North and South
“A bad-looking fellow, I can assure you, miss. Whiskers such as I should
be ashamed to wear—they are so red. And for all he said he’d got a
confidential situation, he was dressed in fustian just like a
working-man.”
It was evident that Frederick must go. Go, too, when he had so
completely vaulted into his place in the family, and promised to be such
a stay and staff to his father and sister. Go, when his cares for the
living mother, and sorrow for the dead, seemed to make him one of those
peculiar people who are bound to us by a fellow-love for them that are
taken away. Just as Margaret was thinking all this, sitting over the
drawing-room fire—her father restless and uneasy under the pressure of
this newly-aroused fear, of which he had not as yet spoken—Frederick
came in, his brightness dimmed, but the extreme violence of his grief
passed away. He came up to Margaret, and kissed her forehead.
“How wan you look, Margaret!” said he in a low voice. “You have been
thinking of everybody, and no one has thought of you. Lie on this
sofa—there is nothing for you to do.”
“That is the worst,” said Margaret, in a sad whisper. But she went and
lay down, and her brother covered her feet with a shawl and then sate on
the ground by her side; and the two began to talk together in a subdued
tone.
Margaret told him all that Dixon had related of her interview with
young Leonards. Frederick’s lips closed with a long whew of dismay.
“I should just like to have it out with that young fellow. A worse
sailor was never on board ship—nor a much worse man either. I declare,
Margaret—you know the circumstances of the whole affair?”
“Yes, mamma told me.”
“Well, when all the sailors who were good for anything were indignant
with our captain, this fellow to curry favour—pah! And to think of his
being here! Oh, if he’d a notion I was within twenty miles of him, he’d
ferret me out to pay all old grudges. I’d rather anybody had the hundred
pounds they think I am worth than that rascal. What a pity poor old
Dixon could not be persuaded to give me up, and make a provision for her
old age!”
“Oh, Frederick, hush! Don’t talk so.”
Mr. Hale came towards them, eager and trembling. He had overheard what
they were saying. He took Frederick’s hand in both of his:
“My boy, you must go. It is very bad—but I see you must. You have done
all you could—you have been a comfort to her.”
“Oh, papa, must he go?” said Margaret, pleading against her own
conviction of necessity.
“I declare, I’ve a good mind to face it out, and stand my trial. If I
could only pick up my evidence! I cannot endure the thought of being in
the power of such a blackguard as Leonards. I could almost have
enjoyed—in other circumstances—this stolen visit: it has had all the
charm which the Frenchwoman attributed to forbidden pleasures.”
“One of the earliest things I can remember,” said Margaret, “was your
being in some great disgrace, Fred, for stealing apples. We had plenty
of our own—trees loaded with them; but some one had told you that
stolen fruit tasted sweetest, which you took _au pied de la lettre_, and
off you went a-robbing. You have not changed your feelings much since
then.”
“Yes—you must go,” repeated Mr. Hale, answering Margaret’s question,
which she had asked some time ago. His thoughts were fixed on one
subject, and it was an effort to him to follow the zigzag remarks of his
children—an effort which he did not make.
Margaret and Frederick looked at each other. That quick momentary
sympathy would be theirs no longer if he went away. So much was
understood through eyes that could not be put into words. Both coursed
the same thought till it was lost in sadness. Frederick shook it off
first:
“Do you know, Margaret, I was very nearly giving both Dixon and myself a
good fright this afternoon. I was in my bedroom; I had heard a ring at
the front door, but I thought the ringer must have done his business and
gone away long ago; so I was on the point of making my appearance in the
passage, when, as I opened my room door, I saw Dixon coming downstairs;
and she frowned and kicked me into hiding again. I kept the door open,
and heard a message given to some man that was in my father’s study, and
that then went away. What could it have been? Some of the shopmen?”
“Very likely,” said Margaret indifferently. “There was a little quiet
man who came up for orders about two o’clock.”
“But this was not a little man—a great powerful fellow; and it was past
four when he was here.”
“It was Mr. Thornton,” said Mr. Hale. They were glad to have drawn him
into the conversation.
“Mr. Thornton!” said Margaret, a little surprised. “I thought——”
“Well, little one, what did you think?” asked Frederick, as she did not
finish her sentence.
“Oh, only,” said she, reddening and looking straight at him, “I fancied
you meant some one of a different class, not a gentleman; somebody come
on an errand.”
“He looked like someone of that kind,” said Frederick, carelessly. “I
took him for a shopman, and he turns out a manufacturer.”
Margaret was silent. She remembered how at first, before she knew his
character, she had spoken and thought of him just as Frederick was
doing. It was but a natural impression that was made upon him, and yet
she was a little annoyed by it. She was unwilling to speak; she wanted
to make Frederick understand what kind of person Mr. Thornton was—but
she was tongue-tied.
Mr. Hale went on. “He came to offer any assistance in his power, I
believe. But I could not see him. I told Dixon to ask him if he would
like to see you—I think I asked her to find you, and you would go to
him. I don’t know what I said.”
“He has been a very agreeable acquaintance, has he not?” asked
Frederick, throwing the question like a ball for any one to catch who
chose.
“A very kind friend,” said Margaret, when her father did not answer.
Frederick was silent for a time. At last he spoke:
“Margaret, it is painful to think I can never thank those who have shown
you kindness. Your acquaintances and mine must be separate. Unless,
indeed, I run the chances of a court-martial, or unless you and my
father would come to Spain.” He threw out this last suggestion as a kind
of feeler; and then suddenly made the plunge. “You don’t know how I wish
you would. I have a good position—the chance of a better,” continued
he, reddening like a girl. “That Dolores Barbour that I was telling you
of, Margaret—I only wish you knew her; I am sure you would like—no,
love is the right word, like is so poor—you would love her, father, if
you knew her. She is not eighteen; but if she is in the same mind
another year, she is to be my wife. Mr. Barbour won’t let us call it an
engagement. But if you would come you would find friends everywhere,
besides Dolores. Think of it, father. Margaret be on my side.”
“No—no more removals for me,” said Mr. Hale. “One has cost me my wife.
No more removals in this life. She will be here; and here will I stay
out my appointed time.”
“Oh, Frederick,” said Margaret, “tell us more about her. I never thought
of this; but I am so glad. You will have some one to love and care for
you out there. Tell us all about it.”
“In the first place, she is a Roman Catholic. That’s the only objection
I anticipated. But my father’s change of opinion—nay, Margaret, don’t
sigh.”
Margaret had reason to sigh a little more before the conversation ended.
Frederick himself was Roman Catholic in fact, though not in profession
as yet. This was, then, the reason why his sympathy in her extreme
distress at her father’s leaving the church had been so faintly
expressed in his letters. She had thought it was the carelessness of a
sailor; but the truth was, that even then he was himself inclined to
give up the form of religion into which had been baptized, only that his
opinions were tending in exactly the opposite direction to those of his
father. How much love had to do with this change not even Frederick
himself could have told. Margaret gave up talking about this branch of
the subject at last; and, returning to the fact of the engagement, she
began to consider it in some fresh light.
“But for her sake, Fred, you surely will try and clear yourself of the
exaggerated charges brought against you, even if the charge of mutiny
itself be true. If there were to be a court-martial, and you could find
your witnesses, you might, at any rate, show your disobedience to
authority was because that authority was unworthily exercised.”
Mr. Hale roused himself up to listen to his son’s answer.
“In the first place, Margaret, who is to hunt up my witnesses? All of
them are sailors, drafted off to other ships, except those whose
evidence would go for very little, as they took part or sympathised in
the affair. In the next place allow me to tell you, you don’t know what
a court-martial is, and consider it as an assembly where justice is
administered, instead of what it really is—a court where authority
weighs nine-tenths in the balance, and evidence forms only the other
tenth. In such cases, evidence itself can hardly escape being influenced
by the prestige of authority.”
“But is it not worth trying, to see how much evidence might be
discovered and arrayed on your behalf? At present, all those who knew
you formerly, believe you guilty without any shadow of excuse. You have
never tried to justify yourself, and we have never known where to seek
for proofs of your justification. Now, for Miss Barbour’s sake, make
your conduct as clear as you can in the eye of the world. She may not
care for it; she has, I am sure, that trust in you that we all have; but
you ought not to let her ally herself to one under such a serious
charge, without showing the world exactly how it is you stand. You
disobeyed authority—that was bad; but to have stood by, without word or
act, while the authority was brutally used, would have been infinitely
worse. People know what you did; but not the motives that elevate it out
of a crime into an heroic protection of the weak. For Dolores’ sake,
they ought to know.”
“But how must I make them know? I am not sufficiently sure of the purity
and justice of those who would be my judges, to give myself up to a
court-martial, even if I could bring a whole array of truth-speaking
witnesses. I can’t send a bell-man about, to cry aloud and proclaim in
the streets what you are pleased to call my heroism. No one would read a
pamphlet of self-justification so long after the deed, even if I put one
out.”
“Will you consult a lawyer as to your chances of exculpation?” asked
Margaret, looking up, and turning very red.
“I must first catch my lawyer, and have a look at him, and see how I
like him, before I make him into my confidant. Many a briefless
barrister might twist his conscience into thinking, that he could earn a
hundred pounds very easily by doing a good action—in giving me, a
criminal, up to justice.”
“Nonsense, Frederick!—because I know a lawyer on whose honour I can
rely; of whose cleverness in his profession people speak very highly;
and who would, I think, take a good deal of trouble for any of—Aunt
Shaw’s relations. Mr. Henry Lennox, papa.”
“I think it is a good idea,” said Mr. Hale. “But don’t propose anything
which will detain Frederick in England. Don’t, for your mother’s sake.”
“You could go to London by a night-train,” continued Margaret, warming
up into her plan. “He must go to-morrow, I’m afraid, papa,” said she,
tenderly; “we fixed that, because of Mr. Bell, and Dixon’s disagreeable
acquaintance.”
“Yes; I must go to-morrow,” said Frederick, decidedly.
Mr. Hale groaned. “I can’t bear to part with you, and yet I am miserable
with anxiety as long as you stop here.”
“Well then,” said Margaret, “listen to my plan. He gets to London on