North and South
Margaret did not care a straw about seeing the alterations, which jarred
upon her fond recollection of what her home had been; but she longed to
see the old place once more, even though she shivered away from the pain
which she knew she should feel.
The parsonage was so altered, both inside and out, that the real pain
was less than she anticipated. It was not like the same place. The
garden, the grass-plat, formerly so daintily trim that even a stray
rose-leaf seemed like a fleck on the exquisite arrangement and
propriety, was strewed with children’s things; a bag of marbles here, a
hoop there; a straw-hat forced down upon a rose-tree as on a peg, to the
destruction of a long beautiful tender branch laden with flowers, which
in former days would have been trained up tenderly, as if beloved. The
little square matted hall was equally filled with signs of merry healthy
rough childhood.
“Ah!” said Mrs. Hepworth, “you must excuse this untidiness, Miss Hale.
When the nursery is finished, I shall insist upon a little order. We are
building a nursery out of your room, I believe. How did you manage, Miss
Hale, without a nursery?”
“We were but two,” said Margaret. “You have many children, I presume?”
“Seven. Look here! we are throwing out a window to the road on this
side. Mr. Hepworth is spending an immense deal of money on this house;
but really it was scarcely habitable when we came—for so large a family
as ours I mean, of course.” Every room in the house was changed, besides
the one of which Mrs. Hepworth spoke, which had been Mr. Hale’s study
formerly; and where the green gloom and delicious quiet of the place had
conduced, as he had said, to a habit of meditation, but, perhaps, in
some degree to the formation of a character more fitted for thought than
action. The new window gave a view of the road, and had many advantages,
as Mrs. Hepworth pointed out. From it the wandering sheep of her
husband’s flock might be seen, who straggled to the tempting beer-house,
unobserved as they might hope, but not unobserved in reality; for the
active Vicar kept his eye on the road, even during the composition of
his most orthodox sermons, and had a hat and stick hanging ready at hand
to seize, before sallying out after his parishioners, who had need of
quick legs if they could take refuge in the “Jolly Forester” before the
teetotal Vicar had arrested them. The whole family were quick, brisk,
loud-talking, kind-hearted, and not troubled with much delicacy of
perception. Margaret feared that Mrs. Hepworth would find out that Mr.
Bell was playing upon her, in the admiration he thought fit to express
for everything that especially grated on his taste. But no! she took it
all literally, and with such good faith, that Margaret could not help
remonstrating with him as they walked slowly away from the parsonage
back to their inn.
“Don’t scold, Margaret. It was all because of you. If she had not shown
you every change with such evident exultation in their superior sense,
in perceiving what an improvement this and that would be, I could have
behaved well. But if you must go on preaching, keep it till after
dinner, when it will send me to sleep, and help my digestion.”
They were both of them tired, and Margaret herself so much so, that she
was unwilling to go out as she had proposed to do, and have another
ramble among the woods and fields so close to the home of her childhood.
And, somehow, this visit to Helstone had not been all—had not been
exactly what she had expected. There was change everywhere; slight, yet
pervading all. Households were changed by absence, or death, or
marriage, or the natural mutations brought by days and months and
years, which carry us on imperceptibly from childhood to youth, and
thence through manhood to age, whence we drop like fruit, fully ripe,
into the quiet mother earth. Places were changed—a tree gone here, a
bough there, bringing in a long ray of light where no light was
before—a road was trimmed and narrowed, and the green straggling
pathway by its side enclosed and cultivated. A great improvement it was
called; but Margaret sighed over the old picturesqueness, the old gloom,
and the grassy way-side of former days. She sate by the window on the
little settle, sadly gazing out upon the gathering shades of night,
which harmonized well with her pensive thought. Mr. Bell slept soundly,
after his unusual exercise through the day. At last he was roused by the
entrance of the tea-tray, brought in by a flushed-looking country-girl,
who had evidently been finding some variety from her usual occupation of
waiter, in assisting this day in the hay-field.
“Hallo! Who’s there! Where are we? Who’s that,—Margaret? Oh, now I
remember all. I could not imagine what woman was sitting there in such a
doleful attitude, with her hands clasped straight out upon her knees,
and her face looking so steadfastly before her. What are you looking
at?” asked Mr. Bell, coming to the window, and standing behind Margaret.
“Nothing,” said she, rising up quickly, and speaking as cheerfully as
she could at a moment’s notice.
“Nothing indeed! A bleak back-ground of trees, some white linen hung out
on the sweet-briar hedge, and a great waft of damp air. Shut the window,
and come in and make tea.”
Margaret was silent for some time. She played with her teaspoon, and did
not attend particularly to what Mr. Bell said. He contradicted her, and
she took the same sort of smiling notice of his opinion as if he had
agreed with her. Then she sighed, and putting down her spoon, she began,
apropos of nothing at all, and in the high-pitched voice which usually
shows that the speaker has been thinking for some time on the subject
that they wish to introduce—“Mr. Bell, you remember what we were saying
about Frederick last night, don’t you?”
“Last night. Where was I? Oh, I remember! Why, it seems a week ago. Yes,
to be sure, I recollect we talked about him, poor fellow.”
“Yes—and do you remember that Mr. Lennox spoke about his having been in
England about the time of dear mamma’s death?” asked Margaret, her voice
now lower than usual.
“I recollect. I hadn’t heard of it before.”
“And I thought—I always thought that papa had told you about it.”
“No! he never did. But what about it, Margaret?”
“I want to tell you of something I did that was very wrong, about that
time,” said Margaret, suddenly looking up at him with her clear honest
eyes. “I told a lie!” and her face became scarlet.
“True, that was bad I own; not but what I have told a pretty round
number in my life, not all in downright words, as I suppose you did, but
in actions, or in some shabby circumlocutory way, leading people either
to disbelieve the truth, or believe a falsehood. You know who is the
father of lies, Margaret? Well! a great number of folk, thinking
themselves very good, have odd sorts of connexion with lies, left-hand
marriages, and second-cousins-once-removed. The tainting blood of
falsehood runs through us all. I should have guessed you as far from it
as most people. What! crying, child? Nay, now we’ll not talk of it, if
it ends in this way. I dare say you have been sorry for it, and that you
won’t do it again, and it’s long ago now, and in short I want you to be
very cheerful, and not very sad, this evening.”
Margaret wiped her eyes, and tried to talk about something else, but
suddenly she burst out afresh.
“Please, Mr. Bell, let me tell you about it—you could perhaps help me a
little; no, not help me, but if you knew the truth, perhaps you could
put me to rights—that is not it, after all,” said she, in despair at
not being able to express herself more exactly as she wished.
Mr. Bell’s whole manner changed. “Tell me all about it, child,” said he.
“It’s a long story; but when Fred came, mamma was very ill, and I was
undone with anxiety, and afraid, too, that I might have drawn him into
danger; and we had an alarm just after her death, for Dixon met some one
in Milton—a man called Leonards—who had known Fred, and who seemed to
owe him a grudge, or at any rate to be tempted by the recollection of
the reward offered for his apprehension; and with this new fright, I
thought I had better hurry off Fred to London, where, as you would
understand from what we said the other night, he was to go to consult
Mr. Lennox as to his chances if he stood trial. So we—that is, he and
I,—went to the railway station; it was one evening, and it was just
getting rather dusk, but still light enough to recognize and be
recognized, and we were too early, and went out to walk in a field just
close by; I was always in a panic about this Leonards, who was, I knew,
somewhere in the neighbourhood; and then, when we were in the field, the
low red sunlight just in my face, some one came by on horseback in the
road just below the field-style on which we stood.—I saw him look at
me, but I did not know who it was at first, the sun was so in my eyes,
but in an instant the dazzle went off, and I saw it was Mr. Thornton,
and we bowed”——
“And he saw Frederick of course,” said Mr. Bell, helping her on with her
story, as he thought.
“Yes; and then at the station a man came up—tipsy and reeling—and he
tried to collar Fred, and over-balanced himself as Fred wrenched himself
away, and fell over the hedge of the platform; not far, not deep; not
above three feet; but oh! Mr. Bell, somehow that fall killed him!”
“How awkward. It was this Leonards, I suppose. And how did Fred get
off?”
“Oh! he went off immediately after the fall, which we never thought
could have done the poor fellow any harm, it seemed so slight an
injury.”
“Then he did not die directly?”
“No! not for two or three days. And then—oh, Mr. Bell! now comes the
bad part,” said she, nervously twining her fingers together. “A police
inspector came and taxed me with having been a companion of the young
man, whose push or blow had occasioned Leonards’ death; that was a false
accusation, you know, but we had not heard that Fred had sailed, he
might still be in London and liable to be arrested on this false charge,
and his identity with the Lieutenant Hale, accused of causing the
mutiny, discovered, he might be shot; all this flashed through my mind,
and I said it was not me. I was not at the railway station that night. I
knew nothing about it. I had no conscience or thought but to save
Frederick.”
“I say it was right. I should have done the same. You forgot yourself in
thought for another. I hope I should have done the same.”
“No, you would not. It was wrong, disobedient, faithless. At that very
time Fred was safely out of England, and in my blindness I forgot that
there was another witness who could testify to my being there.”
“Who?”
“Mr. Thornton. You know he had seen me close to the station; we had
bowed to each other.”
“Well! he would know nothing of this riot, about the drunken fellow’s
death. I suppose the injury never came to anything.”
“No! the proceedings they had begun to talk about on the inquest were
stopped. Mr. Thornton did know all about it. He was a magistrate, and he
found out that it was not the fall that had caused the death. But not
before he knew what I had said. Oh, Mr. Bell!” She suddenly covered her
face with her hands, as if wishing to hide herself from the presence of
the recollection.
“Did you have any explanation with him? Did you ever tell him the
strong, instinctive motive?”
“The instinctive want of faith, and clutching at a sin to keep myself
from sinking,” said she bitterly. “No! How could I? He knew nothing of
Frederick. To put myself to rights in his good opinion, was I to tell
him the secrets of our family, involving, as they seemed to do, the
chances of poor Frederick’s entire exculpation? Fred’s last words had