, I hate her for your misery’s sake. Yes, John, it’s no
use hiding up your aching heart from me. I am the mother that bore you,
and your sorrow is my agony; and if you don’t hate her, I do.”
“Then, mother, you make me love her more. She is unjustly treated by
you, and I must make the balance even. But why do we talk of love or
hatred? She does not care for me, and that is enough, too much. Let us
never name the subject again. It is the only thing you can do for me in
the matter. Let us never name her.”
“With all my heart. I only wish that she, and all belonging to her, were
swept back to the place they came from.”
He stood still, gazing into the fire for a minute or two longer. Her dry
dim eyes filled with unwonted tears as she looked at him; but she seemed
just as grim and quiet as usual when he next spoke.
“Warrants are out against three men for conspiracy, mother. The riot
yesterday helped to knock up the strike.”
And Margaret’s name was no more mentioned between Mrs. Thornton and her
son. They fell back into their usual mode of talk,—about facts, not
opinions, far less feelings. Their voices and tones were calm and cold;
a stranger might have gone away and thought that he had never seen such
frigid indifference of demeanour between such near relations.
CHAPTER XXVII.
FRUIT-PIECE.
“For never any thing can be amiss
When simpleness and duty tender it.”
MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM.
Mr. Thornton went straight and clear into all the interests of the
following day. There was a slight demand for finished goods; and as it
affected his branch of the trade, he took advantage of it, and drove
hard bargains. He was sharp to the hour at the meeting of his brother
magistrates,—giving them the best assistance of his strong sense, and
his power of seeing consequences at a glance, and so coming to a rapid
decision. Older men, men of long standing in the town, men of far
greater wealth—realised and turned into land, while his was all
floating capital, engaged in his trade—looked to him for prompt, ready
wisdom. He was the one deputed to see and arrange with the police—to
lead in all the requisite steps. And he cared for their unconscious
deference no more than for the soft west wind, that scarcely made the
smoke from the great tall chimneys swerve in its straight upward course.
He was not aware of the silent respect paid to him. If it had been
otherwise, he would have felt it as an obstacle in his progress to the
object he had in view. As it was, he looked to the speedy accomplishment
of that alone. It was his mother’s greedy ears that sucked in, from the
womenkind of these magistrates and wealthy men, how highly Mr. This or
Mr. That thought of Mr. Thornton: that if he had not been there, things
would have gone on very differently,—very badly, indeed. He swept off
his business right and left that day. It seemed as though his deep
mortification of yesterday, and the stunned purposeless course of the
hours afterwards, had cleared away all the mists from his intellect. He
felt his power and revelled in it. He could almost defy his heart. If he
had known it, he could have sang the song of the miller who lived by the
river Dee:—
“I care for nobody—
Nobody cares for me.”
The evidence against Boucher, and other ring-leaders of the riot, was
taken before him: that against the three others, for conspiracy, failed.
But he sternly charged the police to be on the watch; for the swift
right arm of the law should be in readiness to strike, as soon as they
could prove a fault. And then he left the hot reeking room in the
borough court, and went out into the fresher, but still sultry street.
It seemed as though he gave way all at once; he was so languid that he
could not control his thoughts; they would wander to her: they would
bring back the scene,—not of his repulse and rejection the day before,
but the looks, the actions of the day before that. He went along the
crowded streets mechanically, winding in and out among the people, but
never seeing them,—almost sick with longing for that one
half-hour—that one brief space of time when she clung to him, and her
heart beat against his—to come once again.
“Why, Mr. Thornton! you’re cutting me very coolly, I must say. And how
is Mrs. Thornton? Brave weather this! We doctors don’t like it, I can
tell you!”
“I beg your pardon, Dr. Donaldson. I really didn’t see you. My mother’s
quite well, thank you. It is a fine day, and good for the harvest, I
hope. If the wheat is well got in, we shall have a brisk trade next
year, whatever you doctors have.”
“Ay, ay. Each man for himself. Your bad weather, and your bad times, are
my good ones. When trade is bad, there’s more undermining of health, and
preparation for death, going on among you Milton men than you’re aware
of.”
“Not with me, Doctor. I’m made of iron. The news of the very worst bad
debt I ever had, never made my pulse vary. This strike, which affects me
more than any one else in Milton,—more than Hamper,—never comes near
my appetite. You must go elsewhere for a patient, Doctor.”
“By the way, you’ve recommended me a good patient, poor lady! Not to go
on talking in this heartless way, I seriously believe that Mrs.
Hale—that lady in Crampton, you know—hasn’t many weeks to live. I
never had any hope of cure, as I think I told you; but I’ve been seeing
her to-day, and I think very badly of her.”
Mr. Thornton was silent. The vaunted steadiness of pulse failed him for
an instant.
“Can I do anything, Doctor?” he asked, in an altered voice. “You
know—you would see, that money is not very plentiful, are there any
comforts or dainties she ought to have?”