North and South
He looked at her; she saw the idea of the truth glimmer into their filmy
sadness, and be dismissed thence as a wild imagination.
He threw himself forward, and hid his face once more in his
stretched-out arms, resting upon the table as heretofore. She heard him
whisper; she bent tenderly down to listen. “I don’t know; don’t tell me
it is Frederick—not Frederick. I cannot bear it,—I am too weak. And
his mother is dying!”
He began to cry and wail like a child. It was so different to all which
Margaret had hoped and expected, that she turned sick with
disappointment, and was silent for an instant. Then she spoke
again—very differently—not so exultingly, far more tenderly and
carefully.
“Papa, it is Frederick! Think of mamma, how glad she will be! And oh,
for her sake, how glad we ought to be! For his sake, too,—our poor,
poor boy!”
Her father did not change his attitude, but he seemed to be trying to
understand the fact.
“Where is he?” asked he at last, his face still hidden in his prostrate
arms.
“In your study, quite alone. I lighted the taper, and ran up to tell
you. He is quite alone, and will be wondering why—”
“I will go to him,” broke in her father; and he lifted himself up and
leant on her arm as on that of a guide.
Margaret led him to the study door, but her spirits were so agitated
that she felt she could not bear to see the meeting. She turned away,
and ran up stairs, and cried most heartily. It was the first time she
had dared to allow herself this relief for days. The strain had been
terrible, as she now felt. But Frederick was come! He, the one precious
brother, was there, safe, amongst them again! She could hardly believe
it. She stopped her crying, and opened her bedroom door. She heard no
sound of voices, and almost feared she might have dreamt. She went down
stairs, and listened at the study door. She heard the buzz of voices;
and that was enough. She went into the kitchen, and stirred up the fire,
and lighted the house, and prepared for the wanderer’s refreshment. How
fortunate it was that her mother slept! She knew that she did, from the
candle-lighter thrust through the keyhole of her bedroom door. The
traveller could be refreshed and bright, and the first excitement of the
meeting with his father all be over, before her mother became aware of
anything unusual.
When all was ready, Margaret opened the study door, and went in like a
serving-maiden, with a heavy tray held in her extended arms. She was
proud of serving Frederick. But he, when he saw her, sprang up in a
minute, and relieved her of her burden. It was a type, a sign, of all
the coming relief which his presence would bring. The brother and sister
arranged the table together, saying little, but their hands touching,
and their eyes speaking the natural language of expression, so
intelligible to those of the same blood. The fire had gone out; and
Margaret applied herself to light it, for the evenings had begun to be
chilly; and yet it was desirable to make all noises as distant as
possible from Mrs. Hale’s room.
“Dixon says it is a gift to light a fire; not an art to be acquired.”
“Poeta nascitur, non fit,” murmured Mr. Hale; and Margaret was glad to
hear a quotation once more, however languidly given.
“Dear old Dixon! How we shall kiss each other!” said Frederick. “She
used to kiss me, and then look in my face to be sure I was the right
person, and then set to again! But, Margaret, what a bungler you are! I
never saw such a little awkward, good-for-nothing pair of hands. Run
away, and wash them, ready to cut bread-and-butter for me, and leave the
fire. I’ll manage it. Lighting fires is one of my natural
accomplishments.”
So Margaret went away; and returned; and passed in and out of the room,
in a glad restlessness that could not be satisfied with sitting still.
The more wants Frederick had, the better she was pleased; and he
understood all this by instinct. It was a joy snatched in the house of
mourning, and the zest of it was all the more pungent, because they
knew in the depth of their hearts what irremediable sorrow awaited them.
In the middle, they heard Dixon’s foot on the stairs. Mr. Hale started
from his languid posture in his great arm-chair, from which he had been
watching his children in a dreamy way, as if they were acting some drama
of happiness, which it was pretty to look at, but which was distinct
from reality, and in which he had no part. He stood up, and faced the
door, showing such a strange, sudden anxiety to conceal Frederick from
the sight of any person entering, even though it were the faithful
Dixon, that a shiver came over Margaret’s heart: it reminded her of the
new fear in their lives. She caught at Frederick’s arm, and clutched it
tight, while a stern thought compressed her brow, and caused her to set
her teeth. And yet they knew it was only Dixon’s measured tread. They
heard her walk the length of the passage,—into the kitchen. Margaret
rose up.
“I will go to her, and tell her. And I shall hear how mamma is.” Mrs.
Hale was awake. She rambled at first; but after they had given her some
tea she was refreshed, though not disposed to talk. It was better that
the night should pass over before she was told of her son’s arrival. Dr.
Donaldson’s appointed visit would bring nervous excitement enough for
the evening; and he might tell them how to prepare her for seeing
Frederick. He was there, in the house; could be summoned at any moment.
Margaret could not sit still. It was a relief to her to aid Dixon in all
her preparations for “Master Frederick.” It seemed as though she never
could be tired again. Each glimpse into the room where he sate by his
father, conversing with him, about, she knew not what, nor cared to
know,—was increase of strength to her. Her own time for talking and
hearing would come at last, and she was too certain of this to feel in a
hurry to grasp it now. She took in his appearance and liked it. He had
delicate features, redeemed from effeminacy by the swarthiness of his
complexion, and his quick intensity of expression. His eyes were
generally merry-looking, but at times they and his mouth so suddenly
changed, and gave her such an idea of latent passion, that it almost
made her afraid. But this look was only for an instant; and had in it no
doggedness, no vindictiveness; it was rather the instantaneous ferocity
of expression that comes over the countenances of all natives of wild or
southern countries—a ferocity which enhances the charm of the childlike
softness into which such a look may melt away. Margaret might fear the
violence of the impulsive nature thus occasionally betrayed, but there
was nothing in it to make her distrust, or recoil in the least, from the
new-found brother. On the contrary, all their intercourse was peculiarly
charming to her from the very first. She knew then how much
responsibility she had had to bear, from the exquisite sensation of
relief which she felt in Frederick’s presence. He understood his father
and mother—their characters and their weaknesses, and went along with a
careless freedom, which was yet most delicately careful not to hurt or
wound any of their feelings. He seemed to know instinctively when a
little of the natural brilliancy of his manner and conversation would
not jar on the deep depression of his father, or might relieve his
mother’s pain. Whenever it would have been out of tune, and out of time,
his patient devotion and watchfulness came into play, and made him an
admirable nurse. Then Margaret was almost touched into tears by the
allusions which he often made to their childish days in the New Forest;
he had never forgotten her—or Helstone either—all the time he had been
roaming among distant countries and foreign people. She might talk to
him of the old spot, and never feared tiring him. She had been afraid of
him before he came, even while she had longed for his coming; seven or
eight years had, she felt, produced such great changes in herself that,
forgetting how much of the original Margaret was left, she had reasoned
that if her tastes and feelings had so materially altered, even in her
stay-at-home life, his wild career, with which she was but imperfectly
acquainted, must have almost substituted another Frederick for the tall
stripling in his middy’s uniform, whom she remembered looking up to with
such admiring awe. But in their absence they had grown nearer to each
other in age, as well as in many other things. And so it was that the
weight, this sorrowful time, was lightened to Margaret. Other light than
that of Frederick’s presence she had none. For a few hours, the mother
rallied on seeing her son. She sate with his hand in hers; she would not
part with it even while she slept; and Margaret had to feed him like a
baby, rather than he should disturb her mother by removing a finger.
Mrs. Hale wakened while they were thus engaged; she slowly moved her
head round on the pillow, and smiled at her children, as she understood
what they were doing, and why it was done.
“I am very selfish,” said she; “but it will not be for long.” Frederick
bent down and kissed the feeble hand that imprisoned his.
This state of tranquility could not endure for many days, nor perhaps
for many hours; so Dr. Donaldson assured Margaret. After the kind doctor
had gone away, she stole down to Frederick, who, during the visit, had
been adjured to remain quietly concealed in the back parlour, usually
Dixon’s bedroom, but now given up to him.
Margaret told him what Dr. Donaldson said.
“I don’t believe it,” he exclaimed. “She is very ill; she may be
dangerously ill, and in immediate danger, too; but I can’t imagine that
she could be as she is, if she were on the point of death. Margaret! she
should have some other advice—some London doctor. Have you never
thought of that?”
“Yes,” said Margaret, “more than once. But I don’t believe it would do
any good. And, you know, we have not the money to bring any great London
surgeon down, and I am sure Dr. Donaldson is only second in skill to the
very best,—if, indeed, he is to them.”
Frederick began to walk up and down the room impatiently.
“I have credit in Cadiz,” said he, “but none here, owing to this
wretched change of name. Why did my father leave Helstone? That was the
blunder.”
“It was no blunder,” said Margaret gloomily. “And above all possible
chances, avoid letting papa hear anything like what you have just been
saying. I can see that he is tormenting himself already with the idea
that mamma would never have been ill if we had stayed at Helstone, and
you don’t know papa’s agonising power of self-reproach!”
Frederick walked away as if he were on the quarter-deck. At last he
stopped right opposite to Margaret, and looked at her drooping and
desponding attitude for an instant.
“My little Margaret!” said he, caressing her. “Let us hope as long as we
can. Poor little woman! what! is this face all wet with tears? I will
hope. I will, in spite of a thousand doctors. Bear up, Margaret, and be
brave enough to hope!”
Margaret choked in trying to speak, and when she did it was very low.
“I must try to be meek enough to trust. Oh, Frederick! mamma was getting
to love me so! And I was getting to understand her. And now comes death
to snap us asunder!”
“Come, come, come! Let us go upstairs, and do something, rather than
waste time that may be so precious. Thinking has, many a time, made me
sad, darling; but doing never did in all my life. My theory is a sort of
parody on the maxim of ‘Get money, my son, honestly if you can; but get
money.’ My precept is, ‘Do something my sister, do good if you can; but,
at any rate, do something.’”
“Not excluding mischief,” said Margaret, smiling faintly through her
tears.