North and South
To bow thy head! Thou art gone home!”
MRS. HEMANS.
Mrs. Thornton came to see Mrs. Hale the next morning. She was much
worse. One of those sudden changes—those great visible strides towards
death, had been taken in the night, and her own family were startled by
the gray sunken look her features had assumed in that one twelve hours
of suffering. Mrs. Thornton—who had not seen her for weeks—was
softened all at once. She had come because her son asked it from her as
a personal favour, but with all the proud bitter feelings of her nature
in arms against that family of which Margaret formed one. She doubted
the reality of Mrs. Hale’s illness; she doubted any want beyond a
momentary fancy on that lady’s part, which should take her out of her
previously settled course of employment for the day. She told her son
that she wished they had never come near the place; that he had never
got acquainted with them; that there had been no such useless languages
as Latin and Greek ever invented. He bore all this pretty silently; but
when she had ended her invective against the dead languages, he quietly
returned to the short, curt, decided expression of his wish that she
should go and see Mrs. Hale at the time appointed, as most likely to be
convenient to the invalid. Mrs. Thornton submitted with as bad a grace
as she could to her son’s desire, all the time liking him the better for
having it; and exaggerating in her own mind the same notion that he had
of extraordinary goodness on his part in so perseveringly keeping up
with the Hales.
His goodness verging on weakness (as all the softer virtues did in her
mind), and her own contempt for Mr. and Mrs. Hale, and positive dislike
to Margaret, were the ideas which occupied Mrs. Thornton, till she was
struck into nothingness before the dark shadow of the wings of the angel
of death. There lay Mrs. Hale—a mother like herself—a much younger
woman than she was,—on the bed from which there was no sign of hope
that she might ever rise again. No more variety of light and shade for
her in that darkened room; no power of action, scarcely change of
movement; faint alternations of whispered sound and studious silence;
and yet that monotonous life seemed almost too much! When Mrs. Thornton,
strong and prosperous with life, came in, Mrs. Hale lay still, although
from the look on her face she was evidently conscious of who it was. But
she did not even open her eyes for a minute or two. The heavy moisture
of tears stood on her eyelashes before she looked up; then, with her
hand groping feebly over the bed-clothes, for the touch of Mrs.
Thornton’s large firm fingers, she said, scarcely above her
breath.—Mrs. Thornton had to stoop from her erectness to listen,—
“Margaret—you have a daughter—my sister is in Italy. My child will be
without a mother;—in a strange place,—if I die— will you”——
And her filmy wandering eyes fixed themselves with an intensity of
wistfulness on Mrs. Thornton’s face. For a minute there was no change in
its rigidness; it was stern and unmoved;—nay, but that the eyes of the
sick woman were growing dim with the slow-gathering tears, she might
have seen a dark cloud cross the cold features. And it was no thought of
her son, or of her living daughter Fanny, that stirred her heart at
last; but a sudden remembrance, suggested by something in the
arrangement of the room,—of a little daughter—dead in infancy—long
years ago—that, like a sudden sunbeam, melted the icy crust, behind
which there was a real tender woman.
“You wish me to be a friend to Miss Hale,” said Mrs. Thornton, in her
measured voice, that would not soften with her heart, but came out
distinct and clear.
Mrs. Hale, her eyes still fixed on Mrs. Thornton’s face, pressed the
hand that lay below hers on the coverlet. She could not speak. Mrs.
Thornton sighed, “I will be a true friend, if circumstances require it.
Not a tender friend. That I cannot be,”—(“to her,” she was on the
point of adding, but she relented at the sight of that poor, anxious
face.)—“It is not my nature to show affection even where I feel it, nor
do I volunteer advice in general. Still, at your request,—if it will be
any comfort to you, I will promise you.” Then came a pause. Mrs.
Thornton was too conscientious to promise what she did not mean to
perform; and to perform anything in the way of kindness on behalf of
Margaret, more disliked at this moment than ever, was difficult; almost
impossible.
“I promise,” said she, with grave severity; which, after all, inspired
the dying woman with faith as in something more stable than life
itself,—flickering, flittering, wavering life! “I promise that in any
difficulty in which Miss Hale”——
“Call her Margaret!” gasped Mrs. Hale.
“In which she comes to me for help, I will help her with every power I
have, as if she were my own daughter. I also promise that if ever I see
her doing what I think is wrong”——
“But Margaret never does wrong—not wilfully wrong,” pleaded Mrs. Hale.
Mrs. Thornton went on as before; as if she had not heard:
“If ever I see her doing what I believe to be wrong—such wrong not
touching me or mine, in which case I might be supposed to have an
interested motive—I will tell her of it, faithfully and plainly, as I
should wish my own daughter to be told.”
There was a long pause. Mrs. Hale felt that this promise did not include
all; and yet it was much. It had reservations in it which she did not
understand: but then she was weak, dizzy, and tired. Mrs. Thornton was
reviewing all the probable cases in which she had pledged herself to
act. She had a fierce pleasure in the idea of telling Margaret unwelcome
truths, in the shape of performance of duty. Mrs. Hale began to speak:
“I thank you. I pray God to bless you. I shall never see you again in
this world. But my last words are, I thank you for your promise of
kindness to my child.”
“Not kindness!” testified Mrs. Thornton, ungraciously truthful to the
last. But having eased her conscience by saying these words, she was not
sorry that they were not heard. She pressed Mrs. Hale’s soft languid
hand; and rose up and went her way out of the house without seeing a
creature.
During the time that Mrs. Thornton was having this interview with Mrs.
Hale, Margaret and Dixon were laying their heads together and consulting
how they should keep Frederick’s coming a profound secret to all out of
the house. A letter from him might now be expected any day; and he would
assuredly follow quickly on its heels. Martha must be sent away on her
holiday; Dixon must keep stern guard on the front door, only admitting
the few visitors that ever came to the house into Mr. Hale’s room down
stairs—Mrs. Hale’s extreme illness giving her a good excuse for this.
If Mary Higgins was required as a help to Dixon in the kitchen, she was
to hear and see as little of Frederick as possible; and he was, if
necessary, to be spoken of to her under the name of Mr. Dickinson. But
her sluggish and incurious nature was the greatest safeguard of all.
They resolved that Martha should leave them that very afternoon for this
visit to her mother. Margaret wished that she had been sent away on the
previous day, as she fancied it might be thought strange to give a
servant a holiday when her mistress’s state required so much attendance.
Poor Margaret! All that afternoon she had to act the part of a Roman
daughter, and give strength out of her own scanty stock to her father.
Mr. Hale would hope, would not despair, between the attacks of his
wife’s malady; he buoyed himself up in every respite from her pain, and
believed that it was the beginning of ultimate recovery. And so, when
the paroxysms came on, each more severe than the last, they were fresh
agonies, and greater disappointments to him. This afternoon, he sat in
the drawing-room, unable to bear the solitude of his study, or to employ
himself in any way. He buried his head in his arms, which lay folded on
the table. Margaret’s heart ached to see him; yet, as he did not speak,
she did not like to volunteer any attempt at comfort. Martha was gone.
Dixon sat with Mrs. Hale while she slept. The house was very still and
quiet, and darkness came on, without any movement to procure candles.
Margaret sat at the window, looking out at the lamps and the street, but
seeing nothing,—only alive to her father’s heavy sighs. She did not
like to go down for lights, lest the tacit restraint of her presence
being withdrawn, he might give way to more violent emotion, without her
being at hand to comfort him. Yet she was just thinking that she ought
to go and see after the well-doing of the kitchen fire, which there was
nobody but herself to attend to, when she heard the muffled door-bell
ring with so violent a pull, that the wires jingled all through the
house, though the positive sound was not great. She started up, passed
her father, who had never moved at the veiled, dull sound,—returned,
and kissed him tenderly. And still he never moved, nor took any notice
of her fond embrace. Then she went down softly, through the dark, to the
door. Dixon would have put the chain on before she opened it, but
Margaret had not a thought of fear in her pre-occupied mind. A man’s
tall figure stood between her and the luminous street. He was looking
away; but at the sound of the latch he turned quickly round.
“Is this Mr. Hale’s?” said he, in a clear, full, delicate voice.
Margaret trembled all over; at first she did not answer. In a moment she
sighed out,
“Frederick!” and stretched out both her hands to catch his, and draw him
in.
“Oh, Margaret!” said he, holding her off by her shoulders, after they
had kissed each other, as if even in that darkness he could see her
face, and read in its expression a quicker answer to his question than
words could give,—
“My mother! is she alive!”
“Yes, she is alive, dear, dear brother! She—as ill as she can be she
is; but alive! She is alive!”
“Thank God!” said he.
“Papa is utterly prostrate with this great grief.”
“You expect me, don’t you?”
“No, we have had no letter.”
“Then I have come before it. But my mother knows I am coming.”
“Oh! we all knew you would come. But wait a little! Step in here. Give
me your hand. What is this? Oh! your carpet-bag. Dixon has shut the
shutters; but this is papa’s study, and I can take you to a chair to
rest yourself for a few minutes; while I go and tell him.”
She groped her way to the taper and the lucifer matches. She suddenly
felt shy when the little feeble light made them visible. All she could
see was, that her brother’s face was unusually dark in complexion, and
she caught the stealthy look of a pair of remarkably long-cut blue eyes,
that suddenly twinkled up with a droll consciousness of their mutual
purpose of inspecting each other. But though the brother and sister had
an instant of sympathy in their reciprocal glances, they did not
exchange a word; only, Margaret felt sure that she should like her
brother as a companion as much as she already loved him as a near
relation. Her heart was wonderfully lighter as she went up stairs; the
sorrow was no less in reality, but it became less oppressive from having
some one in precisely the same relation to it as that in which she
stood. Not her father’s desponding attitude had power to damp her now.
He lay across the table, helpless as ever; but she had the spell by
which to rouse him. She used it perhaps too violently in her own great
relief.
“Papa,” said she, throwing her arms fondly round his neck; pulling his
weary head up in fact with her gentle violence, till it rested in her
arms, and she could look into his eyes, and let them gain strength and
assurance from hers.
“Papa! guess who is here!”